"I hope we might meet again one day in freedom, Captain Sherman," said Lat warmly.

"I hope so too." Joseph hesitated, still holding the hand of the Annamese in his. "Lat, when we met all those years ago you were with the Imperial Delegate in Saigon, do you remember?"

Lat nodded. "Yes of course. He married my older sister."

"How is Monsieur Tran Van Hieu and his family, do you know?" Joseph tried to keep his voice casual. "I met his sons and his daughter, Lan, on my last visit."

"Tran Van Kim is a prominent member of our Viet Minh League. He's working undercover near Phuoc Kiem to the south of here."

"And Tam and Lan?" prompted Joseph. "What of them?"

Lat shrugged and dropped his eyes in embarra.s.sment. "I'm afraid, captain I know nothing of them. I've had no contact with my sister or her children for many years - nor has Comrade Kim. These have been difficult times for all of us."

Joseph nodded quickly. "Of course, I understand."

"When you are safely back in Kunming, captain," said Ho, taking Joseph's hand in his turn, "please tell your senior officers that America has allies ready and waiting to help them in the mountains of Tongking. The Viet Minh will be honored to fight the j.a.panese alongside America. A lot can be achieved by sabotaging their supply routes and arms dumps."

"I'll tell them," promised Joseph, gripping the hand of the Annamese firmly. "They'll be grateful for what you've done for me.

"We'll help any pilot shot down in these jungles - you can depend on us. But as you've been our first American guest you'll always hold a special place in our hearts." A broad smile of genuine affection broke out on his face. "And don't be misled back in Kunming by the Free French or Chiang Kai-shek's people if they try to brand us as Communists. Tell them the Viet Minh is an alliance of patriots, and Vietnam today is like America must have been in 1775. Everybody who's willing to fight for independence and freedom is welcome to join us."

"Have you ever been a Communist yourself?" asked Joseph.

Ho's smile broadened. "If anybody inquires about my politics, captain, simply tell them this: 'His party is his country, his program is independence.' We'll keep fighting for that independence whatever happens.- and our children will fight on after us if need be.. . Bon voyage."

Joseph closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as the guerrillas carrying him slipped and slithered on the steep, stony track leading down into China. They were hurrying to reach the shelter of the jungle on the lower slopes, and he couldn't help crying aloud with pain from time to time. As they approached the trees, he looked back and caught a last glimpse of the Annamese standing silhouetted against the bright morning sky. Joseph waved, and on the mountaintop the frail figure raised his cork helmet and lifted his cane above his head in a final gesture of farewell.

7.

By the end of February 1945 the plaster cast that encased Joseph's right leg from hip to ankle was smothered with signatures and humorous obscenities. They had been scrawled on it by other wounded "Flying Tigers" recuperating with him in the Kunming base hospital, and prominent among the names was that of Major General Claire Lee Chennault, their famous, hawk-faced commander who had taken a break from directing the day and night air war against the j.a.panese to hear for himself how one of his best pilots had returned miraculously from the dead. Joseph had been missing for nearly three weeks when he was finally driven up to the gates of the Fourteenth Army Air Force headquarters on New Year's Eve in a rickety Chinese flatbed truck, and to make his return more mysterious, the two silent guerrillas who has accompanied him from the Tongking border had slipped away immediately to begin their Long return journey.

It had been left to the astonished gate guards to carry him inside, and his surprise return had made the 308th Squadron's New Year's party more riotous than it might otherwise have been. Joseph, however, had taken no part in the merrymaking himself because air force surgeons got busy straight away resetting his broken thigh and the previously undiscovered fracture in the lower part of his leg. When Claire Chennault strode into the hospital next morning wearing the twin silver stars of a major general on the shoulders of his battered leather flying jacket, the other disabled flyers had cheered Joseph to the echo, then launched into a raucously affectionate chorus of "Why Was He Born So Beautiful?"

The craggy features of the air force general who had become America's most renowned fighting man in Asia softened into a delighted smile as Joseph described how the Annamese guerrillas had spirited him away from the j.a.panese and nursed him back to health in their mountain hideaway before smuggling him safely into China. "We can sure use that kind of help," drawled Chennault in a rich southern baritone that reflected his Louisiana upbringing. "Every Allied pilot's worth his weight in gold right now in the China-Burma-India theater. We're all mighty glad, Joseph, to see you back here in one piece - and we'll be even happier to see you back in the air again."

