Live Till Tomorrow

Veterans of the Vietnam war, Washington Barber and his friend Dan Ledger settled for the opulent life-style of Saigon when their time was up. A prosperous business cemented the comradeship of war. Ledger's enchanting children by his beautiful Vietnamese wife rooted him even more firmly than his friend.

Barber is on an idyllic holiday with the English girl he has fallen in love with when the all too familiar sounds of battle break in. Defeat and collapse burst on the country out of a blue sky. The milling crowd at the local airport makes escape all but impossible. And when Saigon is at last reached, the enemy are hot on their heels. Worst of all Ledger has vanished into thin air. Barber has to shoulder the unexpected responsibility of getting his wife and children to safety. Not since Nevil Shute's Pied Piper has there been a more gripping story of shepherding the weak and helpless through dissolution and disaster.

The nightmare of a society that no longer takes tomorrow for granted is vividly realized. How long will anything work? The water in the taps, the electricity, the whole range of essential set vices that modern urban man has come to take for granted? How long will the Seventh Fleet be able to fly its helicopters in through the thickening flak and where will it be safe to land? When will the increasingly menacing crowds of frightened, betrayed, exhausted people finally turn on the helpless fugitives and find an outlet for their own frustration and desire for revenge? Stephen Harper's first-hand knowledge of war in general and Vietnam in particular give these passages an absorbing intensity.

© Stephen Harper 1977

First published 1977 by William Collins Sons & Co

ISBN 0 00 222405-4