The Land of A Million Elephants

Synopsis: The kingdom of Chanda, once a peaceful never-never country of elephants, parasols, temples, handsome brown people and the mysterious spirits called phi, has changed. Since the war began in Vietnam, there have been many newcomers doing many strange things in Chanda. There are, for instance, the official Americans, all with something different on their minds. Colonel Kelly, the military advisor to the king, has decided to raise American prestige in the land by acquiring an elephant--which will "show the slopeheads we understand their country." He has sent for Marine Master Sergeant Danny Campo to do the job, and Campo has latched onto Harry Mennan, a cowboy spotter pilot, to help out. There is also Coakley, an Ivy League whip who is the mission's State Department clerk and who fears the imminent arrival of an inspection team under General Grider. Coakley, it should be noted, has kept no files whatsoever. En route with the general are foreign-service officer Walter Glover and Margaret, his assistant both in the office and in bed. Unofficial American types include Charley Dog, who drifted in after a couple of busts in the States. And then there is Dawn, a voiceless beauty of much-mixed ancestry who got there by way of a Special Services entertainment troupe. A number of people represent other nations in Chanda as well: Tay Vinh, a cultural attaché from North Vietnam, who knows a lot more about artillery than about poetry; Alexander Nadolsky, the Soviet ambassador; Marya Pleisetskya, a diligent Soviet military attaché-watcher; and Andreas the Greek, who combines hotelkeeping with a one-man spy service. There is also Buon Kong, the wise and venerable Chandan philosopher.

In Chanda, even the most carefully plotted enterprises have a habit of aborting somewhere along the line. Andreas and Nadolsky, for example, sneak up on Dawn in her hotel room with evil intent; but while they engage in a furniture-smashing brawl with Mennan, Charley Dog skips with Dawn and winds up trying to absorb some of Buon Kong's maddeningly obtuse philosophy. General Grider, arriving from Washington on a presumably hush-hush inspection tour, is met at the airport by the king, the royal band and a crowd of spectators. But snafus notwithstanding, some kind of a power struggle for Chanda is brewing. As Charley Dog says, "This town is getting so fortified it looks like they're going to hold the next Democratic Convention here."

"I think airplanes make me horny," said Margaret. "You suppose so? The vibration, maybe. Or the cabin pressure. I'll bet that's it, huh, Walter?"

They were lying under mosquito netting in the musty hotel room. It was late in the evening and Walter Glover assumed that everyone had been channeled to the proper room by Andreas.

The preliminary meetings had been held. It was time for sleep now. The general was a stickler for programed rest periods after long flights. This was fine with Walter; it gave him more time for humping.

"This is a nice little country, you know, Walter? It's kind of cute. We should get out and look around."

"OK. We'll take a picnic."

"Hey, yeah. With a wicker basket and lots of coconuts and things."

"Sure. We'll just tell the general that war is hell and we have to take a break after our break."

Margaret sulked at his sarcasm and pulled the cotton coverlet over her breasts. Walter pulled it down again and kissed them.

They drank a banana liqueur, the two diplomatic staffers in white-cotton karate uniforms that symbolized high tropical camp to their tired minds.

"You look like a ghost in that light," said Sumner-Clark. He turned down the lantern until it glowed orange.

"I feel like a ghost."

"What did you learn in school today?"

"They're bringing in some kind of task force," said Coakley.

"I know that. They want us to put in a detachment or two with you. Hands across the sea and all that. The question is, When and where will the task force be sent?"

"Yes, well, I talked to Glover about that. Not that we're supposed to know anything or discuss it with you, for God's sake. He's not such a bad man, that Walter. I used to think he was a puritan."

"But, for a Statesider, he understands a lot?"

"Exactly."

They sat on the rickety hotel balcony and watched the river far down the slope. The bats crossed through the moonlight like bullets.

"When and where?" Sumner-Clark mused after a long silence.

"It seems to me," said Coakley flirtatiously, "that I spend a great deal of time writing your reports."

Sumner-Clark feigned injury. "You are speaking to the man who saved your starred little ass from the embarrassment of empty filing cabinets."

"So I am. And so I tell you that when is almost immediately and where is still to be determined."

They pondered this in the dark.

"They'd better not decide to sit around the airport, if they come in here. They'll have to move around."

"Glover and I are arguing for the river; just come up to the other side of the river, so they're not in Chanda proper. But Grider keeps pulling out these air-recon maps that I've never seen before and he keeps screaming, 'Build-up.'"

Sumner-Clark yawned. "Almost bedtime. Sleep on a powder keg. Don't sneeze, don't cough, don't wake the animals." He stood and stretched and rubbed the back of Coakley's neck. "If those big meanies come in here and tear up my sandbox, I'm leaving, I'll tell you that."

"Leaving for where?"

"I don't know exactly. But I mean it. I've been changed here and I like it and I won't play war games with them."

"That would be the end of your career," said Coakley. "Think carefully about that."

"End a career--begin a life. That's what I say."

Each laughed a quiet laugh. They went inside. The bats crossed through the moonlight like bullets.

The basement floor of the Constellation Hotel was covered with rat droppings and broken glass and sand. Andreas put the vodka bottle down and hovered over the switchboard. Actually, he was trying to look down Marya Pleisetskya's cleavage. In the heat, she had taken off all but her bra and skirt. She hardly noticed Andreas. He poured her a drink. No reaction. He waved it under her nose. She ripped the earphones off her head and scolded him.

"Andreas, how am I to listen, if you are always interrupting me?"

"Please drink this, Marya. It is late and you have two more hours before Nadolsky takes over."

She sipped from the cold tumbler while she held one earphone to her head. "Are you sure this was wired properly, Andreas? I am picking up very little conversation."

He checked the switches and flipped a few. She shook her head. "Nothing."

"That should be the general's room."

"He snores."

"Perhaps he will talk in his sleep."

"I do not think this is very efficient," she said.

"I am sorry, Marya Pleisetskya, but how could I, a poor Greek----"

"Shhh! I think I hear something." He had flipped another switch and she listened very intently. "Who is in this room, please?"

Andreas checked the board. "Walter Glover."

"No one else?"

"No, not listed."

She held her pencil poised over her note pad. She pushed the earphones tight against her ears. Andreas smiled and waited to watch her copy. Nothing. He tapped her on the shoulder.

"Shhh!" she said. "Go away!"

"What secrets are you learning, Marya?"

She did not move except to cross her legs. "Shhh!" Her face grew red. Then she remembered that she was supposed to be transcribing and she made a few ineffectual marks on the paper. She squirmed. Andreas made as if he would flip the switch and she slapped his hand. He laughed.

"I, too, would like to hear these affairs of state, Marya."

Embarrassed, she handed him the earphones. He listened for a time, then shared them with her, each holding one earpiece. Andreas pulled her gently away from the switchboard.

"What are you doing, Andreas?"

"I think we should also make some policy," he laughed.

Marya smoothed her hair in a prim gesture and flushed red again. "This is a listening post. I cannot leave it."

Andreas laughed again, as he led her toward the door. "If the floor was suitable, I would not ask you to leave it, dear Marya. We could be here and listen."

"Andreas!" she scolded again.

"But since the floor here is worse than the beach at Paleokastritsa, I must take you to my room. Come along, Marya."

She did not resist. But she tried to admonish him, even as they reached his bed. "You must hurry, Andreas, for my watch is over in two hours."

He groaned as he entered her. "You set the limit," he said, "let me set the pace."

For some reason, he was not sure why, General Grider found himself awake at two in the morning. He wished his day could begin then. There was so much to do.

The previous day had been a success. Grider had taken it upon himself to stage a training problem for his own staff and some of the Chanda army officers. It was a short course in special tactics: how to hold and defend Royal City. No one seemed to have thought properly about that before. Colonel Kelly had grand plans and Kong Le, the little captain, had no plans. Grider had been amazed but had tried to hide it. After all, that's what he was there for: to pick up the chunks of incompetence that were falling all about him.