While Joseph recovered from his injuries, outside the windows of the sick bay the roar of heavy transports, bombers and fighters landing and taking off remained constant round the clock. The ma.s.sive j.a.panese invasion army was still advancing westward across China, even threatening Kunming itself, and vital Allied supplies for the Chinese were still being ferried in nonstop from India over the "Hump" of the Himalayas to beat the enemy's blockade. In Europe British, American and Russian forces were sweeping inexorably into Germany from east and west, and it seemed almost certain that the global conflict was entering its climactic phase. But even though the noise o war was all around him in his hospital bed, Joseph still retained something of that curious sense of detachment that had come to him in the mountains of Tongking. To his surprise he no longer felt the same fierce compulsion to return to combat that he'd always felt before, and he found himself pondering the good fortune that had ensured his survival when he felt certain he would die. The images of his days with the Annamese guerrillas haunted his mind and drew his thoughts back to the past brushes with their country. He remembered to with a feeling of abiding affection the enigmatic guerrilla leader who had shown such concern for him at Pac Bo, but when a medical orderly brought him a brief handwritten message asking permission for its writer to visit him in the first week of March, he stared blankly at its signature.

"C. M. Hoo? I don't know anybody by that name." He studied the spidery scrawl on the sheet of green rice paper, then raised an inquiring eyebrow at the orderly. "Who gave you the note?"

The orderly shrugged. "An old Chinese guy. He looks like some kind of beggar. Says he'd like to wish you well and claims you once met someplace with a Chinese name I can't p.r.o.nounce."

"You'd better send him in," said Joseph without enthusiasm, then sat up suddenly in his bed a minute later when he saw the familiar khaki-clad figure in the battered cork helmet hobbling down the ward, leaning on a bamboo cane.

"I'm glad to see you're getting better treatment here than at Pac Bo, Captain Sherman," said the Annamese humorously as he shook Joseph by the hand. "I hope you're almost recovered now.'

"I didn't recognize the name you gave in your message," said Joseph, staring in disbelief.

"Ah yes, I wrote it the way most Americans like it - nice and simple with the family name last and an extra o. I'd forgotten you're a man used to the ways of the Orient."

'But what are you doing here in Kunming, Monsieur Ho?"

The Annamese continued to smile at Joseph's mystification. "I'm no stranger to Kunming, captain. Because it's close to the Tongking border, the 'City of Eternal Spring' has often served as a place of refuge over the years for nationalists from my country."

"And have you come here to seek refuge?"

"No" The Annamese shook his head, still smiling broadly. "I come here from time to time to find out what's happening in the rest of the world. I like to read back copies of your excellent Time magazine in the library of the U.S. Office of War Information - it keeps me up to date."

"And how did you get here?"

"I walked across the border to Ching Hsi."

Joseph gasped. "But that must be two hundred miles."

"Yes, maybe more," said the Annamese simply. "It took me two weeks. My feet are a little sore now, but 1 got used to walking when I was a prisoner in China."

"But you didn't walk all this way just to read old copies of Time," protested Joseph.

The dark intense eyes regarding the American twinkled suddenly and he nodded in a.s.sent. "You're right of course, Captain. I came to offer the services of the Viet Minh League to General Chennault. I thought we could rescue more pilots if we had better arms and some radios - but your Office of Strategic Services shows no interest. They say no arms can be given to us in case we use them against the French, who are your allies in Europe. They won't even give me a single Colt .45 for myself - and they won't allow me to see your general."

"Didn't you tell them that you've already rescued one American pilot?"

The Annamese nodded. "Yes, but I don't think they believed me." He waved a self-deprecating hand at his dusty clothes and smiled ruefully. "Maybe you can't blame them, I don't really look capable of saving anyone - even myself."

When Joseph laughed, the Annamese joined in, and his engaging honesty caused a new feeling of affection to well up inside the American.

"Your OSS officers are too preoccupied, you see, with the idea that we may be Communists," continued Ho, his eyes still twinkling. "They listen only to Chiang Kai-shek and the Free French intelligence people. I warned you about that, didn't I?"

"And what did you tell them?"

"I said that the French like to condemn as Communists all those who want independence in Indochina. And because Chiang Kai-shek has spent more energy fighting Mao Tse-tung than he has fighting the j.a.panese, he's anxious to condemn the Viet Minh as Communist too."

"I'll have a word with General Chennault myself," said Joseph impulsively. "I've already told him what your people did for me. Your request to see him has probably never got past his aides."

"Please don't go to any trouble on my behalf," said Ho, frowning and laying a restraining hand on Joseph's arm. "You must rest and recover from your injuries. I didn't come here to disturb you."

"It's no trouble after all you did for me," insisted Joseph, patting the hand of the Annamese and smiling.

