Toll for the Brave - Jack Higgins

Toll for the Brave

Jack Higgins

THE SOUND OF THUNDER

3

TIME OUT OF MIND

4

ACTION BY NIGHT

5

THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH

6

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

7

CONNORS QUAY

8

THE RUN TO THE ISLAND

9

BLACK MAX

10

SEEK AND DESTROY

11

THE LAST BANZAI

12

JACK HIGGINS

ALSO BY JACK HIGGINS

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

They were beating the Korean to death in the next room, all attempts to break him down having failed completely. He was a stubborn man and, like most of his countrymen, held the Chinese in a kind of contempt and they reacted accordingly. The fact that Republic of Korea troops had the highest kill ratio in Vietnam at that time didnt exactly help matters.

There were footsteps outside, the door opened and a young Chinese officer appeared. He snapped his fingers and I got up like a good dog and went to heel. A couple of guards were dragging the Korean away by the feet, a blanket wrapped about his head to keep the blood off the floor. The officer paused to light a cigarette, ignoring me completely, then walked along the corridor and I shuffled after him.

We passed the interrogation room, which was something to be thankful for, and stopped outside the camp commandants office at the far end. The young officer knocked, pushed me inside and closed the door.

Colonel Chen-Kuen was writing away busily at his desk. He ignored me for quite some time, then put down his pen and got to his feet. He walked to the window and glanced outside.

The rains are late this year.

I couldnt think of anything to say in answer to that pearl of wisdom, didnt even know if it was expected. In any event, he didnt give me a chance to make small talk and carried straight on, still keeping his back to me.

I am afraid I have some bad news for you, Ellis. I have finally received instructions from Central Committee in Hanoi. Both you and General St Claire are to be executed this morning.

He turned, his face grave, concerned and said a whole lot more, though whether or not he was expressing his personal regret, I could not be sure for it was as if I had cut the wires, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly and I didnt hear a word.

He left me. In fact, it was the last time I ever saw him. When the door opened next I thought it might be the guards come to take me, but it wasnt. It was Madame Ny.

She was wearing a uniform that looked anything but Peoples Republic and had obviously been tailored by someone who knew his business. Leather boots, khaki shirt and a tunic which had been cut to show off those good breasts of hers to the best advantage. The dark eyes were wet with tears, tragic in the white face.

She said, Im sorry, Ellis.

Funny, but I almost believed her. Almost, but not quite. I moved in close so that I wouldnt miss, spat right in her face, opened the door and went out.

The young officer had disappeared, but a couple of guards were waiting for me. They were hardly more than boys, stocky little peasants out of the rice fields who gripped their AK assault rifles too tightly like men who werent as used to them as they should be. One of them went ahead, opened the end door and motioned me through.

The compound was deserted, not a prisoner in sight. The gate stood wide, the watch towers floated in the morning mist. Everything waited. And then I heard the sound of marching feet and St Claire came round the corner with the young Chinese officer and two guards.

In spite of the broken jump boots, the tattered green fatigues, he still looked everything a soldier ever could be. He marched with that crisp, purposeful movement that only the regular seems to acquire. Every step meant something. It was as if the Chinese were with him; as if he were leading.

He had the Indian sign on them, there was no doubt of that, which is saying something for the Chinese do not care for the Negro overmuch. But then, he was something special and like no man I have known before or since.

He paused and looked at me searchingly, then smiled that famous St Claire smile that made you feel you were the only damned person that mattered in the wide world. I moved to his side and we set off together. He increased his pace and I had to jump to it to stay level with him. We might have been back at Benning, drill on the square, and the guards had to run to keep up with us.

Colonel Chen-Kuens rains came as we went through the gate, in that incredible instant downpour that you only get with the monsoon. It didnt make the slightest difference to St Claire and he carried on at the same brisk pace so that one of the guards had to run past to get in front of us to lead the way.

In other circumstances it could have been funny, but not now. We plunged through the heavy, drenching downpour into the forest and took a path that led down towards the river a mile or more away.

A couple of hundred yards further on we entered a broad clearing that sloped steeply into the trees. There were mounds of earth all over the place, as nice a little cemetery as you could wish for, but minus the headstones naturally.

The young officer called us to a halt, his voice hard and flat through the rain. We stood and waited while he had a look round. There didnt seem much room to spare, but he obviously wasnt going to let a little thing like that worry him. He selected a spot on the far side of the clearing, found us a couple of rusting trenching shovels that looked as if they had seen plenty of service and went and stood in the shelter of the trees with two of the guards and smoked cigarettes, leaving one to watch over us as we set to work.

