Peter the Perpendicular

By Jonathan Diack

An undercover operation in wartime Vietnam. Here's what the reviewers say:

Safe from the Japanese in the hills of WW2 Vietnam an American undergraduate pursues his studies whilst attempting to fulfil a military objective. Compelling from start to finish. Colonel D L de Beaujeu OBE

A beguiling tale of anthropological fieldwork in turbulent times. Action, wry humor and gorgeous descriptions which evoke nostalgia for a pre-modern past. James A. Matisoff, Professor of Linguistics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Bliss for the intelligent reader. KK Literary Gazette

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Diack
• Release date: May 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9780956797605

Jonathan Diack

Jonathan Diack was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. His career in the armed services was undistinguished although he looks back fondly at his last posting in Malta where, as sub-lieutenant responsible for filing top secret signals, which rarely arrived, he had plenty of time for scuba diving. An equally unsuccessful spell in commerce ended when his business partner drank the profits of a restaurant in Hampshire. Staving off bankruptcy he took a job writing procedures for an oil company. The decision ultimately forged an international career as a freelance editor and author. Jonathan has three sons from his first marriage and an adopted daughter from his second. He lives near the Mekong River in a house surrounded by tropical gardens. An agreeable location, he says, for a writer.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

February 13

The first salvo blew a hole in the carriage door. I jumped through the opening and rolled down the embankment. From the shade of the bushes I watched the aircraft wheel and return, spitting flames. The old railway engine collapsed on its side in a cloud of steam. Splinters flew from the wooden coaches. Fire danced through the train incinerating the prisoners trapped inside. The Japanese guards from the rear coach pointed their rifles at the sky. The rifles and uniforms disappeared in clouds of blood coloured smoke during subsequent explosions. I waited for the aircraft to depart and the cries from the carriages to fade, then ran.

No blame on the Allies. They had control of the sky. Railway movements anywhere in Indochina were legitimate targets. The Japanese could have painted something on the carriage roofs. Prisoners in Transit for example. But the fighting forces of the Rising Sun were not much into that sort of thing.

February 15

Disguised under a tattered coolie hat retrieved from a ditch I shuffled head down through the streets of Dalat past the golf course and elegant colonial style houses to the provincial government building with its empty flagpole. The French administered Vietnam on behalf of the Japanese but no longer ruled. In the circumstances the tricolor was inappropriate.

The district commissioner, a stately person, friendly and courteous, seemed unperturbed by my condition. That I could converse with him in French was probably enough to validate the credentials of the unshaven scarecrow standing in front of his desk. He asked about the incident at the train. While recounting the events I started to shake. The kindly old man stopped his questions at once, laid down his pen and summoned a rickshaw which took me to a street lined with acacia trees, to a house with a shaded balcony and bed draped in white muslin mosquito netting into which I sank hungry and unwashed and fell immediately to sleep.

CHAPTER 2

Just discernible through the thick carpet of trees which descends from the mist are patterns of streams and tracks. At this elevation the streams are only a few feet wide though they broaden into small rivers while traversing flat terrain. The tracks are principally those of elephant and man, trampled, hacked, trodden upon whilst the inhabitants of the hills move through the almost impenetrable forest, some tracks unchanged in direction for hundreds of years curving around giant rocks and channelling across gulleys where the water is most shallow. Others are new, marking the vagaries of nature. But all are mere veins measured against the majestic body of green which spans the horizon.

This is primary forest. A rich mixture of deciduous hardwood and evergreens, conifers and subtropical pines. The trees roll across the surface of the Annamese Cordillera from the high peaks of central Vietnam to the southern slopes astride the border with Cambodia where from a height of three thousand feet the hills begin their descent to the Mekong Delta covering the great mountain range with hues of emerald and jade. Beneath the conifers, whose canopy the sun cannot pierce, the ground is soft and easy to traverse for vegetation cannot cope with the deep cushion of pine needles save woodland creepers and some hardy shrubs. Most of the forest is deciduous, teak, ebony and other hardwoods whose leaves sprinkle sunlight onto tangled groundcover of scrub and thorns too dense to navigate without force. Bursting intermittently from the awning of deciduous leaves are spikes of olive green bamboo and oily smooth fronds of giant palm trees. Where the forest breaks at a rocky spur or ravine there are splashes of yellow grass and sometimes, although rarely visible to observers on opposite slopes, the pink blossom of fruit trees marking the location of hill tribe settlements though for observers researching such information the presence of smoke drifting upwards from the woods towards the blue sky is a more positive indicator.

