Saigon (2 page)

Joseph’s innocent eyes widened in alarm. “What happened? Were they all burned alive?” 

“Fortunately not.” The captain smiled at the eager intensity of Joseph’s inquiry. “The British master of the ship turned her to windward arid the fire was blown back towards the pirate mob. They all had to jump overboard and a lot of them drowned.” 

“Wow, that was a smart trick,” breathed Joseph, his face alight with excitement at the thought of the drama. Then his expression clouded again. “But all the Chinese down there can’t be pirates, can they? Isn’t it a bit unfair on them?” 

“It’s only for the voyage, remember,” said the captain smoothly. “There is no other way. Certain things have to be done differently in the colonies.” He lifted his shoulders in a little Gallic shrug of helplessness and smiled. “C’est la vie coloniale, Monsieur Joseph. You will soon get accustomed to it.” 

Joseph’s expression remained dubious for a moment then his face lit up again and he pointed westward over the captain’s shoulder. “Isn’t that land over there?” he exclaimed excitedly. 

The Frenchman peered through his binoculars for a moment. Yes, Monsieur Joseph, you are right. That is the coast of the most beautiful and prosperous French colony in the world.” He glanced at his watch and offered the glasses to the American boy. “Would you like to look? We shall probably be landing in Saigon sometime after lunch tomorrow.” 

With his naked eye Joseph had glimpsed only a faint smudge of coastline, but through the glasses he was able to see more clearly some of the rocky peaks of the thousand-mile-long mountain spine that linked the rich southern rice lands of the Mekong delta and Saigon with the fertile plain of the Red River around Hanoi in the north. From the book he’d just put down he knew that vast tracts of virgin tropical forest covered those mountainsides and large areas of the lowlands too; in the book there were sepia-tinted photographs of primitive tribesmen who still hunted with stone- tipped arrows and poison darts in those same forests that also teemed with elephant herds, tiger, buffalo, black bears and countless other rare species of animal life that had been left undisturbed by the march of civilization. Joseph had devoured the contents of the book avidly during the long Pacific crossing and had begun reading it again after they left Hong Kong. 

As he peered through the binoculars he felt a tremor of excitement course through him at the prospect of seeing the printed images come to life. For a moment he let himself imagine he was some great explorer about to enter a hostile, unknown land on which his name would later be stamped for all history. Then he wondered if great explorers ever felt as he did — excited, yes, but more than a little frightened too! Remembering suddenly that Chuck and his father were standing behind him, he blushed inwardly at the thought. Could they detect the excitement he felt? Could they read the apprehension of his expression? The last thing he wanted them to think was that, at fifteen, he was immature. As he turned and handed the binoculars to his elder brother he frowned in what he hoped was a manly, intent manner and tried to make his voice sound casual. ‘Looks a bit like Virginia Beach in a heavy haze, if you ask me,” he said and attempted to shrug like the French captain. 

Chuck Sherman, who had noticed the excited gleam in his young brother’s eyes, grinned and punched him affectionately on the arm as he took the binoculars, but before he could lift them to his eyes a tumult of shouting and screaming broke out suddenly among the throng of Chinese pressing up against the iron grille below them. All the Shermans turned to watch in alarm as the captain dashed away down the companionway, dragging a revolver from inside his white uniform tunic. Beside the grille he dropped to one knee and fired three quick shots into the air. The sound of the gun silenced the Chinese for a few seconds, then a lone woman’s voice began wailing again and the Shermans saw a thin ragged body forced up against the underside of the grille. 

After a muttered exchange through the bars, the captain ordered two of his officers to standby with pistols drawn while he unfastened the padlocks. When the grille swung open he called two or three seamen to his side and ordered them to haul the corpse out onto the deck. He allowed a thin, ill-clad woman to scramble out behind it, and immediately she fell to her knees beside the body and began wailing once more. Ignoring her, the captain ordered his men to carry the body aft, and the woman eventually rose and hobbled after them, still sobbing piteously. 

Flavia Sherman turned her back to the rail and closed her eyes; her face was pale and she was trembling. “How dreadful,” she said at last “It’s a wonder any of them survive in there.” 