"If a meeting proves impossible, I would be happy to have just a simple memento from the general," said Ho hastily. "I've heard that he keeps a supply of glossy photographs to give away to those who admire his leadership. If you could persuade him to sign one for me, I would be grateful."

Joseph laughed. "A glossy photograph is the very least you'll get, Monsieur Ho,- I promise you that. And as a personal thank you from me, I'll see you get a few Colt .45s and a box or two of ammunition. But I think General Chennault will agree to see you when I tell him who you are and what you've done. How long will you be staying in Kunming?"

"A week or two. I've rented a little room above a candle maker's shop." - "Then come back and see me again in a week."

The Annamese stood up suddenly, his face thoughtful. "Thank you, captain. ... Those Colt .45s you mentioned would be most welcome - especially if you could let me have them unopened in their original sealed packages. . . . Now I must go before I tire you with too much talk." He shook Joseph's hand firmly and began to move away. Then he hesitated and turned back again, unb.u.t.toning one of the pockets of his faded khaki tunic; for a moment a little smile of embarra.s.sment played across his lined face. "Would you forgive a sentimental old man, Captain Sherman, if in return for your kindness he offered you a humble poem he had written?" Ho held a folded sheet of green rice paper towards the American.

"I'd be very glad to accept it," replied Joseph, touched by the gesture. "Lat read me some of your poetry at Pac Bo. I admired it then."

"I wrote this while I was walking here through the mountains. You came into my thoughts and I hoped you were making a good recovery. You had come close to death in your airplane and survived. It reminded me of my own escape from death - I almost died while I was in prison in China."

Joseph unfolded the paper to find a nine-line poem penned in the same spidery handwriting that he recognized from the earlier note. It was written in English, and had obviously been translated from the original Chinese. It read: Everything evolves, that is how nature wills ii After days of rain, fine weather returns Suddenly the whole world throws off its damp garments And carpets of green brocade sparkle on the mountains The sun is warm, the wind is clean, the flowers smile Rain has washed the trees and birds sing happily The heart of man is warmed, life reawakens At last sorrow gives way to happiness Because that is how nature wishes it to be Feeling himself moved by the poem's simple optimism, Joseph glanced up from the paper to thank its writer. But the Annamese was already stumping away down the ward, and although Joseph watched him all the way to the door, he went out without a backward glance.

8.

The next visitor, who appeared at Joseph's hospital bedside five days later, was a stranger to him. A red-haired army colonel in his early forties, he made great play of placing screens securely round the bed before subjecting the graffiti on Joseph's leg cast to a long humorous scrutiny. When he'd finished he grinned owlishly and extended his hand. "That plaster should be preserved in a military museum when your leg mends, captain. It's good evidence for future generations of the average U.S. fighting man's s.e.xual obsessions in the twentieth century. I'm Colonel John Trench. You don't know me, but I know a lot about you-mostly from an old Annamite buddy of yours who tells me he's practically crawled here from Tongking on his hands and knees."

Joseph grinned. "Where did you meet him?"

"Mister C. M. Hoo, as he liked to call himself, has been haunting the reading room of the Office of War Information off and on for months. Until General Chennault pa.s.sed me your note about him last week we merely humored him - thought he must be some kind of Annamite oddball who got his kicks making up stories about saving Yankee pilots from the jungle. But when the j.a.panese suddenly closed off Indochina the day after we saw your note, we went running to look for that candle maker's shop you mentioned and had a long talk with him." Colonel Trench paused and raised his eyebrows in an expression of inquiry. "You've been following the news, captain?"

Joseph nodded. All radio bulletins of the past three days had been carrying details of the surprise j.a.panese takeover in French Indochina. On March 9, a force sixty thousand strong had attacked the colonial garrisons that totaled only half that number, and all government buildings, radio stations, factories and banks had been seized. Some resistance had been offered by the French in Saigon, Hue and Hanoi, but it had been quickly overcome, and the troops, their officers and hundreds of prominent French civilians had been interned in barracks and special concentration camps. A few French units had escaped and, according to the news bulletins, were still fighting desperate rearguard actions as they retreated across the highlands towards Laos.

"What was it that made Tokyo turn on the French so suddenly, do you think?" asked Joseph.

"It was always in the cards, I guess, but the j.a.ps seem to ha.ve got the idea that Uncle Sam's ready to launch an invasion any day now all along that fifteen-hundred-mile Indochina coastline. Maybe they reckoned the French were getting ready to hit them from the rear.

"And what gave them that idea?"

"After five years of close collaboration with the yellow dwarfs, the French were a bit hasty in trying to switch horses and prove they've been loyal Free French supporters of de Gaulle all along." The colonel grinned broadly again to indicate his skepticism. "Ever since Paris was liberated they've been sticking his picture on walls everywhere and daubing Free French slogans all over the streets."

