Saigon (13 page)

A black mantle of pre-dawn darkness still cloaked the jungle and the rubber plantation villages when the Annamese cai who assisted the French plantation director and his European staff began sounding clamorous gongs outside the barrack huts. The coolies inside the fetid dens immediately began to stretch their stiffened limbs and drag themselves off their sodden mats, knowing that within minutes the cai would be among them flailing heavy staves to rouse the laggards. 

Ngo Van Dong stumbled to his feet and helped his brother up quickly at the approach of the squat figure of Phat, the overseer of their barrack. He was one of a caste of brutish Annamese of low intelligence widely cultivated by the French colonizers to serve them as jailers, labor foremen and police. Phat was Duclos’ particular favorite among the cai because the ruthless sadism with which he disciplined his fellow coolies was matched by the utter servility he showed to Duclos to ensure he retained both his approval and the necessary stamp of his authority. It was barely four o’clock when he entered the hut of the Ngo brothers and he waddled threateningly down the center of the earth floor towards them, shining his flashlight right arid left, looking for any excuse to employ his cane. As he drew near they heard the sickening crack of the rod striking flesh; once, twice they heard it fall but it brought no anguished shout of pain in response. Phat struck the motionless corpse of’ the coolie who had died beside Hoc a third time before he realized that the wretched man had passed forever beyond pain and productive labor. Without pause or sign of remorse he swung his flashlight on the brothers and raised his rod again. “Fetch rope and a spade and dispose of this stinking carcass in the jungle! And be quick.” The brutal face bulged as he yelled his order and he swung the rod again in a threatening arc. When they had gone Phat pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket and with a little grunt of irritation made a mark in it beneath the number of the barrack hut. 

Outside in the darkness Doug stopped and pressed his shivering brother against the flimsy wall of the barrack. “Stay here and hide! I will do the burial with Old Trung. Prepare our tools and take my dose of quinine at roll call as well as your own.” He pressed into Hoc’s hand the little ball of cold rice wrapped in a palm leaf that each of them always saved from the night before to give them strength to start the new day. “Eat my rice too — I’m not hungry this morning.” 

Hoc nodded dumbly as his brother sped away to fetch a spade and rope from the cai’s quarters. When Dong returned he found the dead man was not heavy. An emaciated rice cropper from the Red River delta who had been forced south like many others because typhoons had recently inundated the rice lands, he had worked in the rubber plantation for less than a month before succumbing to the fever. Shocked and exhausted by the severity of the work and his illness, he had spoken little of himself or the family he had left behind in the north. 

Old Trung, a toughened three-year contract coolie compelled to stay on in the plantation beyond the term because he had no money or clothes to leave, knotted the cord Dong had fetched around the neck of the cadaver with a deftness that betrayed his familiarity with the task. He picked up the dead man’s only possession, a straw mat, and together he and Dong dragged the body out of the barrack and through the mud towards the jungle half a mile away. Phat escorted them, scowling and flailing their shoulders with his cane from time to time to speed their progress. “Take him at least a hundred meters into the jungle,” he yelled as he swung the cane across their shoulders one last time to urge them in among the trees. 

Only the faintest streaks of light were brightening the sky to the east, and by the time the two coolies had gone thirty or forty yards into the jungle, the overseer was lost to sight. Trung stopped immediately and motioned Dong to dig. “Work quickly. The tigers are always hungry at this hour.” 

Dong dug frantically with the shovel, lifting the heavy rain- soaked clods of earth with difficulty. it took him several minutes to make a hole only two to three feet deep. When he stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, Trung laid a cautionary hand on his arm. “Listen!” They stood with rigid tension listening to the brooding silence of the jungle-all around them. “I’m sure I heard the rustle of an animal.” Trung cocked his head for a moment longer. Then he looked back at the hole in the ground. “That’s enough! Take his feet.” 

Dong looked doubtfully at the inadequate grave. “But it isn’t deep enough 

From behind Trung the distinct sound of movement in the underbrush reached their ears. “Take his feet I say. And quickly.” 

Dong did as he was told, and they dropped the lifeless body into the shallow impression in the ground. Trung untied the cord and wound it around his waist to return later to the overseer. Then he covered the dead coolie with his mat and helped Dong fling clods of earth rapidly on top of it with his hands. When they had finished, one foot of the dead man still protruded above the surface. Seeing this, Dong picked up the shovel and made to dig again. 

