Chapter 34: A Wartime Romance in Saigon

Spoiler Warning: The following summary and analysis reveals pivotal events from Chapter 34 of Cry Havoc.

Summary

Tom Reece and Ella DuBois spend several weeks in Saigon deliberately ignoring the war. Ella keeps a flat but stays every night with Tom at the Continental Palace. By day she works at the DuBois Consortium; Tom shops for civilian clothes—jeans, polos, safari shirts, and Sperrys—to blend in with the journalism crowd. Their evenings follow a pattern of drinks at the Hotel Majestic, long dinners at the Chalet restaurant, and walks past the Pont des Trois bridge before retiring to the hotel.

On the third evening Ella arrives with a gift: a gouache-on-silk painting of two mandarin ducks circling among lotus flowers. She explains the ducks represent lifelong commitment and harmony, then replaces a hideous abstract painting above the bed with the new artwork. She also gives Tom a stainless-steel watch bracelet to replace his military strap, helping him look less like a soldier.

During their first weekend together they stay in bed, order room service, and later stand on the balcony eating mango and dragon fruit as a monsoon soaks them. The storm feels like a temporary cleansing of the war. Ella later shows him hidden coffee shops, antique dealers, temples, and record shops. They watch a double feature of French-Italian co‑productions Le Samouraï and Les Aventuriers. Tom cannot relax; he recalls the Viet Cong bombing of the My Canh restaurant three years earlier and constantly scans the cinema crowd for threats.

The following afternoon Ella’s driver takes them to a Catholic-run clinic on the outskirts of Saigon. Inside, an overworked Italian doctor shows them rows of orphaned children with amputated limbs, bandaged heads, and the smell of gangrene. Ella calls it “the true cost of war.” That evening at the Vieux Moulin restaurant overlooking the Da Kao Bridge, she explains she wanted to ground them both—to see Tom’s reaction. She tells him of her father’s origin as the illegitimate son of a French plantation owner and a Vietnamese maid, sent to school in France by exploitation wealth. Her father now treats his rubber workers with respect and is shifting to import/export, anticipating the plantations will one day revert to the Vietnamese.

Ella describes Saigon as a city of decay: black markets, brothels, opium, and women bought for the price of a beer. She predicts the North will win because Ho Chi Minh is willing to sacrifice an entire generation. She quotes Truyen Kieu, Vietnam’s national poem: sacrifice and fate. Tom admits he would make a bad spy but intrigues her with his honesty. They return to the Continental; a Vietnamese man on a scooter—pretending to read a newspaper on the bridge—has been tailing them all evening. He notes their movements and rides home.

Key Events

• Tom shops for civilian clothes and settles into a daily rhythm with Ella.
• Ella gifts him the mandarin duck painting and a metal watch bracelet, symbols of the relationship and of shedding his military identity.
• The couple shares a weekend in bed, capped by a monsoon that briefly washes away the war.
• Ella guides Tom through hidden Saigon and takes him to a French double feature; Tom remains hyper‑vigilant.
• A chauffeured trip to a Catholic clinic reveals the brutal civilian toll of the war on children.
• Over dinner, Ella confronts Tom about his responsibility for the war and shares her father’s story and her own guilt.
• Ella outlines her belief that North Vietnam will win and details Saigon’s moral decay.
• A Vietnamese observer tracks their movements from the restaurant back to the Continental.

Character Development

• Tom Reece: Though he adopts a journalist’s wardrobe and lets his guard down with Ella, he cannot fully escape a soldier’s hyper‑awareness. He is honest about his limitations and wrestles with a vague guilt over the war’s civilian casualties. His willingness to stay in Saigon instead of returning north shows his deepening emotional entanglement.
• Ella DuBois: She emerges as a complex figure—privileged yet guilt‑ridden, deeply strategic, and acutely aware of Vietnam’s colonial and wartime injustices. She reveals her father’s pragmatic, ethically ambiguous survival and openly predicts the North’s victory, yet she clings to a fragile hope for a future beyond war.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

• Love and War as Parallels: The chapter juxtaposes tender intimacy with the constant undercurrent of violence, showing that even a romantic sanctuary cannot fully escape the war’s reach.
• The Cost of War on Civilians: The clinic sequence, with its amputee orphans and gangrene smell, drives home the collateral damage that the privileged rarely see.
• Fate and Sacrifice: Ella’s reference to Truyen Kieu and her prediction that North Vietnam will win because it is willing to sacrifice a generation ties personal romance to the national narrative of destiny.
• Disguise and Identity: Tom’s new clothes and watch bracelet, and Ella’s own French-Vietnamese duality, underline the theme of hiding one’s true self to survive.
• The Mandarin Duck Painting: Symbolizes the couple’s desired commitment and harmony, yet its fragility mirrors their temporary escape from reality.
• The Watchful Observer: The Vietnamese man who tails them symbolizes that safety is an illusion and that hidden forces are always recording their movements.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 34 is a crucial tonal shift that deepens the emotional stakes of the novel. It gives readers an extended respite from combat while simultaneously demonstrating how war poisons every corner of existence—even a love affair in a grand hotel. Through Ella, the chapter introduces a local, privileged perspective on the conflict, complicating the American-centric view and foreshadowing the inevitable North Vietnamese victory. The looming presence of the tail also injects suspense, reminding us that the war is merely waiting to reclaim Tom.

Study Questions and Answers

1. What does the mandarin duck painting represent, and why is it significant in this chapter? The painting represents lifelong commitment and harmony. It temporarily transforms Tom’s hotel room into a private sanctuary, contrasting with the war raging outside. However, its placement above the bed also highlights how fragile this commitment really is.

2. How does Ella’s disclosure about her father’s past shape our understanding of her character and her relationship with Tom? Ella’s father was the illegitimate son of a French plantation owner and a Vietnamese maid, sent to France on exploitation money. This story explains Ella’s deep guilt, her strategic mindset about moving the business to Thailand, and her ability to separate Tom the man from the policies of his government. It reveals why she is both cynical and determined to build something lasting.

3. Why can’t Tom relax during the film, and what does this tell us about his state of mind? Tom is haunted by memories of the My Canh restaurant bombing that killed over thirty civilians. His constant scanning of the crowd shows that his combat instincts are ingrained; even in the supposed safety of Saigon, he cannot turn off the part of himself that expects danger. This tension illustrates how war permanently alters a soldier’s perception of safety.

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