The Land of a Million Elephants

Synopsis: Once upon a time, in the Asian country of Chanda, there were the picturesque Royal City, a jungle, a king who stood 5'2", a holy man named Buon Kong, a lot of hunters up in the mountains who wore silver collars and rode shaggy ponies, some of the most beautiful small brown women in the world--and, though nobody ever counted them, about 1,000,000 elephants. They are still there. But nowadays, there are also Colonel Kelly, the American military advisor; Nadolsky, the Soviet ambassador; Andreas, the Greek hotelkeeper, who does spying on the side; Tay Vinh, the North Vietnamese cultural attaché, who has a surprisingly expert knowledge of artillery; Harry Mennan, the cowboy flier; Captain Kong Le, who commands the Chanda troops; Charley Dog, who drifts in by way of a California prison farm; Marine Master Sergeant Danny Campo, who gets lost on his way downtown; Coakley and Sumner-Clark, who represent the U. S. State Department and the British Foreign Office, respectively. And along with all of these people, there is Dawn, who has no other name and is a deaf-mute. She first appeared when somebody found her aboard a plane out of L. A. carrying a Special Services troupe to Saigon. Then Harry Mennan got a hurry-up call to fly her out of Vietnam. When she stepped from the plane in Chanda, all of the men--even the grim little North Vietnamese attaché--gasped. She is impossible to describe--a collage of the beauties of many races. Every man who watches her has the impression that she is giving off secret vibrations for him alone. Dawn is almost enough to make one forget that the Russians and the Americans are bringing hardware into Chanda and that a war is raging just next door in Vietnam. With tension mounting daily, can this colorful never-never land of elephants and parasols stay neutral and at peace?

Hilary Sumner-Clark enjoyed long luncheons in the Aubergine Restaurant. Almost always, he met with Coakley and the two gossiped between courses and bitched about government service in Chanda.

Communication with Chang, the waiter, was impossible. Sumner-Clark tried to explain his order. "No, no, no, Chang, I want an English cut to my beef. Thin, thin, teeny thin slices. Understand? Thin?"

Chang smiled wildly. "You want remon srices with food?"

"No, no! I want my beef sliced like lemons." Sumner-Clark watched the small back disappear into the steam of the kitchen. "Really, I suppose he'll come back with an elephant steak or something. What I'd give for a meal at Simpson's. The Aubergine, indeed."

For a time, the two drank their Scotch in silence.

Sumner-Clark was right, of course. The Aubergine was owned by Andreas. The cook was Chang's father, a wisp of a man who claimed to have been a chef on the French Line many years ago ("I wonder which freighter that was," Coakley had joked when he first heard this story). The place was pretentious enough to attract the foreign-service crowd, however. There was Western liquor available and Andreas made sure that the best of the market place found its way into his kitchen. The orders came out confused, food poisoning was not unknown and ice for drinks was unobtainable. But it did not matter; it was the only game in town. When Coakley and Sumner-Clark complained, they did so existentially, without hope of change or reward.

"Tell me something I don't know," said Sumner-Clark.

"State secret or just anything?" Coakley replied.

"I know all your state secrets, love."

"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. Well, there's only one thing I know that you don't. You see that tree over there? That yellow thing? It's called a shittah tree."

Sumner-Clark leaned back in his chair. "'Dear Mother, I am writing to you from under the shade of the shittah tree.'" He stopped his routine abruptly. "Do you think we'll ever get out of here?" It was their constant question. They asked it even when they did not care. "Most of the bastards in my grade are in Paris or something."

Coakley drank deeply. "No, I think this is the dead end for most of us here. A community of misfits, really. And it's going to get worse instead of better."

Sumner-Clark nodded. The food came and it wasn't right at all, but they ate it, anyway.

A silence indicated they both had deep thoughts. Coakley finally broke it. "The airport has been busy."

"Yes, indeed it has."

"More people than usual."

"Yes," sighed Sumner-Clark. "You'd think this place was important."

"I suppose any place can be important if you want to make it so."

"Well, not Chanda, for God's sake."

Coakley smiled without meaning it. "You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you? You know it's not our business to think that. We're only reporters of a sort."

"Tell me, O muse, what am I thinking?"

"I'll tell you. You'll run right home and put it into a report, but I'll tell you, anyway. And you can mention my name to the M. I. group."

"I wouldn't," said Sumner-Clark.

"You would and you will. You're thinking that if we're not all careful as mice, we could start a war here."

Sumner-Clark laughed tightly. "You're almost right. What I'm really thinking is that the end of the world might begin here. Now, isn't that a silly thought for someone of my training?"

• • •

General Grider sits in the warm Virginia sun and all of spring comes up somewhere in his scrotum. It is seedtime and new time. Here on this hill, he is king of all he surveys; in a sense, he owns the territory. But he has been uneasy since (continued on page 126)A Million Elephants(continued from page 113) dawn. There are going to be folks judging him, barracuda folks like the Senator and the chiefs of various staffs.

The title of the show is tongue twisting, thought up by an executive without rhythm: "Vertical Envelopment and Its Application to Guerrilla-Warfare Principles."

The scenario has been written and practiced. The troops have been on site for two weeks. They have been run through the mud and vines time and time again. Just a few nights ago, General Grider slept peacefully. Everything, he thought then, would go smooth as a baboon's ass. But he had reckoned without the frustrations of a newly interested Congress. That body very politic had decided to send an observer in the person of the Senator.

Momentums and directions converge on poor General Grider. Spring eases his spine only so much. The pressure building at the back of his neck tells him vaguely that this is a peculiar moment in history. He hopes to Christ things shape up.

In the morning sun, the low fog curls around the hill that is to be the ultimate objective. A bunker à la World War Two. So what? That was the window dressing, the pyrotechnic special planned for the ooohs and ahhhs of civilians. There would be satchel charges galore and flame throwers and ye olde napalm. To the military mind, that final hill is Dullsville.

But the approaches, ah, yes, they are not ordinary.

Jungle palms have been planted and rice paddies programed. It is not hard to do in Virginia. An entire village of thatched roofs and market squares has been laid out not more than 1000 meters from the VIP observation post. Underbrush has been cleared only enough to let simple minds and simpler visions watch through binoculars and range finders as little toy soldiers all covered in stripes pull their shiny tiger suits through the heat.

Ambushes and counterguerrilla games. Ingenious as some of the scenario is, the general still bridles at how basic things have to be made for the money boys who control the final decisions. This is not like war. This is all form and play, remote beyond belief from the real thing.

When the sun hits ten-o'clock high, the limousines pull up on the gravel road shoulder. Still a trace of the cool smell of Virginia pine. Glad hands and glad throats. Some uneasy shuffling among the lowly colonels and aides. The Senator comes forward and he is not what you would expect. No foghorn, he in white suit and sombrero. Rather, a squinting and average city boy.

They have dressed the Senator this day in Army fatigues. He has been asked to wear the hard helmet to impress upon him that he is close to danger. He is calm and deferential at first, but his eyes build glitter through the morning hours.

A full bird colonel, no better than a flunky in this crowd, explains with pointer and microphone the purposes of this demonstration. The Senator nods as if he understands all the lingo: landing zone, base of fire, azimuths, targets of opportunity, preparations, on-call support, ETAs, H and I fire. The words drone on, but the Senator has to pose for photographs with General Grider. Mutt and Jeff the two appear. The Senator is hardly tall enough to spit in Grider's canteen cup. The general keeps up a line of chatter about the weather and the day. Not a meaningful word between them.

