(Points to map showing blackedout areas of British Isles.) Our forces are now moving forward into a series of major confrontations with the other side, so I think you can look forward to when that map will be white again. Then I know the Americans will be glad to leave for home.

COMMENTATOR BACK IN GROSVENOR SQUARE.

Maps in hand, he addresses camera.

Commentator Meanwhile, however, the British Commander is reported to be asking the US President for yet more troops. How many soldiers will be needed to hold the line against the NLF? Despite the General's easy optimism it isn't his map which most people look at, but this one issued by the NLF.

(Lifts other map. Black areas encircle major cities, all the countryside.) It's this one they consult if they want to visit their relatives in the country or move to another town. It's this one they use if they want to defect to the NLF.

EXPLOSION BURSTS ACROSS SQUARE.

Camera wobbles, swings wildly. Panic, people running. Commentator ducks, then starts talking in confused way.

Commentator there's been a it looks, it looks as if a sniper. What seems to be happening is that a CROWD FORMING A ROUGH CIRCLE AROUND A JEEP GIs push people back, and look down at the body of an American officer in the front seat, blood pouring from wound. Pop music blares from the intercom radio a few inches from his face.

Radio Announcer We have a list of the latest curfew regulations. In the inner capital the curfew bell is midnight to 6 a.m. for Kensington, Knightsbridge and Battersea and from 10 to 7 a.m. for the 3rd Air Cay, and support units in GI REACHES OVER AND SWITCHES OFF RADIO Commentator Five minutes ago a senior American officer was assassinated as he sat in his jeep outside the American officers' club here in Grosvenor Square. An NLF killer in civilian clothes stepped through the lunchtime crowd and fired a single shot, then disappeared back into the crowd. The officer, Colonel Wilson J. Tucker, a military adviser in the 'hearts and minds' mission, widely suspected of being a cover for a CIA murder squad, died within a few seconds. All that's known about the killer is that he was 'young', probably in his early twenties, a safe enough assumption at a time when most of the young men and women here have long since left to join the Liberation Front, at a time when to be young automatically invites the attentions of the military police and the hostility of the old and middleaged who provide the last support for the puppet regime. As one visiting Canadian journalist put it to me CANADIAN JOURNALIST IN HOTEL BAR Canadian Journalist All the NLF have to do to win this war is wait ten years. By then everyone on the government side will be either dead or in a wheelchair.

SHOTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE AT CAMP SITE.

Police hustling them about. Older people watching as girls and young men have their hair shaved.

Commentator Certainly one of the most striking divisions in British life is the now unbridgeable gulf between the young and the old. Even if the peace talks start and a settlement is finally reached, will it be possible for them to live together in one society? A legacy of resentment, intolerance and sexual jealousy has been fed by years of violence and open war. At a time when the twin pillars of life in the government areas are the strip club and the US dollar, does Britain any longer possess the political and social institutions to make possible a real society?

Canadian journalist I don't see Parliament now as a functioning entity in any way. It's a rump of older Members of Parliament and extreme rightwingers, a blowhole for all kinds of unpleasant fascist gas. As a legislature it's nonexistent. Let's face the facts, the British government is a puppet regime, and it means to keep it that way. The economy has a real balance of payments surplus for the first time in thirty years, thanks to American warspending and the GI dollar. Baby, nobody on this side says 'Yank, go home'. They're more likely to offer you their sister or their mother. Their sister's on the other side.

Commentator Patriotism takes many forms. Is it significant, though, that the flag of the Liberation Front is the Union Jack, longstanding symbol of the union of Britain's major provincial areas a symbol now hated and feared by the government supporters? To what extent can the government itself provide any prospects for unity?

INTERVIEW WITH BRITISH PRIME MINISTER.

A former Labour Prime Minister recalled to office, to lead the allparty coalition, he sits uneasily inside a sandbagged Downing Street, literally ducking every time a shot is heard. He is surrounded by armed guards, but looks shifty and dispirited. All too clearly he is at the Americans' mercy, and has no ideas for bringing the war to an end.

Commentator Could I ask you first, Prime Minister, are you hopeful at the moment at the outlook for peace?

Prime Minister Well, it depends very much on what the other side wants to do. The latest offensives attacks against the ordinary people of this country don't suggest that they're particularly sincere in their talk about wanting a settlement.

