CHAPTER THIRTEENSLOWLY THE DEEP GRAY silhouette of Pa Kham appeared in the mist. The heavy rains of September and the first week of October, along with the equalization of the hydrostatic pressure between the surrounding highlands and the central Cambodian basin, and the final deluge of Himalayan snowmelt reaching the lower Mekong, had caused the waters to rise. Sullivan’s eyes stabbed west, north, east. Everywhere he saw huge inundated tracts. Then the image reversed. He was not on land but in the ocean in an area of low atolls and before and behind him snaked not an infantry column but a ship convoy, odd ships, shaped like buses and jeeps and trucks. Far to the front were the forward guns and towed artillery pieces. But just as the berms of Pa Kham lay submerged beneath ground mist, the