So, working from maps of all scales and compass and riding through town in a convoy of quarter-tons that raced from point to strategic point, the group had written up a scenario of a possible attack against the city.

One thing bothered Grider more than any other. Colonel Kelly had been bitching about the lethargy of the Chanda officers. But on this particular day that Grider had been able to work with them, they seemed alert and observant. Kong Le had taken notes all day and when the time had come for a summation of what they had learned, it was Kong Le who understood the strategies they had just created.

Under the flame trees in the mission yard, his tiger suit rumpled from a long day, the Chanda captain had added a suggestion of his own that was good enough for Grider to want to use as his own in the report he was writing: "You say all time, General, we got to have airfield and radio station. We got to hold waterworks and power station. We got to control post office and telegraph and maybe government buildings. That way, city is took over. I say OK, General. Number-one plan. Also maybe one more thing." Kong Le held up a small transistor radio for all to see. "We got many radios now in Chanda. Radios up yin-yang. OK, we listen good. First thing you got to hold is radio station. Each soldier wears radio around neck like this"--he looped a necklace string around his neck and tied the radio to it--"tune in, get orders. Very easy. You like?" The captain smiled nervously and scratched himself.

Grider smiled back and commended Kong Le.

Yes, Grider thought in the middle of his insomnia, given a little leadership in American know-how, these people could think for themselves. Grider sighed against his pillow: I can't be everywhere at once in this world, but Jesus, I'm a smart son of a bitch sometimes; imagine how much I've done in a day.

The three of them had taken nervously at first to their bicycles, but the road leading north out of Royal City was flat and moderately paved for the first mile. After that, as the foliage thickened and the arching trees came together over the road to form speckled shade, each had recovered the childish pleasure of balancing and pedaling.

Both Glover and Edelman carried portions of the lunch Margaret had packed for them. Edelman wore a rucksack on his back. Glover had appropriated saddlebags. (continued on page 158)A Million Elephants(continued from page 136) Margaret hauled the Thermos of cold rice wine in her handle-bar basket.

It was their plan to follow the road upriver until they found a picnic spot. They were prepared for leisure after several days of conferences and pressure, and none of them tried to speed the pace or throw challenges.

The heat was not too severe. The sun was present between clouds.

When they wheeled through a village, the lowland children ran after them until they passed into the jungle road again. Neither the old men nor the chickens squatting under the huts made them any gesture.

Walter gave a running lecture on what they were seeing. "They refuse to lock up their animals. The stock would die if you did, they think. It's worse up in the mountains. They let the animals sleep with them in the huts there."

When the road got too steep to ride on, they dismounted and walked toward the noise of a waterfall. Glover broke trail into a green and grassy area that looked over the river. It was a cliff, of sorts, and Margaret stayed far from the edge and spread the luncheon, while Edelman and Glover threw stones out into the air and watched them are toward the white-capped water that curled against itself.

Back on the checkered tablecloth, they drank the wine and tried to name the trees. Walter pointed to a huge sandalwood across the river. "When a king dies, they have to find a sandalwood tree that has no rot at its center. It has to be big enough so that the body can sit up when it's hollowed out. That means it has to be over a century old, usually, and sometimes they have a hell of a time finding a good one."

The sun turned critical and Glover and Edelman stripped to their under-shorts and lay dazed and tired against the soft earth. They enjoyed the fashion in which Margaret waited on them and made them feel worthy of rest. They all talked of what they were learning.

"The diseases over here," said Edelman. "T. b., yaws; it's unbelievable. Malaria----"

"Three kind malaria," said Glover.

"Liver flukes, leprosy, worms----"

"You got three, no, four kind worm, round-eye," said Walter again in mock-Oriental manner. "You got menu A, hookworm and Strongyloides. You got menu B, roundworm and tapeworm. You also got in fortune cookie: trachoma, pellagra----" It was not funny and he stopped his routine. "There's so much to do here," he said softly."

They ate goat's cheese and bread. Margaret poured wine when it was needed. "You'd be a good ojo-san, you know that?" said Glover to her. "The women over here do most of the work."

"Fine and superfine," said Edelman. "Just the way it ought to be. Fix my food and draw my bath and then go out and plant a little rice for me and the kids."

"No arguments, Martin," said Margaret. "It's too nice a day. Besides, I agree with you guys. Men are weaker. I'm serious. This is the only place I've seen where they acknowledge that poor little malformed chromosome and all it means." She patted both their foreheads. "Sleep for a while, babies. I'm going to get out of this rig and take my own sun bath." Both men raised their heads slightly and squinted at her. She laughed. "I am not horny and I don't want to play doctor. OK? I just want to get some sun, damn it."

She stripped and stretched out between them. The wine and the sun and the easy noise of the waterfall led them into sleep. Edelman snored and turned away on his side. Glover dozed for not long, woke excited and erect, took off his shorts and pushed his penis against her thin thigh.

"Not now, Walter," she mumbled and he said OK and continued to nestle his face in her neck and collarbone. When he was not dreaming, he could half open his eyes and watch her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. Her sweat was sweet to his tongue. Once a bee teased him by trying to settle on her nipples and Glover felt amused at his own protective instincts as he stayed awake to brush it away.

"Walter, you are a good kid," she murmured to him once as she turned and cupped herself inside the curve of his thighs, her buttocks resting against his mildly stiff prong.

The three of them slept.

Until Glover felt the pressure of his bladder building. He pulled himself slowly away from her, so he would not wake her. He tiptoed, ludicrously, as if he were crossing a creaking floor, toward the thicket line to find a place. "I've got to pee," he kept saying to himself, and then he admonished his stiff dick, begging it to droop long enough for comfort. "Come on," he said to it, "where are you when I need you?"

It was probably his last full thought; for, as his foot kicked past a vine, his toes caught on a rigid catgut fishline that was tied to a tree root, and the line led up to the rusted ring of a grenade that was wedged in the fork of the tree he stumbled against, and the ring snapped away with a slight ping sound that could not be heard over the water or the air, and, as Walter straightened his back and looked down at his feet to see what had tripped him, the grenade passed through its delay time and blasted off most of the right side of his head.

All day in the opium den, Buon Kong had been receiving reports. Runners came, as if to court, and whispered to him while they knelt near his seated figure. The old man listened but rarely asked a question of them.

When Charley Dog and Dawn came back into the room from their pad, Buon Kong signaled that they were to sit with him. "The news is not good. Tonight, we must leave Royal City as soon as it is dark."

"What's happening?" Charley Dog asked.

"There will be fighting here tonight. You may stay if you wish, but I must lead those who want peace out of our city."

"I'm with you, Buon Kong," said Charley Dog. "But where we got to go in this world? Seems like trouble comes around, no matter where I am. Anyway, as soon as we cut out of here, they'll come looking for us. That's one thing the power boys can't tolerate, dad. Worst thing you can do to them is ignore them. And they're not about to let that happen. No, sir. The one way to get every mother and his gun out snooping for you is to drop out."

"Perhaps," said Buon Kong. "But I want to take my people to the place of the phi, the Plain of Elephants. It is there that we must try to survive."

"Man, that's a long walk, Buon Kong." Charley Dog thought about that for a time. "OK, I'm with you babies, but I got to get me some pot to smoke on the way up there. That trip is so long it'll take another one to make it."

"Something's going on," said Sumner-Clark. "I can't quite place it, but something's happening."

"You mean the natives are restless?" asked Coakley.

"Something very much like it. I'm sorry to sound colonial on you, but . . ." and the sentence faded off as he drank his mineral water. He held his glass in the air and looked at it. "The time to leave a city is when the water becomes more expensive than the wine."

Coakley picked at his food. Luncheons were often a chore when his mind would not slow down. "I don't know any more than you. The general seems busy and Kelly can't stop talking about this elephant scheme of his. Glover is off in the woods somewhere on a picnic. I haven't seen anything that abnormal."

"I don't know, I don't know," murmured Sumner-Clark. "The comm shack has been frantic. Messages all over the place. But I don't care about that, really. You never learn anything that way. (continued on page 199)A Million Elephants(continued from page 158) We're busy enough with our codes, what with that task force about to come in. It's not that."