Commentator Do you envisage that the departure of the American troops will create problems? If one travels around London one sees that a large part of the local economy is geared to serving the GI. When the GI is gone, won't there be problems for those people who presently are Prime Minister Well, this contains the same problem shared by all those countries that have had large American forces on their soil Germany, Japan, Vietnam. I think it will be a good thing because we shall be back to normal and a lot of people will have to look for a living within their means. They'll have to give up a lot of windfall benefits which come from the war and create social problems. We've now got in this country a class of people created by the war, and I think it's a good thing that this will stop.

Commentator Childhood for most of the children in London has been a strange life with the American dollar, hasn't it? The American dollar has been the way they passed their childhood. When that in the form of the GI goes, are they not going to have a lot of problems?

Prime Minister I'm sure they will. They'll be economic problems mainly. I think we're all going to have to find ourselves, so to speak, a painful process whether it's an individual or a nation. I think there's going to be a period of readjustment, possibly of turbulence, but they must go through the process. Perhaps if they'd gone through it twenty years ago there wouldn't be a war now.

GENERAL VIEWS OF PEOPLE HANGING AROUND ENTRANCES TO AMERICAN BASES Commentator Can the British people find themselves? Can they go through the painful process of reestablishing themselves as a single nation? With 70 per cent of the economy tied to the war, with the revenues from North Sea oil long since sold off to the Germans and Japanese, will ordinary people be able to make the adjustments necessary to living with the other side? In short, do they want the war to end at all? World in Action visited a village in the front line to see how the bulk of the population is facing up to the reality of the war.

GENERAL PICTURE OF SMALL TOWN IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Barbed wire, road blocks, troops and armoured cars. Gunfire in the distance.

Commentator Here at Cookham, only twenty miles or so from the centre of London, the 'windfall benefits' of the war are more likely to be a sniper's bullet or a barrage of enemy mortar shells. This is one of the socalled pacified villages. By day the British and American forces occupy the bunkers and pillboxes. In the evening they withdraw with the local administrators to a fortified enclave near the American base at Windsor. At night the Liberation Front moves in. At this moment their advance positions are no more than two hundred yards away, their sentries watching us through binoculars. None of these villagers will talk to us. All are assumed to be Liberation Front sympathizers, but in fact they are professional neutrals, living on the edge of a giant razor that could cut them down at any moment. They farm the fields, work in the garages and shops, and wait for the Americans to leave. Strangest of all here, there is no one between the ages of four and forty.

TANK APPEARS, FOLLOWED BY BRITISH AND AMERICAN SOLDIERS Commentator A special task force arrives, part of a selfstyled Pacification Probe that will advance ten miles into country recently occupied by the Liberation Front. One tank, ten GIs of the First Cavalry Division, and thirty British soldiers are under the command of Captain Arjay Robinson. World in Action is going with them to see what happens.

CAPTAIN ROBINSON BRIEFING HIS UNIT IN THE VILLAGE HALL The GIs, heavily armed with flak jackets and radioequipped helmets, sit at the front, the British troops with two elderly officers at the back.

Captain Robinson The primary mission of Alpha Company is to conduct a reconnaissance and pacification. Circles indicate supply caches within the area, also known parking areas, primarily wheeled vehicles and larger trucks. There are also some small yellow dots, these indicate known positions where we have seen tanks. There are tanks in the area definitely. As I see it right now we're going to have two companies controlling the fire base. We'll play it real loose, play it by ear pretty much as to where we're going and the times that we'll go. We're going down there and kill the enemy where we find him and come back.

Part Two PACIFICATION PROBE Commentator A Pacification Probe prepares to set off. It's 6.35 a.m., and the thirty British soldiers who will do the major part of the fighting and the major part of the dying wait quietly in the background as the American tank crew and radio specialists prepare their equipment. The American weapons and communications are now so sophisticated that the British troops can barely understand them. Many of these men will defect on this mission, many more will die. What are they up against? Last month a Swedish film crew smuggled itself through the front lines. Their brief film shows what life is like within the Liberation Front.

NEWSREEL OF LIBERATION FRONT AREAS.

Mountains, tunnel entrances guarded by young soldiers and armed young women. Union Jacks flying. People working in factories. Alternative technology, windmills, smallscale smelting works, machine shops, handlooms. Children everywhere, thin but healthy. Kibbutz atmosphere, young mothers in khaki miniskirts with babies and rifles. Slit trenches, men with rifles move through fields around burntout American tank. Callisthenics in drillhall, communal singing around flag. Indoctrination sessions, 18yearold political commissar addressing doctors and nursing staff in hospital. Children taking part in people's theatre, 4yearolds dressed in parody US military uniforms miming bombing attacks on sturdy villagers. Everywhere slogans, loudspeakers, portraits of George VI.

