Toll for the Brave

2

On a wet February evening in 1966 during my second year at Sandhurst, I jumped from a railway bridge to a freight train passing through darkness below. I landed on a pile of coke, but the cadet who followed me wasn’t so lucky. He dropped between two trucks and was killed instantly.

We were drunk, of course, which didn’t help matters. It was the final link in a chain of similar stupidities and the end of something as far as I was concerned. Harsh words were said at the inquest, even harsher by the commandant when dismissing me from the Academy.

Words didn’t exactly fail my grandfather either, who being a major-general, took it particularly hard. He had always considered me some kind of moral degenerate after the famous episode with the Finnish au pair at the tender age of fourteen and this final exploit gave him the pleasure of knowing that he had been right all along.

My father had died what is known as a hero’s death at Arnhem during the Second World War. My mother, two years later. So, the old man had had his hands on me for some considerable time. Why he had always disliked me so was past knowing and yet hatred is as strong a bond as loving so that when he forbade me his house, there was a kind of release.

The army had been his idea, not mine. The family tradition, or the family curse depending which way you looked at it, so now I was free after twenty-odd years of some kind of servitude or other and thanks to my mother’s money, wealthy by any standards.

Perhaps because of that – because it was my choice and mine alone – I flew to New York within a week of leaving the Academy and enlisted for a period of three years in the United States Army as a paratrooper.

It could be argued that the jump from that railway bridge was a jump into hell for in a sense it landed me in Tay Son, although eighteen months of a different kind of hell intervened.

I flew into the old French airport at Ton Son Nhut in July, 1966, one of two hundred replacements for the 801st Airborne Division. The pride of the army and every man a volunteer as paratroopers are the world over.

A year later, only forty-eight of that original two hundred were still on active duty. The rest were either dead, wounded or missing, thirty-three in one bad ambush alone in the Central Highlands which I only survived myself along with two others by playing dead.

So, I discovered what war was all about – or at least war in Vietnam. Not set-piece battles, not trumpets on the wind, no distant drum to stir the heart. It was savage street fighting in Saigon during the Tet offensive. It was the swamps of the Mekong Delta, the jungles of the Central Highlands, leg ulcers that ate their way through to the bone like acid and leeches that fastened on to your privates and could only be removed with the lighted end of a cigarette.

In a word, it was survival and I became rather an expert in that particular field, came through it all without a scratch until the day I was taking part in a routine search and destroy patrol out of Din To and was careless enough to step on a punji stake, a lethal little booby trap much favoured by the Viet Cong. Fashioned from bamboo, needle-sharp, stuck upright in the ground amongst the elephant grass and smeared with human excrement, it was guaranteed to produce a nasty, festering wound.

It put me in hospital for a fortnight and a week’s leave to follow, which brought me directly to that fateful day in Pleikic when I shambled around in the rain, trying to arrange some transportation to Din To where I had to rejoin my unit. I managed to thumb a lift in a Medevac helicopter that was flying in medical supplies – the worst day’s work in my life.

We were about fifty miles out of Din To when it happened, flying at a thousand feet over paddy fields and jungle, an area stiff with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regular troops.

A flare went up suddenly about a quarter of a mile to the east of us. There was the burnt-out wreck of a small Huey helicopter in the corner of a paddy field and the man who waved frantically from the dyke beside it was in American uniform.

When we were about thirty feet up, a couple of heavy machine guns opened up from the jungle no more than fifty yards away and at that range they couldn’t miss. The two pilots were wearing chest protectors, but it didn’t do them any good. I think they must have both died instantly. Certainly the crew chief did, for standing in the open doorway in his safety belt, he didn’t have a chance.

The only surviving crew member, the medic, was huddled in the corner, clutching a bloody arm. There was an MI6 in a clip beside him. I grabbed for it, but at the same moment the aircraft lifted violently and I was thrown out through the open door to fall into the mud and water of the paddy field below.

The helicopter bucked twenty or thirty feet up into the air, veered sharply to the left and exploded in a great ball of fire, burning fuel and debris scattering like shrapnel.

I managed to stand, plastered with mud and found myself looking up at the gentleman on the dyke who was pointing an AK47 straight at me. It was no time for heroics, especially as forty or fifty North Vietnamese regular troops swarmed out of the jungle a moment later.

The Viet Cong would have killed me out of hand, but not these boys. Prisoners were a valuable commodity to them, for propaganda as well as intelligence purposes. They marched me into the jungle surrounded by the whole group, everyone trying to get in on the act.

