by CW Ullman
“I’m getting tired. Can I stop?” My Ling asked.
“Yes, I just wanted to get away from the…,” the lieutenant did not want to say “bodies.” He continued, “Save your energy. There are fishing boats that come through, Keep your eyes open.”
My Ling let go of the lieutenant and pulled the life vests together, stacking one on top of the other and pushing down while kicking in order to get some elevation. She pushed three feet above the water and saw only more sea. After turning in the opposite direction and getting set, she leaped from the water and saw more sea. She tried leaping higher, yet still there was no land visible.
“We aren’t more than twenty miles from shore,” the lieutenant offered. “But that does us no good if we don’t know which way land lies.”
They floated quietly for a long while and My Ling thought of being on the ship. Her recurring thought was that she would not be here had the sailor not thrown her from the vessel. She became upset when she thought of it and when she got angry she wanted to swim. She wanted to get to land, find her parents, and then get even with the sailor. He ruined everything.
When her father put her on the helicopter, he promised they would meet on an American ship. Now, he would be on the ship looking for her and not know where she was. He would be panicked, hurrying around the ship looking for her and Quang and not finding them. She would not be there to tell him how Quang, his only son, died when the helicopter crashed. She could only imagine him collapsing in pain, not knowing where two of his children were. He would not know how My Ling’s older sister, Trieu, ran into the woods and escaped with her son, Tu, during the North Vietnamese shelling. His sadness would be overwhelming. The sailor caused all this; he ruined everything while laughing at her. She was going to kill him for it.
“I’m not going to make it,” the lieutenant whispered.
My Ling heard what he said clearly, but did not want to believe it. She asked him to repeat it.
“I want you to remember my words. My wife…lives outside of Qui Nhon. Her name is Hue (Lily). We have two girls, Huong (Rose) and Tyuet (Snow White). Their last name is the same as mine, Duong. I call them my little flowers. When you get back, please call them and tell them I love them. Tell them I tried my best, that I am sorry I left this life early and when they eventually come to heaven, I will be the first one they will see.” He was choking up.
“Lieutenant Ba, you can’t die. You said we’re only twenty miles to land, I will get us there and people will help us,” My Ling urged as she kicked furiously in the water.
“Stop kicking so hard, you’ll bring back the shark,” the lieutenant commanded. “I can’t feel my legs and I am very cold. I told you about them because soon I will be so cold I won’t be able to form words. Promise me you will find them.”
“Yes, yes I will find them, but you cannot die,” My Ling insisted. “Take deep breaths, it will warm you. C’mon, we’ll breathe deep together. Now.”
She inhaled deeply and urged Lieutenant Duong to do the same. She breathed in again, exhaled hard, and urged him to follow her.
“Stop,” he said.
“No, you have to breathe with me,” she said.
“No, stop. Listen,” he said.
She listened and braced for the shark to come, but she did not hear or see it. She was about to ask what she was listening for, when he spoke.
“There,” he exclaimed.
And she faintly heard the very low and distant murmur of a boat engine.
“Can you see it,” he asked.
“No.”
“You need to stack those life vests on me. Take off the one you have and lay that on top and then push up to look. I know its close,” he ordered.
“But, how will you breathe?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me. Just do it,” he said.
She pushed the life jackets on top of the lieutenant. He groaned because she reopened a wound.
“Sorry,” she offered.
The straps on her vest came undone easily and she placed it on top of the others. She looked at the pile but did not know how she was going to get on top.
Lieutenant Duong urged her on, “C’mon.”
She let him drift away slightly, then swam at him hard kicking fast. When she drew near, she pulled on his outstretched hand and was able to clamber to the top vest. She was up for seconds before she pushed him completely under water. She jumped off and pulled him back above the water line so he could breathe. It was the first time My Ling had seen his full face and almost vomited at the sight. His hair had been replaced with patches of scorched skin surrounded by open flesh. One ear was gone and his left cheek had a hole through which could be seen his gums and teeth. He heard her gasp and saw her startled expression.
Ignoring her grimace he asked, “Did you see the boat.”
She had almost forgotten and answered, “Yes, yes. It’s over there,” as she pointed behind her. “We’re going to make it.”
She moved behind and pushed him and the life vests through the water.
“My Ling, this is only going to work if you get some cloth or something else to wave and get their attention. Here,” he said as he took an orange shirt that had belonged to one of the children. “I kept this to wave at any passing boats. Swim at them and wave this. Hurry,” he urged. “If you push me, they miss us.”
She was about to protest, when she looked behind her and saw that the boat was motoring across their line not toward them.
“Hurry, My Ling,” he commanded.
She stuffed the orange cloth in her shirt, turned and swam. She plowed through the water taking eight strokes before lifting her head to spot the boat. She swam a quarter mile to a point that she thought was close enough. She yelled and waved the orange shirt, but the boat crossed her line and kept going. She almost lost hope when it appeared it would pass her by, but it was the thought of going back to the lieutenant and dying with him that gave her the energy to keep screaming and waving the shirt.
