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One Time As An Intelligence Officer
Nguyen Tan Hung
Orchard Publisher, 1992
Table Of Contents
00. Forward by Dr. C. Sylvester
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00. FORWARD
DR. SYLVESTER CLIFFORD
The sky was above, the water was below, and the sailor was in the middle! This Vietnamese saying, quoted by the author, expresses succinctly the major theme, intended or not, of this, the third in a series of books by Hung Tan Nguyen about experiences of himself and other Vietnamese during and after the long conflict known in the United States as "The War in Vietnam."
Badly, Hung depicts the actions of himself, fellow officers, Thai pirates, black marketeers, grafters, and others as they exist in a world demanding high standards of personal loyalty and patriotism, while simultaneously expecting, countenancing, and rewarding treachery, double-dealing, profiteering, and survival at all costs. With disarming directness the author shows us tenderness and selfishness, crudity and graciousness, heroism and cowardice. There is little adornment, little pretense of philosophical depth or grand principles. These people are trapped, almost powerless in the struggles that enmesh their world.
Ex-servicemen may wince at the unvarnished presentation of greed, but will recognize also the ability of humanity to re-assert its better aspects. Unsettling as the truth may be, it does not condemn friend or foe. Indeed, as Hung says, ". . . it was difficult to conclude who was bad or who was good during the war time."
Touching scenes of family interlace with documentation of events preceding and following the fall of Saigon. Lyrical descriptions of the sea attest to sensibilities that seem overwhelmed in everyday dealings. Despite its surface blandness and simplicity this is a complex book; at least, it evokes complex thoughts and feelings. Though there is action, it is not an adventure story. Though there is not the dependence of lewdness Americans are accustomed to, there is a reality and rawness that cannot be ignored. The readers, unless they have been close to the circumstances, or to the Vietnamese refugees, who, like Hung and his family, have made their way in the United States, will not identify with the main character, but neither will they be able to put aside this military and moral quagmire.
ONE TIME AS AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER is recommended reading for all students of Vietnam War, and all students of the human condition.
01. ONE TIME AS AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Finally, there was one day that I had to go to Phu-Quoc island to report for work. My new duty there was Chief of the Intelligence Department, Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters.
There was nothing too important about that job. That was true especially for those who had worked in the intelligence field because that position was an ordinary position for a staff officer, no more and no less. For me, there was no secret fund to spend nor even a secret agent to command. Nothing was so exciting about it! But, why did everyone always put their eyes on that job? Why did everyone consider that the job was one for the boss's pets? I thought I might have some advantages when I was in that remote location, a far away island. I would be king of my intelligence jungle. Anyway, I was so surprised to have that job. I was lucky, I guessed.
Actually, I chose to move to Phu-Quoc Island because my wife did not want to go back to the central part of the country to live. Her reason was simply that our family's life would be much easier in the South. My reason was simply that I listened to her. Therefore, I refused to take the the position that my boss had already planned for me: commanding officer of the intelligence net in the Second Coastal Zone. To command the net meant to command your regular income, which was not too low, from the secret fund. All of my co-workers told me that I was an idiot and crazy for not taking that position. Some of them thought that I had a mental disorder.
"Why do you want to take responsibility for an island? Do you plan to have a long vacation over there?"
Captain Hai Do Nguyen, the chief of Naval Intelligence Department, had asked me some question like that. His thought was completely wrong about my case because there was no vacation for me. I was busy and always had something to think about in my mind. He did not know anything about Phu-Quoc! I didn't blame him though because he had been with the Intelligence Department for only a short period of time. If he had known Phu-Quoc very well, he might not have let me go anyway. Truly, it was my fate, I believed.
Recently, I had heard a rumor that there was a big chaos in Phu-Quoc. Captain "Cowboy" Luat Gia Pham, the commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, had been criticized by Mr. Luong Van Doan, the Rach Gia provincial senator, about corruption on this island. "Cowboy Luat" had been sent back to Saigon to wait for trial by the Martial Court. He tried to get a retirement deal, the best solution for corruption. His follower, Lieutenant Xe Van Tran, Chief of the Intelligence Department at the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, prepared to sell his villa and cars to pay a special fee for saving himself a long term vacation in prison.
At that time, I did not know what the last "emperor" on this island and his supporters had done. I did not need to know either! The only thing I paid attention to was that Phu-Quoc Island still had a cosmic impact on its people. Everyone who came there to live would be rich, sooner or later. It was easy if one had the magic power of changing water to glue and sea water to fish sauce . The name of the island spoke for itself: Phu-Quoc meant rich state (in Vietnamese). However, when people left the island, they had to leave their fortunes there. Then, they went back to their original condition, empty handed, sooner or later. Their "treasure which came from nowhere" seemed to be just in a transferring process: from the heavens to the earth or from the river to the sea.
The new empire had been established right away for the very simple reason that the island could not have a day without its "emperor", the island chief. On paper, the island chief had his long title: Commanding Officer, Fourth Coastal Zone (for the naval forces) and Phu-Quoc Special District (for the army forces). The area of a special district usually was bigger than that of an ordinary district and smaller than that of a province. The district chief of Duong Dong District, Second Major Thao, had to report to the island chief. I was surprised a little bit to see that an administration force, a government body, had been put under the control of a naval officer.
The new "emperor" of the island was Captain Ba Huu Khuong who replaced Captain "Cowboy Luat." The emperor's strategic advisor (the emperor's brain in the Vietnamese way of saying) was myself, replacing Lieutenant Xe as the chief of the Intelligence Department. Our first mission was to form a strong and clean empire. We intended to make history, if the conditions would allow us.
Before landing, the crew of my small airplane, a Cessna, had made a big circle on the An-Thoi air strip which was located at the south tip of Phu-Quoc Island. I had the impression in my mind that I was a frontier soldier who fought to protect his homeland right at the country's border or even on foreign territories. I was on Cambodia if the Vinh-Te Canal had been extended out into the sea as the border line between the two countries. Looking down from high altitude, Phu-Quoc Island was truly big. It was much bigger than Re Island (Poulo Gambir), Thu Island (Poulo Spratley), or even Con-Son Island (Poulo Condor). I sometimes felt that I had been flying in the sky of the Central of Vietnam because Khu-Tuong Mountain on the northern part of the island looked like one of the highest peaks in the Truong-Son range.
The metal runway made the airplane shake like a boat on rough seas. A few minutes after landing, the airplane stopped at its hangar, a small house near the control tower. Son, the officer who came to greet me at the air strip was a Lieutenant JG. I was surprised at his size, big like an American. With his short sleeved shirt, his muscles proved that he surely was a body builder. I felt embarrassed about my small body size. However, I had told myself in my mind that I needed an assistant officer who had brains instead of muscles. I was in the intelligence jungle, the strategic field! I only needed Khong-Minh (the most famous Chinese strategic master), and I did not need Truong-Phi (the most famous Chinese General of the Khong-Minh time). I also did not need a bodyguard! (I heard another rumor that Captain "Cowboy Luat" was scared of snipers, so he put sand bags all around his Jeep to protect himself). Son saluted me and introduced himself:
"I am Son, Lieutenant. Did you come out here alone?"
My eyes at his name tag on his shirt, I warmly put my hand out for him to shake. I said:
"Yes. How long have you been here?"
"It's been about two years, Lieutenant."
"Hmmm, your term will soon come to an end!"
The pilot, a First Lieutenant, joined the group of army officers who came out to great their major, who had flown the same flight. The major seemed to be commanding officer of a battalion in the Special District Forces. Son took my marine bag and put it on the Jeep easily, like a boy throwing saucers. I sat on the passenger seat as Son drove out of the air terminal. The boundary of the air terminal was only a layer of bare wire. We were on red clay road potted with many deep holes. A crooked line of red dirt was created behind our Jeep as Son accelerated. Fresh wind from the near-by beach blew in my face and hair. That helped my body temperature cool down in the summer afternoon. I heard the friendly sound of waves beating the shore line. I asked:
"How is your life here, Son? It's easy or rough?"
Taking advantage of this good opportunity, Son gave his answer from his heart:
"It's not bad, Lieutenant. The only drawback is being too far from home. You are lucky to have an airplane to go back and forth, but I have to go home by boat. It takes a whole night from here to Rach-Gia Harbor. From Rach-Gia to Saigon, it takes at least one more day, if there are no battles along the road."
"So, how often do you have vacation?"
"It's about four or five months, sometimes over half a year."
I said to him, at the same time talking to myself:
"It's that long! I have to see what life is going to be like on this island before I bring my family out. With wife and children, every move is difficult do you know?"
Suddenly, I felt that I might have made a mistake this time. Why had I chosen to go to this island. For a single person, there was not a big problem being several months away from home, but I could not leave my wife and children at the house of my parents-in-law that long. Who would give her money to buy food for the children? Did I have to send a money order each month? Was there a full service post office on this island? Did the military mailman have to go back and forth to the mainland by boat? I surely did not know so many things! I pulled out my Blue Bastos cigarette and stuck it between my lips. I lit up and inhaled long and deep. The smell of the cheap cigarette was like burning cloth. I was not addicted to the taste of the Blue Bastos brand of cigarettes, but I had to smoke it because I did not have enough money to buy Capstan, Ruby Queen, or even the military type of Ruby Queen that had the Vietnamese flag on both sides of the pack. I was a poor soldier; I knew it.
We came to a three way intersection with one way going to the North and one way going straight to the An-Thoi Shipyard. The main gate of this large naval base could be recognized from far away by a sign board, huge and high like a billboard with big painted characters. The check point was a bunker with new sand bags that had been just stacked up and around. Son commented:
"That road leads to the downtown of the village, Lieutenant. There is only one commercial road, here. From this point, you can go up to Mr. Thom's restaurant. He is a policeman. Then, you turn left to go to the market. You turn left again to go to the ferry station and to a fishing hamlet where people make dried fish and fish sauce. Do you want to go around once, Lieutenant?"
I was tired, I said:
"Save it for the time. I need to know where I will stay and eat, first."