“I shouldn’t lose too much sleep over it, my dear,” said the senator in a soothing voice. “Chinese coolies are tough. They live hard lives. They don’t crave the same bodily comforts as we do. Life is cheap to them.” He leaned over the rail to peer down onto the lower deck. The captain’s party had disappeared, and the Chinese beneath the grilles had grown quiet again. “You might say, Chuck,” he said over his shoulder, “that you’ve just witnessed a very clear demonstration of the principle on which every empire in history’s ever been built. Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great knew it, and so did Britain’s Queen Victoria — ‘might is right.’ Here and now the French have the power, so the Asians on their ship and throughout Indochina do as they tell them. That’s the way of the world. The rich and the powerful call the tune. If you can muster superior strength, you can impose your way of thinking on others — even if they don’t like what you do or the way you do it. If you’ve got bigger muscles and the will to use them, the others have to go along with you. Nothing’s ever going to change that.” He paused and glanced about him to check that no French crew members were within earshot. “The French have a heavy hand. They like to use an elephant gun to stun a flea. You’ll see that when we get ashore. I’m told they behave here as if they expect their empire to last forever. We know different in America. The French way isn’t the American way. We do things different, boys 

— and do things better...” 

The senator took his elder son by the elbow and, still talking, motioned him to stroll with him along the deck. Joseph watched them go, then he glanced’ back at his mother with a troubled expression in his eyes. “Do you think those people down there are really so different from us, Momma?” he asked, keeping his voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to his father’s ears. 

Flavia Sherman brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen across his eyes and smiled fondly at him. “Life is full of impossible questions like that, Joseph. They’re very different in many ways, no doubt. But we’re all still made of flesh and blood, aren’t we?” 

His face remained creased with thought and she could see that the answer hadn’t satisfied him. To distract him she put an arm around his shoulders and moved away from the rail. “Don’t worry about it any more for the moment. Let’s go back and sit together in the shade, shall we? Then you can tell me some more about that book you’ve been buried in for the past week.” 

“Oh boy,” breathed Chuck Sherman, gazing longingly at the impenetrable green wall of tropical foliage slipping past only a few yards from the ship’s rail, “this is going to make the mountains of West Virginia seem a bit tame. How d’you think you’re going to feel, Joey, when we come face to face with a herd of elephant or a tawny tiger out there?” 

“I thought we weren’t out to shoot elephants or tigers,” replied Joseph absently. 

“We’re not going looking for them, genius — but they don’t know that, do they? If they come looking for us with tusk and fang you’d better be ready with that Winchester peashooter of yours.” 

“I suppose so.” Joseph nodded automatically. 

They had left their cabins early to enjoy the fresh morning breeze, and Joseph had perched himself on a coil of rope beside Chuck at the rail to finish his reading. The clear, blue water of the river mouth had given way to a brown muddy flow as the ship moved inland, and both banks were now lined with natural stockades of tall, fleshy-leaved trees that trailed tangled creepers over the water. In occasional clearings the American boys caught sight of slender natives in conical, palm-leaf hats bending over fishing lines or snares for river fowl, but they rarely looked up; only the naked, potbellied children paid any attention, staring at the Avignon with brown, expressionless eyes as it swung past the low banks on which they stood. Sometimes the sudden screech of an unseen bird startled the brothers, but otherwise the brilliant green tropical forest through which they were gliding remained eerily silent. 

“I’ll bet you don’t know, Chuck, how Saigon got its name, do you?” exclaimed Joseph at last, closing the book and jumping to his feet. “It’s really quite interesting.” 

“I don’t know how it got its name, no,” replied the older boy smiling patiently, “but no doubt some book-reading bore is about to inform me.” 

“In old Annamese it means ‘Village of the Boxwoods,’ after the trees that originally grew there. It wasn’t much more than a fishing village until the eighteenth century when French Jesuits and a few merchants demanded the right to build a city. But its name could also be based on the Chinese characters ‘Tsai Con,’ which mean ‘Tribute paid to the West.’” 

“Fascinating,” said Chuck facetiously. “You’re still king of the useless-information department.” 

The Avignon’s captain, strolling down from the bridge in a crisp, freshly starched uniform, smiled on hearing their banter and approached to greet them both with a formal French handshake. “No matter what the Annamese named it, my dear young sirs, you’ll find that we French call the city you are about to visit ‘the Pearl of the Orient’ or sometimes even ‘the Paris of the East.’ And it won’t take you long to see why.” 

“But why are all these Chinese going there?” asked Joseph, dropping his voice and nodding towards the sea of silent yellow faces still pressed against the underside of the grilles in the deck below. 

“Saigon has a twin city, Cholon, a mile or two away across the plain — that’s where they’re making for. ‘Cho Lon’ in Annamese means ‘Great Market,’ and they hope to make their fortune there as many Cantonese emigrants have done, by exploiting the lazy Annamese. There are already two hundred thousand Chinese living in Cholon and you can buy everything there from a pipe of opium to a slant-eyed ‘singing girl.’” He paused and winked surreptitiously at Chuck to emphasize his innuendo. “Your father will have to go to Cholon to buy all your hunting supplies, too. Warn him to be careful. Bargain hard! The Chinese are the Jews of Asia.” 

