Jack Higgins: The President’s Daughter

“She’s had it, for a start,” he said, turning to Cazalet, and then his eyes widened. “Behind you.”

In the same moment, a bullet took Harvey in the heart, lifting him onto his back. Cazalet swung, firing from the hip at the two who had emerged on the causeway behind him. He caught one and the other slipped back into the reeds. Now there was only silence.

There were five people left alive in the bus, three Vietnamese women, an old man traveling to the next village, and a dark-haired, pretty young woman who looked badly frightened. She wore a khaki shirt and pants and the shirt was stained with blood, someone else’s, not hers.

She’d been speaking in French to the old man earlier, and now he turned to her as a single bullet hit the fuel tank of the bus and flames erupted.

“Not good staying here, we must hide in the reeds.” He repeated what was presumably the same message in Vietnamese to the women.

They shouted something back to him and he shrugged and said to the young woman, “They are afraid. You come with me now.”

She responded instantly to the urgency in his voice, sliding out of the door after him, crouching, then starting to move. A bullet took him in the back and she ran for her life down the side of the causeway and plunged into the great banks of reeds. Cazalet, who was in their shelter a little farther along the causeway, saw her go.

She forced her way through the water and mud, pushing the reeds aside, ploughing straight out into a dark pool to find two Vietcong confronting her on the other side, AKs at the ready. Fifteen yards away, no more, so that she could see every feature of these young faces, mere boys, not much more.

They raised their weapons, she braced herself for death, and then there was a terrible cry and Cazalet erupted from the reeds on her left, firing from the hip, blasting them both back into the water.

Voices called nearby and he said, “No talking.” He stepped back into the reeds and she followed.

They seemed to move several hundred yards until he said, “This will do.” They were on the edge of the paddy fields protected by a final curtain of reeds. A small knoll rose above the water. He pulled her down beside him. “That’s a lot of blood. Where are you hit?”

“It’s not mine. I was trying to help the woman sitting next to me.”

“You’re French.”

“That’s right. Jacqueline de Brissac,” she said.

“Jake Cazalet, and I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you,” he replied in French.

“That’s good,” she said. “You didn’t learn that at school.”

“No, a year in Paris when I was sixteen. My dad was at the Embassy.” He grinned. “I learned all my languages that way. He moved around a lot.”

Her face was spotted with mud, hair tangled as she tried to straighten it. “I must look a mess,” she said and smiled.

Jake Cazalet fell instantly and gloriously in love. What was it the French called it, the thunderclap? It was everything he’d ever heard. What the poets wrote about.

“Have we had it?” she said, aware of voices calling nearby.

“No, the Medevac helicopter I was going to Katum in cleared off to call up the cavalry. If we keep our heads down, we stand a good chance.”

“But that’s strange. I’ve just been to Katum,” she said.

“Good God, what for? That really is the war zone.”

She was silent for a moment. “I was searching for my husband.”

Cazalet was aware of an unbelievably hollow feeling. He swallowed. “Your husband?”

“Yes. Captain Jean de Brissac of the French Foreign Legion. He was in the Katum area with a United Nations fact-finding mission three months ago. There were twenty of them.”

What a strange sensation. Sorrow, sympathy… was that almost relief? “I remember hearing that,” he said slowly. “Weren’t they all…?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Caught in an attack. The Vietcong used hand grenades. The bodies were not recognizable, but I found my husband’s bloodstained field jacket, and his papers. There’s no doubt.”

“So why are you here?”

“A pilgrimage, if you like. And I had to be sure.”

“I’m surprised they let you come.”

She gave a small smile. “Oh, my family has a great deal of political influence. My husband was Comte de Brissac, a very old military family. Lots of connections in Washington. Lots of connections everywhere.”

“So you’re a countess?”

“I’m afraid so.”

He smiled. “Well, I don’t mind if you don’t.”

She was about to say something when they heard voices nearby, shouting to each other, and Cazalet called out in Vietnamese.

She was alarmed. “Why did you do that?”

“They’re beating through the reeds. I told them there was no sign of us over here.”

“Very clever.”

“Don’t thank me, thank my dad for a year at the Embassy in Saigon.”

“There, too?” she said, smiling despite herself.

“Yes, there, too.”

She shook her head. “You are a most unusual man, Lieutenant Cazalet.” She paused. “I suppose, if we get out of this, that I owe you something. Would you have dinner with me?”

Jake grinned. “Countess, it would be my pleasure.”

There was the distant thud of rotors rapidly approaching and several Huey Cobra gunships came in, line astern. Cazalet took two recognition flares from his pocket, a red and a green, and fired them up into the sky. The sound of the Vietcong voices faded as they retreated and Cazalet took her hand.

“The cavalry arriving in the nick of time, just like the movies. You’ll be okay now.”

Her hand tightened in his as they waded out into the paddy field and one of the gunships landed.

The Excelsior was French Colonial from the old days and the restaurant on the first floor was a delight, a haven from the war, white tablecloths, linen napkins, silverware, candles on the tables. Cazalet had waited in the bar, a striking figure in his tropical uniform, the medal ribbons a brave splash of color. He was excited in a way he hadn’t been for years. There had been women in his life, but never anyone who had moved him enough to contemplate a serious relationship.

When she entered the bar, his heart turned over. She wore a very simple beaded white shift, her hair tied back with a velvet bow, not much makeup, a couple of gold bracelets, a diamond ring next to her wedding ring. Everything was elegance and understatement, and the Vietnamese head waiter descended on her at once, speaking fluent French.

“A great pleasure, Countess.” He kissed her hand. “Lieutenant Cazalet is waiting at the bar. Would you care to sit down straight away?”

She smiled and waved to Jake, who approached. “Oh, yes, I think so. We’ll have a bottle of Dom Perignon. A celebration.”

“May I ask the occasion, Countess?”

“Yes, Pierre, we’re celebrating being alive.”

He laughed and led the way to the corner table on the outside veranda, seated them, and smiled. “The champagne will be here directly.”

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked Cazalet.

“Only if I can have one as well.”

As he leaned across to give her a light, he said, “You look wonderful.”

She stopped smiling, very serious, then smiled again. “And you look very handsome. Tell me about yourself. You are a regular soldier?”

“No, a volunteer on a two-year hitch.”

“You mean, you chose to come here? But why?”

“Shame, I think. I avoided the draft because I was at college. Then I went to law school at Harvard. I was working on a doctorate.” He shrugged. “Certain things happened, so I decided to enlist.”

The champagne arrived, and menus. She sat back. “What were these things?”