Son went straight ahead. The guard in seaman uniform opened the gate and saluted us. I replied. The road here had been paved and topped with asphalt. After a couple of turns, we came to the BOQ (the Bachelor Officer Quarters), a one level, apartment type house with cement slab foundation and cement block walls painted a light green color. The BOQ was built on a small sand beach and faced out to sea. The sound of waves beating the shore line now was heard much louder. Near by, on the front of the building used as the headquarters, there was a long pier that stuck far out in the water. I followed Son to a his apartment in the middle of the BOQ building. Stepping inside, I saw a row of four small beds. An exercise bench was set near the back wall. It was true that on this remote island, except for body building, single guys seemed to have nothing to do after hours of work. I felt sorry for them!
"Temporarily, you may stay here with us, Lieutenant."
That was it for the greeting of a Coastal Zone department chief. There was no ceremony, no gun fire, no military band, not even a hand shaking. Son went back to work, and I was lonesome in this strange apartment. There was no separate room, no curtain, and even no table and chair. Was this place used only for sleeping? Was there no cooking, no music, no parties? I felt terribly sad for them, and now for me too. I took a long breath. There was nothing so exciting about it. I then took out my stuff from the marine bag and put it on the empty bed. It was my bed, I guessed, because there was no mosquito net on it. I believed that I surely had made a big mistake by this move. All the things I had thought about Phu-Quoc were wrong. I remembered the days when I worked at the Riverine Forces Headquarters. The BOQ barrack over there was still in good condition with air conditioner and a refrigerator for each room, and everyone could have his own privacy. Would I have to live with my assistant officer? That made me laugh!
I had more surprises when to take a shower. I stepped into the utility room behind the main room where we slept. There was no shower head nor hot and cold water control knobs, but a little water reservoir formed by a dam of cement blocks in the angle of two walls. A military helmet sat silently on one side; I understood what it could be used for. I carried a helmet of cold water and poured it on my head. It was lucky that there was some water left in the water reservoir! Who would refill it? I did not want to think anymore. Life on the island was not convenient like I thought it would be. I put on my pajamas and stretched out on bed for a nap.
That evening, Son invited me to eat out. We walked to Bo-Vang (Golden Cow) Restaurant not too far from the boundary of our naval facilities. This let me discover another drawback-the Jeep for the Intelligence Department existed only on paper. Son had borrowed a Jeep from someone to pick me up at the airport. At least, he had paid some respect to me and had good communication skill.
After a bon appetite with a few delicacies of seafood and wine, we had beef and celery stir fried with the restaurant's special sauce and cognac as the main meal. The smell was good and the meat was tender. There were a lot of green and beautiful prairies on this island, I supposed. House pets such as chickens, dogs, pigs, goats, and cows could live naturally around the barns and farmland. Everything was in peace because the nonsense war on the mainland could not reach this remote island. Wow! This would be my wonderland. . . But, once again, my imagination was in the wrong direction! In the real world, Son told me that poultry, cattle, and live stock products were imported from the mainland! I wondered!
When dinner came to an end, I tested Son (in the Vietnamese way of doing things, the one who invited friends to his party should pay all the expenses):
"Let me have the bill."
Son cut me off:
"No, let me take care of it, Lieutenant. From now on, you don't have to worry about these little things anymore. It is your deputy's responsibility."
Oh, what did he say? Was he just kidding around with me? I did not want to be a cheap person, a cheap chief of the Nọ 2 department. He had not intended to put me down, I guessed. Well, I just let him take care of it this time, and I would handle it the next. But, I felt uncomfortable at all that I had bought, including a pack of Capstan cigarettes, and Son, a body builder, did not smoke. It seemed too late to do anything now. Son had already gone to the cashier.
Next morning, with the nice and clean uniform, I came to the office of the new island chief, Captain Ba, to report to work. I had never met him once in my life. Before I could see Mr. Ba, I met his secretarial officer: Lieutenant Ngoc Nguyen. I was surprised because Ngoc had been my naval classmate. I yelled at him:
"Oh shit, why didn't you greet me when you heard that I was coming! Why? I don't need a friend like you who does not care for friends. Did you forget what you learned about naval communication and friendship in the Naval Academy?"
Ngoc laughed:
"Heck, I don't have a Jeep, so how could I have come to pick you up at the airport. Shit, your Intelligence Department is number one here, do you know? Can't your men handle that simple job for their boss? Hey, I have seen that a couple of apartments have been available in the officer housing quarter. You better send your application right away for one before somebody takes it. It is very inconvenient if you have to rent a house in the civilian village!"
"How's about the house of the ex-chief of the Intelligence Department? They have to save it for me, don't you think?"
"Well, I don't think so. Remember that Mr. Xe was kicked out several months ago. Nobody has time to take care of the housing problem for you, you know that."
I was joking:
"They have to pay respect to me as Chief of Intelligence, don't you know?"
Ngoc laughed harder:
"All right! They will pay respect to you by letting you have a house up on the mountain, so you can be friends with the VC."
"Forget about it. Do we have any more of our classmates around here?"
"No. But, some of them, who have been assigned to the commanding officer of the radar station, will come to this area soon. Mr. Toan Van Tran will be the chief of Nam-Du Island. Mr. Minh That Ton will be the chief of. . . what island? Is it Banana or Coconut Island? Oh! that is Doc Island in the Hai-Tac (pirate) Archipelago."
My reporting to the new "emperor," Captain Ba, was nothing special, only business as usual. I then came to my office for my first day at work. The Intelligence Department building was located behind the NOC (Naval Operation Center). It was a pre-constructed building with a metal roof shaped like a greenhouse. There were several windows on each side for fresh air. Beside it, a small plywood shed surrounded by barbed wire was used as the jail house.
I checked my department's personnel. Mr. Son, Lieutenant JG, was the only officer I had. Next to him was Mr. Thai, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class, who seemed to be shy like a girl. Mr. Nghia, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class, was next in line. He, the younger brother of my naval father in the Vietnamese Naval Academy, seemed to be a guy who had guts. Next, the "hero" (survivor) of the naval battle of Hoang Sa (a coral island about 400 nautical miles east of the coast of Da-Nang), was Mr. Nhieu, Petty Officer 1st Class. After abandoning ship, Nhieu had had one week on a submerged life float in the rough sea before a rescue ship had rescued him. I did not think he would fear anything else now. Next to last was Petty Officer Mr. Danh-Un, a Cambodian. I would depend on him a lot because he was my only interpreter for Thai and Cambodian. In this area, violators of Vietnamese waters were usually his. . . friends, who could easily understand what he said in foreign languages. Mr. Khuong, a seaman who had just come out of Cam-Ranh Bay Training Center, was the lowest ranking person in my crew. He had been here for only a few months.
I also checked the maps that had all kinds of intelligence notations. On the enemy's side, there was only one local battalion which was spread out over the whole island in small guerilla units. Their secret headquarters was established in Khu-Tuong Mountain, an area that had many farms for black pepper cultivating. On the friendly side, there were local and regular forces of the Duong-Dong District and almost a regiment of army forces that had often operated in the southern half of Phu-Quoc Island. The naval forces of the Fourth Coastal Zone included the 41st Coastal Division located at Poulo Obi (near the southern tip of Vietnam), the 42nd Coastal Division located west of An-Thoi Naval Base, the 43rd Coastal Division at Hon-Tre (Bamboo) Island, and the 44th Coastal Division near the town of Ha-Tien, a district of Rach-Gia Province. The Fourth Coastal Fleet was another main force that had about 20 PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) speed boats. Our combined forces seemed well equipped and much, much bigger than the enemy forces. However, I did not understand why we could never get them all. On the contrary, our fortresses were often attacked or shelled, and many men were killed or wounded. It surely was strange to me.
I called Son in and asked:
"Who is the analyzer of intelligence information? Who writes the briefing paper and who handles the daily briefing session for the commanding officer?"
"I take care of them all, Lieutenant. But, there is no daily briefing session for the commanding officer here. If I receive some important intelligence information, I usually bring my small map and discuss it directly with the executive officer. . ."
I seemed not to hear very well, and asked again:
"Why do you discuss it not with the commanding officer but with the executive officer?"
"It has become my habit because I am around Commander Khoi so much. Our new commanding officer is very busy these days, and he doesn't have time to hear what we are guessing about the enemy strategy and situation."
"Hmmm, it is strange . . . Who takes care of these secret memo cabinets?"
"It's also me, Lieutenant."
I could not understand how the people worked around here. The rules and procedures seemed to be contrary to what I had learned in Military Intelligence School or even what I had experienced on the field. Uncomfortably, I said:
"Everything is taken care of by one person, so the rest of the department is left for the dogs to eat, isn't it?"
". . ."
Silently, Son went back to his office. I thought that I might call all my crew in, one by one, and "interrogate" them to determine what was good and bad about their professional skills. I had to know them well before giving out assignments. If there was no order in ink and paper, it would be difficult to say who was guilty and who was hero. Did I need to make a true revolution? Or "if something works, don't fix it"? I had to choose one way or another. But, it was too early for me to do that, I believed. I took a deep breath and stood up from my chair. I told Son:
"I am going to the headquarters of the base maintenance unit. If there is something important, you just let someone find me. Well, Son, you continue to do what ever you have done. OK!"
"Yes, Sir. You don't have to worry about anything. I warrant that nothing can go wrong!"
If there was no briefing session, what was there for the Intelligence Department to do? If there was no meeting between them, the commanding officer and his strategic advisor (his brain) would soon become far apart like the sun and the moon.
Right now, the important job for me was not to put an eye on my Intelligence Department but to get an apartment for my family in the officer housing quarter. It might be good for me because I could do whatever I wanted to do, and nobody would keep an eye on me. It would be a very interesting situation.
I stopped by at the office of the unit's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Cuong An Nguyen. My classmate, Lieutenant Ngoc, was wrong because Mr. Cuong had reserved an apartment at the end of the block for me. After finishing some paper work, I was happy to go out and check on my "dream house."
Officers' housing was next to the main base and not too far from the civilian market. It was fairly clean and quiet. There were two long buildings with no fence between to distinguish soldier apartments and civilian houses.
