“What new word?”
“There is great celebration in Phnom Penh. Colonel Um’s column head has reached Kompong Thom.”
“Ah,” Nang sighed. “What great fortune.”
“Great fortune?!”
“Yes, Hon. You’ll see.”
By nightfall Nang’s company had surrounded the unnamed hamlet, itself surrounded by a sea of flooded paddies. The young soldiers wrapped themselves in their mosquito nets. Tired, sore, pushed to the limit by the forced march, by a lack of decent rations and by the harshness of the untamed tropical environment, they slept. “Tomorrow,” Nang said as he moved amongst them, “tomorrow you’ll understand. We have two enemies. Tomorrow will begin me new life. Don’t complain. You’ve been fated for glory.”
Before cockcrow they moved, silently, some along the radial dikes which converged on the hamlet li
