The Ugly American (20 page)

"Okay, okay. But have any of you birds been
out
in the boondocks?" Atkins asked stubbornly. "Don't give me the statistics, don't tell me about national aspirations. Just answer me: Have you been out in the boondocks?"

The Frenchman, the Vietnamese, the Americans all sat quietly in collective embarrassment. The hint of a sneer showed on the face of the tall Vietnamese, and Atkins was aware again, as he always was when he caught that look on someone's face, of his own personal ugliness.

A tall American stood up in the back. "Mr. Atkins, my name is Gilbert MacWhite and I'm a visitor here, not a participant. But I should like to know what you recommended in your report."

"Ambassador MacWhite, I really don't think we should take the time of these other gentlemen to go over this again," Mr. Gordon said, caught between the antagonism of the French and Vietnamese and his respect for MacWhite.

"It won't take long," Atkins cut in. "I told them the first step was to start things that the Vietnamese can do themselves. Then they can go on to the big things as they pick up skills."

"What kind of things should they start with?" MacWhite asked.

"First, like a brick factory. Cheap to start, easy to run, and it would give them building materials. Second, stone quarries back in the hills. Plenty of good stone there, and it could be used for building."

The Frenchman was red in the face. He spoke quickly to the tall Vietnamese, and then stood up.

"Mr. Atkins," he said in perfect English, "you may not know it, but a French firm has a concession to handle the production of building materials in this country. If everyone started forming brick and quarry companies, it would ruin our relationship."

"That's your problem, not mine," said Atkins. "Third, someone ought to set up a model canning plant. The country people catch fish and raise vegetables, but they spoil before they can be brought to town. Small, cheap, canning plants in about twenty towns would do plenty to help out. Fourth, the coastal land from Qui Nhom to Phan Rang is acid and it won't grow anything. But right back of it, just over the hills, is a long strip of beautiful rich land. Why not just run little finger-roads back through the jungle so the coastal people can get to the good land? It's cheap and it's easy. Couple of bulldozers could rip out the roads and that would be it."

"Now listen, Mr. Atkins, we didn't bring you out here as an agricultural expert," Josiah Gordon said, his bureaucratic sense of responsibility offended. "We already have lots of agricultural experts here."

"Well, tell 'em to get off their asses and out into the boondocks then," Atkins said, but without anger. He was looking at MacWhite. This was the first man who had listened to him in a long time.

"Ambassador MacWhite, I must insist that we terminate this meeting," Mr. Gordon said. "I am aware of Mr. Atkins' great talents and his personal reputation in the States, but this is most improper—an engineer giving gratuitous advice on farming!"

"And on military requirements!" the Frenchman added.

"Look, Ambassador, I could tell you a lot more little things, but first I have something to say to
him,"
and Atkins pointed a finger at the Frenchman. "You've got lots of military experts around here. You've got American planes and tanks and guns. But let me tell you something that you don't know. Do you know that Ho Chi-minh had his Communists build a secret road several feet wide right from the Chinese border, right through the jungle the entire length of Vietnam, almost to Saigon? Damn right you don't know. But that's how he got supplies through to Dien Bien Phu. And the next time he moves he'll be using that road to run supplies down to take Saigon."

The Frenchmen were on their feet, and the Vietnamese were fluttering in the room like frightened birds. Two French colonels were shouting loudly. It was
impossible
to build a road through the jungle,
impossible.

Atkins stood up, and there was a sudden silence. He said just one word—"Nuts!"—and then he left. No one doubted that he was on his way back to America.

When Atkins was halfway down the hall, he heard footsteps behind him. He kept on walking, then stopped as a hand fell on his shoulder. It was MacWhite.

"Mr. Atkins, I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes," MacWhite said. "I thought that stuff you outlined was good and sound. Let me buy you a drink."

"Then you were the only one in the room who bothered to think about it," Atkins said, and laughed.

Ten minutes later they were sitting in a cafe drinking beer. "Was that true about Minh's road down from China to Saigon?" MacWhite asked.

"Damned right it's true. I saw it. It's not a big road, and it's cut so that the overhang of the trees conceals it from the air. But it's big enough so that a couple of thousand Communists can trot a lot of supplies down it. The native that showed it to me said that during the fight for Dien Bien Phu that damned road was solid with two lines of Communists . . . one trotting back for more supplies, the other coming down delivering supplies. That's what surprised the hell out of the French up there."

"Why didn't anyone tell the French?"

"They hate 'em, mister. Even the anti-Communists hate the French."

"Mr. Atkins, if I could get you reassigned to Sarkhan, would you consider coming there?" MacWhite asked. "I know you've had a rough time, and I know you've got plenty to keep you busy back in the States. But I think you could do some valuable things for me. And I'd give you a free hand. You could live in the boondocks if you wanted."

"What kind of problems are you having?" Atkins asked suspiciously.

"Sarkhan is different from Vietnam," MacWhite said. "For example, it's very hilly and they have a hard time getting water from the rivers up to the hillside paddies. They use the old dip lifts which only lift a few hundred gallons a day. Maybe you could work on that."

"Maybe, maybe," Atkins said, and his face puckered in thought. He took a pencil from his pocket and began to sketch on a page of a pocket notebook. Beneath his ugly fingers a pump began to appear. It was a surprisingly beautiful and pleasing sketch. MacWhite said nothing. He knew when to wait. He ordered more beer.

MacWhite sat there for a long time. Atkins said nothing, but the beer was drinkable, and Atkins was a source of constant fascination. He was oblivious of MacWhite, the beer in front of him, and the movements and noises of the cafe. He worked over the sketch until to MacWhite's eye it appeared to be an incomprehensible, yet obviously meaningful, maze. Finally, Atkins sighed, leaned back in his chair, and took a deep drink of his warm beer.