"Then what it is? Are you reading coffee grounds for your political projections?"

Sumner-Clark smiled. "In a way, I suppose I am. Little things, bits and pieces."

"For example?"

"For example, Kong Le had his whole battalion out for a rifle inspection this morning. Early."

"Window dressing," said Coakley. "He wants to put on a show for Grider. Probably has visions of staff school in the land of the big PX."

"Yes, I want to think that, too. But the inspection wasn't on the training schedule, was it, now? And I must say, that's the first time I've ever seen the Chanda army do anything extra. I just don't know about it." Sumner-Clark rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "I've been in this business too long, I guess. The details bother me now, not the big picture. Little things." He paused again and thought it out, remembering how doll-like the Chanda soldiers had appeared as they stood for inspection in the early-morning fog. What part of that picture was out of place? He snapped his fingers. "Their cartridge belts!"

"Are you cracking up?" kidded Coakley.

"Their cartridge belts were drooping. They were heavy. Magazines, even the BAR men. You know, those little shrimps had ammo issued!"

Coakley shook his head and laughed. "It's ironic how we panic when the army we are supposedly training gets its hands on live ammunition."

"Yes, well, you go ponder the ironies, dear heart, while I write up a report."

"To whom and for whom? There's not going to be any revolution, Hilary. They don't know how to go about it. By all means, go and write your report, if it will make you feel better. But I am tired of reports that are never read. I can see us on the last minute of the last day, describing our own burning flesh, you know? Reports are cheap."

Sumner-Clark was not listening. "One other thing. Very strange, indeed. They were passing out radios."

"Prick tens?" asked Coakley.

"No, no, not those lovely things." Both men laughed. "Little radios, Hong Kong specials, to everyone. Not just the radiomen. Everyone."

Coakley pooh-poohed this. "Must have been a good haul on the black market. Damn it, I told Kong Le to cool that sort of thing. He thinks he's an alderman or something. One day, I had to watch while he gave each man a can of hot dogs. For meritorious conduct, he told me later, laughing up his snout."

"Strange," whispered Sumner-Clark to himself.

"To paraphrase a brilliant philosopher I know, you go ponder the strangeness of it, while I go back to work. Grider has called meetings into the night and he's screaming for poor Walter. 'Where is that shit bird?' he asked me as I left. 'I'm sure I wouldn't know,' I said. 'Am I the Defense Department's keeper?' "

They laughed together again, not cheaply or roguishly but like children who genuinely enjoy each other and who have no other friends.

"Colonel," said General Grider, "I think there are more important things to worry about than elephants. Now, I understand what you want to do. That's got to be your business. But we can't fund it straight out. How would that look on a requisition? I can see some dove getting his hands on that and telling the American taxpayer we're running a zoo instead of a war over here. There are other ways of funding it, aren't there? Build up your Special Services account and chalk it off as football equipment or something. Jesus Christ, Kelly, I shouldn't have to tell you how you do that." The general slammed his fist on the desk to emphasize his irritation.

By that time, Colonel Kelly did not care. Both men were tired enough and drunk enough to drop formalities. The day's meetings had been plagued by cables from Washington that were filled with critical questions. Their preliminary suggestions for intervention in Chanda had stirred up the specialists at home who wanted to cover their own tracks in case of crisis.

Now, in the evening dusk, the two men shared a fifth of bourbon and com-plained to each other. They did not bother to turn on the office lights and, as the sun faded, each man had the comforting feeling that he was really talking only to himself.

"It's a good fucking idea. I want to go on record as saying that." Kelly nodded at his own hands.

"So recorded. Now let's figure out where my three little lost sheep are and whether I should send out a search party."

"I'd say they stayed late at their picnic and will be straggling in soon."

"Not having the responsibility for them, you'd say relax, huh?"

Kelly laughed at the insinuation. "Exactly. I'd say hope for the best. I'd say don't do anything, and maybe they've been ambushed by the Bulgarian bicycle cops and maybe you'll lose your command for that and I'll move up one on the list."

Grider shuddered in the near dark. He held his wrist in the air and squinted at his watch. "I'll give them another hour." He yawned. "To think we've got another meeting. I'm tired of maps. They should be like comics; they should come in other colors."

"Read right and up," said Kelly uselessly, quietly. He was almost asleep. He did not hear the knock on the door.

"Come in," bawled Grider.

Harry Mennan, hat in hand, tried to see the colonel in the dark. Mennan seemed very hesitant. "Colonel, I came by for the envelope."

Kelly did not register.

"Me and Sergeant Campo thought we'd do a little night flying, Colonel, and we, uh..."

Kelly jumped to his feet. "Oh, the envelope, the envelope. Certainly." He rooted through his desk drawer and, after much fumbling, handed Mennan a large folder. "There you go, Harry. Give them hell."

Mennan seemed surprised for a minute and then picked up the cue. "Yes, sir. We will, sir." He smiled nervously. "Thank you, Colonel."

"See you first thing when you get back in the morning, OK?"

"Yes, sir, Colonel, the very first thing," said Mennan as he ducked out the door. Then, thinking he was being friendly and suave, Mennan stuck his head back in and said, "Maybe the second thing, if I got to take a crap." He laughed loudly at his own joke, heard nothing but silence and shut the door fast.

"What was that about?" asked Grider.

"Oh, just a little mission. Nothing at all."

Grider yawned again. He stood up and flipped the light switch and looked directly at Kelly. "Sometimes I think you know more than you tell me." There was nothing to add to that and the general left the room, to get ready for the next meeting.

And outside, on the road to the airport, Mennan drove furiously while Campo held onto the chassis of the quarter-ton with one hand and the envelope with the other.

"If you lose that little brown bitch, I'll have your ass," yelled Mennan over the noise. "That's got more money in it than I make in three paydays."

"Now I do respect it," Campo shouted, "you rich fucker."

"That's private funds, Top," Mennan said righteously. Then he launched into his instructions. "Remember what I told you. Them mountain folks near the plain ain't nobody to mess with. We don't get out of the aircraft all night. They light the strip while we land. You give them the envelope when they come up for it and they go away and count it. We sleep if we can and in the morning, they bring a couple of tea chests over to us. We let them load, because those chests are lined with zinc and they are heavy. They got to go under your feet and you'll be cramped on the ride back. We don't check nothing or say howdy or goodbye. We just haul our asses off that plain when the fog lifts."

"I'm going to have a hard time sleeping, with those monkeys all around us somewhere."

"Yeah, I know, and maybe nobody should sleep. I'll keep the canopy open, so we can hear them if they start getting restless. But worry about the spider on your balls before you worry about the one across the road. First thing we got to do is land my little BirdDog on that shit-ass strip. They usually choose a brier patch for a runway, too." Mennan stopped the jeep outside the lights of the comm shack. "I'll sign us out. You get the chutes. Don't come in, just get in the bird."

Campo shook his head. "This may be more than I bargained for."

Mennan was truly hurt. "You're my buddy, ain't you?"

"Yeah," Campo said slowly.

"And you'll get your cut."

"Yeah!" he brightened.

Mennan sang to himself in a country whine, as he walked to the shack:

"When it's poppy-picking time in Chanda,

We'll do as all the other poppies do;

When it's poppy-picking time in Chanda,

I'll feather my little nest for you."

The den was crowding up and Charley Dog got a little claustrophobic. Signals had somehow been given across the city. As he came out into the night air, he saw the streets lined with people, all standing silently close to the porches and shops. Charley Dog went back down for Dawn and brought her up to see.

"Look at that," he said to her. "I think the old guy is taking the whole town with him. Sugar, this is scary." He hugged her tight for comfort.

At the end of the street, the crowd parted and people gasped. One of the king's cars nosed toward the den.

"They're going to bust us," said Charley Dog. "That's the king."

But as the front door opened, Wampoom slid out of the car. She carried a small satchel. "She's with us, too?" Charley Dog wondered to himself.

