The Cascading, Book II: Fellow Girl

by CW Ullman

  “Yes…yes, I am,” My Ling replied.

  “Did they kidnap you off a boat?” the woman asked.

  “Yes…They,” she stammered, “shot…everyone else on board.”.

  One of the younger girls started crying, prompting the questioner to hug the child, and soothe her tears.

  “We were all taken off fishing boats after they shot the men and stole the boats. My daughters and I have been down here the longest.” She pointed to the other woman and said, “Ha and her daughter were captured a day ago.

  My Ling asked, “What are they going to do with us?”

  The woman pointed to a corner of the compartment and motioned My Ling to go there. The woman followed and whispered, “I heard them talk outside the door and they want to sell us as prostitutes.”

  “All of us?” My Ling loudly replied.

  “Keep your voice down. I’m not sure,” the woman whispered. “Don’t say anything in front of the girls or you’ll scare them.”

  They all sat in the darkness losing track of time. The little ones fell asleep leaning against one another. My Ling wondered what prostitutes did. At eleven years old, she had never been exposed or even heard the term discussed, except once. She overheard a conversation between her parents about a district in the nearby city where American soldiers visited prostitutes. Later, when she asked her father why the Americans visited prostitutes, he became visibly embarrassed and told her they were looking for women. When she asked why, her father stammered that they wanted to dance. My Ling thought that if she had to dance with a bunch of old, smelly men it would be bad, but not that bad. She also wondered why they would want to dance with children, because whenever her parents hosted parties at the estate, adults always danced with other adults.

  Hours after her capture, the door opened and a man came in with a pot of soup with fish and some noodles, the broth sloshing over the sides when he put it down. He handed them spoons and left abruptly. My Ling helped the mothers feed the children who gulped down the malodorous fish stock. She waited until the others had eaten and then forced down a couple of spoonfuls.

  Some time passed, and then a group of men came into the hold and grabbed the two adult women and My Ling. The women struggled against the men which brought the children to shrieking cries. Ha broke loose to comfort her child, but one of the men grabbed her by the hair and yanked her out the door. The other woman shouted to the children not to cry, “We’ll be back soon. We’ll be back.”

  They pulled the two women and My Ling into another compartment. In the compartment were four other men and two filthy mattresses. Ha was ordered by the Vietnamese-speaking man to undress. When she hesitated, two men set upon her, tearing open her blouse and pulling off her pants. The other woman whispered to My Ling, “Have you been with a man.”

  My Ling had no idea what she meant. The leader of the vessel walked into the room and talked to one of the men who came up to My Ling, grabbed her crotch and asked, “Have you had one of these in there?” He pulled his pants down and exposed himself to her.

  She was horrified and did not know what to say or do. She had never seen a naked man and had only seen the farm animals doing what this man was suggesting. My Ling had led a very sheltered life and did not know anything about sex. She shook her head in disgust.

  The leader spoke and the translator said, “Gai trinh (virgin woman).”

  My Ling said, referring to herself, “Con gai (girl).”

  She slapped the man’s hand away from her crotch and then slapped him in the face while he was holding his penis. The other men in the room laughed.

  In broken Vietnamese, the Thai leader said to My Ling, “Virgin worth more money.”

  He gave an order to the others and pointed at the two women. The men forced the women on the mattresses and one at a time lay on top of them, covering their crying mouths with their hands while raping them. Because My Ling was a virgin and would bring more money, she was forced onto her knees to take the leader in her mouth. When she gagged, he slapped her and forced himself on her again until he was finished. When he was done, he told the others not to penetrate her.

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  The women and My Ling were forced to have sex every night. The older woman comforted My Ling before and after each time. She was Hindu and said she prayed to Shiva, the Goddess of Destruction, to punish the men. She told My Ling her prayers were always answered and the men would get their retribution. My Ling did not care if they were punished so much as she wanted the violations to stop. But they did not stop and every night the men would open the door, the women would huddle together and resist, the men would slap and kick them, the children would scream, and the women would be dragged off. The children were left alone in the darkness crying. This continued until the oldest woman, Binh (Peace), had a rather startling suggestion. She took My Ling and Ha to the other side of the compartment and whispered to them.