Phra-Ni 1 lies on the edge of a plateau five hundred metres under the southwest summit. The plateau is accessible from two points. A precariously steep path up through a rock fall from the slopes below or alternatively, but representing a much longer route to the nearest market place, an earthen track wide enough to take a buffalo cart. From all other directions the plateau is hemmed in by implacably dense forest. The soil under the light cover of eucalyptus and pine trees with negotiable undergrowth is red and fertile watered by a network of brooks which merge near the village into a sizeable river. Charred stumps of wood in the numerous clearings give evidence of the slash and burn agricultural method employed by the villagers. The principal crop is rice, planted at the start of the wet season in April and harvested in October. Fish are abundant in the river which plunges from the plateau in a series of spectacular waterfalls. Fruit, vegetables and herbs are grown in and around the village.

There are three mature mango trees in the compound hinting at the permanent nature of the settlement. The lush sweet fruit is much prized by the villagers and apportioned in accordance with directives from the headman. Monkeys are kept away from the trees by the village dogs. The monkeys, cleverer than the dogs, disguise their intentions by jumping up and down and chattering loudly in the pine trees bordering the settlement. While the dogs rush barking towards the noise a second contingent of apes swings silently into the village from the other direction and removes the ripe fruit. To thwart this diversionary tactic, the dogs are tied individually to the mango trees at night while the fruit is in season. Their barking arouses the villagers if the monkeys attempt a raid. The same policy is adopted to protect the bananas in the small plantation at the edge of the compound.

During the rainy season the ground becomes wet and muddy. Accordingly most of the village women share a common area of land in which to grow vegetables. Water streaming down from the heights above is dispersed around this communal garden by an arrangement of ditches and dykes. Here the women grow sweet potatoes, cucumbers, beans, onions, aubergine and hot peppers. The wives of more important villagers have private gardens with individual ditches to divert the rain water. Regardless of position or wealth each house boasts a chicken coop. Chickens are the essential providers of protein and the basic victims of regular sacrificial activities. Supporting the chickens in the protein-sacrificial role are the village pigs housed in a communal sty downwind of the settlement. Foraged from the forests come nuts, berries, bamboo shoots, honey, ginger and wild mushrooms to supplement a diet unchanged in scope for thousands of years. Cotton, manioc (cassava) and maize are grown in a field adjoining the communal vegetable garden.

The plateau is the home of the Phra-Ni people who migrated to the Central Highlands of Vietnam in ancient times. Whether the tribe descended from China, driven south from their homeland hills by the explosive growth in lowlands population and harassment from dynastic overlords, or migrated north from the Malay-Indonesian landmass has not yet been determined. Language offers some clues although again there are conflicting interpretations. The Phra-Ni speak a mixture of Hmong, which is a Hmong-Mien language from the west of Indochina, and early Lao, a branch of the Tay-Thai group of languages from further north. Because the linguistic structure of Hmong has not yet been fully researched difficulties arise in establishing which of the two languages forms the root of their speech.

The houses are built of hardwood and bamboo. Floors are supported on hardwood posts approximately four feet from the ground. The elevated decks allow a flow of air underneath the buildings to reduce the temperature in hot weather and provide storage space for gardening tools, kitchen utensils, firewood and other domestic items which would otherwise clutter the interior. The hardwood columns are spaced approximately twelve feet apart longitudinally and laterally. Hewn beams are fixed to the columns to provide support for the mahogany planks which carefully butted together make a smooth and sturdy floor on which children can play without stubbing their toes or piercing their knees with splinters. The walls are constructed of panels of split bamboo interlocked to keep out the wind and rain. There are no windows. A two foot air gap between the front eaves and the top of the bamboo panels diffuses sufficient daylight to allow continuation of domestic tasks such as sewing and cooking when the doors are closed, and provides an unbroken exit route for smoke from the clay stoves and fireplaces. The roof timbers are thatched with rattan leaves.

