The Land of a Million Elephants

Part I of a new novel(continued on next page)

Try this: A jungle dawn, see? The night sky dying and monkeys calling. The birds get ready for heat. Smoke, river mists, low clouds on the hills. The charcoal porters walk the trails. Out of the brush comes Buon Kong, riding his elephant. Tall grass falls under the slow shifting weight. "Da-dum-da-da," you expect to hear trumpeted. Into the circle he rides, beast kneels, dismounted is Buon Kong. Not a word. He waits.

A tall girl has bathed in the stream. She comes back up the hill with her hair dripping. She is naked to the waist and points of water jewel her skin. She faces the rising sun and combs her hair with an elephant comb and her face has the look of seeing nothing.

The ritual of a new day begins. The girl kneels and raises her hands to the sky. Buon Kong reaches up. On each wrist, he ties a string. Each string has 32 knots in it, for the 32 parts of the body and the 32 souls. He leads a group, saying: "Come, my soul, by the path that has just been opened, by the track that has just been cleared. Come with me and bouleversez. Take your tie and hang your ghost. Come, before it's too late."

Then the girl makes pipes for them and they drink rice wine. Rice wine is called phoum.

• • •

Descriptions:

The mountain people of Chanda build their houses on stilts. The roofs are made of straw and the walls are supported by saplings.

Their ponies are shaggy and small. They carry more than their weight.

The hunters wear silver collars and anklets; these they may not keep if they fail to track wounded game or kill more than they need to eat or use any of the foreigners' weapons from the crates in storage.

The best cure for dysentery is to chew raw opium. It tastes like licorice and you can bite into it like chewing tobacco.

The people live long lives doctored by gall of bear and python, marrow of tiger, deer's soft horn. They eat onions when it rains.

Colors of poppies: red, blue, white, mauve. Pale-green stems. Collect the sap, wrap it in banana leaves, shape it into brown blocks. The women do this work, singing quietly in the fields. The plants are waist-high. The women work early in the morning, before the dew lifts, before the clouds pass.

The blue of their cotton wraps is the color of deep water on a clear day, when the sky gives tones to everything. On some mornings, there is a rainbow over the poppy fields. This is the pinnacle of the world's prism.

If the valley harvest is poor, the mountain people must guard their own fields from the lowlanders. The men carry handmade rifles without stocks or sights. The bullets are made out of rusty nails, the powder out of charcoal and saltpeter. The men wear coils of slow-burning torchwood around their wrists.

• • •

The history of Chanda is happy and sad.

When the great god Khang came out of the sky and chose his living place many thousands of years ago, he settled in what was to become Chanda. He loved the trees and rivers and hills. He mated with a sea serpent and they had four sons. Three of the sons were OK guys. The fourth was a real shit. His name was Yak. He was short and ugly and his mother dressed him funny.

For 10 or 12 centuries, everything went pretty well. Khang had his way when he wanted it. He ruled the world. The boys played together in the great outdoors, while their mother baked papayas and buffaloes for fancy dinners.

Then one day Yak killed his father. He did it very sneakily, by the light of a new moon. No one saw him do it. He simply came home and announced that from that day forward, he was the grandest god in the jungle. Since the three other sons were spiritual innocents, and since the mother was too old by now to fight it, Yak had his victory.

Yak was a bad king. He loved to fight and he started wars and other conflagrations for his own amusement.

It is Buon Kong's opinion that Yak still lives (that is, his phi does) in the hearts of many men today.

It is Roger Blake's opinion that there is no such thing as phi. This is why Roger Blake left his parish and came to Chanda. He wanted to destroy ignorant superstitions.

• • •

Buon Kong teaches that there are three harmonies in the world: water harmony, the harmony of living beings and the harmony of flowerlike girls. According to him, the last harmony is the best. The way he sees it, water can storm in a minute and living beings can fight in seconds, but it takes years for a phousao to grow old.

• • •

The king of Chanda is five feet, two. In the years before Chanda became important, he used to ride to work down the royal road, seated on his elephant. He would smile at all his subjects and they would rise up from their bent-back postures in the rice fields and wave at him.

"How nice," he used to say, "that I am the one king everyone stops bowing for."

The great powers were afraid that the king would be assassinated riding high in profile like that. "It is not fitting, King, that you have no limousine," they said, one at a time. "It is beneath your dignity to ride in the open on an elephant."

They showered him with automobiles and the king rode to work in a different car on each day of the week. But the climate of Chanda, the dirt and red mud and monsoons, made it difficult to keep the cars running. The Americans and Russians imported teams of mechanics to service the limousines. Spare parts were hauled upriver and stacked on the docks and in the huts.

"Please," said the king one day to Colonel Kelly, the American advisor, "please permit me kindly to return to my elephants."

"No can do, King Six," said Kelly through his cigar. "Will inquire via telex but suspect, I say again, suspect no joy." Colonel Kelly was very busy and he talked in radio procedure on occasion, to save time.

"Roger," said the king, who was learning.

"Out," said Kelly.

The good colonel sent an inquiry by radiotelephone to Saigon. It was relayed to the fleet monitoring station in the China Sea, and from there, on to CincPacSix in Honolulu by satellite transmission, where it was decoded and recoded and telegraphed under the seas and across the mountains to Washington. There, it was picked up by the agencies concerned (and also by other agencies that had to know what those agencies were up to) and it was scheduled for discussion on many agendas.

This is not to imply that the quiet colonel was just sitting around while he waited for an answer. As a matter of fact, he forgot the message entirely, for he was a very busy colonel; and what with flying chopper missions to drop arms, and establishing liaison with mountain tribes, and cutting a little opium on the side, he hardly had time to think. So it is not surprising, and certainly not to his discredit, to realize that when a response finally did come, in a slightly garbled form, the colonel did not understand what it was all about.