The soil was pure loam, light and easy to handle because of the rain. It lifted in great spadefuls that had me knee-deep in my own grave before I knew where I was. And St Claire wasnt exactly helping. He worked at it as if there was a bonus at the end of the job, those great arms of his swinging three spadefuls of dirt into the air for every one of mine.

The rain seemed to increase in a sudden rush that drowned all hope. I was going to die. The thought rose in my throat like bile to choke on and then it happened. The side of the trench next to me collapsed suddenly, probably because of the heavy rain, leaving a hand and part of a forearm protruding from the earth, flesh rotting from the bones.

I turned away blindly, fighting for air, and lost my balance, falling flat on my face. At the same moment the other wall of the trench collapsed across me.

As I struggled for life, I was aware that St Claire had started to laugh, that deep, rich, special sound that seemed to come right up from the roots of his being. It didnt make any kind of sense at all but I had other things to think of now. The stink of the grave was in my nostrils, my eyes. I opened my mouth to scream and soil poured in choking the life out of me in a great wave of darkness that blotted out all light

1

The dream always ended in exactly the same way with me sitting bolt upright in bed, screaming like any child frightened in the dark, St Claires laughter ringing in my ears which was the most disturbing thing of all.

And as always during the silence that followed, I waited with a kind of terrible anxiety for something to happen, something I dreaded above all things and yet could not put a name to.

But as usual, there was nothing. Only the rain brushing against the windows of the old house, driven by a wind that blew stiffly across the marshes from the North Sea. I listened, head turned, waiting for a sign that never came, shaking slightly and sweating rather a lot which was exactly how Sheila found me when she arrived a moment later.

She had been painting still clutched a palette and three brushes in her left hand and the old terry towelling robe she habitually wore was streaked with paint. She put the palette and brushes down on a chair, came and sat on the edge of the bed, taking my hands in hers.

What is it, love? The dream again?

When I spoke my voice was hoarse and broken. Always the same always. Accurate in every detail, exactly as it was until St Claire starts to laugh.

I started to shake uncontrollably, teeth grinding together in intense stress. She had the robe off in a moment, was under the sheets, her arms pulling me into the warmth of that magnificent body.

And as always, she knew exactly what she was doing for fear turns upon itself endlessly like a mad dog unless the cycle can be broken. She kissed me repeatedly, hands gentle. For a little while, comfort, then by some mysterious alchemy, she was on her back, thighs spreading to receive me. An old story between us, but one which never palled and at such moments, the finest therapy in the world or so I told myself.

Englishmen who have served with the American forces in Vietnam arent exactly thick on the ground, but there are more of us around than most people realise. Having said that, to disclose what Id been doing for the past three years, in mixed company, was usually calculated to raise most eyebrows, and in some instances could be guaranteed to provoke open hostility.

The party where I had first met Sheila Ward was a case in point. It had turned out to be a stuffy, pseudo-intellectual affair. I was thoroughly bored and didnt seem to know a soul except my hostess. When she finally had time for me I had done what seemed the sensible thing and got good and drunk, something at which I was fairly expert in those days.

Unfortunately, she didnt seem to notice and insisted on introducing me to a sociologist from the London School of Economics who by some minor miracle known only to academics, had managed to obtain a doctorate for a thesis on structural values in Revolutionary China without ever having actually visited the country.

The information that I had spent three of the best years of my young life serving with the American Airborne in Vietnam including a sizeable stretch in a North Vietnamese prison camp, had the same effect as if he had been hit by a rather heavy truck.

He told me that I was about as acceptable in his eyes as a lump of dung on his shoe which seemed to go down well with the group whod been hanging on his every word, but didnt impress me one little bit.

I told him what he could do about it in pretty fluent Cantonese which surprisingly in an expert on Chinese affairs he didnt seem to understand.

But someone else did which was when I met Sheila Ward. Just about the most spectacular woman Id ever seen in my life. Every mans fantasy dream. Soft black leather boots that reached to her thighs, a yard or two of orange wool posing as a dress, shoulder-length auburn hair framing a strong peasant face and a mouth which was at least half a mile wide. She could have been ugly, but her mouth was her saving grace. With that mouth she was herself alone.

You cant do that to him, she said in fair Chinese. Theyd give you at least five years.

Not bad, I told her gravely, but your accent is terrible.

Yorkshire, she said. Just a working class girl from Doncaster on the make. My husband was a lecturer at Hong Kong University for five years.