  “This isn’t going to stop. I know that my fear isn’t changing anything, only scaring my daughters. Before they open the door, I am going to stand by it and wait.”

  My Ling asked, “Wait?”

  “Yes, I am going to wait like I am expecting them and then leave with them without fighting,” Binh said. “I’m not going to resist or scream or cry. It does no good and I think it makes them more aggressive. I don’t want my daughter to keep seeing me in fear and getting beaten. I have tried to come up with a plan to stop or kill the men and I can’t think of anything. But, I do believe that if I stop resisting, they will go easier on me. You two can join me or do what you want.”

  My Ling looked at Ha who just stared at Binh in disbelief. My Ling asked her what she was going to do. She did not speak, but looked down at the ground and cried.

  “Ha, stop crying, you are scaring the girls,” Binh ordered. Ha hiccupped to silence and followed Binh back to the girls.

  The women sat up when they heard footsteps in the hall. Binh hurriedly told her daughters she would be right back. She got up and stood by the door. She turned back to look at her girls with a forced smile and watched as My Ling and Ha slowly walked to her. The young girls began to cry and Binh sternly said, “Remember what we agreed to? No tears.” The girls muffled their sobs.

  The man who opened the door was surprised to find the women standing. Instead of the women resisting, they quickly stepped out into the hall and walked ahead of the male escorts. When Binh got into the room she undressed and lay on the mattress. She looked away and then a man was on top of her; then another, and another. It was the last man, the shortest one, who stood over her just looking. He squatted down next to her and whispered in his native language. She did not understand, so she did not reply. He slapped her repetitively until she fought back and then he held her hands down and raped her. He did not want only to have sex with her he wanted to hurt her.

  Even with the man slapping Bin and the vomit-inducing disgust of it all, the women felt it was easier on them not to resist. My Ling wondered how the men could keep this up knowing that the women did not want it. Why were these men so horrible? My Ling was learning that some people enjoyed being evil, just like the redheaded man on the big ship. She was discovering the cruelty of a world she had been insulated from up until just days ago. For My Ling, life had always been kind and considerate and filled with people who cared about her. She wanted her father to protect her and had a fleeting pang of missing him. She looked at Binh who was taking control over a heinous situation and Ha who was crying and sniveling. Unlike Binh, who was comforting her daughters, Ha was being comforted by her eight year old daughter. Binh was adapting, but Ha was crumbling. My Ling was going to be like Binh. She knew her survival depended on her ability to adapt. The feeling of being uninformed about life drove her to discover how to survive this alternate reality. She deduced that all that had been stressed as important by her parents and teachers did not apply now. She would have to listen and watch so she could learn. She wanted to stay alive and while she did not presently have the knowledge o
f what to do, she knew she could learn.

  Every night, the footsteps echoed in the hall and the women would go to the door, be lead out of the room, and be compliant. Binh would be slapped repeatedly and then raped by the Short One. This happened for two more weeks, until one night when the leader was not in the room.

  The Short One finished with Binh and turned his attention to My Ling. His malevolent stare was made worse by the few brown-stained teeth left in his mouth and his constantly draining nose. He grabbed My Ling and slapped her down to the mattress. He then stood above her and urinated on her. When he was done, he ripped her pants off and laid on top of her trying to jam his flaccid probe into her. The other men, yelling in Thai, cautioned him to heed the leader’s previous orders, but their shouts did not slow down the Short One. He had wanted My Ling from the first time he saw her and now he would not be denied.

  In the midst of the rape, while the Short One was forcing his fist into My Ling’s mouth, the leader walked into the room, grabbed him by the hair, on the back of his head and flung him into a far wall.

  He yelled at the Vietnamese translator, who yelled at My Ling, “Did he get inside you?”