Finally, all are seated in wooden chairs. They look out over the blue haze of the valley. The map is to their right, so they can check the progress of the show. General Grider takes the mike and croons the situation mission, execution. He raises his arm in a regal "Let the play begin" gesture and somewhere in all that brush, someone has been watching him, for a mortar round explodes purple in the sky and the smoke drifts toward earth. Sounds of rifle fire, small and distinct as cap pistols, ride across on the wind. "This is a live-fire problem," the general repeats, as if everyone's manhood is firmly established by that fact alone.

Squads maneuver on the far horizon. There seems to be action in every corner of the eye. Artillery opens up on the ridge line. Airbursts trim trees and scatter dust like a rainstorm. Close under the o. p., a fire team probes a mine field. They look like children in a sandbox as they crawl slowly on their bellies and poke bayonets into the dirt around them. In the village, the thatched roofs burn from white phosphorus mortar shells. A simulated ambush on a road curve is put to rout.

For the Senator's benefit, one of the aggressors performs a sky dive that lands him right on the hill with the bigwigs; but the kid is overwhelmed by green-faced commandos as he tries to wiggle out of his chute.

Two teams in rubber rafts row across an artificial lake and lay demolition charges in the water obstacles. On the fringes of the final objective, bangalore torpedoes are set across the rolls of concertina wire.

All seems to be going well and the general breathes a little deeper as he talks. He sets up the final situation: More men are needed immediately to take that bunker. How can we get them? Where will they come from? The Senator frowns when he thinks about this. The general continues to build the drama when from the horizon floats what looks like a batch of locusts. Moving neatly now, they grow larger with a sound of power mowers beating the air. In the deep part of his head, Grider thinks something is amiss. He is not sure what. The helicopters seem early. He sneaks a look at his watch. They are. Twamp, twamp, twamp, they pound on. Grider twists his neck and tries to locate his air controller.

Because there is supposed to be an air strike on the bunker before the choppers are in the area and the sky space will get pretty tight if the A-4s come flipping in to drop their napalm while the Hueys hover and release their troops. That will not be pretty, no sir, and General Grider feels the shortest moment of panic before his training comes back to him and he drops the mike and reaches for the radio.

That gesture late, however, for jets are screaming down now. They come up silent and sneaky and are on top of you before you know it. For a Senator, some of the fly boys will scrape the deck in devil's fashion. This they do, bouncing fat bombs across the bunker, leaving black smoke and jelly fire for their next pass.

It is a traffic jam, it is, and the choppers twist away like a herd of wild cattle. They break their patterns and launch out in any direction they can find. The officers on the VIP hill wince and grind their jaws and wait for what seems to be the inevitable mid-air collision.

Which never comes, they thank God; and just as they are relaxing again, and just as General Grider takes up his canned narration again, one chopper, thrown out of the problem area and caught in winds and terrain not of its own choosing, hits high-tension wires and sparks itself to an explosion. It looks no larger from a distance than a little napalm dropping.

Whether or not the Senator sees that is debatable. As the bunker is satcheled and assaulted, and long after the jets have gone back to their base, the medevac choppers fly into the territory. It is (continued on page 210)A Million Elephants(continued from page 126) their job to scrape up whatever is left in the ashes and burned bushes and hot metal. Through eye signals alone, the air controller is sent down as investigating officer; while on the hill, a luncheon of jazzed-up K rations is served under a speckled camouflage net.

The Senator, bland as always, nods and listens to what is said. He seems to like everyone and to have been impressed. It is Grider's conclusion that the snow job (that is what it has been; that is what it had to be) has worked and that when it came to a vote (if it came to a vote; indeed, there was comfort in that, too), the Senator would be with them.

The afternoon is spent inspecting the mock village. Pits, tunnels, booby traps, Chinese weapons, hoards of rice.

And in the early Virginia evening, in an air-conditioned officers' club by the river, it is agreed by the officers concerned that they have just seen what the next wars will be like (they say this with sad shakes of the head) and they might as well, by God, be ready for them. For the first time that day, the Senator commits himself. If he is a bit pickled, that still does not affect his judgment.

"I agree," he says.

• • •

Nadolsky was basting in his own sweat. Andreas was a fool to call him at his office in the consulate. The lines were tapped by everyone and Marya Pleisetskya, his secretary, had only recently been assigned from Moscow. New arrivals from Moscow were eager, sincere and more than likely had spent a term at what was laconically called the Hydroelectric Institute, a place known by all to be the K. G. B. training center ("Where," Andreas had once joked, "they learn to attach electrics to your hydros").

Nadolsky hurried down the alley and turned into the garden at the rear of the Constellation Hotel. It was early afternoon and the heat made him pant. He stood in the striped shade of the areca palms and wiped his face with his large red handkerchief. Where was Andreas? All this secrecy, really.

"Pssst," Nadolsky heard. He jumped and looked for snakes. "Pssst," again brought him near panic. Then he saw Andreas crouching behind a lavender bush. Nadolsky wanted to shout and scold, but Andreas was grinning like a madman and he motioned for the Russian to join him in the hide-and-seek. Nadolsky was too tired to oppose.

"Alexander Nadolsky, Alexander Nadolsky," Andreas repeated with fervor.

"That is the name I travel by," Nadolsky answered. "Now, what is it you want to tell me? It had better be good." He could not squat any longer on his fat haunches, so he fell back on his buttocks with a loud grunt.

"It is good. It is fantastic! You will not believe it."

"Andreas Papadopoulos, get to the point. If it's money you want----"

"No money! This is beyond money!"

Nadolsky laughed. "What is beyond money for you? My heart pounds! You are the only man I know who would charge admission for us to see the end of the world. And yet you say this is beyond money?"

Andreas went tsk-tsk in disappointment. "I am about to propose a joint venture."

"Ahh," spat Nadolsky in disgust, as he tried to rise.

"It concerns a beautiful woman who is now bedded in my hotel."

Nadolsky brushed his palms. "No good. Too many spies and people of poor consequence."

"I think I know a way to introduce you to her."

"Never!" cried Nadolsky, full of interest.

"In case you doubt my taste, may I say that this girl reminds me of Wampoom. But she is to Wampoom as the sun is to one of your satellites. She makes Wampoom look like a Sputnik with a head full of wires."

Andreas stopped talking. The two men sat motionless in the shade, a silent struggle of wills with the outcome never in doubt.

"You were saying?" Nadolsky finally surrendered.

Andreas leaned closer and whispered. "She arrived this morning. She claims she is ill. At least that is how I interpret her. I said I would bring a doctor." He paused again. "Surely you read my thoughts."

"They are filthy thoughts."

Andreas grinned. "I thought you would like them."

"I cannot pose as a doctor. Surely the girl would know we were fakes."

Andreas rubbed his hands like a miser. "Sometimes you underestimate your poor compatriot. I am giving you access to the perfect woman and when you see what I mean, you will trade one hour with her for another siege of Leningrad, such is her power."

"She will scream. She will betray us."

"That is, shall we say, the icing on the cake. For she cannot scream, she cannot talk."

"I do not understand."

"She is deaf and dumb," said Andreas.

Nadolsky jumped to his feet. "You are right! The perfect woman!"

With a rolling of drums in both their heads, they stepped, sprightful and lively, into the hotel, climbed the stairs, paused at the door to check dress and image. Andreas knocked, nothing was heard; knock again, nothing again. Enter the two rogues.

The wooden shutters were closed. Cracks of light seeped through and bounced off the ceiling. In the dim light of the chamber, Nadolsky could see an ancient four-poster decorated with dirty white damask trimming. There, in the center of the huge mattress, lay the spangled girl. She seemed phosphorescent, like salt water at night. Her dark hair was spread in a wide corona around her head. Nadolsky noticed nothing else, neither the cracks in the plaster nor the two lizards that crawled around the broken fan nor the dead and dangling light bulb.

