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Our Reluctant Man in Vietnam From the Fletcher Memoirs (1951-54) Ken Donald © Copyright Ken Donald 2017.

This is an authorised free edition from www.obooko.com Although you do not have to pay for this book, the author’s intellectual property rights remain fully protected by international Copyright law. You are licensed to use this digital copy strictly for your personal enjoyment only. This edition must not be hosted or redistributed on other websites without the author’s written permission nor offered for sale in any form. If you paid for this book, or to gain access to it, we suggest you demand a refund and report the transaction to the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, businesses, places, events and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. All characters are fictitious or are historical figures whose words and actions are fictitious. Any other resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

2

For Jane

3

Explanatory Note This fourth packet from my uncle’s memoirs describes the part he played in the French conflict in Indochina. Prior to this, he worked in Berlin during the infamous airlift and he also took part in the Korean War. From this recent offering it would appear that Fletcher is perhaps the only member of the British Secret Intelligence Service to have met Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader.

He also met with General Giap, one of Vietnam’s most successful commanders, who died only recently at the age of one hundred and two.

I inherited the memoirs after my uncle’s death in 2012 on the Caribbean island of Antigua. It has recently come to light that his death is being treated by the authorities as suspicious.

It also transpires that two Vietnamese women, a mother and daughter, have been helping the Antiguan police with their enquiries. However, no one has come forward and asked to see these recollections from his time in Indochina and so I have decided to go ahead with their publication.

Once again I have checked my uncle’s memoirs against the historical record, adding notes accordingly.

K.D.

4

Alarm bells ringing “I understand that you’re a pilot, Captain Fletcher. Do you think it might be possible for you to give me a ride to Hong Kong?”

I sat there open-mouthed with my cigarette dangling precariously from my lower lip, unable to answer. Eventually I managed to come to terms with the fact that one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen was actually standing in our grubby little backstreet room in downtown Tokyo, which the Service laughingly called an office.

I’ll allow that where women are concerned the last one always tends to be the most beautiful, but I’m not altogether exaggerating when I describe my new visitor to our little hovel. She was a superb piece of giblet pie and no mistake. No doubt the fact that she was French and had a soft, husky voice that belonged in the bedroom didn’t hurt any. Against all the odds, I suppressed the urge to suggest a ride for a ride and formulated a coherent answer.

“I’m sure it could be arranged, Miss …?”

“Mademoiselle Claudine Boissinot.”

She informed me of her name so prettily that she almost had me swooning.

“Well … Claudine, how on earth did you know I was a pilot?”

“Monsieur Biggins explained that you are still officially in the Royal Air Force, even if your present surroundings would seem to indicate otherwise.”

As she spoke, she raised a delicate hand to indicate the bare, grey walls of my palace.

“Why do you want to go to Hong Kong?” I asked.

I stared into her eyes and did my best not to ogle her wonderful dumplings - which she had obligingly decided to put on show for all to see.

“I need to pick up a substantial quantity of gold for my employers and deliver it to Saigon.”

This time I actually paid attention to what she was saying, and I looked away from her pouting lips long enough to allow her latest revelation to sink in.

I was frightfully torn, as you can imagine. My eyes must have visibly lit up at the mention of the precious metal that can set a man up for life. But the passing reference to the Vietnamese city set the alarm bells ringing. You see, everyone knew that the French were having the devil of a time holding on to their old colony in Indochina. Having only just come through the nightmare in Korea, I had no wish to end up anywhere near another Far Eastern backwater which promised more of the same.

“Who is your employer?” I asked, determined to find out more.

“Why, the French government, of course,” she explained condescendingly. “The funds are needed to help us contain the communist insurgents. Once my task is complete, I was hoping we might be able to get better acquainted.”

She leant forward and rested her dainty hands on my desk, while I lost the struggle to avert my gaze from her inviting upholstery. I did my best not to salivate on the spot and my mind went into overdrive.

5

Saigon wasn’t under threat from the communists, I reasoned, and any fighting was taking place miles away in the north of the country. Still, why take the chance of going anywhere near the blasted place when I was nicely tucked away safe and sound in Japan, I hear you ask?

As if to provide the answer, my French temptress licked her full, red lips and sat on the edge of the desk, causing her aforementioned pap feeders to tremble. Being a lusty Lawrence, my next words left my lips uninvited.

“When do we leave?” *

*

*

You may well be wondering how your gallant hero suddenly found himself at the mercy of a French beauty, when he was supposed to be spending his time sifting through what pathetic morsels of intelligence our agents in North Korea had been able to provide. So allow me to take this opportunity to enlighten you.

You see, unknown to your hapless correspondent, my ‘senior’ colleague in our intelligence department, one Henry Biggins, decided to have another of his appalling plans take shape in what I imagined he called a brain, with the inevitable result that yours truly was destined to end up in harm’s way.

Of course he knew he couldn’t just ask me to go on some inane mission half-cocked, because he was well aware that he would have got a fist in the face for his trouble or, as is more likely, I would have disappeared into the Japanese landscape - never to be seen again.

So the sneaky little cacafuego had employed the talents of my irresistible French agent to waylay your ignorant champion who, quite frankly, should have known better. The upshot was that two days later the three of us were on board a Dakota, courtesy of the CIA, heading south for our last remaining outpost in China.

Biggins had made some excuse at the time about simply wanting to take a dekko at how our French allies were coping. Absolute nonsense, of course, but being entirely besotted with my French gill-flirt, I fell for it like a Tom Tug. Unfortunately Hong Kong airport represented the only few acres of the thriving metropolis I was destined to lay eyes on. As soon as our femme fatale had supervised the loading of the finest gold bullion, we were preparing to take to the skies once more before we continued our journey into yet another confounded war zone.

Naturally I was eager to land and demonstrate to Claudine what a wonderful decision she’d made in her choice of escort, but we were left circling in the monsoon clouds over Saigon for another two hours.

If the miserable weather hadn’t been enough of a disconcerting introduction to the joys of Vietnam, the sight of twenty enormous military transport planes wending their way into the airfield, packed with French troops, was enough to finish the job – and to give me a case of the threepenny bits into the bargain.

Much to our surprise, Claudine appeared to command sufficient clout for us to shoot through passport control like a dose of salts. As we climbed into a taxi, sweltering in the 6

ninety degree heat, we watched as a column of Legionnaires made their determined way through the streets. It was only then that I paused to wonder, for the first time, what I’d actually let myself in for.

So perhaps now would be the time to apprise you of what ills were befalling this eastern stretch of Asia in the early 1950’s, and the twists and turns that led to what became known as the First War of Indochina.

The inhabitants of the Indochinese peninsula hail from various parts of the globe. The Khmer, as the Cambodians call themselves, probably made their way from western India, while the Lao and the Vietnamese rolled down from the highlands of China’s Yunnan province. Eventually Indochina, as its name suggests, became the focus of a clash between two vast civilizations – India and China.

Then it was the turn of the European missionaries to poke their pious noses in where they didn’t belong, and soon French colonists were grabbing their piece of the Asian pie, before the British had a chance to colour every corner of the world map in imperial crimson.

Of course World War Two rather spoilt things for our Gallic allies. In 1940 the Japs swept down from China, and while France was being given a damn good thrashing by the Germans, they crushed the French administration in Vietnam.

Naturally once the war was over the Frogs were eager to make up for their losses in Europe and carry on where they’d left off. But there were one or two home-grown nationalists who saw things rather differently. Led by the Vietnam Independence League (or the Vietminh), the communists from the north tried to persuade patriots all over the country to make a stand.

So without anybody really making a decision, France was drawn into a war.

Unfortunately yours truly was to end up in the thick of it soon enough - and all because of a seductive and designing Maid Marian from over the Channel. To top it all, I was merely a pawn at the mercy of a devious and calculating mind. If I’d known who was behind my surreptitious invitation to the jungle-infested country, I would have kept on flying all the way to Australia.

You see, I was soon to discover that my unseen chess master was none other than the charismatic communist leader himself – Ho Chi Minh.

7

A successful hostess Before I’d had time to wonder what had happened to our precious cargo of gold, we had left our taxi and were walking through Saigon’s notorious marketplace to our hotel, while I resisted sampling the local delicacies on offer. As far as I’m concerned, octopus and roasted locusts will never look appetising, no matter how many steaming hot banana leaves they’re mounted on.

Apparently the better hotels lay near the Opera House along the Rue Catinat and we ended up at the Continental Palace, where two armed policemen were on permanent duty at the entrance. Not the most reassuring of sights, you’ll allow. To add to my feeling of disquiet, upon entering the foyer the porter offered me a brochure entitled: ‘What’s New in Saigon?’ And I noted that one of the activities on offer was to go shooting with armed guards for company.

Elephants, leopards and even tigers could be killed for pleasure, apparently, but I had a far more interesting prey in mind. Fortunately I didn’t have to fight my way through the jungle to search out my victim, because she was sitting opposite me in the remarkably wellappointed hotel restaurant.

Claudine had a becoming habit of flicking her silky, dark hair back from her forehead before drawing you in with her piercing blue eyes, and she would wrinkle her delicate little nose as she offered a wry smile.

Not being an Aquarian, I attempted to cool down in the stifling humidity by guzzling copious amounts of barley broth, and the room was starting to spin. This, coupled with the hypnotic effect of my French maiden’s lilting voice, threatened to put me into a trance.

Biggins had decided to get an early night, being the clean-living little Christian that he was, while I took yet another one of the Gauloise cigarettes my wanton baggage offered me and grabbed her around the waist to help myself to a kiss, French style. To my surprise she was happy to oblige, and somehow (for I have no recollection of the intervening period) we ended up in my hotel room, tearing each other’s damp clothing from our sweltering bodies in preparation for the main event.

I only wish I hadn’t been as drunk as a fiddler’s bitch and that I could recall the proceedings in finer detail. To add to my woes, I began to suspect that I’d inadvertently quaffed a gallon of belly-vengeance. But it takes more than a few glasses of queer beer to put Fletcher off his stride and I was at my French temptress before she’d had time to put out her damn tobacco stick.

Far from being a carpenter’s dream, my little Claudine turned out to be as adept as a threepenny uprighter in the ways of love, with the result that I had very little chance of holding fire. The inevitable result was that, barely a few seconds after matters had been joyfully concluded, your correspondent was soon out for the count and settling down for a well-earned repose.

As was usually the way when I’d supped half of the bar, I was like a commode-hugging drunk and I found myself in desperate need of the en-suite facilities. As I reluctantly

8

struggled out of my comfortable surroundings, I leant across for a quick fondle of my French beauty’s blubber-bags and I was shocked to discover she wasn’t there.

Naturally I’d been hoping for a more civilised and less frantic second round. Mind you, I quickly realised it would’ve taken a damn sight more than a few hours in the land of nod to cure my terrible bout of spinning pillow. To make matters worse, my mouth felt like the inside of an Arab’s underpants. So once I’d wrung the rattlesnake, I quickly dressed and headed down to the bar in search of some water that wasn’t likely to give me the backdoor trots.

Due to the early hour and being the considerate fellow I am, I did my best to sneak downstairs as quietly as my size twelves would allow. It was as well that I did because I was able to hear the hushed voices coming from the bar without accidentally announcing my arrival. As I slowly drew closer to the half-open door, I soon recognised the melodious tones of my recent conquest. She was talking to a man who was also speaking fluent French, and I assumed he was one of her fellow countrymen.

“Do not take it personally, mon cheri, you and your … colleagues have been a thorn in the side of the army for many years. You have been lucky to last this long. It is only due to your connections that you have not been expelled before. Marshal Casson wants you all to leave the country as soon as possible.”

“The fool! Doesn’t he realise we are all on your payroll? Our talents have saved the lives of French soldiers in more ways than one.”

“Yes, Casson is well aware of your contribution to the war effort. That is why he has insisted I replace you and the other girls,” explained her new companion.

“Replace us?” squealed my lover. “Who could fill our shoes - or our beds?”

I almost fell through the blasted door at this cryptic offering, as I began to form a nasty suspicion about the moral standing of my bed-partner. Fortunately I steadied myself sufficiently to hear the Frenchman’s reply.

“Casson has decided to replace you and your charming operatives with … well, let us just call them local talent.”

“Mon Dieu,” cried my little lovely. “You will soon discover that it takes more than an easy virtue to be a successful hostess.”

“No doubt you are correct, mon cheri, but it is out of my hands.”

“I won’t let him get away with it!”

With those words I heard a chair scrape across the wooden floor, followed by the sound of footsteps steadily approaching my hiding place.

I was up the stairs as fast as a virgin’s drumstick up a whore’s nightie and dispensed with my arse-rugs before diving between the sheets. It was just as well that I hadn’t dithered, because my absent lover was hot on my heels and returned to our love-nest, ready for a resumption of hostilities.

I choose my words advisedly because, rather than the gentle lovemaking my tired body would have welcomed, I was treated to a violent and passionate onslaught, as my French strumpet took out her frustrations on your poor hero.

9

As you know, I’m the last person you’ll find complaining when a fractious and beautiful female decides to force herself on my tired carcase but, once she’d climbed atop St George, her attentions were so full of fury I’m surprised I survived to see the sunrise. Naturally I did my level best to give as good as I got and I slapped her wind-jammers for all I was worth.

My mind was still reeling from what I’d surreptitiously overheard behind the bar door, and once the assault on my person was finally at an end, I used the sudden respite to try and understand exactly what it was I had heard. Unless my ears had deceived me, it was clear that my French spy was hawking her meat to supplement her earnings. No wonder I’d been unable to resist the professional entertainment to which I’d just been treated.

I have to admit that this wasn’t the most welcome news, having convinced myself that she’d joined me in the bedroom because of my irresistible charm. Of course there was also the little matter of what on earth she was up to. It appeared, from what her drinking partner had said, that her services were no longer required - not as a bed-presser leastways.

I finally decided that the best course of action was to ask the little nymph herself, but she was already out of bed and dressed, having hardly broken into a sweat after our recent exertions.

“Going somewhere?” I asked, doing my best to hide my disappointment.

“I have important business to attend to,” replied the little hussy, looking down her pretty nose at me.

Before I had the chance to protest, she was out the door and heading off into the night, leaving the RAF’s finest clutching his bed sheets like an ill-used puppy.

I decided it would be the last time my French trollop had the opportunity to sink her practised claws into your truly, even if her meat-merchant offered her services for free, and I drifted off into a fitful sleep.

So imagine my surprise the next morning when I was greeted by Biggins’ oafish grin, as he shared the news that we were to accompany our dark-haired maiden on yet another clandestine jaunt.

“We’ve been asked by the French government to help Mademoiselle Boissinot make another supply-drop,” he explained, sharing his delightful news before I’d even had time to wipe the sleep from my eyes.

“Well, they can ask all they want. Their pathetic little spat has nothing to do with us. Let one of their own pilots act as a delivery boy,” I replied, determined to stop us getting involved before it was too late.

“They’re short of pilots and they need our help. Besides, it has all been arranged,” said the confounded clot.

“Since when have we been interested in helping the Frogs hold on to their grubby little empire?”

“We’re all in it together when it comes to halting the communist onslaught,” explained Biggins, as if he believed I gave a damn. “Besides, you’ll officially be a civilian pilot flying with CAT.” “Who?” “CAT – it’s an airline run by the Americans.”

10

“By the CIA, you mean.”

I took Biggins’ silence as an acknowledgement that I was right on the money. For a moment he’d forgotten I’d been in the intelligence game a fair few years myself by then and, in spite of my total lack of interest in such mundane matters, even I’d heard talk of the infamous ‘Air America’.1 “What the hell are we doing working for the Yanks?”

“They helped us out in Korea, in case it has slipped your mind. Besides, Truman still hasn’t forgotten how you got him out of a tricky spot, and naturally the PM was keen to offer your services.”

“That was kind of him,” I retorted, sensing the hand of doom ready to slap me about my undeserving head.

“Do you think we can trust this Mademoiselle Boissinot?” I asked, recalling the previous evening’s excitement.

“Of course we can. She works for the French Intelligence service,” protested Biggins, as if to reassure me.

I decided to throw polite niceties out of the window and tried to shock his sensitive soul.

“I hate to have to tell you this, Henry, but our pretty French operative is a Jack’s Delight.”

“A what?”

“A prostitute, Biggins.”

“Goodness me, how on earth did you find that out?” he asked, but then he saw the mischievous grin on my face and decided he didn’t want to know.

“No, spare me the sordid details, Fletcher, I’ve only just had breakfast.”

I could see by the look on his gormless face he was trying to digest this latest nugget of information but, much to my chagrin, it did nothing to weaken his resolve.

“Well, I suppose it makes sense. I expect my opposite number in the SDECE decided that the country’s ladies of the night would be privy to all sorts of useful gossip.”

I was used to the strange swings of Biggins’ moral compass by then, of course. The happy little Bible-thumper wouldn’t have dreamed of enjoying the services of a tail-worker himself, but he had no qualms about using them in the service of King and Country.

It was clear that Biggins had got the bit between his teeth and he wasn’t about to pass up a chance at having a swipe at the communists, so I decided to find out what I was letting myself in for.

“What are we supposed to be delivering?”

“The usual cargo – arms and ammunition for the French troops in the north of the country. They are defending their positions at Ninh-Binh. Don’t worry, Fletcher, we’re not expected to get involved.”

“If memory serves, Biggins, that’s exactly what you said the last time we went up against the communists – right before one of them shot you in the arse!” *

*

11

*

We arrived back at the airport to find the Dakota filled to the brim with the promised tools of war, mostly machine-guns and rifles, and we were joined by the lady herself – Mademoiselle Claudine Boissinot. This helped to settle my battered nerves somewhat. I reasoned that if there were any danger in the offing, she wouldn’t have been so eager to come along for the ride.

To complete our happy band we were accompanied by our co-pilot who doubled up as a navigator, using the map provided by our gun-running street walker. He was a hulking brute with a big beard to match and he said his name was McGuiness. Apparently the non compos idiot had fought against the Japs in the war and had joined the CIA to stay in the thick of the action. Mind you, he can’t have been all bad because he’d brought along a crate of beer as large as himself for the journey.

I put it down to my good friend’s alcohol that I started grinning inanely at the beautiful Claudine, but by the look she gave me I’d have had more chance of a bellybump with a Sally Ann. Any alcohol-fuelled bravado I’d hoped to feel soon dissipated when I first laid eyes on the pathetic clearing in the jungle where we were expected to land. It quickly became obvious that my new co-pilot was of the same mind and he opted not to mince his words as he addressed Claudine.

“Jesus, sweetheart, call that a runway? My dick’s longer than that.”

We circled a few times to get a good look at the place and the feeling of disquiet that had been brewing in the pit of my stomach threatened to come up for air. The entire area appeared deserted, and the only thing that marked it out as any kind of a landing zone was the bamboo control tower, which looked as if it had been constructed by a drunken fiveyear-old.

“You’re more used to flying these babies than I am, Captain, so I’ll let you do the honours,” said my bearded colleague obligingly.

While we’d circled the area I’d noticed that the dirt runway was actually on a slope, which hadn’t exactly filled me with confidence. But now I realised it could work in our favour and I decided that if I could manage to land ‘uphill’, we might be able to stop just in time.

So I lined us up and flew as low and as slow as I dared above the jungle canopy. As soon as we reached the clearing I brought the plane down and pulled the power off the instant the wheels touched terra firma. We all held our breath as the trees on the far side of the clearing loomed up before us, but miraculously we finally came to a halt with barely inches to spare.

The dust had scarcely settled when we could hear voices all around us. To our horror, instead of the lilting French welcome we’d been expecting, our ears were assaulted by highpitched Vietnamese screams. The rear door to the plane opened to reveal our welcoming committee – a score of green-clad soldiers from the Vietminh Army.

12

Spared jail and guillotined We had our revolvers, of course, but even Biggins wasn’t crazy enough to take on a throng of Vietnamese communists, and we didn’t resist when they dragged us bodily from the plane. McGuiness growled and pulled away when a couple of the diminutive soldiers tried to reach up and grab hold of him, but even he did as he was told once a Burp gun was pointed squarely at his broad chest.

The only one of us not given the rough treatment was Claudine, and at first we put this down to the fact that she was female and the communist troops had left her alone out of respect. But when a senior bigwig singled her out and they started to chat in French like long lost friends, a nasty suspicion began to develop in my fevered mind.

Wearing a suit with a garish tie, the chap looked more like a lawyer than a soldier - and I wasn’t far wrong as it turned out. Although he was probably only in his forties, his hair had receded enough to reveal a widow’s peak and his mouth seemed to be constantly turned down, as if he’d been born with a frown from day one.

Eventually their discussion appeared to be coming to an end and the ‘lawyer’ pointed in our direction. He indicated to our guards that they were to bring us to a limestone cave, hidden beneath the jungle foliage in such a way that it hadn’t been visible from the air.

All three of us stepped forward, but then Claudine’s companion said something to our sentries and they pushed McGuiness back. He was about to kick up a fuss until the ‘frowner’ barked out another order and our American friend was handed his crate of beers.

It seemed like more than a generous concession to me, but then I remembered that most Orientals couldn’t touch the stuff in any great quantity without making themselves as sick as dogs.

Biggins and I were made to sit on a couple of crates, while the worthy eased himself into an ornately carved wooden chair which seemed out of place, surrounded as we were by verdant jungle.

“I understand you two gentlemen work for the British government,” he said, addressing us in French.

This meant that Biggins could join in on the conversation, since it was the one foreign language that my hapless colleague could speak without butchering it.

“That is correct, sir,” replied Biggins, “and since our country is not at war with the Vietnamese people, I insist that you release us immediately.”

“If, as you say, our nations are not at war, then perhaps you could explain why two of Great Britain’s intelligence operatives are supplying French forces with weapons.”

We didn’t have an answer, of course, and we both sat there, staring at the floor like a pair of naughty schoolboys. It was then that our accuser suddenly burst out laughing, and we looked up to see what was so amusing.

“Please, do not trouble yourselves. Believe me, if I meant you any harm, your corpses would be rotting in the jungle.”

Not the most comforting words of reassurance I’d ever heard, but at least it stopped me from delivering an unscheduled Richard the Third in my trousers.

13

“Forgive me, I have not introduced myself. My name is General Vo Nguyen Giap.”

I stared across in disbelief. Even with my limited interest in the comings and goings of important figures in the Far East, I knew that General Giap was the supreme commander of the communist forces in Vietnam.

“It is a great honour to meet you, General Giap,” I said, always eager to toady to the high and mighty when my life was in their hands.

“Let me tell you something about the colonists whom you appear so eager to help,” said the general, ignoring my clumsy attempt to ingratiate myself. “The French authorities, having descended upon our country uninvited, arrested my beautiful young wife in 1941.

The result was that she died in a French prison, along with our young son. Her sister was spared jail and guillotined in Saigon.”

He appeared to be staring right through us, while Biggins and I looked at one another but said nothing.

“Life is a fragile thing, gentlemen, as I am sure you are both all too aware,” he said pointedly.

I found myself trembling at his words. But there was more.

“I am a simple history professor and any knowledge of military science I possess has been self-taught. But I will defeat these French generals with their diplomas. Every minute, hundreds of thousands of people die on this earth. The life or death of thousands of our compatriots means little.”

He just sat there, staring at us in silence, so I thought it might be best to try and clear the air.

“Yes, war’s a frightful thing, isn’t it just…”

The general ignored me and continued as if we weren’t there.

“Even with American help, the French can never win. We will fight as long as is necessary – ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty years.”

“General Giap, I’m terribly sorry to interject, but what is it exactly that you want from us?” asked Biggins politely, ever the English gentleman.

“Ah, what a shame it is that no one has time to sit and talk anymore. I am sure you are both eager to return to your duties. Perhaps the Americans would like their English helpers to deliver additional quantities of their expensive weapons to the enemy,” said the confounded know-all, chuckling to himself.

Our traitorous Jezebel entered the cave and the general spoke again as he stood up to leave.

“Since you are too busy to sit and chat, I will leave you with Mademoiselle Boissinot. I am sure you have a great many questions to ask her. Do not be tempted to run away – the guards outside have instructions to shoot you on the spot,” said our host, as calmly as if he were explaining the rules of a card game.

I turned to face Claudine when the general left.

“What the hell have you done?” I cried.

“Only what was necessary,” she said smugly.

14

“But you’ve delivered arms and ammunition to the enemy, Mademoiselle Boissinot,” said Biggins.

“Please, Henry, call me Claudine,” replied our amazing back-stabber.

Biggins gave me an exasperated look, so I decided to try and have another go at getting some sense out of the French trollop.

“You realise, of course, that Giap’s soldiers will use these weapons to kill your fellow countrymen.”

My pointed accusation wiped the smile from her face and she scowled at me, as she attempted to justify her actions.

“I feel no loyalty to my country and it deserves none. I have passed on information to my government to help them win its senseless war, and how does Marshal Casson choose to repay me?” she asked rhetorically. “He has signed an order expelling all of us who have toiled, serving our men. He looks down on our honourable profession.”

“I presume there’s a point to all this drivel,” I said. “So what if Casson’s decided to throw out a bunch of arse-peddlers - what’s that got to do with you furnishing the communists with American hardware?”

I’d had enough of listening to her bilge but, instead of rising to the bait, she simply grinned.

“Not only have I been well paid for delivering much-needed weapons, but General Giap has assured me that the arms will be used to attack the French positions in and around Ninh Binh.”

Poor Biggins was looking even more confused than usual, and he couldn’t resist wading into the discussion.

“Marshal Casson is a professional soldier. If you think he’ll take such an attack personally, I’m afraid you are mistaken.”

It was then that her grin turned into a triumphant smile, as she delivered her final pronouncement.

“Believe me, Casson will take it personally.”

Lacking Lao’s mirror, we couldn’t see what was going on in her twisted mind. And since she chose to leave us to our own devices, we could only turn our attention to the more pressing problem of what was to become of us.

“Do you think they’ll do away with us?” asked Biggins, always eager to cheer me up.

“How should I know?” I replied, resisting the temptation to remind him it was all his fault we were in such a blasted mess in the first place.

Before Biggins had time to take offence, General Giap returned with McGuiness to reveal our fate.

“No doubt you gentlemen are curious about your immediate future. I am pleased to inform you that, contrary to what you may have been told, we do not kill prisoners out of hand.”

“That’s mighty kind of you,” said McGuiness, as if he’d just been offered a cup of tea.

“Fortunately it appears that you may be of more use to our cause alive.”

And with that he turned to face me.

15

“From what Mademoiselle Boissonot has told me, would I be right in saying that you are personally acquainted with the President of the United States?”

“I believe he considers me a close and personal friend,” I said, lying like a skyfarmer and hoping it would make him think twice about furnishing me with a horse’s nightcap.

Biggins nearly spoiled my brutum fulmen by staring across in disbelief.

“Quite,” said the smug Vietminh general, smirking. “It appears that your ‘friend’ in the White House believes he can prevent the French Expeditionary Force from being defeated by supplying it with the materials of war. I would very much like to persuade him otherwise.”

“How the hell are you gonna do that?” asked McGuiness, belching.

Giap looked across at our American friend and wrinkled his nose as if he’d trodden in a dog’s job. Clearly he wasn’t used to the diplomatic style of some of our Yankee mercenaries.

“At dawn tomorrow we will be attacking the French position at Ninh-Binh. You gentlemen will accompany us and, once you have witnessed their defeat, you can report to your superiors how futile it would be to continue fighting for a lost cause. Perhaps, Captain, you might even be able to contact your ‘close friend’, the president.”

Hearing this latest piece of news, I was a man of mixed emotions. My alarm at hearing we would be thrust into a shooting match was eased by the slim hope that we’d be released to spread the word about the invincibility of Vietnam’s communists.

When Giap eventually left us for a second time, Biggins made the suggestion that we should try and overpower our guards. McGuiness had been living in Vietnam for a number of years and he slammed the idea in his usual style.

“You wouldn’t last five minutes out there, you limey douchebags.”

That night we were roughly manhandled and forced along a narrow trail - leaving the clearing and our blessed Dakota behind us. Ninh-Binh sat on the main road south from Hanoi, and we reached the outskirts of the town just before first light.

As dawn broke we watched events unfold from the vantage-point of a hill with General Giap. The unsuspecting French troops were taken completely by surprise and the communist infantry overran the Frog positions around Ninh-Binh and charged into the town, forcing any French survivors to seek shelter in the church.

Giap was well pleased with himself, and he even invited us to share a meal with him in one of the more well-appointed buildings still left standing. As we tucked into our rice, we could still hear the sounds of battle emanating from the heart of the town.

Unbeknown to us, the French had sent a battalion of hastily gathered reinforcements, and a company had been ordered to hold the French fort situated on a crag overlooking the town.

The next morning we awoke to discover that the fort was still holding out by the skin of its teeth, but when several craft of the Dinassaut headed up the river to come to the assistance of the defenders, they were ambushed with bazookas and cannon. Several of the boats were disabled, leaving them to drift helplessly downstream.

16

It looked as if everything was going well for Giap and his band of communists, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just relieved not to be one of the participants in the battle, and I counted myself lucky to be a prisoner at General Giap’s makeshift headquarters.

The battle raged on for nearly three weeks, but I think it must have been the fifth or sixth day when I realised the tide was turning. You see, Giap’s marauders depended on hundreds of small junks and sampans to deliver their supplies, but they were ravaged by French armoured vessels and aircraft.

When we finally realised that the French had gained the upper hand, Biggins decided it was time we tried to escape, and this time McGuinness was all for it. Of course the very idea had me sweating pellets and it was an enormous relief when, in the morning, we discovered that our hosts had wisely buggered off before finding it was they who were under lock and key.

