The Quiet American by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page B

moved through the passes in the calcaire, into the Tonkin plain, watched helplessly by the French outpost in the mountains above, the advance agents struck in Phat Diem.
    Now after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. The authorities would have stopped me in Hanoi if they had known of my purpose, but the further you get from headquarters, the looser becomes the control until, when you come within range of the enemy’s fire, you are a welcome guest—what has been a menace for the Etat Major in Hanoi, a worry for the full colonel in Nam Dinh, to the lieutenant in the field is a joke, a distraction, a mark of interest from the outer world, so that for a few blessed hours he can dramatise himself a little and see in a false heroic light even his own wounded and dead.
    The priest shut his breviary and said, “Well, that’s finished.” He was a European, but not a Frenchman, for the Bishop would not have tolerated a French priest in his diocese. He said apologetically, “I have to come up here, you understand, for a bit of quiet from all those poor people.” The sound of the mortar-fire seemed to be closing in, or perhaps it was the enemy at last replying. The strange difficulty was to find them: there were a dozen narrow fronts, and between the canals, among the farm buildings and the paddy fields, innumerable opportunities for ambush. Immediately below us stood, sat and lay the whole population of Phat Diem. Catholics, Buddhists, pagans, they had all packed their most valued possessions—a cooking-stove, a lamp, a mirror, a wardrobe, some mats, a holy picture—and moved into the Cathedral precincts. Here in the north it would be bitterly cold when darkness came, and already the Cathedral was full: there was no more shelter; even on the stairs to the bell-tower every step was occupied, and all the time more people crowded through the gates, carrying their babies and household goods. They believed, whatever their religion, that here they would be safe. While we watched, a young man with a rifle in Vietnamese uniform pushed his way through: he was stopped by a priest, who took his rifle from him. The father at my side said in explanation, “We are neutral here. This is God’s territory.” I thought. It’s a strange poor population God has in his kingdom, frightened, cold, starving (“I don’t know how we are going to feed these people,” the priest told me): you’d think a great King would do better than that.’ But then I thought. It’s always the same wherever one goes- it’s not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations. Little shops had already been set up below. I said, “It’s like an enormous fair, isn’t it, but without one smiling face.” The priest said, “They were terribly cold last night. We have, to keep the monastery gates shut or they would swamp us.”
    “You all keep warm in there?” I asked. “Not very warm. And we would not .have room for a length of them.” He went on, “I know what you are thinking. it is essential for some of us to keep well. We have the only hospital in Phat Diem, and our only nurses are these nuns.” “And your surgeon?”
    “I do what I can.” I saw then that his soutane was speckled with blood.
    He said, “Did you come up here to find me?” “No. I wanted to get my bearings.” “I asked you because I had a man up here last night. He wanted to go to confession. He had got a little frightened, you see, with what he had seen along the canal. One couldn’t blame him.” “It’s bad along there?”
    “The parachutists caught them in a cross-fire. Poor souls. I thought perhaps you were feeling the same.”
    “I’m not a Roman Catholic. I don’t think you could even call me a Christian.” “It’s strange what fear does to a man.” “It would never do