Opening the front door, I found that my apartment had only one big room similar to the BOQ style. But, one thing was missing, the ceiling! I could see the roof frame. I knew that it would be terribly hot. Well, I had an apartment for my family, at least. Opening the back door, I saw a big water reservoir made of cement blocks; the walls of the apartment were two of its four sides. The roof, however, ended there and a small patch of open sky took its place. The kitchen with half roof was connected. Opening another door in the kitchen back wall, I stepped out of the apartment. The W.C. shed could be seen next to it. Between the officers' housing quarters and the civilian area was a big black mud swamp. Across that swamp from my apartment, it may be a store, which often looked like an ordinary house in Vietnam, faced to the main road of downtown An-Thoi.
Going around my dream house, now I understood why nobody took this end of the block apartment; the evening sunlight hit directly on the wall. A little more heat was given to the inside oven. Well, I could make this place more suitable to live in with the eight hours every day that I had nothing to do. I would build a garage next to my apartment to hold out the heat. I had a couple of petty officers and a seaman, so I could use their labor for helping me finish my project since they had nothing to do, either.
It was time for lunch when I got back to my office. Again, Son invited me to go along with him. I agreed because I did not know much around here yet. I let Son pick the place he wanted by either the taste of the food or the style of the waitress. With his good experience, he brought me to a restaurant outside of the village with no sign on the front. The tables and chairs did not have a fancy look, but we had both the tasty food and the beautiful cashier. When we finished, I took my turn:
"Let me have the bill."
"No way, Lieutenant. You have to let your deputies do their responsibility. I already told you that you don't have to worry about these little things anymore, don't you remember?"
"Are you kidding me, Son?"
"No, Lieutenant. Do you not believe me?"
Surely, I could not believe it. What did this strange act mean? There was no one in the world who showed this kindness to me. Instead of believing it, I had to doubt it. I was an intelligence officer, I had to be like Tao-Thao (a Chinese general who never trusted anyone). What did Son gain when he did something like that for me? Did he want just to lose a shrimp to catch a lobster? Why did he not tell me that in the first place? I was set for his booby trap, I thought. I have to be careful, I reminded myself!
Not waiting for me to say another word, Son went to the cashier's counter. He paid for our lunch and joked about something with the girl. With her beauty, this girl might have come from the mainland because all pretty girls on the island usually wanted to go to Saigon. I could not pay any attention about girls around me at all. Although I was just in my thirties, my youth seemed to be over. I felt old and had a lot of things to do and to think about my wife and four children. Later on, I learned that the cashier had come here to help her aunt at the restaurant after failing the 11th grade test. Her aunt's business then drew a lot of customers, including Son.
Son and I came back to our office after lunch. The door was still locked! Needless to say, I knew that none of the personnel in my department had come back to work yet. They did not have to be back on time when they ate their lunch at home. I did not care about that. Everyone had his own business and I had mine. I told Son:
"You take care of the department papers. I am going to the shipyard."
The main things now were the ceiling of my apartment and the garage. I went to the wood working area. A couple of questions came to mind. Who was the boss of that area? Did I know him? I hoped so. And I did.
"Oh, Daddy . . . Daddy . . . Where are you going?"
I was so surprised to see my naval son, Mr. Dao Kim Nguyen- a tradition in the Vietnamese Naval Academy was that a senior cadet would accept a junior cadet as his son randomly. He had made a terrible mistake at the Naval Academy; he cheated on a test and was caught. He "graduated" right away with the rank of petty officer instead of ensign. My big naval family came to an end with him, and I never had a naval grandson. Was he an ensign now? He might be allowed to go back to the academy to be retrained! Anyway, I still cared about him as my real son, and the naval relationship between him and me was still warm and great. We shook hands:
"Are you the boss of this quarter? It is very good. I just came here a couple of days ago. I don't think I have met you since the day of my graduation. . ."
Dao said:
"I was sent to work on a ship the day I had my painful and stupid experience on the test, Dad. Two years later, I was recalled to the academy because I had a gook working record. In my two years of hard laboring, I learned a lot about life on the ship. My life had been changed, Dad. Now, I have this shop. The number of people who need me is quite larger than I need! What unit do you belong to, Dad, the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, the Fourth Coastal Fleet, or the ship dock?"
"I am Chief of Intelligence."
He was surprised and happy:
"Oh, you are in the right spot, Dad. I hear that the Intelligence Department here has a lot of good business."
I was in doubt:
"Are you sure? I don't know yet what they do. I think I need time to study what is going on in this area. I have to be patient, I guess. Anyway, the important thing for me to do is to remodel the apartment which I have just received. To tell you the truth, I need some plywood and two by fours to make a ceiling. Can you give me a hand?"
"I cannot promise you other things; however, your request for plywood and two by four studs is an easy one for me to do. Remember, I am the boss of the wood working shop, Dad. I will tell my men to cut for you, and they will deliver it to your home, too. We have GMC trucks."
"You don't have to do that. I will tell my men to come and pick them up. You don't have to deliver the free cut order!"
Dao seemed uncomfortable to be involved with the intelligence personnel. He changed the subject:
"We will talk about that later. Why don't we go to the cafeteria and have a cup of coffee . . ."
After a long conversation, I knew that my naval son was a trusted officer of the shipyard's commanding officer, Commander Tho. That was the reason he got his position, which usually was taken by a lieutenant. I knew Dao very well at the academy, but I was still surprised at his success. Had he really learned anything in his two years as laborer on the ship? I did not know!
I was happy that things happened so quickly around here. I got my apartment and material for fixing it in a couple of days. Hmmm, I remembered that it was very difficult to get a gallon of gray paint to paint my apartment at my last duty position. . . With lazy eyes, I glanced at the papers that had been prepared for my signature and closed the folder. I put my feet up on my desk and smoked a cigarette. My mind was floating on a small cloud. Well, the proverb said: planning always depended on man but achieving often depended on God . Could I both plan and achieve this time? I smiled. . .
Working time was over; Son and I went back to our room in the BOQ and changed clothes. It was better to go out for dinner in civilian clothes. I started to get acquainted with "let the deputies do their responsibilities."
Two weeks had passed quietly. My apartment at the end of the block had a new look with the help from my two men, Nhieu and Khuong, who had spent their full time remodeling. It was not a separate villa. From the outside, it had only the ordinary look of an apartment in the officers' or seamen's housing quarter. However, I fortuately did not spend a penny for a job well done. That was one of my naval benefits, I guessed, and I had no complaints about it.
The interesting thing is my naval benefit did not stop then, but continued until I left the island. What kind of benefit was it? I often considered that my benefit had come from Heaven like a gift from God, because it brought me a total surprise. At dinner the day before I went back to the mainland to move my family, Son secretly gave me an envelop:
"That is your part, Lieutenant!"
I opened it and took just one look. I then opened my shirt button and put it inside, against my stomach. I asked a stupid question that I thought anyone in my situation would ask:
"Where did this come from, Son?"
Son gave me his answer, a smile! By the number written on the envelope, this kind of money was too much for me. In one second, I received three months' salary. What could I do? Why did Son have to give it to me? If Son had kept it for himself, surely I would have never known! There were some rules that I did not know yet, and I had to find them out! That was the reason Son always told me "don't worry about the little things." He was right, the lunches and dinners were only the little things. I thought that Son did only what was ordered by someone else who still was unknown to me. I had to find out who that was. I was then totally suspicious of Son; he might not give me the correct amount. I got a little bit angry:
"I think that you ought to tell me what you have done. If there are some dangerous matters along the line, we will have different ways to go. If all of you keep doing whatever you are doing now, there is a day when not only you but also I will end up in prison, do you know that?"
"From time to time, you will know exactly what's going on, Lieutenant!"
There was some money for my trip expenses. There was some money for my wife to have some nice clothes. There was some money for my children to have milk every day. There was some money for many necessary things. . . Did I have to accept this deal? My question was my answer! I had taken it with no complaints. I knew that I was a wheel in the system. I had to roll because I had no choice. Would that be a corruption act? I had imagined the terrible things that I would have to do in the future. Well, whatever would happen, it would happen. I only knew now that I was to receive a gift from the Lord. One time as an intelligence officer, a true and clean officer, had passed away from now on.
(To know more about "one time as an intelligence officer, a true and clean officer," please read Honey Moon At The River-Bridge Bay in Book One of the "One . . ." Series , and The Line Of Life in Book Two of the "One . . ." Series ).
02. ONE TIME TO GO, ONE TIME TO STAY
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
The only way to go to the Hoang-Sa and Tay-Sa archipelagos was by sea. However, there were two ways to go to Phu-Quoc Island, by the sea or air. Of course, there was a third way, by road, but needless to say, our Vietnamese people did not yet have the capability to make a highway under the ocean.
By sea to Phu-Quoc, there were two kinds of boat, civilian and military. Civilian activities were handled by three commercial companies, the Thuan-Loi, Tan-Hung, and Dai Duong companies, making connections between Rach-Gia Harbor and An-Thoi Bay. (From An-Thoi Bay to the Duong-Dong district's town, several smaller companies had been established since the bridges on the island's main road had been destroyed by the VC). It took the whole night for a boat travel along the sea path. In the evening, either the Thuan-Loi or Tan-Hung boat departed at each end, docking at their arriving station the next day early in morning. The Dai-Duong boat was a spare used as a substitute when the Thuan-Loi or Tan-Hung boat broke down. Sometimes, however, the Dai Duong boat ran as an extra to take care of overload merchandise and the few people who missed the regular night boat and were in a hurry. Military activities were handled by the Naval Transportation Office, which was located in Rach-Gia City. Similarly to the Dai-Duong boat, naval transportation ships, PCFs or LCMs, were run on no scheduled basis. Anyway, most of the time the naval ships were used to carry naval personnel and their families only, not civilians.
By air to Phu-Quoc, civilian and military airplanes were used. Civilian activities were handled by Air Vietnam to connect the Tan-Son-Nhut (Saigon) and Can-Tho airports to the Duong-Dong airport. Military activities were handled by the Army and Air Forces transportation units. Aircraft such as Cessnas, Caribou, C 47s, or helicopters could land at either Duong-Dong civilian airport or An-Thoi military airport.