Once we’d finally convinced ourselves that we were safe, we couldn’t help wondering what sort of revenge our French traitoress had hoped to exact on her nemesis, Marshal Casson. We didn’t have to wait long to find out.

As the soldiers who’d bravely defended the fort on the crag descended to join their colleagues, they informed their superiors that their commanding officer had been killed. I was about to walk away, but then I overheard the unfortunate man’s name.

“Major Casson has been killed, sir,” announced the Vietnamese sergeant.

Marshal Casson’s one and only son was dead.

17

Do you make house-calls?

My terrifying introduction to the war in Indochina had shaken me, I can tell you, and it was a blessed relief when we were whisked off to Hanoi, courtesy of our French rescuers.

Those of you who are only familiar with the American war in Vietnam, when the Yanks tried to succeed where the Frogs had failed, may well be used to the idea of Hanoi being firmly under communist control. But back then it wasn’t so. The French had a foothold in the city, together with the surrounding lowlands. This included the coastal airbase of Cat-Bi, near Haiphong, where I was forced to make my new home.

You see, now that Biggins had successfully shanghaied me south to Vietnam, he’d decided that he could put me to work and report back to HMG on how he was still carrying on the fight against the communist horde. As for the double-crossing Claudine, who Biggins had used as his bait to trap your ignorant hero, she’d wisely disappeared out of sight and out of mind.

In all truthfulness I have to admit that in those early days it turned out to be not too bad a posting. For one thing the scenery was very easy on the eye, as long as it wasn’t the rainy season, and I managed to find a top-notch beach where I could watch the pretty local girls swim to cool off.

While the highlands are festooned with tropical and bamboo forests, the lowlands are generally dry coastal plains with sand dune growths. I’ll admit much of the blasted shoreline was covered in mangrove swamps, but when you found a nice secluded beach you could almost forget there was a war on at all.

But it takes more than the local flora and fauna to get Fletcher’s juices flowing, and I’m happy to report there were plenty of fine female specimens from our own branch of the animal kingdom with which to while away the time.

There was still a large French civilian population existing in Vietnam, for one thing, including a sizeable number of sadly neglected housewives and sex-starved schoolmistresses. As for the local talent, since polygamy was still legal at the time, the whole attitude towards sex was far more easygoing than in many of our guilt-ridden societies back in Europe.

Then there was the Bordel Mobile de Campagne, of course. I was already aware that our French allies were rather dependent on the finer things in life, but even I was more than a little shocked to discover that our Gallic friends thought nothing of dragging along a mobile brothel into the fray.

Its pretty members originated from the Oulad-Nail tribe of Constantine, who carried on a proud tradition until they had enough money to return home to a life of respectability. As I watched some of their number chatting happily in their Algerian garb, I couldn’t help wondering what France’s American backers thought about how their hard-earned tax dollars were being spent.

If dropping in to experience the professional ministrations of itinerant prostitutes wasn’t your cup of tea, you could always while away the time of day with one of the two thousand women serving in the French Army. I even managed to pass a rather pleasant evening with a 18

pretty doctor who spent her days as a paratrooper and helicopter pilot, rescuing men from behind the communist lines.2 I was pleased to see that our friends from across the Channel put in a great deal of effort to protect their pilots or, as is more likely, their precious aircraft. Cat-Bi was heavily fortified and surrounded by electrified barbed-wire. There were so many blasted mines surrounding the place that the Vietminh would have had to play a dangerous game of hopscotch to even make it to the perimeter. And if all that weren’t enough to put your mind at rest, there were infra-red devices, top-notch troops, and even watchdogs to make us feel as safe and sound as a babe in its crib.

So I was feeling pretty relaxed about the whole situation, being the trusting and naïve person that I am. But, in spite of all these precautions, the Vietminh managed to sneak in and attach explosive charges to a score of planes. They crawled in through the sewers which was a damn-fool thing to do because they’d have drowned if there had been any rain.

Not that I was concerning myself with camp security just then, because I had something else to occupy my mind. It came in the shape of a French angel – namely, one Mademoiselle Brigitte Leblanc. She was a nurse and when she wasn’t racing around the camp on her red scooter, she was hopping into her American-made ambulance and charging through the enemy lines to rescue wounded soldiers left behind after an ambush. I wasted no time introducing myself.

“Perchance, do you make house-calls?” I asked, as she returned my gaze with her watery blue eyes.

“Why, Monsieur, are you ill?”

“I think I might have high blood pressure,” I explained, as my lips broke into a cheeky smile.

“I see,” she replied, returning my grin. “Do you know what might have caused you to have this malady?”

“Well, I’m no medico, but I think it might have something to do with the way you walked across the airfield a few moments ago.”

“If that is the case, then how would you suggest I help you?”

“Perhaps we could discuss it over a bottle of wine later this evening?”

“Since we have not been formally introduced and I do not even know your name, that would hardly be seemly.”

“That can be easily remedied. My name is Captain Fletcher and I am an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Air Force.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” asked my French Florence Nightingale haughtily. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of an airbase – it is full of pilots.”

“In my defence, Mademoiselle, may I say that it wasn’t my skills in the cockpit with which I was hoping to impress you.”

She shamelessly looked me up and down.

“Talk is cheap, Captain Fletcher. I wonder, would you be willing to prove that you are … up to the task?”

19

This was going better than I had hoped. I’d be offering myself up to the tender caring of the French nursing profession in no time at all at this rate, I thought.

“Perhaps you’d like to pop along to my quarters this evening where we can continue our discussion in more comfortable surroundings,” I said hopefully.

“I would love nothing more,” she said, with a promising twinkle in her eyes.

“Unfortunately I am on duty elsewhere. However, if you could conspire to find a way to join me…”

She left the offer hanging in the air with the tacit promise of untold delights ahead. She treated me to a warm smile and the touch of her hand on my arm sent a tingling sensation through my whole body. I could hardly contain myself and I decided that the sooner I got to the bottom of things the better.

“Where are you off to?” I asked, trying to hide my desperation.

“Hoa-Binh.”

It meant nothing to me and I shrugged my shoulders to illustrate the fact.

“Hoa-Binh is the capital of the Muong tribe, who have been fiercely loyal to us. The town sits on a major road-link between the north-eastern and central communist strongholds. The army hopes to cut off the enemy’s supply lines.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d stopped listening the moment I’d heard the words ‘communist strongholds’ escape from her beautiful lips. So I told her I needed time to think about her kind offer. You may well be wondering why I was even considering such a reckless decision. Well, if you will allow, let me educate you.

You see, there were many fine-looking females loitering around the base, strutting up and down to display their wares, but I have to say my petite Brigitte knocked the socks off all the rest.

She was small in stature, but perfectly formed and in apple-pie order. Her silky auburn hair brushed against her breasts, and I found myself wanting to do the same so that I could appreciate their shapely perfection close up.

To add to her seductive charms, she possessed the most pert little derriere it has ever been my good fortune to lay eyes on, and I could have kissed her slender legs all the way down to her dainty toes. I was smitten, all right, and no doubt I wasn’t thinking straight when I sought out Biggins for a quick face-to-face.

“Well, this is a turn up for the books, Fletcher. What’s come over you? Are you actually volunteering for a mission?” he asked, as he shovelled a bowlful of rice into his fat face.

“Is this little jaunt over to Hoa-Binh likely to end up in a shooting match?” I asked warily “I doubt it very much. Our sources tell us the Vietminh aren’t in any great numbers up there, so our French allies should meet very little resistance. Besides, Casson is sending in a formidable force – the communists would be mad to take the French on in the open.”

It was just what I wanted to hear, but I still wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing - no matter how welcoming my nurse’s bosom might have appeared. I must have looked thoughtful and Biggins decided to try and find out what I was up to.

“What’s this all about, Fletcher?”

“I’ve been asked to help fly in some supplies and medical personnel, that’s all.”

20

“When you say ‘medical personnel’, you wouldn’t by any chance be referring to that rather attractive nurse I saw you talking to earlier on, would you?”

“Really, Biggins, after all we’ve been through together you should know me better than that.”

“I do, and that’s exactly why I’m asking the question.”

I left him to his sordid little suspicions while I tried to digest what I’d just learnt. But I have to say that my mind was already made up. I’m just too susceptible to the charms of a wanton female, you see, and no doubt it was rather clouding my judgement.

The upshot was that two hours later I sat at the controls of a fully laden C-47, as my pretty nurse displayed her gratitude by planting a delicious kiss on my eager lips.

At first it looked as if Biggins actually knew what the hell he was talking about. Three French paratroop battalions descended ahead of us, occupying the city against almost no resistance. The Frogs clearly meant business and joining us on our sightseeing tour were over a dozen infantry battalions, a couple of armoured groups, and two craft of the Dinassaut, working their way up the river. There were even engineers on hand to repair the bridges that had been sabotaged by the communists.

As I’d hoped, Giap had ordered his men to fade away into the jungle, which rather took the wind out of the Frogs’ sails, and they stabbed away with all their mighty firepower, only to find empty space. It was a communist tactic they were forced to contend with again and again.

So I was free to give my attention to more pressing matters – to wit, how to persuade the desirable Brigitte to play nurse with one Thomas Fletcher. I thought I might have a few problems trying to tear Mademoiselle Leblanc from her duties, but not a bit of it. Since the communists had chosen not to put up any kind of a fight, she found herself free and willing to succumb to Fletcher’s charms.

Considering my tender angel of mercy had taken an oath to look after the health and happiness of her fellow man, I have to admit that I was rather taken aback by the ferocity with which she treated her bed-partners. The Vietminh may not have assaulted your poor hero, but my little French vixen more than made up for their oversight when she finally got her claws into my unsuspecting flesh. My God, I thought, recalling Claudine’s comparable antics, do all French women feel the need to half-kill their romantic conquests?

When she’d finally finished having her wicked way with me, I do believe that certain parts of my anatomy were black and blue all over, and I’d be surprised if my back doesn’t still bear witness to the wounds she inflicted all those years ago.

Still, all’s fair in love and war, as they say. The problem was, General Giap was about to do his level best to add to my injuries. You see, contrary to what I’d been told, his regulars were busy preparing for what would become known as the battle of Hoa-Binh.

I’d been caught in more than my fair share of ambushes back in Korea, and I should have listened to that voice in the back of my head telling me that here was more of the same.

When the main road wasn’t overshadowed by cliffs and hills, it was skirted by thick jungle which would need to be cleared away if anyone travelling the highway wasn’t going to get caught out. Consequently, bringing in reinforcements and supplies was going to be a little 21

difficult to say the least. There was also the river, of course, but the French landing craft would be sitting ducks for the communists’ bazookas.

My French hosts were to pay for their negligence soon enough, and what became known as ‘The Hell of Road No. 6’ was about to begin.

22

Peace “It is such a lovely day, why don’t we walk together along the river?” suggested my lover, as I lay exhausted from our exertions.

“I’m a little tired, Brigitte. Besides, are you sure a romantic stroll in the middle of a war zone is wise, exactly?” I asked, hoping she would see sense.

She didn’t, of course, and once she’d got the ridiculous notion into her soft little head, there was no changing her mind. What’s more, instead of staying within the main camp, she insisted on heading off to one of the outposts next to a small tributary of the Black River.

The mad bint had us stumbling over a flimsy footbridge like a pair of Gosport fiddlers, and the communists obligingly chose that very moment to lob what seemed like all the mortars they had in our direction.

I was diving for cover before the first explosion erupted, leaving my pretty companion to admire the firework display before it finally dawned on her that it might be advisable to make herself scarce. We must have cowered in our hidey-holes for nearly an hour and, as far as I could tell, the Frogs weren’t doing a damn thing to stop the assault. It was then that the shrill screams began.

“Tien-len!”

I hadn’t been in the Godforsaken place long enough to pick up the blasted lingo, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that it was some sort of signal to begin the attack. My suspicions were soon realised when swarms of enemy infantry threw themselves across the barbed-wire.

Finally my Gallic allies had decided to fight back and the concentrated fire of French automatic weapons was murderous. One human wave after another was smashed to pieces by the French defence. All too soon the barbed-wire was completely covered with a carpet of enemy bodies, thereby making it hardly fit for purpose.

Brigitte worked her way over and held on to me as if it was the end of the world. I looked behind us and, seeing that the footbridge was miraculously still intact, I dragged my helpless angel back to the main camp. We made it across with the last of the survivors, followed by a swarm of Vietminh soldiers. The tanks of the French armoured platoon lowered their guns as far as they could and fired into the cluster of Vietnamese men chasing our rear.

The metal beasts drove forward, crushing anyone who got in their way, but they too were being submerged by the never-ending human onslaught. Hands clawed at the turret hatches, trying to pry them open so that hand grenades could be thrown into the beasts. Some of the wilder spirits actually fired their bazookas at point-blank range, lighting up the hulls of the tanks as if they would melt on the spot.

I was sure that no one could have survived the attack and I detected the awful sweet smell of searing flesh, as the crews were roasted alive. Memories of my time in Korea came flooding back.

23

But now there was nowhere to run. With the Black River to our rear, we rolled down a steep embankment and into the water. I spotted a small island and we waded towards it with the few remaining troops who had survived the attack.

“This will be where we make our last stand, Monsieur,” opined a Moroccan sergeant to jolly us along.

And that was when the miracle happened. Instead of charging forward and finishing us off as my African friend had predicted, the communists appeared to be satisfied with their new-found victory and disappeared into the night.

As morning came, a heavy silence hung over us. Some of the braver souls ventured back into the water and we followed them into the now-deserted outpost, stripped of all weapons and littered with hundreds of bodies from both sides.

A few days later reinforcements arrived, but by then the enemy had vanished into the caves of the limestone hills. Mind you, the communists returned whenever the mood took them, and the French would hit back. It rapidly developed into a terrible see-saw battle, and it became clear that the French would either have to evacuate or keep irrigating the sector with the blood of its young men.

Naturally what the crazy Frogs decided to do made no difference to me, and all I wanted was to find a way out of the Godforsaken place. I’d considered hitching a ride on one of the boats of the Dinassaut, but when I heard that they were being sunk left, right and centre, I soon put that particular idea back on the shelf where it belonged.

Hopping on to the next aircraft out of there was my first choice, of course, but I’d had the pleasure of seeing communist anti-aircraft guns obliterate half a dozen planes, some still sitting on the airfield before they’d even had a chance to take off.

Heavy fighting continued for several weeks and some of the Foreign Legionnaires had been forced to resort to savage hand-to-hand combat. I, of course, did what any selfrespecting coward would do and sheltered in bed in the centre of Hoa-binh with the gorgeous Brigitte for company.

I had the devil of a time concentrating on the job in hand. Even in our most intimate moments I found myself keeping one ear cocked, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when shots could be heard outside. If things continue like this for much longer, I thought, my pretty nurse could well find herself being pleasured by a man sporting a shock of grey hair accompanied by a twitch.

One of the French commanders must have finally woken up and grown a handful of brain cells, because hundreds of soldiers were ordered to clear away the undergrowth from both sides of Road No. 6.

Even then it took eleven days before a convoy from the Red delta got through with our much-needed supplies, in spite of throwing twelve battalions into the fray, together with artillery and air support.

In the meantime Marshal Casson was busy dying of cancer in Paris, and his successor, General Salan, mercifully decided to evacuate the whole area around Hoa-Binh. ‘Operation Amaranth’ was to involve a sort of leap-frog withdrawal, where the rearguard would cover the escape of the rest.

24

Well, you can guess which particular role I volunteered for, and for once I had the perfect excuse. As I pointed out to the commander who handed me a firearm, expecting me to play a part in the whole sorry business, I wasn’t French. Besides, I had the safety of the lovely Brigitte to attend to. Technically she’d been a passenger on my flight into the war-torn area and therefore she was under my care, so to speak. I doubt whether my pleas cut the mustard with the battle-hardened officer, but I’d skulked off before he could think of a reply.

The lovely Brigitte and I hopped aboard one of the host of landing craft ferrying all manner of equipment and food across the Black River. We’d headed off at first light, under a constant umbrella of artillery and fighter-bombers, and I’m happy to say that the enemy must have been taken by surprise. Any fighting didn’t break out until a couple of hours later, and by then it was well to our rear. There were huge losses on both sides, but the most important objective had been achieved – I got out of the blasted place unharmed.

Once we’d crossed the fortified delta line at Xuan-Mai, we could finally relax. Brigitte made herself useful and tended to the wounded being borne out, while I passed the time with a sergeant who had seen it all before.

“Do you know what Hoa-Binh means in Vietnamese?” he asked by way of conversation.

“No,” I replied, too tired to care, but when he finally gave me his answer I found that all I could do was stare.

“Peace.”

25

Churchill’s tears I’d barely finished patting myself on the back for escaping in one piece, when H Biggins esquire turned up at the airbase to pollute the air.

“I heard you got mixed up in that little fracas over at Hoa-Binh,” he said cheerily, which only made me want to punch him in the mouth and knock out his two front teeth.

“Yes that’s right, Biggins, and the last thing I need is for you to send me off on some other chore so I can get my head blown off.”

“My, we’re very touchy, aren’t we? It’s not my fault you went chasing after a bit of French skirt and ended up in the rough. Anyway, the PM was hoping you might be able to help him out with a little problem.”

“My God, Biggins, I’ve barely been back long enough to take a tomtit and you expect me to head off and risk my life for King and Country.”

We’d got a new prime minister by then, of course - or should I say an old one, since he’d taken the reins before. I tried to picture him, puffing away on his ghastly cigars and happy to have his fat arse parked squarely in his seat at Number 10, in spite of being in his eighties by then. Mind you, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom out what good old Winston was doing poking his nose into the Frogs’ colonial spat. There was certainly no love lost between him and our old allies from across the Channel.

“You’re not here on holiday, Fletcher. You may think it’s okay to pick up the government cheque while you gallivant off, chasing after the first bit of crumpet you can find, but I assure you that’s not what you’re being paid for.”

“Why does the PM want to help the French?” I asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

“You know, to be perfectly honest I think it’s all down to guilt.”

“What the devil are you talking about? What on earth has Churchill got to feel guilty about?”

“Think back to the start of the war, Fletcher, when our backs were against the wall and everyone was scared stiff the Krauts were about to invade.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Biggins. I haven’t the foggiest what you’re getting at.”

“When France was occupied, where was the French Navy?”

It was then that the penny finally dropped. Churchill had been worried sick the Nazis would get hold of the French ships hiding out in Dakar and he’d given the Frogs an ultimatum. Either they joined the British, or the Royal Navy would blow their ships out of the water.

Well, the French refused and Winston pulled the trigger, so to speak. Over a thousand French sailors died on that July day in 1940, and from that moment on many senior men in the French Navy considered that France was at war with Britain. The French Air Force even bombed our base in Gibraltar, the snail-chomping blighters. A fine state of affairs, you’ll allow - especially when we’d done our level best to keep the Hun out of their country.

I’d heard tell that when he informed Parliament what he had done, Churchill burst into tears. But he needn’t have fretted – the government supported him wholeheartedly. The last 26

thing anybody wanted was the damned Nazis getting hold of more hardware with which to batter us.

Anyway, I may well have enjoyed a trip down memory lane as much as the next chap, but I still couldn’t see what all this had to do with my present predicament and I said so.

Biggins was happy to enlighten me.

“The PM’s been having talks with Plevel, and the French minister had the bad manners to remind Winston of the tragic death of all those French sailors. Nothing to do with the present mess in Indochina, of course, but it clearly had the desired effect the minister intended because the PM has offered our services.”

Of all the ridiculous things I’d ever heard, this took the biscuit. What difference Churchill thought the two of us could make was beyond me. I was about to say as much to Biggins, but he must have read my thoughts - as his next words bore out.

“I expect it’s just a token gesture, but there you are,” he said helpfully.

“What does he have in mind?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“For the moment you’ll just be helping the French to transport supplies and the like. As you can imagine, they need as many pilots as they can get.”

“For the moment? What else could he be thinking of?”

“Well, the French realise they are going to have to pull out of Vietnam eventually, but I’m sure they’re eager to save face and leave with their heads held high.”

“And?” I asked, not sure where all this was leading.

“And the PM probably explained how we were able to negotiate with the communists in Korea.”

Now my bowels were doing a fine old dance, and the thought that I’d be expected to put my head into the enemy’s jaws was giving me conniptions.

“Well, you can tell Winston that I don’t happen to have a direct line to Ho Chi Minh, so he’s wasting his time if he thinks I’ll be any use on that score.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but I sent a report about our interesting meeting with General Giap and it must have impressed him. Anyway, he wants someone in the field so that he has up-to-date information on how the war’s progressing.”

“Oh God, Henry, I’m not going to fill out reports every five minutes,” I said, looking for any excuse to get out of the uninviting duty.

And that was when Biggins chose to share his wonderful news.

“Don’t worry, Fletcher, you won’t have to – that’ll be my job. I’ll be tagging along to make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

27

Think about their mothers It was out of my hands, of course, and there was nothing to do but play along. I simply had to hope that my betters would soon realise the days of the French colony were numbered and I’d be let off the hook. But knowing their track record as I did, I doubted it.

Besides, the French ruled the skies, at least in Vietnam, and my duty turned out to be not too bad, at least in the beginning. The first few weeks I ended up flying a Morane reconnaissance plane, nicknamed a cricket because of its grass-hopping ability, and all I was expected to do was radio in if I caught any communists out in the open.

Mind you, that was easier said than done, even with the eagle-eyed Biggins in the other seat. You see, the Vietminh could have written a book on the use of camouflage. The regular soldiers were never without their palm-leaf helmets and they invariably carried large wire-mesh disks on their backs, adorned with the precise foliage representative of the terrain through which they happened to be passing. Whether it was a dark green forest, grassland, or the brown of a rice field, Ho Chi Minh’s little band of fanatics always took the time to change their markings like natural-born chameleons.

“I know the bastards are out there somewhere,” cried Biggins in frustration.

I watched him turn various shades of crimson as he became more and more annoyed, while I was just happy to fly out of range of any trigger-happy jungle-dwellers as I admired the spectacular scenery.

I believe it was October when we flew over the charred ruins of Nghia-Lo, where once the French tricolour had proudly flown. The French base in the T’ai hills had been lost in a day and if the Vietminh were able to reach the Black River before the other garrisons could complete their withdrawal, it was odds on that all the French outposts to the north and west would soon be crushed without hope.

The French High Command concluded what was needed was a sacrificial lamb - and it came in the shape of a battalion that would perform a rearguard action and draw most of the enemy fire on itself, giving time for the larger and slower units to fall back to the Black River.

Hanoi decided the lucky few to receive the honour would be the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion under one Major Bigeard. He was a tough son-of-a-bitch who had been taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940 and escaped all the way to French West Africa. Instead of counting himself lucky and sitting out the rest of the war in relative safety, he parachuted into France in ’44 to help create guerrilla units.

All of which wouldn’t have bothered me a jot, if circumstances hadn’t contrived to get me mixed up in the whole debacle. If I’d only known what was to come, I would have probably ditched that little plane in the South China Sea and taken my chances.

I found myself piloting one of the first C-47s to take off from Hanoi and head to NghiaLo with a full load of paratroopers. Biggins tagged along, of course, just to make sure I did my duty for England.

I could tell the prospects for success weren’t good, just by taking a quick look back in the cargo hold. Usually you’ll find regular troops laughing and joking amongst themselves to 28

keep up morale, but instead I was confronted with a line of taut faces and there was nothing but silence. It was clear they knew where they were going and that only a few of them would live to tell the tale. For some reason one memory that stays with me was of a chaplain with a black crucifix hanging above his belly, cradling a portable altar on top of his combat pack.

As we flew over the outpost at Tu-Le, where the men were ordered to jump into the void, I was mighty glad I wasn’t joining them. I looked down to see a scene from the Dark Ages, surrounded only by strands of barbed-wire and a handful of trenches. The name of the outpost had been laid out on the ground using huge flagstones, and a muddy track led to a nearby village which housed the local Meo tribe. If the powers-that-be had deliberately gone out looking for somewhere to serve as a trap for the men to make a last stand, they couldn’t have picked a better spot than Tu-Le. My troubles started a couple of days later when, as is often the case in the upper Tonking region, the sky was covered in a dense layer of cloud which prevented French planes from operating. Of course it didn’t stop Biggins, and as soon as he saw what he recognised as a miniscule break in the clouds, he had us up in our little reconnaissance plane so we could take a look-see at how the French were faring. As usual, he was desperate to send off one of his precious reports back to London.

The enemy attack on Tu-Le had begun already with a heavy barrage of mortar fire.

Biggins had me flying so low, we could actually see the enemy charges being beaten off, as Bigeard’s men held their own behind the barbed-wire. As I flew over the battle, I even saw one or two French faces look up at us expectantly, fervently hoping for the air support that would never arrive. Due to the tightly packed cumulus clouds, they were on their own.

“We have wounded. We cannot leave them behind. Think about their mothers.”

The desperate plea came over the radio and startled Biggins, causing him to drop his map, but we didn’t reply. Besides, there was nothing we could do and we didn’t want to get their hopes up. As far as I could see, they would have to carry their fallen comrades out of there the old-fashioned way, on stretchers - and I said so.

“They’ll do it too,” said Biggins softly. “They’re an elite force and the Vietminh would torture any victims left behind.”

So, on that cheery note I pointed our plane at the next line of hills - and that was when the unthinkable happened. The single engine started to splutter and, in the few seconds I had to check the gauges, I couldn’t see what the devil was wrong. We looked down to see the jungle canopy staring back, mocking us. We began to lose height almost immediately and all I could do was to try and stave off the inevitable as long as possible.

“Tighten your belt, Henry, we’re going down!” I yelled, and he did as he was told before reaching for the radio.

“Mayday … Mayday …”

But it was too late. The wheels of the undercarriage hit the trees and our world collapsed around us. The impact must have flipped us over, and the next thing I remember is the branch of a tree deciding to join us in the cockpit as we hung, suspended from our seats by our straps.

29

When we’d finally recovered from the shock of finding ourselves in a makeshift treehouse, we looked across at one another to make an amazing discovery. Apart from a few minor lacerations caused by flying glass, we were both completely unharmed. Of course there was the small matter of getting down on to the ground before the plane decided to abandon its precarious perch, but by gingerly unstrapping ourselves and slowly working our way from one foothold to the next, we both made it down safely.

The natural relief we’d felt at having survived a plane crash, which by rights should have meant a one-way ticket to Elysium, was soon replaced by full-blown terror when we realised we were in the heart of enemy territory and totally alone. Terror soon turned to panic when we heard voices approaching and we quickly dived for cover. The problem was that the plane sitting up in the trees rather gave away our hiding place.

We looked at one another and then at our pathetic revolvers. Biggins had his slung on a belt across his chest as if he was Pancho Villa, while mine hung between my legs, sheltering my favourite anatomical appendage from stray bullets.

As if we were destined to experience the full gamut of emotions in the space of a few minutes, panic turned to relief when we spotted that our new visitors were speaking French.

Even so, we thought it advisable not to jump to our feet and sing the Marseillaise unannounced. The last thing we wanted was some trigger-happy Frog spraying us with machine-gun fire – it would have totally spoiled our day.

The look on the hapless sergeant’s face was a picture, as he entered the clearing to be met by two pale Englishmen, sitting on the jungle floor as if they’d decided to pop out for a picnic.

“Mon Dieu! Who the devil are you?” he exclaimed.

“Pleased to meet you, dear chap,” I replied, offering him my hand. “We’re with British Intelligence.”

30

Hell on Earth Once we’d exchanged pleasantries we soon learned that our new callers were not the rescue party we’d optimistically been hoping for, but a detachment sent by Bigeard from Tu-Le to see if the coast was clear for a general withdrawal. The good news was that the Vietminh had seen fit to pull back, and our saviours had already radioed to the main force that they’d had no contact with the enemy.

Any hopes we’d had that our good luck was going to hold out were soon dashed, when we heard the rest of the battalion come under heavy fire as they made their way to our position. Apparently, when Bigeard’s paratroopers abandoned their machine-gun emplacements, Giap’s men waited until the French soldiers were strung out along the jungle path and cut the colonists to pieces at their leisure.

Eventually the main force caught up with us, but their survival had come at a great cost.

Bigeard had been forced to sacrifice two rearguard companies to save the remainder of the battalion and they were completely wiped out.

There was nothing for it but to race to the Black River, and we were forced to cut our way through miles of jungle paths, with its hellishly thick elephant grass. We were harassed by the communists every step of the way, what with some of the oafs leaving a trail of empty cigarette packs and ration tins a moron could have followed.

Naturally I was scared witless for every waking minute. Biggins and I had been furnished with a couple of machine-guns and I just tried to keep to the heart of what was left of the battalion, jumping out of my skin whenever I saw anything that looked remotely like a Vietminh soldier peering through the undergrowth.

By the second day we were exhausted and some of the unluckier men suffered from malaria. But somehow we finally made it to what I prayed was safety, together with the leeches that had chosen to latch on to various parts of my anatomy.

Over half of the battalion had either died or remained at Tu-Le, like the priest I’d seen on the plane all those days ago. Years later, he described how the communists left the wounded to be eaten by rats and vultures as they lay amongst the dead. He said he’d always believed in hell – he’d just never realised it existed on Earth before that day. Of the one hundred or so taken prisoner, only four survived to be liberated two years later.

As we reached the hill-post overlooking the Black River, I’d naively thought we were finally safe. But I discovered that Muong-Chen was held by less than a hundred T’ai irregulars, under the command of a French master sergeant by the name of Peyrol.

The pathetic little camp looked woefully ill-prepared for the communist onslaught it was about to receive. There was one pathetic bunker made out of logs and three small barracks, one of which was unfinished. Lacking sufficient quantities of barbed-wire, Peyrol and his men had tried to do their best with what was at hand and they’d constructed bamboo fences.

