Where the Wind Leads

by Dr. Vinh Chung

  Then someone shouted, “Look! A ship!”

  On the horizon we saw two ships, a larger one and a smaller one, and they seemed to be traveling together. A few of the men struggled to their feet and summoned all the strength they had left to wave the ships down—and to our indescribable relief the ships saw us and turned in our direction. The larger boat came first; it was a big commercial fishing boat, almost the same size as the boat we were in when we left Vietnam and more than large enough to take all of us aboard. It had two pairs of booms that pointed to starboard and port and trawl lines that were dotted with cork-colored buoys. As the ship drew closer, we could see some of its crew standing along the ship’s railing, watching us. One of the men was enormous; he had a huge potbelly, and he was wearing a colorful sarong. He was shouting something to us that no one could understand—and then he opened his sarong and exposed himself.

  They were Thai pirates.

  Everyone sat down in shock. No one could imagine what pirates could possibly want from a boat as small as ours. We had nothing they could desire: food, water, fuel, money—even our women were emaciated and near death from four days without water or food. The attack was beyond our comprehension, and all we could do was sit and wait for them to tell us what they wanted.

  But they never said a word to us.

  The smaller ship was much lighter and faster than its partner. The two ships were most likely working together using a fishing technique known as “pair trawling,” in which two ships sail side by side, hauling a net between them and catching everything in their path. The larger ship carries the net and stores the catch while the smaller ship serves only to drag the other end of the net.

  The smaller ship pulled out from behind the trawler and began to circle our boat quickly. As it sped around us, we could see that it was towing a large rope behind it and that the other end of the rope was tied to the trawler. By the time the small boat had made a half circle around us, the rope had slid under our bow, and when the rope was directly beneath us, the small ship gunned its engines and turned away from us, pulling the rope taut and lifting the bow of our boat out of the water.

  Everyone began to scream and cry. I was too young to understand what was happening, but when I heard the screams and saw the looks of terror on my family’s faces, I began to cry too. Jenny looked over the side of the boat and could see daylight between our bow and the water. We were tipping over backward; and if the overloaded hull didn’t break in half from the strain, it would dump us all into the sea and slam down on us like a massive wooden mallet.

  There was no time for anyone to try to jump clear; all we could do was hold on and wait to be poured out like rice into a boiling kettle. The children would be the first to die because they would hit the water and sink like rocks. The adults who had no ability to swim would struggle for a few seconds before they slipped beneath the surface, and those who were able to swim a few strokes, like my father, would last the longest—just long enough to watch his entire family perish before he succumbed to exhaustion.

  Then something happened that no one expected: the rope snapped, and our boat came crashing back down to the surface and plunged so deep that it looked as if water might pour over the sides of the bow and sink us. There was utter panic because no one knew exactly what had happened, and we feared that the boat had broken in half. As everyone gradually realized our boat was still intact, we began to stare up at the pirate trawler and wonder what would happen next.

  But nothing happened next, for at precisely the same moment that the rope snapped, the smaller ship’s engine broke down.

  There was no apparent reason for the breakdown. The smaller ship’s engine had been working just fine a few seconds before, and considering our distance from land, it must have been working for the last several hours—but the moment the rope broke, the ship’s engine shut down and refused to start again.

  It was hardly remarkable that the rope broke when it did. I’m sure the rope was never intended to lift the combined weight of a fishing boat and ninety-three passengers; it probably just reached its breaking point and snapped—no explanation necessary. What is remarkable is that the ship’s engine broke down exactly when it did. If the smaller ship’s engine had not broken down, the pirates could have tried again with another rope—or with a chain. But it takes two ships to accomplish what they were trying to do, and the moment the smaller ship’s engine died, they were out of luck. If that engine had waited just fifteen minutes longer before dying, the pirates would have had time to try again, and their second attempt might have proven successful. When the rope broke, we were only given a temporary reprieve; it was the perfect timing of the two events that saved the lives of everyone on our boat.

  There are times when an apparent coincidence is so incredible and so perfectly coordinated that it forces us to wonder whether there must have been purpose behind it. My father considered that event a true miracle, and it wasn’t the only one my family witnessed during our journey. To my father, that event was just one more indication that something or someone seemed to be guiding our family’s fate.

  When the smaller ship broke down, the pirates lost interest in us and turned their attention to repairing their engine. Fortunately for us they were unable to repair it. They used the broken rope to tie the two ships together, and we all sat and watched the trawler tow the smaller ship away while the fat man in the sarong cursed at us at the top of his lungs.

  Twenty-Four

  THE PRAYER

  THE WOMEN DID THEIR BEST TO RELIEVE THE MISERIES of the children while the men stared blankly at the horizon, hoping to see some sign of land—but even if they did spot an island on the horizon, there was no guarantee our boat could reach it. Without power we would probably sail right past it; the prevailing current wasn’t likely to deliver us directly to a tiny spot in the middle of a vast sea. Some of the men fashioned makeshift sails from T-shirts and tarps they found on board; but there was very little wind moving, and the pathetic sails hung as limp as retired flags.