To save the money and labor of going to Saigon or Can-Tho airports, my family and I would not move to Phu-Quoc by airplane. Instead, we just came to Trung-Luong, a bus station half way from Saigon to Can-Tho, the capital of the West (the Mekong Delta), on Highway 4, to take our bus. It was close to my home town, several kilometers from My-Tho City. However, there was a trade-off in this plan. We had to sit on the bad seats in the back of the bus. All the seats looked the same, but those unwanted seats seemed to have a different type of spring. When the bus hit a chuckhole, the people's heads almost hit the bus's ceiling. The adults did not feel comfortable at all, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. My wife held tight with two sturdy arms to our fourth child, just turned six months, while the other three cried and laughed loudly:
"Oh oh, oh oh. . . haaa, haaa, haaa . . ."
"What the heck are you doing, monkeys? Do you like to be tossed up? Your grandpa cannot hold his breath, but you think it is fun!
Those were some words from my father to his grandchildren, including the most important grandson for the big Nguyen family, the first son of the oldest son. This was the first time my father had come along with us to our new duty station. I had been transferred a couple of times, but he did not pay any attention since I had only moved around in the mainland. The landscape of the mountains or tropical jungle was not new to him. In his youth, when he ran his lumber mill business, he had many chances to be there. Sometimes, he got lost and had to live several days with a tribe in the Di-Linh or Dac-Lac highland. Only life on the island could attract him. He wanted to see Phu-Quoc with all his heart. That was the first and also the last time he had the chance to go to an island.
After crossing on the My-Thuan Ferry on one of the two main branches of the Mekong river, this was the first time I did not turn left to go to Vinh-Long City, but turned right in the direction of Sa-Dec City. Wherever you had not passed through yet, you felt strange. Even the air you breathed seemed to have a fresher smell. However, the fruit trees in this area looked no different; the coconuts, bananas, plum, etc. were the same anywhere in South Vietnam.
Then we came to the Vam-Cong Ferry on the other branch of the Mekong River. The time to cross it could be shorter, but the line of buses waiting for their space on the ferry was longer than that of My-Thuan Ferry. Were there not enough ferries, around here? Restaurants made of bamboo frame and palm leaf roof were built along both sides of the highway. The customer's invitation from the sellers was a chaotic clamor.
Finally, we reached the other bank of the river, and the Long-Xuyen-Rach-Gia tri-intersection not far from the ferry station. From this point to Rach-Soi District, the 4th highway ran along Vinh-Te Canal. There were a lot of chuckholes on this section; however, our children did not enjoy the tossing any more. There was no "oh oh, oh oh, haaa haaa haaa . . .;" they were tired, bored, and sleepy. I thought that we still had a long way to go, but we came to Rach-Gia after about one and one-half hours. Compared with the distance to other cities in the west like Soc-Trang, Bac-Lieu, Chuong-Thien, or Ca-Mau, the road that to Rach-Gia City was much shorter!
With my wrong estimation, we were in the Rach-Gia about two o'clock in the afternoon. It was hot. And it was much hotter when we got in a taxi with four-window-open air-conditioning to go to the Naval Transportation Center. Everybody sweat so much that it was just like taking a shower. I hoped a naval ship was scheduled to go to Phu-Quoc, so we would not have to spend overnight in this strange city.
By the rules, I had to show my mission paper to a Chief Petty Officer at the Office of Naval Transportation because I wore my civilian clothes. I did not know which one among us, I, my family, or my title on the paper had given him a big surprise. He said:
"Oh my gosh! Why didn't you send a message and let us know that you and your family were coming, so we could plan ahead of time to welcome all of you, Lieutenant? I am sorry to tell you that we don't have any ship to go to Phu-Quoc, today. Anyway, all of you just stay here to rest, I have to find my Lieutenant JG. He may help you and your family find a place on the civilian boat tonight."
I did not believe that the naval personnel were so kind here. Were they scared of the power of the Chief of the Intelligence Department? Why were they anxious to help me and my family? I thought that Lieutenant Xe, the former chief of Nọ 2, might have a lot of influence in this area, because I had not yet done anything. Well, I did not need to worry about that, and I tried to explain my case:
"I transferred to the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters only a few weeks ago, and I did not even know where its sub-units were. On the day I had to report to work, I went out there by airplane because I was alone at that time. Now, I have the whole family with me, so I have to go by bus. I have experienced this for the first time, for sure."
Then, I asked:
"How is your life in this part of the country?"
"It's pretty OK, Lieutenant. My house is not too far from this place, and I just walk to work. My wife has a shop for selling clothing materials in the Rach-Gia Market. Our family depends on her income because my salary is not enough even for me to have a drink everyday."
"How long have you been here?"
"It's been over three years, Lieutenant!"
"Three years, did you say? Hmmm, in the Navy, if you stay at one place for over two years, you must surely have good communication and negotiation skills."
That was right! Besides good communication and negotiation skills, they also had to have talent in co-operation with the civilian boat companies. We did not pay a cent for the boat tickets to Phu-Quoc that night, although we got a special place on the top deck with the boat navigators. There were beds for rest, and cookies and hot tea. In the main deck, the situation was completely different. It was crowded. People lay down like fish in a can, and many had to sit because there was no more room. The smell was terrible from the lower deck, the deck for the the cattle, poultry, and live fish. My father, a country man who never had fashionable clothes, now had the opportunity to see the power of his son as the proverb stated: just one to become general, then generations will benefit . Later on, I went to parties and made friends with many well known people of the area. Mr. Sen My Lam was the owner of the Tan-Hung Boat Company which had its headquarters in Pho-Co-Dieu Quay in Rach-Gia and Liem-Quang-Le Quay in Saigon. I did not know whether there was a relation between him and Phat Tan Lam, poet Dong-Ho who had lived in Ha-Tien District, or not. Mr. Kham Van Le was the owner of the Thuan-Loi Boat Company which also had its headquarters at Pho-Co-Dieu Quay, Rach-Gia City. These two boat company owners gave me and my family the right to go free of charge on their boats. I had their visiting card with the comment written on the back: No charge for the holder of this card . Mr. Ba Van Nguyen was the owner of Nam-Hai Sea Fishing Company that had its headquarters on Tru Cong Nguyen Street in Saigon. Mr. Cung Van Tran was the owner of Minh Ha Sea Transportation Company which had its headquarters in the TAX shopping center on Hue-Nguyen Boulevard, Saigon. And there were many more businessmen that I do not have a remember clearlỵ
The commercial boat used as a sea bus was a big wooden boat. But it had a steam horn like the big steel ship. The first steam whistle, everyone had still seen each other. The second steam whistle, everyone had only hope to see each other again. The third steam whistle, the ship went out to the North Sea and someone held up the steel rail. . . The saying was wrong because the boat now went out to the west, into the Gulf of Thailand. There was some sadness every time the boat left the harbor, not only from the naval ship but the civilian boat also. No one seemed to escape the flooded feeling in the mind and heart. The evening sunlight was bright in an orange color on the ocean waves; the salty wind blew strongly in the traveler's faces. Everyone's soul seemed to be with nature, the open sea. Although the navigator knew the waterway of the Kien-Giang River that poured into the bay as clearly as a main line on his palm, he still ran over submerged sandbars from time to time. There were several sobbings and sifflings before the fading cries of harbor separation came to an end.
Rach-Gia was small and indistinct in the far, far away horizon. Individual boats in the harbor no longer ran in parallel along the sides of the big commercial boat. The color of the water was blue. And the waves now were much bigger, breaking onto the main deck sometimes. The sound of the diesel engine running at a constant speed made people very drowsy.
By the time Bamboo island had been reached, night had come. The moon was high in the sky, and the sea was covered with moonlight brightly reflected on the tops of the big waves. White light from the electric light bulbs on the island cut the moonlit waves in pieces. It was so quiet. Most of the passengers were in temporary but deep sleep. Only the first time goers or those who loved the scene of the night sea were awake. I asked the navigator:
"When do we see Nghe Island?"
"It will be at one or two o'clock in the morning, Lieutenant. Why don't you go to bed."
I lay my back on the mattress. . .
When commercial boat docked at the An-Thoi pier, the dawn of the morning had not yet come. We had been safe; I did believe it. I had heard that the Tan-Hung boat had gotten lost many times. Once, it had drifted to Ba-Lua Archipelago, near Kien-Luong District Township. Had the navigator slept or was the weather bad? The answer was that the weather was not bad and the navigator never slept either! Even the navigator could not understand it himself. And the best explanation was, perhaps, that he was in the Bermuda triangle at that time. Everything now was still in darkness. Only the passengers were anxious to leave the boat for home. The luggage would be taken care of later in the daytime. Oh! there were some that came to greet their friends or family! We could see them by the lone light at the pier, an electrical light bulb with a big round cover on the top.
I did the same as the others had done, leaving the luggage unguarded. Nobody wanted to steal our dry food and clothes bags anyway. I led my father and my family to take the short cut by following the trail that ran along the shore line. The moon kept following us, but no one paid any attention because we were weary. I felt more tired when we crossed the yard that was used to dry fish under the sunlight. It smelled very bad. We then reached two layers of the bare wire fence. I lifted the wire line for everybody to come inside. The children could walk upright, but the adults had to bend their backs a little bit. From the fort at the headquarters gate, the quarter seaman might already see us, but he had let us do what we needed to do because he also knew this trail very well. There was no VC sappers in Phu-Quoc Island; we often believed that.
We were home after crossing a large sandy beach that had a dry, fresh-water well. My wife seemed to be pleased with the outside look of our end-of-the-building apartment. All of us got back to bed without changing clothes.
It was about noon when my father, the first one up, awoke. He boiled some water to make his own tea. He sat at the table and sipped alone. I was surprised because I knew that he had never used an electrical stove before. My stove was also very special, a broken stove from a ship, a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast); my naval son, Ensign Dao, had given it to me just a few weeks ago. It had four elements, four long bars, but one element was out of order. The other three elements were connected to each other and laid on a cement block. The electrical cord was long enough to reach an electrical outlet on the cement block wall. It was dangerous for him, I thought. He was crazy to touch it!