Each house is approached from a verandah. The length of the construction, the number of ladders up to it and the number of doors from the verandah into the house depend on the span of the building some of which are more than a hundred feet long. Because each building contains at least two families there are never less than three doors. The central one opens onto the main room and is used by everyone including visitors. The side doors are reserved for use by members of the families living in the respective ends of the building.

All houses face downhill in deference to the benign water spirit who likes to ride the waterfall and is believed to live in that direction. The evil spirits inhabiting the forest above the village are presented with the backs of the buildings. Spirits travel in straight lines, thus the evil ones are constrained from entry because the doors and air gaps are at the front. The communal longhouse looks down on the cherished bombax tree, home of the village spirit. From the covered verandah the village elders direct the frequent ceremonies of worship in his honour. Dotted elsewhere around the village are miniature houses erected by individual families containing small altars devoted to the evil spirits which cause death and disease and the good spirits which look after crops and animals. Ancestors and ancestral spirits are worshipped at home in front of the altars facing the central doors in each main room.

Ascending the central bamboo ladder to the verandah of a typical dwelling visitors find themselves on an attractive wooden platform, covered against the rain, looking down over the valley below. The railings are elaborately carved in teak or mahogany. The railings serve several purposes, to demonstrate the artistry and skill of the male inhabitants, to stop children (and adults whose judgement may be impaired by rice wine) tumbling to the ground below, to provide a comfortable resting place for elbows during discussions with neighbours and prevent dogs from jumping up. There is sufficient space on the verandah for spinning wheels. When families are not working in the fields a typical balcony will be full of women spinning and sewing and men making baskets, the spinning wheels gently whirring and clacking, the rattan strips clicking against the wooden railings as the men swing the raw material through the air. Only in the cold months of winter or during thunderstorms when the sky darkens and lightning stabs the hillside, or in summer evenings without moonlight, are the verandahs vacated.

Entering the main room through the central door the visitors observe on the opposite wall the household altar garlanded with flowers. Offerings of rice cakes and nuts on earthenware plates lie in front of the altar to sustain the spirits of departed relatives. A fire burns in a wooden hearth a few feet away. The fire glows continuously day and night throughout the year signifying the permanence of family and ancestral relationships. Ensuring the fire stays alight is probably the most important of the official tasks undertaken by the women for, should it be allowed to go out, evil spirits will seize the opportunity to bring death and disease to the families inhabiting the building. The floor to the left of the altar and fireplace is covered in coloured mats upon which residents and visitors sit to eat, drink, smoke and talk. On the right is a trestle table which contains the principal evidence of household wealth and heritage. Ornate rice jars, bronze gongs, drums inlaid with geometric designs, sacrificial axes and other ancestral artefacts. Silver coins, the most negotiable asset of the families, are not displayed except on ceremonial or festive occasions when attached to the brilliant coloured garments of the women.

Proceeding from the main room into the private areas of the dwelling the visitors enter first the kitchen. Western eyes accustomed to the luxury of modern appliances would blink at the absence of gadgetry and what appears to be a deliberate attempt to make life uncomfortable for the womenfolk, for the equipment is confined to knives, pots and pans and, except for a small table approximately one foot high on which vegetables and meat are chopped, all activities takes place on the floor. The truth is of course that the cooking arrangements are extremely efficient and that the Phra-Ni have no need of chairs. From an early age the hill tribe people learn to sit on the ground. Their muscles adapt naturally to the squatting or crossed ankle knees apart sitting positions which most westerners find impossible to maintain for more than a few minutes. Indeed the Phra-Ni womenfolk would claim their kitchens are more comfortable because they sit while they work, unlike their western counterparts who have to stand.

The hearth, or hearths if there are more than one adult woman in the family unit, wife and widowed sister for example, is a rectangular clay tray located on the floor close to the front wall so that smoke travels directly up to the air gap, but not so close that the heat from the stove threatens the bamboo panels. Firewood foraged from the forest and stored underneath the building is carried every morning into the kitchen in sufficient quantities for the day. So too is water, drawn from the river in bamboo tubes and stored in gourds or tall earthenware jars. Picturesque displays of ingredients for the cooking pot hang from the walls. Red peppers, bunches of herbs, onions, tubers, bananas blossom, dried fish and the small corpses of squirrels and wild fowl. Baskets of salt, bamboo sprouts, rattan shoots, wild mushrooms, eggs and containers of honey sit on wooden shelves. The air is pungent with the smell of food and smoke.