So imagine my shock and disbelief when I heard Bigeard issue his order to the poor unsuspecting sergeant.

“Look here, Peyrol. I’ve got five hundred paratroopers with me. We’ve got to hold out in the mountain areas until reinforcements can be made available for the Black River line. The 31

Viets are about an hour behind us and we need an additional three hours. You’re going to give us those hours. It’s your two platoons against our battalion and the other garrisons in the T’ai country. You’ve got to last for three hours at least - then we can make it.”

Peyrol gulped. He had only eighty men and he knew they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Bien, mon Commandant,” was all he said.

“Thank you,” said Bigeard, “I knew you fellows wouldn’t fail me.”

And that was that. A few words spoken - and Peyrol and his men had been condemned to an early grave. I just thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t going to join them – and that was when Biggins messed everything up once again.

The paratroopers, who’d been resting on the ground with their packs still strapped firmly to their tired backs, were given the order to continue their retreat not long after Peyrol had received his delightful news. I was up and ready, eager to be off before the damn communists made an appearance. That was when I began to look around for Biggins, and the blasted idiot was nowhere to be found.

I was running around like a headless chicken, calling his name until I was blue in the face. It must have gone six o’clock when the last of the paratroopers disappeared, and I stood there like a man demented, desperately trying to decide what to do.

What did the oaf think he was doing? Had he slipped away before everyone else? That wasn’t like him at all, and I couldn’t fathom what had happened. Oh well, bugger him, I thought, I’m not his baby-sitter. So, having completed my careful deliberation, I decided he could fend for himself and I began to make my way in the direction of the recently departed paratroopers.

“Tom, are you there?”

At first I thought I’d just imagined it but, as I stood there and strained my ears, I heard it again.

“Tom?” For a moment I was at a loss, as I tried to identify from which direction the disembodied voice was emanating.

“Tom! Please!”

There it was again, but this time it was tinged with the sound of desperation. Eventually I picked out the general area from where my name was being screamed in vain, and I made my way to the offending trench. As I tentatively peered over the edge, I was suddenly presented with one of the most pathetic sights it has been my misfortune to witness. There was Biggins, lying flat on his back in the mud and clutching his ankle.

“Ah, there you are, Tom. It seems I’ve had a little mishap. I obviously wasn’t watching where I was going and I fell into this trench.”

“For God’s sake, Biggins, what have you been doing all this time?”

“I must have passed out for a moment or two.”

“Get out of there!” I screamed, desperate to be away before it was too late.

“I’m afraid I might need a little help,” he said weakly, no doubt trying to get some sympathy.

32

He was on a losing wicket there, but I jumped into the trench and I’d almost got him to his feet when my own legs gave way in the slippy mud, and I fell flat on my face. If the T’ai soldiers had been able to see us, no doubt they would have concluded they’d been joined by the Keystone Cops.

I resisted the temptation to bury the buffoon where he lay and eventually we managed to clamber out. We sat there, trying to catch our breath, and that was when I heard those terrifying Vietnamese screams for a second time.

“Tien-len! Tien-len!”

33

Wish your daughter a happy birthday Peyrol had sent patrols to act as lookouts, but they must have been blind if you ask me.

Mortar shells were already raining down on our position, so the Red devils must have been within firing range.

I watched in blind terror as the Vietminh soldiers quickly blew up the pathetic wire and bamboo perimeter. Within a matter of minutes they had killed the entire BAR team, set up to defend the southern end of the camp. Mind you, they lost scores of men in the attack, but the next ‘human-wave’ simply jumped over their dead or dying comrades.

When the unfinished blockhouse was taken, I’d convinced myself that was it – we were all doomed. Biggins and I dragged our mud-splattered bodies to the log bunker and while the oaf helped himself to a rifle, I clung on to my machine-gun for dear life. Biggins was eager to show off his sniper skills that he’d honed during the war and he was picking off his targets with gusto. Needless to say I was keeping my head well down, and I only risked a shot when one of the commie blighters got too close for comfort.

When I eventually chanced a look at my watch it had gone ten o’clock, and by some miracle Muong-Chen was still holding out. We’d given Bigeard more than his precious three hours to get away. As I looked around, I quickly decided that the situation was hopeless. All the heavy weapons had run out of ammunition or been destroyed and the garrison was about to be overwhelmed, simply by the sheer weight of enemy bodies falling all around us.

I wanted to cry and no doubt I would have, if Peyrol hadn’t chosen that moment to announce we were going to attempt a break-out. I looked at him as if he was mad but, as terrifying as the prospect was, I decided it beat the idea of being slaughtered in a wooden bunker hands down.

At least our new commander was a wily bird and he ordered that the remaining bunker and reserve ammunition be booby-trapped. On his command we made a run for it, firing our weapons as we went. Biggins somehow even managed to take down a couple of the enemy while he ran, whereas I always preferred to spray bullets indiscriminately on such occasions and hope for the best.

Fortunately I didn’t even have time to be scared, which made a nice change, and before we knew it we’d reached a path in the jungle that Peyrol and his men had recently hacked out of the jungle. Luckily this meant it hadn’t been discovered by our attackers. Our new comrades clearly knew their way around their home from home and, in the pitch black of night, we soon left the Viets behind us.

We didn’t dare stop crawling our way through the jungle until dawn, when Peyrol ordered a halt so that he could take stock of our situation. Apart from me and Biggins, there were two French officers and around forty T’ai tribesmen. Any hopes that we’d escaped the wrath of the communists were soon dashed when two of our men reported that they’d spotted a couple of enemy companies hot on our trail.

So we reluctantly roused our weary bodies and moved on, only to be confronted with a river. With no Mary Overy on the horizon, we began to wade through the muddy water. But 34

it was flowing so fast it was all we could do not to get carted off by the current. Mind you, at least I could swim, which was more than could be said for the French sergeant who had to be helped across by some of his men.3 We left the river to be confronted by a mountain chain which must have been all of eight thousand feet high. I enjoy a good hike in open country as much as the next chap, but climbing through the jungle was treacherous. I looked down in amazement when I saw one of the French officers traipsing through the undergrowth with bare feet that were bleeding and swollen to such an alarming degree, he could no longer get his boots on.

I remember it was the second day that it all very nearly came to a sticky end for our little band of escapees. Somehow our pursuers had managed to work their way in front of us without our knowing and they had patiently set their trap. Without warning, gunshots rang out and several of the tribesmen at the head of our motley group went down before we knew what was happening.

I dived into the dirt, trying to physically bury myself beneath the foliage, but we were completely surrounded and it was clearly hopeless. Only one thing saved us - and it was pure blind luck that it happened when it did.

A stray fighter-bomber hove into view and sprayed the whole area with machine-gun fire.

How he didn’t hit any of our group, I’ll never know. More amazing still, when we slowly stood up to survey the damage, we realised our pursuers had been totally wiped out. We’d lost ten men in the initial gunfight, but the rest of us were mercifully still in one piece. Of course our saviour from the skies hadn’t spotted us, so we were still on our own.

By the third day we’d totally run out of food, but our remaining tribesmen managed to rustle up some corn cobs and manioc roots from somewhere, which at least stopped us from dropping down on the spot from malnutrition.

We ploughed on and reached a spot near Bat-Chien, only one mountain range away from the Black River itself. My heart soared, but my hopes were cruelly dashed when we nearly fell on top of a Vietminh platoon, bivouacking along the path. We swiftly halted, frozen in our tracks, and we had to sit there in silence for over five hours, waiting for the camp to break up before we resumed our endless march.

We stopped a few hours later and I was forced to witness the disgusting site of one of the tribesmen, decimated by hunger and dysentery, unceremoniously drop what was left of his trousers and expose his Roby Douglas to take an Irish shave. I found myself gagging at the sight, but thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t afflicted with the same ailment.

As we climbed the last crest, the tree canopy thinned out and the blue sky brightened.

Our T’ai scout stopped and pointed into the distance.

“Rivière Noire!” he cried.

And there it was. The dark brown, treacherous waters snaked their way through the jungle, and on the other side lay blessed safety. There was a steep descent down to the river - which can be more dangerous than a climb, especially when you can barely walk. But by the end of the afternoon we’d all somehow made it safely to the valley floor, where we were met by one of our band’s fellow tribesmen.

35

“You cannot pass during the daytime. You must go back into the trees. There are many Vietminh patrols along the river. You must stay here until nightfall. I will come back with rice and guide you,” he said.

Peyrol asked his men if they thought he could be trusted and, alarmingly, they said they didn’t know. The Vietminh would have paid a king’s ransom to anyone who handed over French stragglers, and our helpful stranger had been eyeing up our radio with ill-concealed envy. Apparently such a piece of vital equipment would have fetched the highest price of all. If he decided to betray us, they cheerfully assured us, he would be a rich man.

But we were too weak to care and thankfully our helpful tribesman returned at nightfall with a basket of gluey rice. Normally I wouldn’t have touched the ghastly stuff with a barge pole, but we were so hungry we wolfed it down. Mind you, I resisted the temptation to cleanse my palate with muddy river water, to which our tribesmen helped themselves with gusto. The last thing I wanted was to end up in the same boat as my friend with the ringburner.

The tribesman warned us against trying to cross the river that night.

“The French are no longer close to the river and there are Vietminh patrols on the other side. But tomorrow I will know where to cross. I will find you rafts. You cannot swim the river – it is too swift.”

I could have wept with frustration. To be so close to safety and yet unable to reach it was almost too much to bear. But there was nothing we could do, so we resigned ourselves to another damp night on the cold jungle floor.

The next day a Morane reconnaissance plane circled the river. Some of the more foolhardy men ran out into the open, shouting and waving the French flag which they’d carried all the way from Muong-Chen.

The plane swooped down low and the pilot dropped a message canister.

“Saw you,” it read. “Put away that flag and stay out of sight. Will notify buddies opposite you. Bonne chance.”

Good as his word, our native tribesman returned with his makeshift rafts, made out of a hut he’d found near the river bank. We gratefully climbed on board to make the crossing. As we reached the other side, dark shadows emerged from the jungle and fear began to rise up to the back of my throat.

I grabbed my machine-gun, but then we heard the sound of French voices and we were met by a rescue column from Muong-Bu that had been alerted to our arrival by the Morane.

Our nightmare of a chase was finally over. For twelve days we had covered more than two hundred kilometres of treacherous jungle, scaling mountains and swimming rivers.

Some of the men collapsed on the spot, crying like children and unable to walk another step.

As I looked around at our rag-tag bunch of survivors, of which there couldn’t have been more than a dozen from the original eighty or so men, I was preparing to join them. But then Peyrol surprised me by revealing a bottle of champagne he had carried all the way. As I stared across in utter amazement, he went on to explain.

“When Major Bigeard arrived and gave me the order to defend our camp, it was my little girl’s birthday. I had kept this bottle to celebrate the occasion. Will you join me?”

36

I was about to reply, when one of our rescuers interrupted me.

“We thought you and your men were dead, Peyrol. For your gallant rearguard fight at Muong-Chen, Major Bigeard requested citations for you all – to be awarded posthumously, of course.”

We stared back, open-mouthed, and I finally had the chance to reply to the sergeant’s kind invitation.

“I would be honoured to join you, Master Sergeant. Wish your lovely daughter a very happy birthday from me.”

37

Love one’s fellow man So I’d been forced to risk life and limb once again and, as was usually the case when it came to the Godforsaken country of Vietnam, all that sacrifice hadn’t made a blind bit of difference. By November of ’52 the communists had reached the Black River along almost all of its length. The French tried to stop them, of course, and they even organised a strongpoint at Na-San. But when Giap realised that assaulting the fortification would soon become too expensive in men and equipment, he ordered his men to do what they always did in such circumstances - they simply went around it.

All of which meant nothing to me, as long as I wasn’t expected to have any part of it.

We’d eventually been able to get a ride back to the airfield at Haiphong, and fortunately Biggins was so physically spent that even he wasn’t eager to get back into the fray.

The problem was that the French were so desperate for planes, they’d been forced to requisition civilian aircraft. Naturally some of the non-military pilots were none too keen when it came to flying in a war zone, so Biggins kindly offered my services.

I found myself sitting with McGuiness, my old friend from the CIA. We were in the cockpit of a Flying Boxcar with no tail gates, thus giving you the impression that you were sitting in a room with a wall missing, looking out on to an empty sky. When I enquired what had happened to the doors, I was told the French just found them a nuisance. There was a hell of a draught, but it was so blasted hot it was quite a relief.

“We’re over Viet territory,” announced our navigator, which almost had me regurgitating my breakfast à la Francaise.

I tried to tune in the radio to find something to take my mind off my predicament, and I stopped when I heard a British voice reciting a Sunday sermon. He was droning on about the importance of loving one’s fellow man.

“Amen to that,” said McGuinness, pointing to our stash of guns and ammunition in the rear of the plane.

McGuinness sounded a buzzer to warn the crew they had five minutes until we reached the target, and I looked back to see the French riggers preparing the cargo for the drop. They were unfastening the chains which held the load to the bottom of the plane.

“My God, McGuiness, they’re not wearing parachutes,” I cried, as I watched them stand precariously close to the gaping hole at the rear of the plane.

“What’s the point?” he said, shrugging. “If they’re dumb enough to fall out, six tons of guns and ammunition will land right on top of them. Why waste two good parachutes?”

As the cargo left the hold and McGuinness pulled back on the control column to point us nose-up, the vision of the sky through the tail gate was suddenly replaced by that of lush vegetation.

When I returned my attention to the cockpit, I felt a slight tremor coming from the lefthand side of the plane. I gaped across when I realised that several holes had appeared in the wing. McGuiness had spotted them too.

“Damn it, Bernard!” he yelled to the navigator, “get on the horn and tell the fighters we’re taking flak.”

38

He’d given the order as calmly as if he was making a dinner reservation, while I shook like a vicar with his hand in the collection plate. But I’m happy to say we managed to return to base without any further mishap. I’d survived another day in war-torn Indochina and so had McGuinness.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but for one of us our luck was about to run out.

39

Do not make whoopee here Once I was back in Cat-Bi I quickly sought out the lovely Brigitte, and we hitched a ride into Hanoi for some well-earned rest and recuperation. After what I’d been through, I wasn’t going to give Biggins another chance to put your correspondent into harm’s way again, so I did my level best to make myself scarce.

It was dark by the time we made it into the city and Brigitte was looking so ravishing, I could hardly wait to find a hotel. So I made a play for her at the Ladies’ Pagoda beside the Great Lake. I was just starting to make a meal of her neck, when the confounded strumpet started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, quite put out.

“Look,” she said, and she pointed to a poster inside the entrance.

Since her Vietnamese was rather better than mine, I had to ask her to translate.

“You’re breaking the laws of Vietnam,” she said, giggling. “It says: ‘Do not bring your girlfriend into the temple to make whoopee on the premises. This is a holy place.’”

So we adjourned to more comfortable lodgings and were quickly making up for lost time.

It was just the tonic I needed, and all the trauma I’d experienced during the last few frightful weeks seemed to melt into the background.

I was in capital trim, but it was rather spoilt when I awoke a few hours later to find my beautiful Brigitte already up and dressed in her green combat-fatigue uniform. Her hair was in a bun and she looked so prim and proper, you would have never suspected that we’d recently been frolicking from one end of the bedroom to the other.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” I asked innocently, helping myself to a cigarette.

“To see my husband.”

My fag landed in a flower pot clear across the room when I gasped at hearing this sudden piece of unbelievable news. She’d delivered her revelation with such care-free abandon, you’d have thought she was announcing she was off to buy a pint of milk. I knew that Frenchmen swapped their wives and mistresses more often than a Liberal changes sides in parliament, but I was somewhat shocked to discover that their womenfolk were up to the same tricks.

“My God, you’re married? But we…” I cried, pulling the sweat-soaked sheets up around my naked chest as if to illustrate the point.

“You English are all the same – you’re so old-fashioned. I am a grown woman and I fought in the French Resistance during the war. This is no longer a man’s world, Thomas.”

When I finally got over the realisation that I’d unwittingly taken the role of a back-door man, I managed to come up with a response.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but surely you could have told me,” I replied in my defence.

“If the roles were reversed and it was you who were married, would you have told me?

Besides, would it have stopped you taking me to bed?”

Ah, she’d got me there, all right - so I ignored her and tried to get to the bottom of things.

The last thing I wanted was an irate husband turning up out of the blue.

40

“Where is he?” I cried, suddenly aware that I was in querpo.

“Don’t worry, Thomas, he does not know about us. He works in an office in Hanoi. It is all quite amusing, really. I enlisted to be close to him, but while he sits safely behind a desk, I have been sent out to some of our most dangerous outposts.”

“Will I see you again?” I asked, hoping that an unexpected husband wouldn’t put an end to our enjoyable trysts.

“Perhaps.”

And before I could protest, she was gone - leaving me to wonder what moral guidance, if any, was bestowed on France’s fairer sex.

41

Memories of the gas chambers So I was rather left kicking my heels, and I repaired to the hotel bar to sample as much of the local tipple as my weary body could stand. I was about to give the evening up as a bad job and return to my room, when a rather impressive piece sashayed in.

She was a handsome woman and certainly no wallflower, although she was a tad too tall for my tastes. But one has to make the best of one’s circumstances and I quickly decided she warranted further attention. She was impeccably dressed, I’ll say that for her, and she wore an expensive-looking black tulle evening grown.

She walked with the confident assurance of an athlete and she approached the bar to stand a few feet away from me, producing a cigarette while she asked the barman for a light.

I surreptitiously looked across, and, as she leant forward, I couldn’t help but notice something on her forearm which I recognised, because I’d seen it before during my time in Germany. It was a tattoo of a serial number, testifying to the fact that once she must have been acquainted with the inside of a concentration camp.

I guessed she was in her early thirties, or thereabouts, and she had striking grey-blue eyes. However, when the barman reciprocated with a lit match, her smile failed to illuminate her face. It was as if she couldn’t relinquish an inner sadness – memories of the gas chambers imposing themselves, no doubt. She glanced over in my direction and I took my cue.

“Hello. Are you a fellow guest of the hotel?”

“No, I’m supposed to be meeting someone, but they don’t appear to be here.”

“Would you care to have a drink while you’re waiting?”

She looked me up and down and I felt like a piece of meat being eyed up by a disinterested lioness.

“I’m not in the habit of being picked up by strangers,” she said, looking down her nose at me.

“Well, allow me to remedy that straight away. My name is Captain Thomas Fletcher, at your service.”

And with that I held out my hand and tried to give her a disarming smile. She hesitated, but eventually she relented and offered her hand in return.

“I am Marie - Marie Lefebvre. You’re English, aren’t you? What on earth are you doing in Vietnam?”

“I’m in the RAF, actually – on a sort of sabbatical. I’d be happy to tell you all about it over dinner.”

My tall ice-maiden finally relented and I was just starting to feel pleased with myself, when she revealed she had an ulterior motive for her sudden change of heart.

“I am a reporter for the French Information Service,” she announced. “I take it you are one of the mercenaries working for the American airline?”

I said I was, deciding that HMG wouldn’t be too pleased if I was to advertise the Service’s involvement in the war.

“I would be interested to know how you think the war is progressing, Captain.”

42

“Please call me Tom,” I said, desperate to get the proceedings on to a more intimate footing as soon as possible – but she was all business, damn her.

She sucked on her Gauloise Bleue and breathed the smoke out through her nostrils.

“So, Tom, do you think France will be able to make a dignified withdrawal from Vietnam?”

I couldn’t have given a monkey’s left bollock, of course, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be fobbed off, so I tried to think of a diplomatic answer.

“Well, France certainly rules the skies, but I think it’s a rather different state of affairs when it comes to the ground-war.”

“I have accompanied our brave paratroopers into battle,” she said, causing me to look at her with a new-found respect. “Alas, I also followed them back, as they retreated across the hills to the French lines. So although it pains me to say it, I am inclined to agree with you.”

“I have experienced a similar thing myself,” I said carelessly.

“That is most odd,” she said, clearly still wearing her newswoman’s hat. “Why should a pilot be fighting side by side with our troops?”

“Unfortunately I got shot down behind enemy lines.”

“I see,” she said, but it was clear she didn’t believe me.

It was bloody typical. The one time I’d decided to stick to the truth when making a lady’s acquaintance, and she’d convinced herself I was telling a pork pie. No wonder our newspapers are always leading us up the garden path, I thought, with sob sisters like this running the show.

“Are you working on a story now?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“No, but I will be starting a new assignment very soon. Have you heard of ‘la rue sans joie’?”

“The street without joy? What on earth is that when it’s at home?”

“It is the name our soldiers have given to a stretch of Road 1, the main north-south artery along the coast.”

I was used to the black humour of fighting men, of course, but I couldn’t fathom what my fetching hack was talking about and I said so. She proceeded to continue my education.

“Communication along this road has been plagued by communist attacks for years. One convoy after another has been ambushed by a Vietminh regiment infiltrated behind our lines. The source of the threat appears to come from a group of heavily fortified villages along a line of sand dunes and salt marshes stretching from Hue to Quang-Tri.” “I hope you aren’t beginning your assignment right this minute – I was hoping we would be able to get to know one another rather better,” I said, and I attempted to thaw her icypersona with a warm smile. But she was having none of it.

“The French High Command has assembled a formidable force in the area and they intend to eliminate the threat once and for all. So unfortunately I will be leaving for Hue in the morning.”

“Oh,” I said, quickly losing interest. It was then that she suddenly grabbed my full attention.

“Would you care to join me, perhaps?” she said out of the blue.

43

She was staring at me intently, and from her expressionless features I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.

“Well, that’s very tempting, Marie, but what would be my … role in such a venture?”

“Operation Camargue will represent one of the most ambitious assaults since World War Two and I would be interested to have your perspective on the action. Also, as you suggested, we could get … better acquainted?”

The little hussy licked her lips as if to emphasise her point.

Knowing my weakness, you will no doubt have expected me to be salivating on the spot and packing my bags to join my new friend from the journalistic fraternity on her latest assignment. But I’m afraid I must disappoint you. Memories of my enforced duty as part of the landing at Inchon in Korea were still painfully fresh in my mind - and here was more of the same, unless I was very much mistaken. I didn’t care how wonderful it felt, as my pretty temptress reached out and caressed my hand, I wanted no part in the whole business.

I did my damnedest to get my seductress back to my room, of course, but when it was clear I wasn’t going to join her on the Appian Way, she evidently felt snubbed.

If I’d known that Biggins was about to embroil me in the whole mess anyway, I might have taken her up on her suggestion and tagged along, hiding under her skirts.

I was soon to learn first-hand how ‘ la rue sans joie’ had earned its name.

44

A bottle of brandy for company I resigned myself to the unhappy prospect of returning to my empty hotel room, but the truth turned out to be even worse. You see, my hapless colleague had finally ferreted me out, and his smug face provided a portent of what was to come - as I discovered presently.

“Fletcher, you didn’t actually think you could hide away forever, did you?” he said by way of welcome.

“Make yourself at home, Biggins,” I replied, noticing he’d helped himself to a glass of brandy from my personal stash.

“I don’t mind if I do,” said the blasted clever clogs, knocking back another generous measure.

“How did you find me, anyway?” I asked.

“It wasn’t difficult,” said the confounded oaf. “Mademoiselle Leblanc left word with her superiors of where she could be contacted. Then again, she is a dedicated professional – a concept which unfortunately is all too foreign to you.”

“It’s actually Madam Leblanc,” I explained, sharing the news my nurse had recently laid at my door.

This latest revelation had the effect of wiping the smile off Biggins’ fat face.

“My God, you mean she’s married?”

“Don’t get your long-johns in a twist, Biggins.”

“I expect that’s why I saw you in the hotel bar earlier on, inflicting your presence on that elegant woman.”

“What’s so damned important that you had to drag your arse away from your desk and come looking for me in Hanoi?” I asked, deciding to change tack.

“The French are about to launch an amphibious assault to secure one of the main routes through the country,” he explained, telling me what I already knew.

“We’re not here to get involved in any fighting, Biggins. We’re intelligence operatives, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Don’t worry, Fletcher, we’re only being called upon to help with the mopping-up operation.”

“What does that involve exactly?” I asked sceptically.

“There are a number of villages in the area and although the inhabitants are considered ‘friendly’, most of the young men will be arrested. The brass at the French High Command want them to be screened by intelligence officers. We’ve been ordered to lend a hand.”

I still didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a lot I could do. As it turned out, Biggins was as good as his word and the French had amassed an impressive landing force. That’s not to say it was going to be plain sailing.

The coast itself didn’t present a problem, being covered with firm beaches, but then there were the dunes - and I’m not talking about the home-grown variety where you can trot up and down with your bucket and spade. No, these were up to sixty feet high in places and you could be up to your hips in loose sand before you knew it.

45

If you managed to get past those particular obstacles, you were confronted by an area littered with small pagodas and temples that offered excellent protection to any defenders.

And of course there were the swamps and quicksand bogs, just waiting for a tank or an armoured vehicle to sink into them.

Then there were the villages themselves. They were surrounded by so many bushes and bamboo trees that they were virtually impervious to aerial surveillance. More often than not they hid a maze of trenches and tunnels which no amount of brute force would be able to penetrate if the enemy chose to hide there. But the settlements were officially friendly, so the troops weren’t allowed to set them on fire – which made things damned inconvenient if you asked me.

As luck would have it I needn’t have worried – at least at the outset. The crabs and alligators landed on the beaches and occupied the first hill overlooking the dunes without incident. Some of the more heavily loaded vehicles got bogged down in the sand, but once they’d been relieved of their deadly cargo it was all go, and soon the ‘street without joy’ was sealed off to the north.

Before we were forced to play our gallant part, each village was surrounded by heavily armed infantry. They moved in and searched the houses, while bloodhound teams and men with mine-detectors probed the area for underground supplies, as the villagers looked on in silence.

Of far greater importance was the fact that I managed to corner the enigmatic Mademoiselle Lefebvre and invite her to my tent for evening cocktails. Being a reporter and a woman, it took an hour or two before I could get her to shut up and stop her asking inane questions. But I have to admit it was worth the wait, and I was happy to give her my whole blasted life story if it meant I could divest her of the latest Paris fashion she insisted on wearing, even in a war zone.

Mind you, persuading my chain-smoking hack to dispense with her nicotine sticks was another matter entirely. It was rather disconcerting when, as I was giving of my best, I looked down to see her puffing away on a confounded Gauloise. Not that I let it put me off my stride, you understand, and I took great pleasure in the fact that while my French brothers were busy being shot at by the Vietminh, I was camping safe and sound in fine style.

If I’d only known that my little indiscretions were to come back and haunt me, as I satisfied her journalistic curiosity as well as some of her baser needs, I might have sent her packing and simply huddled up in my sleeping bag with a bottle of brandy for company. As it was, my pretty news-merchant nearly cost me my life.

The next day Biggins and I found a quiet corner where we could interrogate any young men foolish enough to still be loitering in the village. But my Vietnamese was so poor, they could have been telling me Ho Chi Minh was hiding under the floorboards and I would have been none the wiser.

As we were leaving, the sound of a bazooka being fired cut through the quiet of the jungle, and I hit the ground. Clearly the village wasn’t quite as deserted as we’d been led to believe. Gradually it dawned on me that the place I had chosen as a makeshift sanctuary was 46

a grave-mound. I dare say I might have found the irony of it amusing, if I hadn’t been so scared – with the result that I was a likely candidate for the brown trouser brigade at the time.

It was a blessed relief when the howitzers finally got the range of their target and the village literally began to disintegrate before our eyes. One by one, the rice thatch of the huts began to catch fire, and suddenly an almighty explosion shook the ground around us, leaving a pillar of dense black smoke rising from the centre of the village.

“The shells must have hit an underground depot,” said Biggins, as calmly as if he was watching a cricket match on a Sunday morning and commenting on the state of play.

“We’re moving out,” ordered the commander. “And watch where you’re putting your feet,” he added as an afterthought. “There’s no sense in ruining the rice crop.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Sod the bloody rice crop, I thought – it’s the blasted mines ready to throw my legs to the four winds that I’m worried about.

When Biggins and I finally resumed our interrogation of the prisoners, the commander wasn’t pleased when we told him what we’d discovered. The Vietminh regiment that had attacked us had been sacrificed to give the bulk of the enemy unit time to withdraw to the marshy delta - and the ruse had worked.

Our predicament was still precarious and it was with some relief that I learned we were to be reinforced by a battalion of paratroopers. Aircraft flew over our position and we looked up into the skies to see if we could spot the welcome sight of parachutes. There was a gale force wind working its way through the valley and an infantryman standing next to me piped up.

“Hell, they can’t let the fellows jump into this crap,” he opined. “They’ll be blown all over the place.”

At first I wondered what the blithering idiot was talking about because I’d seen our own chaps jump out into far worse. But then I realised that these were Vietnamese troops, and apparently the parachutes proved far too big for our more diminutive allies. In fact our oriental colleagues only amounted to half the weight of their European counterparts.

This meant that they ended up floating in the air for much longer, making tempting targets for the enemy. But, for one poor chap, being suspended in the air unnecessarily wasn’t the problem. When his parachute failed to open, he smashed vertically into a dune, kicking up a cloud of sand as if he was an artillery shell. The rest were caught by a strong wind about a hundred feet from the ground. It was as if a divine hand had decided to swipe them aside and they sped off almost horizontally.

Two of the unluckier arrivals were strangled to death by their own parachutes, as a fierce blast of air wrapped the lines around their necks. We even heard stories of some of the Vietnamese paratroopers being dragged nearly two miles along the ground before they could extricate themselves from their runaway chutes.