Like peasants with pikes at the rising of the moon, like nervous paratroopers hooking onto static lines for a night jump, the crowd picked up litters and wagons and samlors. They began to file out toward the road. A few lanterns were lighted, but for the most part, they depended on the moon and their instinct.

Buon Kong was carried along in a wicker seat. Charley Dog noticed that he had his pipe with him. The old man did not speak as he rode between his porters. As he was transported toward the head of the column, the people moved to the shoulders of the road to let him through.

Charley Dog felt lonely. Dawn Held his hand as they walked. He wanted to talk about what they were doing and the risks they were taking. He had visions of the column being strafed from the air or ambushed on a road curve. He wondered if they could reach the plain in a night's walk. Not all of these people would, he knew that. There were old. folks and children. There were mothers marching with babies at their breasts. Dogs sniffed and trotted haphazardly around the perimeter of the files.

"What a crew," thought Charley Dog. "The crew," he said to himself. He liked the name. "This is some crew," he said out loud and laughing. "Yes, it is. I'm glad to be here, OK? This is bo penhang! They may bust our ass, but we're still the crew and, what the hell, it's home."

He picked a crying baby from its mother's back. "Come on, sweetheart, I'll carry you and let your mommy make milk. We got a long road to Division Street."

And they walked like that for quite a while. They did not even look back until they all heard a little pop behind them that sounded like a cork out of a bottle. The sky flashed lighter. As they turned to look, there were several more tiny explosions and from their height above the city, they saw parachute flares floating like seeds in the wind over the main part of the town.

"Awww, ain't that pretty," said Charley Dog to Dawn. He held the baby high in his arms, so the child could see. "Just like the Fourth of July, honey, whether you know it or not."

The rest of the column was strangely silent while they watched the illumination. Charley Dog wondered why and as he was wondering, the answer came. A streak of red tracer bullets was fired into the town from the other side of the river and white phosphorus exploded in the midst of wooden shacks and thatched huts. Within five minutes, the city was on fire in many places.

"Oh, oh, they done it now," said Charley Dog. "There's going to be some kind of wrath around here now."

The column began to move again. The baby cried, then slept. The mother offered to take the kid back, but Charley Dog shook his head. "No, ma'am, that's OK, I don't mind. We're all in this together, now, with no place to go except where we're going, and I guess we ought to help each other as long as we can," He trudged farther and added, to himself, really, "Before the shit hits the fan and they come looking for us. We're going to have every damn side looking for us, we are."

Dawn wanted to carry the baby. Charley Dog handed it to her. She kissed it with silent lips.

"Before I die, I'd like to make us a baby, too, Dawn honey. Why don't we hitch up somehow, legallike. Our own legal, I mean." She smiled at him without hearing him or understanding him. Charley Dog sighed. That was the first time he had proposed to any chick and it was his luck that the one he picked was deaf and dumb and did not realize the honor. "I must be out of my skull," he said out loud.

All lanterns doused, to avoid being sighted from the city, the column moved up the steep climb toward the Plain of Elephants. The fire fight at their backs cast its shadows on the dark jungle.

While the exodus was passing the fringes of the city's limits, Coakley and Sumner-Clark watched from their balcony.

"Now, that's herd instinct," said Sumner-Clark, trying to be contemptuous about a sight that scared him, "Like rats from a ship, do you suppose?"

"I'm going with them," said Coakley suddenly.

"How can you do that?"

"There's one nice thing about being a spy, Hilary; you can do a lot of comfortable things and claim it's all in the line of duty. Besides, I think it's our job to know what they're up to. Easy, isn't it? I'm just going to walk out there and join them."

"Hold on. I'll come, too." Sumner-Clark patted his karate uniform. "We have to get out of these."

"Nonsense," Coakley said. "I can think of nothing better to wear. If we're going to be refugees, let's do it with some style. Hai Karate!" and he posed with his hands extended.

The two of them raced to the road to join up with the end of the column.

The first round of illumination caught Andreas in midstroke. He grunted in surprise and came. Marya screamed in anger and pounded her heels into his kidneys. "Wait for me," she sobbed over and over.

When he could speak again, Andreas told her to get dressed. "All these years, I have known exactly what was going on, and now they fool me! We must get out of here."

"I have my duty!" argued Marya.

An airburst of high explosive clapped like thunder in their ears. The palm outside the window was chopped apart. Marya screamed again and held her ears.

"You come with me, Marya Pleisetskya. You have your duty, but I have your love." Andreas pulled her down the stairs and into his small Citroën. The car coughed and jerked toward the road leading north. Marya demanded to know where they were going.

"I don't know, little rabbit, but when we get there, I will give you another medal."

Margaret and Edelman had, with the help of villagers, wrapped Walter Glover's body in the tablecloth and tied the bulky sausage over the back of a small pony.

As they worked their way down the steep trail, they met Buon Kong's group coming up. They were grateful for it, indeed. It had seemed that they were walking down into some kind of inferno, the city spotted with flames. "I don't want to take Walter back there," Margaret had said in deep fatigue.

They turned the pony around and joined the crew. "Thank you," Margaret had remembered to say to Edelman when he had agreed to go with them.

Edelman nodded and tried to cover his nervous, almost sentimental state with the professional reporter's excuse: "There's more of a story here than down there." He marched automatically now in his bare feet. There was a kindness in his gestures that Margaret was not aware of. Edelman always stayed on the pony's right side. It was there that Walter's half head still bled slightly, like a crushed tomato, through the cloth and the blood dripped onto Edelman's ankles and feet.

General Grider considered himself quite composed. He was relieved to be back under fire. But the risk of Nadolsky's misunderstanding the circumstances gave him fears for the world and, as he talked, he saw himself saviorlike. "Yes, this is General Grider, Mr. Ambassador. How are you?"

"General, I protest this aggression and when my government hears of this--"

"Yes, yes, we understand, Mr. Ambassador. You see, we protest it, too. Understand? It is not our idea. That's what you've got to understand. This is temporarily out of our control. What I'm saying, Mr. Ambassador, is we're in this together. Nyet?"

"Unless your Russian is as good as my English, I suggest we speak your language, General."

Grider laughed uneasily. He moved closer to the wall when the air conditioner was blown into the room by a close hit. "The point is, we don't have much time to argue, Mr. Ambassador. I suggest we send off appropriate cables, saying that we are all under attack. You and us both, OK? Then we should fall back to that staging area near the airport, OK? You and us? Understand?"

"I cannot leave my post." Nadolsky felt the taste of bile in his mouth.

"That's up to you, sir, but Kong Le will burn this place down if he has to. These little shacks here burn like paper, anyway. I say we give him the town until we get reinforcements. He can have it. And I don't like the idea of cremating myself. Do you?"

"I do not like it," said Nadolsky firmly.

"Then let's get out of here and live to fight another day."

"It is agreed, General." Nadolsky sighed. It would be nice to have company. And where was Marya?

"Good deal, Alexander. We got some things to sort out at the airport. Like, it seems that most folks pulled out of here before the shooting started. Now, that's a real problem, isn't it?"

"It is," affirmed Nadolsky. "A city is nothing without people."

"We are nothing without people, Mr. Ambassador. That's what worries me. Kong Le can have the town for a while. What the hell, there's nothing in it. But those people, they're our bread and butter, if you know what I mean."

"I do."

"OK. So, one way or another, we've got to get them to come back. Understand?"

"I understand," said Nadolsky. "One way or another."

When Kong Le was certain he controlled the intersections of the main streets, the power station and waterworks, the telegraph and post office, he went into the small radio-station studio. He prepared to give his speech. His mind was spinning with his history, his country's history, and he almost forgot that victory was not total, even by the modest standards of the plan he had devised under General Grider's naïve tutelage-- the airport was not his, would not be. Major Poon had been lent enough force to keep Kong Le's troops away and the spot was too touchy, now that the Americans and Russians and French and British and the royal court had retreated to the place. But at this moment, he was too happy to care about the potential threat out at the airport.