The kind colonel requested an audience with the king (that is, he walked into the next room, where the king was reading The New York Times). "You got any elves here?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon?" said the king, who had been abroad to Paris and London.

"I say again, you got any elves in this country?"

"Hmm," purred the king, as he read stock quotations and pretended to think hard about the question, "it could just possibly be that we do, although I have never seen any myself, at least not that I can remember."

These continuous qualifications were a bother to the efficient colonel. He tossed the action message onto the king's lap. "Says here, 'We got no elves' pants.' You ask for elves' pants?"

"I don't know," murmured the king again, as he looked at the colonel through his gold-rimmed glasses. "Are elves' pants expensive?"

"Beats the hell out of me, King Six. I can't see how they would be, though. Elves are supposed to be small. Not much material needed. Although there's the workmanship involved."

"Ah, yes," said the king.

"Yep," puffed the colonel, now interested in the subject. "Tiny little sewing job, I guess. Mighty small crotch, I guess." He smoked in silent contemplation. "Well, I can get you a reconfirm on this, but I don't think they got any elves' pants available."

"That," said the king, without emotion of any kind, "is too bad."

The colonel had turned to go, but, hearing a tone of neutrality in the king's voice, he wheeled back. He slammed his fist on the desk like a sincere car salesman. "Listen here, King, old buddy, we're going to get you those elves' pants, if it's the last thing we do."

"That would be very nice, indeed," (continued on page 86)A Million Elephants(continued from page 78) said the king, as he read the message on his lap: "No, say again, no Elves' pants."

It was months before the colonel figured out what the message meant. By then, the king had displeased many governments by some of his actions, and suggestions were made that perhaps it was time for the king to get back on top of his elephant, but the king only smiled.

• • •

"Laws do not automatically make people better," said Buon Kong. "For people must attain a state of inner truth."

"And what is truth?" he was asked.

Buon Kong smoked on his pipe for a moment before answering. "I will tell you a story about truth," he finally said. "Once, our king decided that he would make his people in Chanda honest and truthful. One day, while we were out in the fields, he built a gallows in front of the royal gate. When we returned from our work at dusk, there was the captain of the royal guard, stationed with his troops by the gallows.

"'What is this?' we all asked.

"'Everyone will be questioned before he enters the city,' said the captain. 'If he tells the truth, he will be allowed to enter. If he lies, he will be hanged.'

"We stood there and talked to each other, wondering what to do. Finally, I stepped forward.

"'Where are you going?' asked the captain.

"I did not stop, but answered as I walked, 'I am on my way to be hanged.'

"He caught up with me. 'I don't believe you.'

"'Very well,' I said, 'if I have told a lie, then hang me.'

"I brushed past the gallows. He put his hand on my shoulder. We were nearing the gate. 'If I hang you for lying,' he spluttered, 'I will make what you have said come true.'

"I went under the arch and the people cheered and followed me. 'Exactly,' I said to the captain, 'and now you know what truth is to those in power. It is their truth.'

"The gallows was taken down and moved back to the prison yard, where it is still used with some frequency."

"Truly, Buon Kong, I think you could be king," someone said.

He spit betel juice. "I have never felt peaceful enough for power. Places of power are not harmonious."

"But you are one of the most peaceful men I know, surely more peaceful than the king."

"It is not my business to judge the harmony of the king. Remember that harmonies are deceptive, that a chaotic soul may have a surface as smooth as fish oil."

And he lay back on his pallet to sleep.

• • •

Charley Dog came to Chanda by way of two busts in America--the first in Texas, where he was sent up for having two joints rolled in his field-jacket liner; the second in California. In both cases, he was coming across from Mexico.

Charley Dog loved Mexico better than anyplace he had ever been. But'he kept getting caught doing one thing and another.

About a year after his second term began, Charley Dog was picking tomatoes on the prison farm (under the watchful double-barreled eye of the guard), when he fell to listening to the chatter in the next field. Mexican chatter, that is, spoken by wetbacks. Enough of it was understood by, Charley Dog, oh, yes. An old man of bent back sang a song about Chanda. Charley Dog listened and translated it that night:

There is a place called Chanda

Where the women all are free

Aieeeee

And more dope than you could hopefor

Unless your daddy peddles pot Aieee

So you take your caffeine

And leave me my amphetamine

Oh, baby, baby, baby, your daddy'sgetting old.

There is some question as to whether Charley Dog translated this song literally, and there might even be some question whether he heard the song at all. But so be it. There, in the middle flats of California, he dreamed of Chanda and of what life might be like for him there.

The next day, he escaped, hopped a freight to Sacramento, broke into a Laundromat changemaker, called a friend and got himself a little-diddle pot franchise, saved his silver and sold his gold and, within a year, he bought a one-way ticket for Chanda.

That's how Charley Dog made it.

• • •

The city of Royal City does not look like a city. There is only one paved road. It runs north-south through the center and it stops 500 meters beyond the royal gate.

The city sits in a saucer of hills reminiscent of Dien Bien Phu. "He who controls the hills controls the city." This profound thought, variously worded, appeared in the intelligence reports of the many representatives who had been sent from many countries to lodge in Chanda. This shrewd tactical concept intrigued Colonel Kelly. At night, under the light of his lantern, he would place plastic overlays on his maps of Chanda and, using red and blue and green grease pencils, he would launch attacks and counterassaults, diversions and envelopments. Always, always he was left with the belief that it would be next to impossible to break out of an enemy encirclement in the hills surrounding Royal City.

With conventional weapons.

But Colonel Kelly had a special nuclear kit and in that kit were other overlays and graphs and tables: and late at night, when the mantle in the lantern was down to a small glow, the colonel would quietly, chuckingly open his special nuclear kit.