Swedish voiceover The mountains of Scotland and Wales are the main strongholds of the National Liberation Front. In the fouryear war against the British central government hundreds of underground schools and factories have been built. From here supplies and equipment go out to the front line. By now all the agricultural areas of England are under control of the Liberation Front. The soldiers and peasants are organized in communes, the women farming and looking after the children while the men are fighting. Their leaders are young. There are few old people here. Everywhere morale is high, they are confident that they have won the war and that the Americans must soon leave. They are Scottish, Welsh, people from the northern and western provinces of England, West Indians, Asians and Africans. For four years they have been bombed but they are still fighting.

COOKHAM.

Cut to Captain Robinson on the turret of his tank.

He scans the empty fields. Nothing moves. In the compound below the soldiers have finished readying their weapons and equipment. The World in Action commentator puts on US combat clothing, strapping a gun around his waist, trying out heavy boots. A helicopter clatters overhead. AFN radio announcer in the southern outskirts of London last night a guerilla unit fired a 107 mm rocket, killing one civilian and wounding four others. First Air Cay, ground elements in Operation Pegasus killed 207 enemy in scattered contacts yesterday, with friendly casualties light. First Division Marines killed 124 in two separate battles in Northern Province. The leathernecks ambushed enemy elements, calling in support by artillery and air attack. The marines took no casualties while killing 156 communists Commentator Half an hour from now the forty men of Alpha Company will set out from Cookham. As we move off across this guerillainfested countryside two companies of combat engineers will have flown in to the target area by helicopter. They will deal with any local opposition. The main function of Alpha Company, this socalled pacification probe, is to reestablish the government's authority. The thirty British soldiers and the District Administrator will stay on after the Americans have left, recruiting local militia, setting up a fortified hamlet and redirecting the area's agriculture. The target area is at a key point on the M4 Motorway to the southwest. To keep this road open the government forces are setting up a chain of fortified villages along its 200mile length.

CAPTAIN ROBINSON CHECKING HIS MEN'S EQUIPMENT Commentator Alpha Company's commander, Captain Arjay Robinson, is already a veteran of this war. Thirtytwo years old, he comes from Denver, Colorado, and is a graduate of West Point. He is married to a clergyman's daughter and has three children, none of whom he has seen in the two years he has been here. A career soldier, he has already decided to stay here until the Americans leave.

SERGEANT PALEY CHECKING TANK TREADS.

Commentator His secondincommand is Sergeant Carl W. Paley, a 26yearold bachelor from Stockton, California, where he was general manager of a station owned by his father. Like Captain Robinson, he has had almost no contact with the ordinary people of this country. To him they form a grey background of blurred faces girls he meets in the bars outside the base camps, old men who clean out the barracks or serve as waiters in the sergeants' mess. Apart from the prostitutes, the only young English people he will see are likely to be in the sights of his guns. Last month Alpha Company was involved in a major action in which over 250 enemy soldiers were killed, a third of them women auxiliaries. But to Sergeant Paley they are merely 'Charley' a blanket term carried over from Vietnam, or 'the gooks'.

TANK ENGINE STARTS UP.

American soldiers climb aboard, the British form up into a column behind it.

Commentator As for the British troops who will go with them like all the Americans here, Sergeant Paley holds them in little more than contempt. Underfed and illequipped, the British troops have to provide their own food and bedding. During the next six hours the Americans will ride to the battlefield on their tank. The thirty British will walk. Mostly men in their forties, with a few younger men drafted from the penal battalions, they represent the residue of the armies conscripted by the government three years ago, armies now decimated by casualties and desertions.

MAJOR CLEAVER.

A thickset man with British army moustache climbs on to the tank beside Captain Robinson. He wears American boots, fawn trousers, brown leather jacket and carries US Army revolver.

Commentator The only Britisher to whom the Americans pay any attention is Major Cleaver, the District Administrator who will be in charge of the pacified village. A former regular army officer, Major Cleaver is one of several thousand DAs sent out by the British government to run the civil administration of the recaptured areas. Part political commissar, part judge and jury, Major Cleaver will literally have the power of life and death over the people living under his rule, a power that he and his fellow DAs have been quick to exercise in the past.