The engineer in the control room signaled and Kong Le spoke. "My people," he said. The engineer motioned that he had not spoken loudly enough. Kong Le cleared his throat and began again: "My people, tonight I have taken a step for freedom. What leads us to carry this revolution is to stop the rape of our country. For centuries, we have laid open like whores to every foreign power I am tired of that. So tonight I did something."

He paused, thinking that he should have written this out. It was getting complicated. "I am sorry that in my strike for freedom, the city has suffered, the houses are burning and many of my people leave for the Plain of Elephants. Come back. If we work together, we win. We say to those who think they can own us--'No! Your money no good.' And we say to foreigners listening now at the airport and we say to the king, too--'Beware! Beware!'"

Kong Le stared at the microphone for several moments before he drew his finger across his throat to gesture his cutoff by the engineer. He was mad at himself. All his life, he had dreamed of a moment like this, when he would take his country forward to a new independence. Words, words: He wished they were as easy to handle as platoons.

In the dark streets of the town, the Chanda soldiers set up their barricades and observation posts. They went about their work quietly. They listened to the radios around their necks. As soon as Kong Le's speech was over, the familiar voice of the executive officer came back on the air with specific orders for each element. There was no need for shouted commands, because the radio told them everything they needed to know.

And somewhere far out in the hills around the city, the crew struggled through the climb up to the Plain of Elephants. No one heard Kong Le's words there.

And safe inside the concertina perimeter of the airport, the king and General Grider and Nadolsky and others listened to the speech without worrying too much. The Chanda captain had inherited a ghost town, the routes of resupply were still open and Royal City could be retaken any time it was decided to do so.

"We're going to stay cool and pool our resources. I'll supply the photo recon and air cover, if you lend us a few tanks," said Grider.

"Excellent," said Nadolsky. "Consider the tanks yours. The city will be ours by dawn."

"Fuck the city," spat Grider. "We've got to psych out those people on the Plain of Elephants. They bother me one hell of a lot more than some two-bit tin soldier who thinks he's captured the palace, when all he's really got is the outhouse."

"How can I be king without my people?" asked the king in a lonely fashion.

"You've got the picture, King Six," said Colonel Kelly. "And how can we advise an army we haven't got?"

"Yes," said Nadolsky, "and how can the confrontation of the Twentieth Century be brought to conclusion in dialectical terms, if we have no people to sway? It would all be quite meaningless."

They shook their heads silently in unison, as if, no matter what their differences, there was a common bond among them.

The fog stayed late that morning. The chests were delivered and loaded and the tribesmen had signaled that Mennan was clear to go. But he gestured helplessly at the thick soup that swirled like smoke and blocked his vision. After a time, he and Campo were left to sit alone in the aircraft and wait it out. They dozed as the fog brightened but did not lift.

Campo heard something first. He wondered if he was dreaming. The sound of distant activity was picked up by his sniper's ears. He sat straight and pushed the door farther open. Quiet voices he heard and feet sliding through grass and a general settling all around him.

He punched Mennan on the shoulder. "Shhh!" he warned, as Mennan jumped awake. "They're surrounding us. Listen!"

"Nothing we can do," said Mennan. "If I try to take off now, I'll total out. There's no way."

Campo shook the chute off his shoulders and prepared for battle. He saw a tall figure approaching the plane. Campo pushed his foot against the wing strut and felt his heart pump. The figure wandered about unaware, but when it came close enough, Campo launched himself in a flying tackle and hit the body at the knees. They fell into the thick wet grass and pummeled each other. Campo went for the throat and missed. He was up against strength. They fell apart and scrambled to their feet. Campo threw a sharp karate punch that cut only air. Then he stopped and stared at the figure who was staring at him. It was the man he had seen running into the opium den with the girl on his arm.

"What the fuck?" Charley Dog asked in amazement.

"Same to you," said Campo. He was embarrassed.

"That the way you treat everybody?" Charley Dog was brushing himself off. "Instead of slipping some skin, you just knock them around a little first, huh? That's some way to introduce yourself. Next time, you walk on by, OK, dad?"

"I'm sorry," said Campo. "I thought you were here to pick us off."

"Pick you off?" Charley Dog laughed. "I'm here to keep from being picked off. This here," he waved his arms grandly to indicate all the territory that was slowly appearing under the fog, "is going to be my new happy home. How about that?"

Campo did not understand. Charley Dog told him what had happened. He invited Mennan to stay, along with Campo.

"We can't do that," said Mennan.

"I wouldn't want to have to try to get back to that airport at Royal City," said Charley Dog. "All kinds of confusion back there."

"Well, why should we stay here?" Mennan asked. "What's here that ain't there?"

As he said this, Wampoom walked by. She was gathering sticks for firewood. Mennan whistled at her and she smiled. "Come on, flyboy, you build big fire for me?"

"My pleasure, ma'am," said Mennan. He took off his cowboy hat and gave a Renaissance bow. He turned to Campo. "Might as well?"

"Might as well," Campo laughed.

"Tonight, we're going to have us a phoo," said Charley Dog. "You all come."

Campo slapped his palms. "Never did turn down a party. Thirty years in the crotch and I'm still a party boy, with a few more stripes than when I came in."

The Plain of Elephants:

A place of waterfalls and rice granaries. Rainbows and poppy fields. In its center, low hills are covered with elephant grass and trees.

In the mornings, before the mists evaporate, there is the smell of jungle pine. The stream beds are full all year.

Jungle rings the prairies and grows even to the mountains that circle the saucer of green. No snow tips on these mountains. But smoke almost always from their flat pinnacles, where the hill tribes live.

There are many tribes and many villages. The people are called the Lo, but their tribes have many names, such as Meo and Yao and Youne and Khalom. Each tribe builds its own village near its fields of corn and cabbage and poppy. After the soil is burned and the fields are cleared and many crops have grown, the villagers must move to new areas, where the land is virgin and rich.

No maps can track their continual dislocations.

Each day is a season.

The men wear pheasant feathers in their hair and silver collars on their necks and leather leggings when they hunt in the high grass.

Women who want to please the phi wear a river stone in a leather amulet that hangs between their breasts. To be sacred, the stone must have been given to them by their first lover. He woos with songs like this:

The fish in the river,

The leech in the field,

Ducks in the poultry yard;

You give food to all,

Why are you cruel to me?

"We are now in the home of river serpents and buffalo demons," Buon Kong said to the crew. "To aid the phi, let us help with the crops, let us dance and please ourselves, let us build our lives around each other. Surely, the phi will understand and protect us. We must bury the dead one who joined us on our march."

The bundled body of Walter Glover was taken downstream to be washed and prepared for the coffin.

"To die is hard, to die is painful, yet let us make death a feast. Time does not move from past to present to future on a line. Rather, it swings like the seasons. The dead are our children and we are theirs. If we listen to the voices of the phi, we will never be owned."

Many of the crew moved into the fields to harvest the poppies, for it was that time.

The pod of the poppy is bluish-green. It is in the form of a small flat apple. The flowers of the poppy are shaped like tulips. They are beautiful to look at: whites, pinks, purples; but they are not pleasant to smell. The seeds of the poppy contain no opium. They are white and blue and yellow and black. They are ground into oil.

Before the plants grow too high, they are trimmed. Those shoots growing too close to one another are uprooted. Their leaves are used in salads. The fields are seeded by hand. The plants are cut and picked by hand.

A few days before they are ready for harvest, the petals of the poppy fall and expose the pod. This is the time of constant testing, when only the wisest farmer can determine exactly which night the pods should be cut. If they are cut too soon, the sap is thin and falls on the ground. If they are cut late, the morphine changes to codeine.

Cutting the pod is an art. The incision must be neither too deep nor too shallow and it must run only three quarters of the circumference of the pod. The pods are cut in the late afternoon and evening. The sap is collected the next morning. In Chanda, the night of the cutting is honored.

The mature plants are taller than children. No child under 14 may help with the harvest, for you must be able to breathe above the fumes. The sap is reddish-brown on the outside of the pod and it gives off fumes that can make you drowsy. If you lie down in a poppy field at harvesttime, you do not get up again. Babies have suffocated while on their mothers' backs.