There was a small camp and a young officer who spoke excellent English with a French accent and gave me a cigarette. Then he went through my pockets and examined my documents.

Which was where things took a more sinister turn. In action, it was the practice to leave all personal papers at base, but because I had only been in transit after medical treatment, I was carrying everything, including my British passport.

He said slowly, ‘You are English?’

There didn’t seem to be much point in denying it. ‘That’s right. Where’s the nearest consul?’

Which got me a fist in the mouth for my pains. I thought they might kill me then, but I suppose he knew immediately how valuable a piece of propaganda I would make.

They kept me alive – just – for another fortnight until they found it possible to pass me on to a group moving north for rest and recuperation.

And so, at last, I came to Tay Son. The final landing place of my jump from that railway bridge into darkness, a year and a half before.

My first sight of it was through rain at late evening as we came out of a valley – a great, ochre-painted wall on the crest above us.

I’d seen enough Buddhist monasteries to recognise it for what it was, only this one was different. A watch tower on stilts at either side of the main gate, a guard in each with a heavy machine gun. Beyond, in the compound, there were several prefabricated huts.

Having spent three days stumbling along on the end of a rope at the tail of a column of pack mules, I had only one aim in life which was to find a corner to die in. I tried to sit and someone kicked me back on my feet. They took the mules away, leaving only one guard for me. I stood there, already half-asleep, the rain drifting down through the weird, half-light that you get in the highlands just before dark.

And then an extraordinary thing happened. A man reported dead by the world’s press came round the corner of one of the huts with three armed guards trailing behind him, a black giant in green fatigues and jump boots, Chaka, King of the Zulu nation, alive and shaking the earth again.

Brigadier-General James Maxwell St Claire, the pride of the Airborne, one of the most spectacular figures thrown up by the army since the Second World War. A legend in his own time – Black Max.

His disappearance three months earlier had provoked a scandal that had touched the White House itself for, as a Medal of Honour man, he had been kept strictly out of the line of fire since Korea, had only found himself in Vietnam at all as a member of a fact-finding commission reporting directly to the president himself.

The story was that St Claire was visiting a forward area helicopter outfit when a red alert went up. One of the gun ships was short of a man to operate one of its door-mounted M60’s. St Claire, seizing his chance of a little action, had insisted on going along. The chopper had gone down in flames during the ensuing action.

He changed direction and crossed the compound so briskly that his guards were left trailing. Mine presented his AK and St Claire shoved it to one side with the back of his hand.

I came to attention. He said, ‘At ease, soldier. You know me?’

‘You inspected my outfit at Din To just over three months ago, sir.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I remember and I remember you, too. Colonel Dooley pointed you out to me specially. You’re English. Didn’t I speak to you on parade?’

‘That’s right, General.’

He smiled suddenly, my first sight of that famous St Claire charm and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You look bushed, son. I’ll see what I can do, but it won’t be much. This is no ordinary prison camp. The Chinese run this one personally. Forcing house number one. The commander is a Colonel Chen-Kuen, one of the nicest guys you ever met in your life. Amongst other things, he’s got a Ph.D. in psychology from London University. He’s here for one reason only. To take you apart.’

There was an angry shout and a young officer appeared from the entrance of one of the huts. He pulled out an automatic and pointed it at St Claire’s head.

St Claire ignored him. ‘Hang on to your pride, boy, you’ll find it’s all you have.’

He went off like a strong wind and they had to run to keep up with him, the young officer cursing wildly. Strange the sense of personal loss as I found myself alone again but I was no longer tired – St Claire had taken care of that at least.

They left me there for another hour, long enough for the evening chill to eat right into my bones and then a door opened and an n.c.o. appeared and called to my guard who kicked my leg viciously and sent me on my way.

Inside the hut, I found a long corridor, several doors opening off. We stopped at the end one and after a while it opened and St Claire was marched out. There was no time to speak for a young officer beckoned me inside.

The man behind the desk wore the uniform of a colonel in the Army of the People’s Republic of China, presumably the Chen-Kuen St Claire had mentioned.

The eyes lifted slightly at the corners, shrewd and kindly in a bronzed healthy face and the lips were well-formed and full of humour. He unfolded a newspaper and held it up so that I could see it. The Daily Express printed in London five days earlier according to the date. English war hero dies in Vietnam. The headline sprawled across the front page.

I said ‘They must have been short of news that day.’

His English was excellent. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. They all took the story, even The Times.’ He held up a copy. ‘They managed to get an interview with your grandfather. It says here that the general was overwhelmed by his loss, but proud.’

