John le Carré - The Honourable Schoolboy

'Dieu,' she said.

At once, everyone started talking. The American wife asked Jerry where he was raised and when they had been through that she asked him where his home was, so Jerry gave Thurloe Square, old Pet's place, because he didn't feel like talking about Tuscany.

'We own land in Vermont,' she said firmly. °But we haven't built on it yet.'

Two rockets fell at the same time. Jerry reckoned they were east about half a mile. Glancing round to see whether the windows were closed, Jerry caught the brown gaze of the American husband fixed on him with mysterious urgency.

'You have plans for tomorrow, Mr Westerby?'

'Not particularly.'

'If there's anything we can do, let me know.'

'Thanks,' said Jerry, but he had the feeling that wasn't the point of the question. A Swiss trader with a wise face had a funny story. He used Jerry's presence to repeat it.

'Not long ago the whole town was alight with shooting, Mr Westerby,' he said. 'We were all going to die. Oh, definitely. Tonight we die! Everything: shells, tracer, poured into the sky, one million dollars' worth of ammunition, we heard afterwards. Hours on end. Some of my friends went round shaking hands with one another.' An army of ants emerged from under the table and began marching in single column across the perfectly laundered damask cloth, making a careful detour round the silver candlesticks and the flower bowl brimming with hibiscus. 'The Americans radioed around, hopped up and down, we all considered very carefully our position on the evacuation list, but a funny thing, you know: the telephones were working and we even had electricity. What did the target turn out to be?' — they were already laughing hysterically — 'Frogs! Some very greedy frogs!'

'Toads,' somebody corrected him, but it didn't stop the laughter.

The American diplomat, a model of courteous self-criticism, supplied the amusing epilogue.

'The Cambodians have an old superstition, Mr Westerby. When there's an eclipse of the moon, you must make a lot of noise. You must shoot off fireworks, you must bang tin cans, or best still, fire off a million dollars' worth of ordnance. Because if you don't, why the frogs will gobble up the moon. We should have known, but we didn't know, and in consequence we were made to look very, very silly indeed,' he said proudly.

'Yes, I'm afraid you boobed there, old boy,' the Counsellor said with satisfaction.

But though the American's smile remained frank and open, his eyes continued to impart something far more pressing — such as a message between professionals.

Someone talked about servants, and their amazing fatalism. An isolated detonation, loud and seemingly quite near, ended the performance. As the Countess Sylvia reached for Jerry's hand, their hostess smiled interrogatively at her husband down the table.

'John, darling,' she asked in her most hospitable voice, 'was that incoming or outgoing?'

'Outgoing,' he replied with a laugh. 'Oh. outgoing, definitely. Ask your journalist friend if you don't believe me. He's been through a few wars, haven't you, Westerby?'

At which the silence, yet again, joined them like a forbidden topic. The American lady clung to that piece of land in Vermont. Perhaps, after all, they should build on it. Perhaps, after all, it was time.

'Maybe we should just write to that architect,' she said.

'Maybe we should at that,' her husband agreed — at which moment; they were flung into a pitched battle. From very close, a prolonged burst of pompoms lit the washing in the courtyard and a cluster of machine guns, as many as twenty, crackled in a sustained and desperate fire. By the flashes they saw the servants scurry into the house, and over the firing they heard orders given and replied to, scream for scream, and the crazy ringing of handgongs. Inside the room, nobody moved except the American diplomat, who lifted his walkie-talkie to his lips, drew out an aerial and murmured something before putting it to his ear. Jerry glanced downward and saw the Countess's hand battened trustingly on to his own. Her cheek brushed his shoulder. The firing faltered. He heard the clump of a small bomb close. No vibration, but the flames of the candles tilted in salute and on the mantelshelf a couple of heavy invitation cards flopped over with a slap, and lay still, the only recognisable casualties. Then as a last and separate sound, they heard the grizzle of a departing single-engined plane like the distant grousing of a child. It was capped by the Counsellor's easy laughter as he addressed his wife.

'Ah, well now, that wasn't the eclipse, I'm afraid, was it, Hills? That was the advantage of having Lon Nol as our neighbour. One of his pilots gets fed up with not being paid now and then so he takes up a plane and has a potshot at the palace. Darling, are you going to take the gels off to powder their noses and do whatever you all do?'

It's anger, Jerry decided, catching the senior American's eye again. He's like a man with a mission to the poor who has to waste his time with the rich.

Downstairs, Jerry, the Counsellor and the American stood silent in the ground floor study. The Counsellor had acquired a wolfish shyness.

'Yes, well,' he said. 'Now I've put you both on the map perhaps I should leave you to it. Whisky in the decanter, right, Westerby?'

'Right, John,' said the American, but the Counsellor didn't seem to hear.

'Just remember, Westerby, the mandate's ours, right? We're keeping the bed warm. Right?' With a knowing wag of the finger, he disappeared.

The study was candlelit, a small masculine room with no mirrors or pictures, just a ribbed teak ceiling and a green metal desk, and the feeling of deathlike quiet again in the blackness outside, though the geckos and the bullfrogs would have baffled the most sophisticated microphone.

'Hey let me get that,' said the American, arresting Jerry's progress to the sideboard, and made a show of getting the mix just right for him: 'Water or soda, don't let me drown it.'

'Seems kind of a long way round to bring two friends together,' the American said, in a taut, chatty tone, from the sideboard as he poured.

'Does rather.'

'John's a great guy but he's kind of a stickler for protocol. Your people have no resources here right now, but they have certain rights, so John likes to make sure that the ball doesn't slip out of his court for good. I can understand his point of view. Just that things take a little longer sometimes.'

He handed Jerry a long brown envelope from inside the tartan jacket, and with the same pregnant intensity as before watched while he broke the seal. The paper had a smeared and photographic quality.

Somewhere a child moaned, and was silenced. The garage, he thought: the servants have filled the garage with refugees and the Counsellor is not to know.

ENFORCEMENT SAIGON reports Charlie MARSHALL rpt MARSHALL scheduled hit Battambang ETA 1930 tomorrow via Pailin... converted DC4 Carvair, Indocharter markings manifest quotes miscellaneous cargo... scheduled continue Phnom Penh.

Then he read the time and date of transmission and anger hit him like a windstorm. He remembered yesterday's foot-slogging in Bangkok and today's harebrained taxi ride with Keller and the girl, and with a 'Jesus Christ' he slammed the message back on the table between them.

'How long have you been sitting on this? That's not tomorrow. That's tonight!'

'Unfortunately our host could not arrange the wedding any earlier. He has an extremely crowded social programme. Good luck.'

Just as angry as Jerry, he quietly took back the signal, slipped it into the pocket of his jacket and disappeared upstairs to his wife, who was busy admiring her hostess's indifferent collection of pilfered Buddhas.

He stood alone. A rocket fell, and this time it was close. The candles went out and the night sky seemed finally to be splitting with the strain of this illusory, Gilbertian war. Mindlessly the machine guns joined the clatter. The little bare room with its tiled floor rattled and sang like a sound machine.