We let our children stay home with their grandfather, and my wife and I went to the market. Actually, there were only a few department and grocery stores, drug stores, tailors, restaurants, and billiard rooms along one segment of the main road. The health clinic that belonged to Lieutenant JG and Doctor Thuy Huy Le was also there. In the morning, the open market sold fresh vegetables, fresh fish in both salt and fresh water, and fresh meats such as pork, beef, and chicken. Although the main purpose was to let my wife check around to see what the market looked like, we bought a bag of rice, medium size, at a grocery store.
Next day, when I went to work, I discovered that my father was not home. He might have left a long time ago because the tea pot was already cooling off. I asked my wife:
"Do you know where Dad went?"
My wife explained:
"How can I know when I just woke up not long before you. Well, he knows we often sleep late, so he may have gone to the restaurant to eat his breakfast, the My-Tho style noodle!"
"This place is too small. If he went out to eat breakfast, he should come back. Why is he taking so long? Do you think he may have gotten lost?"
"There is no way for him to get lost. You don't have to worry so much about him. . ."
With my early worry, I could not even keep up with the case because I did not see him when I went back home for lunch. Where did he go? Did he go up to the mountain? Did I have to report to the police? Who would I ask? I did not know many people around here anyway!
"Did you check around the market for Dad?"
I could anticipate exactly the answer from my wife after I asked, and it was true:
"I am so busy with our four children at home!"
She then calmed me down:
"Dad doesn't have enough energy to walk the entire island. He will be home soon. By the way, he cannot go anywhere even if he had wings because the ocean is all around here, don't you see?"
In the evening, when I came back from work, I still did not see my father. I was afraid that something had happened to him. In my mind, there were many questions without answers, and I prayed for him. I talked to myself:
"Hmmm, where does he go the whole day?"
My wife set up the table for dinner in silence. My oldest son tapped my thigh and asked:
"Dad, when does Grandpa come home? Did he go to buy candy, right Dad?"
"Yes, he will be home very soon."
Suddenly, I heard a happy voice:
"Grandpa is home, Grandpa is home . . ."
That was true, my father was home. He opened the front door and walked through the hallway to the kitchen. He was in one piece and in his farmer clothes. Half happy and half angry, I said to him:
"Where did you go the whole day and you didn't even tell us. Everybody was worried about you!"
He replied simply:
"I just went on in the direction of the sunrise."
"Up until where?"
He laughed:
"I heard the people who live there call that place the Cape of Ong-Doi."
"That meant you passed through the naval shipyard, the airport, and a long, long beach. You went too far. . ."
He shook his head and joked around:
"Yes, I just kept going until I could not go anywhere. Then, I stopped."
Abruptly, he changed the subject:
"Out there, there are a lot of sea-cucumbers which are sold as a delicacy in the Chinese restaurant. It is very expensive because the inside meat has some medical use to restore the lost energy for old people. I was surprised that the real live sea-cucumbers are completely black like a bunch of huge leeches, the water-buffalo leeches. Ugly! I saw some sea-cucumber catchers walking along that beach. But the main thing that people do in that area is to make charcoal from wood. They build their own ovens everywhere in the jungle with capacities ranging from a few tenths to a few hundredths of kilograms. Their materials, the trunks of the trees that belong to no one, are there. God creates them, god raises them . They live in harmony with the nature. They showed me the Angel Well that had provided fresh water for the King, Long Gia Nguyen (the first King of the Nguyen dynasty, the last dynasy in Vietnam), and his supporters when they escaped from the battles with Tay-Son forces."
I did not pay any attention to history matters in the past because I was only concerned about today's thing:
"You have to be aware that some VC may be among those people. It is dangerous! The best thing for you to do is to trust no one and not go that far again."
"I saw that they are ordinary and gentle people. They invited me to eat lunch with them. The barbecued fresh fish with hot spicy fish sauce is tasty and delicious."
My wife had her opinion:
"We were so worried about you. If something had happened to you, I surely would not know what to say to my sisters and brothers-in-law, and family back home. The people in the island are much different than the people in the mainland."
I followed her:
"If you need to go around to see something, I will tell one of my seamen to give you a ride on a Honda motorcycle. I want to make sure that you are safe."
"No! You don't have to do that! Nobody needs to arrest an old man like me for losing their labor of taking care of my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. . ."
And despite what my wife and I had said, my father was gone the next whole day. With yesterday's experience, I did not worry too much about him. I believed that the community on this island was too small. Only five minutes after walking, one returned to the same spot . However, I had under-estimated the island of Phu-Quoc. There were many interesting places to see. The road that ran from the naval shipyard's front gate, through the market, and to the hamlet of fish sauce manufacturers was not the only road as my assistant officer, Lieutenant JG Son, had told me! Today, my father went the opposite way, reaching sunset. He let me know of his journey:
"I don't believe that the people here are religious. The population is not too great, but they established the Church and the Temple hamlets. In the Church hamlet, there is a big Catholic church that has a concrete foundation and wooden wall painted white. The Catholic father is a kind and gentle man. He greets me warmly even though he knows that I am not a Christian person like himself. Besides the church, there is a Catholic school that has been named St. Paul School. They can teach classes up to the 9th grade . . . Then, I came to the Temple hamlet near Xep Beach. There are two temples, a Buddha temple and a Cao-Dai (a Vietnamese religion) temple.
Religion is based on trust
Put your soul in the smoke of the incense
That rises up from its precious holder
To pray that the divine will hear us from our heart. . .
See! They read the Four Seasons Psalm like us in the mainland. They also pray in the same way like us with the Cao-Dai Great Saint (like Buddha). At the Buddha temple, there are monks and nuns. They are vegetarians who pray to Buddha for peace in individual life. At the beginning, I thought they were Cambodians. But they were not, because they spoke Vietnamese like us."
I was surprised to hear what my father had said. My mind was now open to receive more information about Phu Quoc Island. It was not just a big naval base as I thought. Besides soldiers, there were the people, religion, and politics. And there were the VC and war. I asked him:
"Then where did you go for the rest of the day?"
"I stopped by at the Mai-Chi Elementary School which is established by your naval forces. I then followed the main road to the fish sauce houses. The companies of Phong-Hung, Hong-Lan, and Hong-Tham are here, and I am surprised because their products are sold in the shopping centers in My-Tho City. The fish sauce with brand names from Phu-Quoc or Phan-Thiet (200 mile northeast of Saigon) that has been made by pure anchovys always has more flavor than fish sauce from your uncles' (Mr. Det and Chin-Hang) companies in Cho-Gao District. That sauce has been made by a mixture of cheap fish such as carp, catfish, and bass. The delicacies of the dried fish like the Thieu, Goc, and Giong fish are sold here for reasonable prices. I went on to the Cape of Hanh and I met Mr. Ben, the owner of Thanh-Binh (Peace) Fish Sauce Company. He and I had a small party together. His children are all good students and they are not at home with him because one has gone to France and the other has gone to China . . ."
"So, did you tell him that your children are doing the same, one has gone to the U.S.A. and the other has gone to Japan?"
"Well, I just told him you are transferred here to be the Chief of the Security Department."
"Oh my God, did you not have anything else to say? Why did you open your back for the people to see your scars? It is dangerous to let everyone know what I am doing, don't you think?"
"I am just telling the truth. He wants me to tell you that if you have the chance, please stop by and see him at his house. I know he is a good man."
Not only here but everywhere along the coast, the fishermen, especially those who worked for the fish sauce company, had to pay respect to the Chief of the Intelligence Department. They knew very well that some days their fishing boat might enter the prohibited areas, the VC areas. Fish were smart, and they often took refugee in those fire-free areas. Sometimes the fishermen had to follow the school of fish, but sometimes they just wanted to get in those areas to fish. They often drew a jackpot, but they often got caught too. When they got caught, their relationship with the chief of the Nọ 2 Department would play a very important role. Their fishing boat could be released right away or docked at the pier for months depending on the interrogation and investigation. The time spent for this process was flexible as rubber band. Who could they sue?
"I have not gone to Xep Beach or the Cape of Hanh yet, but I heard that those places are beautiful only at night. The kerosene lanterns on the boats of those who went out to catch squids under the moonlight look like a swarm of fireflies. The lamps disappear and reappear when the wave pass by. You can not see that pretty scene in the daytime!"
Perhaps my father would get sick if he was forced to stay home. His legs were walking legs. Therefore, on the third day, he was gone the whole time. Not to the east and not to the west, he now went in the direction where the small Dipper was because the southern boundary was limited by the sea. In the evening when I got home from work, I saw him drinking tea and talking with his grandchildren at the table in the living room. I asked him:
"Where did you go today?"
"I visited the prison and the area of the Crocodile bridge."
I sat in the chair:
"Wow, why did you go that far? There is nothing there. It is only the place for keeping drug addicted people and the headquarters of the local army battalion. It is unsafe anyway. The intelligence information received from that site said that a VC guerrilla unit had appeared along the road leading to Ham-Ninh and Duong-To villages. I just put some thumb tacks on the map this afternoon. Do you know what the people make for a living in those coastal villages. Their main product is sea-cucumbers. There are a lot of sea-cucumbers over there that nobody can pick by hand; they use fishing nets like catching fish. The fishermen from Ngang Island and Ha-Tien and Kien-Luong Districts often come out there to join the villagers to fish sea-cucumbers. I hear that after the catch, they have to submerge them into a solution of water, papaya, and wall-plaster-compound to clean them out as white as they can before letting them dry under the sunlight. It means they put a lot of work in the product they sell. The sea-cucumbers, the gull-nets, the abalones. . ., hmmm, all the delicacies of the rich are so complicated."
"I just wanted to know what is around here as much as I can. It is once in a lifetime. But, my feet got tired, so I decided to go back. Luckily, I was picked up by a young boy on his Honda motorcycle. He told me he is the son of Mrs. Seven who came from our city."
"Really, is there someone who lives here from My-tho?"
"She is the owner of a department store which I don't know. Her son just came home for the summer. But, he didn't bring me back right away. He, instead, took me to Khem Beach and then to the Red or Black Dirt Mountain where the road led to Duong-Dong District."