“How much longer will it take us to get there, captain?” asked Chuck impatiently. “This jungle seems to go on forever.” 

“The journey from the river mouth to the city takes six or seven hours normally, Monsieur Charles. It’s about sixty miles. All too soon, I regret, we shall be forced to say adieu to you and your distinguished father.” 

“It can’t come too soon for me, captain.” Senator Sherman advanced smiling affably across the deck, still getting into his jacket. “I mean no disrespect, of course. We’ve been greatly flattered by your generous hospitality on board. But we’re mighty anxious now we’ve come all this way to get out into that jungle just as soon as we can and start hunting.” 

“What will you be going for, senator? A tiger skin for your floor? A pair of tusks for the wall?” 

“Neither, captain. We’re not souvenir hunters. Before he died my father set up a trust to endow the Sherman Field Museum of Natural History in Washington. Natural history was a special interest of his, you see. He died five years ago but the museum’s only just been finished on the Mall below Capitol Hill. It’s really a pretty sight, captain, built of Tennessee marble like one of those old palaces in Florence. So we want to put only the best wild animals in it, and here in these jungles of yours you’ve got some of the rarest animals in the world 

The senator paused to light his first Havana of the day and as he got it going he studied the matted vegetation of the riverbank through its smoke. From the corner of his eye Joseph saw his mother emerge from her cabin. As she walked down the companionway to the lower deck the breeze molded her couture suit of cream silk bouquette against the contours of her body. On the bridge he saw the third officer raise his hand to his cap in a debonair salute, and she waved gaily back. Joseph noticed that she avoided passing close to the iron grilles closing off the between- deck areas o the ship and when she reached the stern she gazed into the jungle for a moment, then closed her eyes and Lifted her face to the gentle warmth of the morning sun. 

We’re going mainly for wild water buffalo, banteng and seladang,” said the senator, his resonant Southern drawl sounding loud in the stillness that lay over the river. “And we don’t just want the big bulls. We need a pair of each — and calves, too, where we can. That will require some fancy shooting. We’ll skin them right here and preserve their hides so they can be shipped home and stuffed. Then they’ll be put on show in what we call ‘habitat displays’ so that all the people of America who won’t ever come here will be able to see them in our nation’s capital just as they once lived in these jungles. We’ll send other expeditions to India and Africa for tiger and elephant later. You see, captain, I want to make the Sherman Field Museum the finest of its kind in the United States, maybe even the finest in the world.” 

“And who is the family’s leading marksman?” asked the captain, glancing inquiringly at Chuck and Joseph in turn. 

“Chuck here is a deadeye,” replied the senator, ruffling the hair of his elder son. “He’s learned everything that I can teach him. We hunt in the mountains of West Virginia every fall and he shoots now nearly as well as his daddy.” 

“And Monsieur Joseph is a budding ‘deadeye’ too?” asked the captain, rolling the unfamiliar expression off his tongue with a grin. 

“Well Joseph isn’t too sure yet what he’s going to be. 1-le can shoot well enough if he wants, I think, but just can’t seem to make up his mind whether he likes the idea that much.” The senator’s smile faded and he leaned over the rail to let the ash that had formed on his cigar fall into the muddy river. “His mother isn’t that keen on hunting, and he maybe sides with her a little. I guess we’ll find out for sure what Joseph’s made of here in Cochin China.” 

The captain saw the corners of Joseph’s mouth tighten momentarily, then the American boy’s eyes widened and he pointed excitedly over the starboard rail. “Captain, what’s that out there? Is it a native temple? It looks enormous.” 

Two pointed spires of stone had become visible, seeming to sprout from the middle of the jungle, and the captain laughed again. “It’s a native temple of sorts, I suppose, Monsieur Joseph. Dedicated, you will find, to the main religion of my own native country. Those are the steeples of Saigon Cathedral — the first sight any traveler ever sees of ‘the Pearl of the Orient.’” 

“But we aren’t going towards them, captain,” protested Joseph, standing on the bottom rail and craning his neck to get a better view. 

“That’s right — not at the moment. The Saigon River now begins to wind like a serpent. It’s like sailing through a maze. Every time I come here I begin to worry that I have somehow crossed into another stream and am sailing back in the opposite direction.” 