  “No,” she answered.

  The leader yelled at the translator, who asked My Ling, “Are you sure?’

  “Yes, he did not get inside me?” she shouted back while crying. She pointed at the Short One’s crotch whose limpness illustrated her point.

  The leader was uncontrollably enraged. He slapped her and flew around the room slapping and punching the men. He raged at them about his order not to penetrate My Ling and then ordered them to grab the Short One. They dragged him out of the room along with the two women to the open deck.

  The leader ordered a keel hale, a punishment that went back years to the beginning of ships plying the ocean. The sailor would be thrown off the ship’s bow and dragged underwater the length of the ship’s keel. He would be rent apart by the hull and the sharp barnacles that encrusted the ship’s bottom.

  The Short One was held down as crewmen tied separate ropes around each leg, introducing yards of slack. He cried and fought to get free while the ropes were wrapped tighter around his lower legs and ankles. He was pulled to a standing position and dragged to the front of the ship where two men positioned him over the bow. The leader, standing next to him, looked back to midship to see men holding the other ends of both ropes. The Short One begged until the leader slapped him hard to shut him up. The leader faced the crew and made an announcement My Ling did not understand. Then, as if he were throwing a fish back in the water, the leader pushed the Short One overboard. The men holding the ropes pulled them taught and when the ropes went slack pulled them aboard. All that remained of the Short One were his ankles and feet.

  The relief the women felt at the Short One’s demise was brief. The leader barked another order and what was about to happen would force My Ling to vacate all she thought she knew about the world. The two women were pushed to the ship’s railing and the leader walked up and shot them both in the back of the head. The men holding them let their bodies fall over board.

  Suddenly My Ling absorbed what had just happened and all of the ramifications beyond it. There was now no one left to protect the girls but My Ling. She intuitively knew she would not die next, and understood that she and the children were all that was of value to the leader. The mothers would never have allowed their daughters to be sold into bondage, so they were killed. She would not permit herself to grieve their deaths, and at the same time, a clear vision of what was now her life possessed My Ling. Complaining, crying, or asking for mercy would do no good. Instead of being fearful, she became focused. This coldest of realizations permanently altered her view of life and she knew she had to become an asset to the leader to ensure all their futures. Her fundamental nature had shifted so dramatically, it would alter the tone of her voice. The leader turned to look at her and was surprised to see her expression held a sliver of a grin. She inherently felt that showing fear or shock would only inflame him. Eventually, she would need to convince him that because she was the only one left to allay the fears of the children, she and the girls needed to be sold as a package. My Ling changed her nature from human to cat. She would purr if needed, arch her body against another when needed, and if the situation required, pounce. Her thoughts were filled with what was essential to survive.

  Later that night, after telling the girls below that their mothers were in a different compartment, she knocked on the door to be let out. She asked to be taken to the leader’s cabin. He was surprised that she requested to see him. She had the translator in tow.

  She said to the leader, “You want to put us with someone? Correct?”

  He nodded.

  “I can make the girls go quietly if you do not tell them their mothers are dead.”

  He asked why.

  “Because, I will eventually tell them their mothers were taken in another boat to the port and that they will meet us later. If they find out their mothers are dead, they will cry and resist. Also, your men should not say anything about the other women,” she suggested. “If the girls cooperate with me, won’t it make for an easier sale; more money?”

  He was fascinated by this eleven-year-old girl’s mind and stroked his beard. He looked at her for a long beat.

  Before he could speak, she continued, “I will encourage the girls to be on their best behavior so they will be reunited more quickly with their mothers.”

  “Why are they going to listen to you; believe you?” he asked.

  “I can be very convincing,” she said with a sly smile.

  He retorted, “Convince me.”

  She fought back revulsion when he dropped his pants. When she took him, she summoned all her will not to gag.

  As My Ling left his cabin, she reminded herself that she was the only person the girls had left. She vowed to not be separated from the girls and eventually return them to their relatives in Vietnam.