I had not been Duong-Dong yet, but I had heard many mysterious stories about that land: the plentifulness of the rare black lilac flowers in the jungle, the young black peppers in green color that hung all over the orchards, the breed of the Phu-Quoc's smart hound dogs that have two spiral shaped hairs on the shoulders running to their tails, and the Duong-Dong River that was lit up by thousands of kerosene camp lights in the season of catching butter fish. I said:
"The road that leads to Duong-Dong was cut off by the VC a long time ago. This road now is only used for military operations. It is always dangerous out there. Is the Khem Beach really beautiful, Dad?"
"I thought so. The sand is very white and the water is clear as the eyes of the cat . I saw a lookout house that was built far, and far from the shore line. Everything seems to be under repair. The house roof that was made of long hay stalks hasn't changed its color from light gold to dark brown yet. The walkway has many new posts made of the green trees. To reduce the slipping accidents, they places steel panels used for making temporary airstrips on the top of the walkway. Anyway, that place is a summer vacation resort for the students from Saigon, Mrs. Seven's son told me that."
When the people get old, they seem to be closer to the nature. They try to find and understand its harmonic and mystic points. It is time for them to prepare themselves to be in the new world, the heavens. I seemed to see that idea and gesture in my own father. In many cases or at many places, people could say: once in a lifetime to experience it. And time was never to go back, so people would live up their lives to the last seconds of every moment.
On the fourth day, my father had to stay home with his grandchildren because there was no way to go South. I took some time off to show him my naval base, the headquarters, the pier, the ships. I took some pictures of him as souvenirs. He still liked to wear the farmer clothes. As I grew up, I was not bothered by the fact that my parents were poor and country like. But, I did not think that people would put you down because your parents were a little bit "uncivilized." It was only your thoughts, I guessed.
That evening, I bought a boat ticket for my father to go back home. I gave him some money, too. It was time for me to spend my money the noble way. I hoped that Phu-Quoc had satisfied my father's dream of knowing people and their lives on an island. But, I felt sorry that I did not have the opportunity to take him out to eat at the restaurant during the time he was there with my family . . .
Later on, I learned what the people who lived a long period of time on Phu-Quoc knew: there were a lot of restaurants in this small place. The Bo-Vang (The Golden Cow) was the restaurant that had rock and roll music. The restaurant, Bien (The Sea) that belonged to Mr. Vo-Hong-Duong, a Lieutenant Commander, offered soft, sad, romantic, and heart broken music of Son-Cong-Trinh (a very famous Vietnamese composer). And there were a number of signless restaurants that belonged to navy personnel. These places were often called by the owner's name like the restaurant of Mr. Ngac (Ngac-Van-Ha, a commander), the restaurant of Mr. Thanh (Thanh-Kim-Trinh, another commander), the restaurant of Mr. Tu (a lieutenant JG), the restaurant of Mr. Lo (a chief petty officer), and so forth. And there was the restaurant that belonged to a policeman, Mr. Thom, who had two pretty daughters helping him as waitresses. . . And if someone had lived long enough on this island, they would know the prostitute houses in Xep Beach, for example, the Kim-Thai House (Kim-Thai, a Cambodian-Vietnamese, was the bodyguard for Captain Kiem Do). They would also know those secret and cozy cottages in the Church or Temple hamlets that had been used by the commanding officers as a place to have fun with girls. . .
Phu-Quoc Island had given my father a chance of one time to go and visit and my family one time to stay and live there. Because there were a lot of inconveniences when we were stationed there, we gained a lot of unforgettable things to add to our lives. For myself, to remember Phu-Quoc was to remember a part of my lovely country that was a little bit far, and far away from. . . the motherland.
03. THE ROAD TO DECEITFUL BAY
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Although the level of fighting the VC kept increasing every day, my family and I lived in peace for most of our time on Phu-Quoc Island. The summer in this part of the country seemed to drag on because the students from Sai-Gon and other provinces would come here for their vacations. Many VIPs did the same thing, all year round. This week was set for the Minister of the Government; the next week would be saved for his deputy. This month was used by the commanding officer; the next month would be reserved for his executive officer. They were all happy. The ones who had the responsibility to greet and serve the guests were the only the unhappy people. More difficulties for them when a company came instead of an individual.
This weekend, Rear Admiral Tanh Nguon Lam, Deputy CNO (Chief of Naval Operation), would take a short vacation on Phu-Quoc Island. Who would become his temporary followers? Only high ranking officers, I guessed! For example, the commanding officer or the executive officers of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters should be at the top of the list. Then, the people who had experiences in oceanic sports would be next. Commander Tho, the former chairman of the Sea-bed's Hunting-club, must be included. Petty Officer Nhan, the deep-sea-clamp remover, or Petty Officer Lanh, the abalone catcher, were needed, too. And there was someone else.
Unfortunately, these talented men had been transferred to the other areas. The word "talented" could be understood in two different ways; it meant that the guy had talent either in sport or in corruption. I did not know whether a secret plan was taking place or concurrent decisions were happening when a lot of the key officers were replaced. Commander Tho, the commanding officer of An-Thoi Shipyard, had been replaced by another Tho, a commander too. Commander Lien Mong Mai took Commander Khoi Kim Tran's place as Executive Officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters. Mr. Khoi became the commanding officer of the Naval Academy. Lieutenant Commander Tam Van Can replaced Commander Huan as the Chief of the Operations Department of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters. Mr. Huan became briefing officer for President Thieu. And my assistant, Lieutenant JG Son, had also been sent to the Naval Academy, attending a special, naval training program for officers who had been transferred from the Army.
Admiral Tanh's favorite sport was oceanic fishing which was scheduled the next day. "Who will handle this session?," that was my big question. In this field, I recognized my skills and experiences: none. But, I was very surprised that Captain Ba, the commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone, had assigned me to do this job. Of course, I had some fishing in the river or in the rice paddies when I was young. And I even had some fishing on the naval ship when it either ran at sea or anchored in the bay. But, I had never helped anyone else to fish before.
I asked Nghia, my favorite Chief Petty Officer:
"I have to prepare the ocean fishing trip for Admiral Tanh, the Deputy of the CNO. Hmmm, where do we go? What kind of boat do we use? How do we make a party? Where do we find the liquor and food? Do you have any idea about this?"
Acting like an expert of this matter, Nghia laughed and replied:
"The only thing you need to do is talk with the owner of the Phong-Hung Fish Sauce Company. He has done it several times."
I was surprised:
"Is it that easy?"
I found a good way of doing things. The higher ranking officer told me to do part of his job, so I could tell my lower ranking Petty Officer to do part of my job. To pass the order on was the best tactic to use in the military life. I ordered Nghia:
"You had better run to Mr. Phong-Hung's place and tell him about our plan, right now. Same business as usual, remind him that, OK!"
I just said "same business as usual," but I did not know and even care what the business as usual was about. However, Nghia quickly complained:
"It is OK for me to go there to inform Mr. Phong-Hung. But, it is not safe for me to go alone with him on the boat."
I could not understand what Nghia meant. I thought that his ranking was not high enough to have a chance to escort the Admiral, so why did he dream about it? I cut in:
"Who is he? You will go nowhere with the Admiral! You just tell Mr. Phong-Hung that I am the one who will go with him to greet Admiral Tanh and Captain Ba.
I thought Nghia seemed to understand what I said now. But, he might have understood me in a different way because he laughed harder:
"It is not what I mean, Lieutenant! By the old rule, you have to let him, Mr. Phong-Hung, get in the prohibited area to fish a fair catch. Without it, I don't think he will let you use his boat for free."
In turn, I understood the problem now. I shook my head:
"Shit! They always take advantage of us!"
"It is life, Lieutenant. There are some trade-offs in any business. You have to let them fish so they can supply the live bait for you, the young anchovies and squids. Besides the live bait, they also provide fishpoles, fishhooks, fishing lines, fishing weights, etc. You don't have to do anything. What more do you want?"
That evening, I went out to sea on the Phong-Hung company's fishing boat. My main purpose was not to protect them from being captured by the naval boat when they fished in the prohibited area, but I just wanted to know how they fished the anchovies. This was my lucky chance because the "anchovy fisherman" had never wanted to let anybody learn their secret of finding the anchovy school. On an anchovy fishing boat, the "anchovy fisherman" had a higher ranking than the boat captain. Anyway, all the men on the boat, including the mechanics and the cook had to obey orders from the "anchovy fisherman." These guys must have known for sure that their families were dependent on the "anchovy fisherman." They worked for him like a soldier doing his job for the general. Of course, the "anchovy fisherman" was making money very easily because his salary was based on the amount of fish that he and his crew caught every week. But, he was often going broke, too. He usually borrowed money in advance from the owner. The only thing that made the "anchovy fisherman" poor was to play cards. But, could the people find an "anchovy fisherman" who did not know how to play cards? Surely, it was very difficult.
In the open sea, the "anchovy fisherman" positioned himself on the highest place, the top of the sail pole, like a war ship in the Middle Ages. From his hand signals, all operations were properly carried out by the crew. There were many different types of anchovy schools. One might ride the waves at the surface, and another might stay deep in the water. One might be purely anchovy, and the other might be mixed with mackerel or butter fish. One might be big, and the other might be too small. How did he evaluate the fish school? Did he care about the sea gulls' flying pattern? Who knows! However, his decision of when to drop the fishing net was very important because there was often no second chance. Almost every time, there was no less than a ton of anchovy caught. If second drops occurred frequently, the "anchovy fisherman" had a good chance to lose all the good men in his crew.
Because we did not have time for a big catch, the "anchovy fisherman" settled down with a mid-sized anchovy school. The fishing net was signaled to drop in the water. A circle of buoys was formed in a few minutes. The net pulling engine was then started, and the circle of buoys became smaller and smaller. Several hundred pounds of anchovy were collected and stored in one section of the boat.
When we got back to the base, evening dusk had come. The full moon rose into the sky, a short distance from the horizon. I told the captain to dock along the pier. I walked to Captain Ba's house to greet the visitors which included Admiral Tanh and his relatives, Captain Ba, Commander Han, and Lieutenant Commander Tam. They all wore civilian clothes, except Mr. Tam and the ones who were ranked lower than he.