"Madam Dawn," Andreas said nervously, as he touched her arm. "I have brought to you Dr. Alexander." Her eyes were shut tight. "For what ails you?" Her head turned slowly toward them and the eyelids flickered in recognition. Andreas took her hand and placed it firmly in Nadolsky's. "First the pulse?"

"Yes," said Nadolsky deeply, "always first the pulse, because the beat of the heart is like the signal of a drum." His fingers pinched and slipped about her wrist as he searched for the proper place. "Hmm, the pulse is rapid but sophisticated," Nadolsky stumbled in his excitement.

"Ah, yes, sophisticated," said Andreas as he wiped her upper lip with his forefinger. He felt her ears with his two hands, rubbing them between thumb and fingers, as if he was feeling sand in oil. "She has only a little fever."

Nadolsky straightened up. "I am the doctor and will decide if she has fever or not. I do not expect a hotel owner to tell me these things."

Andreas shrugged. This was the time not to argue but to prepare.

"I am sure you will be fine, my dear, but I must make some tests, you understand?" Nadolsky patted Dawn's hand. "Some tests. Your symptoms are mild and I suspect nothing serious." As he talked, he tried to explain himself in sign language. He stroked his stomach and rolled his eyes, but it did not seem to communicate to her.

The two of them, in near perfect concert, pulled her to a sitting position and unwrapped the shawl from her shoulders. She tried to twist away. Nadolsky threw the rainbow cloth across the room and grabbed her by the back of the neck. "Ah, ah, my pretty, this is for your own good. I must make an exam."

Now only the material of the sari to shed. In the half-light, her shoulders looked more full, her breasts more high. Andreas tugged at the front of the sari and peeked toward her belly. She pushed herself flat against the bed. The struggle became more open and violent. Both men issued instructions. They could only control part of her, never her middle, but this in itself was frustrating to them, as she humped and pumped her hips wildly.

"She is a fighting fish," said Andreas.

"Sit on her knees," Nadolsky heard himself yell at the top of his voice. Why was he so loud? Then he heard the helicopters overhead, a sound quite common in Chanda these days. They pounded the air above the hotel as they flew low into the airport.

"What?" Andreas asked, but his ears could contain only the thump of the sky wash above him.

For a few seconds, all were deaf-mutes.

And after the sound cleared the air, it still had not cleared the two men's heads and they kept shouting.

When in the door broke Harry Mennan. He had been sauntering over to check his cargo, hoping to get a little, now that she was settled in the bed, when he heard the aggressions, and up the stairs he roared, ready for bear. With wooden splinters in his shoulders, he stared at the two startled lechers. Slowly, they released Dawn. She rolled onto her side with tears in her eyes and watched Mennan as he bowlegged deliberately across the tiles.

"Drop your meat and beat retreat, you motherfuckers," he growled.

Andreas fluttered like a crow. "Madam Dawn is ill, Harry Mennan, and she should not be disturbed."

"She couldn't be sicker than she is with you two hog-tying her, Andreas."

Nadolsky did not seem scared. "Your interest in her comfort and safety is touching. How protective you Americans can be when you want something yourselves."

"You're nothing but a dirty samovar, Nadolsky."

"If you would like a duel, we shall have a duel. But do not play Western movie star with me."

Mennan took a poke at the Russian's jaw, but Nadolsky was no chump and he countered with a hard punch to the gut. Andreas jumped on Mennan's back and the war was on. They rolled across the floor. Chairs busted and tables fell. Mennan was all knees and elbows; he fought like a cowpuncher. Nadolsky was more scientific and waited for the right moments to hit. Andreas was just plain dirty.

On the bed, the girl lay confused and frightened. She held the mosquito netting against her chest. The dust rose from the floor and she watched the motes in the light. She could not hear the grunts and thuds.

As she faced the broken door and waited for her fate, a new light fell on her back. She turned and saw the shutters swing open. There on the ledge, a vine like a rope in his hands, perched Charley Dog. He beckoned to her. She smiled and sat up. Gesture again; come with me. She wiped her eyes; why not? Slowly, unsteadily, she got to her feet and tiptoed to the sill. Charley Dog laughed to see her so cautious in the midst of battle. The rickety sink in the corner had just broken and was spilling gray porcelain over the three warriors. Still they fought.

Dawn waited to be shown what to do. Charley Dog reached around her waist. She hugged his neck and jumped lightly onto his thighs. He rose and stood full height in the window as she clung to him. He grasped the vine in both hands and pushed off into the air, slid the length and hit the deck.

"I don't know you, baby," he said into her eyes, "but I heard all them creeps talk about you and I figure we might as well let them talk some more." He laughed and picked her up again. "Come on, sweet chicken, there are better things to do in Chanda than fight."

She laughed soundlessly and they took off, running, through the garden, out onto the street that led toward the river, Charley Dog in his faded Levis and open shirt and rope-soled sandals, Dawn following, towed along on his arm like a bright falcon.

• • •

Spring in Washington, D. C. Early spring, that is, before the humidity hits and the cherry blossoms fall. Walter Glover has opened the windows of his apartment. The sounds of late traffic in Rock Creek Park come up to him. This report he is writing dominates his mind, even now. Margaret, a young chick from the department, is not paying much attention to his chatter.

"It's crazy the way things stay in my head," he says, embarrassed and almost laughing. "Like, at one time, seventy-eight percent of the Americans in Chanda were from Princeton. Seventy-eight percent!"

Neither one of them says anything for a while until, astride of him, she jokes, apropos of nothing in particular, "They don't teach you to pick locks at Princeton."

Silence again. Then he moans in new fatigue. "I've got to have that report ready by six this morning. I hate the early watch."

"T. S.," she says. She is Bryn Mawr, blonde and lean, bred like a race horse, and she combats the male world she works in by assuming a tough lingo.

"Come on," Glover whines, trying to get up, "cut that out." Terrierlike, she shakes the limp noodle in her mouth. He lies back again and recites any litany by rote, in an attempt to gain strength.

"'Chanda is the gateway to the rice bowl of Southeast Asia.' Everybody says that. I'm supposed to say it. I even thought of writing that Chanda was the gateway to the gateway of Southeast Asia. I mean, you'd have a pretty hard time getting people up in arms about a gateway to a gateway. Jesus, I wish there was somebody outside to talk to about it. I tried to leak a little to Edelman, but he won't write it up. Edelman had some reason for taking us out tonight. It wasn't just to spend his editor's money, was it? No, sir. He wants to go on our trip over there with General Grider. Inspection tour number one hundred and eight. When in doubt, inspect. I've got to get shots for that, too. Boy, I hate shots more than anything. Always have. I should have gone to law school and I wouldn't have to do all this dirty work. I'm just not cut out for it."

"Walter," Margaret scolds and raises her head.

"What, what?" he asks fast.

She sighs. "What, what nothing what. Jabber, jabber, jabber, Walter. Do you want to talk or fuck?"

• • •

Danny Campo woke up with a porcelain pillow under his neck. He thought maybe he was dead in a morgue. Come back, world, he said to himself. Ho, world, here, world, nice world, come on back. His eyes faded into focus. Shipboard? On a Chinese junk? What the fuck, hey, around him several slopeheads lying in their bunks and sleeping or staring. Campo found himself on the bottom tier. His ass rested on plywood. His mouth tasted like crushed violets.

A classy gook girl rolled pellets in her fingers. Campo raised himself on his elbow and looked at her. She was speaking to her counterpart, an old man of yellow skin and wispy beard, who sucked on his pipe as if it was sugar cane.