  After yesterday’s encounter with the Thai pirates, no one was particularly eager to encounter another ship because there was no guarantee it would have any better intentions. Yesterday’s pirates were the most cold-blooded kind of all. They didn’t want to rob us or assault our women as did most of the predators who prowled the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea; these pirates just wanted to overturn our boat to watch us drown, and if their rope hadn’t broken at the last possible moment, they would have succeeded.

  In the seclusion and anonymity of the South China Sea, the human heart was free to turn its darkest, and predators knew that even the worst atrocities could be hidden beneath the water. Those Thai pirates were trying to kill us just for the pleasure of doing it, which seems like an incomprehensible thing for one human being to do to another. But refugees were not human beings; when they left their home, no list was made of who they were, when they left, or where they were headed. No nation mourned their departure, and no country awaited their arrival. There was death at sea but no death toll; there was heartbreak but no history. Refugees were unwanted, unclaimed, and unnamed—invisible people. They were just some country’s former problem, and the moment the problem was gone, they were forgotten—out of sight, out of mind.

  If the pirates’ rope hadn’t broken, we would have died; if their boat hadn’t broken down, they would have tried again. That was two minor miracles in a single day. But that was yesterday; it’s hard to give thanks for yesterday’s grace, and no one on our boat was feeling grateful today.

  We were dying of thirst.

  We left Malaysia without food or water, but food was not the critical concern. If necessary we could have endured for more than a month without food, but the human body requires water to survive—a lot of it. Every cell of our bodies contains it, and every day some of that water is lost. In a temperate climate the body loses between two and three quarts of water per day, but our boat was adrift just a few hundred miles north of the
equator. In that kind of tropical climate, the body perspires, but sweat won’t evaporate. The body loses water but can’t cool down, and hyperthermia can occur. The very young and very old are especially susceptible, and my family included both the oldest and some of the youngest aboard; my grandfather was well into his seventies while my twin brothers Anh and Hon were only eighteen months old.

  On the South China Sea in July, the temperature can reach a sweltering ninety degrees with 90 percent humidity, and the sun shone brightly every day we were at sea. There was never a cloud in the sky to block its rays and grant us a few merciful hours of relief, and despite the suffocating humidity, there had not been a single drop of rain. In those extreme conditions at least one member of my family should have died two days ago—yet there we were, still hanging on to life after five long days at sea.

  There was a pregnant woman on board who suffered greatly from the heat. I cannot imagine what the ninety-degree temperatures must have added to the incubator she already carried inside her. There was a young man on board, probably in his early twenties, who seemed to have been afflicted by some form of mental illness. He occupied his time by grabbing at the black flies that swarmed over our boat like a cloud, and whenever he caught one he ate it—a revolting habit that made the children frightened and nauseous.

  Not that nausea was a cause for concern; after five days without food or water, there was nothing left to vomit. That had not been the case for the first day or two, when plastic bags filled with vomit and feces had to be passed from the center of the boat to the gunnels, where they could be emptied into the sea. The stench on board was unbearable at first, but after five days we had grown almost immune to it. During those first days at sea the adults sipped seawater and let the children drink their urine, but after five days there was no urine left to pass and the saltwater only leeched more fluids from our bodies and made the dehydration even worse.

  Mild dehydration begins when the body loses 1 or 2 percent of its water reserves. We reached that point after a single day at sea, when everyone began to complain of thirst and headache and fatigue and the mood on board changed from one of fear to anger and irritability.

  Moderate dehydration occurs when the body’s water loss reaches 5 or 6 percent, and general irritability gives way to lethargy and extreme sleepiness and people begin to complain of dry mouth and a swollen tongue that cleaves to the roof of the mouth.

  Severe dehydration takes over when the body’s water loss reaches 10 to 15 percent. At that point the muscles begin to contract involuntarily, vision dims, and delirium begins.

  After 15 percent, you’re dead.

  By the fifth day we had clearly reached severe dehydration. Anh and Hon became increasingly agitated; they began to bite at my mother while one of them banged his head against the boat rail in frustration. They kept moaning the term mum mum over and over, a Vietnamese child’s way of asking to eat or drink, and my mother had to hold them tightly to keep them from crawling over the side of the boat and into the sea. They couldn’t comprehend why their own mother would not let them slake their thirst when they were surrounded by water as far as the eye could see.

  My elderly grandfather turned to my grandmother and said, “I’m going to the kitchen for a glass of water.”

  “That’s not a kitchen,” she told him. “That’s the ocean, and if you go out there you’ll die.”

  “Let me go to the kitchen,” he kept pleading, and they began to argue. His water-deprived brain had begun to hallucinate; fortunately for him my grandmother was still a bit more clearheaded.