  Back in the compartment with the girls, My Ling explained they would be put with another family and that their mothers would rejoin them in a few days. When Ha’s daughter asked why they were separated from their mothers, My Ling replied it was for safety reasons. Before the girls could ask what that meant, she told them all to look at her and to listen carefully.

  “You need to do exactly what I say. You must not cry and you must not be afraid or show fear even if you are. Do you understand?” My Ling asked.

  They all nodded.

  “Now, from this minute forward, no crying. If you want your mothers to be safe you cannot carry on or complain. Do not ask me or the men on this ship any questions. You need to be strong for your mothers,” she commanded. Again, they all nodded.

  Ha’s daughter, Huyen, was distraught, not because she needed her mother to console her, but because she believed her mother needed to be consoled. When both mothers were alive, Binh talked and sang with her girls to keep them distracted. She whispered encouragement and platitudes to her daughters and continually told them things would get better. But Ha, when not sleeping, was whimpering or moaning with her head in Huyen’s lap. Eight-year-old Huyen stroked her mother’s hair and rubbed her shoulders. Ha called for her husband who had been killed and periodically complained of the hopelessness of the situation. When the guards came for sex with the women, it was Huyen who fought for her mother as Ha cowed in the corner. As they took Ha away, Huyen called out, “I’ll be here, Mother, I’ll be here.”

  My Ling hugged the girls, told them to sleep, that tomorrow they would be on land and everything would work out. They lay next to each other, snuggled against My Ling as all fell asleep, except Huyen. My Ling told her to close her eyes and sleep.

  Huyen asserted, “My mother needs me. I have to be with her.”

  My Ling replied, “She’s with Binh. Binh will help her.”

  The entire time they had been held in the compartment, My Ling had never seen Huyen smile. She bore an expression of worry that made her appea
r older than her eight years. She only slept if Ha had fallen asleep first. When awake, Huyen constantly asked her mother if she was all right, to which Ha would moan weakly. My Ling shuddered at the thought of the children’s reactions when they found out their mothers were not alive, especially Huyen.

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  The leader did not want to go into Cambodia’s largest port, Sihanoukville. If a Vietnamese ship was to set anchor there, it would most likely be boarded, the crew arrested, and the ship seized as had happened to the U.S.S. Mayagüez on May 12, 1975. Complicating matters, a small war had broken out between Cambodia and South Vietnam after five hundred civilian Vietnamese were killed by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge in Tho Chu. So to avoid detection, the leader decided to hide amongst the islands at the mouth of Veal Rinh Bay.

  Since the beginning of the U.S. military withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1975, almost all the waters of the South China Sea were easy pickings for pirates from Thailand. During the height of the war, the U.S. concentrated much of its fleet within miles of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the line that separated North from South Vietnam. That left the Vietnamese navy operating a sizeable fleet in the southern waters off the Cambodian and South Vietnam border to deter pirate activity. But in May 1975 Captain Kiem Do secretly formulated a plan to commandeered thirty-five South Vietnamese naval vessels and evacuate 30,000 sailors and their families to Subic Bay in the Philippines, where the U.S. Naval Seventh Fleet was headed. The loss of Vietnamese naval coverage in the southern waters made fishing in these seas an unsafe venture

  Many of the pirates had previously served in the Thai navy. After some sailors were drummed out of the service for insubordination or disciplinary problems, they returned to what they had done before joining the navy, fishing. When they found out it was more lucrative to steal another fishing boat’s haul, and not much harder to steal their boats, Thai piracy increased.

  On any ship, whether commercial, naval, or a pirate vessel, the captain is the undisputed authority. He determines when and how hard the crew works; where they sail, and how long they will be at sea. He is the unchallenged arbiter of discipline and the final authority on all divisions of bounty. So it was on the ship where My Ling and the girls were held. While some of the sailors did not like the killing of men on captured fishing boats, none of them objected to selling women to sex traffickers, even if the “women” were only four and five-year-old girls.