The craft was a twenty-five foot fishing boat with a small cabin in the back and a long bow. She was still hundreds of yards away and decided to swim parallel to its course instead of attempting to intersect it. After swimming fifty yards the boat slowed in the water. It then turned towards her.
“Whoooohooooo,” she screamed with delight. The boat would be upon her in minutes and she would be safe. She thought of the lieutenant and could not wait for the boat to arrive so she swam back to him. When she neared him, she saw he had taken off the top vests.
He opened his eye slowly as My Ling called with elation, “Lieutenant Ba, Lieutenant Ba, the boat’s coming, it’s coming. We’re going to be saved. You’re going to see your family.”
He nodded only slightly, acknowledging the enthusiasm of his sea mate. “You need to be brave, girl,” he whispered to her.
She held on to the back of his vest as the front of the boat slowed to within ten feet of them. He told her to get on board first so she could help pull him up. One fisherman held out a fishing pole for her to grab. She gripped the end and was pulled to the boat where two men reached down and hauled her on board. From the deck, she looked back at Lieutenant Duong who had drifted slightly away from the boat.
She could read his disfigured facial expression. While three-quarters of the skin had been badly burned, My Ling saw in his one good eye the look of melancholy and defeat. When the fisherman extended the stick to him, reflected in their faces were the winching looks of horror he had first seen with My Ling. He knew that even if he survived his injuries, he would be horribly disfigured.
“Remember, My Ling, what I told you about my girls, Hue, Huong, and Tyuet. Tell my little flowers I love them, My Ling. Please.” With his good arm he paddled back further away from the boat. He untied the last strap on his vest and pushed it aside. He lingered in the water for a moment looking at My Ling who was crying and calling for him to come. While she was pleading, he let the seas enshroud him. As he submerged, she tried to dive overbo
ard, but the men held her. She yelled at them to get him, but they only watched as the bubbles from his last breath broke the surface.
She yelled at the water, she yelled his name and told him to come back. Not wanting to give into the realization that he was gone, she urged the men to look deeper into the sea. They held her and when they pulled her away from the ships edge, she knew they were giving up on him. She wanted to go back, fighting their restraint while fighting the emerging darkness of Lieutenant Duong’s suicide. They held My Ling until she went limp and collapsed murmuring, “No.”
Two men gently picked her up and walked her into the cabin of the boat and down below deck. One of them spoke to her, but she did not understand him. She was hiccupping her sobs and he spoke to her again. Composing herself, she could tell he was asking her a question.
Finally, he offered one word, “Youn?”
My Ling had never heard it before. He saw her look of bewilderment.
He repeats in her language, “Vietnamese?”
She nodded and he left.
He came back with another man who asked in Vietnamese, “What are you doing out here?”
She slowly related the story of the helicopter filled with children and Lt. Duong who was one of the pilots. She told of being shot at by the North Vietnamese; flying out to the military ship and being denied landing; having to jump out of the helicopter and being thrown off the ship. All the while she is speaking, the man talking with her translated to the other. She finished with the ordeal at sea, the water spout, and the shark. When she was done the two men were left opened-mouthed, dumbfounded.
In broken Vietnamese the man asked, “What is your name?”
She said her name and that she was from An Binh. She said her father owns a rice and rubber plantation in An Binh and he was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army. She finished by asking for water.
The non-Vietnamese speaking man fetched a cup of water, which she gulped down. She extended her hand for more. He came back with a larger container of water. After quenching her thirst and catching her breath, she asked who they were and what was happening in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese speaker told her they were Cambodian fisherman. He continued saying that the government of South Vietnam had fallen and the military had surrendered to the North. When she asked what would happen now, the two men raised their shoulders with hands out indicating they did not know.
“We cannot go to Vietnam. They will take our boat. They are confiscating any vessels that try to dock. We will take you to Cambodia and you will have to get back to Vietnam on your own.”
“But how am I going to get back to my parents?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” replied the translator. “The country is in chaos. It is not safe to go there. In awhile it will be better.”
She wanted to protest but did not have the energy. The translator asked if she was hungry and she nodded. The translator returned with a bowl of rice and fish. While eating and talking, the last two days in the ocean caught up with her. She could hardly keep her eyes open, so the translator brought a blanket for her and led her to a bunk.
“You go to sleep, Chavy, (Cambodian for ‘little angel’). We’ll talk later,” the translator whispered. My Ling had questions to ask, but fatigue vanquished articulation and her jumbled speech was smothered by the onset of sleep.
<>
She awoke to the sound of a man rummaging around in the room. When he found the object of his search, he hurried out, leaving the door open. She got up, wrapped herself in the blanket and climbed to the upper deck.
The fishing boat was riding through the water at a fast pace while the crew scurried about, periodically looking out to the starboard side of the vessel. She watched a man in the wheelhouse talking excitedly into a radio and looking with everyone to the right of the boat. They seemed to be watching a low mist on the water. My Ling was startled by a loud fog horn that she thought marked nearby land. She was wrong.