THE CONVOY MOVES OFF.

The infantry spread out ahead and to the side of the tank. They follow a road through wooded terrain with meadows and abandoned farms on either side. Now and then there is a halt as the tank is brought up.

Captain Robinson Helicopters are the thing that's happening these days. You can get in there real fast with heavy suppressive fire, and if you need to be pulled out you can get out real fast.

Sergeant Paley It's definitely the way to fight a ground war.

Captain Robinson As I see it now we're going to have two companies controlling the fire base, Bravo and Charley, who will go in by helicopter. They'll clear the landing zone by the time we get in there, so the tactical side of the operation should be finalized. It's also better from the psychological aspect that we don't get involved on the tactical side too much.

Commentator You mean the actual fighting around the village?

Captain Robinson That's correct.

RADIO OPERATOR PASSES MESSAGE TO CAPTAIN ROBINSON Tank halts. Commentator But for Bravo and Charley Companies, who are supposed to be going in by helicopter, today is not the day for fighting a war. The weather in the target area has closed in, and the helicopters have returned to base. Alpha Company gets ready to move on alone, every man here hoping that the weather will clear. Sergeant Paley This country, weather's the main thing. It rains a lot and you're very wet most of the time, but you know as a soldier you can't ask for a certain territory to fight on because you just have to make the best of what terrain you have.

Commentator Sergeant, what do you think of the chances of peace here?

Sergeant Paley Well, I think they're... I don't know, as I see it as long as Charley's got a weapon and some ammo and using it he's not going to give up. I think he's pretty much got his heart in it, giving his own people a hard time here. Commentator How do you feel it's all going?

Sergeant Paley Well, it's going well for the Cavs, I know that. Wherever we go we run into Charley I know he doesn't last very long.

Commentator Tell me, sergeant, why are you in England?

Sergeant Paley Why am I in England? Well, curiosity, I guess. I just wanted to know what the war was like. Commentator What is the war like?

Sergeant Paley Well, it's all right, I guess. For a year I'd say it's a good experience. You really learn a lot from it.

Major Cleaver Naturally one hopes that peace will come to the country as soon as possible. Positions have become very entrenched during the past year, there's a legacy of bitterness on both sides. This is not the kind of civil war that resolves anything.

Commentator What about the fighting itself? Don't you find it difficult to be shooting at your own people?

Major Cleaver They're not our own people any longer. This is the whole point of the war. They're the enemy now, and peace isn't going to turn them overnight into our friends.

Commentator But aren't there a lot of desertions from the army?

Major Cleaver Not as many as there used to be. Most of the men realize that conditions here are a lot better than they are on the other side. The bombing has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Sitting here eating C rations is a lot more comfortable than being boiled alive in napalm.

THE COLUMN MOVES ON.

Slow penetration of forest on either side of the road. We see the tank stuck in a small stream. Cameo shots of individual American and British soldiers. Fade to early afternoon.

A long shot of farmland and the motorway on the left, the village to the right. Nothing moves. The camera turns and we see the American and British troops dug in along the edge of the field facing the village. It has been raining but the sky has cleared. Everything is very quiet. Machineguns and weapons being set up. The tank is hidden in trees. Captain Robinson scans the low sky through binoculars.

Commentator Three o'clock the same afternoon. Alpha Company has arrived at its objective. No signs of the helicopters, so Captain Robinson and his men will have to go in alone. How many Liberation Front soldiers are facing us? Perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred. Will they fight? Or will they fade away into the surrounding countryside, leaving their women and children behind until night comes again?

THE AMERICANS AND BRITISH ARE WATCHING QUIETLY A farmer appears and walks along a pathway on the far side of the field. He carries a rifle over his shoulder. Sergeant Paley watches him cross the sights of his machinegun. Nobody moves.

THE VILLAGE IS COMING TO LIFE AFTER THE RAINSTORM Young men and women appear. They go about their work. A stall is set up and food is distributed. Young mothers in their khaki miniskirts drop their children into the communal crche. Others move towards the fields and farm buildings with rifles over their shoulders. A damp Union Jack is run up on the village flagpole. Meanwhile, the American and British government forces watch quietly over their gunsights. Through the zoom lens we focus on individual soldiers, and then on individual villagers in their sights: a young man with a headband who is the kibbutz leader; his girlfriend with a baby; a coloured girl with a pistol on her waist. The leader speaks through a megaphone, the sounds just carrying across the field. He is making some kind of joke, and everyone in the village laughs.

