March 1st, 1941
Lao Kay (North Tonkin) - A politico-military episode that occurs during the visit of the French parliamentary mission to Indochina marks the rise of tensions between Japan and France. It has been remarkably evoked in a semi-autobiographical work by a now famous writer.
"The young girl is standing at the edge of the airfield. Mount Fan Si Pan is there, in the clouds, but she has not seen it since she arrived. There is a warm smell of mechanics and languid vegetation.
The mechanics are busy working on the engines. Sweat flows under their shirts. They are tired, they speak with a dull voice, about parts, oil, Dutch fuel. They have been given poor quality gasoline that clogged all the filters, they had to work all night to get at least one plane back in working order. The Annamite assistants work quietly, they seem very small next to the mechanics.
The deputy's car arrives slowly, black, shiny, with a pennant. Its engine is surprisingly silent compared to those of the planes. The car parks at the edge of the runway. The settlers have planted a banner in honor of the deputy: VIVE BECQUART. But he has been in Lao Kay for three days, and there are only a few curious people to come and see him.
The other two deputies were not there, they had remained in Saigon. The youngest, who seemed robust, is in the hospital with a bad dysentery. The lawyer, very much a man of the world, kissed the girl's hand and apologized: "I have to stay, I'm sorry, our mission is so busy and these financial affairs in Indochina are so deliciously complicated... I leave you with our colleague, he is very lucky to be traveling with such a charming person who has already lived in Indochina... Especially, when we will be back in France after the war, if you go to your grandparents, don't forget to pay me a visit. Duras is not so far from La Réole."
So she accompanied the third deputy. Not quite fifty years old, a tuft of moustache and a bald forehead under the colonial helmet, he walks briskly and speaks energetically. He asks the commander questions. But between the deputy and the commander, it is the commander that people look at. The mechanics say to him, "Hi, Marcel!"
The Annamites also smile at him. The deputy nods his head. He likes competent people:
"Bravo, commander, your guys like you. This is the order, here, people do their job and are happy about it. Because elsewhere, I feel more and more that things are getting messy..."
The MP has a bad reputation. It is said that he attacked a "Front Popu" so hard that the man ended up committing suicide. Now he reports on Indochina, he talks to the commander, sometimes to the girl. He says it: it turns into a mess. The Chinese traders are monopolizing the wealth and the French are strangled by the interest on their debts, many have lost their farms and must work as plantation managers or in offices. The Japanese and the Siamese are on the borders and are only waiting for a sign of weakness from France. "Yellow people," he says, "all yellow people, and they send the Annamites signals of insubordination. Bolshevism is spreading, even in the countryside, it pushes the natives to treason. Yellow or Red, or both at the same time, whether they take their instructions from Tokyo or Moscow, they cannot be trusted! Some idiots from Algiers would like to raise new native regiments, they don't know the country, that's what he thinks. When we have armed them, they will hasten to destroy everything."
Destroy, he says.
The Americans are no better, they will collude with the Yanks to oust us.
Some of them are already in Kunming, mercenaries, arms dealers, and it is said that they will multiply by the end of the year. Hungry tigers with a nose for fresh meat. France must prove that it is the master at home. These Japanese squadrons that fly over our territory to bomb the Kunming railroad, it is inadmissible.
Kunming is in China, where there is a war, but it's our railroad, our merchandise that are going to Kunming, with American weapons for the Chinese troops. No way that the Americans and the Yanks should make a child in our back!
The deputy spoke again of a newspaper, the Clairon du Tonkin, which he wanted to ban. Some Bolsheviks draped in tricolor, he scolds, inadmissible. The girl does not listen to him any more.
She looks for Mount Fan Si Pan with her eyes. She believes to guess it, in the fog. She imagines the river coming down from China like a great dragon, a dragon of red water, and the railroad that runs along it, the thin black iron dragon. The plane will fly over all these things, the mountain and the railroad and the river. The commander says that the fog is only in the valley, that it will clear up soon. A few days ago, some Japanese bombers returned without having been able to go as far as the railroad, they dropped their bombs on the way on a Tonkinese village. The young girl imagines the explosion, the death falling from the sky in the frightened eyes of the villagers. It also seems that there is a plane carcass shot down in the forest, on the way to Cao Bang, but we don't know if it is Japanese or Chinese. From the air, we will see it better, estimated the commander.
The girl turned around. The commander is very close to her. He did not expect to see this young European girl, too skinny, with eyes too big, with her man's hat. He smiles at her.
His face is wrinkled and tanned by the sun, he has some gray hair, but his smile is radiant, a child's smile.
The girl looks him in the eyes. Her lips barely move, her murmur is covered by the noise of the propellers, but he hears her.
- Take me away!
She implores him, and he laughs.
- I would like to! But it's not a ride for a pretty woman. I told your deputy that there were some funny things going on around here. It's not Corsica or Sardinia, but all the same! You know what would bring me luck, before taking off?
He takes her by the waist, gently and very quickly at the same time, as he must fly his plane. He presses his lips against hers. A kiss, very short, to bring luck. The young girl moves back, she is ashamed, she hides her face under her hat. Already, the commander and the deputy are in the plane. A Potez 542, he said, like a big insect with its domes. The propellers turn faster and faster, taking everything with them. The 542 taxis towards the end of the runway and takes off.
The girl waits at the edge of the runway, one hour, two hours. The mechanics are also worried, they say that they heard engine noises to the east, engines that were not those of the Potez. One of them claims that there were also bursts of gunfire, but the others do not believe it. The girl does not hear anything, but she stays there. Finally, she hears the sound of the Potez on the deserted Lao Kay.
She feels like she smells the burning smell first, and yet the plane is too far away for the smell to reach her. It is getting closer and closer, trailing a plume of smoke. Only one propeller is turning. The mechanics hurry up, they shout to the Annamites to take blankets and buckets of sand. A large scrap metal lost in a terrible black cloud, hits the ground of the runway. The men disappear in turn in the black smoke, only buckets and tools can be seen passing from hand to hand. Soldiers arrive from all sides and push aside the curious.
"Don't stay too close, Miss," they tell her.
Stretchers are carried to the ambulance. Impossible to recognize the bodies. The crowd moves towards the hospital, families, curious people. The nurse is not happy. She does not like the deputy, because she reads the Clairon, the newspaper he wants to ban, but she will treat him, it's her job. She had the patients put in the courtyard, under the trees, to make space. Some of them are trembling with fever.
The girl was able to sit in a corner, she stays until nightfall. The smells of heavy earth come up from the darkness, the invisible river flows aimlessly, carrying everything to the ocean. The nurse shakes her by the shoulder.
- It is not worth staying, my little one. The doctor operated on your deputy, he took some but he should be all right. Marcel Reine is dead."
Marguerite Donnadieu, "A Scent of Flowers on Deserted Lao Kay," 1951.
[Marguerite Donnadieu, at 25, is quite different from the image of a naive young girl that this story written ten years later gives. A very promising civil servant in the Ministry of Overseas France, already the author of several reports, she is co-author, with Philippe Roques, of a small work, "L'Empire français", published in April 1940, which translates the strategic thinking of her minister at the time, Georges Mandel. Some specialists even see it as one of the preparatory texts for the Grand Déménagement, since it envisages the possibility of a withdrawal to Africa in the event of a defeat of our armed forces in Europe. Returning to Indochina, the land of her childhood, with the Thorp-Becquart mission, she became director of information at Radio Saigon. Her escape from Saigon to the Boloven Mountains (Laos) in January 1942 is well known, but she herself rarely mentioned it. After the war, she devoted herself to literature, which made her famous].