The girl took a pellet and held it over the flame on the end of a needle. In his fog, Campo thought perhaps she was roasting marshmallows. He signaled that he wanted one. She ignored him.

Campo lay in the bunk. Who was above him? Who was around him? His sins came back to him. I am a wild Indian, he said to himself. They will ship me out of here with my ass in a sling and my head tucked under my arm. I am over the hill in every possible way. He plucked at his crazy-quilt memory. Fragments came back to him; Sang Woo and his silk suits, drinks of smoky Scotch, rice wine--when? When? Campo rubbed his knuckles in his eyes.

A light tap, tap sounded in his ear. The girl clicked the needle against the bamboo pipe to attract his attention. She neither smiled nor looked at him. He was holding up the works, he realized, so he took the pipe and puffed on it.

My head has been cutting out on me these past few years, Campo thought; I've got to watch that. He held the smoke in his lungs. It burned. But all around him, suddenly, there was the smell of earth, and he liked that. His pipe dreams were peaceful and (he thought this even while in reverie) licentious.

The pipe drew harder. A mild ache hit Campo somewhere behind his eyes. He tried to sleep.

After a time, he felt the girl shake his shoulder. He came to consciousness alert and ready. She pointed to the door. There, at the top of the stairs, peeked a pale face. Campo categorized it instantly. Shit, oh, dear, he thought, lieutenants are my special plague.

"Sergeant Campo?" the voice asked, pseudo tough and righteous.

"Yes, sir," Campo answered in resignation, and his mind added, Do wild bears shit in the woods?

"I'm Lieutenant Goodfellow. The colonel would like to see you. We've been looking all over for you, too."

Campo pulled in his belly as tight as he could and walked through the dusty halls. The lieutenant followed. Just as they climbed into the open jeep, Campo saw a black boy run past, goateed and frizzled, laughing and shouting to the shining girl he dragged along. Goodfellow spun the wheels in the red dust and lurched off. Wait a minute, wait a minute, Campo wanted to say, that's one of the finest ojo-sans I ever eyeballed. But he supposed the lieutenant would not understand, so he kept his mouth shut and sat back in the seat with his arms folded over his stomach.

His time had come. Time for the brig, he guessed. At my age, he thought, I won't get to that line halfway fast enough for those guards; the brig and me, we'll see too much of each other to fool each other.

• • •

Colonel Kelly held the message at arm's length. Then he took out his cigarette lighter (battered Zippo case, one of many in history that had taken shrapnel and saved a life and been kept as a token) and lighted the corner of the paper. Held at right angles to the breeze from the air conditioner, it burned fast and bright. Kelly singed the tips of his fingers before he dropped the flaming ashes into the ashtray. There, that did it, the small and impotent but nonetheless satisfying finger to those behind the message. First and last to General Grider, who had been a burr under the saddle of Colonel Kelly's career. They had started with the same date of rank, the same basic training, the same MOS; and yet Grider had done things right, had made general, and here was Kelly, out in the boonies and unlikely to ever be privileged enough to bask in a comfortable billet by the Potomac.

Inspection tours; bah, humbug.

General Grider's visit signaled upbeat. Kelly knew that; he was no constant fool. And to get true upbeat, the situation would have to be analyzed as deteriorating. And the easiest way to do that was to label as incompetent the job done so far. So the chips were down. Grider's team was coming, with its civilian advisor and agricultural expert and topographical specialist and photo-interpretation officer. They would find what they had decided to find. They would talk to mirrors. It would be a time of surfaces.

It would be a holding action for Kelly. He would not receive praise; that he knew. But the point was to keep himself covered and to convince them that he had done all he could, given the paltry means at his command.

The colonel sat back and thought about that. What he needed was a big gesture that proved he knew the country and the people.

Coakley dropped in. His face was awestruck and pale, as if he had just felt twinges of a coronary. "They're coming," was all he could say.

"Uh-huh," Kelly sighed. "Grider and company."

"I don't have any records. They'll want to see my files, but I don't really have any."

"Your problem," Kelly murmured.

"They're bringing that little shit Glover."

"Who?"

"Walter Glover. I was in a foreign-service school with him once."

"Oh," said Kelly, not caring.

Coakley became more foppish in his anger. "You know, I always assumed that if they were mean enough to send us out here, the least they could do would be to leave us alone. Don't you think? You take the British----"

"I can't take the British."

"Hardly ever do you see Sumner-Clark flapping around the way we have to. It makes me so mad I could spit."

Colonel Kelly was only half listening while he ran down his own inspection check list. He kicked the wastebasket toward Coakley's feet. "So spit."

"I was using a figure of speech. You don't listen, either. No one listens out here."

"That's for sure."

"Yes, that is for sure." Coakley whimpered with a slight whine in his throat. "You could tell them the woods were burning and they wouldn't listen to you unless it fit their theories."

"The woods will be burning soon," said Kelly in a voice of doom.

Coakley sat silent and waited for an amplification of the remark. The trouble with me is I'm always playing the reporter, he thought to himself; I don't bitch enough; I listen too much.

"Yes, sir," Kelly went on, because the silence invited him to, "the woods will be fucking burning."

"I hate that word," said Coakley.

"I suppose you call them jungles, huh? Well, they are woods to me."

"I meant fucking. I hate the word fucking."

Colonel Kelly said in his head, Of course you do, you little queer. But he only smiled on the surface, "Sorry 'bout that."

"Why can't they just leave us alone?"

"Don't know." Kelly shook his head. "I guess they get scared if something is left alone too long."

"Do you know I've been sort of chief of mission for three years now? Except for visiting firemen, of course."

"So what? Same here this year for me. But things are going to change now. Grider, he come. Heap big build-up, maybe."

"I don't have any files. Do you have any files?" Coakley seemed desperate.

"That's my business," gloated Kelly.

"Well," said Coakley in retaliation, "at least I haven't lost some of my people."

Kelly cringed. He had almost forgotten that for a moment.

Coakley kept the pressure on. "I hate to think what General Grider will say when he learns that one of your very own new and shining master sergeants has gone away. I mean, I may not have files, but you don't even have people!"

Coakley stood to his height and puffed his chest. Kelly held his head in his hands in despair. Frozen time, one in triumph.

When in came Lieutenant Goodfellow. "I've got him," he said in his lowest man-of-destiny voice.

Kelly jumped to his feet and yelped. "Where, where?"

"Here," Goodfellow said, as he pulled the shamefaced Campo past the door.

"You better get some files, Coakley," yelled the colonel, "because I've got all my people now!"

• • •

"Hey, Buon Kong," Charley Dog said as he smoked, "tell us about them phi." Charley Dog dragged the word out to a whistle--pheeeeee. "Because if this place is as spooked as you make it sound, I may have to leave."

Dawn made another pipe for Buon Kong as he spoke.

"The phi are like ghosts. They are the living dead. They are in the trees and rocks and mountains. They are in animals and humans. No one who is harmonious should fear the phi."

"Uh-huh," said Charley Dog after a while, after it all sank in through the calm and happy fog. "Uh-huh. That's better." He placed his hands along Dawn's jaw line. "I am sure glad to hear that, because I'd hate to leave this little girl just when I was getting to know her."

"You must not be concerned," Buon Kong said to Charley Dog, "since the phi regard you as the elephant regards the bamboo tuft."

"Uh-huh," said Charley Dog again, but then he rolled onto his side and looked at the old man. "Wait a minute. The elephant steps on the bamboo tuft."

"Yes, and there are phi in your soul right now."

"That's not so good," Charley Dog moaned.

"The bamboo tuft springs up again. It grows and lives and lets the elephant live. So it is with the phi. They torment only those beings and objects that threaten life."