The equipment didn’t fare any better. While some items landed in the sea, never to be seen again, many ended up behind enemy lines and into the eager arms of Vietminh soldiers.

47

In spite of everything, the French began to boast that Operation Carmague had been a success, and that ‘the street without joy’ had been all but cut off.

I wasn’t so sure. For the trap to work it would have to be watertight. And if I was any judge, it was all set to leak like a sieve.

48

My other name is Ho Chi Minh That night whatever shooting I witnessed came from our men firing at shadows.

Occasionally a French flare would light up the area with an eerie green light, or a tank headlight would probe the night, seeking out suspicious noises. But time and again nothing was found. The trap had been set, but when it was opened to discover the contents, it was empty.

I was thankful not to be among the hundreds of infantrymen forced to head out with their mine-detectors, or those downtrodden souls who were expected to thump the ground with their rifle butts in search of suspicious-looking corners. Every now and then one of them would scream out in pain, and they would be hauled out of the water, only to discover that one of their feet had been pierced by a caltrap.

As you know I have a gift for languages, and as my Vietnamese steadily improved I began to chat with some of the hapless civilians caught up in the whole mess. One of them cried as he pointed to his rice crop. It was the fruit of months of back-breaking work and now he could only watch as, in the space of less than a few seconds, it was ploughed up by one of our armoured vehicles.

Be that as it may, my sympathy for the agrarian concerns of the local populace was destined to be short-lived. Just when it looked as though we would escape the whole mess, things were about to take a turn for the worse. And it was all down to that interfering busybody of a reporter, Mademoiselle Marie Lefebvre.

You see, she’d managed to worm her way through the communist lines and had secured an interview with the communist commander - and all for her pathetic little rag.

The trouble was that as well as being a damned nosey-parker, she turned out to be rather loose-lipped into the bargain. The upshot of all this reckless indiscretion was that during her little jaunt to chat with the enemy, she’d been damned free and easy with the private affairs of one Captain Fletcher of His … no, Her Majesty’s Secret Service. My God, I thought idly, I’ve missed the blasted coronation.

As the French forces began to pull out, a couple of Vietnamese soldiers approached the three of us. Being dressed in the uniform of our southern allies, we thought nothing of it, but there was something about their manner which had the hairs on the back of my neck tingling against my damp collar.

“You Captain Fletcher?” snapped one of the grim-looking individuals.

I was just about to tell him to mind his own business, when he drew an automatic pistol from his pocket and his partner-in-crime did the same. Biggins reached for his revolver, only to have the barrel of the first man’s weapon thrust under his chin.

“I blow your head off unless you do as you are told,” he whispered through gritted teeth, suddenly aware of a handful of Legionnaires only a few yards away from where we stood.

“What’s the meaning of this ...?” I began, only to be rudely interrupted by having the other man’s sidearm pressed against my stomach.

“You will come with us. If you refuse, we will kill you … starting with the lady.”

49

No doubt they were counting on our sense of gallantry to ensure our compliance, but they were barking up the wrong tree - at least as far as I was concerned.

‘Shoot the damn trollop for all I care,’ were the words that immediately sprang to mind, but one look at the faces of our abductors told you they wouldn’t have wasted any time turning their guns on all and sundry, even if it meant certain death.

That’s the trouble with these damn fanatics. Sensible folk like you and me don’t stand a chance against people like them - especially when your back’s against the wall.

We were quickly bundled off to a truck, the rear of which was covered with a tarpaulin, hiding us from view as we were driven away. The lorry drew to a halt once or twice and while we strained to hear muffled French voices exchanging pleasantries outside, our kidnappers kept their weapons firmly trained on the three of us.

We must have spent at least two hours being thrown around the back of our new home, and all the while I was scared witless that one of our assailants would accidently twitch his trigger-finger and blow my brains out. To top it all, by journey’s end my back hurt damnably.

When we were finally invited to leave our uncomfortable transport and we emerged into bright sunshine, it soon became clear that our traitorous friends had managed to break through the French lines, such as they were, and we found ourselves in communist-held territory.

We were surrounded by Vietminh soldiers and led away to a bamboo hut in the centre of a rather large village, before being ordered to sit on the floor. Four guards armed with rifles stood over us, and a man who I took to be an officer waited by the door, watching our every move.

Biggins had his legs folded beneath him, being surprisingly supple for a big chap, while Marie attempted to maintain her lady-like dignity by leaning on one arm and tucking her shapely pins together at the side. Being neither lithe nor lady-like, I simply lay spreadeagled, revealing my crotch for all to see.

A few moments later there was a commotion at the door, and I sat up to see what wonderful surprise awaited us. Two more guards had entered the room, together with another officer, but it was the figure lurking behind that somehow demanded my attention.

Compared to the soldiers that surrounded him, the man was thin and frail, with a shock of greying hair and an angular, almost gaunt face. He had one of those oriental moustaches, thin and wispy, that drooped down on either side of his mouth. It was complemented by a goatee suspended under his chin.

He was wearing a matching tunic and trousers and his round spectacles gave him the appearance of a schoolteacher who had no business being in the middle of a war zone. But it was his piercing black eyes that marked him out as a man apart. They betrayed a steely resolve and, when he finally spoke, his calm and confident manner only added to the sense of authority his whole demeanour exuded.

“Good afternoon,” he began in fluent French. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nguyen Ai Quoc, but you might know me by another name – Ho Chi Minh.”

50

51

An assistant pastry cook Everyone knows the name today, of course, and the good people of Vietnam have even seen fit to name a city after him. But back then, before the war with the Americans, it wasn’t so. But just by his stance and the way his men deferred to him, I knew I was in the presence of an oriental Nestor.

“Might I ask which one of you gentlemen is Captain Fletcher?” he asked.

“That would be me,” I replied, trying to sit up with as much dignity as my situation would allow. I raised my hand, feeling like a naughty youngster.

“Please, let us talk,” he said, and he pointed to the door, indicating that he would like me to join him outside.

I looked across at my companions and Biggins merely shrugged, while Marie couldn’t hide her frustration at being denied an audience with one of the most powerful men in Vietnam.

“I understand you are a well-travelled man,” said the communist leader in fluent English, and I was about to list the countries I had visited, but he didn’t wait for a reply.

“I too have always possessed a wanderlust - I inherited it from my father, I believe. I have lived in India, France, America, and I even worked in the kitchens of the Carlton Hotel in London. Are you familiar with it by any chance?”

I told him I wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed or not, because his face failed to display any emotion. We walked through the village, surrounded by his bodyguards, and he stopped to stare into the distance before he spoke again.

“Hmm, a pity. The chef was well renowned, you know. I take some pride in the fact that he made me his assistant pastry cook. Of course I realise such a position does not compare to that of a pilot in Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force, or indeed the British Secret Intelligence Service.”

I’m afraid to admit that for once I was rather at a loss for words. You see, aside from the fact that I couldn’t hide my amazement at how well informed my host was, I’ll freely admit that the last thing I’d expected was a stroll through the countryside while we exchanged curricular vitae.

“Naturally my time in London gave me the opportunity to improve my English and I was able to meet many interesting people – including a number of Irish Nationalists. How do you stand with regard to their cause, Captain?”

Talk about flitting from one blasted subject to another, I thought. My head was starting to ache, but I tried to choose my words carefully.

“I’m afraid I’m not a politician, sir, and it’s not for me to say. I’m just a humble airman and I go where they send me.”

“A tactful answer, Captain, but allow me to press you on this point,” he said, clearly having got to the gist of our meeting. “The people of Ireland sought independence from Great Britain for many years and have been granted that right – as have many of your former colonies. All we in Vietnam ask is to be given the same consideration.”

“Well, sir, if I may say – isn’t that a matter between you and the French?”

52

“If only it were that simple,” said my kidnapper, sighing deeply. “Unfortunately the Americans have ignored my pleas and offer economic support to the French.”

“Yes, our friends across the Channel do seem rather keen to hang on to their possessions overseas - and the Americans are already having their own problems with the Chinese in Korea, as you know,” I said, trying to be diplomatic and keep my beloved country out of it but my efforts were wasted.

“Unfortunately the British have also revealed where their misguided loyalties lie.”

I didn’t understand what he was getting at, but then he went on to explain - and nearly frightened the life out of me into the bargain.

“I believe you have already had the pleasure of meeting one of my most trusted officers General Giap?”

“Well, er …”

“Come now, Captain. You and your associate were caught red-handed attempting to deliver supplies to the French Army. These are hardly the actions of a neutral country – unless you and Mr. Biggins were acting on your own initiative, that is.”

“But …”

I was about to explain how I’d been tricked by the seductive Claudine so that she could get her revenge on the unsuspecting Marshal Casson, but he cut me short.

“Captain, do not insult my intelligence by trying to deny your involvement in this conflict. The part you played in the struggle at Ninh Binh was not an isolated incident. We have been aware of your contribution to the French war effort for some time now.”

The sun still blazed away, causing sweat to run down my back, and I suddenly realised my mouth was as dry as sandpaper. Not that I could think of anything to say, so I just stood there, hoping that ‘Uncle Ho’ would reveal why we’d been kidnapped and put me out of my misery. Fortunately I didn’t have long to wait.

“Mademoiselle Lefebvre tells me you are personally acquainted with the former President of the United States.”

The sudden change of topic left me rather on the hop. So much for journalistic integrity, I thought. Clearly my little news-hound was as much of a rattle-bladder as the doublecrossing Claudine, and she’d been shouting from the rooftops about my friends in high places - thereby confirming what Giap had been told.

“That is quite correct, sir,” I replied, deciding that being known as a personal friend of one of the most powerful men in the world wouldn’t hurt.

“I see,” was all he said, and his dark eyes bore into me until I felt like digging a hole in the ground and crawling into it. Eventually he broke the silence.

“I have likened the conflict between my people and the French to that of a fight between an elephant and a grasshopper,” he said.

I was feeling so confused, standing there in the searing heat, that I was in danger of fainting on the spot. But he didn’t mind me and continued with his little speech.

“However, I may have been somewhat disingenuous. The French may well be better equipped militarily, but we are more experienced in the art of guerrilla warfare and we know the terrain far better than our European interlopers. In addition, and I believe more 53

importantly, the French can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of theirs - but even at those odds, they will lose and I will win.”

I noticed he wasn’t exactly volunteering his services as one of the ‘ten men’ to be served up like so much cannon-fodder, but I thought it politic to keep my mouth firmly shut. I quietly prayed that my terrible ordeal would soon be over and I’d discover what he had in store for us. At last he got to the heart of the matter, and considering what had happened only two short years before in Korea, I should have seen it coming.

“The French authorities and President Eisenhower need to be aware of the futility in continuing with this pointless struggle. I say this, you understand, not because of any lack of resolve on my part, but only in the hope that the senseless loss of lives, on both sides, can be prevented. I need someone who can convince France and her supporters that further resistance is useless. Can you think of anyone who, with his friends in the American and British governments, might be able to fulfil that role, Captain Fletcher?”

He gave me an enquiring look which made it abundantly clear who he had in mind for the task.

Talk about bloody déjà vu, I thought. I’d been through it all before, of course, when Marshal Peng had wanted someone to convince the Yanks that the game was up in Korea.

It hadn’t worked then and I could see no reason why things would be any different in Vietnam. But you can be sure I wasn’t about to say as much – not with a score of Viet guns pointed in my direction. The last thing I wanted was for my communist friend to think I’d outgrown my usefulness.

So I pretended to look thoughtful while I gave his proposal careful consideration, and grabbed the chance to get out of his demented clutches with both hands.

“Well, I’ll certainly do my best, sir. Fortunately, not only do I have the ear of the former president, but of my prime minister too,” I said, lying though my teeth. “I’m sure that if I’m allowed to put your case to my superiors as soon as possible, the French and Americans will heed your warning.”

It sounded lame, I know, and I’m sure Mr. Ho Chi Minh was looking doubtful - although it was damned hard to tell. But what did he have to lose when all was said and done?

So the communist leader took me at my word and I was led back to the bamboo hut to be reunited with my travel companions. My heart finally stopped hammering against my chest and I actually began to look forward to being reunited with the lovely Marie - hoping that once she learned I was the saviour of the hour, she’d be willing to show her gratitude.

Unfortunately it turned out that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“I’ve persuaded Uncle Ho to release us,” I announced with a flourish, expecting to be covered in kisses and treated to squeals of delight by my thankful reporter.

“Well done, Fletcher,” said Biggins, patting me on the shoulder, and I turned to Mademoiselle Lefebvre to receive my well-deserved laurels.

“Damn it! I thought I was going to be the first French reporter to interview Ho Chi Minh since the conflict began,” she ranted.

She took out another one of her blasted Gauloise sticks and delivered her final word of thanks.

54

“Merde!”

55

The PM’s not interested We were delivered to the French lines by a handful of communist soldiers, before they wisely disappeared into the surrounding jungle without waiting for us to get reunited with our comrades. Once we were safely returned to our airbase outside Haiphong, the only reward I received for my brave and gallant efforts was a quick fumble with my tease of a reporter, before she ran off to write her latest dollop of drivel for her hopeless rag.

Not that I cared. You see, once I’d explained Ho Chi Minh’s proposal to Biggins, I expected to be whisked off to Washington - just as I had back in Korea. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

“I’ve passed on a report about your meeting with the communist leader, Fletcher, but the PM’s not interested,” explained Biggins, spoiling my good mood.

“But what about Eisenhower - he’ll want to know what’s going on in Ho Chi Minh’s mind, surely,” I protested.

“You’re quite right, but that’s as far as it goes. Whitehall has assured me the president will be informed of this recent development, but the PM would rather we both stayed in the field to inform him of any further developments.”

I left Biggins, cursing and turning the air blue. No doubt I would have spent my time crying in my beer, if there hadn’t been a nice surprise waiting for me back in my room.

It came in the shape of my desirable nurse, Brigitte. Mind you, if I’d had an inkling of the trouble she was about to cause me, I would have told her to sling her hook.

You see, the fearless Brigitte had volunteered her services yet again - and she was about to become embroiled in what soon became known to the whole world as the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. It was a French base eight miles from the Laotian border, and it depended for its very survival on supplies and reinforcements brought in by air. Naturally Biggins soon got wind of this wonderful news and was volunteering my services before I’d had time to scratch my arse.

I wanted no part of it, but Biggins believed he had an ace up his sleeve and he hoped that Brigitte’s charms might be enough to tempt me to oblige. In all honesty, I can say that Dien Bien Phu looked like a nice safe prospect back then. French success was assured, apparently - and being the naïve soul that I am, I believed what I was told. Still, that’s what comes from taking generals at their word. How was I to know that I was about to become a part of one of the greatest disasters of the whole conflict in Indochina? If I’d only known, the French were about to face their second Waterloo.

The idea of reoccupying the area around Dien Bien Phu appeared to have taken on a life of its own. Nobody seemed to know why and I began to suspect that the logic for taking over the damn place would turn out to be something of a Tenterton steeple.

The aim was to use it to stop the Vietminh from moving into Laos, but the whole idea seemed ludicrous if you asked me. You see, the new French commander, General Navarre, believed his own intelligence people when they told him the communists wouldn’t be able to transport all the supplies they would need to attack the new base.

56

Unfortunately they’d underestimated my friend, General Giap, who had the whole logistical nightmare well in hand. The French knew full well that he had over fifty thousand coolies at his disposal, but they still couldn’t imagine how his hardworking porters would carry all the rice needed to feed a large force.

If my French colleagues had dug a little deeper, they would have realised that the Vietminh had been operating the Peugot factories since ’51, churning out bicycles by the lorry-load. It might not sound like much to a European army relying on planes and trucks, but with their modest two-wheeled transport, each communist could move hundreds of kilos of rice, rather than the paltry few pounds they’d been able to before.

Not that Dien Bien Phu was any easier for our side to get to. As I said, everything would have to be brought in by air, and it was nearly two hundred miles to the base from Hanoi.

In the meantime I made the most of my time, knowing that nothing could be done until the end of the rainy season in November. That was when the huge lakes of mud caused by the deluge of the previous months were replaced by tolerable puddles, as winter approached.

I have a fond memory of my time in the calm before the storm. If I close my eyes and let my imagination have full rein, I can still see the cyclists swarming through the streets of Hanoi, avoiding the trams criss-crossing the streets of the city.

And then there was the devilishly pretty Vietnamese girl in her purple tunic, who I persuaded to join me for a drink on the shores of the town’s largest lake. We strolled hand in hand under a moonlit sky, until she shocked my delicate soul by dragging me behind a tree to have her wicked way with me. But what can you do?

All too soon the powers-that-be gave the go-ahead for a great armada to take off and deliver the men and equipment that would make up the new base of Dien Bien Phu. Sixty Dakotas had been collected together during the previous three days, and we were ordered to go aloft in groups of three, flanked by B-26 Invaders.

My aircraft was home to twenty-four paratroopers, wearing all the paraphernalia of war as they chewed gum, smoked, and sang songs to pass the time. We must have released over three thousand parachutes that day, and I remember seeing peasants flee in terror towards the villages at the foot of the mountains. I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t one of the unlucky soldiers, suspended by their flimsy ropes before they were unceremoniously delivered to their new home.

One of my unfortunate passengers was a doctor and he was making his first combat jump. I remember thinking he looked as nervous as hell.

“Well, wish me luck,” he said, and one of the sergeants patted him on the back.

A fat lot of good it did because as soon as our terrified medico hit the ground, a bullet struck him squarely in the forehead, thereby putting all of his invaluable medical training out of commission for good.

Back in Hanoi my Dakota was refuelled and we weren’t even allowed to move away from our planes, so snacks and refreshments had to be brought to us. We returned to Dien Bien Phu to deliver a consignment of fakir’s pillows (barbed-wire), while a Flying Boxcar ahead of me delivered a seven-ton bulldozer. When the loaders eventually released it from the rear of the plane, it plunged several feet into the earth.

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Fortunately there was no runway at Dien Bien Phu, so there was no way to land. But the men we’d dropped were working flat out to remedy that, and I nearly had conniptions a few days later when I heard that a small Morane had already managed to land and take off. From the looks of things it wouldn’t be long before the runway would be able to cope with our Dakotas too.

My worst fears were realised when news came through that the engineers had finished a week ahead of schedule. From then on our transport planes were able to land with supplies which were too fragile to be dropped by parachute.

The reason the damn place had become a French obsession was that it was situated right at the heart of the communications route between China, Vietnam and Laos. That was how it looked on the pretty maps and models of the generals, putting their little flags in place as they sat in their warm, dry command centres. The only trouble is, things look a hell of a lot different when you’re standing in the middle of an open space, looking up at jungle-covered slopes and wondering what lurks within.

My first glimpse of Dien Bien Phu from the air hadn’t exactly inspired me with confidence. It lay at the heart of a grey delta a few miles across. It was surrounded by limestone rocks, beyond which were mountains covered in thick jungle vegetation. I’m no military tactician, but even to my untrained eye the hills looked like a mighty tempting place for the Vietminh to hide their big guns - with the result that they could pound away at the new French base to their hearts’ content.

We were assured by Navarre and the Deuxième Bureau that they were well aware the Chinese were providing the Vietminh with artillery, but they insisted there was no way that Giap’s army could get their guns all the way to Dien Bien Phu. On my first visit to the doomed base I took the opportunity to have a good look at my surroundings. I’m sure it wasn’t my place to question the finest military tacticians of the day, but I remember thinking that even a child could see the base was vulnerable. I didn’t care how tough the troops of the Foreign Legion thought they were, they’d be no match for a determined enemy swarming down the hill.

To add to my sense of alarm, the infantry didn’t look as if they were even bothering to dig shelters and trenches. But then again, why should they? Everyone was convinced that the Viets had no artillery anyway. Not that the defenders would have been able to build anything substantial if they’d wanted to. The valley of Dien Bien Phu was nothing but pure mud and to find any stone you’d have had to go ten miles north to the ravines of the Nam Youm, or south to the gorges of the Nam Noua.

Being the consummate coward that I am, I was checking out where the engineers were plying their trade to the best of their ability. As far as I could tell the only places in the whole garrison protected worth a damn were the headquarters command post (well, there’s a surprise), the signal centre, and the X-ray room of the underground ‘hospital’. Not that I had any intention of needing to seek shelter, but in my experience I’ve found you can’t be too careful. As it turned out, my brief reconnoitre was to pay dividends soon enough.

When I look back, I take some pride in my quick assessment of the camp’s defences. No end of high-ranking officers and foreign dignitaries were to visit Dien Bien Phu before 58

everything went arse over tit, and not one of them so much as raised a single concern.

Whereas I knew that if you were going to have any chance of withstanding the enemy’s 105’s, you’d need at least a metre of earth above your precious head.

Unfortunately there was no choice but to continue providing the vital lifeline to the French outpost and keep delivering tents and hob-nailed boots. I suddenly had a terrible feeling of déjà-vu, and it was like Berlin all over again.

As I was forced to fly in yet more reinforcements, I couldn’t help but think I was delivering my passengers to their deaths. As if to add credence to my sense of dread, when I looked in the cargo hold on my very next run, I found what seemed like endless supplies of plasma amongst the guns and cigarettes.

To add to our woes, the technical guiding equipment we had was about as much use as a chastity belt in a whore’s bottom drawer.

As the relentless drizzle soaked the airfield day after day, Biggins told me the top brass were starting to have second thoughts about the whole sorry enterprise, but they’d left it too late and they couldn’t have evacuated their men even if they’d wanted to.

All of which would have meant less than a string of onions to our colonists, if it hadn’t been for a one-time bottle washer and former road-sweep with his tuft of grey hair and fierce gaze. You see, Ho Chi Minh realised that if the base at Dien Bien Phu could be wiped from the face of the earth, the war would be won. This one man, as he sat in his crumpled clothes, stroking his straggly goatee, was about to change the life of the French Army in Indochina once and for all.

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A gunner with a wart On my next visit to the base things appeared relatively quiet and the men were doing their best to surround themselves with all the comforts of home. An enterprising young sergeant called Maurel had me smuggling beer into the camp, hidden in coffins. His men eagerly helped themselves to the latest shipment and for some reason they found it very amusing.

I headed off to the bunker of the commanding officer, de Castries, to see what was what.

He came from a long line of aristocrats who’d served France since the Crusades and he’d been the commander of the Moroccan Spahis in ’44, with their distinctive bright-red caps and scarves. He’d fought with only sixty men against a German battalion and was only taken prisoner when they ran out of ammunition. He’d promptly escaped and made his way across Germany, France and Spain to join the Free French forces in Africa.

He was also an accomplished show jumper and a daredevil pilot who could be seen at every fashionable event of Paris high society. Apparently he was irresistible to women and his close shaves with the outraged husbands of his female conquests were legendary. When he wasn’t gambling and getting into debt, he somehow found the time for a bit of good oldfashioned soldiering.

I couldn’t help but notice his pretty secretary, and at first I wondered if such forbidden temptations would prove too much for the hard-pressed troops. But I’d forgotten that this was the French Army. I soon spotted the bronze faces of the Arabian beauties from the military brothel of Lai Chau, which had been moved to Dien Bein Phu at the same time as the garrison.

I had trouble believing my eyes when I was shown a shelter at one of the outposts. It had been hastily fashioned into a coupling house for another gaggle of prostitutes from Hanoi. I couldn’t help but admire the Frogs’ style. Just because you’re fighting a war, it doesn’t mean you have to go without, does it?

I didn’t want to linger, so I sought out Brigitte who’d come along to hand over the medical supplies we’d carried on the plane. She was in the hospital of the camp, such as it was, and it didn’t exactly inspire you with confidence. It only had forty or so beds and one ambulance. A bone orchard had been dug out next door for those unfortunate enough to be feeding the worms - which did nothing to lighten my mood.

My next assignment involved delivering a visiting French minister to the base. I had decided that I would be safe enough with a dignitary in tow, and I’d agreed to be one of the pilots.

Once we’d landed, the minister was borne off in a convoy of jeeps, while your correspondent left the exposed runway to head for the relative safety of the base. I ended up at the site where the French had chosen to install their big guns, and found a suitable spot where I could relax with a comforting cigarette.

As I sat there, I couldn’t help but notice the distinctive figure of the officer in charge. His left arm was missing and his sleeve was tucked into his belt. His head was shaven and his

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thin lips and little eyes were complemented by a wart on his cheek. He was in a foul mood and he ordered his men at the lookout posts to stay alert.

My idle observations quickly came to an end when the minister turned up at our little corner of the base.

“Colonel,” said the minister to my one-armed gunner, “I know that there are hundreds of guns lying idle in Hanoi. You ought to take advantage of a minister’s visit to get a few sent to you.”

As I looked across at the handful of artillery pieces and mortars, I couldn’t help but find myself agreeing with the minister. During my time in Korea I’d seen the Yanks mass thousands of guns to get the job done.

“What?” exclaimed the gunner with the wart. “Look at my plan of fire, Monsieur Minister. I’ve got more guns than I need.”

If he’d only known, those words would come back to haunt him soon enough. Anyway, I had no wish to be on hand when he saw the error of his ways, and when General Navarre warned the minister that they expected an attack that very night, I was more than happy to be heading back to our waiting Dakota for the flight back to Hanoi.

As we returned to our airbase I had the misfortune to overhear a conversation the minister had with one of his lackeys ensconced on the plane.

“Dien Bien Phu is nothing but a chamber pot, René. Unfortunately the garrison is occupying the bottom and the Vietminh the rim.”

As luck would have it, on my next flight to Oliver’s skull I didn’t have to face the antiaircraft barrage that usually awaited my arrival, because our landing was cancelled.

Apparently the previous night a Vietminh commando had got through to the runway and sabotaged it with explosive charges. Before departing he’d helpfully left a handful of leaflets with some supportive and cheerful words for the defenders.

“Dien Bien Phu will be your grave!”

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It’s not our war I wisely made up my mind that I wasn’t going anywhere near Dien Bien Phu again. Of course making a decision was one thing, executing it was quite another. Biggins was the first to try and spoil things when he turned up with a captured Vietminh soldier who had some unwelcome news. He also had the unfortunate name of Captain Phuc.

“Tell Captain Fletcher what you told me in Hanoi,” instructed Biggins, and he offered Phuc a cigarette as an incentive.

“General Giap order big guns on hills. Good American guns from Korea. Guns in deep trenches. No hit with bombs. Hills look down on Dien Bien Phu. Slaughter all French soldiers.”

“Delightful news, Biggins, I’m sure, but why is your little traitor telling me?” I asked, fearing the worst.

“Don’t you see? We’ve got to warn de Castries, the commander of the base.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?”

“We’re intelligence officers in case you’ve forgotten. Our duty is to assist the French in any way we can.”

“Damn it, Biggins, it’s not our war.”

“But it soon could be if the French lose their foothold in the country. The Americans won’t let the communists run the country and it could be another Korea all over again.”

I let him drone on for a while and then I made my excuses, pretending I needed to use the facilities. Once I’d got out of his insane clutches, I was hitching a ride into Hanoi.

Ignoring her warnings about an inconvenient husband waiting in the wings, I quickly sought out my beautiful Brigitte in her quarters at the nurses’ station, and blow me if she wasn’t humming the same tune as Biggins. The trouble was, she possessed the assets to make a rather more persuasive case.

“Oh, Thomas, I don’t want to spend the night at Dien Bien Phu alone. I’ll miss you.”

She reached under the bed covers and grabbed my undercarriage to illustrate her point. I stifled a groan of pleasure, not wanting to give her the satisfaction.

“You can manage without me for one night, confound it.”

“No, I can’t,” she said, kissing my chest. “They need me in the hospital at the base.

Surely you’re not going to let another pilot have the pleasure of my company instead.”

She’d finished kissing my chest and had worked her wicked way in a southerly direction, before turning her attention to my stomach. I was about to protest that my mind was made up, when she completed her journey and demonstrated her thorough knowledge of the male anatomy.

You won’t be at all surprised to learn that I was more than happy to lie back and let nature take its course, but the wicked little minx had a trick up her sleeve. Just when everything was nicely on schedule, she drew a halt to the proceedings - leaving me feeling like a half-chewed sweet.

“Oh dear, I’m feeling so tired,” sighed my little temptress amazingly, and she stretched back on the bed to reveal her naked French body.

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“But … what?”

Somehow I had lost the capacity for rational thought. And that was when my little tease made her offer that I couldn’t refuse.

“We’ll have to finish where we left off tomorrow night, at Dien Bien Phu.”

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We’re done for I dare say I should have resisted temptation and told my French filly to shove off back to the banks of the River Seine, but I’m ashamed to say I succumbed to the designing little female’s wily ways. Besides, it was only one night, I reasoned, and it would have the additional benefit of getting the irritating Monsieur Biggins off my back.

So you find your hero once again making the hazardous journey to the French outpost, but I’m pleased to report that I landed without incident. Biggins and Brigitte were among my passengers and while I left my witless comrade-in-arms to pass on his latest revelation to de Castries, I joined my nurse at the hospital before we adjourned for the night.

I’m happy to say that my seductive French maiden kept her promise and fulfilled her end of the bargain – and very nice it was too. But if I’d known what that evening of hedonistic pleasure was going to cost me, I would have told my teasing little trollop to demonstrate her skills on some other poor unsuspecting bastard and headed for the nearest monastery to receive holy orders.

I was just taking a shower in a cubicle which had been set up in the trench connecting the command posts, when there was an almighty roar - as if heaven itself had given up the ghost and decided to descend on top of us. I was cursing and clambering for my clothes before the last echoes of the explosion had receded into the distance and, as I pulled my boots on, I could feel the floor quaking beneath my feet.