  One man had almost gone blind. His corneas had been scorched by the unrelenting sun, and his eyes were crusted over with a yellowish excretion that oozed and ran down his face. My sister Nikki had a similar experience. Every morning when she awoke, she found her eyes sealed shut by a crust from the salt spray that constantly misted over the boat; she had to scrape the crust away and pry her eyes open before she could see.

  Though almost everyone on our boat left the beach without food or water, one family had the foresight to grab a gallon jug of water as the Malaysian soldiers were hurrying us aboard. That family concealed the jug of water from the rest of us, and when it was eventually discovered, they refused to share. My uncle Lam began to plead with them—not for himself but for the younger members of our family.

  “These are children,” he told them. “They need water or they’ll die. You have to share.”

  So they did. They removed the cap from the jug and carefully filled it, then passed the tiny capful of water across the boat—one capful for each of the children.

  When I think back on this event, I can’t help but marvel at the selfishness of the human heart. You would think that our common suffering would have bonded all ninety-three passengers into one devoted family—a true band of brothers. But hearts are not always softened by difficult circumstances; sometimes they are hardened into stone. Though everyone on our boat faced the same likelihood of death, for some inexplicable reason one of our families was determined to hang on to life just a few hours longer than everyone else.

  Others aboard the boat were more humane. Some of the mothers began to quietly make arrangements for the care of any children who might survive the voyage.

  “If you die, I’ll take care of your children,” they told one another. “If I die, you must promise to take care of mine.”

  Some of the women, having lost all hope of survival, began to discuss the possibility of drowning their children to spare them further suffering. “If death is a foregone conclusion, why let the children suffer? And why put ourselves through the torment of having to watch them die? Wouldn’t the loving thing be to end their misery now?” They began to consider the unthinkable: wrapping the youngest children in strips of cloth to bind their struggling arms to their sides and slipping them into the sea.

  Then something happened to my father—something none of us could see. A thought presented itself in his mind, like the flare of a match in a dark room. It could have been just a hallucination of his own, but he didn’t think so; he described it later as a moment of clarity. Something had spoken to his soul, and he knew what he needed to do. He picked himself up from his cross-legged position and, to everyone’s surprise, knelt down near the center of the boat and began to pray aloud.

  “I know there is a Creator God,” he called out. “I know You created us and don’t want us to die like this. So if You’re listening, please send rain.”

  Then he sat down again.

  It was not the first time my father had ever prayed, but there was something very different about this prayer. There were no memorized words, no ritualistic postures, no petitions for help from enlightened beings or benevolent ancestors. It was an elemental prayer, stripped of all pretext and formality, just a creation speaking to its Creator. Thanh Chung had never prayed like this before, but something within him—or something from without—had told him that the only one who could help him was the Creator God.

  Within minutes of his prayer a dark line appeared on the southwestern horizon. Some thought it might be land because the peaks and valleys looked like a range of mountains, but the peaks began to rise and grow and reach out toward our boat like fingers, darkening the sky as they came.

  Then, without lightning or thunder, the heavens opened and it began to rain.

  It was a torrential downpour. Everyone’s first instinctive response was to lean back and open their mouths to the sky to feel the first cool drops of water on their swollen tongues. But drops of water were not enough to satisfy, and everyone began to scramble to find something, anything, that could capture and store this gift from above. My father and my brother Bruce grabbed a dirty canvas tarp and spread it out, hoping to catch the rain and direct it into something that could hold it, but the soft canvas absorbed more water than it channeled—so each of the children leaned back like baby birds while my father twisted and squeezed the water from the tarp into our waiting mouths. The tarp was so filthy
that the water that came out of it was almost black, but none of us cared. It was water, and after five days that was all that mattered.

  There wasn’t an empty bucket or container anywhere on board, so the best we could do was to drink all we could while the rain continued. We could drink, but we couldn’t store; we had water for today, but as soon as the rain stopped, there would be no more. But no one was thinking about tomorrow because we were too busy enjoying this manna that fell from the sky today.

  Until the boat began to sink.

  The rain came down so hard our boat began to fill with water, and when that happened, everyone stopped drinking and began to bail furiously. “Too much of a good thing” has never been a better description. If the rain hadn’t started, we would have died, but if the rain wouldn’t stop, we were going to die. Sometimes you just can’t get a break.

  To make matters worse, the sudden storm brought violent seas. The swells began to rise until they looked like dark hills that rose and fell around our boat. Then we were facing two threats: water from above and water from below. Our boat was shallow; when Jenny dangled her arm over the side of the boat, her hand could touch the water. All it would take was one good wave to spill over the side of our boat, and we would all be headed for the bottom. Everyone began to panic.

  When my father saw what was happening, he knelt down again.

  “Creator God, I know that You heard me because You sent rain,” he prayed aloud. “If You hear me again, please make it stop.”

  Within minutes the sky lightened, the storm moved on, and the seas became calm again.