Between the kitchen and the other private rooms stands the granary. This sturdy wooden edifice rising to the rafters contains the family’s most valuable possession in terms of food. The granary is designed to store the outcome of two years’ harvest. Happy is the household when the rice overflows, for this satisfactory condition provides insurance against the lethargy of the spirit supposed to protect the crop and the malicious intent of gremlins. In practice the granaries in Phra-Ni are rarely full. Harvests never quite live up to expectations despite detailed programmes of worship and sacrifice. Indeed some households in the village regularly run out of rice before the end of the season and are forced to borrow, barter, sell or work in foreign fields in order to make ends meet.

Rice is loaded into the granary from baskets through the air gap via a wooden chute. At each household small boys, cleaned and inspected by their mothers for the presence of pet frogs etc which might otherwise drop into the storage space below and pollute the crop, lie on the granary roofs directing the flow of rice downwards into the containers. When loading is complete the hinged loading doors are securely fastened to exclude scavenging animals such as mice and rats. Before returning to the ground the boys remove any debris from the high level metal grilles. Without these grilles, called ‘squares for breathing rice’ (not unexpectedly there is no word for vacuum in the Phra-Ni lexicon), the rice would not flow easily. Regularly throughout the year the small boys are re-cleaned and re-inspected and hoisted through the air gaps to check that the loading doors are still securely fastened and the grilles unobstructed.

The granaries span the width of the buildings leaving space only for a narrow passageway from the kitchen to the private accommodation, normally consisting of one long room bordered by a series of cubicles. The long room is the domain of the women. Here belong the household loom, spinning wheel when not out on the verandah, dyeing equipment and sewing tools, cupboards containing ceremonial garments, spare clothes for husbands and children, woven fabric ready for the market and musical instruments belonging to daughters.

Alongside the family door opening into the long room from the verandah is the fireplace to provide light at night and warmth in winter. Somewhere on the wall is a mirror, a popular location for the younger women when combing their jet black hair, and for the old women on the festive or formal occasions when they dress in the distinctive dark blue and brilliant yellow clothes which are the hallmark of the Phra-Ni tribe. More storage space is available under the cubicles which in effect are partitioned-off sleeping areas mounted on cupboards. The floors of the cubicles are lined with grass-padded cushions. Jackets, hats and blankets hang from pegs in the wall. Children’s cubicles are identified by the pictures of people and animals on the walls painted with mother’s dyes, by the wooden toy buffalo carts beloved by young boys and the little stuffed dolls belonging to the girls. Cubicles for married couples are fitted with doors which are left open except when on private occasions It is more comforting when the rain is falling and the wind howling and wild beasts are growling in the forest to lie looking at the fireplace, embers glowing in the darkness.

Men are first to the river at dawn, splashing their faces and performing their ablutions while the sun rises in the valley below. In the kitchens the women prepare the first meal of the day. Fruit, nuts and rice spiced with hot peppers in cold weather. When the men have returned the women proceed to the river with the children who squeal in protest at the temperature of the water in winter or have to be dragged away from games of trying to catch the silvery fish darting through the pools in summer. The programme of work is decided the evening before by the village elders. Most days the men gather their tools and walk to the fields where depending on the season they will set about preparing the land, planting the seeds, weeding the lanes of sprouting greenery or harvesting the crop. For major tasks they will be assisted by the women and older children who pass their responsibilities to grandparents and younger brothers and sisters. If the fields are near the village the workers return home for the midday meal. If not a procession of young children, frowning with concentration lest anything spills from the bamboo platters in their hands, makes its way along the path at noon.

The pattern of work changes when the rice crop has been harvested. A degree of leisure is introduced into the routine. Visits are made to the other Phra-Ni villages on the plateau. Families travel to the small market town of Tuy Bhiim to barter and buy and marvel at the wide streets full of bicycles and the rich splendour of the students’ houses. Visits are received from relatives who bring gifts of chickens and tobacco for the households and baby rabbits for the children. Wine jars are opened in celebration. Music and dancing may continue for days until the last of the jars is empty and the last of the revellers stumbles glaze-eyed to his bed.