The collection of sap is made in a small copper cup carried on the belt and lined with broadleaves. Once collected, the sap is wrapped in banana leaves and blocked out into bricks. Each family places one small brick in the center of the old field that has just been harvested. This is for the phi.

No one may enter the field for 15 days, until the phi have smoked and enjoyed the product. This they always seem to do. The earth of the field turns brown and only seeds and shells are left.

There is no law against opium in Chanda, for there is no law against pleasure, and pain is not worshiped.

The crew split up and worked without direction. Some built windbreaks, others worked in the fields, some carried water.

It was the foreigners, men like Andreas and Edelman and Sumner-Clark, who pressed Buon Kong about the defense of the plain. But the old man refused to give that his first consideration: "What are we to do? We have one plane, one small car and no weapons. Let us build whatever kind of life we can here and depend on our spirits and those of the phi. Here you see the poppy harvest being taken in, a burial prepared, mothers about to give birth. These are the vital things for us."

"You got to survive," Mennan called out. "That comes first."

Buon Kong smiled. "Perhaps. But that is the cry of the unharmonious and, as long as we can, we will try to avoid that. How often have we been told that we must wrap ourselves in protection before we stop to enjoy life? And how often has that advice led to destruction?"

Only the wind answered.

Walter Glover's body was washed with water that had been perfumed with mint and jasmine. A small gold coin was set between his teeth. Cotton threads, each with 32 knots, for the 32 souls, were wrapped about his neck and wrists and ankles. A rough cotton shroud covered him and he was placed in a coffin. The wood of the coffin had been sealed with the resin of the pine tree. The crude box rested on the trunk of a banana tree while the funeral pyre was being built. Some women remained at the coffin's side to clear away termite hills and wood bugs.

In the wide stretch of rice field lying bare after the harvest, the crew built a pavilion of bamboo frame and thatched roof. Half walls of woven reeds were wound around three sides. Gilded paper, flowers, a few photos from Walter's wallet and drawings were tied to the walls.

Many of the pictures and sketches were realistic portrayals of people making love. Edelman asked about this, but Buon Kong replied: "In Chanda, life never loses its rights."

In the late afternoon before the night in which Glover was to be cremated, Mennan tried to eat from a small bowl of rice and fish sauce. His face twisted as he swallowed the pungent meal. "Goddamn," he said, "that is plain awful stuff. Smell that," and he shoved the rice bowl under Campo's nose. Campo smiled but did not say anything.

Mennan looked about for sympathy. No one. "This crap smells like a fertilizer truck that run over a skunk in front of a slaughterhouse in a paper-mill town. You know that?"

Margaret and Edelman and Campo all laughed with him. But they were looking at the pyre, with its piles of wood and rags, the four posts ready to receive the coffin in the next hour. And, to frame the scene, smoke and haze from the burning fields in the background, the brume sèche, colored the sky and made the distant thunderheads even darker.

A long day was dying and the sun sank copper.

Night comes on fast, but the dance, the lamvong, starts with the setting sun. Around and around the pavilion circle the young people. It is their night to celebrate life, this night of cremation. Their favor to the dead is to use their energies and their lusts in praise of life. The girls beckon and tease--Come, come--but then they break off the patterns they have been shaping in the air and on the ground with their hands and feet. The chase must not be ungraceful and some girls force their lovers to circle after them for hours before they wander off together.

The khene pipes wail and soft drums beat.

Candles and lanterns light the shelters.

The old women roll cigarettes of hash and marijuana. They prepare quids of betel.

No one hurries.

There are dishes of boiled chicken and fish, meat and pimientos, sweet potatoes, areca and sugar-cane buds. Rice alcohol has been bottled.

As the coffin is carried to the center of the pavilion, Dawn takes a small lighted candle between the thumb and fore-finger of each hand and dances around and under the box. Her arms make arcs and the tiny flames leave momentary impressions of fiery paths in the air. Charley Dog joins her and they dance to the drums. The other dances continue.

Eventually, Charley Dog takes her by the waist and leads her away. He wants her at that moment; but before they clear the circle of light, he stumbles. He picks up the grass-hidden white slab he has tripped on and shows it to her. It is a gravestone, wind-whipped and rain-washed, all but indecipherable, and he can read only the words Mort Pour La France.

When the moon rises orange, a string of firecrackers and some small rockets are set off down by the stream. An old man opens a wicker bird cage that has held five mourning doves and as they fly first toward the light and then away from it, he chants:

"The body is nothing, once the soul has left it;

So we are told.

The home is nothing, once children leave it;

So we would believe.

Birds, I release you because all things must be free,

And the body does not trap the soul but beautifies it,

And children are guests in the house."

More rockets are fired into the air. If a rocket is a dud, there are jokes about its impotence and the impotence of its maker; while he tries time and again to light it, girls dance around him and undress him. They hand him sticks and cucumbers and other phalli.

The last rockets are used to light the funeral pyre. The blaze builds and consumes the coffin, then the entire bamboo structure of the pavilion. The crowd backs slowly away. They retreat only as far as the flames force them.

The fire is complimented for its beauty and energy. Drinks are taken. A few people point at the moon, which this night is going into eclipse.

Neither the dancing nor the loving stops until the fire has bled itself and only ashes and smoke are left in the night. While these are stirred, Buon Kong speaks:

"To die is hard, to die is painful, yet death is a feast. We celebrate the life we are trying to lead. Here on this plain, we will take doubt as our pillow and freedom as our food.

"Up in the sky, the moon is about to die in the earth's shadow. In Chanda, this is known as the time when the frog swallows the moon.

"In the same way, perhaps, we are all about to be swallowed by the things in this life that are unharmonious; by governments and armies, by those who would tell us how to live, if it can be called living.

"Some have said that if our children grow to maturity on this plain, they will spoil and rot. I say that we must train our children as we train elephants, with sugar cane and songs and stories, so that they learn to know life instead of death, so that they learn to live instead of spending a lifetime preparing for death.

"If there is darkness coming upon us as there is upon the moon tonight, then let us remember that no eclipse is total, and that light shines from the deepest shadows, and times may pass but they will return again as surely as the seasons.

"If we are to be crushed by what has become the world, by the forces that may destroy us--if the phi cannot protect us, if we forget how to live in pleasure with each other--then our deaths will be hard, our deaths will be painful. But we will return again with our laughter and singing and loving and all those things not permitted by the unharmonious, the power, the judging.

"We have tried to break away. We ask only to be left alone. But perhaps this is the greatest sin, the one unthinkable. Nothing is more frightening to those who would control us than that we ignore them. Truly, that sends rage and terror to their mangled spirits.

"Soon, sometime soon, there will be tanks coming to crush us and planes to bomb and burn us. Let us trust in ourselves and the phi and see if the gentle spirits are any match for those who pursue us. It will test us fully, yes. But remember that the phi have been through at least one life and they know what some people in the world do not: that life is sweet and to be valued over property or borders or faiths.

"And we say to those who are now assembling in the valley of Royal City, we say, 'You may kill us. That remains to be seen. But at least we will not be dying for you anymore. At least we will die with right things in our hearts. . .'"

Buon Kong dropped his arms and sat back in exhaustion. His porters picked up his chair and started to move him away, but he stopped them. With quivering steps, he walked toward the ashes and stared at the pyre. Then he turned and placed two fingers to his teeth. He whistled. There was a silence and the people listened to the whistle echo down the plain. Then, dimly, they heard a strange noise. Whistle again, noise again.

Da-dum-da-da was trumpeted from the jungle and in the night, the earth shook. Da-dum-da-da, as the elephants approached the astonished crew.

Babu led the train of elephants toward the light. He kneeled before his old keeper and Buon Kong was lifted aboard. The crew cheered. The elephants raised their trunks and trumpeted.

"They have come to join us," said Buon Kong from his high perch. "It was their decision."

Cheers and trumpets again.

