Read Online War Baby by Colin Falconer - Free Book Online

he heard the hum of rotors, and then someone running down the corridor outside, hammering on the doors. ‘Let’s go, Mickey. Mas-cal. We’re on!’
    In a moment she was on her feet fumbling in the darkness for her clothes. By the time he had swung his feet out of the bed the door was yawning open and she was gone. He watched the other nurses running out of the hooch.
    At dawn the helicopters were still coming, landing one after the other outside the hospital. Webb got dressed and drove back to Saigon. By ten o’clock that morning he was back in the Delta with the 25th.

Chapter 7
     
    The cathedral was on the Tu Do, across the road from the post office, a monstrosity in red brick. Ryan sat at the back during the service, and did not leave his pew to take communion. He thought that might be a bit rich, even for someone as tolerant as Jesus.
    Instead he watched Souer Odile at the brass communion rail, her hands joined in prayer, eyes closed. What am I going to do about this?
     
    * * *
     
    What am I to do about this?
    Odile had asked the question of herself many times, but the Divine had so far withheld his guidance. She wanted to live as simply as other women. She wished to be a wife and a mother. Was it sin to want to be a woman more than wanting to serve God? In the darkness of the cathedral she looked for grace.
    She prayed for strength. She raised her face to the Madonna and begged for purity. She stared into the candles on the altar and asked for faith.
    Just a few weeks ago, before she met Ryan, her choices were clear. But he had muddied everything. What was it he had said? You have to listen to your heart. You’ve only got one life. She wished he had never said those words. When she only thought them to herself they had no power over her. When he said them, it made them seem … possible.
    After she had accepted communion, Odile rose from the altar steps and walked, head bowed, back to the pews. She raised her eyes for a moment and saw him, in the shadows at the back of the church, and it took her breath away. She knelt down again, beside her fellow nuns and novices, and lowered her head once more in prayer.
    How can I concentrate on the eternal when all I can think of is now?
    After the Mass he found her on the steps outside, with the canonesse and several other novices, in conversation with the French curé and a Catholic Vietnamese family. When she saw him she left the group and approached him. ‘Monsieur Ryan?’
    ‘I have to see you again,’ he said.
    The canonesse was watching them over the priest’s shoulder.
    ‘This is so easy for you. Is not so easy for me.’
    ‘Falling in love with a nun is easy?’
    Her eyes went wide. She looked around at the canonesse , and then back at Ryan. ‘Do not say it if you do not mean it.’
    ‘I mean it.’
    She bit her lip. Ryan waited. ‘Tomorrow. In the Jardins Botaniques . Ten o’clock.’
    She walked away.
    They were all watching him now. He knew what they were thinking. Bugger them all. He’d had enough of nuns to last him a lifetime.
    Except for this one.
     
    * * *
     
    The caretaker at the Hashish Hilton was a Vietnamese called Duc, who had inevitably been rechristened Donald by the tenants. Donald Duc acted as their intermediary with the Tonkinese landlady, organized their food and their laundry, cronied the work out between the members of his immediate family, who all lived in one of the downstairs rooms. For a little extra he also procured opium or girls.
    When he got back that afternoon Ryan found Cochrane lying on his bed, smoking opium; Donald’s uncle lay on the floor, on some raffia matting, lighting pipes for Cochrane and for Prescott, who sat in Ryan’s chair by the window. Mick Jagger was wailing his way through ‘Paint It Black’. Webb sat at the foot of the bed, smoking a large opium-laced cigarette. The air conditioner had broken again and the air was thick with pungent smoke.
    ‘Sean,’ Webb said.
    ‘Spider,’ Ryan said.
    ‘How’s