I quickly found a good vantage point inside a nice safe bunker, where I hoped to get some idea of what the hell was going on. The first rays of the morning sun were illuminating the valley floor, and although the French had laid down a smoke screen to try and hide the airstrip from the Viets, I could see my Dakota lying in pieces across the runway, completely destroyed.

A pilot was in the process of starting up a Curtiss Commando, when it was hit by another shell and caught fire. Incredibly I watched as two reporters emerged to film the flames, only to get blown up by a mortar round.4 Clearly General Giap and his communist brothers had decided to open the batting with their artillery hidden away in the surrounding hills. My precious Dakota had been destroyed by a shell from one of those very same weapons – weapons, I might add, that the French brass had assured us couldn’t possibly exist.

Naturally the French gunners returned fire, but from what I could see they were shooting at random, and their lookout posts hadn’t a clue where the communist guns were positioned.

Mind you, I thought, if the devils suddenly charged out of the jungle, at least someone had thought to bring along a few ‘quad-fifties’, which I’d seen used to such devastating effect against the Chinese in Korea. If I’d known how precious those heavy machine-guns were to become, I’d have got Biggins to pack a few more on my C-47.

Any feelings of optimism I had weren’t to last, and I was about to be faced with one blasted disaster after another. That’s probably why my memories of the time I spent at the besieged outpost sometimes fail me.

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But one thing I must share with you is the unique layout of Dien Bien Phu, if you are to understand the terrible events that were about to unfold.

The main camp was encircled by a number of outposts, and it was rumoured they were named after de Castries’ mistresses. There was Gabrielle out to the north, along with Huguette, Anne-Marie and Beatrice, protecting the airstrip. There was Dominique to the east, together with Eliane. Five miles to the south was Isabelle – which was to eventually play a large part in my future. To the west was Francoise, joined by another of de Castries’ weekenders, Claudine. Naturally, when I first heard this, I began to wonder if the good colonel and I had been dipping our nibs in the same ink-well, so to speak.

In the centre lay the commander’s headquarters, with its corrugated steel roof deeply buried under beams and sandbags. Across the road, along the Nam Yun, was the hospital with its woefully inadequate facilities, run by a Dr Grauwin.

There were many other areas, of course, manned by technicians desperately trying to provide everyone with all the necessities of life, such as drinking water and the like, but I won’t bore you. I’ll only say that we even had generators supplying electricity to the naked light bulbs that dotted the camp, one of which failed just then, right after I heard that some of the telephone lines had been cut.

A tall chaplain appeared out of nowhere, holding a flashlight up to his face, and he nearly frightened the bloody life out of me.

“My colonel is wounded,” he cried. “Help me find someone from the medical service.”

Since it was pitch black and no one had seen fit to provide me with a map written in Braille, I was at somewhat of a loss. We stumbled through the trenches until we found the doctor in his shelter and we took him to see the unfortunate colonel. The officer had lost both of his arms and was steadily bleeding to death.

“Wipe my face and get me something to drink,” he said to his batman, who looked in danger of fainting on the spot.5 I fled the ghastly sight as another explosion erupted. I was just in time to see flames shooting into the sky near the airstrip, as gasoline and napalm stores caught fire. In the eerie glow, I could see French assault units charging forward to meet an unseen foe.

One of my fellow pilots had taken it upon himself to take off in his Dakota, as shells erupted all around him. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so reckless, and then my dismay turned to envy when I realised he had escaped the bombardment unscathed.

I watched with growing alarm, as more and more wounded came flooding into the clearing station. There were soon so many that they were being piled up in the mess and the dormitory. More worrying still, the dead were already stacking up in the makeshift morgue.

Any ideas I had of being able to stay safe by remaining in the heart of the base were soon shattered when I saw Viet troops already gaining a foothold within the inner defences of Beatrice, one of our outposts. I watched as squads of dynamiters placed their bamboo poles stuffed with explosives, before they ignited the fuses with their gas lighters.

Mind you, the French weren’t just sitting back and inviting them in. The Viets were being slaughtered by a murderous barrage of machine-gun fire from the quad-fifties I’d spotted when I’d arrived – but still they came forward. The attackers soon made quick work 65

of the flimsy defences and each Bangalore successfully placed must have cleared an area several yards wide.

I could see that an isolated blockhouse was still holding out, and I was just starting to believe that our attackers would have the devil of a time putting it out of commission, when one of the communist lunatics blocked up the embrasure with his body. I’d seen it done in Korea and the same feelings of dread returned. What could you do against such fanaticism and total disregard for human life?

Within ten minutes the outpost was submerged in a screaming wave of enemy infantrymen. As if to complete the unfolding nightmare, a red flag with a bright gold star suddenly appeared on one of its peaks.

I was almost paralysed with fear, which isn’t uncommon for a yellow-bellied chap like me. I briefly toyed with the idea of heading for the airfield to fly out of the damn place in anything I could get hold of. But then, as if to ridicule the thought, two more Bearcats were destroyed on the ground and the control tower collapsed. Three more Bearcats did manage to get out, but the sight of them taking off only succeeded in making me curse my own timidity all the more.

Someone crashed into me in their eagerness to reach the hospital, and I was just about to tell them to watch where they were bloody well going, when I realised it was Brigitte.

“I’ve got work to do,” was all she said, and she pushed me aside.

Without thinking I followed her, and I soon wished I hadn’t. Blood-spattered surgeons were busy amputating limbs and yelling for more supplies of blood and penicillin. Brigitte looked at me imploringly, as if she believed I could simply fly out and pop over for supplies at the nearest apothecary. I touched her shoulder and gave her a reassuring nod, saying I’d do whatever I could, and I promptly fled the ghastly scene to plan my escape.

I decided to search out Biggins, who was poking his nose in at the command post to find out what was going on. He was making a nuisance of himself interrogating de Castries, while the commander’s chief of staff, who I couldn’t help but admire, was urinating into an empty tin so that he didn’t have to face the lethal barrage outside. I looked on totally speechless, as de Castries’ stunning secretary, Paule, still served coffee to the flustered officers.

“All we can do now is help out as best we can,” offered Biggins when he spotted me.

I just stared at the oaf. What he expected us to do while we sat helpless in the middle of Roncesvalles was beyond me.

“Ah, there’s Colonel Langlais,” he said. “He’ll know what’s going on.”

That was when I had my first introduction to the last thing a frightened soul like me wants to find himself next to - another blasted hero. He’d learnt his trade in the Meharistes, spending months in the desert facing the constant threat of hunger and thirst. After the war in Europe he’d come to Indochina and had taken part in the bitter house-to-house fighting during the French reoccupation of Hanoi - and now here he was again, in command of the Paratroop Commandos at Dien Bien Phu. Before I had time to protest, I was being dragged along in the tough colonel’s wake, but he was walking so fast we didn’t catch up with him until he’d reached the gun battery. The 66

colonel spotted the officer in charge – the man with the wart and a deficiency in the arm department I’d observed before the attack.

“Is everything all right?” asked the colonel.

Wart-face didn’t reply but turned sharply away. His forage cap fell off to reveal his shaven skull and he bent down to pick it up. When he stood, I could see there were tears in his eyes. He pushed the colonel back with his one available arm.

“We’re done for. I’ve told de Castries he must put a stop to it all. We’re heading for a massacre and it’s my fault.” And with that he walked away.

Well, here’s a fine state of affairs, I thought. That’s exactly what a coward like me needs to see when his own sanity is on the ropes. I had a good mind to drag him back and threaten to dispose of his other arm.

As it turned out, threatening him would have been a waste of time. You see, the poor wretch blamed himself for the disaster befalling the camp because he’d underestimated the enemy. We heard the muffled explosion and at first we’d assumed it was just another attack by the Vietminh. But then word came back.

As a self-imposed punishment for his shortcomings, the inconsolable gunnery officer had claimed mea culpa before returning to his shelter to do the Dutch. He’d taken out a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, and held it next to his heart.6

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As long as I’ve got one man left alive Once the moon had shuffled off, the communists were on the attack again. This time Gabrielle, another outpost named after one of de Castries’ floosies, was taking the brunt of the assault. It was impossible to know exactly what was going on, but things must have quickly become desperate because the defenders asked for their own command post to be fired on by the base’s artillery. De Castries obliged, and a few moments later a message came through to say that one of the few remaining officers had just had his leg blown off.

“Things are getting out of hand,” announced de Castries, mastering the art of understatement. “First Piroth commits suicide - and now this.”

“Sir,” cried Piroth’s Senegalese batman, “the colonel’s head and chest were reduced to a pulp and his remaining hand was blown off. What am I to do?”

The distraught servant was quickly escorted from the bunker and de Castries rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“How on earth will this suicide affect the garrison?” he asked out loud to no one in particular. “We must conceal it from the men at all costs.”

Being on hand, Biggins and I were made honorary Legionnaires, joining the unit largely composed of Germans, Italians and Spaniards. Once we’d been recruited, one of our first jobs was to help the chaplain and a doctor to conceal the evidence of Piroth’s faux pas - and what a ghastly business it was.

Lacking a body of water where we could slip the officer’s body into Davy Jones’ locker, we dug a hole beneath the poor man’s camp bed. We then proceeded to bury what was left of him under a few shovelfuls of quicklime, while the chaplain helpfully provided a handful of blessings. For good measure we walled up the shelter and the word went out that the gunnery officer had been the victim of a direct hit.

Meanwhile a counterattack was ordered to try and recapture Gabrielle. With the support of a handful of tanks, which had been disassembled before they were dropped by air and rebuilt at the camp, the job was given to the base’s cavalrymen. But without artillery support worth a damn, their mission was doomed to fail. Nevertheless they entered into the spirit of the thing with their usual gusto. Their motto said it all: ‘Follow my asshole!’ But it was courage wasted.

The bad news just kept on coming. A third outpost by the name of Anne-Marie had been abandoned by the Thai Battalion. The canny devils had taken advantage of the darkness and buggered off into the mountains or gone over to the enemy – whichever seemed the most expedient at the time. The fall of Gabrielle and Beatrice had clearly frightened them to death and I, for one, wasn’t a bit surprised.

To top it all, ammunition was being used at such a frantic rate that stocks were falling dangerously low. Not that the gunners were hitting anything. Most of the French observer planes had been destroyed and they were shooting blind. I looked across at the airstrip in desperation, only to see two Moranes and a Bearcat blown to pieces where they sat. Flying out of the hell-hole clearly wasn’t going to be the answer. The only thing that managed to take off was a bloody helicopter, and Biggins pointed at it as it soared into the sky.

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“It’s a damn shame you never learned to fly one of those contraptions,” he opined helpfully.

Unknown to Biggins I’d had a couple of lessons, but even if I could have remembered my blasted cyclic control from my collective, I wouldn’t have been tempted. Hovering in the air with flak coming at you from all directions wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.

“Help us with these wounded,” snapped an orderly, disturbing my dream of taking to the skies.

Before I could tell the cheeky bugger to clear off, Biggins was assisting a tough-looking Legionnaire with blood pouring from his head, and he insisted I should lend a hand.

I helped a Moroccan soldier carry a little Vietnamese infantryman past the coolies and troops blocking the hospital passageway, begging for help. Bunks were already piled up three-high and precious plasma dripped into the veins of the wounded, shrouded in sheets fashioned from silk parachutes.

We eventually came to the heart of the hospital, such as it was, and the horrific sight that greeted us is with me still. Two surgeons, their hands wrist-deep in the open stomachs of their patients, were surrounded by orderlies, puffing away on their cancer sticks. Well, I knew the Frogs wouldn’t forgo their wine, women and tobacco for anyone, but even I balked at this incredible infraction of surgical etiquette. I later discovered that the hardpressed assistants lit up their nicotine-sticks so as not to vomit at the nauseating odour of blood.

Just then one of the surgeons looked up from his unfortunate patient and turned his eyes heavenwards.

“We are descending into hell. God, can’t you help us?” he wailed.

I looked around to see if God was listening, but since no one magically appeared to whisk me off to safety, I assumed He had other things on his mind. To add to the insanity of the occasion, I looked across at the morgue to see four Legionnaires guarding the coffin of the late colonel who’d lost both of his arms. What harm they thought could befall the departed officer I couldn’t imagine.

As is usual in such situations, time seemed to have lost any meaning, and before I knew it night was starting to fall. The eerie glow of napalm burning around the captured outposts only added to the hellish scene.

The one glimmer of hope to emerge was the news that my tough friend, Major Bigeard, had parachuted into Isabelle. As soon as he’d hit the ground he’d commandeered a jeep and zigzagged his way through the communist mortar salvos to get to the main base.

Those jeeps weren’t to last long, by the way. While German Volkswagens with their aircooled engines would have survived, we had to make do with the American variety and their water-filled radiators. Naturally the Viets filled them full of holes the first chance they got. Anyway, I thought, now that we had good old Bruno on our team, things were bound to look up.7 When the weather over the delta began to improve the next day, I found myself daring to believe that the tough figure sporting his crew-cut had brought some good luck along with

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him. The last Morane to have survived the enemy battering was ablaze, but French and Air America planes were now rushing in, dropping their bombs on the Viet positions.

A pilot in a medical service plane with a huge red cross painted on the fuselage even managed to land, but while much-needed plasma was being unloaded and crowds of wounded men tried to clamber on board, the Vietminh opened fire. Some of our soldiers had left it too late and clung to the tail when the plane began to take off. We watched helplessly as they were thrown to the ground like unwanted parasites.

The aircraft was clearly overloaded and only just cleared the crest of the hills surrounding the base. As it soared into the sky, a shell exploded amongst the unlucky group of men who had been contemptuously swatted on to the ground moments before.

Naturally I wouldn’t have braved the mortar fire for a pot of gold and a Knighthood, and I had to hold back the tears while I watched my last chance to escape disappear over the horizon.

It was then that Biggins appeared at my side and shared what he thought was good news.

“De Castries says that the Geneva Conference will start in May. The ministers have told him that all we’ve got to do is hold out until then.”

“That’s easy for them to say,” I protested.

“But there’s more, Fletcher. Admiral Radford at the Pentagon has offered to send in bombers from the Seventh Fleet.”

“I suppose that should even the odds up a bit – if the weather clears, that is,” I said, not holding out much hope.

“Ah, but that’s not all,” he went on, barely concealing his excitement. “That is just the official version. The planes will be discreetly camouflaged and they will drop an atom bomb on the mountains, wiping out the Vietminh in one stroke.”

If I just stood there gaping, do you wonder? He’d made the announcement of the cavalier use of nuclear weapons as if he’d been explaining the itinerary for a day out at the zoo. The repercussions that would result if the United States used such a weapon clearly hadn’t entered his fat head.8 Not that such political niceties bothered me a jot. They could have dropped every atom bomb they had for all I cared, just as long as they got the job done and didn’t finish us all off by mistake. Still, the Yanks weren’t exactly charging over the horizon and I wasn’t about to hold my breath in anticipation. Biggins was crazy if he thought the American cavalry was about to come rushing to the rescue any time soon. As usual I just assumed that my hapless colleague was all prick and breeches.

Besides, I had a rather more pressing problem on my mind just then. It came in the shape of our heroic commander, Bigeard, who was determined to rope two of MI6’s finest into a counter-attack.

It was two o’clock in the morning when he assembled the officers to explain the operation he had in mind – and what a mixed crew they were. There was a huge, musclebound chap with a long, despondent face, and another character had both of his arms in plaster up to his elbows. I later learned he was the tank commander.

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To complete the ensemble there was Guerin, the Air Force officer, but he had some terrible affliction, apparently, and he was so emaciated that he was barely more than a skeleton. I remember him because he wore a ridiculous pair of green dungarees that hung off his body as if he was a little boy. His face was covered in engine oil – giving him the appearance of an underfed chimney sweep.

Some of the French anti-aircraft guns had been captured and the Vietminh had turned them on the paratroopers who’d been sent as reinforcements. The plan was to pound them with what little artillery we had and then march in behind our tanks to recapture the weapons.

Fortunately it all happened so quickly that when I found myself among the ‘volunteers’, I didn’t even have time to break into a sweat. You can rest assured that your gallant hero wisely cowered no more than a few inches behind one of the trailing tanks, so that most of the fighting was over when I arrived on the scene. I was just in time to see an officer leap on to one of the recaptured guns to announce the French victory to the world.

“Objective achieved,” he declared proudly, and he promptly received a bullet through his skull.

I just began to believe it was all over, when a Vietminh officer appeared out of nowhere.

He immediately divested me of my gun and insisted on taking me prisoner. He prodded me in the ribs with his tommy-gun and indicated that I should step over the dead bodies of his comrades, carpeting the barbed-wire entanglements.

I looked down to see a Vietminh rifleman, his intestines hanging on the wire in a bloody mess, and I was shocked to discover that the poor fellow was still alive.

“You can step on him. He has already done his duty for the People’s Army,” said my captor incredibly.

I hesitated and noticed I wasn’t the only one to be shocked to the core by this amazing display of insensitivity. You see, the wounded man wasn’t quite as near death’s door as he had first appeared, and he raised his rifle in one final act of defiance.

I winced involuntarily, convinced that the dying man was determined to take one more dirty imperialist with him before he departed the world. So imagine my utter astonishment when a shot rang out and I looked across to see a bullet hole appear in my captor’s chest, before his killer with the exposed intestines gave one final gasp and died himself.

“Well, that was a spot of luck,” I said to myself, unable to believe I was actually still alive.

Unfortunately I wasn’t exactly out of the woods and I looked around to make the alarming discovery that I was among only a handful of Legionnaires - and we were in danger of being swamped by another human-wave of communist fighters. As we were about to be overrun, an Algerian sergeant issued all of the hand grenades he had. We didn’t hesitate and threw them into the mass of enemy soldiers. By some miracle we managed to clear a path and, while two of the Legionnaires protected our rear, we headed through the gap to safety.

71

When I finally got back to the main camp I was in a fitful state. Even the comical sight of one of our men stripped naked below the waist failed to lift my spirits. Apparently he’d had to abandon his trousers when they got caught on the barbed-wire I wanted to hide and bury my head in the sand there and then. Mind you, I wasn’t the only one. One officer had been caught sitting at a typewriter filling in forms while a fullblown battle raged outside. Bigeard almost killed him on the spot.

Still, it was no reason for the crazy major to take his anger out on us, when he ordered Biggins and I to help out as stretcher-bearers. Fortunately a formal exchange had been agreed with the communists and I can still remember the eerie silence as we picked up our injured, while Vietminh soldiers did the same without trading so much as a single word. I remember one communist actually taking the time to offer me a salute – which just goes to show how insane war can be.

In the meantime more outposts fell, and the communists poured into the basin so that they were soon less than a mile from the centre of the base.

Only Eliane 4, one of de Castries last remaining mistresses, stood between me and a bloodthirsty horde. I looked across at Bigeard in the futile hope that the tough, no-nonsense commander would come up with a miracle. But his next words failed to inspire me with confidence.

“As long as I’ve got one man left alive, I won’t abandon Eliane 4 - otherwise Dien Bien Phu is done for.”

72

We feel sorry for you It turned out I wasn’t the only one at my wit’s end. Emerging from the underground passages leading to the hospital was Brigitte, pushing her way through the Algerians and Moroccans who were begging to be taken on as orderlies. She was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Thomas, I can’t help anymore. There are just too many of them … just too many.”

She buried her head in my chest and began to shake. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply stroked her hair while she let it all out.

“I want to escape this nightmare,” she protested between shudders, and I passed her my bubble duster, like the gentleman I am.

Don’t we all, I thought, but I kept a firm grip on her warm body, finding it somehow comforting. I would have happily stayed there all day, sheltering in the Metro - which was the name the Frogs gave to the network of trenches they used to avoid incoming shells.

Unfortunately the brief respite from my terrifying ordeal was rudely interrupted by Colonel Langlais. He’d appeared out of nowhere and stared at us, his large ears supporting a faded red beret. A pistol was tucked into a belt that was clearly too big for his sinewy waist and he just stood there, not saying anything as he gazed at Brigitte with a look of longing in his pale blue eyes.

I probably would have told him to bugger off, but he was brandishing a bottle of brandy to help boost the morale of the troops and, as you know, I’m the last person to turn down fortifying liquor when it’s on offer. He was standing up straight so that his tall frame poked up above the lip of the trench. A number of bullets ricocheted past his head and he didn’t so much as flinch.

“Are you the pilot in the RAF?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I replied hesitantly, wondering what was coming next.

“Follow me. I need to borrow you for a moment.”

Before I could think of a suitable excuse, I found myself being dragged along to a spot between our position and Huguette, one of the outposts still holding out. With increasing alarm I realised we were approaching the airstrip.

“We’re expecting a company of reinforcements to be parachuted in tonight and this is the only drop-zone still available,” he explained calmly, while I was darting looks in every direction, waiting for the next mortar shell to snuff us out.

I crouched down while he stood erect, searching the skies for the Banjos that would deliver his precious troops. The drone of the planes could be heard in the distance, and just as they were getting into position to make their drop, the communists launched an attack on Huguette. The ground-lighting team had finally sorted itself out and I was desperately hoping the fearless colonel would get the whole thing over with, when he radioed for the planes to hold off.

“Tell me, Captain, with the weather the way it is, do you think it would be better to have the paratroopers drop in the middle of the camp, rather than risk them falling behind enemy lines?”

73

“Yes!” I yelled desperately, not really caring – I just wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

“But what about our barbed-wire defences?” he protested, remaining as composed as a gent taking his dog for a walk to the local - and this while shells exploded over Huguette within spitting distance of our position.

“I’d rather have barbed-wire stuck in my arse than a communist bullet through my head!”

I yelled, trying to be heard above the sound of mortar shells exploding all around us.

“Yes, I see your point,” he replied coolly.

Mercifully he gave the order to light a drum of gasoline to act as a beacon. The drop went ahead without any injuries, thank God, in spite of the fact that a number of the poor fools were volunteers and hadn’t made a jump before. At least I wouldn’t get the blame for any untimely deaths, I thought, and it was with some relief that we headed back to the main base.

I say ‘without any injuries’ but, as the colonel had predicted, many of the unlucky reinforcements had to disentangle themselves from the barbed-wire and their uniforms ended up no better than rags. Dropping in the darkness, one or two had landed in the morgue and were welcomed by the cheery sight of grimacing cadavers.

One irrepressible soul approached the colonel, smiling, and offered the commander some letters and a bottle of Muscadet which he had thoughtfully brought along. The colonel thanked him and we watched the new arrival walk away, well pleased with himself, only to be killed by a mortar shell.

I quickly disappeared before Langlais volunteered me for another ridiculous mission.

From my trench I spotted the bare peaks of Eliane 1 and Eliane 4, or the Lollobrigidas as I liked to call them. I was gratified to see they were still holding out for the moment, but my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a Vietnamese voice coming over the radio in the command centre.

“Thank you for the latest weapons. We will send the bullets back to you very soon.”

You see, the Dakotas were dropping our supplies way off-target, so that our precious equipment ended up being delivered to the enemy’s door, so to speak. When more aircraft arrived with our deliveries, the Viets couldn’t help but taunt us once again.

“Ah, thank you, my French friend. Here come our air porters.”

Our enjoyment of the Viet’s entertaining broadcast was interrupted by the sound of jets flying overhead.

“That’ll be the Americans,” said Biggins, popping up out of nowhere like a confounded toddler you can’t get rid of.

“What the devil are they doing here?” I asked, not really caring.

“I told you,” he said impatiently, “they’re planning Operation Vulture and reconnoitring the area.”

“Operation Vulture?”

“Good God, Fletcher, what’s got into you? It’s the plan to drop the atom bomb and polish the communists off.”

74

In my defence I hadn’t forgotten, but in all honesty I hadn’t believed they were actually serious. In spite of our desperate situation, I wasn’t too keen to be caught sitting in the open when the Yanks dropped their nuclear arsenal.

Mind you, I soon began to change my mind when a bullet chose that moment to miss the back of my head by inches. To make matters worse, the plethora of corpses were beginning to decompose and the sickly-sweet smell of death didn’t exactly encourage you to put your head down for forty winks.

Biggins was wrong, and instead of an atom bomb we took delivery of a handful of Vietnamese reinforcements who were dropped on to the base. I have to say that the bewildered look on the faces of the poor devils didn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.

Fighting continued all around us, and we could smell burning petrol and charred flesh wafting in our direction. As if having to fight ordinary soldiers wasn’t bad enough, we also had to contend with ghostly apparitions making their way slowly across no-man’s-land.

They were Vietminh ‘death-volunteers’, shrouded in white nylon parachutes with explosives strapped to their thin waists.

By this time Biggins seemed happy to watch things unfold in de Castries’ command bunker, so I found myself wandering aimlessly around the camp. Brigitte had plucked up enough courage to return to her duties and when I poked my head through the entrance to the hospital, the mayhem had only got worse.

Colonel Langlais was there, together with his bodyguard, looking at his men with their open chests and amputated limbs. Scores of them had stomach wounds and now the surgeons could no longer save everyone, so they had no choice but to help the majority die by giving them morphine injections.

It was Palm Sunday, if memory serves, and I happened across a brace of chaplains singing Bach chorales – this while the ground beneath their feet was shaking violently from exploding mortar shells. I couldn’t hide my disbelief as I stared down at them in their pathetic bamboo shelter. One of them had a long black beard which he stroked repetitively and he suddenly noticed me.

“Don’t be sad, young man,” he advised me reassuringly. “The Lord is always with you.

What is the point in worrying about anything?”

I’m sure they would have proved to be comforting words if I’d been a half-decent Christian. But since I put more faith in a nice deep bunker surrounded by battle-hardened defenders, they didn’t do a damn thing for a shotten-herring like me.

The news wasn’t any better when it came to more earthly matters. Langlais and Bigeard began to list the forces they had left at their disposal – a battalion here or a company there.

What it all boiled down to was the fact that we had little more than three thousand men in a condition to fight – and this when, on the eve of battle, there had been nearly eleven thousand.

The barbed-wire entanglements had all but gone and now some of the enemy were dug in within shouting distance.

“We’re bringing you some wounded,” came the call, and to my great alarm I was on hand to be roped in as an unwilling stretcher-bearer once again.

75

We spotted the white flag and, shaking in my boots, I set off with an orderly and a Hungarian sergeant of the Legion who, as I recall, had a rather splendid waxed moustache.

With every trembling step I waited for the Vietminh to break the ad-hoc truce and gun us down.

As it turned out, it was neighbouring units from our own side who let rip by mistake. The upshot was that the orderly and I came back with only one of the wounded, and we had to leave the helpful sergeant with his impressive moustache where he lay - dead as a doornail.

But then again, one more corpse hardly made a difference, unless it was your own of course.

When I looked across to the river there were so many dead soldiers, you could have walked from one bank to the other without getting your feet wet.

I was happy to get back to the main camp, but for some reason I felt like throwing up on the spot. Whether it was down to the near-death experience I’d recently undergone, or the stench of rotting corpses, vomit and excrement, I can’t say.

I have to admit that the nights were the worst. With every hour that passed we’d lose more men to the incessant enemy barrage and there was nothing for us to do but dig trenches, or risk picking up a few of the packages which the hopeless Frog pilots had dropped off-target.

Not that the days were much better. The daylight hours may well have stopped the communists from attacking, but the doctors still had to contend with the endless stream of wounded men crying out in agony – not to mention the swarms of maggots climbing the walls to make their way into the welcoming wounds of the unfortunate soldiers. The only curse we seemed to have been spared was that of the mosquitoes which usually infested the place. Presumably they’d possessed more sense than their human counterparts and had buggered off.

While visiting the hospital I had an encounter with a wounded soldier. He’d had his leg amputated and, as I walked past, he grabbed my arm.

“Are you going to make a break for it?” he cried desperately. “Take me with you!”

“No problem, mate,” I said in English, half-hoping he wouldn’t understand me - and I skulked off, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

I left one ghastly appeal only to be greeted by another, as Biggins and I peered out from behind the sandbags of our bunker and listened to the voices of enemy soldiers, echoing across the desolate divide.

“Oh, enemy brothers, we feel sorry for you. Give yourselves up. Your lives will be easier.”

We turned to one another and shared a look, before Biggins said what we were both thinking.

“They may well be right.”

76

It’s in the bag The French commanders back in Hanoi obviously thought their men might be tempted by the communist invitation to surrender, because they radioed through promotions for the officers. When the top brass start dishing out stars and shoulder straps left, right and centre, you can take it from me it’s a sure sign everything’s really going tits up. Not that it made any difference anyway. As the Vietminh kindly informed us, most of the medals and booze had been dropped behind their lines and they were toasting their newly promoted adversaries with French brandy.

The following morning a counterattack was launched to try and evacuate the men encircled at Huguette 6. It failed and there was nothing our soldiers could do but withdraw back across the airstrip, while the Viets machine-gunned the whole area. Of the two hundred men sent out, only eighty made it back alive.

Even the main camp was becoming a damned dangerous place. As I watched a captain arrive to deliver a file of paperwork to his battalion commander, the Legionnaire who was accompanying him had one of his arms blown right off, and an unlucky Moroccan who happened to be standing next to him was killed outright. Miraculously the captain, who had remained between them, only received a splinter in his chin. No doubt it was sights like that which caused the staff officer on duty to eventually lose his mind. He was led away, mumbling to himself, clearly a candidate for the doolally tap.

During the night Huguette 1 had fallen, and the two companies that had gone to help the defenders were practically wiped out. We didn’t hear from them until the following morning.

“There are only ten men left,” came the message over the radio, and they were the officer’s last words before we heard his death-cry.

I was unwise enough to be seeking the shelter of the command bunker when de Castries ordered Bigeard to recapture the fallen outpost. But even the tough, steely-eyed colonel wasn’t exactly champing at the bit and he grimaced.

