Highways to a War (46 page)

The two men looked hard at us; I don’t think they believed us. Then the Chinese official pushed some blank sheets of paper across the table to us, and some pens. You will write down here all personal details, he said. Your name, the names of your parents, your place of birth, your rank, the name of your organization. You will then state what you were doing alone on foot near Kompong Cham, and by what means you came there.

Dmitri spoke now. And when we have done this to your satisfaction, he said, and you realize that we are members of the press—you will release us?

We will not be the ones to make that decision, the old man said. Write, please.

We wrote, while they watched us. I could hear the occasional calls of night-birds, out in the forest; mosquitoes whined in the little hut, and the old man went into another long cigarette cough. It was very hot and still; my hands sweated, and sweat dripped from my nose onto the cheap paper. The moths flitted, like bad spirits. It was like being in a schoolroom doing a test, sitting on those hard chairs.

And if we don’t pass this test, I thought, we will die. I grinned at the foolishness of the thought; and looking up, I caught the officer watching me. That smile will probably be a mark against me, I thought.

 

 

When we’d completed our statements, we were ordered outside the hut, and saw no more of our interrogators. Two of our three soldiers now took charge of us again.

First they gave us water from a pannikin, which we drank greedily; then they allowed us to take a piss beside the path. After that they led us back into the village. It was now nine o‘clock by my watch, the road between the houses was deserted, and I assumed that most of the villagers were asleep. But there were a number of Vietnamese soldiers squatting under the houses among the carts and chickens and storage jars. Clearly this was an NVA controlled village.

We were led under one of these houses, and ordered to halt beside a bedstead covered with matting. Smoke rose from a clay oven nearby; two soldiers were cooking, and I could smell cinnamon and fish mixed with the wood smoke. Hunger cramps went through my stomach, and a wave of weakness came over me. But still we were offered nothing to eat. The soldiers now took away all our possessions: cameras, camera bags, tape recorders, wallets, press passes, pens, notebooks. They even took our watches, and I mourned for my Rolex, which I was sure I would never see again. But they left us our cigarettes and lighters. Then they ordered us to remove all our clothes, including our underwear and boots, and to throw them on the bedstead with our pile of possessions.

The third soldier now appeared out of the dark with a big wooden bucket of water and a bar of soap, and we took it in turns to wash on the spot. I’d been aching all over, and felt refreshed and much more cheerful when I’d had my turn; I was beginning to be grateful for little things. Then the soldiers produced some cotton Vietnamese underpants and pale green NVA fatigues like their own, which they handed to us, gesturing for us to put them on.

Pulling on trousers much too small for him, Mike grinned and winked at Dmitri and me. I think we’ve just joined the People’s Liberation Army, he said.

Immediately, one of the soldiers told him in Vietnamese not to speak.

Mike pointed to his feet, asking politely for sandals. None of us had been issued with these. But they shook their heads. We remained barefoot, which filled me with a helpless surge of anger. Our feet would be cut to pieces, if we marched.

They had now taken everything from us: everything that linked us to our former identities, except for the lucky charms we wore on dog tag chains around our necks. They had tried to take these as well: Mike’s brass Viet Cong belt buckle with the Communist star, Dmitri’s Saint Nicholas medal, my Cambodian tiger claw. But Dmitri had made a loud speech in French, pleading with them, telling them that these things protected us—and Mike and I had joined in. The soldiers had no French, but they quickly understood our superstition; after all, they were peasant boys. They murmured to each other; finally they shrugged, and let us keep our charms.

It was a great relief. For all three of us, in that moment, it was very important that these objects remain around our necks. They’d been with us since the old days in Vietnam, and we saw them as part of the special luck that had helped us survive through the years, while so many of our friends were now dead. They could not be replaced. Yes, we were very superstitious, very sentimental, since so little remained constant in our lives. If you had asked us point-blank did we truly believe that our lucky charms warded off death, we probably would have said no; but in a childish corner of our minds, we believed that they did. And the childish corners of men’s minds have a strange power, I think: they fill simple objects with meaning, and make the past live on in the present. Such things become remarkably important, when you find yourself a prisoner. A prisoner has nothing; he is stripped as bare as an animal, and human beings cannot tolerate being bare. Surely that’s why we furnish our houses and ourselves with objects that give us comfort, in the loneliness of the universe.

