THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

Twenty minutes later a single shot rang out from the King’s bedroom. Nai Chit
ran in, and out, and along the corridor to the apartments of the King’s mother.
`The King’s shot himself!’ he cried… [Simpson, Forty Years of Murder: an
Autobiography]
Krueger recounts what followed:
The words that rose from the Princess Mother’s lips were quite mechanical: “My
poor Nand.” Horror, terror, pity and desperate incredulity held her for an instant
transfixed before she began to run, asking no questions, and running through
her crashing world grasped at the hope that the page was foolishly mistaken, or
that “shot” meant merely a graze, and that her son would greet her with a rueful smile
at having been careless with one of his pistols. But the spectacle in the bedroom
obliterated hope.
Ananda lay in bed as if asleep. His flowered coverlet was drawn up. He lay on his
back, his legs stretched out straight together. His arms, extended fairly close to
his sides, were outside the coverlet. On his left wrist was his watch, on a finger of
his left hand his ring, and an inch or two from his left hand a pistol, the American
Army .45. Not that the Princess Mother took in all these details. Her entire being
was concentrated on the blood oozing from Ananda’s forehead. Nai Chit opened the
mosquito net for her and with a scream she flung herself on her son’s body.
Not far behind came the Royal Nanny. Her account of her movements would be that
she was putting away some cine-film in Bhoomipol’s room when she heard what she
thought might be a shot followed by running footsteps. Seeing the Princess Mother
making for the King’s quarters she hurried after her. She saw her distraught on the
bed, endlessly repeating through her sobs, “My dear Nand, my dear Nand.” The
Nanny half lifted her away but she again bent keening and weeping over her son,
across whose face, shoulder and pillow the blood freely flowed, until the Nanny
moved her towards the foot of the bed where she lay half on the floor.
The Nanny took hold of Ananda’s wrist. Though the Palace Law of 1450 had but
recently given way to the Penal Code which no longer made anyone who touched the
royal person guilty of a capital offence, there was still a powerful taboo and this she
defied by feeling the King‟s pulse. It was beating. At this same moment of discovery
– everything was confused, confusing and indescribably terrible – the Nanny was
aware of the pistol close to the wrist she held. The barrel pointed towards the Princess
Mother at the foot of the bed, and fearing an accident the Nanny quickly picked it
up with three fingers and put it on the bedside cabinet where Ananda had placed his
spectacles and where a small clock ticked off his final seconds, for when the Nanny
again took his wrist the pulse had stopped.
Told this, the Princess Mother, whose weeping had momentarily been arrested by the
Nanny’s first discovery, cried more unrestrainedly than before, and with a corner of
the coverlet tried to staunch the flow of blood. She called for another piece of cloth
and continued her efforts. [Krueger, The Devil’s Discus]
Dr Nitya Vejjavivisth, a friend of the Mahidols from their time in the United States, arrived
on the scene shortly before 10 a.m. Royal custom dictated that he had to crawl to the bed
where the king lay:
18
When he entered the royal bedchamber the Princess Mother was sitting down – either