“You know my motto, General. If it’s possible, it’s done – if it’s impossible, it will be done. But our battalions have been reduced to a quarter of their strength. I will have to use our only reserve.”

“Reinforcements are being parachuted in every day,” protested de Castries.

“Yes, General, but barely a hundred or so. Besides, most of them are dead by the time dawn breaks.”

“You must recapture the outpost, Colonel – it is the only site still remaining where supplies and men can be dropped by our aircraft. Therefore my decision is final. Take whatever men you need.”

That was when Bigeard looked in our direction and Biggins, the clot, puffed out his chest, hoping to be chosen for such an important mission. In the meantime I hid behind a fat sergeant who happened to be standing at the back of the command post. I skulked away and I could hear Bigeard in one of the trenches issuing a pep talk to Biggins and the other officers.

77

“It’s in the bag,” he assured them, before promptly withdrawing to the safety of the command bunker.

While my colleague risked life and limb with his French comrades, I hid away before I ended up like an incarnation of Guido. As I listened to the fighting in the distance, I naturally spared a thought for my fellow soldiers but, when all is said and done, the most important foxhole in the world is the one you happen to be sitting in.

When Biggins returned from his jaunt, he told me about a sergeant major who’d had his legs blown off by a shell. Apparently he’d taken out his revolver and shot himself so that nobody risked their life trying to get him back to safety. It takes all sorts, I suppose.

“Anyway, where did you get to?” he asked.

“I was indisposed, I’m afraid,” I explained, clutching my stomach. “It must be all this damn French food.”

He gave me a strange look, clearly unsure whether to believe me.

“Did you manage to take back the outpost?” I asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

“Not a chance. There were just too many of the blighters. We had to withdraw and when I looked back, all I could see was a ‘square’ of Legionnaires fighting to the last man, like some terrible vision from the battle of Waterloo. It was ghastly, Fletcher.”

Thank God I’d hidden myself away when I did, I thought, and I walked off towards the latrines while I gripped my arse, hoping to convince Biggins I really was under the weather.

The next day was relatively quiet and I tried to persuade Brigitte to take pity on a warweary soldier and treat him to a good send off. As it turned out she was none too receptive to my carnal suggestions. Mind you, I could see her point. When you’ve been cleaning out maggot-ridden wounds all the live-long day, you’re hardly likely to be tempted by a quick fumble in a muddy trench.

“The A-bombs are to be dropped on April 28th by an American naval aircraft,” said a voice, and I looked round to find that Biggins had turned up again like a bad penny.

That was only three days away. Could it really be true, I wondered? The political fallout would have been incalculable – not to mention the more substantial fallout that would have landed in the jungles of Vietnam.

Anyway the day came and, as far as atom bombs were concerned, nothing happened. It was just a shame the same couldn’t have been said for the battle on the ground. As I’d feared, the airstrip was finally lost. The three strong-points surrounding the runway, defended by no more than a hundred men apiece, had fought for nearly a month to protect our vital lifeline to the outside world - and now they had succumbed. The communists had been victorious, although they paid dearly for the precious stretch of land.

The men of the camp were desolate, and none more so than a weary captain from Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force who, by rights, should have been tucked up in a nice warm bed with the beautiful Brigitte in Hanoi. As I watched the communist devils swarm over the landing site, celebrating their hard-won victory, only one thought raged in my sleepdeprived brain, and I whispered it to a world that didn’t care.

“There goes my last chance of getting out of this damn place alive.”

78

79

Saving it for the worms As if things couldn’t have got any worse, the storms that night had gathered such a mass of clouds over the mountains that no plane could get through. The twenty or so Dakotas which had been sent with our supplies had to turn back with their precious cargo - and all the while patrols were returning to the main camp, carrying their dead and wounded.

The blasted storms continued the next day, until the whole garrison was swimming in a muddy lake. That night only eight men succeeded in landing at Isabelle, our outpost far to the south. I remember thinking, at this rate we’ll be lucky if we survive the next few days, let alone weeks.

Brigitte found me loitering in one of the bunkers which I’d decided was the furthest away from any of the action, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. I would have been more than happy to join her, but then I discovered that the silly bint wasn’t weeping for fear of her own safety, like a sensible girl, but at the fact that Langlais had decided to honour another nurse by pinning the Croix de Guerre to her breast. Talk about crying over droplets of spilt milk when there’s a bloody torrent of the stuff coming to wash you away into oblivion.10 To top it all, once I’d done my gallant best to settle her fevered brow, I made a grab for her Dutch dumplings but she wouldn’t have any of it.

“What are you doing, saving it for the worms?” I asked in desperation.

All I got for my trouble was a slap across the face - the ungrateful mare. There I was, facing my last few days as a participant in the drama of life, and she wouldn’t even allow me to shake the sheets before the Vietminh kicked me off the stage. I mean, it wasn’t as if she’d been supping from the horn of fidelity exactly.

To teach her a lesson, I decided to seek out one of the tarts still ensconced in the camp.

Incredibly the Vietnamese and Algerian girls had been caught in the middle of the battle like everyone else.

When I finally got round to taking a look-see at their quarters, I wished I hadn’t bothered.

The little angels were busy helping the wounded, and I had the misfortune to witness the astonishing sight of a shell-shocked soldier who was in such a bad way, he’d reverted back to his childhood. He was being tenderly ‘breast-fed’ by one of the Vietnamese tarts, if you can believe that. Gad sooth, it was almost enough to put you off your dinner.

So I returned to the command bunker and I was just in time to witness the warm welcome offered to the next batch of reinforcements.

“What the hell have they sent us here for?” asked the newly arrived commander tactlessly. “Everybody knows it’s all over. Don’t expect too much from us – my men are tired.”

Bigeard looked as if he was about to explode.

“Shut your trap!” he snapped, and the unfortunate captain was about to find a corner in which to hide, when Langlais stuck the boot in for good measure.

“Who the hell do you think you are? You’re here to fight alongside us – and die with us, if that’s what it takes,” he added, and that wiped the smug look from the thoughtless officer’s face once and for all.

80

In all honesty I have to say that my sympathies, if I had any, lay with the downtrodden captain. Anybody who had eyes could see that the game was up. There was simply no way we could hold on until the hopeless diplomats in Geneva pulled their fingers out.

Brigitte finally deigned to talk to me again and she related how an officer had burst into the hospital and asked the wounded to return to the fight. To the doctor’s utter disbelief, men missing limbs, or even an eye, volunteered their services to die alongside their pals.

In a strange way I could see why they’d got up from their beds. I mean, what did they have to lose, after all? No, it was those who’d actually volunteered to parachute into the blasted hell-hole that I couldn’t fathom. I thought they’d be naïve little Bezonians, but far from it. They were experienced Legionnaires, South Vietnamese and North Africans who had turned up to defend the honour of France.

I met one chap who’d just come to the end of his tour of duty, and by rights he should have been sunning himself on the beaches of St-Tropez. But instead he’d chosen to face the mud and gore of the dying camp.

“My God, man, have you got rats in the loft?” I asked.

“Don’t you see, I had to come and help out our fellows,” he insisted, but he was talking to my back as I walked away, shaking my head in utter disbelief.

81

We have one grenade left Any hopes that our illustrious commander had a final trick up his sleeve were soon dashed, when I overheard him on the radio-telephone talking to his wife.

“Don’t worry, mon cheri. I’ve been a prisoner of war before. I’ll manage.”

Just the sort of rousing speech you need to hear when the Red devils are knocking at your door, I must say.

That night it truly felt like we were all simply waiting for the inevitable. One of our outposts, Huguette 4, was attacked and swallowed up. And while Eliane was still holding out for the moment, a counter-attack quickly got bogged down in the mud and God knows how many more Enghein’s perished. Planes were still dropping supplies, but none of the clodhoppers dared pick them up for fear of getting shot, and aircraft were getting brought down all the while. One poor bugger in a B-26 was forced to parachute over the Vietminh zone.

And all the while the Viets were digging their own trenches within the base. Personally I found the sound of the communists’ pickaxes hacking away somehow comforting. At least when they were attacking the muddy ground, they weren’t rushing forward to treat us the same way.

“Perhaps they’ll come up with a solution at the Geneva Conference,” said Biggins, coming out of nowhere again and nearly frightening the life out of me.

“I doubt it. They’ll still be watching their servants unpack their bags in their fine Swiss houses, if I’m any judge. I hope they choke on their wine and caviar and throw up all over the Dornick,” I said, and I pulled up my collar as the incessant rain decided to make its way down the back of my neck.

“Perhaps de Castries will come up with something,” said Biggins hopefully.

“Let’s face it, Henry, there are just too many of the buggers out there. Besides, how can you beat fanatics like this? I wouldn’t be surprised if Demogorgon himself doesn’t poke his head over the hill.”

As it happened, things started to look up the following day. Some of the men were calling it a miracle, but I wouldn’t have gone quite that far. Our good fortune came in the shape of a clear blue sky, and for once our planes were able to make it in. They even managed to dump their supplies on the small postage stamp we laughingly called a drop-zone and, at the very least, it bought the camp some time. I discovered later that prior to the welcome delivery, we’d only had two days’ rations left.

I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the pilots was our American friend, McGuiness.

He was popular with the men of the camp because he’d smuggled in booze for the troops.

Unfortunately it was to be his last run. His plane was shot to pieces and he went down with it, preferring to stay in the cockpit rather than take his chances bailing out.11 We watched as Langlais went off to inspect the defences with a bottle of brandy in his hand. The men, mere shadows of their former selves, welcomed him – even those officers who had never seen eye-to-eye with the colonel before. It’s funny how petty jealousies and squabbles are soon forgotten when everyone is facing the threat of sudden death together.

82

He wended his way through the mass of wounded defenders, patting the one good arm of a soldier missing a limb, before moving on to another emaciated figure with a bandage over one eye.

Under any other circumstances I would have taken comfort in the fact that I wasn’t among them, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter just then. They were our last line of defence and all that stood between me and a horde of bloodthirsty communists. Which of us survived for a few hours more was almost irrelevant. A fine way for a true-blue coward like me to be thinking, I grant you – and it only goes to show what a fitful state I was in.

It was then that I was to receive one of the biggest shocks of my life - and that, believe me, is saying something. My deliberations about my sanity were forgotten when a lone Vietminh soldier managed to worm his way into the main camp. I turned to find him pointing an automatic pistol straight at my head.

“Au revoir, my French friend,” he cried, and before I had time to put him right and quietly explain my true nationality, he took aim.

I didn’t even have enough breath left in my body to let out a scream and, as the shot rang out, I ducked down in a futile gesture - as if I could dodge a speeding bullet. I stared up in amazement as the back of my assailant’s head exploded, and I turned to see a member of the one-eyed brigade lower his rifle, having efficiently dispatched our intruder.

Once I’d recovered sufficiently to stop gaping at the bloody mess where the Viet soldier had fallen, I waved as a gesture of thanks to my saviour. It hardly seemed enough, considering what he’d done for me, but he nodded gratefully and turned to face the unseen enemy without.

Before I’d barely recovered from my near-death experience, a huge explosion rang out and we looked across at Eliane 2 to see a horde of Vietminh troops swarm across the outpost. The French machine-gunners held them at bay for a while, but when their weapons overheated or ran out of ammunition, they fell silent and the Viets overran the position.

I was getting myself into a right fantigue, I can tell you. Given a chance to be in the driving seat of a precious aircraft, I’d have been half way to Saigon before you could have said Jack Chi Minh.

Incredibly a message came over the radio from one of the officers defending Eliane 2.

Somehow he and a handful of his men were holding on.

“We need reinforcements now!” came the cry.

One of the staff officers gave his curt reply.

“We have none to give. You are a Para, remember – you’re there to get yourself killed,” he said sympathetically.

Biggins and I crept forward to listen to the desperate words of the men at the surviving outpost.

“Only a few mortar shells left…”

“The ammunition’s running out…”

“We’re nearly finished…”

“We have one grenade left…”

“We are piling up the corpses to protect ourselves…”

83

From all we could gather, the outpost changed hands several times within as many hours, but it was a losing battle as far as the French were concerned. Even Dien Bien Phu itself was burning, as the shell stores caught fire.

When the sun finally came up, all we could hear was the desperate groaning of the wounded, and our pathetic band of defenders just looked at one another, gasping in the heat as sweat trickled down their faces, mingling with the ink they’d used as camouflage.

Bigeard was cursing the men of the French Union who had taken refuge in the holes of the river-bank to avoid the fighting. I actually toyed with the idea of joining them, if by some miracle I could have found a way through, but when the colonel said he felt like machine-gunning the whole lot of them, I suddenly thought better of it.

A wounded officer returned from one of the overrun outposts and collapsed on the ground. This in itself wasn’t so shocking after all I’d witnessed, but when I looked at Bigeard my stomach turned over in despair. The tough, no-nonsense colonel, who had fought in the toughest of battles throughout his long career, was weeping like a child.

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Goodbye - hip hip hooray As if a bawling commander wasn’t enough, I was about to witness one of the saddest sights the battle of Dien Bien Phu had to offer. The sound of artillery shells could be heard outside the camp and, as we looked across the base, men started emerging from their holes.

You see, they’d convinced themselves that the barrage heralded the arrival of the reinforcement from Laos they’d been promised. The innocent troops were preparing to welcome their saviours, only to get blown to pieces by a new torrent of shells landing amongst them, courtesy of the Vietminh.

The bad news kept coming and a radio message came through from Eliane 4, one of our few remaining outposts.

“Dédé calling Bruno. Dédé calling Bruno. It’s all over. They’re at the command post.

Goodbye. I’m blowing up the radio. Hip hip hooray!”

We could hear a huge roar of Vietnamese voices carried by the wind, as they swarmed on to the conquered hill. Amazingly French fighters swooped out of the sky to drop their bombs in one last act of defiance. But all too soon the ten short minutes their remaining fuel allowed them was over and they returned to Hanoi.

I could feel the paralysis of blind panic threatening to overwhelm me, and I looked around desperately for anything at all that would give me some hope I could survive. But there was nowhere to go, and I was about to leave the command bunker and find a hole to climb into until it was all over, when the radio came to life again. Our commander, de Castries, was informing Hanoi about how desperate our situation had become. I strained to hear above the chaos all around me, but I could only pick up fragments of the conversation.

“Hello, can you hear me, General? I will try, General, but we are running out of water.

Yes, General, we are defending every foot of ground, I can assure you. When all else fails … get whoever is left alive towards the south … and the safety of Isabelle. What was that?

Yes, of course … by night … of course, by night.”

Isabelle was the strongpoint which had been established some distance from the main camp to the south. A terrifying thought took shape in my tormented mind. If by some miracle I could make it there, I thought, then perhaps I’d be able to get out of the valley and find a way back to French-held territory. It was a slim chance but it was all I had.

From somewhere Biggins had found some flasks of rum and as I knocked back one drink after another, he kept up with me, bowl for bowl. In our long acquaintance I’d never seen Biggins drink to excess, and it was a sure sign he was feeling as anxious as I was.

It must have been recklessness brought on from imbibing the evil brew that spurred me into action. I take some pride in the fact that I was the only member of the camp who seemed to realise that even one more second spent dithering could mean the difference between freedom and a life as a prisoner of war - or worse.

I didn’t even give myself the luxury of standing there and analysing my fateful decision.

As terrifying as the prospect was, I realised that a lone man, kitted out in the green pyjamas of a Vietminh soldier, might just bluff his way past the enemy lines encircling us. True, at six feet tall and blessed with the physique of a rugby player, I was going to stand out like a 85

belly dancer on the parade ground. But under the cover of darkness and with more than a little luck, I hoped I might just make it.

I think it was the next radio message de Castries delivered to Colonel Lalande, the commander of Isabelle, that finally set the seal on the matter.

“My friend, you have my permission to attempt a sortie and work your way out of the valley to reach our lines.”

Why not just show the white rag, I hear you ask? Aye well, being a prisoner of war is all very well, but in my experience more poor beggars die in captivity than on the front line just think of Singapore. And I was proved right in the end, wasn’t I? The long walk to the Vietminh camps wasn’t called the ‘death march’ for nothing. Besides, I’d been a guest in Dien Bien Phu for so long, I actually began to believe I was in Penelope’s web – and I was desperate to claw my way out.

I’ll freely admit that getting to Isabelle was a frightening prospect, being all of four miles through enemy territory. But once there, it was far enough away from the main camp for anyone trying to break out to have some kind of a chance. I realised that if I didn’t strike out without delay, they’d be gone before I got there.

And now I have to confess to an act of abandonment which many of you may well find appalling, but I can’t help that. As Biggins was guzzling his umpteenth glass of rum and hanging on every word de Castries delivered to his dying forces, I took the opportunity to slide out of the command bunker in search of a dead communist who wasn’t built like one of the seven dwarfs.

How could you desert your fellow comrade-in-arms in his Jeremiad, I hear you ask?

Well, unless you forget, it was his damn fault I was there in the first place. Besides, I knew that by the time I could have managed to persuade the gormless idiot that running away was the best course of action, it would have been too late. So, like the laughing philosopher, I tried to forget the hopelessness of my situation and spurred myself into action.

The one thing I had going for me was that I hadn’t wasted my energies defending a lost cause. While other members of the camp would probably have found themselves overcome with exhaustion after a few miles, I was relatively well rested, and I knew that if I could avoid the swarms of Vietminh troops surrounding the damn place, I’d make it to camp Isabelle and my one chance for freedom.

So while men were wishing their comrades good luck and busy throwing themselves into each other’s arms, I went in search of my new wardrobe. As I made my way through the camp, men were following orders and destroying their weapons so they didn’t fall into the communists’ eager little hands.

The barrels of rifles and machine-guns were thrust into the ground for the last cartridges to be fired. The 105-mm guns had their breeches soldered, and mortars and bazookas were melted down.

Ammunition was thrown into the river and the few tank engines still working were raced without oil. Grauwin and the other doctors buried bottles of penicillin, leaving markers to indicate their position, and even the chaplains gathered together their chalices and holy oils.

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I found a more statuesque Vietminh soldier lying in the dirt close to what was left of the French artillery post. He’d been one of the camp’s Prisonnier-interné militaire, who’d been used to fetch the supplies that had ended up in no-man’s-land, and the poor bugger had probably been shot by his own troops.

As I began to help myself to his grubby uniform, I made the alarming discovery that he hadn’t quite completed the journey to meet his Maker. So I was forced to punch the noisy pest in the face to finish him off before he gave the game away.

As luck would have it, he’d been carrying some of the bullet-proof jackets which our defenders had been fruitlessly begging for since the siege began. I hurriedly grabbed one of the cumbersome items and donned the communist’s ridiculous garb – squeezing into his fart-crackers which were way too short for me.

I tucked my loaded revolver into my belt, and with a machete in my hand I simply headed out into the darkness in a southerly direction. I looked back in time to see a Viet battalion advancing towards the centre of the camp, and our paratroopers simply surrendered.

I’d opted to keep my boots on so that I would have at least a fighting chance of making it across the rough terrain. How the Viets managed to walk with their pathetic sandals made of old tyres was beyond me.

The helmet I’d appropriated was a little small for me, but it was decorated with bamboo and, in addition to the red star adorning the front, it had a gauze mask which hung down to cover my handsome face. I rolled up the Duck trousers to the knees to complete my disguise and headed off in the best that communist fashion had to offer in South East Asia.

Back in my school days I have to admit that I never put my heart and soul into the yearly cross-country run, preferring to expend my energies on more worthwhile pursuits – to wit, trying to persuade some of the prettier girls in the village to join me behind the bicycle sheds. But it’s amazing how the fear of being killed by trigger-happy communists can motivate the old legs into a more determined performance.

The hairiest moment came when I bumped into a skinny Vietminh soldier who could have been no more than eighteen years old. I turned my back on him so that he couldn’t see my face and crouched to disguise my height - as if I was getting ready to advance on the defeated camp like a good little communist. It almost worked, and when he ran right past me I breathed a sigh of relief. But I was counting my chickens too early and he turned to look at me with a confused look on his young face.

His puzzlement turned to horror when I smiled back and began to draw my pistol. But he was as fast as lightning and he lifted his rifle, fired, and sent me crashing to the ground.

With mounting relief I realised that my bullet-proof jacket had done its job, and when he leaned over me to inspect his handiwork, I quickly brought my revolver up and shot him in the face.

I could hear shouting behind me, and in spite of the painful bruises caused by the bullet to my chest, I kept running and trusted to luck. A shot rang out and a bullet ricocheted off the ground behind me, so I leapt into the cover of some trees, zigzagging left and right to make myself as difficult a target as possible.

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The sparse wood soon gave way to thick jungle and I started to hack my way through.

Unfortunately I was making a hell of a din and I could hear voices getting closer. I lost my footing and slipped, with the result that I found myself lying in a small gorge, looking up at trees soaring above me. I was uninjured, but any strength I’d thought I had must have left me, because all I could do was lie there and await my fate.

Mercifully it turned out that my lack of resolve was the very thing to save me. In my unplanned hiding-place I was completely out of sight from my pursuers and, deciding they would rather help themselves to the spoils of war at Dien Bien Phu, they finally gave up looking for me.

I waited for another ten minutes or so until I was sure I was alone, before I resumed my happy jaunt through war-torn Vietnam. I still find it hard to credit it, but I managed to hack my way through that hellish jungle until I came upon the road, barely half a mile from Isabelle – the outpost whose sanctuary I sought.

Believe it or not, that turned out to be the most dangerous part of the blasted journey.

You see, having been so intent on escaping my communist pursuers, I’d completely forgotten that I was decked out in the uniform of the enemy. So when the French guards at the outpost spotted a half-crazed lunatic approaching their ranks with a merveilleuse in his hand, they were firing their rifles and sending me crashing into the dirt, looking for cover.

“I’m a British officer, you bloody idiots!”

Forgetting myself, I’d shouted out my greeting in English - which only served to confuse matters. So I tore my ill-fitting helmet off my head to reveal my European countenance and risked another try.

“Bonjour, mes amis. Je suis Anglais. Permission to join you?”

I was escorted to Colonel Lalande’s command bunker, only to find that I’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the hellish fire.

“That’s impossible, Monsieur, Dien Bien Phu cannot have fallen,” said the colonel, and a look of utter disbelief spread across his tired face when I informed him of the fate of the camp.

I was about to tell him he was welcome to pop over and see for himself if he didn’t believe me, when there was an almighty explosion, as an enemy shell blew up an ammunition dump.

“It looks like the communists disagree with you,” I said, too tired to argue and happy to let events unfold and speak for themselves.

“Find out what the hell is going on,” ordered Lalande to one of his officers.

“The telephone lines have been cut!” he replied.

After this latest revelation I watched as the terrible truth finally dawned on the commander’s face.

To add insult to injury, a communist voice suddenly burst forth on the radio - and the nightmare from which I thought I’d escaped was about to begin all over again.

“It is useless to go on fighting. The rest of the garrison are prisoners. Give yourselves up!”

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Shoot us all Threats from the enemy aside, I couldn’t have chosen a worse time to arrive at the stricken outpost. The Algerian troops had recently fallen back from their defensive perimeter and Lalande decided, in his infinite wisdom, that an example had to be set.

Back in 1917 a large-scale mutiny of front-line troops had been dealt with by ‘decimating’ an entire unit. In other words, every tenth man had been executed, regardless of his own individual guilt. But courts-martial for cowardice were extremely rare by the time the war in Indochina came along - and I was on hand to see the result of its reckless reinstatement.

“Lieutenant!” screamed a sergeant who’d just been informed of this latest injustice. “I am not going to designate two men from my platoon to be shot! We were all just as brave as one another. Either shoot us all or don’t shoot anybody!”

A point well made, I thought, but the lieutenant wasn’t to be moved.

“The colonel has made his decision.”

It was a ridiculous state of affairs, but officers being what they are, the colonel couldn’t just back down and admit he was wrong. So a trial was organised with the promise that everyone would be found not guilty.

I’ve seen some bureaucratic debacles in my time, but I have to say that this particular offering really took the biscuit. And you have to remember that while everyone wasted their energies on the ridiculous show-trial, under the glare of a bare electric bulb swinging from the roof of a dug-out, the fighting was continuing all around us. Once the promised verdict of ‘not guilty’ had been delivered, I watched the bewildered men being led out to return to their lines. I remember I couldn’t help thinking that the whole blessed world had gone mad.

As I’ve said, if you wish to escape from an enemy, you have a much better chance if you go native. So I maintained my garb and when I spotted a number of T’ai tribesmen skulking off from the outpost, I quickly joined them - much to their consternation. I had enough of the language to pick up on one or two choice phrases fired in my direction, but I ignored their insults and stuck to them like glue.

I stood out like a sore thumb, of course, and they did their level best not to make me welcome. I think my mind was simply working on automatic by then and my only thought was to get as far away from the blasted communists as possible. So I honestly can’t say how many days I spent with my inconsiderate hosts, scrounging what food and water I could, before I was greeted by the incredible sight of two white faces emerging from the jungle, nearly frightening the life out of me into the bargain.

“My name is Rousseau and this is Lebel,” said one of the sergeants, once he’d convinced himself he hadn’t landed in the middle of a communist patrol.

“I’m Captain Fletcher,” I replied, holding out my hand like the reserved Englishman I am.

He ignored it and grabbed me by the shoulders, before pulling me towards his breast and kissing me on both cheeks. He stank even more than me and the bristles on his face threatened to lacerate my handsome countenance.

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“Er … pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

“You are the Englishman,” said his companion, not missing a trick.

“That’s right. Did you escape from Dien Bien Phu too?” I asked.

“No, we were captured with all the rest, but we managed to slip away from our column along Road 41.”

“Your English friend was amongst the prisoners. You will be happy to know he is still alive and well, or at least he was when we left him,” announced Lebel, no doubt trying to raise my spirits.

He wasn’t to know that I didn’t much care (well, not while my own safety still hung in the balance, leastways), and I quickly changed the subject and addressed more pressing matters.

“Which way are you headed? What I mean is … do you know a way out of here?”

“We’re heading north-east, around the valley,” said Rousseau, assuring me that there would be friendly troops in that direction.

He’d clearly been wounded and he and his friend looked fit to drop, but I was getting mighty tired of feeling like a leper amongst my tribal companions and I asked if I could tag along.

Rousseau welcomed me with open arms, while his friend simply gave a Gallic shrug, as if it made no difference one way or the other. So I picked up my machete, together with what little water I had left in my flask, and off we went.

We marched for seven more days and all the while we were starting at shadows whenever we heard a noise that didn’t seem to fit in with the general hubbub of the jungle.

Eventually we came to a village called Houei Kang, right on the border with Laos, overlooking the Nam Noua River.

“If we follow the bank of the river, we are bound to find our army,” said Rousseau confidently.

So we headed through the village to continue our endless tramp through the jungle, when a voice rang out from behind one of the huts.

“Drop your weapons! Do not get any ideas. I am armed with a submachine-gun and I am in an excellent position of concealment.”

We looked at one another, deciding what to do, when a burst of fire kicked up the mud around our feet. I dropped my gun and threw my machete to the ground as if they were covered in the pox, and eventually my two French compatriots did the same.

To our surprise, we turned to see a lone Vietminh regular, armed with a French MAT-48 machine-gun. He indicated that we should approach and he led us to a clearing in the centre of the village.

When we were finally invited to sit down, we were amazed to discover we weren’t alone.

As well as a handful of T’ai tribal soldiers, there was also a Foreign Legion paratrooper by the name of Horst, if memory serves. I twisted round, searching for the communist’s companions, and was shocked when I realised that our captor was running our ad hoc prison camp alone.

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As we sat there the hours went by and my fevered brain began to fear the worst. Would our solitary guard get bored and kill us out of hand to save himself the trouble of watching us? Or was he just minding the store until his superiors arrived, and we’d be thrown back with the rest of the prisoners to join them on their long march to one of the dire prison camps? I think I was at my lowest ebb just then, having convinced myself that I’d make it back to safety, only to get foiled at the last fence.

So it was with some relief that our overseer ordered one of the tribesmen to retrieve some bowls of rice he had set aside for his new captives. In my experience, if they feed you then they ain’t likely to kill you.

We must have all been famished because we wolfed down our repast as if it was a four course meal at the Savoy. I was about to ask our kind provider for seconds, when I looked up to find out what had caused a disturbance at the edge of the clearing.

My curiosity was rewarded with the sight of a handful of French soldiers casually walking in our direction. Unfortunately they must have been caught as unawares as the rest of us, and before they knew what was happening our Vietminh regular was pointing his gun in their direction and ordering them to drop what few weapons they had.

To their utter amazement, the angel of mercy with the machine-gun invited them to join the rest of us on the ground for a late supper. At this rate, I thought, he’ll have the entire French Army keeping him company.

When I think back, I’d like to thank that guard for being one of the few captors I’ve had the misfortune to cross paths with who actually showed a modicum of kindness. Not that it did him any good. When we’d had our fill, a couple of the new fellows overpowered him and knocked him out cold.

But it’s the way of the world, I’m afraid. If he’d shot us all on the spot, he could have walked away scot-free. As it was, our little Samaritan probably had a headache for a week and lost his chance to present his treasured batch of prisoners to his commanders. Still, my sympathies for our unfortunate host were soon forgotten, as we got better acquainted with our new arrivals.

“My name is Rodin. We are engineers,” said a master sergeant by way of introduction.

“Did you escape too?” asked Rousseau.

“No, we were taken prisoner with all the rest, but the Vietminh soon realised that it would be impossible to de-mine the valley without specialists and we volunteered for the job.”

“But … but surely they didn’t just release you?” I asked incredulously, and one of the other sergeants stared at me for a few seconds before he spoke, no doubt wondering what an Englishman was doing in their midst.