"Hey, Buon Kong," said Charley Dog, "that's beautiful. I mean, I don't really believe all of that, but it's beautiful, anyway."

"Sometime," said Buon Kong, "you may be fortunate enough to participate in our phoo, our gentle time, when the phi come together and demand harmony of everyone."

"Yeah," Charley Dog said with some interest, "that would be a super love-in, that phoo would." Feelings, vague but ever-present, made him search out Dawn again. She was lying back in her bunk, sound asleep, now that the pipes had been made. It had been a tough run to the river and a long hard day for her. Yes, it had. But there they were now, safe as cubs in this den, and Charley Dog decided that sleep was the next best thing for him, too.

• • •

Colonel Kelly tipped the cold ash of his dead cigar into the palm of his hand. He pushed it around silently.

It looks like a rat turd, thought Campo irrelevantly. He was accustomed to thinking stupid things in times of pressure; he did this on purpose. It cooled his mind.

The colonel was not talking about much, either. He was letting the silence grow on Goodfellow. In time, the lieutenant would leave, would get the picture that Kelly wanted this fish to himself.

Finally, Goodfellow bowed out. He did not want to stay any longer in that dead space.

That left Campo standing in his bright shirt and slacks, his beer belly pulled in as far as it would go, his posture at neither attention nor parade rest but somewhere between those formalities. The two old pros screwed up their energies and wits. Each saw his job as delicate.

Kelly set a tentative tone. "Sit down," he said.

Campo sat without a word. Another pause.

"Looks like you've got a problem," Kelly said.

Campo shrugged; it was a lead, anyway, Campo figured. Any man who tells you that you have a problem, well, that guy is trying to cover up his problems.

"Yes, sir," said Kelly (and Campo thought, Aha, a man who wants to be liked!), "a U/A on your page twelve would be a sad mark at the end of a long and worthy career."

Campo thought he had it now; it seemed that there was a bargain that might be made.

Another pause. Kelly sighed. "I'm waiting to hear from you, Top."

Campo sighed, too. He tried to make it sound like a compromise between repentance and boredom. "I don't know what to say, Colonel." Campo waited on that, but Kelly stared him down. "I don't even know why they sent me to Chanda, Colonel." This last came out as a bit of a whine and Campo held his tongue.

"We'll get to that. But first I have to complete my report."

Campo's stomach expanded again in relief. There was no report to complete, really. Either Kelly had listed him as absent in the unit diary or he had not. Give me two minutes in your files and I'd know how to play this, Campo thought.

"Well, sir," Campo began, and with some dignity, he explained most of what had happened. Kelly listened tolerantly. It was no confession, this monolog, just the high points, just enough that was personal so that Kelly would know Campo was placing himself at the colonel's mercy.

When the story was done, the colonel made his move. "OK, Top," he said slowly, "you don't know why you're here, right? Well, let me tell you something. You're here because I asked for you."

Thanks a load, Campo thought, but he tried to keep a straight face.

"It just so happens that you are a very particular Marine. Do you know why? Try to guess. Try to think of something in your background that is unique and individual."

Campo's fine sense of crudities rose up in him and he wanted to say, You've been talking with my wife. But this was a square and serious time, he guessed--it was getting more difficult for him to judge that as he grew older--so he did not joke. "I don't know," he said. "I got the same MOS as most folks here."

The colonel smiled like a teacher. "This doesn't have anything to do with that. Think back, way back." Campo pretended to. "Any clues?" Campo shook his head. Kelly preened himself. He loved power, and he took it any way he could get it. "Back to your boyhood days, eh, Top? What did you do then?"

"Not much I can talk about," Campo tried to joke, but it made no impression on the colonel.

"The circus, remember? The circus."

Maybe he's crazy, thought Campo, and then out loud he said, "Yes, sir, the circus. Yes, sir." He shook his head in supposed fondness for the days gone by. "How did you learn about that?"

"We have our ways," said Kelly, full of mystery and seriousness. "You worked in a circus. And what did you do?"

Why don't you tell me? Campo wanted to say, but he said, "Lots of things. Helped fold the pram tents, drove stakes, stuff like that."

"Go on."

"Well, not much else. I was just a dumb kid who ran away from the farm. They put me on any work they had for me. Then I ditched that job and joined the Corps."

"You have left out one very important fact," said Kelly in irritation.

If you've got my jail record, you'd better bring it out, thought Campo, because that was years ago and I don't admit to much of it.

"And that fact can be summed up in one word," said Kelly.

"Which is?" asked Campo with no pretense of respect for this game.

"Elephants," said Kelly slowly, as if the word were a great delicacy that few understood. "Elephants."

There was a grim and gloating silence. Campo struggled to understand.

"You worked with elephants in the circus, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. Sometimes. I mean, I watered them and cleaned the shit out of their cages."

Kelly leaned back and chewed another cigar. "You like elephants, Sergeant Campo?"

"I never really thought about it, Colonel. They're OK, I guess."

Kelly chewed faster as he got more excited. "It's very hard to find people who have worked with elephants. I suppose you know that?"

"Yes, sir," Campo agreed helplessly.

"But, I say again, but the elephant is a very important animal here in Chanda, right?"

"If you say so, sir."

"It seems to me, Sergeant, that we can hardly expect to do anything in this place until we show the slopeheads we understand their country. That's been my big problem here, see? Now I have a plan to change this and I want to put you in charge of it. I'm willing to forgive and forget. What the hell, every man needs some liberty."

Pause again. Campo filled it up with, "Yes, sir."

"I want to implement this right away. We've got a big inspection coming up and I don't mind telling you that I plan to have us ready, Top."

Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't have told me that, Campo said to himself; because now I know you didn't file me out of here in your unit diary, because you don't want any embarrassments there on the paper; so maybe, just maybe, I'll bargain after I hear your terms.

"Now, the way I see it is we need an elephant."

Campo nodded, expecting the colonel to go on. There was a long silence.

The colonel cleared his throat. "Where would we get an elephant, Sergeant?"

"I don't know, sir. I just got here."

"Well, it seems to me that has to be our first step. See what you can do about that. Shouldn't be too much of a problem for a man of your training and initiative."

The colonel laughed and Campo knew he was free and off the absence charge. "I'll try to get us one, Colonel," said Campo in that senior-N. C. O. tone that gathers the hymns of slaves and the orations of anarchists into the same pitch and voice.

"Now, I've been doing some reading on this, Sergeant, and we need"--he pulled out a small notebook and leafed through it--"we need a keddah, a how-dah and a charjama."

Campo's mouth dropped open. "Sir?"

"A keddah, a howdah and a charjama. You know what those are?"

"No, sir."

"Neither do I, but I'll find out. Any questions, Sergeant?"

No more than a billion, thought Campo, but he waited until the jokes were in the back of his head again and he acted serious. "I was wondering what we were going to do with the elephant, once we get it. If that's not moving too far ahead, sir."

"Not at all, not at all, Top. Glad you asked. Well, I guess the first thing we'll do is ride it around town, just to show the folks what we're all about. Ride it to work, ride it to lunch, things like that. I know there will be problems, I know that. Anything worth doing has problems, right? But if we can show the people that we understand their customs, our job will be a lot easier. And General Grider will know we're doing our best. OK?"

Campo shook his head in a confusing motion that said yes and no at the same time.

"You know, Top, here in Chanda, we've got some real competition. The Russians are here, the British, the French, the North Vietnamese, the Chinese, and so on. The list is huge. And we have to look our best. As far as I know, nobody has ever thought of this idea. It'll be spectacular!" Kelly rubbed his hands. "You scout around. You snoop and poop and get me that elephant. Only one thing--don't disappear on me again, you understand? I'll write up more charges and specifications than you can dream of, if you go U / A again. I'll string your butt from the flagpole. You better believe that."