According to Colonel Kelly's consistent and mathematically correct computations, a nuclear airburst at 10,000 feet of what still has to be classified megatonnage, if delivered at what still is considered a classified point on the map, and if timed to coincide with classified temperature conditions, this airburst would singe the hills but leave the city intact.

This made the colonel very happy. And he stayed happy until Lieutenant Goodfellow was assigned to Chanda as the colonel's executive officer.

Lieutenant Goodfellow always wanted to do the right thing. He was eager, industrious, square. He had been raised secure in the glow of educational institutions. His moral outlook could best be described as American modern, realizing, as you must, that this term covers many viewpoints but could probably be said to lie, speaking in analogies, somewhere between the courthouse square and the high school football field.

Lieutenant Goodfellow did not think he wanted to make the military a career. But he was not sure of that.

He reminded Colonel Kelly that, in the colonel's nightly wonderings, he had forgotten to compute wind direction and velocity.

"Atomicwise," said Lieutenant Goodfellow, "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."

The colonel praised the lieutenant for his efficiency. They were both very hearty about the whole mistake. They spoke loudly and laughed a lot. But Colonel Kelly was very relieved that he made out the lieutenant's fitness reports and not vice versa.

The colonel took it upon himself to show the lieutenant a thing or three. First, he requisitioned some equipment via telex. The message flew through the air and bounced off satellites and whipped under oceans. From a supply shed in Maryland, across a continent by rail, across an ocean by plane came the colonel's requested equipment.

And one morning at dawn, when the birds were getting ready for heat, a small balloon about the size of a basketball floated up on the wind currents above Royal City. The sausage sellers and pedicab drivers and vegetable vendors (continued on page 160)A Million Elephants(continued from page 86) watched it go and pointed it out to each other.

Stranger yet was the vision of the colonel crouched on the flat roof of the American mission house. He was in clear sight of all the townspeople.

A rumor began that the instrument the colonel was looking through could see into the center of the sun. A crowd gathered below the white-stucco walls. Someone said the colonel would be blind when he turned away from his task.

When the colonel was done, he straightened up very proudly and waved to what he assumed were his followers. They waved back and went on their way.

Then an expression of pain or dismay came across the colonel's face and he bent again to look.

The balloon was out of sight of the transit lens. And the entire theodolite had slipped from its sighting position and was pointing below level.

What the colonel was looking at this time was Wampoom, the king's mistress. By fate or accident, the transit lens had swung into line with her bedroom window. She was lying naked on her bed, her mosquito net pulled up and away. She was rubbing oil on her breasts. She was sprinkling grain on her legs. A peacock ate the grain.

The colonel considered this kind of behavior disgusting and un-American and it made him watch harder.

It also made him forget the message he was preparing. And that gave him all the more reason to set up his transit on the roof every morning and watch the balloon and then watch Wampoom.

Until the revolution, of course; but by then it didn't matter.

It was the colonel's conclusion after a season of tracking balloons that the winds of Chanda were shifting and variable, highly unpredictable (but still classified).

Together with Lieutenant Goodfellow, the colonel decided that a ground-zero nuclear burst would be much better.

• • •

Street scenes; midday:

By noon, the markets are empty, the morning shoppers gone. The smell of fish water and trampled mud.

The air is charged with quiet. The merchants nap on their forearms. No cries now. A time after trade and thinking.

A procession of bonzes passes. Their saffron robes drift like sails in the breeze. Their begging is over for the day and their boys carry the pickings proudly. They are going back to the temple for food and rest and contemplation.

Dry rice grows by the roads. During the monsoon season, the open sewage ditches overflow. In the dry months, one finds nothing but his own waste in them.

Pirogues head upriver again either to fish for the next day's sale or to haul cargo to the river towns. By pole and sail, they go against the current. They hug the eastern bank once they pass the last warehouse. The boatmen sing to each other across steering oars.

Nothing moves on the streets.

• • •

Andreas carries a tray of drinks to the table on the patio of the Constellation Hotel. This is his night to wait on the Russian. Last night he drank with Colonel Gaillard, the French military attaché. Tomorrow he will prepare a curry for Major Poon, the Indian representative of the International Control Commission. But tonight he must pay favor to Nadolsky.

"Cold vodka in small thimbles for the commissar!"

Nadolsky only grunts.

"This humble Greek toasts his Russian friend," Andreas raises his shot glass as he speaks, "knowing that had the Turks not gotten in our way, Greece and Russia would be one."

They drink, bottoms up, and the homemade liquor burns their throats. Andreas made this batch only last week. He boils water and spirits together, adds lemon peel, even filters the mess if he has time.

Nadolsky, as usual, is thirsty and proposes his own toast. "To Andreas of Paleokastritsa and the beautiful island of Corfu! May it one day be free from corrupt monarchy and capitalistic influence, so you may go back to it a happy man."

Nadolsky still looks restless, so Andreas stands again. "To Alexander Nadolsky of Odessa, who has graced my poor hotel in Chanda with his presence ever since he came here on assignment from Istanbul--and who, as I understand it, was just reassigned here for another year, even though he had informally requested transfer."

This catches Nadolsky by surprise. He sits stunned for a minute. Andreas smiles indulgently, as if the conversation had reached a pleasant pause.

"You will tell me, of course, where you heard that," Nadolsky finally says.

Andreas raises his palms in futility. "Surely, it is enough that I, a poor hotel owner, have learned of this, and that in faithfulness and trust I pass it on to my Russian friend."

"Who will reward such friendship."

"My life has been vacant of rewards, as you know; but were I to tell you my source, I am sure my life would be less valuable than a lobster's claw." To escape this interrogation, Andreas offers another toast. "To the adventurous Americans, who are now flying air-observation missions over the Plain of Elephants not far from our city...." He gestures as if to drink, but Nadolsky wants a little more. "And to the newest acquisition on their staff, a Marine master sergeant named Campo, who arrived this morning from Saigon."