Our charms were the last physical link that Mike and Dmitri and I had with what we’d been. They were part of what had made us ourselves. My boots and clothing are gone, my Rolex is gone, and my camera too, I thought; but I still have my tiger’s claw. Already I was thinking like a prisoner.

 

 

Dressed in our thin, baggy uniforms, we stood waiting to see what would be done with us next. Dmitri smiled at the nearest soldier, offering him a cigarette. I’ll have ham and eggs and coffee, he told him. Please ring room service, comrade.

The soldier took the cigarette, but he looked at us warningly as we laughed. It would be Dmitri’s last joke for some time, because now things began to get worse.

They set about tying our hands again: this time in front of us, and without linking us.

Not so tight, fuck you. Dmitri spoke in English, squinting through the cigarette he could no longer remove from his mouth, staring hard and without fear into the face of the soldier working on his wrists. The man looked up and seemed to understand; I was afraid of what he would do. But he simply went on tying the knot, and did not seem to tighten it as viciously as before.

Then another of the soldiers came up to Dmitri, carrying a bunch of checked Cambodian scarves. He blindfolded Dmitri with one of them, and then did the same to Mike. Dmitri and Mike were red-faced from the heat in the way that fair Europeans become; their yellow hair stuck out like straw over the scarves, and their light green uniforms had dark patches of sweat. They looked like boys in pajamas too small for them, ready for a game of blindrnan’s bluff. In other circumstances, it would have been comical.

What
is
this? Goddamn it, what for? I heard Dmitri shout.

But the soldiers didn’t answer him. It was my turn to be blindfolded now, and a cold wave went through my bowels and scrotum. As I lost sight of the world, I didn’t doubt that they were going to execute us. Listening, my face running with sweat under the scarf, I heard other voices speaking Vietnamese, and guessed that some more soldiers had arrived. Both my elbows were gripped by hands, and I was ordered to march.

I walked inside darkness, feeling only the soft dust under my feet. I wasn’t ready to die; I loved my life, and I loved Lu Ying, and I could not bear the thought that I would not get back to her. I began to pray. At the Church of England school I was sent to in Hong Kong, I had received Christian instruction, even though my father was a nonbeliever, his only values based on Confucianism. He wanted me to fit in, and he was tolerant of all religions: he said being C of E would help me to get on. So that is what I put on forms when asked my religion; but I had never really taken it seriously. Now I found to my surprise that I believed in God, although I didn’t imagine him as being very much like the Church of England God we’d been taught about. I had no idea what God was like, but it somehow helped me to pray to him.

We marched for some time through dust, but then I felt it give way to a much harder surface—an oxcart path probably—filled with sharp stones. I had not often gone barefoot, and I found this very painful. Both my feet were soon cut in a number of places, and I could scarcely hobble along; but the hands gripping my arms forced me to do so. This went on for perhaps a quarter of an hour.

Then I heard one of the soldiers order us to halt, and at the same time I heard a motor running. The hands under my arms were half lifting me now, and I was helped into what I knew was the back of a truck, and pushed down onto what felt like a sack of rice. Then I heard Mike say: Jim? Is that you, mate? Dmitri?

We both answered him to say that we were here, and my heart lifted when I found that my brothers were with me still. If we were going to die, we would die together. The truck roared into gear, and we were moving off through the night.

I guessed that we were running on an old rubber plantation road, and I began to hope that we were simply being taken to another location, and would not be shot. After all, they could have done it anywhere on the path, if that was the intention.