The boat left the pier to go to sea again. Tonight, the sea was calm and that was ideal for the disciples of Khuong Tu Nha (a famous Chinese general who often found good ideas and tactics during his fishing time) to learn their fishing lesson. I ordered the captain of the boat to anchor to the west of Thom Island. The sea now seemed to be a big lake with a gold filled surface from the moonlight. It was fall and the fall's breeze was so pure and cool. Oh! nothing else could please us more than this. The beauty of nature had kindly sunk the bad image of the bloody war that kept on going. To avoid putting live on bait or removing fish from the hook, I kept some distance away the high ranking officers. Let them have their comforts and let me have mine. Admiral Tanh seemed not to remember me as the former Chief of Intelligence Department of the Riverine Forces. I had to let myself down into the forgotten world a little bit, so I could deeply perceive nature, the pretty sea under the moonlight.
That was it. From the first time I stepped on Phu-Quoc Island to the present, that was all I did with some sort of responsibility of an officer. The job day by day in the Intelligence Department was handled by my assistant officer, petty officers, and seamen. The higher the ranking the fewer the things to do; the military custom had dictated that. But, what else could I do on this remote island?
"There are a lot of things for you to do! You cannot wave the flag when you don't have it in your hands! Right? "
Perhaps the spirit of Phu-Quoc Island gave me that answer. So, I had to wait. And history proved that the right time and right place had often waited for the hero . This happened to me because the situation in Phu-Quoc started to change quickly right after Admiral Tanh left the island. It was chaos, not because the VC had been reinforced by the Russian's T 54 tanks or the North Vietnamese communists used Russian's MiG fighters to bomb our base, but because Thailand's fishing boats often violated the Vietnamese water and a lot of black-market merchandise had been pushed to infiltrate the areas of Ha-Tien, Kien-Luong, and Rach-Gia.
One ordinary morning, but with a personal reason, I came to work very late. When I stepped into my office, Chief Petty Officer Nghia asked:
"Lieutenant, did you check the Thailand fishing boat yet?"
I performed my business-as-usual acts: put my hat on the file cabinet for secret documents, sat on my big chair, and lighted up my first cigarette. In no hurry, I asked Nghia:
"What the heck is a Thailand fishing boat?
"The Thailand fishing boat that trolled near Poulo Dama was captured last night by HQ 619. The unlucky boat has been escorted back to our base and docked at the pier overnight. I thought you already knew the case. The NOC (Naval Operation Center) didn't inform you on anything?"
"What?"
I put my hat on my head and told Nghia:
"Follow me!"
My fellow men had always seemed to know what things were happening around here before me. I had already been in this office for several months, but I still had no control on such matters. "Sooner or later you will know it, Lieutenant," Lieutenant JG Son, my former assistant officer once told me that. Son had been transferred to the Naval Academy for a while, but I still knew nothing new. I needed some hands-on experience in solving problems, but the problems had never come. In the intelligence fields, no one would tell the others what he knew, I guessed.
Stepping out on the pier, I saw a big fishing boat. It was about the same size as the PGM (Patrol Gun Motor) naval ship. The front deck was large, and the main deck was high and colorful. There was also a big crane for moving fish, ice, and equipment. I saw an Oriental guy with a very dark suntan, almost black. He wore a xa-rong (a rectangular piece of cloth wrapped around the body as pants) with no shirt. All over his face, chest, and arms, he put baby powder to protect from sunburn. Unintentionally, he enriched his skin color. I shot the cigarette's filter into the water with my fingers and asked:
"What is this `negro ' doing here, Nghia? Where are his friends, where is the crew?"
"I put the whole gang in jail, except this guy. We have to keep at least one at the boat all the time for safety. Just in case there is a knot loose at the post or a hole in the bottom of the hulk. I am sure that they take care of their boat better than us, Lieutenant."
I jumped from the pier to the main deck of the boat and entered the control room. Everything was made of hard wood with a shiny finishing touch, the walls, beds, chests and drawers, navigation table, and even the control wheel. A gray telecommunication box was clamped tight up on the ceiling. It must be a good one for long range communication, from Viet-Nam to Bangkok. The depth finder (sonar) and fish finder were also well equipped.
I stepped down the stairway to the crew's bedroom. Clothes, towels, and miscellaneous individual belongings were all over two platforms side by side. The smell of human beings, special animals, was strong. I walked back to the kitchen. Rice filled a barrel. Bottles of fish sauce and soy sauce and jars of hot pepper and garlic pickle were stacked on the shelves. Food was more than enough for the crew for months, a long journey to foreign waters. Another stairway led to the engine room which was totally dark. Nothing else attracted me there, so I went out to the front deck. The fishing net looked like a small immobile mountain. Five container sections made from the boat hulk were identified by five square hole covers. Nghia hand signaled the Thai boat keeper to put the covers aside. One section contained fish covered with crushed ice; other sections were used to store ice bars covered by a thin layers of saw dust. Under the crushed ice, all kinds of fish could be found: tuna, mackerel, grouper, flounder, perch, and butter fish. Tuna were big and black like wooden charcoal logs. Flounders and butter fish were also as big as family plates. Squids and shrimps were put in a separate corner. I said:
"Why don't you bring up some shrimps to Captain Ba, Nghia."
Nghia laughed:
"You don't have to worry about that, Lieutenant. His men already came down and took it. These small size shrimps, he left for you, do you know?"
"When did they go? Who came along with them?"
"Very early in the morning, Lieutenant. A few minutes after I opened our office, they came. Dien, a petty officer in the Security Department, and I brought them down here. You came to work too late, today."
"Hmmm, it sounds all right. But, what did they say when they came to see you?"
"They said: The commanding officer told you to bring up some shrimps. That was it."
I was late today because I had a good reason: my son was sick. My children had been not fit for the weather in Phu-Quoc Island. One had just recovered from fever, then another started to have diarrhea. Western medicine seemed to not completely stop it. My wife switched to traditional medicines. Chinese herbal powders were used for the cold and flu. The pomegranate tree's young leaves or fruit skin were used for diarrhea. That was the reason those pomegranate trees in the Church hamlet never grew tall.
Nobody had a cold or diarrhea at my house last night, but my second son had convulsions. I had never seen that before, and nor had my wife. I was afraid that he might accidentally bite his tongue, so I put a big aluminum spoon in his mouth. And I was afraid he might die by clogging up his nose with mucus, so I had to suck it out with my mouth. Yuck, I spat it out. But, I had to do it again and again for him to breathe. I ran to the kitchen, squeezed some lemon juice, and poured it into his mouth. His body gradually calmed down, no twisting and jumping. I knocked on my neighbor's door, Lieutenant Kha Xuan Pham, the executive officer of the Phu-Quoc Naval Base. Mr. Kha might have had some experiences with this type of sickness. He did not pay any attention to the "happiness smell" caused by our children wetting their beds; he kindly opened the mosquito net and checked my son. "Well, he is cool. He is OK, now. No problem." he consoled me and my wife then went home. I had hoped that the convulsion would not happen again. For this sickness, I surely did not know who to go to get treatment for my son. Perhaps my wife would take him to the traditional doctor who often ground the bone of the tiger, lion, elephant, etc. and mixed it with flour to make his medicines. For me, this seemed to be an unsolvable problem if it ever came back.
My mind still hung over. One night without sleeping caused a sloppy day, the next day. Once more, my men handled all my jobs for me. I was lucky to have them, I thought. I turned to Nghia:
"Formally, what should we do when we capture a Thailand fishing boat?"
"First, we send a message to report the case to the Intelligence Department of the Navy in Sai-Gon. Secondly, we interrogate these guys, one by one. We have to take a picture of each of them to keep for our documents. The main purpose of the interrogation is to find the drug or weapon trading connection. But, this will never happen. They just try to fish in our water because there are a lot of fish in this area which has no big fishing boat. Third and last, we transfer them to the Rach-Gia Customs Department and wait for the reward money."
"Who rewards us and how much is the prize?"
"Our prize money is quite small, several hundred piasters or so, although the total prize amount often ranges from 15 to 20 million piasters. The reason is that the list of people who receive the reward is too long, in the thousands. In the Navy side, from the CNO to the lowest ranking seaman of the ship that catch the invaders. In between, of course, there are Captain Ba, Commander Lien, Lieutenant Commander Tam, then you and me. In the Customs side, the Interior Secretary to the servant of the Chief of Rach-Gia Customs Office are also included. Anyway, those top dogs always have much bigger prizes. . ."
I cut in:
"Do you really mean that we get nothing? We get no head, no tail from the `big fish' (big boat in the Navy)?"
Nghia laughed and replied:
"Besides the nothing we get, we have the hard work, Lieutenant. But, to collect that several hundred piaster prize money, you have to wait for several years. You will not be here at that day, do you know? It is a governmental procedure; it is not like a naval operation. Well, we are allowed to keep these guys only for a very short time, under one week. You will see Mr. Un Danh, our Thai and Cambodian interpreter, have to work day and night. His face will be frowning like a monkey's face. But, he is the only one who can understand what those guys say.
Suddenly, I had an idea:
"Hey, what do we do with these fish, Nghia?"
"Just leave it here for our men who will escort the boat from here to Rach-Gia Harbor. Let them have some money to cover the trip's expenses. But, I will tell them to bring some fish and shrimps to your house. If you cannot eat them all, you just make dry fish or give part of it to your friends."
Nghia stopped for a while, then asked:
"Lieutenant, do you want to have a Thai pistol? The captain of this boat has a pretty one. By the rule on the Thai fishing boat, only the captain can have a hand gun. It is a nice souvenir, do you know?"
"Well, let me think. We have plenty of guns, both pistols and rifles.
"It is up to you. If you don't want it, I will put it on the list."
Nghia tapped his hand on the Thai's shoulder and signaled him to put the covers back on. Nghia and I then went back to our offices. On the way, we stopped by the jail, a small plywood house in the center of a large barbed wire fence, to see the Thai's crew. They were no different from the VC prisoners. Some had shorts; the others wore long pants or xa-rong. Some had T-shirts; the others had no shirts or dark colored ones. Colorful bath towels, checkered or striped pattern, had been used by most of them to cover their heads from the hot sun. Some had thongs; others were barefoot. Most smoked cigarettes. But with no exception, they screened their skin with baby powder, and that made them different from ordinary human beings, the darker the skin the brighter the look.