Nadolsky drinks. It is enough. He rises and shakes hands. He is perspiring freely now, for he always wears wool suits. "I have asked my government to send some retsina on the next cargo plane. Unfortunately, all we can offer is from the Albanians, but I understand it is delightful."

Andreas smiles again. "A Greek drinks Albanian wine in the same spirit a Russian would drink Turkish vodka: It is a little less than gasoline, a little more than water."

"And an envelope with currency will be delivered to you later this evening."

"Ah, the question of currency is a delicate one, for from what country does the currency come? But I am not one to insult a friend and I will wait. And while I wait, I shall remember when the French were here in force and paid me in preroyal phips. Such a waste."

Slightly high on vodka, the two men walk arm in arm to the street, past Charley Dog, who is just sitting there, minding his own business, more or less.

• • •

Buon Kong's elephant is named Babu. Once both he and Buon Kong were members of the royal court, Babu as one of the royal stable of elephants, Buon Kong as his keeper.

At that time, not so many years ago, the ceremonies surrounding the court were gracious and unorganized. It was not an expensive place to be, for neither the court nor the king had any more money than the subjects. Indeed, the king had a monopoly on one thing only, and that was the right to keep elephants, as many elephants as he wanted. Since Chanda was known as the land of a million elephants, this was no problem.

So one day, Babu was captured and led down from the great plain, where most of the elephants lived.

When he was first exposed to the noise of Royal City, Babu was terrified and broke from the caravan. Such was the power of this elephant, not yet grown to full stature, that he could break the rein upon him.

For an hour, Babu roamed the back streets. Once he knocked a small hut off its stilts. He stepped through vegetable gardens. He crushed a mortar-and-pestle rice mill. Girls screamed and children laughed to see the royal keeper running in fat waddling steps through a rice paddy in pursuit of the elephant.

Just as the chase had become a very serious one, with the keeper about to order rifles and nets, Babu took a turn through the river market. He was pelted with fruit and coconuts as he trampled produce and tables and canvas. He trumpeted while running at full speed.

Through the confusion came a short sharp whistle. Babu stopped. The market quieted. Buon Kong walked slowly down the middle of the mud street.

As far as can be told, this is what happened next.

The royal keeper came puffing up to Buon Kong and said that he, the keeper, would take over. Buon Kong paid him no attention. He approached Babu and lifted one big elephant ear and whispered to the beast. Babu raised his trunk and kneeled on his front legs. Buon Kong swung aboard. Up and down the street they went, with the crowd cheering.

The focus of the town was now on two unknowns. Buon Kong had appeared in Chanda only a few years previously. No one knew where he had come from. He had tried to pass as a ballad singer and storyteller, and he did these things well, but most of his time was spent in the opium den by the fish market. It was said that if you wanted to hear Buon Kong tell a story, you first had to buy him a pipe. Yet here he was, critical in function to Royal City, calming a mad elephant.

"You must come down now," pleaded the keeper, as he trotted alongside the two. "He is meant for the royal court and I must take him there."

"If he is meant for the court, why, then, so must I be meant for the court," replied Buon Kong.

"That is not possible," said the keeper with a deferential grin.

"Goodbye," said Buon Kong as he guided the elephant toward the edge of the city.

"Wait, wait," cried the keeper. "I will let you join my stable on one condition."

"And what is that?"

"That you don't take over my job," the keeper whispered with his hands clenched.

Buon Kong smiled. "My interests are few and your job is not one of them."

And that is how Buon Kong and Babu came to be in the royal court for a time.

But as to what Buon Kong said to the elephant ("or what the elephant said to him," some people have joked), no one knows. There was even a rumor circulated in the court the next morning that before Buon Kong was able to take advantage of his first pipe of the day, he could not remember what had happened.

There was another rumor, this of the market place, that Babu was a phi of one of Buon Kong's ancestors and that man and beast could be heard speaking at times in a strange language.

Which rumor is true, if either, no one can say.

• • •

Master Sergeant Danny Campo reported for duty in his dress blues. That was his first mistake. He left the hotel with only Andreas staring after him, but by the time he had walked the few blocks to the American mission house, he had a crowd of children running behind him. They had never seen a man in such stiff plumage.

This is not to say that Danny Campo did not fill the bill in Marine Corps terms. Going on 30 years in that organization, he was a walking history book. Captured at Wake Island in World War Two, prisoner of war who had worked on the Manchurian Railroad, veteran of the Chosan Reservoir in Korea, French interpreter for American advisors at Dien Bien Phu, he was, on paper, ideal.

And in life, he was truly brave, experienced, energetic. He tried hard to do things by the book. Thus, his red-faced dress-blued approach down the main street of Royal City.

But Danny Campo was a beefy, human fuck-up. There was always something canted and skewed about him; either a medal pinned on improperly or insignia reversed or instructions misunderstood. It was for this reason that he was shunted out of the infantry billets and led into intelligence assignments. There, it was thought, he would do less harm.

Campo faced Coakley, the mission's State Department clerk. Rigid at attention, his white cover under his arm, he handed his orders across the desk.

Coakley took one look at the uniform and cringed. "We wear civilian clothes here. We're under the French."

"Under the French, sir?" asked Campo with some trembling. This was not a new scene in his life.

"Well, you know what I mean, for goodness' sakes. That's what we say. I have no idea what the French say. Don't you have some clothes here?"

"Just one set of civvies, sir."

"If you walk around like that, they'll watch us all the time. I suppose they do, anyway, but we can do something about it, can't we?" Coakley was, in secret, very proud that he was under almost constant surveillance. It gave him someone to dress for. Today, for example, he sported a black Italian silk suit, shiny as sealskin. He had been planning to go out for lunch, just to be seen.

"If you could tell me where the PX is, sir, I'll change."