THE FIRST FARMERS WALK OUT ACROSS THE FIELD They are still unaware of the government forces, and carry their rifles slung casually over their shoulders. One of them, a young Pakistani, has spotted something moving across the field. He follows it between the cabbages, then bends down and picks it up. It is an American cigarette pack. Puzzled, he looks up. Ten feet away he sees the barrel of a light machinegun aimed at him by Sergeant Paley. Crushing the pack in his hand, he opens his mouth to shout.

CAPTAIN ROBINSON SIGNALS.

Sergeant Paley opens fire straight at the young Pakistani. Torn apart, he falls among the cabbages. Massive firing breaks out. The other young men and women in the field are shot down. Mortar fire is directed at the village, the tank lumbers forward, its heavy gun opening fire. Through the longdistance lens we see isolated men and women being shot down, others running for shelter. The food stall is overturned. A barn is burning. Captain Robinson signals again, and the men move forward in a general advance, firing as they go. The World in Action commentator and Major Cleaver move up with them, taking shelter behind the tank. Counter fire is coming from the village, from a small blockhouse built behind a bicycle shed. Two British soldiers are shot down. In the village now everything is burning. Bodies lie around, there are burning motorcycles and food scattered everywhere.

EVERYTHING IS QUIET.

The battle has been over an hour or so. A few fires are still burning, smoke drifting towards the distant motorway. The British government troops break down the doors of the houses. They stare at the lines of bodies, mostly young women and children. Six prisoners have their hands wired together. The remaining villagers are driven out into the field.

2nd Commentator Two hours ago, in the attack on this small village beside the M4, the World in Action commentator was killed. As he followed the first wave of American soldiers he was shot by an unknown enemy sniper and within a few minutes died of his wounds. His report on this war has been shown as he made it.

VILLAGERS SQUATTING IN FIELD GIs prepare demolition charges.

2nd Commentator Alpha Company prepares to pull out. The weather has closed in again, and there will be no support coming in by helicopter. The action is called off at the request of Major Cleaver. Ten British soldiers have been killed or wounded. Without the Americans and their tank he could never hold the village.

Captain Robinson We're moving them out, just generally get them out of the way. You can bomb their houses flat easier that way without the conscience of the people on your mind. Put them out in the field.

EXPLOSIONS RIP APART VILLAGE BUILDINGS.

Closeup of bodies of rebel soldiers dragged along in mud behind the tank. The column pulls out through the dusk, heading back to Cookham.

Major Cleaver To help another human being out, it's worth the expense and loss of life. It's just that I sometimes wonder whether some of the people that I know who have died knew what they were dying for. That's about the hardest thing to think of, you know. If a man doesn't know why he's dying, it's a bad way to go.

Acknowledgment: For all the dialogue above, to General Westmoreland, President Thieu of South Vietnam, Marshall Ky and various journalists, US and ARVN military personnel.

1977.

Having a Wonderful Time 3 July 1985. Hotel Imperial, Playa Inglaterra, Las Palmas We arrived an hour ago after an amazing flight. For some reason of its own the Gatwick computer assigned us to firstclass seats, along with a startled dentist from Bristol, her husband and three children. Richard, as ever fearful of flying, took full advantage of the free champagne and was five miles high before the wheels left the ground. I've marked our balcony on the twentyseventh floor. It's an extraordinary place, about twenty miles down the coast from Las Palmas, a brandnew resort complex with every entertainment conceivable, all arranged by bedside pushbutton. I'm just about to dial an hour's waterskiing, followed by Swedish massage and the hairdresser! Diana.

10 July. Hotel Imperial An unbelievable week! I've never crammed so much excitement into a few days tennis, scubadiving, waterskiing, rounds of cocktail parties. Every evening a group of us heads for the boItes and cabarets along the beach, ending up at one or more of the five nightclubs in the hotel. I've hardly seen Richard. The handsome cavalier in the picture is the socalled Beach Counsellor, a highly intelligent expublic relations man who threw it all in two years ago and has been here ever since. This afternoon he's teaching me to hangglide. Wish me happy landings! Diana.