The Phra-Ni people are tall in stature compared with their lowland counterparts. Their bodies are light brown, eyes are black. The squashed nose associated with aboriginal tribes is rarely encountered. Most of the villagers have straight noses, more akin to Indo-Asian cultures. The men wear loincloths in the fields, shirt and trousers at home and a bizarre mixture of western and oriental garments on formal occasions. It is not unusual to encounter a Phra Ni male on his way to market wearing a grey raincoat, colourful sarong and black beret. Heads of households, village elders and other dignitaries wear traditional embroidered blue tunics when not in the fields. The men shave their faces regularly. Their hair, long and straight, is trimmed neatly at the back. At home or in the fields the women wear a simple skirt secured around the waist by a belt or strip of cloth. Breasts of younger women are often bare or covered in a short halter. Older women wear cotton blouses, thick in winter. Hair is parted in the middle, swept into a comb at the back of the head. On formal occasions the women exchange their working attire for clothes of considerable beauty. To witness a parade of Phra-Ni women through a village during the ‘ceremony of a hundred curved knives’ is to be dazzled by grace and colour. The heavy blue material laced with yards of yellow silk sways elegantly from the women’s hips as they move, silver coins jangle from their embroidered jackets, tall golden blue hats nod majestically on their heads. The transformation from simple working skirt and blouse to elegant costume is spectacular to behold.

In charge of Phra-Ni 1 is Peter-the-Perpendicular. Befitting the station of headman he lives in the centre of the village opposite the communal longhouse facing the spirit tree. He is of unhurried disposition, charismatic, tall and erect. His extrovert wife Alice may be seen striding through the village in a cloud of tobacco smoke, cigarette in hand, ruffling the hair of children who attempt to arrest her progress in the hope of sharing the chocolate bar she sometimes carries in her pocket. She is the headman’s second wife. Her father worked for the French district officer in Poste de Nong before he died. A rich man, he left his daughter a casket of silver coins which she brought to Phra-Ni on the occasion of her marriage. The casket lies in the cupboard under her boudoir still, the number of coins steadily accumulating through the years by virtue of her industry. She has given Peter-the-Perpendicular two daughters and a son.

Childless from his first marriage to a girl from Phra-Ni 3 who died before her fifteenth birthday the headman is devoted to his lively wife although sometimes her ambitious projects ruffle his authority. Alice wants the village to cultivate its own tobacco, for example. The elders are split on the subject. All of them smoke pipes or, when they can afford it, cigarettes. But there are conflicting signals from the spirits. The Phra-Ni people have never grown tobacco. The spirits are demonstrably uneasy, witness the dead hawk under the longhouse steps recently. Not for the first time the headman is caught between rebellious elders and a determined wife.

Peter-the-Perpendicular and Alice share their house in the centre of the village with three other closely related families. Alice’s sister and her family are next door. In the opposite half of the building, divided by the central room, live the headman’s younger brother and his family and, next to them, Peter-the-Perpendicular’s eldest daughter and her family. Seventeen people in total. Each of the four families has its own granary, kitchen and private rooms. The relationship between the different units is generally harmonious. With the exception of Alice who takes a relaxed view of her religious responsibilities the women are devout and spend long periods of time in front of the household altar murmuring devotions to ancestral spirits. Of the seventeen people, six are young children. From morning to dusk they play outside. When the light fades they scamper along the verandah darting in and out of each other’s premises carefully avoiding the central room where the men gather to review the day’s events and where injudicious entry might result in cuffed ears.

Next to the headman’s house is the residence of Tim-the-Blatant-Stump who lost his leg in a hunting accident. The bolt from a crossbow missed its target and accidentally set off an elephant trap removing his leg at the knee. He hobbles briskly about his business nowadays on a wooden limb which serves in the supplementary roles of knife holder, forest fire beater and buffalo goad. With piercing eyes and a square chin he is still at the age of fifty or more a fine-looking man. The accident occurred in his youth but did nothing to impair his success with women who throughout his life have been strangely fascinated by the resulting impediment. He has been married three times and divorced twice, ending up with a wealthy widow who several years ago moved her family, relatives and possessions to his house thereby ensuring his granary stayed full.

