I said, "We've been offered the safety of the tower till morning."

"Fine," Pyle said. His voice was a little puzzled. He said, "Oughtn't one of those mugs to be on sentry?"

"They prefer not to be shot at. I wish you'd brought something stronger than lime-juice."

"I guess I will next time," Pyle said.

"We've got a long night ahead." Now that Pyle was with me, I didn't hear the noises. Even the two soldiers seemed do have relaxed a little.

"What happens if the Viets attack them?" Pyle asked.

"They'll fire a shot and run. You read it every morning in the Extreme-Orient: 'A post south-west of Saigon was

temporarily occupied last night by the Vietminh.' "

"It's a bad prospect."

"There are forty towers like this between us and Saigon. The chances always are that it's the other chap who's hurt."

"We could have done with those sandwiches," Pyle said. "I do think one of them should keep a look-out."

"He's afraid a bullet might look in."

Now that we too had settled on the floor, the Vietnamese relaxed a little. I felt some sympathy for them: it wasn't an easy job for a couple of ill-trained men to sit up here night after night, never sure of when the Viets might creep up on the road through the fields of paddy. I said to Pyle,

"Do you think they know they are fighting for Democracy? We ought to have York Harding here to explain it to them."

"You always laugh at York," Pyle said.

"I laugh at anyone who spends so much time writing about what doesn't exist – mental concepts."

"They exist for him. Haven't you got any mental concepts? God, for instance?"

"I've no reason to believe in a God. Do you?"

"Yes. I'm a Unitarian."

"How many hundred million Gods do people believe in? Why, even a Roman Catholic believes in quite a different God when he's scared or happy or hungry."

"Maybe, if there is a God, he'd be so vast he'd look different to everyone."

"Like the great Buddha in Bangkok," I said. "You can't see all of him at once. Anyway he keeps still."

"I guess you're just trying to be tough," Pyle said. "There's something you must believe in. Nobody can go on living without some belief."

"Oh, I'm not a Berkeleian. I believe my back's against this wall. I believe there's a stun gun over there."

"I didn't mean that."

"I even believe what I report, which is more than most of your correspondents do."

"Cigarette?"

"I don't smoke - except opium. Give one to the guards. We'd better stay friends with them."

Pyle got up and lit their cigarettes and came back. I said,

"I wish cigarettes had a symbolic significance like salt."

"Don't you trust them?"

"No French officer," I said, "would care to spend the night alone with two scared guards in one of these towers. Why, even a platoon have been known to hand over their officers. Sometimes the Viets have a better success with a megaphone than a bazooka. I don't blame them. They don't believe in anything either. You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren't interested."

"They don't want Communism."

"They want enough rice," I said. "They don't want to be shot at. They want one day to be much the same as another. They don't want our white skins around telling them what they want."

"If Indo-China goes. . ."

"I know that record. Siam goes. Malaya goes. Indonesia goes. What does 'go' mean? If I believed in your God and another life, I'd bet my future harp against your golden crown that in five hundred years there may be no New York or London, but they'll be growing paddy in these fields, they'll be carrying their produce to market on long poles wearing their pointed hats. The small boys will be sitting on the buffaloes. I like the buffaloes, they don't like our smell, the smell of Europeans. And remember - from a buffalo's point of view you are a European too."

"They'll be forced to believe what they are told, they won't be allowed to think for themselves."

"Thought's a luxury. Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and Democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night?"

"You talk as if the whole country were peasant. What about the educated? Are they going to be happy?"

"Oh no," I said, "we've brought them up on our ideas. We've taught them dangerous games, and that's why we are waiting here, hoping we don't get our throats cut. We deserve to have them cut. I wish your friend York was here too. I wonder how he'd relish it."

"York Harding's a very courageous man. Why, in Korea…"

"He wasn't an enlisted man, was he? He had a return ticket. With a return ticket courage becomes an intellectual exercise, like a monk's flagellation. How much can I stick? Those poor devils can't catch a plane home. Hi," I called to them, "what are your names?"