Oh, I believe it, I believe it, thought Campo. "Yes, sir, Colonel," he said, and then, to himself, As long as you need me, you will be OK, but may I save my own hide when the shooting starts.

Colonel Kelly stood and extended his hand. "Good to have you aboard, Top," he said in naval terminology that he thought would please the Marine.

"Thank you, sir, it's good to serve here," replied Campo, all the time thinking of the opium den and his dreams, all the time laughing at how easy it was to lie to a full bird as soon as you knew there were better things in the world.

• • •

Out at Andrews Air Force Base, Walter Glover felt as if he were handling a crowd scene. General Grider had not shown up and the ETD was an hour away. And what an hour. Four A.M. Glover raced between a pay phone near the magazine counter and the staging area. Margaret sat on her suitcase and yawned. Martin Edelman toyed with his press badge.

"Walter," Margaret said in half sleep, "why are you so fucking stupid?"

Walter ignored her. He was frantic. "He doesn't answer. I'm sure he's on his way. The officer of the day said he'd send a man over to his quarters."

Edelman looked at him with snake's eyes. They were not getting along. Glover retaliated. "I'm not working for you, you know, Martin? You know that? I have to try to get along with Little Miss Crypto here, but not you, Martin."

"What did I say, Walter?" asked Edelman. "I can't help it if the general wants me along for some good coverage. No matter what you told him. So peace, Walter, peace." He reached up and patted Glover on the shoulder. "It's too early in the day to get excited. There's no protocol at four in the morning. None. So relax. War is hell."

There comes a time, and it might as well be early, when every man needs to retaliate; that time is now, thought Glover. "Let me see your shot card, Martin."

Edelman pulled the yellow card from his wallet. "It's really none of your business."

"I'm in charge of the details side, Martin." Glover studied it and pretended to show surprise. "You need another polio booster. There are only two listed here."

Edelman looked desperately at the card.

"I can't let you on the plane until you ... shoot up, you know? The dispensary is open."

"Come on. I can't lift my arm as it is. They gave us five shots yesterday."

"Sorry, Martin. That's on my check list and the general wouldn't be happy if you didn't comply."

"You would be carrying a Western disease into their country, Martin. Like syphilis into the New World. Go take a needle," said Margaret.

Edelman folded his coat neatly and tucked it under his arm. He rolled up his sleeve as he talked. "I hope someday I can repay this favor."

"OK, Martin, I've got lots to do. I can't be smoothing out the feelings of the press at four A.M."

"Remember one thing before we even lift off, babies. After every four in the morning, there is a five in the afternoon. And that's when the papers hit the street. Remember that."

Edelman walked like a wounded bear toward the open door.

"You know, he's right, Walter. Just because you think what you think, he's still a reporter."

"He'll write this up the way the general wants it, Margaret. And if he doesn't, his editors will. It's a setup and I don't want to talk about it. Let me see your shot card, sweetheart." Margaret wet her forefinger and swirled it around in Walter's palm. He jerked his hand away in embarrassment. "Let me see your shot card," he demanded, all the time looking around, to see if anyone had noticed.

"Hmm-hmm," Margaret whimpered in mock passion. "Let me see your needle first. I mean, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

• • •

Danny Campo saw his life as a series of absurdities brought on by commanding officers. As he walked the streets of Royal City and tried to decide how to find an elephant, he thought back on the missions in his career that could match this one. Once, in Hawaii, he had been asked to bargain for 100 pairs of snow-shoes; his company commander was convinced that the brigade would be sent on cold-weather operations. That ghost hunt failed when the men refused to contribute to the snowshoe fund. Then there was the American admiral in Hanoi who used Campo's services as bodyguard (this immediately after Dien Bien Phu) rarely, but who wanted two canteens of water mixed with Coca-Cola at his bedside every morning precisely at sunrise, that hour computed by a chart the admiral always carried. Now Campo was back on Asian territory, possibly to die there he had assumed, only to find himself wandering around like a zookeeper from Brooklyn, searching for an elephant.

Maybe I should put an ad in the paper, if they have a paper, thought Campo:

Wanted

One elephant (no tendency toward musth) to work part time American mission house; should be house-broken; pay scale and grading to be arranged; all interested, apply Colonel Kelly, field advisor.

Yes, sir, that would do it. If there was a paper, that is, and if elephants could read, and if, if, if.

Danny Campo stood in the center of Royal City's busiest intersection. He was at an impasse. The pedicabs swirled around him and the few taxis honked their horns at the sight of him. Campo shook his head. No, he didn't want a ride; no, he didn't want to buy chewing gum; your sister? No, thanks; but if you've got an elephant? Yes, you have no elephants. OK, OK.

The jumble of sheet-metal roofs and palm fronds and bamboo frames hurt his eyes. This place could get busy, he thought. The Constellation Hotel, three stories high, looked like a skyscraper. As always when the confusion of a situation tumbled his equilibrium, Campo decided to drink.

In the dark and dusty bar just off the terrace, Campo ordered a beer from Andreas. His eyes adjusted to the shadows and he saw Andreas nursing a split lip. The Greek anticipated him: "Please do not mention this to me, Sergeant." So Campo nodded and drank his beer. Andreas applied wet cloths to the corner of his mouth.

After two beers and much silence, Campo cleared his throat. "Say, Andreas, you know where I could get hold of an elephant? Andreas?"

"There is no market for them these days. I suggest you think of something else."

"No, no. I want a live elephant."

Andreas shook his head as he looked at himself in a pocket mirror. "My lip will not be fit to kiss for a week."

Campo shut up and drank another beer. In mid-swallow, on a last draining, he choked as he felt a sharp slap on the back. "Mennan's the name, you old gyrene, and welcome to this booby hatch." Campo saw one of his own heft, with a cowboy hat pushed back on the neck and one puffed eye that crinkled as if it were smiling.

"Have a beer," Campo said.

"Sheeeit," spat Mennan, "and fill the bank for that bastard? He gave me this and I gave him that fat lip and that's even trade. That don't mean I have to drink his liquor. Him and that Russian go for gang-bangs, don't you, Andreas? Yes, sir, hit 'em and go get 'em and slide both ways. Don't do your drinking here, Top, because nobody knows what kind of saliva that mother has. Come on, I got me a good place to drink."

With his arm securely around Campo's shoulder, Mennan led him out across the terrace and into the street. As they faded into the afternoon, Andreas spit once on the floor. Then he finished a beer.

• • •

Marya Pleisetskya stared at Nadolsky. "An elephant?"

"Yes," he said as he put the phone on the hook. "Now, what would they want with that?"

"It is perhaps a secret weapon. I don't know. We must cable."

"Marya ..." but he did not go on. It was no use to argue that one. She was independent, almost uncontrollable, her superiors not his.

"Alexander, you have been out here too long. You have no taste for detail. The heat has turned you into a Turk."

He wiped his face with his red handkerchief. The woman had power. She was beautiful, but she had power. And who was he to say she was wrong? He had recognized in himself of late a terrible and frightening desire to live in this jungle for the rest of his life. His requests for transfer, his increasing eccentricities (how could he have fallen in with the scheme of Andreas? How could he want to rape a deaf-mute? He felt a surge in his crotch and knew why.), his constant bitching about all things tropical had been protests against his new nature. He was appalled at what he had become, yet helpless. Some icicles planted in his mind by the climate of his youth had been melted forever by this kingdom.

And yet there was this fresh arrival, Marya the determined, who kept constant check and totaled up his weaknesses and mistakes (so many; he had become so human) and sent these totals in reports back to the steppes. Well, give the girl time out here and she would understand. But it was a question of timing. Would the subtle vibrations of Chanda jar her frozen attitudes before he was recalled?