Darkness and fog. The ashes are still stirred, as they must be for the next days, until they are one with the dust. The lovers come back toward the ash heap for warmth. They sleep.

Only Mennan hears the sound. He sits up and cocks his head. The small noise of a vacuum cleaner high in the sky. He knows what that is, he does. He shakes his fist up at nothing. Wampoom turns in her sleep and Mennan prods her. "You hear that?" he asks. She nods no. "Listen," he says. "Know what that is? I'll tell you." And he rips the blanket off them both, to show the night their nakedness. Wampoom yelps and tries to pull the cover back. Mennan laughs and shakes his stiff prong at the sky. "Take a look at that when you get back to the labs, boys!" Wampoom throws the blanket over them and mounts him; she thinks he has gone crazy. As she rides him, hobbyhorse style, Mennan gets bitter and scared. "They can see everything," he says, "with their special films and infrared stuff and sidecar radar; how are we going to beat that?" But her motions are giving him some ease and they rock in tandem and by the time he feels his release springing up from his gut and spine, he has his humor back and he giggles (at the line that bounces in his head) as he comes. When it is over, he finally manages to say it. "Smile, honey," he whispers to the limp and happy girl, "you're on Candid Camera."

A jungle dawn. 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. Into the circle he rides, beast kneels, dismounted is Buon Kong. Not a word. He waits.

Dawn 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. Dawn 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."

The elephants were used for the few defensive preparations Buon Kong wished to make. They hauled trees and piled them across the trails that led toward the center of the plain. They carried buffalo skins filled with water into the camp. And at night, they stood guard duty on the far perimeters, for their trumpeting calls could be heard even in the wind.

Campo had tried to convince Buon Kong that camouflage nets and punji stakes and tank traps would be necessary. He also had a mania for what he called "fields of fire"; he wanted the elephants to clear sections of jungle that grew too close to the camp. But Buon Kong would have none of it. "There are more important things to do," he claimed.

"Such as?" Campo challenged.

"You will see," said Buon Kong. The old man was very tired and Campo did not argue with him; indeed, could not, for Buon Kong was asleep again. He had taken to sleeping often, at odd times of the day.

And so it was that one dawn, before anyone was prepared for the day, there was a fearful bellowing on the southern reaches of the plain and Babu and several other elephants came rumbling back to the camp with their trunks high in the air. As the crew woke and stood about in the mist, they heard the frightening sound of tanks invisible below the horizon, a sound that, once heard, cannot be forgotten, as if giants were dragging chains and shaking the earth.

Two jets flew low over the crew and dropped canisters of leaflets. The papers fluttered to the ground. They read:

To those on the plain of elephants

You are living in disputed territory

You are ignoring your own governments

This cannot be tolerated

Leave this plain within the next hours

As anti-personnel actions will be jointly undertaken

. . . . . Peace . . . . .

"What's that mean?" asked Charley Dog. "'Anti-personnel actions will be jointly undertaken.'"

"That means," said Mennan, "that they will all bomb the shit out of us."

"We'll see about that," said Charley Dog. "We'll call up a few phi, we will."

Mennan snorted.

"Hey, Buon Kong," Charley Dog called, "we're about ready." The old man nodded. "I sure hope he lasts."

"He don't look so good," said Mennan.

"Well," said Charley Dog, "I guess we got to start this day."

"How?" asked Mennan.

"Like every other, with pipes and love and things. Buon Kong says that's the only way the phi will stick around."

"I think this is crazy, you know?" said Mennan.

"Yeah, I know, but I'd rather die fucking than fighting."

"OK, Charley Dog, it's your funeral."

"Ooo, don't say that, man, it's bad luck. Besides, it's my wedding, not my funeral."

"Your what?"

"My wedding. Me and Dawn."

"You mean while the tanks are coming and the bombs are dropping, we're going to sit around and watch you get married?"

Charley Dog laughed. "Ain't that some trip? Not really married like church and all. Just a ceremony that the phi will like and all. A love-sun thing."

And the day began, the girl up from the stream, the tying of strings and lighting of pipes. Charley Dog put on a robe of silk and took Dawn to the center of the circle. "Nobody knows how this is going to turn out," said Charley Dog, "but Dawn and me wanted you all to join us in a sort of sunny-day dance, and let's consecrate this whole thing here." So saying, the music began again.

All day the battle, what there was of it, raged. Planes came in low and dropped napalm, the jelly canisters falling like fat cigars into the treetops. But the pilots found their aim off target and their compasses and sights disturbed by strange vibrations. The tanks that roared over the feeble barricades lost their treads for no reason whatever and the elephants towed the helpless vehicles back down the trail.

When the first radio report reached Royal City, General Grider did not believe it. He ordered more armor, more planes, with the same result.

"Magnetic field, my ass," said Grider after he interrogated one of his best pilots. "Magnetic field! That's not enough to stop a jet plane."

"They don't stop them, sir," said the pilot. "They just divert them. We can't get a straight shot. All those people out there in the middle of that prairie and we can't get to them. I made five passes before my bomb release would work, and then it was ten seconds late. Like to blew me up, General."

Nadolsky paced about the shack. "Russian tanks are Russian tanks! No one stops us! But we cannot get near the place. Do you know how long it takes to change a tank tread? And we must keep something in reserve down here. It's impossible!"

Colonel Kelly shook his head. "We've got everybody working on this. I don't understand it. Tay Vinh has been throwing eight shells a minute into that place, but they're all early airbursts and that doesn't hurt a thing. Colonel Gaillard set up a radio relay, but all we hear is static. I don't understand it."

Lieutenant Goodfellow cleared his throat and said with deep gloom, "If we're not careful, we're going to have a precedent here." The king and the officers stared at him. "I'm trying to be helpful, sirs."

"What do you suggest, Lieutenant?" asked General Grider.

All his young life, the lieutenant had dreamed of this moment. He cleared his throat again and pulled maps and charts from his special kit. "According to my computations, sirs, this would be the ideal time to drop the, uh. . . ." His voice trailed off.

"The bomb," Colonel Kelly concluded for him. "We've got this figured down to a cunt hair, gentlemen. The weather conditions are ideal--"

"The wind is good--" the lieutenant interrupted eagerly.

"The terrain is receptive," added the colonel, not exactly sure what he meant by that, but he had read it somewhere, "and we have a Stratofort on call from Guam and he should be over us now."

All pondered. General Grider mused: "We need clearances for this sort of thing."

Lieutenant Goodfellow brightened. "We have just received clearance for this small a kilotonnage, sir." He stiffened. "I think the leaders of the world are as concerned about precedents as we are."

"If not more so," nodded Kelly in agreement.

"Of course they are," said General Grider. "This kind of thing could put them out of work, right, Nadolsky?"

The Russian nodded. "Don't forget us. It would put us out of work, too."

"You got to nip precedents right in the fucking bud," shouted Colonel Kelly.

"We can't let those people stay up there. Let's hit them and go get them and slide both ways!"

General Grider frowned. "What would happen if we simply left them alone? If we let them stay there?"

"No, siree," said Kelly. "I can see it now." He used his hands to describe his vision. "Pretty soon, other folks hear about this Plain of Elephants. Newspapers and TV build it up. You got resort hotels and jet flights and a big tourist boom. No, sir."

"Are we in contact with the bomber yet?" asked General Grider.

"Yes, sir," said Lieutenant Goodfellow. "I have them on the frequency and they are standing by. Two bombs loaded but not armed."

The general put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. "Does anybody here object?"

Major Poon waved his hand in the air. "General, as head of the peace-keeping force--"

"Major Poon, there's no need to get your speech ready. I understand your position, but you can hardly be considered a full voting member of this body. Try to remember your status as an observer, Major." The little Indian bowed his head. "Does anybody else object? Any who do, raise their hands, or . . . or--"

"Or forever hold their peace," added Kelly.

The general winced. "I wasn't going to say that, Colonel." Kelly shrugged. Grider changed the subject. "I assume all our elements are out of the area?"

"Are you kidding, General?" cried Kelly. "There must be a million elephants up there."

"Elements, Colonel, elements."