Not all the village elders possess homes as grand as those of Peter-the-Perpendicular and Tim-the-Blatant-Stump. Simon-the-Recorder lives alone in one half of a small house bordering the perimeter of the compound. Devastated when his young wife walked out he devotes himself to scholarly duties. His widowed niece, who lives in the other half of the building, cooks and cleans for him aided by her daughters Sophie and Amy, exceedingly pretty young girls for whom their great uncle hopes one day on behalf of the household to receive fine dowries.

The rules governing marriage and divorce are straightforward. The woman must be of a different matriarchal line, her family must receive an acceptable amount of money or goods of equivalent value and, not unreasonably, the woman must agree to the match. The man may subsequently divorce his wife without explanation or dispute on payment to her personally of money or goods equivalent to the dowry. The woman may leave her husband at any time without penalty save that if she remarries or cohabits within a period of two years, measured in terms of the rice harvest, the dowry must be returned.

Intercourse before marriage is normal, indeed encouraged at puberty to strengthen the boys, mature the girls and eliminate the pent up sexual frustration which otherwise adversely afflicts young people. There is no shame in childbirth before marriage. Quite the reverse, for the value of the bride is correspondingly increased. This healthy attitude to sex is strikingly different from the guilty fumblings of the tribe’s western counterparts. Divorces are infrequent. The affairs of Tim-the-Blatant-Stump and sad circumstances of Simon-the-Recorder are exceptional.

The Phra-Ni people have lived on the plateau as long as ancestral memory will allow. There is no record in tribal songs or epic verse of migration. The plateau is large enough to sustain five Phra-Ni villages, each of which is encircled by sufficient land to practice an effective swidden cycle of approximately a dozen years. High in the mountain range and protected by the natural defence of thick forest through which only two paths are navigable the tribe has not suffered from the aggressive expansionist campaigns which occasionally afflict smaller tribes at lower elevations. The good or otherwise intentions of neighbouring peoples are rarely the subject of discussion by the village elders whose thoughts, when troubled, turn more frequently in another direction. Continuously throughout the year the conduct of the villagers is governed by rituals of sacrifice and worship. Not a day passes on the plateau without a religious ceremony of some kind, not a major decision is taken without considering its mystical significance. In this way, reverently, the people of the Phra-Ni tribe coexist between the sometimes bounteous aspect of nature and the dark forces of the spirit world.

CHAPTER 3

February 16

Breakfast consisting of rice, vegetables and unidentified meat which could have been chicken but was mercifully and definitely not, by now being an expert on such matters, rat was delivered on a bamboo tray by an attractive buxom middle-aged woman who explained she owned the house but volunteered no further information. The district commissioner’s mistress ?

Refreshed I took stock of the situation. Dalat was too dangerous for an escaped prisoner-of-war. Japanese troops were billeted in the hotel. Trucks ferrying them between the town and airfield roared continuously through the streets scattering chickens, dogs and rickshaws. I would make for the highlands and seek refuge amidst the hill tribes. Unfortunately my right knee, bruised during the exit from the train, had stiffened up which would make the journey difficult on foot. At least it was not getting worse. I needed one of those elastic knee bandages of the type favoured by elderly tennis players although such articles were unlikely to be available in a provincial station like Dalat unless the district commissioner sported himself upon the tennis court in the evenings.

The other ailments were of a minor nature. My feet were painful but not blistered and already improved after soaking in water, in a wooden tub provided by an elderly retainer with betel black teeth who inhabited the corridor outside my room. Ointment from the same source soothed the heat sores on my inner thighs and treated the collection of miscellaneous scratches received courtesy of the train wreck and overhanging branches en route to Dalat. The dull headache of the last few days had disappeared soon after the intake of food a phenomenon observed frequently in camp indicating, according to army medical experts, carbohydrate or vitamin deficiency. Elsewhere in the physiognomy my loins were spectacularly alert after years of enforced celibacy, my spirits were high and my brain was revving up.

The essential items on my shopping list were anti-malaria tablets, compass, map, torch, binoculars, pencils, notebook and firearm, the procurement of which I definitely needed to discuss with the district commissioner.

February 17

The district commissioner examined my list carefully. He turned the sheet of paper over when he had finished, shaking it gently as if to verify its authenticity. Then he sat back and raised his patrician eyebrows questioningly.

‘There are tigers in the hills,’ I explained.

