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I reached the House of the Five Hundred Girls, Pyle and Granger had gone inside. I asked at the military police post just inside the doorway, “Deux Americains?”
    He was a young Foreign Legion corporal. He stopped cleaning his revolver and jutted his thumb towards the doorway beyond, making a joke in German. I couldn’t understand it.
    It was the hour of rest in the immense courtyard which lay open to the sky. “Hundreds of girls lay on the grass or sat on their heels talking to their companions. The curtains were undrawn in the little cubicles around the square-one tired girl lay alone on a bed with her ankles crossed. There was trouble in Cholon and the troops were confined to quarters and there was no work to be done: the Sunday of the body. Only a knot of fighting, scrabbling, shouting girls showed me where custom was still alive. I remembered the old Saigon story of the distinguished visitor who had lost this trousers fighting his way back to the safety of the police post. There was no protection here for the civilian. If he chose to poach on military territory, he must look after himself and find his own way out.
    I had learnt a technique-to divide and conquer. I chose one in the crowd that gathered round me and edged, her slowly, towards the spot where Pyle and Granger struggled. “Je suis un vieux,” I said. “Trop fatigue.” She giggled and pressed. “Mon ami,” I said, “il est tres riche, tres vigoureux.”
    “Tu es sale,” she said.
    “I caught sight of Granger flushed and triumphant; it was as though he took this demonstration as a tribute to his manhood. One girl had her arm through Pyle’s and was trying to tug him gently out of the ring. I pushed my girl in among them and called to him, “Pyle, over here.” He looked at me over their heads and said, “It’s terrible. Terrible.” It may have been a trick of the lamplight, but his face looked haggard. It occurred to me that he was quite possibly a virgin.
    “Come along, Pyle,” I said. “Leave them to Granger.” I saw his hand move towards his hip pocket. I really believe he-intended to empty his pockets of piastres and green-backs “Don’t be a fool, Pyle,” I called sharply. “You’ll have them fighting.” My girl was turning back to me and I gave her another push into the inner ring round Granger. “Non, non,” I said, “je suis un Anglais, pauvre, tres pauvre.”
    Then I got hold of Pyle’s sleeve and dragged him out, with the girl hanging on to his other arm like a hooked fish. Two or three girls tried to intercept us before we got to the gateway where the corporal stood watching, but they were half-hearted.
    “What’ll I do with this one?” Pyle said. “She won’t be any trouble,” and at that moment she let go his arm and dived back into the scrimmage round Granger.
    “Will he be all right?” Pyle asked anxiously. “He’s got what he wanted-a bit of tail.” The night outside seemed very quiet with only another squadron of armoured cars driving by like people with a purpose. He said, “It’s terrible. I wouldn’t have believed. . .” He said with sad awe, “They were so pretty.” He was not envying Granger, he was complaining that anything good -and prettiness and grace are surely forms of goodness- should be marred or ill-treated. Pyle could see pain when it was in front of his eyes. (I don’t write that as a sneer; after all there are many of us who can’t.) I said, “Come back to the Chalet. Phuong’s waiting.” “I’m sorry,” he said. “I quite forgot. You shouldn’t have left her.” “She wasn’t in danger.”
    “I just thought I’d see Granger safely-” He dropped again into his thoughts, but as we entered the Chalet he said with obscure distress, “I’d forgotten how many men there are...”
     
     
(2)
     
    Phuong had kept us a table at the edge of the dance-floor and the orchestra was playing some tune which had been popular in Paris five years ago. Two Vietnamese couples were