Recall came swiftly. He knew more than one of his kind who had been carried onto planes while strapped on stretchers, their bodies (corpses?) swathed in bandages, local officials protesting ineffectively. Recall.

"In India," Marya said seriously, "they are using elephants to distribute birth-control propaganda. Perhaps the Americans hope to do the same thing."

To her surprise, Nadolsky leaned back in his chair and laughed long and loud. "What is so funny?" she asked. He shook his head, as if she would never understand. "Well!" she said in a huff and left the room.

Nadolsky stopped laughing. There, he had done it again. He had set her off balance. He had an idea that these incidents went immediately into her communiqués, all worded to prove that anything extraordinary is subversive. And it probably is, he thought, and laughed again: Bless it, it probably is.

• • •

Night comes early and lasts long in Chanda. Late afternoon is a time for last preparations before the fog and darkness sock into the land. Up in the dusk, Mennan sideslipped the small plane and Campo felt his guts tug.

Mennan sang into the mike and Campo winced:

"It's a long way to Sayaboury,

It's a long, long way from home."

In the slanting sun, the hills took on tinges of blue. Seen from the air, the earth looked like a green ash heap, smoldering in spots, where the tribes had slashed and burned the fields to clear them for themselves. Trails ran straight up to villages on the hilltops. The valleys were filled with shadows and mist. Campo wondered how Mennan navigated the craft. They were flying over a surface with no landmarks to speak of, and after they stopped following the river, Campo had lost himself completely. "What happens if the motor cuts out on you?" he asked, just to keep talking in the haze.

"Well, now," said Mennan, "let's see about that," and he cut the power down to near nothing.

"What, hey?" Campo said, scared. No noise except the putt-putt-putt of the dying contraption. Wind whistle and a slow prop. The plane drifted like a glider. Campo longed to hear the engine. Mennan cackled at his discomfort and then turned his wrist and brought the bird back to life.

"It's just over that saddle on the horizon," said Mennan.

They were headed toward the village that was the center of elephant training in Chanda. Here, Merman promised, they could order themselves a superduper elephant that would be just right for Colonel Kelly's plan.

Besides, Campo had logged no air time with Mennan, a fact that Mennan considered an insult. All his buddies were supposed to fly with him. It was a testimony to friendship, in his opinion, and he expected gratitude from those he waltzed through the air, those who were looped and curled and spun until the brown bag tucked over the radio receiver had been used and the buddy-victim was left gasping in his shoulder harness, his parachute heavy on his back. One of those manly christenings that demanded blood and vomit.

When the Royal City had disappeared behind them, Campo had been taken through the ritual. Now, after an hour's air time, they aimed for the spot on the red horizon.

"I heard they were having a little build-up somewhere around here," said Mennan. He tilted the plane again and looked idly over his left shoulder.

When up ahead, as if they had been placed there for decoration, two little puffs of smoke exploded on the flight path. "Shit," said Mennan without emotion, and he took the plane into a steep dive. Campo wanted to say, Climb, you bastard, climb! because the valley floor was coming up hard and the plane was already below the shadow line. Mennan pulled it out after Campo had fainted briefly. They flew along the treetops, belly-hopping over the contours.

Mennan explained what he was doing in the fatherly tones a dentist uses with a patient. "Ceiling on this thing is only ten thousand. They can reach that easy as you can pull a tit. So when they fucky-fuck with us, we got to go for the floor. I say we head back to Royal City right now and forget those elephants. Ain't no beast worth flying through that crap for. I'll fly a spotter mission over here tomorrow with some on-call aircraft. And if they shoot at me again, they'll buy the farm, I promise you, they'll catch hell in a basket."

"Who is 'they'?" Campo said into the mike.

"How the hell do I know who they are? Somebody down there don't like us, though. And they got flak to prove it. Listen, two years ago, we didn't have to worry about that stuff. We had enough trouble hitting the landing strips and fighting the fog. So you ask me who 'they' is and I got only one answer: 'They' is anybody who makes my job tougher and my ass tighter. OK?"

"Roger OK sure," said Campo fast.

• • •

"Ah, yes, assassinations aren't what they used to be, you know. Delightful at first, just the emotional shock to titillate us all; wake up and find the telly blasting away with pictures and replays.

"The best thing about the first Irishman's funeral was the illusion you all had that you were united in something, even if it was grief. I was in Washington then and I found it quite superior to anything I saw on the rest of my little tour. Really it was." Sumner-Clark looked to Coakley for some reaction, but he was not listening.

"You might as well relax. There's nothing you can do now. They are somewhere just over the skyline. I don't suppose anything is on time here in Chanda, is it? Not even American generals." Sumner-Clark smoked. "Besides, they're not coming here to see you. It's another kind of probe."

"They'll want to see my files," said Coakley softly.

"Excellent! I think we made up some peachy files. And if you'll screw up your bravado a bit, they'll never know the difference. I gave you some of our best material, love, so be grateful."

The two stood in the shade of the communications shack. The day was cloudy and hot. Their light suits showed sweat at the armpits. At least they were not standing on the tarmac griddle waiting for the plane to land.

Sumner-Clark went on filling the air with monologs to keep Coakley amused and, he hoped, a little less mournful. Coakley was such a child at times, assuming that a man like General Grider was interested in the slips and slides of an erratic and not very powerful clerk. "Nations need orgasms, too, don't they? Of course they do. Something a bit more exciting than normal to give the system a delicious jolt. A plucking of national strings. You see, I have this theory--listen to me, now!"

"Where the hell are they?"

"Slowly, slowly, my cabbage. They don't dare appear until Major Poon has his band ready."

Out on the tarmac, the major was trying to align the Royal Chanda Orchestra. They did not seem to know where to stand.

"Now, listen to me," Sumner-Clark said. "I want to tell you my theory."

"I don't give a damn about your theory. I want to get this inspection over with and get them the hell out of here and go back to the way things were. If they would just leave us alone."

"My theory is that soon, assassination simply will not be enough for us. We'll need more excitement. Take the last one. I heard about it on the BBC right here in Royal City. What did I say? It doesn't matter. But what did you say? What did the poor housewife say? What did all of you feel? I submit that if you had a national-blood-pressure monitor at the moment people heard the news, you would have found virtually no response. No orgasm. Therefore, we are left with an inevitability." Sumner-Clark paused to see if he was in control of his nervous listener.

"Which is?" Coakley asked without interest.

"It's quite obvious, isn't it? Surely you and I know that. What happens when a thing, any thing, ceases to please us? We go on to the next step."

Coakley snorted at him.

"My dear boy, put away your whips before you feel too virtuous. Because the next step for this poor old impotent world is just ahead. We should acknowledge that, love. A progression of sensations. You know what I mean. You know."

In the deep silver stacked clouds, there was a flickering glint shining like tin foil. "That's them!" Coakley shouted.

Sumner-Clark set his spine against the corner of the shack. He wanted to feel the warm metal edge run from his shoulder blades down to the crease in his ass. All, that feels different, he thought when he had it all arranged properly.

Coakley wanted to go closer, in order to be part of the reception committee. "I'll stay here for a while," said Sumner-Clark. "After all, he's not my general."

As the DC-3 landed and rolled toward the loading area, Major Poon made his last frantic preparations. The wind did not help, kicking up as it did and rocking the small table and microphone.

Colonel Kelly stood rigid as a post and watched the approaching plane as if he expected it to explode or disappear or run over him. Lieutenant Goodfellow was equally hypertense. Sergeant Campo tried to be, too, but without a uniform, he could not put all his energies into this kind of thing.