‘A revolver will not afford much protection against a fully grown beast,’ he said

‘The noise will startle it, if nothing else,’ I pointed out.

He said he would try. The rest of the items were readily available in the town except for the binoculars which would have to be imported from Saigon. He suggested I return to the residency in a couple of days.

‘Do you need money ?’ he enquired.

‘Well, I was wondering about that. A loan, perhaps, to be repaid after the war, naturally. Not much, it shouldn’t be expensive. If you could give me your address.’

The district commissioner reached into his desk and produced a bundle of banknotes. Silencing my expressions of gratitude he said he retained a special fund for just such a contingency. Moreover there was no shortage of government money in Vietnam these days, just freedom of movement.

‘Anything else ?’ he enquired.

‘Do you have an elastic knee bandage, by chance ?’

‘Mais certainment (but certainly).’

February 17

Half way along a side street under cover of darkness I found the Yellow Lotus. The establishment was empty except for a dozen or so bar girls who ran squealing towards the door when I entered. Clinging to my arms they directed me to a chair. Where are you from, when did you arrive, what are you doing in Dalat, are you married, do you have a girlfriend ? Smiling happily I luxuriated in the unfamiliar pressure of feminine curves.

The girls wore silk AoDais of different colours. What an exquisite costume. The dress consists of two garments, a pair of silk trousers and a long silk tunic slit downwards from the waist so that the bare stomach of the wearer and the curve of her thighs and rump are intimately revealed when she moves. The tunic is fastened at the throat. Depending on the circumstances or intentions of the girl the tunic is open to various degrees below the fastening. The intentions of the girls at the Yellow Lotus being fiscal, the opening was deep enough to reveal most of their plump young breasts.

Eyes swivelling at bust level I answered their questions. I had arrived from Saigon recently, I was not married, there were no girls in my life, yet. They giggled sweetly drinking the local snake whisky purchased courtesy of Vichy government funds until I enquired whether Japanese soldiers ever visited the bar, whereupon the girls grew silent and shuffled their feet and said they never knew when the soldiers would come. If they knew they would stay away because sometimes the soldiers took the girls into their trucks and drove them into the darkness and sometimes they did not return.

True to the name of the establishment a yellow lotus flower floated in a wooden bowl on the bar counter. A radio played in the corner surrounded by chairs. The girls had been listening to it before I arrived. There were rows of tables with candles in bottles, candles unlit. Evidently I was the first customer for the night. I checked out the lavatories at the back. There was no exit from the rear in an emergency. When the bottle was finished I selected the prettiest of the girls and departed.

Her name was Mattrang (moon). In terms of pleasure I recall my first glass of wine, snowflakes on Xmas eve, driving my first car, flowers on a street stall outside Changi prison, showers with fresh water and soap when we disembarked at Saigon, shortcake biscuits in Red Cross parcels, but none could compare with the voluptuous sensation of sinking into clean white sheets with Mattrang, her arms around my neck, her AoDai and associated garments discarded on the floor.

February 19

Madame Dinh, the owner of my lodgings with whom I was by now on excellent terms by virtue of praising her cuisine extravagantly, turned out to be something of a character. She accompanied me to the tailor this morning. A small shop opposite the fruit market with dark interior and ancient fan clacking in the ceiling and a normally inscrutable proprietor rendered into startled confusion by Madame Dinh who demanded to see his licence. The tailor protested he did not possess such a document, such documents were not required for the practice of his profession. ‘No license’, snapped Madame Dinh, ‘I never heard such a thing !’

1 pair long cotton trousers

2 pairs short cotton trousers

3 short-sleeved cotton shirts

3 pairs knee-length socks (for travelling, some protection against snakes)

7 pairs cotton underpants

2 medium size towels

1 woollen jumper (the hills are cold at night)

1 haversack.

The socks and subsequent items the tailor had obtained on my behalf in reasonable expectation of a profit. He had not bargained for Madame Dinh who poked around his shop with her parasol exclaiming at the inferior quality of the merchandise. Seizing the bill she demanded to know the basis for the outrageous price. Threatening to draw the district commissioner’s attention to shopkeepers who operated from unlicensed premises she advanced on the unfortunate tailor who, retreating to a corner, eventually agreed to reduce his price by a third. ‘When dealing with the Chinese,’