“No! Come; it’s enough!” Trung grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him bodily in the direction of the village. “You are too conscientious. It’s a better and deeper grave than any I’ve seen. Let’s run now or we will wind up alongside him.” 

Dong took one last look back and shuddered at the sight of the disembodied foot poking from the red jungle earth. He closed his eyes and offered an anguished prayer to his own ancestors and those of the dead man, begging their forgiveness. Then he turned and ran as fast as he could to catch up with Trung. By the time they had run the half-mile back to their barracks the tiger that had been stalking them in the penumbra had emerged from his cover. Without difficulty the animal unearthed the dead coolie by dragging at the protruding leg and disappeared again into the undergrowth. In the comfort of its lair its powerful jaws were soon mangling the puny chest and shoulders of the dead Annamese into a bloody pulp. 

When Dong and Old ‘Trung fell into the roll call line on either side of Hoc outside their barrack hut, names had already been checked and the morning doses of quinine had been handed out. Hoc was pale, but shivering less violently. All five hundred coolies from Number Three Village were drawn up outside their barracks in long ranks; silent and apprehensive, they were wondering why they had been roused half an hour earlier and why the burly, intimidating figure of the plantation director, Duclos, was waiting to address the massed roll call beneath the single lightpole in the barrack compound. 

Their bruised shoulders and backs reminded them that the cai and the French assistants had been particularly vicious that morning. Had there been another mass breakout attempt in the night for which they were all to be punished? Or perhaps another of the cai living quarters had again been burned down by coolies in one of the other villages? Clutching their coupe-coupes, their tapping tools and their collecting cans, they waited dumbly, their eyes flicking from Duclos to the cane of the overseer nearest to them. 

The plantation director was standing on an upturned crate that had been placed in position for him beneath the light, and despite the early hour he was already wearing his customary pith helmet, the sleeves’ of his bush shirt were rolled high on his brown muscular arms and he was bare-legged in shorts, heavy jungle boots and short thick socks. Around his waist he wore a broad leather belt with a bone-handled knife clasped in a sheath and as usual in the presence of the coolies his right hand rested on its hilt as if it were a ceremonial sword. Filling his barrel chest with a deep breath, he glared around at the assembled crowd. “Twenty years ago there was not a single rubber tree in all Indochina,” he roared. “Do you hear? Fifteen years ago this plantation where we live and work today was virgin jungle inhabited only by savage herds of elephants! We, the French, came twelve thousand miles across the sea. We built roads and villages and brought rubber trees and planted them for mile after mile through your wild land. We produced an oasis, of civilized industry in this fever-ridden wilderness!” He stopped, jammed his hands on his hips and leaned forward from the waist in a belligerent posture. “And we worked for many years before we collected a single cup of rubber, do you hear? Storms blew down the trees, fires ravaged the plantation, dry years killed our saplings — but we did not give up, we labored on!” He paused and drew himself up proudly to his full height again. “Today our plantations here have become the finest in all the Far East!” 

The coolies shifted uneasily, their gaze never leaving the Corsican’s face. The older ones among them who had heard similar harangues before had already sensed they were about to experience some harshening of their conditions. 

I, Duclos, am responsible for the plantation of Vi An and I will not tolerate lazy, idle, work-shy ‘yellows’ here His lips curled contemptuously as he used the abusive French term Jaunes. “Last month our production fell because of your contemptible idleness. The shareholders in Paris are displeased. They expect 1929 to be the best year ever for rubber production. We have less than three months of the year left now, so from today the daily quota of trees to be treated by each one of you will be raised from three hundred and fifty to five hundred!” He stopped again and glared aggressively along the ranks of silent Annamese. “That is why you have been roused early. Five hundred trees each and every day you will treat from now on — or you will be punished with fines, you will be beaten and you will be clapped in irons in An Dap.” 

A young French assistant, who had been holding the white horse on which Duclos ranged the plantation each day, stepped forward at a signal from him and steadied the animal while he mounted. Swinging the horse’s head to face the massed coolies again, Duclos drew a long solid wood truncheon from a leather saddle scabbard and stood up in the stirrups. 

“Go now! And don’t return until you have completed your quota.” As he shouted his order he spurred the horse forward suddenly towards the front ranks of the coolies, scattering them in the direction of the rubber groves. 

It was still not yet five o’clock, and the trees themselves were scarcely distinguishable in the semidarkness. Dong and Hoc ran panting along the adjacent ranks allotted to them, calling out frequently to encourage one another and to check each other’s progress. They had to run constantly to complete the first tapping of their three hundred and fifty trees in the five hours before ten o’clock. They spent only a minute or so at each tree, cleaning off dried latex, adjusting the collecting supports and making new incisions through which the day’s latex could escape. They had to work fast but with care since poor incisions invariably brought a beating from the cai or the French. 