I laughed out loud at that one and the colonel said gravely, ‘Yes, I found that a trifle ironic myself when one considers his intense dislike of you. Almost pathological. I wonder why?’

A remark so penetrating could not help but chill the blood, but I fought back. ‘And what in hell are you supposed to be – a mind reader?’

He picked up a manilla file. ‘Ellis Jackson from birth to death. It’s all there. We must talk about Eton some time. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the place. The Sandhurst affair was certainly a great tragedy. You got the dirty end of the stick there.’ He sighed heavily, as if feeling the whole thing personally and keenly. ‘In my early years as a student at London University, I read a novel by Ouida in which the hero, a Guards officer in disgrace, joins the French Foreign Legion. Nothing changes, it appears.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m here to redeem the family honour.’

‘And yet you hated the idea of going into the army,’ he said. ‘Hated anything military. Or is it just your grandfather you hate?’

‘Neat enough in theory,’ I said. ‘On the other hand, I never met anyone yet who had a good word for him.’

I could have kicked myself at the sight of his smile, the satisfaction in his eyes. Already I was telling him things about myself. I think he must have sensed what was in my mind for he pressed a button on the desk and stood up.

‘General St Claire spoke to you earlier, I believe?’

‘That’s right.’

‘A remarkable man – gifted in many directions, but arrogant. You may share his cell for a while.’

‘An enlisted man with the top brass. He might not like that.’

‘My dear Ellis, our social philosophy does not recognise such distinctions between human beings. He must learn this. So must you.’

‘Ellis.’ It gave me a strange, uncomfortable feeling to be called by my Christian name. Too intimate under the circumstances, but there was nothing I could do about it. The door opened and the young officer entered.

Chen-Kuen smiled amicably and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Sleep, Ellis – a good, long sleep and then we speak again.’

What was it St Claire had said of him? One of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? The father I’d never known perhaps and my throat went dry at the thought of it. Deep waters certainly – too damned deep and I turned and got out of there fast.

During the journey to Tay Son, we had made overnight stops twice at mountain villages. I had been put on display, a rope around my neck, as an example of the kind of mad-dog mercenary the Americans were using in Vietnam, a murderer of women and children.

It almost got me just that, the assembled villagers baying for my blood like hounds in full cry and each time, the earnest young officer, a dedicated disciple of Mao and Uncle Ho, intervened on my behalf. I must survive to learn the error of my ways. I was a typical product of the capitalist imperialist tradition. I must be helped. Simple behaviourist psychology, of course. The blow followed by kindness so that you never knew where you were.

Something similar happened on leaving Colonel Chen-Kuen’s office. I was marched across the compound to one of the huts which turned out to be the medical centre.

The young officer left me in charge of a guard. After a while, the doctor appeared, a small, thin woman in an immaculate white coat with steel spectacles, a face like tight leather and the smallest mouth I’ve ever seen in my life. She bore an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather’s housekeeper during my early childhood, a little, vinegary lowland Scot who had never been able to forgive John Knox and therefore hated all things male. I could taste the castor oil for the first time in years and shuddered.

She sat down at her desk and the door opened again and another woman entered. A different proposition entirely. She was one of those women whose sensuality was so much a part of her that even the rather unflattering tunic and skirt of her uniform, the knee-length leather boots, could not hide it.

Her hair was jet black, parted in the centre, worn in two plaits wound into a bun at the back in a very Eastern European style, which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that her mother, as I discovered later, was Russian.

The face was the face of one of those idols to be seen in temples all over the East. The Earth Mother who destroys all men, great, hooded, calm eyes, wide, sensual mouth. One could strive on her forever, seeking the sum total of all pleasures and finding, in the end, that the pit was bottomless.

She had only the slightest of accents and her voice was indescribably beautiful. ‘I am Madame Ny. I am to be your instructor.’

‘Well, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ I said, ‘But it sounds nice.’

The old doctor spoke to her in Chinese. Madame Ny nodded. ‘You will undress now, Mr Jackson. The doctor wishes to examine you.’

I was so tired that undressing was an effort, but I finally made it down to my underpants. The doctor glanced up from a file she was examining, frowned in exasperation.

Madame Ny said, ‘Everything, please, Mr Jackson.’

I tried to keep it light. ‘Even the Marine Corps let you keep this much on.’

‘You are ashamed to be seen so and by a doctor?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘There is nothing obscene in the human form. A most unhealthy attitude.’

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Cold showers just never seemed to work.’

She leaned down to speak to the doctor and again they examined a file between them, presumably mine.

I peeled off like a good boy and waited. I must have stood there for twenty minutes or more and during that time various individuals, both men and women, came and went with files and papers. A study in conscious humiliation.