Mennan ran toward the center strip and began a majestic series of hand signals to the pilot of the DC-3. He coaxed it across the narrow metal plates that connected the loading area with the runway.

Behind the high grate fence that defined the edge of the airport, a number of children and samlor drivers watched the ceremony. None of them smiled or waved.

From time to time, Colonel Kelly glanced nervously at the activities of Major Poon. He had not expected the major to be interested or active in this supposedly secret tour. Yet on arrival at the airport, the colonel had seen the band, the table with its silver cups and old coins and bananas. Flowers decorated the corners. Rice had been sprinkled all over the place.

"What is this shit?" the colonel had asked the major.

"Colonel, I am in charge of the peacekeeping force and I have decided that there will be no warlike visits to Chanda without the kingdom presenting its own welcome." And the little man had turned away from the colonel's sputtering arguments.

So, as the ramp was wheeled to the plane and the door was unsealed, and as the colonel and his two aides snapped to attention, the Royal Chanda Orchestra (two trumpets, two bass drums, one khene pipe) struck up, in their fashion, the completely inappropriate Hail to the Chief. To Colonel Kelly's horror, the king appeared in his limousine, Wampoom at his side. The king carried a great garland of palm berries to the foot of the ramp and Wampoom sang into the mike:

"Hail to American chief

Hail to American chief

Welcome to Chanda the people always happy

Welcome to city where all time flowers grow

You number one, oh, honcho General Grider

Number ten is sure the day you got to go."

The music died away in the humidity. The general was paralyzed with anger at the publicity. The king smiled and waited. The colonel was terrified by the whole mess and for a few seconds, no one moved. Dead silence. Then Major Poon began to applaud. He turned in small circles, like a bullfighter, and clapped his hands rapidly, politely. The sound came hollow and sharp over the wind and into the microphone. The Royal Chanda Orchestra clapped. So did Coakley, who stood in the rear.

Soon everyone was clapping, even the general, as he stepped down the ramp, and the king, after he had thrown the garland around the general's shoulders, and Wampoom and, finally, Colonel Kelly. Each member of the inspection team was applauded as the plane emptied.

Then another pause in die improvisation. More uneasy grinning silence. Walter Glover whispered something to the general, who went toward the microphone and said, quite gruffly, while he was clearing his throat, "It's nice to be here." The general's dark suit was rumpled and he tugged at the center vent. "Thank you," he added. The loud-speaker screeched. Martin Edelman wrote rapidly on his scratch-pad.

The day darkened. The clouds moved fast. A wall of rain and fog rolled toward the airport. In this no man's land of new protocol, there seemed to be no one who could take charge and break the group out of its formation. It was as if they had come to a bad party and it was too early to leave. Silence again, while all wondered what to do.

When from across the way behind the airport fence came the strange sound of wolf howls: "Aieee, aieee," came the high falsetto. Sumner-Clark pushed his back away from the shack and scanned the fence line. "Aieee," again. The group around the plane began to look, too. But Sumner-Clark was closest to the crowd and he saw them first, although he did not understand what he was seeing. For there in the midst of the little people stood a tall black man with his closed fists raised in the air, the knuckles touching the barbed wire that crowned the grating. Making no sense to those who watched him from the tarmac, Charley Dog cried out his angry howls. As if that was not spectacle enough, Sumner-Clark's vision settled on the tall dark girl at the black's side. Draped in a sari of pheasant colors, she, too, had raised her hands and was shaking them. Her fingers formed the V sign. Truly, she was the more frightening of the two for Sumner-Clark. Her mouth was wide open and her head shook, but there was no sound from her, no sound at all, try as hard as she might, and Sumner-Clark thought for a moment that she was strangling on her own tongue.

The rain came.

• • •

"Tell me some more about them phi, Buon Kong," said Charley Dog. He was drenched and his clothes were drying on an upper bunk while Dawn rubbed his skin with coconut oil. "Tell me about the way the phi can help us."

"The phi are very disobedient," said Buon Kong. "And they help the disobedient."

"Hey, that's OK, Buon Kong. That's bo penhang."

"The phi are those spirits in us that seek liberty."

"I got mucho phi in me, then, Buon Kong."

The old man nodded through the smoke. "All men are born disobedient. They must be forced to work, to fight, to respect leaders. They are twisted out of harmony."

Charley Dog sat up. "That may be, but I don't see the world changing, no, sir. Trouble with the phi is they can't do anything, you know?"

"Perhaps," said Buon Kong. "But perhaps, if we are ready to accept them, they can do things."

"I don't know, man. You talk about these here phoo love-ins and stuff. Maybe, I don't know."

"I will tell you a story," said Buon Kong. "Once upon a time, when Yak was king of Chanda, there was nothing but war. The people were tired of war, but Yak always said war was necessary for them. No one could break through his arguments, because no one else had his means of knowing things. If Yak said the country was being attacked, how could the people debate this? He rarely came to the market place himself. His ministers were able to make up convenient reports. How could the people know what to do?

"But one day, Yak did come to the market. Too many people had been protesting his remoteness and he wished to pacify them. 'I am here to answer your questions,' said Yak.

"There were many questions from the crowd, but they were not disobedient questions, for Yak chose those who would be permitted to ask things of him in public.

"Then a voice asked, 'Do you eat rice, O King?' Yak smiled and said that he did. A vendor came forward. He held one small grain of rice between his thumb and forefinger. 'This is for you, O King,' the vendor said. The crowd laughed uneasily. They were not sure if this was insult or ignorance operating. 'Please eat my rice,' said the vendor. Yak raised the grain to his lips in a sporting fashion. The vendor grabbed his wrist. 'But first, I must tell you that my rice is grown by the phi, O King.'

"Yak stiffened and the people gasped. The vendor went on. 'Each grain represents the hide of one buffalo. The harmonious man eats my rice and licks his lips and says, "My, what good rice." But the man out of harmony eats just one grain of my rice and the buffalo hide swells to its full size. That man is immediately marked for life with a stomach as large as a pregnant woman's. So eat my rice, O King, and let us see what you are,'"

Buon Kong puffed on his pipe and was silent.

"Well, come on, Buon Kong," said Charley Dog, "what happened? Did he eat the rice?"

"Of course not. He handed it back, saying that there were too many hungry people in his country to waste rice on the leaders, who were well fed."

"So that pissed the people in the market place, didn't it? They wanted to see the king take the test."

"Perhaps. But the ministers and others in the crowd cheered the king and many people followed their gestures."

"But the king was all shook up and things like that and there wasn't no more war while he was king, huh, Buon Kong?"

"Oh, no, there were many more wars while Yak was king."

"What's the fucking point, Buon Kong?" asked Charley Dog in exasperation. "I thought you were all for the phi, but I don't see what you got to prove with this story."

The old man handed his pipe to Dawn and stretched out on his pallet. "Well," he sighed, "I am sorry, too, but sometimes my stories don't turn out the way I want them to. Anyway, Charley Dog, think about it. It could happen."

"Yeah," said Charley Dog as he lay down for another massage, "yeah, it could. About the time I turn white and rich, Buon Kong. Right about then."

Buon Kong spoke very slowly in his near sleep. "We will need the phi, so please do not disown them. This city is filling up with unharmonious spirits and we must leave here soon."

"I'm for that, baby. This town is getting so fortified it looks like they're going to hold the next Democratic Convention here." Charley Dog relaxed as Dawn kneaded his shoulders. "And, speaking of that, who's the mayor of this place, you know, Buon Kong?"

The old man was asleep.

This is the second installment of "The Land of a Million Elephants." The third and concluding installment of the novel will appear in our April issue.