"PX?" Coakley shrieked. "There isn't one in all of Chanda, dear boy. This is a hardship post, believe me."

Campo blushed in anger to hear this Ivy League whip call him "dear boy." He judged Coakley to be 30 at the most.

"I have a tailor and I can give you his name, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean," said Sergeant Campo. He had decided to drop all "sirs" to Coakley.

"Come along. I'll take you to him. His name is Sang Woo and he's from Hong Kong. He's a delightful little man." Coakley pinched Campo's biceps lightly. "He does marvels for all of us."

"I'd better report to my C.O. before that."

"You won't be able to see him for another hour," Coakley said with authority. "He's still on the roof."

"On the roof?"

"That's what I said. He pretends he's doing some kind of research, that colonel. But I know what he's up to. He's a Peeping Tom, that's what he is. Come on, let's get you out of that bellboy outfit."

It was Campo's second but not last mistake of the morning to let Coakley take him to the tailor. There he shed his uniform and donned a Cossack shirt of Irish linen, white pressed cotton slacks and sandals. As he looked at himself in the mirrors and sipped tea prepared by Sang Woo's wife, Campo came to a new realization. He decided then and there that uniforms disfigure. He had never thought of that before. "Christ," he said to himself, "I'm thinking like a civilian!"

• • •

Major Poon spent much of his time at the airport south of the city. It was there that he had his communications shack. Technically, Major Poon was officer in charge of the airport. It did not work that way in reality, because he had no staff, no planes, no power unless it was lent to him by one of the great powers. He did have two white helicopters parked in the far corner of the field, but no one would give him the fuel necessary to run the birds, and he certainly couldn't buy it.

His job was frustrating in the extreme. He wrote reports for the UN and pleaded with all governments present in Chanda to inform him of their activities. What happened, of course, was that the attachés told him what their rivals were doing but never confessed to any specific action of their own.

The agony of putative peace keeping often reduced Major Poon to tears. "Why, oh, why did you do that?" he often cried. No answers were ever offered to this, except the usual laconic, "Why don't you ask them what they're doing?"

The Russians landed their Ilyushins and the Americans their C-47s. The French tried to bring in Caravelles. As the tempo of take-offs and landings increased during the months, Major Poon could only wring his hands and keep score.

One morning, he was forced to watch helplessly while a Russian cargo plane unloaded howitzers manned by North Vietnamese gun crews. The major broke from his office and ran across the tarmac.

"No guns, no guns," he cried to Tay Vinh, who was standing under his white parasol and supervising the drill.

"Please, Major," said the North Vietnamese cultural attaché, "you are in the way." Major Poon jumped to the other side of Tay Vinh. "Aiming point, aiming posts, deflection two eight hundred," Tay Vinh read from an old American field manual. The gun crews scurried about, placing red-and-white stakes in the grass.

"I thought you were a writer and a poet," complained Major Poon. "Now you seem to be an artillery officer."

"The Democratic Republic of North Vietnam is no place for those who do not contribute to their society. You have, perhaps, read my Ode to the Breechblock written on the anniversary of the birth of our leader?"

"No, I have not," said Major Poon impatiently. "I object to the presence of these guns."

"Fuse VT, time one point five," Tay Vinh commanded. He turned to the major and smiled. "We are cutting the fuses rather short, but we want an airburst over the river to celebrate the arrival of our guns for freedom."

The major blushed darker brown, something akin to the color of a roasted chestnut. "I will report this to the I. C. C. immediately."

"Yes, do that, and in the meantime, we are protesting the American flights over the Plain of Elephants. That place, above all others, was to be demilitarized. Why are you protecting the Americans?"

"I am not protecting anyone," the major said.

The gunners called something to Tay Vinh and he answered. "Charge two seems right, don't you think, Major? And you do have a place where we might burn our extra powder bags?"

"You must not fire those guns!"

But Tay Vinh had already faced about. Sandbags on the trails, crews at the ready, he raised his parasol high in the air and lowered it dramatically. Va-va-voom, roared the guns. Birds scattered in the far tree line and almost immediately, four small clouds burst low over the water and then came the pa-dow-pow sound of the fragmentation.

Major Poon could see the townspeople running for cover, in fear that the city was under attack. "Aieee," he cried. "Surely you know you must not do this."

"What I know," shouted Tay Vinh in a happy rage, "is that the armed might of the Democratic Republic has arrived in Chanda and we are now a force to be reckoned with." Tay Vinh led the gun crews in three cheers, hip, hip, hooray, the likes of which Major Poon had not heard since his school boating days on the Thames.

The trails were centered, muzzle covers attached, canvas over the breechblocks, and four trucks hitched the guns and pulled them away.

"Where are you taking them?" Major Poon demanded.

"Far from here. Do not worry."

They argued as they walked toward the main gate. They saw an air observation craft with no markings circle like a lazy crow above them. For a time, they continued their argument, only half noticing the plane, dark as an olive; but then it seemed to stall and dive, and it was Tay Vinh who hit the deck first, folding his parasol as he flopped, Major Poon after him and almost on top of him and, like a mosquito in heat, the OE plummeted down, down, whiningly down.

Only to pull up a few feet from earth and fly bottom up along the length of the runway, loop a loop and come back straight, wag its wings and dip its nose on each pass over the two prostrate debaters, who up and ran as soon as the Piper Cub-type craft was by them, and who were sent sprawling again when it had made its circle and was buzzing them again. "That must be the crazy Mennan," Major Poon yelled to Tay Vinh when the plane had landed.

Shaking the wing as he stepped onto the strut, Harry Mennan hopped to the ground. He took off his cowboy hat and waved it wildly at Major Poon. "Suuueee," he hog-called, "you all haul ass over here and feed your eyes. Come on, old Poontang, I got something here even the UN will wait for. Drop your socks and grab your cocks!"