“When we were told that our mission was complete and we would have to rejoin the other prisoners on the long march, Rodin stole some rations and we headed for the hills.”

As wonderful as our reunion was, it did nothing to help us out of our present predicament, so we grabbed what few supplies we could and our motley crew headed off into the jungle. We crossed a tributary of the Nam Nua, while we did our best to avoid the T’ai villages in the area, which we knew were often occupied by sympathisers of the 92

Vietminh. Our hope was to find one of the Meo settlements known to be friendly to the French.

Unfortunately our luck wasn’t to last long and the very next day we were spotted by some of the locals, who sent a couple of Vietminh soldiers after us. We hardly had the strength to walk, let alone run, so it was decided we would lie in wait and ambush our new pursuers.

We lay doggo behind some convenient clumps of foliage and managed to wound our would-be attackers and take their weapons. Mind you, we were so exhausted by our efforts, we had to spend the next hour lying there just to recover.

But there was nothing for it but to press on, and for what seemed like the hundredth time we struggled to our feet and dragged our weary carcases through the unforgiving jungle. For once our luck appeared to change and only a few hours later we came upon a Meo hamlet, where we were greeted by a soldier from one of the Laotian infantry battalions.

“Where you headed?” he asked, after we’d made our introductions.

“We’re trying to get back to our people at Muong Khoua,” explained Rousseau hopefully.

“Muong Khoua fallen to Vietminh,” replied our Laotian friend, and we all let out a collective sigh of despair.

“You better heading for Muong Sai,” suggested our helpful guide. “It still in French hands, for sure.”

“Sacre Bleu,” said Lebel, dropping to the ground exhausted. “That’s a hundred and fifty kilometres away – and every inch of it covered by communist patrols.”

You can imagine what I made of this latest piece of wonderful news, and in my addled state I briefly considered collapsing in the nearest hut and living out the rest of my days as a Meo tribesman. But I knew it wouldn’t do, and Rodin led the way as we set off along the treacherous paths crossing the ridges to Muong Sai. It must have been another three or four days before we finally crossed the Nam-Hou, where we met another Laotian soldier who promised to take us to Muong Sai for a few thousand piasters - half of which we were to pay up front. In our desperate state we were happy to grab whatever help was on offer, no matter how dubious, so we paid the ransom and followed our new guide.

It wasn’t long before I suspected we might have wasted our money, because the blasted idiot didn’t seem to have a clue where he was going, and more than once we ended up having to retrace our movements after more than an hour’s hard slog. Not the most inviting prospect when you’re so tired that every step feels like it’s going to be your last.

Anyway, the thought of being caught red-handed helping French troops to escape must have finally dawned on the half-wit, with the result that he decided to cut his losses and bugger off – with our precious cargo of piasters, I might add.

He’d chosen to abandon us at a Meo village called Lai-Tiak, and by now it was clear that many of the group had reached the end of the road. Our clothes were no better than rags and one or two of the unluckier members of our travelling party had lost their shoes. Apart from myself, only Rodin and Rousseau seemed fit enough to carry on. So the three of us left the 93

rest in the capable hands of the Meo villagers and continued on to Muong Sai - and hopefully safety.

It took us another week before we crossed the Nam-Pak, which Rodin had reliably informed us was only two days march from Muong Sai itself. It was only then, after the nightmare of the last few weeks, that I finally dared to believe I might actually get out of there alive and in one piece. In fact some of the villagers we met told us they had seen French patrols only days before, and we even heard the occasional aircraft fly overhead.

Since the communists didn’t possess any planes at all, I took this as a good sign.

But it was another two long and tiring days before we heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors whirring through the air overhead. It was an American-built H-19 and I’d never seen a sweeter sight in my life.

We literally ran out of the jungle, screaming and waving wildly, but the pilot failed to see us and the helicopter continued on its way. Determined not to give up, the three of us ran on behind as fast as our weary legs would carry us. Suddenly the machine hovered in mid-air and descended, churning up loose leaves and dust in the process.

I couldn’t believe it. After three weeks and nearly two hundred kilometres, I’d finally made it to safety - and we even managed to rescue the rest of our party who we’d left back at Lai-Tiak. But I don’t think it really sank in how close I’d come to meeting my end until, back in the relative safety of the French base, I happened upon a recent copy of Le Monde lying in the commander’s office.

In addition to the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the paper informed its readers that among the dead were two members of the British government. As I stared down at the newspaper, unable to believe what I was reading, a strange thought took shape in my tired mind and I shared it with the French officer who’d found the article quite amusing.

“I do hope they gave me a good send off.”

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A handful of rice and a peanut a day Once the important matter of my own safety had been squared away, my thoughts did briefly turn to the whereabouts of my gormless companion - especially in light of what I had just read. Just because they’d misreported my early demise, I thought, it didn’t necessarily mean that they’d got their facts arse-backwards when it came to Mr. Henry Biggins.

I’m sure I would have found the time to miss him, if I hadn’t been fortunate enough to cross paths with the gorgeous Brigitte. She’d been taken prisoner by the communists at Dien Bien Phu with all the rest but, being a woman and officially a non-combatant, she’d been released by her captors even before I’d managed to secure my own precious freedom.

After all I’d been through to get out of the damn place, I have to admit that initially I was rather envious that her journey back to civilisation had been somewhat less traumatic than my own. But then I learned that it hadn’t exactly been a bed of roses for my pretty captive of the Vietminh.

“They tried to make me sign all sorts of things, Thomas, but I told them to go to hell,” explained my adorable little heroine, nearly bursting into tears. “But in the end Dr Grauwin ordered me to comply with their demands in case they took their frustrations out on our wounded.”

“There, there, my precious, it’s all over now,” I said soothingly, and I drew her to me while I tried to make a meal of her pretty neck.

Things were just starting to get interesting when she dropped her confounded bombshell.

“Unfortunately I have to go to Hanoi tonight. They want me to return to France – something about meeting the press,” she explained, clearly looking forward to the prospect of being the centre of attention.

Well, there’s gratitude, I thought. Never mind that your gallant hero was in much need of female companionship to help soothe his war-weary brow. Suddenly recognising the urgency of the situation, I endeavoured to hurry things along by reaching under her skirt, only to be put firmly in my place.

“No, Thomas, I’m afraid there’s no time for that. I have to look my best when I meet the dignitaries in Hanoi. Anyway, I’m surprised at you, Captain Fletcher,” she said, suddenly becoming very formal.

Frustratingly her jugs heaved as she tried to extricate herself from my lecherous grasp.

“What do you mean, blast you? It’s not as if it’s anything we haven’t done before,” I said, utterly exasperated.

“That’s not what I mean. No, I’m just shocked you haven’t even asked about your friend, Monsieur Biggins.”

“Ah … yes … well, it’s just that we’ve both been through this sort of thing before, back in Korea. He knows how to look after himself, so I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” I explained, trying to defend myself.

“As it turns out, you are correct. He was taken prisoner with the rest of us and the last time I saw him he was very much alive.”

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“Phew … thank goodness for that,” I sighed, trying to sound sincere. “Well, now that’s out of the way, where were we?”

I made another grab for her tits, but considering she’d been on prison rations for the last few weeks, she was surprisingly quick and she’d reached the flap of my tent before you could say: “Please direct me to the nearest cold shower.”

So there I was, stuck back at the airbase outside Haiphong, wondering what on earth was going to happen next. The one piece of good news to emerge from the whole mess was that after their unexpected defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French government didn’t seem willing to stomach any more fighting and there was talk that France might agree to an end to the war. Much to my utter delight, the rumour was that it would all be over in a matter of weeks - rather than the months I had dreaded.

Eventually July 20th was the day when everyone decided the war would end - and you can be sure it was etched on my calendar. As I struck off the days, I did my very best to remain invisible from the prying eyes of commanders foolish enough to try and make a name for themselves during the final days of the conflict. The last thing I wanted was to end up as one of those unlucky sods who croak, just before the politicians and generals gather around the table and put pen to paper.

When the wonderful moment arrived and the war was finally over, I crawled out of the woodwork and decided to make a trip to Hanoi. The prisoners were about to be repatriated and when Biggins eventually returned to the land of the living, I thought it was the least I could do to be on hand to meet him. Besides, without his say-so I wasn’t really in a position to bugger off back to Blighty.

I also had another reason to risk poking my head above the parapet. You see, since I’d lost my precious Brigitte to the streets of gay Paris, there appeared to be a dearth of female company back at the base. Getting withdrawal symptoms, I rather hoped that Hanoi had more to offer.

“It was a frightful business, Fletcher,” said Biggins with his usual flair for understatement, once I’d finally caught up with him.

“My God, Biggins, it looks like the bastards half-starved you,” I said, unable to hide my shock at seeing the skeletal figure before me. It was the first time I’d seen his cheek bones.

“I wouldn’t recommend their idea of a prison diet, let me put it that way. They marched us for sixty days, fifteen miles a day – and all you got was a handful of rice and a peanut a day.”

“The heartless brutes,” I cried, just to show I cared.

“Some of our poor buggers had already served long stretches in Nazi concentration camps,” he went on, “and they were dreading having to go through the whole thing again.”

“How did everyone cope?” I asked incredulously.

“You had no choice,” he said, and he gave me what I thought was an accusing look.

“How did you escape, by the way?”

“It’s a long story, Henry. It was quite hellish, to be honest. I would have probably been better off with you,” I said, hoping he’d realise it hadn’t exactly been a bed of roses for me either.

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“Hmm, I’m sure,” he said, sounding totally unconvinced. “Most of our poor blighters simply died on the march to the camps. One tough chap cut off his gangrenous arm with a knife so his comrades wouldn’t have to end up carrying him. To top it all, some Russian bugger was there filming and ordering us to raise our hands as we traipsed by.”

“I bet the paratroopers didn’t like that.”

“Damn right. Bigeard told him where to go. When the guards started screaming at him, he said he’d rather die.”

Not the sort of behaviour you’d find a self-respecting coward like me getting up to, I thought, but you had to admire his style.

“Of course,” he went on, “I had my own problems. You see, they were singling out intelligence officers as potential ‘war criminals’. Luckily, being English, I managed to pass myself off as a journalist. It’s probably just as well you got away when you did,” he added, barely hiding his resentment.

“Because I’m in the same line, you mean?”

“Yes, but also because you’re an aviator. The Vietminh gave the pilots a hell of a time.

One poor chap was dragged to the site of a recent air raid where the victims had been buried in a mass grave. He was forced to dig up their mangled bodies in the mid-day sun and look at the results of his handiwork. Then he had to bury the sorry devils all over again.”

“Jesus,” I exclaimed.

“On the long march to the camp I saw one sight that I’ll never forget, but in a strange way it gave me the courage to carry on. A chap with both of his legs amputated up to the thighs had been abandoned, but he dragged himself on his hands and his stumps all the way to the transit camp at Tuan Giao. I remember thinking, if he can carry on, I’m damn well going to do the same.”

Tears threatened to well up in Biggins’ eyes and I gave a huge sigh. My terrible ordeal in the jungles of Vietnam suddenly didn’t seem quite so hellish after all. I thanked my lucky stars that the whole blasted business was finally over and no doubt it would have been, if a female of my acquaintance hadn’t chosen to turn up again, like a recurring dose of the clap.

If you recall when I began my tale, a certain ‘lady of the night’, one Claudine Boissinot, had done her level best to supply the communists with enough arms to fight the war for years to come, and had abandoned her English lover to the mercies of General Giap and his loyal followers.

I’d barely been in Hanoi a day, and I was soon to learn that somehow she’d managed to seek me out, with the promise that she might be offering her invaluable services to your sexstarved correspondent. All well and good, you might say, and in normal circumstances I’d quite agree with you. But when it came to my beautiful Claudine, things were never what they seemed, and as much as I might have been yearning to avail myself of her talents, I should have guessed there would be a price to pay.

Unfortunately, in this case, the disbursement wasn’t simply to be the contents of my wallet. I soon realised that if my charming mattress-bouncer had her way, the cost of sampling her charms would be my life.

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Do not flatter yourself “Mademoiselle Boissinot is staying in this very hotel,” said Biggins out of the blue, “and she would like to meet with you.”

“She can ‘like’ all she wants,” I replied, remembering all the trouble she’d caused the last time our paths had crossed, “I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot cattle-prod.”

Not strictly true, of course. After being abandoned by the beautiful Brigitte, I was in such a fitful state that I would have liked nothing better than to get reacquainted with my seductive Mata Hari. But after all I’d been through recently, I had no wish to get embroiled in her machinations. All in all, I decided that one of Hanoi’s street-walkers would have been a better prospect than ending up in the witch’s claws for a second time.

“Mademoiselle Boissinot has been a rather busy lady since the last time we met. She’s become something of a courtesan, apparently, and has had a number of affairs with several senior officers.”

The revelation that her shapely figure was much in demand by the brass in Saigon wasn’t a surprise, so much as the fact that she was still on the loose, offering her wares. As you will recall, the last time I’d seen her she was consorting with the high and mighty in the Vietminh army and selling out her country. I was about to ask Biggins to enlighten me, when there was a delicate knock at the door. Biggins walked over to open it and who should be standing there, but the lady herself.

No doubt I would have told her to bugger off, but unfortunately it’s a little difficult to speak coherently when your tongue is dragging on the floor. She was wearing her best bib and tucker, in the shape of a fetching green dress. It was cut low, displaying her fine assets for all the world to see.

I have to say it was a far cry from the passion-killers some of our home-grown maidens insisted on wearing back home. I also noticed there was a veritable jewellery shop of goodies adorning her neck, wrists and fingers. Clearly the war in Indochina had been very kind to our wanton arse-peddler.

“It is lovely to see you again, Thomas,” said the strumpet, as she sashayed over and planted a succulent kiss on my willing lips.

“Claudine, I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you – especially as the last time we met you were selling us out to the communists.”

“Those days are behind me. I’m sure we can renew our friendship and pick up where we left off,” said the brazen hussy, while she grabbed a handful of taut RAF buttock, causing me to utter a plea - apage Satanas.

Biggins began to choke on his gin and tonic and it took several minutes for his unscheduled coughing fit to subside. In deference to his sudden discomfort, she finally relinquished her hold on my nether regions and took a step back so that polite conversation could resume.

“Monsieur Biggins, I wonder if you might excuse us for a moment. I need to speak with Thomas alone, there’s a dear,” said Claudine, and she stepped over to kiss my gormless friend on the lips.

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Her forwardness actually brought a little colour back to his gaunt face, but he looked so embarrassed, I wouldn’t have put it past him to have asked her to refrain from such forward behaviour and kiss the Pope’s toe instead.

Eventually he rolled his eyes before vacating the room, assuming she wanted to have her wicked way with your reluctant hero, I suppose. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was being so obliging - it wasn’t his style at all. But I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and once he’d left I braced myself and prepared for battle to commence.

I immediately began to loosen my tie in order to help the proceedings along, but Claudine quickly poured buckets of cold water on my flames of desire by sitting in one of the chairs in the corner of the room and lighting a cigarette.

“That is not why I came here,” announced the confounded tease, and I could feel the anger rising up in my throat.

“But … what was all that about, just then?” I cried, suddenly mortified that I wasn’t to receive my just rewards.

“That was for the benefit of your friend, Monsieur Biggins.”

I hadn’t a clue what the annoying little trollop was on about, and I was about to show her the door and kick her up the arse for good measure, when she shocked my delicate soul by adding insult to injury.

“Do not flatter yourself, Thomas. What we had was very nice, while it lasted, but there are more important matters that need attending to.”

I would have been more than happy to give her an argument on that score, but instead I decided to put her in her place.

“Don’t flatter yourself, missy. As it happens I have made the acquaintance of a gorgeous young French nurse - who, I might add, doesn’t find it necessary to sell herself to every pox-ridden sailor she happens to bump into.”

“My, my … somebody has a very bruised ego, don’t they? Unfortunately I think you might find it a little difficult trying to charm your delectable Brigitte while she’s thousands of miles away in Paris. Besides, I’m sure she has found herself a nice young Frenchman by now.”

I just stood there, shocked to the core. It wasn’t so much the way she’d taunted me that had me lost for words, as the fact that somehow she had a thorough knowledge of my recent activities. Before I could think of a fitting reply, she was speaking again.

“Thomas, there is really no need for all of this animosity,” she said soothingly. “I have a proposal that could turn out to be most beneficial to both of us, and if you agree to the terms you will become a wealthy man. In fact you will be rich enough to afford as many pretty Brigittes as your little heart desires.”

I was a man of mixed emotions, as you can imagine. On the one hand, I would have liked nothing better than to show her the door, together with a healthy length of boot-leather up her French derrière. On the other, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by her latest surprise. I still trusted her about as much as a drunkard with the keys to the brewery, but I had to find out more. I decided it would take some nifty footwork and I needed to know what she had in mind without appearing too keen. So I attempted to test the water.

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“I don’t suppose this little ‘proposal’ of yours would involve the communists by any chance?”

“Allow me to put your mind at rest on that score,” she said reassuringly. “They have already let me down once – I have no intention of allowing them to do so again. Indeed, unless the Americans intervene, I believe the communists will eventually control the whole of Vietnam – and where would that leave me? They can be such prudes. I hardly think they would look kindly on … ladies in my profession.”

“So what are you selling this time?” I asked, deciding to take her at her word for the moment.

“Ah, that is why I needed to see you alone,” she whispered excitedly, and she brought her finger to her mouth to indicate that we should lower our voices, before leading me to the balcony.

“Monsieur Biggins is under the false impression that we will be delivering communist weapons to … well, let us just say a third party.”

I have to admit that she’d suddenly got my attention. The thought of getting involved in some kind of illicit gun-running had my knees knocking with a vengeance. I’d almost ended up in the clink when I’d burnt that farmer’s house down back in Blighty. In fact I’d been mighty lucky to be let off the hook - and now it looked as if my enterprising bedroomhopper was eager to put Fletcher’s head in the noose all over again.

Mind you, she’d said that Biggins was all for it – which meant it was all kosher, surely.

But she’d also said he was being hoodwinked too. I was getting damned confused so I got straight to the point.

“What exactly would we really be delivering?”

“Why, opium, of course,” she explained condescendingly, as if I was the school dunce.

I can’t say that this latest piece of news exactly improved the situation – vis-à-vis, my quaking knees. Gun-running or drug dealing – either way it sounded damned dangerous to me. Clearly I needed to find out more.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked bluntly.

“A share of the profits, naturally.”

“How big a share?”

“Let’s say … forty per cent?”

“Why not fifty?” I asked, just for devilment.

“I am the one who has secured the opium and found a buyer. You will simply be transporting the merchandise.”

“In that case, why don’t you get someone else to help you deliver the confounded stuff – there are plenty of other pilots hanging around Hanoi.”

“I need you and Monsieur Biggins to avoid any unnecessary prying on behalf of the authorities,” she explained, reasonably enough.

“Biggins isn’t quite as stupid as he looks,” I said, uncharacteristically defending my companion.

“He has already agreed and with the opium sealed in crates, he need be none the wiser.”

“I think I’ll pass,” I said, happy to burst her bubble.

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“But why?” she cried, and I was pleased to see my smug traitoress almost pleading.

“It all sounds too dangerous to me.”

“But think of the rewards.”

“I’m not about to risk my neck for a few hundred quid,” I told her, and I helped myself to Biggins’ gin and tonic, which he’d carelessly left on the table.

“That is where you are very much mistaken, Thomas. Your share would amount to £100,000.”

I spat out my beverage to stop myself from choking and succeeded in soaking my pretty drug-runner’s outfit. She stepped back, unable to conceal her disgust at this unintended assault on her person, and I reached for my handkerchief to help wipe away the mess I’d created. Unfortunately, when I pawed at her breasts, it only served to make things worse, and she snatched it from my hand before wiping herself down.

Not the most polite way to treat a lady, I’ll allow, but can you blame me? A plum? I would have been set up for life. With all that lovely sausage and mash taking up room in my back pocket, I would have been able to hide away from the Service, never to be found – and in the lap of luxury, to boot. It beat the hell out of a hangman’s wage, that’s for sure.

I had to think about it, of course - and that’s exactly what I did for the next two seconds, before I let her know my decision.

“When do we leave?”

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What could possibly go wrong?

From what I have related, you might well be forgiven for thinking I’d fallen for Mademoiselle Dick Peddler’s scheming for a second time, but let me assure you that was definitely not the case. In spite of my involuntary reaction to her generous offer, my mind had continued to work feverishly on the matter at hand.

It was clear from her insistent manner that she wouldn’t have taken ‘no’ for an answer, and I’d quickly decided that if I were to refuse her kind offer, at the very least she would have made a scene. In fact knowing the little hot-head as I did, she would have more than likely sought some kind of revenge to punish me for spoiling her plans.

So I’d said ‘yes’, if for no other reason than to get her out of my hair and give me time to think. Besides, I needed to speak with Biggins if I was to have a fighting chance of finding out what on earth was going on.

I knew he took his job with the Service seriously, but I couldn’t believe he would resort to arms-dealing to help fight his cause. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Of course I agreed,” he explained, as if he couldn’t see why I was so mortified.

“But … but … it’s illegal. For goodness sake, Biggins, have you got permission from the bods back in Whitehall?” I asked incredulously, convinced he was acting ultra vires.

“The way you’re talking, you’d think I had to get their say-so just to wipe my arse. In the field we’re expected to use our initiative, Fletcher.”

I must admit I certainly hadn’t thought of Biggins as a Tyburn blossom. At the very least he could end up in the sheriff’s hotel at this rate, I thought.

“But what are you expecting to achieve?” I asked, hoping he’d see sense.

“It’s perfect, don’t you see?”

From the zealous look in his eyes it was clear he’d really got the bit between his teeth. I just sat there in shocked silence as he laid out his plan.

“We’ll be shipping Russian and Chinese weapons, captured from the Vietminh. When we get them to the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan, they’ll be able to use them to fight the communists and there’s no way they can be traced back to us.”

Clearly the time he’d spent as a prisoner in the hands of Ho Chi Minh’s army had addled his brain, and I needed to put him straight before things got out of hand.

“I hate to disappoint you, Biggins, but the Chinese nationalists won’t be able to do much fighting with the cargo we’ll be delivering.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“Claudine Boissinot has double-crossed you. She’s selling opium, not guns.”

He stared back, clearly unable to take in what I was saying. Eventually he composed himself sufficiently to ask his next question.

“How did you find out?”

“She told me,” I replied, and when his eyebrows shot up to illustrate that he didn’t believe me, I continued to explain. “She offered me a deal. I’m supposed to keep you from finding out about the opium in return for a share of the profits.”

“How big a share?” he asked, missing the gist of what I was trying to say.

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“Does it matter, Biggins? The point is your little plan to arm the trouble-makers in Taiwan is scuppered.”

He went quiet and you could see his feeble mind working, as he tried to come up with a way to salvage his scheme, if not his dignity.

“What did you tell her?” he asked.

“I agreed in order to buy us some time.”

“Good thinking, Fletcher,” he said, trying to butter me up - which never failed to put me on my guard.

He began to march up and down the room, massaging his chin, which was always a sign he was trying to come up with a plan to put yours truly in the firing line. Finally he stopped his infernal pacing and turned to face me before he spoke.

“How much did Mademoiselle Boissinot actually say this consignment of opium was worth?”

“What does it matter, Biggins? It’s nothing to do with us,” I reminded him, but somehow my bowels seemed to know that something was up.

“Humour me,” was all he said in reply.

“Well, she said my forty percent share would be worth £100,000, so you can work it out for yourself,” I said, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth – but I should have known better.

“Good God! That means the whole lot’s worth more than … well, a lot,” he cried, clearly unable to come up with an exact figure on cue and demonstrating that basic mathematics wasn’t his forte.

“So what?” I cried, unable to see what he was getting at.

“We could buy an awful lot of weapons with that kind of money,” he explained amazingly.

“I’m sure we could, Biggins, if we had a mind to, but it’s not our money.”

“Ah, but it would be if we pretended to go along with Mademoiselle Boissinot’s little scheme and cut her out of the deal when we sell the goods.”

I seriously began to wonder if Biggins’ time at the hands of his communist captors had damaged him. Had he completely lost his marbles? I knew that the security services were usually game for anything, as a rule, but even Biggins couldn’t have been considering selling drugs, I thought. With that in mind, I did my level best to return him to the straight and narrow.

“The powers-that-be back in Whitehall won’t sanction opium smuggling, Biggins. This ain’t China in the 1800’s,” I reminded him.

“They won’t need to know,” he said incredibly, “at least for the moment. When we’ve completed our mission and the nationalists have the weapons they need to boot out Mao Tse Tung’s communists, nobody will be bothered where the money came from.”

I knew Biggins always put his duty first, but even I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

He was beginning to sound like a fanatic, so I tried to reason with him.

“Biggins, can’t we just go home. You’ve been through a lot. You can’t beat the communists all on your own, you know.”

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“That’s just it, we’re not beating them at all. First the Chinese kick us out of North Korea, and now the communists in Vietnam have sent the French packing. Where will it all end, Fletcher?”

We went back and forth for another hour in that stuffy hotel room, but he wasn’t to be moved. When it was time to deliver the dreaded opium, I toyed with the idea of making myself scarce. But I quickly realised it wouldn’t do. Knowing Biggins, he would have probably had me charged with desertion. Besides, once his pathetic mission was out of the way, he’d promised we could head on home.

So I did my best to put on a brave face and tried to put my own mind at rest. The trouble was, the more I mulled over Biggins’ ridiculous plan, the more nervous I became. There we would be, two MI6 operatives assisting a French double-agent to sell opium to some blasted drug-lord. And to top it all, just when our pretty dealer received her payment, we’d be snatching her ill-gotten lucre before she had time to make out a receipt. I mean, I ask you, what could possibly go wrong?

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Air America Biggins had turned to our old friends at Air America to assist us in getting the job done.

The airline, as you will no doubt recall, was run by the CIA to keep their use of civilian aircraft from prying eyes.

By ’54 it had become the biggest and most profitable flying service in the Far East, and when it wasn’t helping the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan, it had been lending a hand in the Korean War. More recently, of course, it had been assisting the French in Vietnam.

Their company slogan said it all: ‘Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.’ Naturally this rather pointed to it being tailor-made for our little jaunt. I knew Biggins had a few pals in the CIA, but I rather suspect he’d chosen the outfit because it was less likely to ask questions than our own dear government – even with Winston at the helm.

There’d been a couple of dozen CAT pilots stationed at Haiphong, and like McGuiness they were a breed apart. My American counterpart with whom I was to share the cockpit of a Flying Boxcar was a case in point.

He was a retired US Army Corps captain by the name of Carlson. He’d been physically disqualified by the American military for being partially deaf - not an uncommon affliction for early aviators, what with their open cockpits and roaring engines. But the recruitment policy of the CIA was somewhat more lax, apparently, and he was allowed to fly to his heart’s content.

He was wearing his army garb, which he’d customised by ripping off the sleeves and cutting the trouser legs at the thighs. His head was shaved, giving him the appearance of a Tibetan monk, and it was at odds with his mode of speech. You see, his attempts at conversation were liberally embellished with choice phrases, as became clear presently.

“This is the darnedest mission I’ve ever been on, Captain. Yes, sir, it sounds like a pile of shit to me,” he opined.

I was nervous enough, even without my deaf friend’s prognosis, so I ignored him and looked back at the cargo hold. As well as the promised crates of Vietnam’s finest opium, there were two of Carlson’s colleagues from the CIA who’d come along for the ride. They were similarly attired, having seen fit to throw formality out of the window - along with their trousers, by the looks of things.

Nevertheless I took some much-needed comfort from their presence, and the sight of their bulging muscles as they gripped their machine-guns raised my flagging spirits. Biggins and I were also armed with our trusty revolvers, but it was the sight of Claudine’s companions that settled my nerves sufficiently to stop me throwing up on the spot.

You see, I’d been expecting my pretty traitoress to arrive with a band of fierce-looking thugs, and while the crew who’d loaded the cargo into the hold looked as if they’d slit your throat for a few shillings and a glass of beer, they’d smartly buggered off to be replaced by two of Claudine’s associates from the local whore house.

With their doll-like faces and tight-fitting dresses, they were a pair of Vietnamese stunners and no mistake. Under normal circumstances I would have been charging to the

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rear of the plane and asking them for free samples. As it was, the prospect of what we were getting ourselves into rather put a damper on my lustful musings.

We were a motley crew if ever there was one. As we took off and I looked back through the cockpit door to see our mixed bag of passengers sitting next to the Devil’s cargo, I couldn’t help feeling that I was in some kind of dream.

A dream, if I had but known it, that was soon to turn into a nightmare.

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I had to let her go We headed north and, more worryingly, over the border into China. Carlson said he’d flown into Chinese air space ‘dozens of times’, and he must have known what he was doing because, much to my relief, we didn’t see sight nor sound of Mao Tse Tung’s air force.

Claudine directed us to a makeshift runway sitting uncomfortably close to the edge of a cliff. When it came to the daunting prospect of landing, Carlson was kind enough to allow me to do the honours.

Since the airstrip pointed out to sea and there was a stiff on-shore breeze, I had the delightful choice of either landing into the wind and hoping we came to a halt before we ended up over the cliff, or opting to have a tail-wind, with the result that I would promptly run out of open ground before crashing into the trees beyond.

I decided upon the latter and brought our speed down as much as I dared, before we finally touched down. I applied the brakes for all I was worth and brought our aircraft, together with its precious cargo of drugs, secret agents and Vietnamese prostitutes, safely to a halt.

It was only then that I actually noticed the villa on the cliff edge, overlooking the Yellow Sea. I stared through the cockpit window, searching for any signs of a welcoming committee, and was greeted by the sight of an old Chinaman standing in front of a doorway painted with yellow and blue stripes. To complete the surreal scene, there was a large sign above the threshold which proudly stated in English: ‘Opium Den’.