It was the boarding horn of a forty-foot military vessel emerging rapidly from the fog and headed for the fishing boat. The markings on the side of the military ship were Vietnamese and My Ling was confused as to why the Cambodians appeared nervous. She was looking for the fisherman who spoke Vietnamese when gunfire strafed the water near the fishing boat.
Everyone onboard My Ling’s boat quickly hit the deck or found cover. No one was hit and the boat appeared to escape any damage, but the engines of the boat hummed at a lower level and the fishing boat slowed markedly. The men ran to the wheel house where they all talked at once. She heard the term youn mentioned many times.
Then from the military vessel, a voice on a loud speaker gave orders she did not understand. This created even more of a furor in the wheelhouse where men grabbed at each other and one pointed at My Ling. The voice from the military vessel sounded again and the fishing boat’s motor stopped, causing it to rock severely in the swells created by the larger military ship. A brilliant light from the ship flooded the fishing boat. The men slowly walked out of the wheelhouse with their hands raised above their heads. They stood there staring up at the light, when the sound of a small motor could be heard on the far side of the military vessel. From the bow of the ship came a rubber raft carrying six men. My Ling snuck near to the fisherman who spoke Vietnamese.
“What is happening?” she asked.
He told her to wait. The rubber raft was secured to the fishing boat and its occupants climbed onboard. It was hard to see them because they shone flashlights into everyone’s eyes. They did not speak in Vietnamese. The men of the fishing boat all looked at each other in confusion. My Ling’s translator tried Vietnamese and was met with silence. Then another man from the fishermen spoke in another language and the military men answered back.
My Ling watched as one of the men from the ship approached her. He stopped and stood over her shining a flashlight directly into her eyes. A spasm of fear seized her and caused her to almost vibrate, she was shaking so badly. She was wrapped in a blanket on a ship with a man standing over her, which conjured the image of the ship from which she had been thrown. The resulting flood of thoughts, emotions, and images drained all the energy from her, creating overwhelming anxiety. She wanted to flee, but could not command her legs to cooperate. He pulled the blanket from her, but instead of helping her up as had the sailor from the U.S. vessel, he grabbed her arm and yanked her to a standing position.
He spoke in a language she did not recognize except for one word: youn. One of the fishermen translated.
“How old are you?” the fisherman asked.
Her legs collapsed when she heard the same inquiry as that asked of her two days before by the redheaded American sailor. When she did not answer, the questioner yelled at the other man to ask the question again. My Ling was pulled to her feet and slapped.
She meekly offered, “Eleven.”
The manner in which he looked her up and down made My Ling queasy. He picked her hair up and touched her skin; he lingered too long looking at her chest and the rest of her body. She was discomfited by his attention and startled when he pushed her over to the men of his crew. He shouted at the fisherman who became more visibly frightened. He yelled again and the fisherman shivered. One came forward to plead his case, but was pushed back to the others.
While standing surrounded by the men from the military ship, My Ling exchanged a look with the fisherman who spoke Vietnamese. His face turned soft, his eyes teared and the wrinkles in his forehead disappeared. His clasped hands, in front of his chest, relaxed and fell to his side. He then closed his eyes and held onto the seam of his trousers. She was pulled back by her new captors as their leader shouted. From her right an explosive sound caused her to jump as four men fired guns into the fisherman. Two were knocked backwards over the side of the boat and the others fell where they stood. The killings were so sudden she did not have time to close her eyes. The roar of the guns and the smell of gun smoke made her grab her face.
She waited to be
shot next and when she was not she became disassociated from reality. She could not process what had just happened and she could not hear anything. Men pulled her in a direction, but she could not make her legs works. When she stumbled, a man jerked her up and then slapped her. It shocked her into the now and made her focus on the man’s voice.
The shooters picked up the dead fisherman, and tossed their bodies into the water. The commander pointed at the wheelhouse and one of the men ran to it. He moved a lever next to the large wheel, the engines roared, and then he nodded. The leader shouted and everyone left for the larger ship except the man in the wheelhouse.
Later, My Ling discovered these men were Thai pirates. The Vietnamese military ship had been captured a week earlier and since they had commandeered it, the pirates had been raiding Vietnamese fishing boats in the South China Sea. With the precipitous fall of South Vietnam’s government, the country’s small navy, which had previously patrolled these waters, was no longer present to protect Vietnamese fisherman from marauding bands of pirates. The fishing boats, left to fend for themselves, were boarded, the crews killed, and the crafts confiscated. The boats’ numbers were painted over and taken back to Cambodia where some were sold on the black market, while others were retained for future raids.
While being pushed up the gang plank, My Ling wondered why they killed the fisherman and spared her. She was taken below deck, led through a series of halls, and shoved into a dimly-lit compartment. She stood in the room and wanted to cry, but could not feel pain through the confusion. She stood for minutes staring at the door, unable to move and was startled when someone spoke in Vietnamese.
“Are you Vietnamese?” the voice in the darkness asked.
My Ling turned and squinted into the gloom. Against the far wall, hidden in the shadows, she could make out five human figures. Three were girls younger than My Ling and two were adults. One of the women asked again, “Are you Vietnamese?”