"But are we planning to invade Indochina?"

The colonel peered out through the bed screens for a moment then lowered his voice. "If we are, captain, n.o.body's bothered to tell me or anybody else in OSS Special Intelligence, Kunming."

He grinned at Joseph again as he watched the casual reference to the Office of Strategic Services sink in. As a pilot, Joseph knew little of the OSS role in China; he a.s.sumed that undercover agents had been organizing resistance groups wherever they could behind j.a.panese lines in accordance with normal OSS practice, but beyond that, the organization's activities were a closely guarded secret. "Monsieur Ho told me the OSS weren't much interested in him or Indochina," said Joseph, studying the face of the intelligence colonel closely. "He said you were too worried about possible Communist connections - and you wouldn't consider giving his group arms or equipment in case they used them against our French allies."

Trench nodded. "That's right, captain, that's just how it was - last week."

"So what's changed your mind?"

"The j.a.panese coup in Indochina! The flow of intelligence from the Free French underground has been turned off like a tap. Suddenly we're getting nothing on things like bombing targets, antiaircraft defenses, troop deployments. And with sixty thousand more j.a.panese rearing up on their hind legs down there, the spotlight's on that neck of the woods. Air attacks are being stepped up and the order of the day coming from OSS headquarters in Chungking is 'Get some kind of G.o.dd.a.m.ned intelligence network down there - fast.' So we've recruited your friend Hoo into one of our little offshoot intelligence groups. His work name is 'Lucius' and we're flying him back to the border tonight with a two-way radio and a Chinese-American operator. If he's got a political organization several hundred strong spread across Tongking like you say, he should be able to deliver the intelligence goods we need if he's handled right." The colonel grinned and leaned across the bed suddenly, tapping Joseph's chest lightly with his forefinger. "And that's where Captain Joseph T. Sherman, late of the Fourteenth Army Air Force, comes in - to help do the handling. n.o.body around these parts realized, until our old Annamite friend put us wise, that we were using somebody with a head full of Asian history and Chinese and French language capability to heave bombs and bullets at the j.a.ps. And when I looked up your record and found you'd published a slim volume on the Annamites, I went hotfoot to Big Chief Flying Tiger to poach you for OSS operations in Indochina. He'll yield to my powers of persuasion so long as you give the okay. What do you say, captain?"

Joseph felt a sudden throb of excitement somewhere deep inside him. "What sort of job are you offering me exactly, colonel?"

"Running the research and a.n.a.lysis backup in Kunming to start with. We're going to be parachuting people into Tongking soon." He nodded at Joseph's plaster. "When you finally dispense with your graffiti collection, maybe we'll send you in with a full team to swashbuckle around the jungle a little. Organize some training and some sabotage maybe. Your old Annamite pal speaks highly of you. You're Number One in his book. He says he'd be glad to make you welcome out there in the hills again real soon. Does that appeal to you?"

"Getting shot at on the ground might make a welcome change from getting shot at in the air, now that I think of it," replied Joseph, grinning suddenly.

Colonel Trench grinned too and patted him on the shoulder. "Okay. You can hobble on crutches already, can't you? I've arranged for you and Hoo to see the general together this afternoon before he leaves. I'll be there too.', "There's just one final condition," said Joseph quickly as the OSS colonel began drawing back the screens around the bed.

"What's that?"

"I need half-a-dozen Colt .45S, sealed and in their original packages, and a box or two of ammunition - and I need them today."

Trench's eyebrows shot up humorously. "The swashbuckling's supposed to come later, captain. What would a man in your condition want with stuff like that?"

"I want to give a present to our friend Monsieur Ho - a kind of personal thank you from 308 Squadron."

Trench pretended to consider the request with great gravity. "All right, captain, you win. But you'd better make d.a.m.ned sure you do six Colts'-worth of work for OSS before this war ends."

Outside General Chennault's office that afternoon, they were kept waiting for half an hour while grim-faced American and Chinese officers dashed in and out of hurried meetings with their commander. In the anteroom Joseph noticed that the Annamese, who greeted him with his usual warm handshake and brilliant smile, had pressed and darned his ragged khaki tunic for the occasion. Colonel Trench was carrying a zipped up canvas hold-all when he arrived, and he winked theatrically in Joseph's direction as he placed it beside his chair.