At precisely ten o’clock a siren split the burning air above the plantation to indicate that collection of the latex was to begin. On hearing this, the brothers ran the two thousand meters back to the start of their rows and began visiting each tree in turn again to empty the cups into their carrying cans. When the cans were full they ran with them to one of the many collecting stations from which trucks transported the latex to the central warehouses. 

By the time they had finished collecting it was midday: the sun was directly overhead and the rubber groves steamed with suffocating heat. Exhausted from seven hours of nonstop toil, the brothers flung themselves down on the red soil in the shade along with the other fifteen hundred coolies of the plantation and lay like dead men. When they had recovered they hurriedly cooked and ate the ration of cold rice they had brought with them from the barracks and swallowed a mouthful or two of water. 

Usually they cleared underbrush and weeds from the rubber groves from one o’clock until sunset, hut the new quotas ordered by Duclos that morning meant they had had to tap and collect from more than a hundred extra trees through the hot afternoon although their energies were largely spent. Hoc’s fever began to return halfway through the task, and Dong ran frantically back and forth between their adjoining rows, working his own and his brother’s trees while Hoc rested. This saved Hoc from the beating that would inevitably have followed discovery of his shortcomings when the scowling overseers dipped their yardsticks into the cans at the collecting station. 

It was nearly seven in the evening and the sun was setting behind their backs before the two weary, footsore brothers were able to limp back to their barracks in Number Three Village with their joint quota fulfilled. At the gates they found the cai assembling the whole labor force before the barrack huts to witness the public punishment of those who had failed to meet the new demands. The exhausted coolies stumbled against one another in panic as the overseers marshaled them into a circle with blows about the head and shoulders, A group of thirty or forty downcast men stood apart in the center of this’ ring, their heads and arms hanging slack in attitudes of despair. 

Dong put a supportive arm around his brother and pulled him deeper into the crowd. There at least they would not have to see and hear the effect of the blows as clearly as those in front. Duclos was watching grimly from astride his horse, and a hush fell on the compound when he rose in his stirrups and lifted his own stave from its leather scabbard as a signal to the cai to begin. 

The first batch of five coolies were flung face downward in the red dirt, and under the direction of the burly figure of Phat, half a dozen of his subordinates began lashing at the exposed soles of their bare feet. Their staves rose and fell steadily, the men swinging them high above their heads with a measured and deliberate rhythm born of long practice. Each coolie received a hundred blows, and only their muffled cries of pain punctuated the regular thud of the staves. 

Phat counted the strokes, darting an occasional glance at Due- los to ensure he retained his approval. On the hundredth blow he motioned his subordinates to cease and haul the moaning coolies upright. 

‘Nhanh nhu tho!” yelled Duclos, brandishing his own stave. “Now run like hares!” 

The cai prodded the five men until they began hobbling on their swollen, bleeding feet around the edge of the circle formed by their fellows. One who fell was beaten again before being dragged upright and pushed on his way. The five Annamese, grunting with pain continued stumbling and staggering around the circle in grotesque imitation of bounding hares while the next group of victims were thrown down in the dirt. 

As the punishments resumed, the sound of revving engines broke upon the scene and three open trucks crowded with new coolie laborers swung into the compound in a swirl of dust. A brightly polished black Citroen followed them in and drew up beside Duclos’ horse. Phat looked inquiringly towards his master, wondering if the procedures should be halted, but the Corsican waved him on, gesturing peremptorily for the crowd to be moved back so that the new recruits could see what was happening. 

Dong, because of his unusual height, had a clear view of the new arrivals above the heads of the crowd — and within a matter of seconds his startled eyes fell on two familiar faces that he had not seen for well over a year. The tall stoop-shouldered European in a white suit and felt hat who climbed from the gleaming car and offered a languid hand in greeting to Duclos he recognized first as Auguste Lepine, the director of the Indigenous Labor Recruitment Agency. Lepine had accompanied the cai who had lured him and his brother to the plantation eighteen months earlier, but despite the feeling of hatred the sight of him inspired Dong scarcely gave the recruiter a second glance. His astonished gaze was fixed on the second familiar face Staring out at the public floggings from amid the crowd of frightened coolies on the first truck, a face he hadn’t seen for even longer — that of his own father!