Heroes of the Evening Mist
Heroes in The Evening Mist was written in 1995 and was a sequel to another book written in 1962 called A Choice of Arms. I have not read the first book, but Heroes in The Evening Mist is a stand-alone novel telling the story of a communist uprising against the British Imperial post-WW2 legacy of oppression and exploitation. It draws parallels to the rarely-told side of the Vietnamese war against the all-powerful foe of Communism in the shape of the United States. The story is about a journalist, Frere, whose elder brother was killed fighting alongside the Communist rebels to free a small impoverished country called Malia.
Frere is taken to the rebel headquarters in the jungle and becomes a writer for the rebels’ news sheet. It is here that he meets Leela and falls in love. The long-planned revolution gathers pace, and the British are driven from the capital in a coup that puts the Communists in power, and Frere is elected as the man jointly responsible for the country’s newspaper and the promotion of Malia to the world outside. For a number of years, everything goes well.
However, the rot sets in when new industries become profitable and a fanatical, far-left group begins a series of show trials of suspected profiteers. I won’t give away the ending, but it does not bode well for Malia, or for Frere, Leela and their son Mat.
The story is well told, but you have to have a socialist frame of mind to read it. The clue is in the title, which is taken from a poem in Chairman Mao’s little red book. He is praising the farmers toiling in the fields: “And all around heroes homeward bound in the evening mist”.