17 July. Hotel Imperial The times of sand are running out. Sitting here on the balcony, watching Richard skichute across the bay, it's hard to believe we'll be in Exeter tomorrow. Richard swears the first thing he'll do is book next year's holiday. It really has been an amazing success heaven knows how they do it at the price, there's talk of a Spanish government subsidy. In part it's the unobtrusive but highly sophisticated organization not a hint of Butlins, though it's Britishrun and we're all, curiously, from the West Country. Do you realize that Richard and I have been so busy we haven't once bothered to visit Las Palmas? (Late newsflash: Mark Hastings, the Beach Counsellor, has just sent orchids to the room!) I'll tell you all about him tomorrow. Diana.

18 July. Hotel Imperial Surprise! That computer again. Apparently there's been some muddle at the Gatwick end, our aircraft won't be here until tomorrow at the earliest. Richard is rather worried about not getting to the office today. We blew the last of our traveller's cheques, but luckily the hotel have been marvellous, thanks largely to Mark. Not only will there be no surcharge, but the deskclerk said they would happily advance us any cash we need. Heyho... A slight letdown, all the same. We walked along the beach this afternoon, together for the first time. I hadn't realized how vast this resort complex actually is it stretches for miles along the coast and half of it's still being built. Everywhere people were coming in on the airport buses from Sheffield and Manchester and Birmingham, within half an hour they're swimming and waterskiing, lounging around the hundreds of pools with their dutyfree Camparis. Seeing them from the outside, as it were, it's all rather strange. Diana.

25 July. Hotel Imperial Still here. The sky's full of aircraft flying in from Gatwick and Heathrow, but none of them, apparently, is ours. Each morning we've waited in the lobby with our suitcases packed, but the airport bus never arrives. After an hour or so the deskclerk rings through that there's been a postponement and we trudge back to another day by the pool, drinks and waterskiing on the house. For the fist few days it was rather amusing, though Richard was angry and depressed. The company is a major Leyland supplier, and if the axe falls, middlemanagement is the first to feel it. But the hotel have given us unrestricted credit, and Mark says that as long as we don't go over the top they'll probably never bother to collect. Good news: the company have just cabled Richard telling him not to worry. Apparently hordes of people have been caught the same way. An immense relief I wanted to phone you, but for days now all the lines have been blocked. Diana.

15 August. Hotel Imperial Three more weeks! Hysterical laughter in paradise... the English papers flown in here are full of it, no doubt you've heard that there's going to be a government inquiry. Apparently, instead of flying people back from the Canaries the airlines have been sending their planes on to the Caribbean to pick up the American holiday traffic. So the poor British are stuck here indefinitely. There are literally hundreds of us in the same boat. The amazing thing is that one gets used to it. The hotel people are charm itself, they've pulled out all the stops, organizing extra entertainments of every kind. There's a very political cabaret, and an underwater archaeology team are going to raise a Spanish caravel from the sea floor. To fill in the time I'm joining an amateur theatrical group, we're thinking of putting on The Importance of Being Ernest. Richard takes it all with surprising calm. I wanted to post this from Las Palmas, but there are no buses running, and when we set out on foot Richard and I lost ourselves in a maze of building sites. Diana.

5 September. Hotel Imperial No news yet. Time moves like a dream. Every morning a crowd of bewildered people jam the lobby, trying to find news of their flights back. On the whole, everyone's taking it surprisingly well, showing that true British spirit. Most of them, like Richard, are management people in industry, but the firms, thank heavens, have been absolutely marvellous and cabled us all to get back when we can. Richard comments cynically that with present levels of industrial stagnation, and with the Government footing the bill, they're probably glad to see us here. Frankly, I'm too busy with a hundred and one activities to worry there's a sort of miniRenaissance of the arts going on. Mixed saunas, cordon bleu classes, encounter groups, the theatre, of course, and marine biology. Incidentally, we never did manage to get into Las Palmas. Richard hired a pedalo yesterday and set off up the coast. Apparently the entire island is being divided into a series of huge selfcontained holiday complexes human reserves, Richard called them. He estimates that there are a million people here already, mostly English working class from the north and midlands. Some of them have apparently been here for a year, living quite happily, though their facilities are nowhere as good as ours. Dress rehearsal tonight. Think of me as Lady Bracknell it's mortifying that there's no one else quite mature enough to play the part, they're all in their twenties and thirties, but Tony Johnson, the director, an exICI statistician, is being awfully sweet about it. Diana.