• • •

"Her name is Dawn," Mennan said reverently, holding his hat over his fly. "She don't talk, but, man...."

Slowly, elegantly, she stepped onto the strut. The men stared. She smiled uncertainly and Mennan reached up to help her. In the morning sun, her skin seemed basted in butter. It held the color of oranges. Iridian and prismatic she was, the best of many races. Red heavy lips and eyes that could never be captured truly in a photograph. The slightest Mongol slant to her eyelids, a pug nose, the tall body of a child.

"You can't beat that with a stick," Mennan sighed. "She's all mutt and all cunt."

"Please," protested Major Poon in an attempt to pose as protective, "you must not talk like that."

"She's more hybrid than hash."

"Please!" and the major tried to put his arm around her shoulders, but he was a little short for that.

"It don't matter. She can't hear none of us and there ain't nobody heard her say word one."

"Then how do you know her name?" Tay Vinh interrupted suspiciously.

"I know her name, you little Commie rat, because they told me her name. Hah!"

"Who is 'they'?" Tay Vinh pursued.

"'They,' you revolutionary punk, is the generals who brought her over here with Special Services."

"I do not believe you. She is not an American."

"Who knows what she is, horsefly? I sure as hell don't. They say she just walked onto this plane loaded with show-business folks. Walked right in and sat down there in Los Angeles and everybody thought she was part of the show. When they get over the Pacific, somebody asks who the chick in the sari is and nobody knows. She hands them a card with her name on it, but she don't seem to talk or hear. So you got some embarrassed bigwigs who are flying one extra body into a combat zone in Saigon.

"So I got a priority-one call to fly my ass down and pick up a passenger. They want to get her out of their hands fast by flying her to a neutral zone. 'Neutral, shit!' I tell them, but it don't matter and here she is and look at that wiggle."

" 'Neutral, shit,' you told them?" Major Poon cried. "In those words? Oh, no, there will be an inspection team from the UN up here now."

Tay Vinh spoke with a tight smile. "If this kingdom is not neutral, it is because of white-skinned imperialists such as this one we have had to deal with this morning."

"Keep that propaganda coming, folks," said Mennan. "But just remember that you're going to have to deal with me for a long time, Baby Tay, and one of these days, I'm going to take that parasol and shove it up your dialectical ass."

The girl sensed the conflict and headed for the gate in a graceful walk. The heat from the paving wrapped her figure in waves of color; and before the three men set out after her, it seemed to each of them that she was sending off vibrations meant for him alone.

• • •

Charley Dog was sort of spaced out when he met Roger Blake. First thing Charley Dog saw was a white hand holding a pamphlet. There in large letters was the title, "God Could Be Black!" Long arm followed long hand, long body followed long arm. Nervous and sweating in the heat, a tall blond ofay sat carefully down. Charley Dog took another puff and assumed he was meeting either Don Drysdale or Jerry West.

"What team you play for?" he asked.

"God's own best," came the eager reply, "and I want to talk to you about it."

This was enough to shake Charley Dog a little. He blinked. "Have a drag."

The man jumped. "That's illegal!"

"Not in Chanda, Daddy. Only thing illegal here is what your head makes illegal--and then it's illegal only for you. You take this joint here. I could light it in church if I wanted to." The man gasped. "Except there ain't no churches."

"Yes, and that bothers you, doesn't it?"

Charley Dog shook his head. "Don't bother me, man, it's just a fact."

"It bothers me terribly," said the man. "That a country as backward, as primitive as this should have no church. A country with disease and pestilence, with superstitions, ignorant and unwashed."

"I ain't studying you, so just leave me be." I should have known, thought Charley Dog, I should have known. Another preacher in my life.

"Give me a few moments of your time. I know you're busy. I know you're troubled. But what is a minute in the life of a man?"

"Well, now--"

"I know! Believe me, I know. My name is Roger Blake and I know."

"Well, since you know--"

"Shake my hand. Shake my hand in faith and brotherhood!"

Charley Dog stared carefully into his eyes. "You sure you're not tripping or something?"

"I'm on that trip that never ends. I'm fixed for life. I'm on the vision and blood of the lamb."

"Uh-huh," said Charley Dog as he clipped on a roach holder.

"And I'm looking for an assistant." This last not a ploy at all, for Roger Blake had brought three crates of Bibles with him and, unless he distributed them fairly rapidly, he feared mildew.

"No, thanks," puffed Charley Dog. "I'm sort of retired here, you see."

"Then at least read my pamphlet."

This seemed a nice out. "Oh, I will, I will. Looks like you got some more."

Roger Blake hesitated, holding his briefcase on his lap. "Not really."

"What you got there?" asked Charley Dog.

"It's nothing." Roger Blake fidgeted.

"Come on, let me see," said Charley Dog.

Embarrassed, Roger Blake put two more pamphlets in front of Charley Dog: "God Could Be Yellow" and "God Could Be Brown."

Charley Dog laughed. "You sure cover your bets, don't you?"

Roger Blake giggled a little. "Yes, sort of."

"Yes, sir, you got options, you do." Charley Dog frowned in his fog and tapped Roger Blake on the arm. "Only one thing, white knight. How'd you know whether to give me the "Black" or the "Brown" one? Huh?"

Slowly, as if he had a rat on a string, Roger Blake pulled out his light meter.

• • •

When Buon Kong travels into the countryside, he prepares himself for a long walk. In each village, he is offered rice and pickle juice. Sometimes one of the villagers will try to boast of his wealth by adding fish or meat to the sauce. But Buon Kong carries a small wooden fish in his robes and he slips that into his rice bowl before anyone can offer luxuries. That way, no one appears poor.

The fish soaks up the juice and is tasteful to lick as he walks.