When it had presumably been judged I’d been punished enough, the doctor stood up abruptly and went to work. She gave me a thorough and competent examination, I’ll say that for her, even to the extent of taking blood and urine samples.

Finally, she pulled forward a chair, sat down and proceeded to examine my genitals with scrupulous efficiency. It was the kind of free-from-infection check that soldiers the world over get every few months. That didn’t make it any easier to take, especially with Madame Ny standing at her shoulder and following every move.

I squirmed, mainly at the old girl’s rough handling and Madame Ny said softly, ‘You find this disturbing, is it not so, Mr Jackson? A basic, clinical examination carried out by a woman old enough to be your mother and yet you find it shameful.’

‘Why don’t you jump off?’ I told her.

Her eyes widened as if gaining sudden insight. ‘Ah, but I see now. Not shameful, but frightening. You are afraid in such situations.’

She turned, spoke to the old doctor who nodded and they walked out on me before I could say a word. I wasn’t tired any more but I found it difficult to think straight. I felt as angry and frustrated as any schoolboy, humiliated before the class for no good reason.

I had just struggled back into my clothes when Madame Ny returned with the young officer. She had a paper in her hand which she placed on the desk.

She picked up a pen and offered it to me. ‘You will sign this now, please.’

There were five foolscap pages, closely typed and all in Chinese. ‘You’ll have to read the small print for me,’ I told her. ‘I haven’t got my spectacles with me.’

‘Your confession,’ the young officer cut in. ‘A factual account of your time in Vietnam as an English mercenary lured by the Americans.’

I told him what to do with the paper in an English phrase so vulgar that he obviously didn’t understand. But Madame Ny did.

She smiled faintly. ‘A physical impossibility, I fear, Mr Jackson. You will sign in the end, I assure you, but we have plenty of time. All the time in the world.’

She left again and the young officer told me to follow him. We crossed the compound through the rain and entered the monastery itself, a place of endless passages and worn stone steps although, surprisingly, lit by electricity.

The passage we finally turned into was obviously at the highest level, so long it faded into darkness; and, quite plainly, I heard a guitar.

As we advanced, the sound became even plainer and then someone started to sing a slow blues in a deep, mellow voice that reached out to touch everything around.

‘Now gather round me people, Let me tell you the true facts. That tough luck has struck me And the rats is sleeping in my hat.’

The door had two guards outside and was of heavy black oak. The young officer produced a key about twelve inches long to unlock it and it took both hands to turn.

The room was surprisingly large and lit by a single electric bulb. There was a rush mat on the stone floor and two wooden cots. St Claire sat on one of them a guitar across his knees.

He stopped playing. ‘Welcome to Liberty Hall, Eton. It isn’t much, but it’s the London Hilton compared to most of the accommodation around here.’

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone in my life.

He produced a pack of American cigarettes. ‘You use these things?’

‘Officer’s stock?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘They’re being nice to me at the moment. They might give me a pack a day for a whole month, or simply cut off the supply from tomorrow morning.’

‘Pavlovian conditioning?’

‘That’s it exactly. They have one set idea and you better get used to it. To drive you to the edge of insanity, to tear you apart, then they’ll put you together again in their image. Even their psychology is Marxian. They believe each of us has his thesis, his positive side and his antithesis, the dark side of his being. If they can find out what that is, they encourage its growth until it becomes the strongest part of your nature. Once that happens, you begin to doubt every moral or decent worthwhile thing you’ve been taught.’

‘They don’t seem to be getting very far with you.’

‘You could say I’m inclined to be set in my ways.’ He smiled. ‘But they’re still trying and my instructor is the best. Chen-Kuen himself. That’s just another name for interrogator, by the way.’

‘I’ve already met mine,’ I said and told him about Madame Ny and what had happened at the medical centre.

He listened intently and shook his head when I was finished. ‘I’ve never come across her myself, but then you won’t have contacts with many people at all. I haven’t met another prisoner face-to-face since I’ve been here. Even the sessions in the Indoctrination Centre, where they feed you Chinese and Marxism by the hour, are all strictly private. You sit in an enclosed booth with headphones and a tape recorder.’

I made the obvious point. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why have they put me in with you?’

‘Search me.’ He shrugged. ‘First I knew was when Chen-Kuen called me in, told me every last damn thing about you there was to know and said you’d be joining me.’

‘But there must be a purpose?’

‘You can bet your sweet life there is. Could be he just wants to observe our reactions. Two rats in a cage. That’s all we are to him.’