6 October. Hotel Imperial just a brief card. There was a crisis this morning when Richard, who's been very moody recently, finally came into collision with the hotel management. When I went into the lobby after my French conversation class a huge crowd had gathered, listening to him rant away at the desk clerks. He was very excited but extremely logical in a mad way, demanding a taxi (there are none here, no one ever goes anywhere) to take him into Las Palmas. Balked, he insisted on being allowed to phone the Governor of the Islands, or the Swiss Consul. Mark and Tony Johnson then arrived with a doctor. There was a nasty struggle for a moment, and then they took him up to our room. I thought he was completely out, but half an hour later, when I left the shower, he'd vanished. I hope he's cooling off somewhere. The hotel management have been awfully good, but it did surprise me that no one tried to intervene. They just watched everything in a glazed way and wandered back to the pool. Sometimes I think they're in no hurry to get home. Diana.

12 November. Hotel Imperial An extraordinary thing happened today I saw Richard for the first time since he left. I was out on the beach for my morning jog when there he was, sitting by himself under an umbrella. He looked very tanned and healthy, but much slimmer. He calmly told me a preposterous story about the entire Canaries being developed by the governments of Western Europe, in collusion with the Spanish authorities, as a kind of permanent holiday camp for their unemployables, not just the factory workers but most of the management people too. According to Richard there is a beach being built for the French on the other side of the island, and another for the Germans. And the Canaries are only one of many sites around the Mediterranean and Caribbean. Once there, the holidaymakers will never be allowed to return home, for fear of starting revolutions. I tried to argue with him, but he casually stood up and said he was going to form a resistance group, then strode away along the beach. The trouble is that he's found nothing with which to occupy his mind I wish he'd join our theatre group, we're now rehearsing Pinter's The Birthday Party. Diana.

10 January 1986. Hotel Imperial A sad day. I meant to send you a cable, but there's been too much to do. Richard was buried this morning, in the new international cemetery in the hills overlooking the bay. I've marked his place with an X. I'd last seen him two months ago, but I gather he'd been moving around the island, living in the halfconstructed hotels and trying unsuccessfully to set up his resistance group. A few days ago he apparently stole an unseaworthy motorboat and set off for the African coast. His body was washed ashore yesterday on one of the French beaches. Sadly, we'd completely lost touch, though I feel the experience has given me a degree of insight and maturity which I can put to good use when I play Clytemnestra in Tony's new production of Electra. He and Mark Hastings have been pillars of strength. Diana.

3 July 1986. Hotel Imperial Have I really been here a year? I'm so out of touch with England that I can hardly remember when I last sent a postcard to you. It's been a year of the most wonderful theatre, of parts I would once never have dreamed of playing, and of audiences so loyal that I can hardly bear the thought of leaving them. The hotels are full now, and we play to a packed house every night. There's so much to do here, and everyone is so fulfilled, that I rarely find the time to think of Richard. I very much wish you were here, with Charles and the children but you probably are, at one of the thousand hotels along the beach. The mails are so erratic, I sometimes think that all my cards to you have never been delivered, but lie unsorted with a million others in the vaults of the shabby post office behind the hotel. Love to all of you. Diana.

1978.

One Afternoon at Utah Beach 'Do you realize that we're looking down at Utah Beach?'

As he took off his boots and weather cape, David Ogden pointed through the window at the sea wall. Fifty yards from the villa the flat sand ran along the Normandy coast like an abandoned highway, its right shoulder washed by the sea. Every halfmile a blockhouse of black concrete presented its shellpocked profile to the calm Channel.

Small waves flicked at the empty beach, as if waiting for something to happen.

'I walked down to the war memorial,' Ogden explained. 'There's a Sherman there an American tank some field guns and a commemorative plaque. This is where the US First Army came ashore on DDay.

Angela... Ogden turned from the window, expecting his wife to comment on his discovery. She and Richard Foster, the pilot who had flown them over to Cherbourg for a week at this rented villa, sat at either end of the velvet settee, watching Ogden with a curious absence of expression. Dressed in their immaculate holiday wear, brandy glasses motionless in their hands as they listened politely, they reminded him of two mannequins in a department store tableau.

'Utah Beach...' Angela gazed in a critical way at the deserted sand, as if expecting a military exercise to materialize for her and fill it with landing craft and assault troops. 'I'd forgotten about the war. Dick, do you remember DDay?'