The Avignon’s bows had begun to swing rapidly through all the points of the compass as the river meandered on through the jungle, and the tips of the cathedral spires seemed to dart around the ship, popping up first in one quarter then another like the ears of an inquisitive rabbit trying to follow its progress. Joseph saw them one minute to port, then the next minute to starboard, and once they even appeared dead astern as the river turned back on itself. After an hour the ship emerged from the jungle, and the Shermans found themselves gazing across an open alluvial plain dotted with isolated clumps of palm. Rice paddies stretched away endlessly on either side of the ship, and they saw crowds of Annamese in cone-shaped hats of palm leaf already at work, sometimes wading waist-deep in the muddy water. 

For a while Flavia Sherman joined them at the rail and stood with her hand resting on Joseph’s shoulder; but she seemed restless and soon tired of watching the peasants at work in the fields. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, the heat grew gradually more oppressive, and Chuck and his father also retreated to the shade of their cabins. Joseph joined them briefly to gobble down his lunch then rushed back on deck alone, wearing his sun helmet, and stood at the rail eagerly devouring with his eyes each new detail of the ever-changing scene. 

The Avignon sailed in and out of thick belts of marshy, deserted jungle, and sometimes he caught sight of villages of stilted houses with matting walls built in the clearings. He waved his helmet in greeting at several groups of Annamese squatting in the dirt before their doors, but they gazed back at him unmoving. When the river broadened, the Avignon began to encounter other craft that had started downstream from Saigon on the favorable tide, and Joseph wondered why the battered-looking Chinese junks, with their shabby, patched sails, didn’t sink as they lumbered past among a succession of grimy workhorse freighters from Europe and Latin America. A long French liner slipped majestically by with a mixture of European and Asian faces staring curiously from its rails, then the Avignon was pushing its way through a swarm of sampans moving downriver on local errands, most of them rowed, to Joseph’s surprise, by women. Gradually the water emptied of departing traffic and the Avignon glided on along the muddy river in the deep silence of a blistering noontide. 

The white stone wharf, when it appeared, took him by surprise. It ran beside a broad, shaded boulevard of feathery pepper trees, and the sudden sight of European-style buildings made him reflect that the jungles, fields and villages through which they’d been moving for the past few hours had remained unchanging throughout many centuries. But there without doubt were the elusive twin spires of Saigon’s cathedral that he’d seen from far off, stationary now and clearly visible, standing sentinel over the wide, tree-lined avenues. They had really arrived at last at their destination! 

Then Joseph realized why they had come upon the city so completely by surprise; it was the uncanny silence. No sound of any kind rose from the hot deserted streets — no traffic noise, no hustle of people, no children, no animals There was no movement either, along the quay in front of long rows of deserted customs sheds. It was with a sickening sense of shock that his eyes fell at last on the heaps of bodies lying in the shadows of the dock buildings arid beneath the pepper trees. He grabbed his binoculars with trembling hands and swept the long quay as the Avignon drew nearer, scrutinizing each pile of bodies in turn. There was no doubt about it! The men lay crumpled and motionless, open- mouthed, their thin legs tangled together. Through the lenses he could see clearly that their faces and clothing were covered with blood. 

“Captain, captain!” he called frantically, running towards the bridge. “Come quick, there’s been a terrible massacre in Saigon.” 

The captain, to his horror, emerged from the wheelhouse smiling. “A massacre, Monsieur Joseph?” 

“Yes. Yes. You can see the blood — look! On their faces! Everywhere!” His own face had turned pale. 

The captain followed the direction of the American boy’s pointing finger for a moment, then lifted his left wrist and showed him the dial of his watch. “Look. Monsieur Joseph, it’s almost two o’clock. It’s still siesta time. Nobody in the tropics moves between eleven-thirty and two in the afternoon. Their very lives would have to be at stake first. My countrymen are all dozing at home by their electric fans, but the natives aren’t so fortunate.” He waved his hand along the dock. “They have only the shade of the trees.” 

“But why have they got blood all over them?” 

The captain laughed. “That isn’t blood, Monsieur Joseph. The Annamese all chew betel nut. It’s a mild drug. It dulls the senses but the juice stains their mouth and their clothes — even the street when they spit.” 

Joseph stared at him in disbelief. Then he looked back again at the blinding quayside. In the shade beneath the trees he saw that the “massacred” Annamite coolies were beginning to come to life; they untangled themselves from one another with painful slowness and staggered to their feet. The ship’s engines ceased and the crew began throwing down ropes to a white man in a pith helmet who had emerged from one of the quayside offices. Like sleep- walkers in a dream the coolies began advancing out of the shade towards the ship. As they came, many of them spat repeatedly, leaving behind them a trail of crimson, betel-stained saliva on the burning concrete of the wharf.