Skulls grinning at me, into my face as the cold light creeps through the sugar palms. Skulls, lined up in orderly rows, in serried ranks of bone-white laughter.

But these are real.

I know this.

And then there is darkness again, and in the darkness movement, a lifting, a bearing away, and in the wan light of morning a face leans over mine, smiling. An arm raises my shoulders, and a voice sounds.

'Drink.'

21: KHENG

'What were those skulls?'

The monk closed his eyes, opened them. 'They were my brothers.'

I remembered stone columns, ancient, laced with creeper. 'It was a temple?'

'Yes.'

Sometimes he spoke French, sometimes English, his language scholarly in both.

'That was a long time ago,' I said, more as an exercise than anything, testing the memory, finding it sound.

'It was yesterday.'

He meant it still seemed like yesterday. It would have been twenty years ago, when the Khmer Rouge were scouring the countryside, hunting for intellectuals, monks, school-teachers, village scribes.

I finished the bowl of soup or whatever it was, perhaps herbs; it had tasted brackish, of roots.

'Did you carry me here?'

'Yes. You were in the helicopter, I assume.' He had a smile like the Dalai Lama's; the sweetness of his spirit lit his eyes, humbling me, my brute calling.

'You heard it fly over?' I asked him.

'Yes.'

Quick — 'When?'

'The night before last.'

'Today is the seventeenth?'

'By your calendar.'

Two days to the deadline. Call it two minutes, then, there's no bloody difference.

'It was a hanuman?' I heard the monk asking.

'What? I think so. Green.'

Gently he turned my wrist over, studying the blackened flesh. 'You are a very strong man,' he said. 'You were already over the worst of the fever when I found you. The bite of the hanuman is usually fatal.'

'You go there to pray?'

'To be with my brothers.'

This was a cave we were in, draped with tapestries from the temple; a Buddha sat in a niche the monk must have carved from the rock; a small oil lamp flickered in the depths of the cave, and I saw an owl perched there, staring with bright obsidian eyes, its shadow huge against the rockface.

'You must sleep again now,' the monk said.

'How far are we from Pouthisat, overland?'

'A hundred and forty kilometres.'

On Pringle's topographic map it was a hundred by air. 'Sleep?' My capacity to think linearly was still not back in shape. 'No. I need to reach Pouthisat.'

The monk hitched his threadbare robe around him, watching me with curiosity. 'You flew here from Pouthisat?'

' Yes.'

'I heard you disturbing the Khmer Rouge. Was that deliberate?'

'It was on the cards.'

'You were accompanied?'

'Yes. My pilot didn't survive.'

'He was in the conflagration?'

'Yes.'

'We shall pray for him, my brothers and I.' In a moment he said, 'You were pulling the tail of the tiger. Of Saloth Sar.'

'Who is he?'

'It is the real name of Pol Pot.'

'He's there now, at the camp?'

'Yes. But he is ill.'

Oh really. 'How ill?'

'He has ceded his powers to General Kheng.'

'His second in command?'

'So it is said.'

'Who says? How do you know this?' I stood up and fell down again, knees buckling, he wasn't quick enough to catch me, hadn't expected me to do anything so bloody silly.

'You must rest,' he said, his eyes amused. 'You are among those who goad themselves through life. That is not the way.'

'Who told you about General Kheng?' It sounded slurred. This was perfect, wasn't it, listen, within two days I had to get this film into Pringle's hands a hundred and forty kilometers away overland and he had to get it to London for the British and American and UN brass to look at and they had to go into joint session and if they decided on an air strike the bombers would have to be airborne in time to make the hit by dawn of the nineteenth, the day after tomorrow, and at the moment, at this very moment when I should be kicking the whole thing into action my speech was slurred and the cerebral cortex was still deep fried and when I stood up I fell down again, this was perfect, so what is, what is to be done, my good friend, in this rather sorry situation?

'Anger does not assist in recovery,' I heard the monk saying gently. 'Rather should we relax, and let our karma resolve our predicament for us.'

'Right.' I sat up, arms around my knees, letting my head hang loose, rolling the neck muscles. 'You're damn' right. Excuse me. Who told you about General Kheng?'

'It is known in the village. The peasants bring me offerings of food and the bare necessities. Look!' He held up a tin frying pan, a real work of art, copper rivets and everything. 'They also bring me news of the Khmer Rouge, for what it is worth.'

Do they indeed. I lifted my head and looked at him. 'And what are the immediate plans of General Kheng, do they know?'

'They have not spoken of plans.'

'What do they say about him?'

The monk moved, blowing on some charcoal and pouring water from a pitcher into a black iron pot. 'That he is young, power-hungry and ambitious.' He took some dried herbs from a shelf, broke their stalks and dropped them in. 'He has said he will restore power to Saloth Sar when he is well again, but it would surprise me if such a thing came about.'

I got onto my haunches, swaying like a drunk, pulling myself upright with my hands on the rockface for support, I am not proud, you must understand, when the need is urgent, and if there is only one way to do a thing then that is the way I will do it, so go to hell.

'No plans, then,' I said. No news of the nineteenth.

'No. The peasants do not hear everything, I would think; it is simply that the soldiers talk a little to them when they come into the village for their needs.' He stirred the pot with a wooden spoon, his face lit with concentration.

I wasn't surprised, as I stood with my hands away from the rockface now, that nothing about the nineteenth had been heard in the village: security on that subject would be tight. I took a few paces, needing to touch the wall only once.

'Is General Kheng at the camp now?' I asked the monk.

'I don't know.'

Then I would have to find out. 'How far is the village?'

'From here?'

'Yes.'

'Two kilometres, perhaps less. I will go with you.' He turned his sweet smile on me. 'Then when you lose consciousness again I shall be there to carry you back.' He resumed his stirring, the pot beginning to steam.

'How far is the camp from the village?'

'Perhaps fifteen kilometres.'

'So the soldiers use motorized vehicles all the way?'

'Yes. Usually jeeps.'

I shuffled to the mouth of the cave, one hand along the wall until I could hold onto the peeling bamboo curtain, the skull of a bird watching me from the hook where it hung; it looked like an owl's, perhaps was the owl's brother. When I felt ready I made my way back, no support this time, progress.

The sun was burning its path through the palm trees towards noon when the monk said, 'Seeing you were in no mood to rest, I prepared this concoction for you. It will give you strength for your journey.'

It tasted of embers and sent fire through my veins, and when I'd finished it we began walking along the bullock track through the trees, none too fast in the rising heat of the day but I didn't fall down and the monk didn't help me, let me go it alone as he knew I needed to.

'Do other vehicles come to the village,' I asked him, 'from the road to the east?'

'Sometimes. Foreign Aid Services, some of the Catholic missions, and of course the Mine Action units.' We stood in the shade of a barn on the eastern border of the village, where the huts gave way to rice fields and the road ran through a bamboo grove to the horizon.