Although the walls had been soundproofed, the dull roar of aircraft arriving and departing was still faintly audible from outside, and when at last the three of them were ushered into the office they found Chennault working behind a big paper-strewn desk with the United States flag standing against the wall behind him. Three rows of bright medal ribbons gleamed above the left breast pocket of his uniform jacket, and he rose at once and offered his hand in greeting to the Annamese. "I'm glad to meet you, Mister Hoo," he said courteously. "It gives me the opportunity to say a personal thank you for rescuing one of my best pilots." A smile flitted briefly across the general's craggy face, but his manner remained distracted, as though with half his mind he was still considering how best to juggle the limited number of men, machines and supplies at his disposal to defeat the j.a.panese.

"The greatest privilege is mine, general," said the Annamese, inclining his head respectfully. "I never thought I should be fortunate enough to shake hands with such a famous American fighting man. I've admired you for many years, ever since you and your handful of volunteer Flying Tigers heroically drove j.a.pan's bombers from the skies above China's big cities."

The unexpected fluency of his shabbily dressed visitor's English and the ardent sincerity of his words immediately brought a broad smile of pleasure to the American general's face, and he hastened to pull a chair into position for him beside his desk. "1 thank you for your kind compliment, sir," replied Chennault chivalrously. "I'm surprised to find someone from your country knows about such things."

Ho Chi Minh glanced pointedly at the map of China and South-east Asia on the wall behind the American, then smiled directly at him again. "There can hardly be anybody in Asia who hasn't heard of the man who's proved to be the greatest single obstacle to j.a.pan's conquest of China, general. I can see, now that I've met you, why some of your own flyers talk of you as 'the nearest thing to G.o.d any guy will ever know.'"

All the Americans were moved to friendly laughter by Ho's deft use of American vernacular, and when a pretty secretary in khaki brought tea in Chinese-style cups with lids, they sat down and discussed with great good humor Joseph's rescue and his surprise return to Kunming. They talked too about possible future rescues, but in accordance with a briefing given him by Colonel Trench, the Annamese studiously avoided introducing any discussion of politics, and as the OSS colonel saw Chennault glancing at his watch, he stood up to indicate they should leave.

"I thank you most humbly for sparing your time to receive me, general," said Ho, smiling ingratiatingly once more. "But before I go, may I ask one small favor?"

Chennault glanced impatiently towards a new sheaf of papers his secretary had just placed before him and nodded absently.

"It is nothing more than a schoolboy's request, general," added Ho hastily. "But I would like a memento of my meeting with you.

When I tell people I've met the American who built the Flying Tigers into a mighty modern air force, I'd like to be able to show them your picture."

Chennault smiled with a mixture of relief and embarra.s.sment and signaled for his secretary to bring a folder of glossy photographs. When she handed one to Ho, he stepped up to the desk and placed it on the blotter. "And if you could be kind enough to sign it for me, general, it would be more than I deserve."

Chennault uncapped his pen and scrawled "Yours sincerely - Claire L. Chennault" across the bottom of the picture, then handed it back to the Annamese. "Keep up the good work, Mister Hoo," he said with a note of finality, and before his visitors had filed from the room he had returned to his papers.

Outside in the waiting room Joseph handed over the canvas holdall containing the six Colt .45s and a thousand rounds of ammunition, and the face of the Annamese lit up with grat.i.tude.

"You've more than repaid me for the little service I did you, Captain Sherman," he said, clasping Joseph's hand with both his own. "And Colonel Trench has told me that I may hope that we'll meet again when you are fully recovered. I shall look forward with great happiness to that day."

Two hours later a little L-5 "gra.s.shopper," capable of landing in short jungle clearings, took off from Kunming and headed south over the city's ring of blue hills towards Ching Hsi carrying "C. M. Hoo," an OSS two-way radio and a trained Chinese-American operator. As soon as the plane landed the two men donned the garb of Nung mountain tribesmen to give themselves the appearance of border smugglers and struck out on foot through rain and darkness towards Tongking; the Chinese-American humped the radio equipment in big shoulder satchels and the frail Annamese himself carried the hold-all containing the precious, guilefully won symbols of American support - the new revolvers and the signed picture of Chennault. Because Tokyo had put its Indochina divisions on twenty-four-hour border alert following the coup, they were forced to walk by night and hide by day, and the journey to Pac Bo took them nearly two weeks. But once the radio was in place, accurate reliable intelligence about j.a.panese targets and troop movements began to flow steadily back to Kunming and was rapidly distributed to all America's allies. By the time Captain Joseph Sherman was sufficiently recovered two months later to transfer formally from the 308th Squadron to a desk in the Kunming headquarters of the OSS, radios, weapons and other supplies were being parachuted regularly into the Tongking jungle, and the Annamese agent, code-named 'Lucius," who called himself Ho Chi Minh, had become the head of one of America's most successful wartime intelligence networks in Asia.