• • •

Translated from the journal of a commercial traveler, Gerrit von Westhoff of the Netherlands, who found himself in Chanda in 1636:

It is not meet that these primitives should commit their horrible fornications in the streets. It must disgust the eyes of God and it embarrasses me.

Wrapping my cape about me last evening, I wished only to stroll by moonlight down to the river. The day had been extremely difficult on my constitution, as impatience causes blackness in my nature. These people are not meant for commerce or consultation of any kind. Their simplicity and conceit overwhelm one of my breeding. They sleep during business hours. And how can I, a mere trader in stick-lac and benzoin, how can I alert them to their iniquities? I see no way. It would profit me more to watch a spicebush grow.

But to the issue: public fornication!

Leaving Father Paul's study, I took the low path toward the village center. The bats went whizzing about my head and for a time, I used my cape as a shawl over my ears (I have heard that the bats of Chanda suck blood at a great rate; two of them can dry up the precious fluids of a buffalo in a night's time).

Before I had traversed the length of six ships, I tripped upon what I assumed was a beast of many legs. Prepared as I am from travel in many lands, I fell to the side of the path and rolled under thick vines. I struck at the object with my walking stick. I did not plan to die without a struggle, jungle beast or no.

Hardly had my blows begun to land than the apparition divided itself, split apart as if in final agony; and in my fury, it took me some time to discern the outline of a distinctly human form. There, as I emerged from my wet thicket, lay a bloodied and moaning savage, his naked mate crying and shrieking over his breast.

My anger did not abate. But torches advanced up the path and prudence guided me back to the good Father Paul, where I demanded of him what kind of place this was in which the earth's floor was used as a brothel.

What I write now strikes me as impossible. Father Paul asked me in a most irreverent fashion if I had not ever used the fields near the Hook in similar manner.

It was then that I realized the corruption of that land had permeated even Father Paul's mighty Christian soul. There was nothing more to be said. I retired to my chamber for the evening and resolved to complete all transactions as rapidly as possible (although "rapid" is a concept unknown here even to the waters).

Since leaving that place of no port, the visions of many such occasions there return to me at strange moments and I find myself ready to fall on my knees and ask God to erase the scrolls of my memory.

The attitude of my own countrymen toward my adventures astounds me. I complained to De Groot, my physician and barber, of the images that will not leave me. His eyes brightened in what I first took to be sympathy and he asked me to describe my tortures. This I did, almost daily, until it occurred to me that he was enjoying the odious pictures I was painting with words.

I told him of the fantasies I had seen, naked girls dancing with peacock feathers, lewd fornications of all sorts in the public square, women wild on jungle roots, the young king parading with a train of elephants that had their tusks wrapped in gold, gold and silver decorations worn by both men and women, and other titillations too gross for me to relate even to this paper on which I scratch.

De Groot bleeds me. At times, I lose my senses. My humors are not in harmony and I fear the worst. For I have carried more cargo back from Chanda than I cared to, and neither my bowels nor my brain can forget.

Back at last in my true home, I shall sit on the canal walls and glory in the low clouds that bring us continuous cool, and I shall spread thick curls of butter and cheese on my bread and thank God that I was delivered alive from that hellish jungle time.

• • •

Buon Kong's last days at court were not easy ones. The king was unsure of him. This indecision passed down the ranks and it became the fashion to scoff at the pretensions, the quiet lessons and hazy pompous statements that had become synonymous with the name Buon Kong. Only Wampoom remained loyal to her little spiritual advisor, but this did not make the king any happier or more trusting of him.

As the king's displeasure grew, the teasing of Buon Kong by the court became more open. Nothing too obvious for a time, then minor pranks of a lycée nature, the hotfoot, the vigorous slap on the back, rhetorical questions aimed at embarrassment, gestures mimicked and expressions matched (particularly the one of glazed eyes and half-smile).

Buon Kong went on about his chores in the royal stables and continued his arguments with anyone who would listen. His focus was on policies and practices, deceptions and alignments. He acquired the back-room title of Foreign Secretary for the Elephants. In the midst of crises, the king would relieve tension by pretending to talk to Babu on the telephone, asking the elephant what advice his master was giving out that day.

One time, more out of boredom than anything else, the courtiers decided to ask Buon Kong to address them as a group. Provincial governors, department (continued on page 170)A Million Elephants(continued from page 167) counselors, secretaries and advisors all sat nudging each other as the doors opened and Buon Kong entered the throne room. He blinked to see such a crowd waiting to hear his words. He saw their smiles and watched their eyes. Here were men of power and property in the kingdom. Some wore simple robes, others Western business suits. Some wore military uniforms.

The appointment secretary made a brief introduction and stood aside. The silence that followed was broken by coughs and chuckles.

Finally, Buon Kong spoke. "O masters of our kingdom, do you know what I am going to tell you?"

Relieved that their ruse had succeeded, and amused that one of such simplicity could assume he was informed and intelligent enough to give them advice, the group answered as a whole: "No!"

Buon Kong turned on his heel. "Until you have some idea, I cannot teach you. You are too ignorant." And he walked from the room.

Stunned silence at first and then wild laughter at the pomposity of the declaration. The secretary was sent out to plead with Buon Kong for his return.

When Buon Kong entered the room again, he was greeted with mock applause. He neither acknowledged that nor spoke until there was silence.

"O mighty ones," he asked again, "do you know now what I am going to tell you?"

The ministers of state were not about to be fooled this time. "Yes!" they roared.

"In that case, you may go," said Buon Kong, and he started from the room again.

The appointment secretary tried to save the day. He pulled on the full sleeve of Buon Kong's robe, stopping him short, and he spoke in deferential tones: "Some of us know what you are going to say, Buon Kong, but others do not."

This remark was echoed by others in the room. "Yes, very true, some of us know, but, again, some of us do not."