I was pleased to see that our two heavily armed gorillas from the CIA were all efficiency, and they searched the building before returning to inform us that it was empty - save for the old man and a female servant.

Carlson wisely opted to stay on the plane, ostensibly to keep an eye on our shipment of opium, while the old man led the rest of us past a stagnant pool carved into the rocky cliff edge. The villa itself was sparsely furnished, but I noticed a well-stocked bar in the corner which looked mighty inviting.

Although our bodyguards had reliably informed us that there were no other human occupants, they’d singularly failed to enlighten us as to the menagerie of animals roaming around the place. I spotted more than a dozen dogs before I lost count, and stationed at the bar were a pair of parakeets. Perhaps more disconcertingly, there appeared to be a fully grown panda lurking behind the makeshift swimming pool.

“May I offer everyone a drink?” enquired the old man in English, indicating to the servant that she should retrieve a bottle from behind the bar.

“I have been saving this for a special occasion,” he went on, easing his stocky frame into a large armchair. “It is saké and it was left by a former occupant. You see, this villa once belonged to a Japanese general, when his country had the temerity to occupy our sacred land.”

The man shook his head and for the first time I noticed that his bald dome was covered in scars. His round glasses gave him the appearance of a scholar, and I had to keep reminding

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myself why we were there, and that this kindly old man was in the business of buying enough opium to feed the habits of a city.

Being the professionals they were, our sockheads from the CIA declined the offer to irrigate their tonsils, while I quickly took the largest glass from the tray presented by the hired-help. She was clearly even more nervous than me, and she shook to such an alarming degree, I nearly ended up with the whole blessed lot in my lap.

Since our host had chosen to avail himself of the only comfortable seating in the villa, the rest of us dutifully sat on the wooden chairs provided. For a moment we all sat in silence, sipping our drinks. The phlegm-cutter bit into the back of my throat and the anxiety I had been feeling gently subsided. I even began to believe that everything would go the way Biggins had planned. Finally the old man interrupted the peace and addressed our French opium seller.

“Mademoiselle Boissinot, you have broken our agreement, have you not?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she replied haughtily.

“Come, come,” he countered, “the arrangements were quite simple. This is supposed to be a business arrangement between ourselves. While I happily welcome the company of your female companions, I find the unexpected arrival of these other men most disconcerting.”

“Indeed,” he went on, “as per your request, the men who will be taking the merchandise off my hands will not be arriving for a few hours - and they most assuredly will not be armed. Yet I find myself confronted with these gentlemen.”

He pointed at our gun-toting duo from the CIA and nodded at me and Biggins. My drugrunning partner was obviously fearful that his plan to grab all the money for himself might go tits up, and he decided it was time to try and smooth things over.

“We are Mademoiselle Boissinot’s associates and these men are here merely as a precaution,” he explained, nodding towards our guards. “I’m sure you can understand, especially when there is so much money at stake. Besides, we are hardly meeting on neutral ground.”

I noticed that Biggins hadn’t explained exactly who we were, no doubt eager to keep the Service out of the whole messy business. Unfortunately his words failed to have the desired effect.

“Nevertheless it is a matter of trust. I have kept my end of the bargain and I sincerely hope there will be no more surprises,” said the old man, with whom I couldn’t help sympathising.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Claudine. “Perhaps, as a sign of good faith, you gentlemen wouldn’t mind placing your guns down on the table.”

She’d addressed our guards and they didn’t look too happy at the prospect of being without their weapons. Of course they had company on that score.

But I consoled myself with the fact that although our revolvers were tucked away out of sight, we’d be able to get out of trouble if things took a turn for the worse. Besides, I thought, as war-weary as we were, Biggins and I should be able to handle an old codger and a bunch of street-walkers.

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The CIA heavies grudgingly obliged, but were careful to stick close to their discarded armoury. One of the Vietnamese hussies leant over to whisper something to Claudine, who smiled before speaking.

“Mr. Chan,” she began, and it was the first time we had been apprised of the man’s name, not having been formally introduced. “It appears that your saké might have had an unfortunate effect on my friends here. Is there somewhere they might be able to … powder their noses?”

Chan beamed and by the way he’d been eyeing the Vietnamese lovelies, he clearly would have been happy to share more than saké with his new visitors. He pointed the way, and once they’d headed off to the necessarium, he returned to the matter at hand.

“So now we are all friends we can relax and get down to business.”

And with that he walked to the bar and retrieved a suitcase which he brought over to the table.

“Here is the money, as agreed,” he announced, opening the lid of the case to reveal its contents.

All of us instinctively gathered round to study the inside of the valise, and I freely admit I felt like salivating at the sight of the largest wad of cash I’d ever seen in my life.

In spite of my feelings of rapture at being confronted with such wealth, I was distracted by a sudden noise and I looked over when one of our guards gave a gasp.

At first I thought he was simply expressing his own admiration for the suitcase full of treasure, but then he slumped forward and crashed to the floor. A second later his partner did the same.

We turned to see what had caused the early demise of our would-be protectors, and we were shocked to see that Claudine’s pretty companions had returned, holding smoking pistols fitted with silencers in their delicate little hands. As I said, they were both wearing nothing but their seductive tight-fitting dresses, so where they’d been concealing the offending weapons I couldn’t imagine. I mean, the mind boggles.

I glanced across at Mr. Chan, whose look of lust for the murderous trollops had now turned to alarm. Clearly this new development was none of his doing, which became evident presently. Claudine suddenly brandished her own hand-gun, which also had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. My God, I thought, do all these mattress-bashers have their own secret compartments upon their person?

“Thomas, I am well aware that you and Mr. Biggins are armed. If you wouldn’t mind, please open your jackets and Dung will relieve you of your weapons.”

She’d pronounced the girl’s name ‘Zung’, but even if she hadn’t I’m sure I wouldn’t have found the revelation of the hussy’s appellation amusing, considering our circumstances. The Vietnamese whore did as instructed, and I swear the unfortunately named beauty copped a sly feel of my manhood in the process. No doubt she must have been disappointed with what she found. In my defence, I was rather preoccupied with current events.

So there we were at the mercy of the double-crossing Claudine once again - and all because Biggins thought he could pull one over on our two-timing harlot. Her next words only served to illustrate how misguided my jack pudding of a colleague had been.

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“Monsieur Biggins, you must have a very low opinion of me indeed. I have been watching you closely. It is patently obvious that you are aware we are not transporting weapons and that Mr. Chan is not a nationalist. The fact that you thought you could somehow trick me is laughable. And as for you, Thomas, I should have known that you weren’t to be trusted.”

That’s rich, I thought, considering the vixen was pointing a loaded gun at my head while she spoke, but I thought it advisable not to antagonise our treacherous French whore and kept shtum.

“What is going on here?” cried our Chinese friend, who was remarkably slow on the uptake.

“There has been a slight change of plan, Mr. Chan,” said Mademoiselle Boissinot smugly. “My friends and I will be taking the money now, if you don’t mind.”

“But of course, that is what we agreed,” insisted the old Chinaman, who really must have been two eggs short of an omelette.

“Yes, but I’m afraid I will also be leaving with the merchandise. Fortunately I have another customer.”

“But … but … we had a deal,” exclaimed the downtrodden Mr. Chan, whose determination to get to the bottom of things I couldn’t help but admire.

“Be that as it may,” said Claudine confidently, “I’m afraid we have to leave you now.

Please don’t try to follow us or we will be forced to kill you.”

And with that, the three strumpets gathered up our weapons and the suitcase full of dollars before making their way back to the plane.

The servant had wisely made herself scarce and the three of us stared at one another, wondering what to do next. One look at our dead colleagues slumped on the floor quickly helped me decide I wasn’t going to be poking my head through the door for a pension. I might well have been stuck in the middle of communist China without a penny to my name, I thought, but at least I was alive.

That was when we heard the distinctive sound of a truck approaching the villa, and Chan risked a look out of the window.

“I think my buyers might be a little early,” he said, and we joined him to see a lorry pull up beside the aircraft.

Four Chinamen got out and although Chan had told them to come unarmed, they appeared to have taken it upon themselves not to follow his instructions. Each one carried a rifle slung casually across his shoulder, but when they were presented with the extraordinary sight of the three armed prostitutes approaching the plane, they quickly overcame their astonishment and brought their guns to bear.

Unfortunately our new arrivals had hesitated – only for a few seconds, but that was enough for the gun-toting harlots to do their worst. Claudine and her assistants fired round after round in the direction of the truck, and two of the men went down before they’d fired off a shot.

Their compatriots wisely took cover behind the lorry and returned fire. One of Claudine’s pretty sidekicks clutched her stomach, falling to the ground, and as I mourned the loss of 111

such a fine-looking piece of womanhood, Biggins and Chan were racing out of the villa for a closer look.

I followed cautiously behind and while Biggins and I took cover behind the rocks adjoining the putrid pool, Chan ran towards the ensuing mayhem, screaming.

“Give me back my money!” he cried, running with remarkable speed for a fat man of advancing years.

Claudine had wisely headed for the door of the aircraft, but the spiteful bitch took the time to turn and fire a shot in Chan’s direction. She must have been a markswoman or she was just incredibly lucky, because Chan ended his days with a bullet in his head, destined never to spend his drug money.

In the meantime Carlson had finally woken up to the fact that events weren’t playing out exactly as planned. The engines of the plane roared into life, and the Flying Boxcar inched forward. Our CIA pilot had clearly come to the sensible conclusion that discretion was the better part of valour.

Claudine managed to reach the open door before it moved out of her grasp, while she left her poor unsuspecting Vietnamese friend to hold the fort. Her assistant might not have been the crack shot that Claudine had demonstrated herself to be, but having helped herself to one of the machine-guns that had belonged to our CIA friends, she didn’t need to be. The enterprising little madam sprayed a barrage of bullets in the direction of her assailants and one of them was thrown back against the truck, covering the rusting paintwork in blood.

What was your trusty hero doing while havoc ensued, you ask? Well, you can rest assured I was cowering behind the blessed sanctuary of the poolside rocks, thankful that I wasn’t in the middle of all the carnage for once. Besides, to be perfectly honest, in all the confusion I wasn’t exactly sure whose side I was on.

I believe that I made the only sane and wise decision, considering the alternative, and it’s just a shame that the same couldn’t be said for my hapless sidekick.

He’d recklessly thrown caution to the wind, and before I knew what was happening he was charging into the fray, armed with nothing more than an angry visage and an ill-fitting suit.

“Biggins, come back, you bloody fool!” I yelled, even though I realised I was wasting my time.

Incredibly the remaining Chinaman and machine-gun Lilly were so engrossed in their attempts to kill one another, that Biggins managed to reach the scene without either of them noticing.

He dived on to the ground and reached for the other machine-gun, just as Claudine’s deserted comrade received a wound to her arm and dropped her gun to clutch her bleeding appendage. Biggins brought his own weapon round and dispatched the opium-buyer with a well-placed burst of fire.

Why he chose to take the prostitute’s side, I never really found out. He said he had no choice, what with the Chinaman assuming that Biggins was the enemy. It was kill or be killed, so to speak. Aye well, that might be so, but I wouldn’t have put it past my pious

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friend to think he was defending a lady’s honour. Never mind that she was a whore and a murdering drug dealer into the bargain.

Anyway, the important point to come out of the whole thing was that now the coast was clear for your gallant captain to emerge from the safety of his hideaway and join his companions for the trip home – well, to Haiphong, leastways.

Carlson was in the process of turning the plane around so that it was facing into the wind, and Biggins frantically signalled to him that he’d got the situation under control.

Unfortunately our pilot had an armed and extremely dangerous passenger in the shape of the indomitable Claudine, and so he had no choice but to follow orders and abandon us. Not to be deterred, Biggins charged for the opening at the rear of the plane and he managed to clamber aboard.

I can’t say what made me gather up my revolver and follow the idiot on to the departing Boxcar. It was a decision taken on an instant. No doubt the fear of being abandoned all alone in communist China had something to do with it. Or perhaps I optimistically hoped that the two of us would be able to overpower our dangerous double-agent with ease.

Whatever my reasoning, I suddenly found myself clutching on to the rear of the plane for dear life as it soared into the air, and I looked down to see the jagged cliffs disappearing beneath me.

For one terrible moment it looked as though I wasn’t going to be able to hang on, and just as my strength was about to fail me, Biggins was there to help me up from my precarious perch. The aircraft chose that moment to lurch violently and I thought we were both going to be thrown into the void without the benefit of parachutes.

Fortunately the plane levelled off sufficiently for us to get a firm hold of the fuselage and we crawled our way to the front of the plane. Heaving from our exertions, we eventually recovered sufficiently to try and take stock of our situation. There was still the little matter of having to deal with Claudine, but fortunately the cockpit was partitioned off, so we had the element of surprise on our side.

We were about to plan our move, when we were diverted from our deliberations by a sudden commotion at the rear of the plane. We both looked back and were shocked to the core by what we saw.

To this day I can’t tell you how she did it, but somehow Claudine’s wounded helper had managed to board the plane too. As we looked on, unable to believe what we were actually seeing, she was clinging on to the aircraft with her one good arm, while the rest of her body dangled dangerously in the air.

I had half a mind to let the bloodthirsty tart fall to her death, but Biggins screamed at me to take a firm hold of him while he assisted the helpless floosie into the cargo hold.

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” she gasped, her breasts heaving as she struggled for breath.

She took Biggins by the hand and kissed it, while my God-fearing comrade blushed alarmingly - and this while our fate still hung in the balance.

“Now what do we do?” I asked, happy to let Biggins come up with a good idea for once.

“We’ll just have to go up there and overpower her,” he suggested, displaying his usual flair for improvisation.

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“Marvellous,” I said sarcastically, and that was when our newest arrival surprised us for a second time.

“I will trick Claudine into the hold. You can hide out of sight and catch her unawares.”

“But you work for her,” I protested, unsure as to whether she could be trusted.

“She deserted me and would have left me for dead to save her own skin. I have a score to settle,” she cried, and the look of hatred on her face told you she meant what she said.

I looked across at Biggins and he simply shrugged, as if to say: “What have we got to lose?” For once I agreed with him, so we pressed ourselves against the bulkhead, while our wounded heroine made her way to the cockpit door and yelled out, feigning tears like a ham on the London stage.

“Claudine! Claudine! It is Lien. I am wounded. Please help me!”

For several heart-stopping minutes there was no reply, but then the door opened a crack and the muzzle of a hand-gun could be seen poking through. Claudine must have seen her helpless comrade lying prone across the floor of the cargo hold, because she stepped out to take a closer look.

“Hold it there, Mademoiselle Boissinot,” said Biggins, clearly unwilling to shoot a lady in the back.

As a reward for his gentlemanly behaviour, Claudine swung round and fired a quick succession of shots from her pistol. Several holes suddenly appeared in the fuselage, but one of the bullets must have caught Biggins in the shoulder, because a red patch appeared through his jacket and he fell back against one of the crates of opium. I had no such compunction about slaughtering the two-timing mare and I cocked my revolver, preparing to finish her off.

Perhaps I was a little slow after my recent attempt to board a moving plane, or she was incredibly quick - either way, she spun round and grabbed my gun-arm by the wrist. I couldn’t believe her strength, and as I prepared to elbow her in the face to loosen her grip, she bit down on to my exposed forearm for all she was worth. I screamed out in agony and her teeth must have caught a nerve in my arm that set off my trigger finger, because I fired unintentionally.

When I think back to that moment, I still can’t believe how unlucky that one bullet turned out to be. You see, by a sheer quirk of fate the shot passed through the open door and caught our unlucky pilot in the back of the head - causing his melon to explode and decorate the cockpit with its contents. To make matters worse, his body slumped forward, sending the plane plunging to earth.

Since I was still having to contend with a demented female, I wasn’t exactly in a position to take control of the aircraft. What’s more, Claudine still had hold of her pistol in her other hand. But then the beautiful Lien came to my rescue once again. She grabbed a handful of the Frenchwoman’s hair and pulled with all her might. Claudine let out a scream and I kneed her in the stomach for good measure - causing her to drop her weapon.

I thought that would be the end of it, but the tough bitch refused to give up, and when I turned to head for the cockpit she jumped on my back and brought her arms around my throat, sending me crashing to the floor.

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“Biggins, take the controls,” I cried, struggling to make myself heard as my French whore did her best to crush my windpipe.

“But I can’t fly,” replied the idiot, as he nursed his wounded shoulder.

“Just pull back on the damn stick!” I screamed.

He ran into the cockpit and, as I tried to loosen my attacker’s grip, the plane appeared to come out of its headlong dive. But the buffoon must have overdone it because suddenly we were in a steep climb, and Claudine and I began to roll towards the rear of the plane.

I searched around, desperately trying to find anything I could grab hold of to stop our gradual slide into oblivion - but there was nothing within reach. At least Claudine had given up trying to strangle me and instead had chosen to hold on to my legs for dear life, as we made our way inexorably towards the edge.

I was about to cry out in despair, when Lien managed to take a firm hold of the fuselage and reached out with her wounded arm. At the last minute I managed to grab it and she cried out in agony. Her cry became a blood-curdling scream when I hauled myself up and gripped one of the loading mechanisms on the floor of the plane. Eventually I was able to let go of her blood-soaked arm, and her screams turned into a whimper.

Meanwhile Claudine was still desperately clinging to my shins, as the wind whipped through her dress and threatened to tear her from the plane.

“Thomas, for God’s sake help me!” she screamed.

“Happy to oblige,” I assured her, and I brought my right leg up before kicking out.

I watched as she flew out into the empty sky, her face looking back at me imploringly.

Without hesitating I clawed my way up to the cockpit and took over the controls from Biggins before he killed us all.

“Well done, Fletcher, you managed to overpower her, I see,” he said optimistically.

“When we get Mademoiselle Boissinot back to the airbase, I will look forward to interrogating her.”

“Ah, that might be a little difficult, Biggins.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, I did have a hold of her, but I’m afraid I had to let her go.”

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First things first Biggins was in a foul mood when we eventually landed back at Haiphong, and it wasn’t merely down to the fact that he had a bullet nestling in his shoulder. You see, the silly stuffed shirt insisted I should have taken Claudine alive, and he’d convinced himself that I’d acted as judge, jury and executioner.

“How could you, Fletcher?” he cried. “Sometimes I don’t think I know you at all. How could you throw an unarmed woman out of an aeroplane? You absolute cad!”

The fact that the double-crossing whore had been hanging on to my ankles at the time didn’t seem to enter his pompous little mind. But I was too tired to argue and I let him blow off steam while I sat back and counted my blessings.

Nothing was going to spoil my good mood, not even Biggins banging on about little trifles like the Geneva Convention. The war in Indochina was over, and in spite of the best efforts of the communists and lunatic French commanders, I was still in one piece. France would leave the jungles of Vietnam with its tail between its legs and that would be it – until the Yanks had their turn and made the same mistakes all over again.

To add to my joys, Claudine had received her just deserts and flown off to meet her Maker. What’s more, we were in possession of a ludicrous amount of the readies and a sizeable chunk of Vietnam’s poppy crop.

Then there was the absolutely stunning Miss Lien. She’d placed a comforting hand on Biggins’ shoulder, offering to look at his wound, but he refused to stop raving like a madman, and much to her bemusement he stormed off.

Whereas I couldn’t have been nicer to our wounded lovely – and it paid off dividends, as you will soon see. I tended to her injured arm as best I could and she responded by stroking my hair - which had me tingling all over.

In spite of what we’d been through, she still looked an absolute peach. Her black, shiny hair framed her delicate features and her perfectly formed lips contrasted wonderfully with her wide, dark eyes. As for her figure, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her – but she was shapely with it and suddenly I could feel my heart pumping away.

Still, first things first, I thought, and I sought out the suitcase of dollars which Biggins had rather carelessly left behind. I opened the lid and picked up several wads of cash, just to get the feel of it rubbing through my fingers. Suddenly I could hear the sound of someone clambering into the rear of our Boxcar and I hurriedly tried to hide the evidence.

Unfortunately my efforts were in vain and Biggins burst through the door.

“I will take that, Fletcher, if you don’t mind. I think you’ll find that this money now belongs to Her Majesty’s Government.”

He was about to storm off with the treasure trove, but then he suddenly stopped and turned on his heels to issue another warning.

“And don’t even think about helping yourself to the opium, Fletcher. I have some men arriving within the hour and I will expect every crate to be accounted for.”

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I tried to look mortally offended, but he ignored me and turned his back before departing with his precious slush fund. I have to say in my defence that the smug prig clearly didn’t know me quite as well as he thought he did.

I might be no Xenocrat, but filling my pockets to bursting with packets of opium was a step too far. Not being a partaker of the narcotic myself, I would have had to peddle the damn stuff, and such an enterprise spelled nothing but danger. I just didn’t have the stomach for it.

“Is that angry man your boss?” asked my Vietnamese beauty, intruding on my thoughts.

“Well, he thinks he is,” I assured her.

“You both work for the British government, no? Will you have me arrested?”

As she asked her question, she chose that moment to rub her slender hand gently up my thigh until it found its target.

“Oh … Jesus,” I cried, when I realised what she was up to.

“I would be extremely grateful for anything you could do to help me,” she explained, as she proceeded to demonstrate one of her professional talents.

That was enough for me, and I whisked my oriental lovely off to Hanoi quicker than you could say Jack Poppy Seed.

My grateful pleasure-merchant couldn’t do enough for me, and when she wasn’t tending to my needs in the bedroom, she was mopping my tired brow and serving up culinary delights to cater to my other appetites.

I spent several weeks under the tender care of my Vietnamese admirer, and I have to say they were some of the happiest of my long and ill-spent life. It was a wonderful way to while away the time, waiting for Biggins to cool off. And if it hadn’t been for the uncertain future of Vietnam at the time, I might have been tempted to take up residence.

But needs must, as they say, and when I finally sought out my irate partner back in Haiphong, I was happy to see that he’d calmed down sufficiently to allow for a civil exchange of words – almost.

“I wondered how long it would take you to come out from whatever grubby little rock you crawled under, Fletcher.”

I suppressed a smile as I thought back to how I’d been spending my time under that rock, and I toyed with the idea of letting Biggins know how wrong he was. But then I thought better of it. I decided that rubbing his nose in it wouldn’t exactly help to rebuild our fraught working relationship.

“What’s the story, Henry? Are we finally finished here?” I asked.

I believed it was a more than reasonable question. We’d been stuck in the Far East and forced to fight in one blasted war after another for nigh on four years - and in all that time we hadn’t seen sight nor sound of home. But you’d have thought I was asking for a gold watch and an early pension by the way he reacted.

“Is that all you think about, Fletcher? We’ve been entrusted with a vital mission, in case you’ve forgotten. The fate of the Free World depends on us,” said the big-headed idiot.

“But what do you expect to do here?” I asked incredulously. “The war’s over.”

Eventually he gave a huge sigh and delivered his welcome news.

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“As it turns out, we will be returning to London, Fletcher.”

I let out an involuntary whoop, but Biggins raised his hands to indicate that I shouldn’t get too excited.

“Don’t think for one minute that we’re heading home because you’ve given a good account of yourself here in Vietnam,” said the ungrateful bastard. “It just so happens that I managed to … dispose of Mademoiselle Boissinot’s merchandise for a tidy sum. This, together with the funds in the suitcase, will make a healthy contribution to the Service’s war chest. I expect I’ll be feted as the lion of the hour upon our return.”

My bone-headed friend was clearly feeling very full of himself, but I was happy to let him have his moment in the sun, for what it was worth. You see, I had my own plans, and they didn’t involve suicidal fanatics, hell-bent on killing their imperialist foe - or misguided government spies, come to that.

As happy as I was at the thought of getting back to the green hills of home, there were certain sides of life I’d rather enjoyed in the Orient – when I wasn’t being shot at by bloodthirsty communists. In fact I’d briefly flirted with the idea of asking Biggins if I could bring the delectable Lien back with us, but I knew it wouldn’t do. More than likely he would have blown a gasket if I’d had the temerity to ask.

Unfortunately I only succeeded in exchanging one ranting maniac for another. You see, when I explained to my pretty native that she wouldn’t be able to join me, she nearly had a fit. She even had the audacity to claim she was pregnant, or some such nonsense. I left the mad bint cursing me something rotten and swearing that one day she’d have her revenge for abandoning her, no matter how long it took.

Needless to say I consoled myself with the thought that there were plenty more lustful females in the sea – even in the cold waters back in Blighty.

So what had we achieved after our three long years in sunny Vietnam? Not a fat lot, if truth be told. Biggins’ plans to help turn the tide of the war in favour of the French had fallen by the wayside, and all we’d succeeded in doing was being there to witness the downfall of the colony.

I’d survived, which was the main thing, and Biggins had his moment of glory back in London with his ill-gotten gains. I’d made the acquaintance of a number of desirable if not worthy females, and there was one other piece of good fortune that headed my way - which I will come to presently.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to resuming my spartan life back in London.

Fortunately my recent escapade in Indochina had provided me with a remedy. Biggins still held the threat of prison over my head for my little indiscretion back in England, so he expected me to continue working for the Service - but at least now I would be able to do it in style.

Upon our return, one of my first chores was to acquire sumptuous accommodation in Knightsbridge – oh, and a rather pleasant colonial-style residence in Antigua, overlooking a stunning bay. That is where I am writing these hallowed memoirs, now that I’m no longer using the place to entertain young ladies, I’m sorry to say.

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Which leads us to the little matter of how, exactly, I was able to suddenly afford such peccadilloes. To which the answer is quite simple. You see, my good friend Biggins was not always the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and he failed to spot the noticeable shortfall in the contents of Claudine’s precious suitcase. By the time he’d gotten over his huff and had returned to the Flying Boxcar, I’d helped myself to sizeable wads of the offending pelf and stuffed my pockets to the brim.

I suppose the more judgemental among you might raise certain moral objections to me living well on such ill-gotten gains, but I can’t help that. I’ll simply say that I believe I rather earned it.

I could leave you with a list of the battles and scrapes I had to endure as a result of Biggins’ hare-brained schemes, like Muong-Chen and Dien Bien Phu, but why drag up such painful memories all over again? No, I’m much happier thinking back to those more pleasant times I spent in the company of Brigitte, my succulent nurse; or Lien, my irresistible Vietnamese whore; or Marie, my wanton journalist; or even Claudine, my twotiming French spy.

They are memories I feel far happier conjuring up, as I settle down for the night with a stiff brandy. So I’ll raise a glass to those better men than me who bled their last drop of blood in the jungles of Vietnam, while I was spared. And I’ll take a healthy sip and say thank you for the beautiful and dangerous women who made it all worth it.

[This is where the fourth packet of my uncle’s memoirs ends.]

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Notes 1. Air America was a company incorporated in Delaware, but it was also the generic name used to describe all of the CIA’s air activities, whether under the name of Civil Air Transport, Intermountain, Air Asia, or Southern Air Transport. It operated in most of the war-torn areas of the world, including China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Tibet, Burma, Indonesia and the Congo (then called Zaire).

(Christopher Robbins, Air America).

2. Fletcher’s brief description of the doctor with whom he had a passing acquaintance matches very closely with that of Captain Valérie André, but to suggest that she actually met Captain Fletcher would be pure speculation. However, she was both a command paratrooper and a helicopter pilot. By the end of the war she had rescued 67 men from behind the communist lines.

(Bernard B Fall, Street Without Joy).

3. The man who could not swim must have been Sergeant Cheyron, who nevertheless managed to cover over 200 kilometres of treacherous jungle, including a number of river crossings.

(Fall, op.cit.)

4. The two reporters who Fletcher saw hit by mortar fire must have been Martinoff and André Lebon from the information service. Martinoff was killed and André had one foot practically blown off. Dr. Grauwin finished the amputation and André was sent to Hanoi.

The attack took place on March 13th 1954.

(Jules Roy, The Battle of Dienbienphu).

5. The officer who lost both of his arms and bled to death was Lieutenant Colonel Gaucher.

(Bernard B Fall, Hell In a Very Small Place).

6. The officer who committed suicide was Colonel Charles Piroth.

(Fall, op. cit.)

7. Bruno was Lieutenant Marcel Bigeard’s nom de guerre, which he had adopted in 1944 when he parachuted into the Ariège. He was regarded as a tough and headstrong commander. He first went to Indochina in 1945 and trained French battalions to fight and live like the enemy. He never carried arms on him in combat, in spite of eight years of almost uninterrupted fighting. He often told his men: “Learn to look death in the face. You are born to die.” His men loved him, many of his companions found him unbearable, and the enemy feared him. It is strange that Fletcher seems to have been wary of Langlais, who was cut from the same cloth, while at the same time he welcomed Bigeard’s arrival. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he was already familiar with the lieutenant’s abilities.

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(Jules Roy, op. cit.)

8. A Pentagon study group at the time concluded that three tactical atomic weapons, “properly employed”, would be sufficient to smash the Vietminh forces at Dien Bien Phu. (Stanley Karnow, Vietnam, A History).

9. Records show that a nurse at Dien Bien Phu, Genevieve de Galard, received a Croix de Guerre and a Legion of Honour. The press at home gave her the name ‘The Angel of Dien Bien Phu’. No mention is made of Mademoiselle Leblanc.

10. The description and actions of McGuiness closely match that of Captain James B McGovern. It seems unlikely that Fletcher would have made a mistake about the name of a man with whom he had spent so much time, but the pilot was also known throughout the Far East as ‘Earthquake McGoon’. Perhaps Fletcher’s memory failed him, although this is purely conjecture.

(Christopher Robbins, op. cit.)

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