"Excuse me, sir. Nobody flying up there now, sir. No sense to it."

"And my tanks are all in the ditches," said Nadolsky sadly. "It is not to be believed."

No one spoke. Colonel Kelly cleared his throat. "General, before you give the final order, I'd like to say something."

"Go ahead."

Kelly stood and looked each man in the eye. "I think we all know what's happening here today. And I think we are damned lucky to be a part of it. For years and years, nobody knew when or where this would happen. Oh, there were guesses, sure, and books and movies about it." Kelly smiled slyly. "And I don't suppose that there was one of us in this business who didn't say to himself when he was stuck in some dog post somewhere--and if Chanda isn't a dog post, then tell me what is--that there wasn't one of us who didn't say: Boy, I'd like to be around when history is made. You think about that, King, old boy . . . Mr. Ambassador. Our names are going to be inscribed in the book of history. Think about that."

General Grider stood up again. "Colonel, I--"

"Just one more minute, General. I know you're rushed, but there's one more thing we got to do."

"My point is, the B-52 can't hold forever."

Kelly waved in agreement. "I know that, General. But forever is a relative word right about now. You can't just go out and make history without giving thanks. And that's what I want to do now."

Nadolsky slammed his fist into his palm.

"If you are about to do what I think, need I remind you that the state--"

"C'mon, Alexander, old buddy. It won't hurt you to listen in for a minute. You might learn something." Kelly closed his eyes and raised his arms in the air. "Gentlemen, call it message, call it prayer, call it what you will, let's say a few words to set this thing up proper and to give thanks that we were the ones called on to do it." There was a silence, broken only by the static from the radio headset. "Today we have been asked to teach the world a lesson. All our governments have come together, with the knowledge that this lesson must be taught. It is a special moment and we would ask certain things of it.

"We ask for accuracy from the bombardier. First and foremost, we ask that; because if he slips his target grid by even a fingernail, it could be the end of us instead of those for whom and to whom this lesson is directed."

"I never thought of that!" whispered Goodfellow, but Kelly went "Shhh!" through pursed lips and continued.

"Second, we ask that this lesson never have to be taught again and that people all over the place, here and everywhere, learn that they got to behave. We can't have people running off to places like the Plain of Elephants. That's no good. Not only is it selfish and immoral but it also makes more work for those of us who are trying to run this old world. We got enough headaches. We got enough troubles. People have just got to appreciate that and play along.

"Finally, we must remind ourselves that we are humble in our task and that we just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and for that we are thankful." Kelly opened his eyes and stared around him. "Anybody get that on tape?"

General Grider slapped his hands together and walked to the radio. "Tell them to fire for effect when they are ready and to keep us informed of what is happening."

Lieutenant Goodfellow repeated the order over the radio mike. He held the earphones close to his head, to make sure that he caught all that was communicated from the bomber.

For several minutes, nothing could be heard in the room except the mumbling of Colonel Kelly as he wrote rapidly on a pad of yellow legal-sized paper, trying to remember exactly what he had said.

Lieutenant Goodfellow jumped. "Fifth fail-safe off . . . sixth fail-safe off . . . the baby is armed . . . final approach . . . doors are open . . . altitude and azimuth steady . . . no sign of magnetic field . . . looks good for go . . . target in sight . . . fifteen seconds to release time . . . ten . . . five, four, three, two, one . . . she's off . . . fuse time now . . . misfire?" Goodfellow pivoted and twisted in his chair. "Misfire possible . . . stand by . . . misfire what? . . . Say again. . . . Mushroom? . . . Did I read you right? Mushroom?" The lieutenant seemed confused.

Colonel Kelly tried to clear things up. "That's not a misfire, Lieutenant. The blast just looks like a mushroom."

"Shut up and let him listen!" roared General Grider.

"I don't believe this," said the lieutenant under his breath. He wrote on his clipboard. "Say all after mushroom. Roger. . . . Roger. . . . Roger. . . . No shit? . . . Roger, stand by."

The lieutenant wheeled about and faced his superiors. He was very pale. He bit his lips and looked at his feet. "The bomb crew requests permission to return to their base."

"What the hell happened?" roared General Grider.

"I don't really understand it, sir, but they want to go back to Guam."

"Permission denied until you tell us what happened!"

"Well, sir, sirs, we don't really know, except there wasn't much of a blast and the bomb behaved badly, very badly for that kind of bomb." The lieutenant shook his head, as if he were scolding a child.

"Goddamn it, Lieutenant, if there's some sort of dud, they can go back and drop their other one."

"No, sir, they can't."

"Don't you tell me!" screamed the general.

"What I mean, sir, sirs, is that the crew chief reports the one in the bay broke open at the same time as the one they dropped did. You see, the one they dropped behaved very badly, as I said, and seemed to break into little tiny pieces and they couldn't tell what was going on but it looked like everything was screwed up and about that time the crew chief reported that the one in the bay had cracked open, too--"

The general interrupted to slow the lieutenant down. "Easy, easy, Lieutenant, I just don't believe that. If that kind of bomb busts open in a bomb bay, there's no crew chief left to tell about it."

"Oh. yes, sir, there is, sir, you can talk to him if you want and maybe you should, sir--"

"Now, easy. Lieutenant--"

"Well, it's been a hard day, sir, and I don't believe any of this myself. Oh, I thought dropping the bomb would be very much different, I really did."

"Now, easy," the general said again.

"What was the report on the bomb they're carrying now?"

The lieutenant blew his nose. "I really don't want to tell you that, sir. It's crazy."

"You can tell me, Lieutenant, you can tell me."

"Mushrooms," said the lieutenant.

Colonel Kelly had had enough. "What is it with you and these goddamn mushrooms, Lieutenant?" He mimicked Good-fellow's tears. "Mushrooms, mushrooms."

"That's what was in the bomb," cried the lieutenant. "Thousand of mushrooms. The whole plane is filled with them. The bomb crew is very disturbed and they want to return to their base."

General Grider sighed. He figured it was the end of a long career for him.

"Permission granted," he said. The lieutenant relayed the message. "Tell them not to eat any of those things!" the general added as an afterthought.

"Damn mushrooms could be poisonous!" Kelly called out.

"It's toadstools that are poisonous," said the general. "Mushrooms are just psychedelic."

"Same goddamn thing," said Kelly. "Go on, Goodfellow, tell them what we said."

No one spoke as the lieutenant talked over the radio. Grider and Kelly shook their heads. "I don't understand it," said Kelly.

"Well, Colonel," said Grider, "they may rip my stars off, but I'll take a few defense contractors with me. There's no quality control these days."

"I just don't understand it," the colonel said again. He looked out the window, to rest his eyes and mind. Instead, he saw Major Poon's jeep, with Nadolsky seated at the Indian's side, racing off on the road to the Plain of Elephants. "Stop them!" the colonel yelled to no one in particular. "Look at those bastards cutting out on us!"

General Grider could not get excited.

"I don't blame that fat Russian. Think of what they'd do to him for this. Besides, I was reading an intelligence summary on him last night. They know the old goat pretty well. It turns out he's queer for mushrooms."

"I just don't understand it," said the colonel. "I just don't."

On the plain, the crew spent most of the day cleaning and storing the mushrooms that had fallen over great areas of the plateau. Charley Dog laughed to himself as he peeled and ate one of the more exotic exotics. He fed Dawn small nibbles, too.

"We've been through something together, ain't we?" he called out to the whole group, to Andreas and Marya, Campo. Edelman and Margaret, Buon Kong, Sumner-Clark and Coakley, Mennan and Wampoom, the elephants, the boatmen and ballad singers and fish sellers and pack peddlers and children and dogs. "We've been through some kind of good lifetime today." he cheered, as he hugged Dawn. "Hey, Buon Kong," he called across the grass, "tell us a story."

"Yes, yes," everyone cried, "tell us a story, Buon Kong!"

Babu kneeled to let his master down from his back, but the old man was asleep, or seemed to be.

This is the third and concluding installment of the novel "The Land of a Million Elephants."