"Well, maybe that might be interesting," Atkins said after fifteen minutes of silence, as if there had been no lapse of time. "If I did it, would you let me put out a kind of
Popular Mechanics
magazine for distribution throughout the country? If I got a good design I would want it to be used. I've had enough of these damned French. Every time they bring anything into a country there has to be a trade agreement and a patent and a royalty. The result is that no one can afford their things."

"You can have a magazine, and it will be printed in Sarkhanese," MacWhite said.

"Now, not so fast," Atkins said. "I'm not sure I can lick the problem. These things take time." But he was looking back at his sketch, crossing things out and adding new lines. He did not even look up when MacWhite put his card on the table with a note that Atkins' orders would come by cable as soon as it could be arranged.

The Ugly American and the Ugly Sarkhanese

Two weeks later Atkins and his wife left by plane for Sarkhan. Emma, a stout woman with freckles across her nose was, in her way, quite as ugly as her husband. She was hopelessly in love with Atkins, but had never been able to tell him why adequately.

She did not blink when Atkins told her they were going to Sarkhan. She told Homer that she'd be pleased to move into a smaller house where she could manage things with her own hands, and where she wouldn't need servants.

Two weeks later the Atkins were living in a small cottage in a suburb of Haidho. They were the only Caucasians in the community. Their house had pressed earth floors, one spigot of cold water, a charcoal fire, two very comfortable hammocks, a horde of small, harmless insects, and a small, darkeyed Sarkhanese boy about nine years old who apparently came with the house. The boy's name was Ong. He appeared promptly at six each morning and spent the entire day following Emma around.

Emma Atkins enjoyed herself in Sarkhan. She learned enough of the language so that she could discuss with her neighbors the best places to buy chickens, ducks, and fresh vegetables. She learned how to prepare beautifully fluffy rice seasoned with saffron. She liked working in her house, and it was a matter of some pride to her that she was as good a housekeeper as most of her neighbors.

Homer Atkins kept busy with his manpowered water pump. The idea had developed very slowly in his mind. What was needed was some kind of efficient pump to raise the water from one terraced paddy to another. Lifting water in the hilly sections consumed enormous amounts of energy. It was usually done by a pail, or by a cloth sack, attached to the end of a long pole. One man would lower the pail and swing it up to the next terrace where another man would empty it. It was a slow and cumbersome method, but the Sarkhanese had been doing it for generations and saw no reason to change. Atkins had decided that there was no sense in trying to talk them out of an obviously inefficient method unless he could offer them a more efficient method to replace it.

He solved two-thirds of his problem. A simple pump needed three things. First, it needed cheap and readily available piping. He had decided that the pipes could be made out of bamboo, which was abundant. Second, the pump needed a cheap and efficient pump mechanism. This had taken longer to find, but in the end Atkins had succeeded. Outside many Sarkhanese villages were piled the remains of jeeps which had been discarded by the military authorities. Atkins had taken pistons from one of these jeeps and had replaced the rings with bands of cheap felt to make a piston for his pump. He then cut the block of the jeep in two; he used one of the cylinders as a suction chamber, and the other cylinder as a discharge chamber. With a simple mechanical linkage the piston could be agitated up and down, and would suck water as high as thirty feet. The third problem, which Atkins had not yet solved, was the question of what power could be applied to the linkage.

In the end Emma gave him the answer.

"Why don't you just send off to the States for a lot of hand pumps like they use on those little cars men run up and down the railroads?" she asked one day.

"Now, look, dammit, I've explained to you before," Atkins said. "It's got to be something they use out here. It's no good if I go spending a hundred thousand dollars bringing in something. It has to be something right here, something the natives understand."

"Why, Homer," Emma said, "with all that money you've got in the bank back at Pittsburgh, why don't you give some of it to these nice Sarkhanese?"

Atkins looked up sharply, but saw at once that she was teasing him. He grunted.

"You know why. Whenever you give a man something for nothing the first person he comes to dislike is you. If the pump is going to work at all, it has to be their pump, not mine."

Emma smiled fondly at Homer Atkins. She turned and looked out the window. A group of Sarkhanese on bicycles, as usual, were moving in toward the market places at Haidho. She watched them for a few moments, and then spun around, excitement in her eyes.

"Why don't you use bicycles? There are millions of them in this country and they must wear out. Maybe you could use the drive mechanism of an old bicycle to move the pump." Atkins looked at Emma and slowly sat up straight. He slapped his hand against his knee.

"By God, I think you've got it, girl," he said softly. "We could take the wheels off an old bike, link the chain of the bike to one large reduction gear, and then drive the piston up and down with an eccentric."

Atkins began to walk around the room. Emma, a slight grin on her face, returned to her charcoal fire over which she had a fragrant pot of chicken cooking. In a few moments she heard the rustle of paper and knew that Atkins was bent over his drawing board. Two hours later he was still drawing furiously. An hour after that he went to a footlocker, took out a half-dozen bottles of beer, and brought them back to his work table. By dinner time he had drunk them all and was whistling under his breath. When Emma tapped him on the shoulder and told him that dinner was ready, he swung around excitedly.

"Look, baby, I think I've got it," he said, and began to explain it to her rapidly, interrupting himself to make quick calculations on a piece of paper. When she finally got him to sit down, he ate so fast that the chicken gravy ran down his chin. He wiped his chin with his shirt sleeve and made sure none of the gravy got on his precious drawings. Emma Atkins watched her husband fondly. She was proud of him, and she was happy when he was happy. Today she felt very happy, indeed.

"Stop drinking beer, Homer Atkins," Emma said, grinning. "You'll get drunk. And then you'll forget that it was my idea about the bicycle."

"Your idea?" he yelled in astonishment. "Woman, you're crazy. I was thinking about that all along. You just reminded me of it."