Buon Kong stopped at the door. "O you potentates of power over all our lives, you who can levy taxes and send us to war and open our country to exploration and exploitation, surely you have more to do today than listen to the advice of a man who is essentially nothing more than a stableboy. Since some of you know what I was going to say and some do not, let those who know tell those who do not." There was a murmur in the room. "Let me go back to my elephants and you to your weightier questions of policy."

And Buon Kong walked away, leaving the air filled with conflicting currents of anger and amusement.

It was not long before some of the more sincere members of that audience complained personally to the king of the treatment they had received from such a lowly and ignorant subject.

"Their complaints fell on two ears," Buon Kong likes to say now.

• • •

It was impossible for Colonel Kelly to take Kong Le seriously. The colonel saw the little Chanda army captain as a crotch-scratching, betel-chewing, phlegm-spitting case of Asian retardation. He could not decipher exactly what the captain thought of him, but he knew that the captain never took his orders seriously.

Their routine never changed. The captain reported each morning, saluting and breathing garlic over the tight face of the colonel. The surface of Kong Le's attitude was packed with enthusiasm for whatever training project the colonel scheduled.

"Thought we'd do a little chopper work today, Captain," the colonel might begin.

"Yes, sir, The Colonel," Kong Le always answered. He talked with a voice like a closed fist.

"Sort of like we did yesterday, remember?"

"Yes, sir, The Colonel, just like yesterday."

Colonel Kelly pulled his Hawaiian shirt tight across his belly. "Not just like yesterday, Kong Le good friend, because your boys were a little slow yesterday. A little slow. That's why we're doing it again. OK?"

Kong Le seemed to think this was very funny and he gave a great whee of laughter. "They piss me off, The Colonel. Slow asses! Today much better." He scratched his balls vigorously through his trouser pocket, looking steadily at the colonel, as if he could use a little help.

The colonel tried to study his wall maps during the spasm.

"Now, we're going to take the same fire teams and use the Echo One area, same place as yesterday. Good clearing for the landing zone, low grass." Kong Le thought this was terribly funny, too, but the colonel drove on. "Now, your boys have to learn to jump those three or four feet to the deck when the choppers hover. Roger? Will comply? Because those choppers can't sit down."

Kong Le spoke in believing fury. "Never sit down. Chopper must never sit down. No, sir."

"And today, Captain, we'll have to kick ass if they don't hop to it. We can't have any flight near the deck for more than ten seconds."

"I kick their asses," Kong Le said as he shook with rage. "I kick and I kick and I kick." He banged his boot against the colonel's desk.

"OK, OK, easy on the property."

"And, The Colonel, if they no jump when I say, then I shoot their asses off." Kong Le pulled his .45 from his shoulder holster and waved it. "Much better today. Number one today."

Colonel Kelly sat down and held his head in his hands. The next item he wanted to bring up was delicate. "Captain--" he began, but he heard the inevitable deep and rumbling clearing of throat and lungs. Kong Le stood embarrassed, looking for a place to spit. The colonel pushed the wastebasket across the floor. He covered his ears with cupped hands until the hacking was over.

"Captain, today your men won't bring chickens along, OK? No pots, no mangoes, no nothing. We got C rations for noon chow. OK?"

"Maybe some bananas, OK?"

"Not OK. Nothing."

Kong Le smiled as if this was the best news he had heard that morning. "Maybe cut-up chicken and one pot?"

"Nothing!" The colonel slammed his palms to his temples. "No transistor radios, no goats or monkeys! Nothing! You can't run a defensive perimeter like a county farm, goddamn it."

"I fix," Kong Le said. "Never happen."

Colonel Kelly breathed deeply. "One last thing, Captain. Attitude. Attitude. I don't understand why you can't get your boys up for this, get them pissed off, you know? Ready to kill! Just like Quantico, remember? That's why we sent you there."

Kong Le tried to click his heels, but one trouser leg had become unbloused and covered the boot. "My boys very pissed off today, The Colonel. They going to kill Communists and protect happy homes. My boys good and pissed today. We fight like tigers who smell flood."

"Blood," said the colonel. Kong Le smiled and saluted, did an about-face and left the room. His canteen was big as a coconut on his hip and the colonel wondered what kind of wine the captain was carrying today.

• • •

Colonel Kelly drank from a mug of coffee and read The Army Times. The air conditioner rattled on its chassis and occasionally the colonel watched the slow seepage that ran down the wall. These mornings were the busiest and worst times for him. Heartburn, stomach-aches, a caffeine high that was not quite high enough, another training schedule to fake up and file ("0900 hours--the L ambush; 1000 hours--tropical medicine," etc., etc.), and always the vague premonition that another expert or politician or general from the States would drop in, deus ex, out of the skies, full of advice and suspicions.

Today the colonel had special reason to avoid inspection. With Kong Le out of his office and presumably working, the colonel opened Campo's Service record book. He skimmed the mug shot, the statistics, the lists of Service schools and medals and marksmanship scores, checked the page seven and found it lily-white, no courts or infractions.

So where was Campo?

Colonel Kelly knew the sergeant was in town. Coakley had told him that. This kind of incident was all the colonel needed to make his career a bust, a nice long case of unauthorized absence. "That comes to about one quarter of your command," General Grider would say. "That's like losing a company out of a battalion. How do you like it now?"

Oh, yes, his carefully honed ass would be grass, it would. And if Campo did not show up today, the report had to go in. It was not impossible that the stupid bastard had gotten himself ambushed or kidnaped or something. Probably fell headfirst into the benjo ditch, the colonel thought.

Nothing left to do but keep Lieutenant Goodfellow out scouting around in the quarter-ton. And file the absence in the unit diary, if Campo did not show himself soon.

How, Kelly asked himself, how do you lose a pink and bald American master sergeant in a pissant town like this?

This is the first of three installments of "The Land of a Million Elephants." Part II of the novel will appear in our March issue.