We rode for perhaps an hour. I had no way of knowing in which direction we were going, but I guessed it to be further east, towards the border. When the truck pulled up, I was helped down to the ground, which I was glad to find was dusty, not stony. I hobbled on my cut feet, blindfolded still. I could hear frogs croaking, and the soldiers murmuring in Vietnamese; then my blindfold was removed.

We were in another village, with just one or two sluggish lights showing in the stilted houses. Mike and Dmitri were in front of me, looking back and grinning. The truck had gone, and our original three soldiers were with us: no one else.

We were led up the steps of one of the houses, about ten feet above the ground, and came into a large, dark room where one of the soldiers lit an oil lamp on a table. There were straw mats on the floor, some wooden chests, and sacks of rice stacked against one wall. There were also four beds here, with mosquito nets. We sat in a row on one of the beds, while a soldier stayed at the door, gun trained. A short time later, a very old and bent Cambodian woman in black pajamas came in with bowls and cups and baskets of steaming rice on a tray. She smiled in a friendly way and spoke in Khmer, urging us to eat. We found we had not only rice, but eggs with soy sauce, and tea.

We devoured it very fast, while the soldier stood in the doorway with his AK-47, ignoring us. We seemed to be allowed to talk now, and we began to discuss our position in low voices, and to speculate on what they would do with us. But we didn’t have time to talk for very long.

Another NVA soldier came into the room. He was dressed in the same green fatigues as the others; but instead of a cotton hat, he wore the old-fashioned, colonial-style NVA sun helmet, with the red star of Communism on the front. Even without the pens in his top pocket, his bearing and the authority in his expression would have made me certain that he was an officer. He took off his sun helmet and stood in the center of the room, looking at us. His expression was serious but not intimidating. He was light-skinned, shorter than any of us, but tall for a Vietnamese and strongly built. He was perhaps in his late thirties, and had a serious, intelligent face.

We all stood up, and waited. When he spoke, it was in English; and his English was that of a well-educated man, if a little stiff.

I am commanding officer here, he said. My name is Captain Nguyen Van Danh. I hope that you have eaten sufficiently?

We said that we had.

Have you any complaints of your treatment?

We hesitated. Then Mike said: No complaints. But we’d be glad of some sandals. And some shaving gear.

I will do my best, the captain said. Sandals are in short supply: so are razors. But you must certainly have some.

He frowned at our cut feet. A medical attendant will deal with your feet, he said. Then, without turning around, he called a command in Vietnamese.

A second soldier appeared at the door carrying two rucksacks, which he brought over to a chest in a corner and emptied out. All our belongings lay in front of us: cameras, tape recorders, clothing, boots, wallets, personal papers and documents. Even my Rolex was there.

I believe these are your possessions, the captain said. He produced a notebook and a pen. I want you to examine these things, and be sure that nothing is missing.

We went through the articles and he made us name them all, listing them in his notebook. When we said that everything was there, I asked him when it would be returned to us.

The captain looked at me as though considering his answer. Before he could reply, Dmitri said: What my friend means is, Captain, when will we be released?

The captain’s face became blank. I cannot answer that at present, he said. The decision cannot be made yet whether to release you or not. You are accused of being in the employ of the CIA. Your position will be studied. You are prisoners of war, in the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, and you will be treated correctly. Now I think you will need sleep.

He turned and left the room, giving us no opportunity to answer.

 

 

I lay stretched on the bed in the most peaceful state I’d known since our capture, which now seemed days ago. I was so tired that I floated as though in delirium; but I was comfortable. A medical orderly had painted our feet with Mercurochrome, and my cuts gently throbbed. Mike and Dmitri, already asleep, lay in beds nearby. We had the mosquito nets drawn, and it was a luxury not to be bitten.

For a short time, the three of us had talked, even though we were almost too tired to speak. Our meal had given us strength and revived our spirits; so had our interview with the captain. But our most likely fate now, we decided, was to end in a prison camp on the other side of the border: and that wouldn’t be something we’d survive very easily, from what we’d heard of those camps. We had to convince the Vietnamese that as war photographers, we were neutral. And we had to somehow prove that we weren’t CIA.