The Beach

Friendly Fire

I don't know how long the frenzy lasted. It could have been as long as half an hour. The cutters had to fret and struggle with some of the joints, twisting arms around until tendons gave way. But at some point, I noticed that the crowd had dispersed, sitting exhausted beside their handiwork or milling in the darkness. Only Moshe remained. He was concentrating on something small, a finger perhaps, and he didn't seem to feel it was small enough. It was while I was watching Moshe that I heard Sal's voice.

'Wait on Chaweng for three days,' she read with numbing coldness. 'If we haven't come back by then it means we made it. See you there? Richard.'

The words took time for me to comprehend. Several seconds passed in which they meant nothing beyond random noises. But then, with a flash of understanding so tangible I almost saw it, their relevance became clear.

I turned. Sal was standing beside me, holding the piece of paper the VC boss had left behind. It had passed me by, that piece of paper. Deafened, pistol-whipped, its importance had been missed.

'…See you there,' she repeated flatly.' …Richard.'

Outside the marquee, the surgeons stirred. Some came close by, nudging past Keaty, who was staring at me with a peculiarly blank expression.

'Richard?' one of them whispered. 'Richard brought the people here?' It was a girl, but she was so stained with red and black that I couldn't place her.

More arrived, quietly surrounding me, shutting off Keaty and Francoise. Desperately, I began to search for a face I knew. I felt I could appeal to someone if I found a face I knew. I could plead a case. But the more cutters that arrived, the more anonymous they became. Under their shifting feet, candles were kicked over. Darkness grew, features melted. When Etie

'Jean!' I shouted.

The strangers laughed.

'Moshe! Cassie! I know you're here! …Sal! Sal! '

But she had gone too. Where she'd been, a squat creature hissed at me. 'After Tet, life will be back to normal.'

'Sal, please,' I said, and a needle jabbed into my leg. I looked down. I'd been stabbed. Not deeply, but somehow that scared me more. I cried out and was stabbed again. The same pressure. Half an inch into the skin, this time my arm, the next time my chest.

For a moment I was too shocked to do anything but stupidly wipe at the blood ru

I pleaded, 'Don't,' and began spi

'Not like that,' I sobbed.

Something slippery was wrapped around my neck. Intestines. Mine, I thought, my brain convulsing with fright, and tore them off. The strangers laughed and more objects were thrust at me. A hand that pawed my chest. An ear, clamped to the side of my head.

Feeling my knees about to buckle, I bunched up my arms. A last time, I looked up at howling figures and their knives. I called for Sal again. I asked her to make them stop. I told her that I was very sorry for whatever I'd done, but I didn't know what it was any more. I only knew that I'd never wanted to do anything bad.

Finally I called out for Daffy Duck.

Suddenly, in the whirling faces, I saw one I recognized.

But Nothing

The stabbing continued, but it no longer hurt. The faces continued whirling, but the face I knew remained constant. I could talk to it calmly, and it could talk back.

'Daffy,' I said. 'This is fucked.'

'Yeah, GI.' He smiled. 'Beaucoup bad shit.'

'Fragged by my own side.'

'Happens all the time.'

A blade punctured my top lip. 'It doesn't mean anything, right?'

'Doesn't mean much.'

'Never should have been here. That's all.' I sighed as my legs collapsed and I fell down to the palm-leaf carpet. 'Jesus, this is a nasty way to die. At least it's ending.'

'Ending?' Daffy shook his head. 'It can't end now.'

'Can't?'

'Come on, Rich. Think. Think how it ought to end.'

'Ought to…'

'A flat roof, a panicking crowd, not enough room on the…'

'…Last chopper out.'

'That's the boy.'

'Evacuation.'

'Every time.'

Daffy was gone. The knives had stopped. One of the cutters had started twisting, fumbling at her belly, and another was toppling sideways, flailing out with his arms.

I looked around and saw Jed standing beside me. And beside him, Keaty, Etie

'You all keep back! ' Jed yelled. He reached down, lifted my arm over his shoulders, and dragged me up. 'Keep lack! '

Bugs slumped forwards. 'But,' said Sal. 'But…' She took a step in our direction, and Jed pushed his spear deep into the folds of her shirt. Immediately he pulled it back. Sal remained standing, swaying as the point exited.

'Back! ' Jed yelled again. 'All of you keep back! '

And amazingly, they all did. Though we were outnumbered and they could have easily prevented us if they'd wanted to, they let us go. I don't think it was because of Sal, who had closed her eyes and couldn't seem to catch her breath. It was because they were tired. Their slack arms and glazed eyes told me as much. Tired of everything. Beaucoup bad shit, too beaucoup.

GAME OVER

Strange But True

I feel I should provide an account of how we all got back home. But it's going to be a brief account because the story is over. This is just an epilogue.

We talked a lot. That's what I remember most about the journey –the talking. It's stuck in my memory because it seems so unexpected. You'd imagine silence, all of us withdrawn into our private horrors. And the first part of the journey, the night-time trek to the raft, was silent. But it was only because we were afraid of being heard by the guards. As soon as we'd pushed off and were on our way, we opened our mouths and never shut them. The fu

Because of my condition, I wasn't much help, but the others took a paddling and swimming rota in pairs. I kept getting shivering attacks. When they hit, all I could do was curl up and shake. They'd only last a couple of minutes, but Jed thought it better to keep me out of the sea in case I drowned. I'd already nearly drowned once, when we were swimming across the lagoon on the way to the caves and the chimney. In any case, the salt-water was murder on my stab wounds, superficial as they were.

We didn't have to paddle for long. A few hours after dawn broke, a fishing boat came to check us out. And after a bit of banter, they towed us back to Ko Samui. It was extraordinary. They didn't seem more than cheerfully curious about who we were and what we were doing on a raft in the Gulf of Thailand. The only thing that raised an eyebrow was me and my cuts. By which I mean, a raised eyebrow was the full extent of their reaction. We were just another bunch of weird farang, doing the weird kind of things that farang do.