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Begiloc, a young freedman from Wimborne, is a man of action. But his world turns upside down when the young Briton and his best friend Meryn are ordered away to protect English missionaries in Germany. For a man accustomed to brutality, Begiloc has a soft spot for the purple-tinged mountains, waterfalls, lakes, animals, trees and flowers - beginning to muse whether they, rather than man, do not better embody the essence of God.

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir, he tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance, and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins, and orphans herding water buffalos.