The fun time always went fast. I called it the "fun time" because these Thai fishermen seemed to enjoy their interrogations. They often laughed hard with each other or with Un, the interrogator. I asked Un "What's happening?" He answered "I just told them what their lives in Viet-Nam will be so they may prepare for it in the near future." Un had to work long hours overtime to complete his job on time, before the ice melted and the fish spoiled in the docked boat.
How did my men sell the fish to the civilians? How did my men arrange with the gun ship crew, who escorted the foreigner's boat? I sure did not know, but, I always wished them luck and hoped that everything went right for them in those special missions.
Although I had my name on several occasional lists, my chance to collect the reward money from capturing the Thailand fishing boats never once came in my life. Actually, I had never paid any attention to this miscellaneous matter. The "one side winner game", I called it, because only the fish (us) ate the ants (Thais), and the ants never ate the fish . But, I had paid most of my attention to the black market invasion in the area of Ha-Tien and Kien Luong. Of course, I did finally find the solution of the guest problem as Lieutenant JG Son, my former assistant officer, has promised: "Sooner or later you will know it, Lieutenant."
My first black-market trading boat captured by the Navy LSSL (Landing Ship Support Large) ship, HQ 229, was not a small one. From the Cape of Bac-Dao (Northern Cape), it took the naval crew a half day to escort it back to the base. Then, the ship and boat both received orders to dock at the pier. This time, I took control and came down myself to handle the the transferring process. I signed the paper with the executive officer of the ship, Lieutenant Hai Khac Nguyen, who was my naval classmate. Hai imitated his captain's manner; he did not care what the boat had carried: weapons, drug, or prohibited merchandise. He just wanted to sign the document as fast as he was able to, so he could enjoy his time at the base and harbor which always seemed to be very short for the sailors. After a chit-chat, I let Hai go and jumped on the trade boat to check the black-market gang. Nghia and Un followed me every step of the way.
In the corner of the main cabin, a middle-aged man and several young boys stood silently. The man wore a white shirt and gray polyester pants. The boys wore dark colored clothes. They all seemed to be scared of things that might happen from their mistake. The man gave me an Oriental bow, then shook my hand with both hands. . . I could not talk with the foreigners anyway, so I turned to my interpreter:
"Un, ask him where this boat came from."
After a special communication session, Un said:
"These guys say they departed from Thailand, Lieutenant. But, their owner is a Chinese who lives in Phnom-Penh (Cambodia's Capital). The captain of this boat is also a Chinese. He speaks Thai with very heavy accent like the Chinese in Cholon (Big Market, a Chinatown in Sai-Gon) speak Vietnamese."
"Where is their destination?"
Not needing to talk with the gang again, Un gave the answer:
"To the border of Ha-Tien, Lieutenant."
Un resumed his conversation with his "friends." I asked Nghia:
"Formally, what should we do when we capture a black-market boat?"
"It is similar to the case of capturing the Thailand fishing boat. First, we send a message to inform the Intelligence Department in Sai-Gon. Second, we conduct the crew interrogation and make the report papers. Third and last, we escort and transfer the boat and the crew to the Rach-Gia Customs."
"Why does everything have to end on the hands of the Rach-Gia Customs?"
"They are civilians, Lieutenant. They are not VC, don't you see?"
I turned back to Un:
"Ask them what they carry on this boat, Un."
"They tell me that besides miscellaneous things such as the black pepper, garlic, mung bean, sugar, medical oil, lighter flints, etc. the main merchandise is about one hundred bags of clothing materials and about one hundred kilograms of condensed sugar."
Nghia jumped into our conversation:
"We get a `big cake ' this time, Lieutenant."
While I was still thinking about "big cake, small cake," Nghia told Un:
"Just keep one guy here and put the rest in jail, OK! Remember, don't let them bring anything up, OK!"
"Yes, Chief. I know very well, don't worry about that."
Then, Nghia turned to me:
"Well, we go back to the office, Lieutenant."
Nghia and I let Un continue to do his job at the boat, and we jumped on the pier and walked back to our Intelligence Department complex. Shortly, Nghia pulled his chair close to my desk, and softly said:
"I want to discuss with you an important subject."
"What subject? Go ahead!"
Nghia slowly explained:
"I am sure you did not know anything about the game we played out here. By the rule of the game, we don't have to put the correct amount of merchandise on the list. With a hundred bags of clothing material, for example, we can write down twenty, forty, fifty, etc., it is up to us. The amount left out of the list will be sold and the sale money will divided in three parts. One third is for us; one third is for the Customs; and one third is given back to the owner. This way we make good money without any guilt in our conscience. If you list out a hundred percent of what he has, do you know what will happen to him? Customs has to keep all that hundred percent for the government. We have nothing to gain or to lose. Customs is in the same boat with us. But, the owner has more problems because the more merchandise he has the more money he has to pay as a fine. Besides a hundred percent loss of what he has, sometimes he must sell his boat for the cost of the fine. The total price of merchandise in this boat may be over several ten million piasters, I guess. You need to help the guy . . ."
Was that the interesting game? The philosophy of "making good money without guilt in conscience" really surprised me. What the heck was that? Corruption? No way. Without any investigation, I knew that Nghia told me the truth. And without doing anything, I felt that the flag I was waiting for, now, fell in my hands. But, I still felt uncomfortable. I said:
"Are you sure about this? Anyway, I think that I cannot act alone. I don't have that kind of superior authority!"
"That is the business between you and the top dog. I am sure that our new commanding officer, Captain Ba, did not know anything about this secret operation, either. Of course, he has to turn on the green light for us to go. Although there are three parts in the inventory committee, the Police Department, the Security Department, and our Intelligence Department, the other two members always go along with us. I already bought out their signatures a long time ago. Anyway, we need Captain Ba's signature and the seal in two copies. One is a blank copy, and the other is a hundred percent listing copy."
"Did you say that the guys in the other departments agree to sign that blank copy?"
"It doesn't matter. They can sign either before or after our mission is completed. They are always happy when they sign to get money or have a party. There are no questions asked, do you know? The commanding officer is the only one I cannot reach, and you have to do it by yourself.
Again, I seemed to fall into the situation that had been set up by my men. But, I did not blame them for not telling me ahead of time of these cases. The frog got caught by croaking , and nobody wanted to open their mouth like frogs. Same thing, nobody took off their shirt to show the scar on their back . I came to see Captain Ba right away. After telling him the long story, I gave my conclusion:
"That is all I know now about the special missions in the Intelligence Department. In this matter, if you trust me, please order me directly so I can do it for you. If you don't, the vertical up-down order will be exercised. I receive your orders via Executive Commanding Officer and Chief Of Staff."
"All right! In these cases you will report directly to me. However, you had better be smart and careful enough not have any conflicts in our operation system or with other departments."
I was happy to say:
"Yes, Sir. I understand very well, my Captain!"
When I was just about to leave his office, Captain Ba called me back for an extra order:
"Why don't you take one bag of high quality clothing material for pants and cut for all the officers in our headquarters several yards each."
I tended to oppose this decision, but I did not know why I was humble:
"Yes, Sir. . ."
Back at my office, I was still thinking about Captain Ba's decision. If there were several rolls for the commanding officer, were there several yards for each officer? He did not know how much damage he had done to his Chief of Intelligence Department when he cared about other officers. There would be complaints about the quality of the materials. There would be questions about the length and the amount of such a gift. I could not cover up all the mouths of people who were naturally selfish in their blood. The on lease water-buffalo would never like the free, hay grazing one . The gossip, however, was not broken down between men, but by women, the officers' wives. My prediction became reality. Finally, I had to satisfy them fast before the turmoil got bigger and out of control. . .
The interrogation was finished in three days. We let only the captain of the boat, the Chinese man, know about the secret plan. He was very happy to sign the document that was written in three languages, Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese. He knew that he could have something left over if this secret mission succeeded.
This time, I wanted to do the transferring process to the Rach-Gia Customs myself. I wanted to know my future partner, the Customs Department Chief. Did he have three heads and six hands? Following me, there were Nghia and Un. They both carried hand guns, Colt 45s, under their shirts. Were we trying to look like real CIA agents? I thought so!
"Playing games with the black-market traders, we have to be careful, Lieutenant. These bad guys are more dangerous than VC; they kill us like frogs." Nghia explained.
One evening with clear sky and light wind, I had to leave my wife and children for my mission. I went down to the PCF assigned to me from the Fourth Coastal Zone Fleet. It took the whole night to escort the boat from Phu-Quoc to Rach-Gia Harbor, the same amount of time that the civilian bus boat usually took. To get out of Phu-Quoc Bay, I had to pass Cape of Ong-Doi (the Sergeant Cape). We were on course with both waves and wind against us. Despite the two engines being at full speed, the boat seemed to stay at one place. Big waves tossed it up easily. When it came down, its front part often went under water for a while. I thought that the PCF was about to sink. Where the wind was coming from and where the water was going to , that was the basic navy rule for me to memorize. But, in this vast open sea who could know which was which and where was where. This was not part of the warm current Kuroshio in the Pacific nor part of the cold current Canaries in the Atlantic. What was the name of the oceanic current in the Gulf of Thailand? Who knows!
"This place is always rough, Lieutenant. The current is very strong like the current in the narrow rivers."
The captain of the PCF, a lieutenant JG, mentioned it with me. That should be right because in the beginning of the 18th century, even the big boat of the King of Gia-Long had problems at this Cape when they fought with the Tay-Son forces. But, why did people name this cape Ong-Doi (Sergeant)? Was there a sergeant who saved the king? Who knows!
When we had crossed the rough seas, I came down to my cabin. I slept the whole night without wondering about the moonlight falling on the Nghe or Tre Islands.
Next morning, the PCF came close to the captured boat. I jumped into the boat, and the PCF continued to go to Khoai (Potato) Island for more missions. Some hands were waving. In the kitchen, I had seen Un with the Thai gang. In the control room, I had seen Nghia who was the boat's navigator now. Nghia went into the bay by following local boats that ran on a memorized path; there was no pole or buoy for marking the waterway from the Kien-Giang river. About an hour later, we reached the river's mouth. On one bank was Rach-Gia City's boat station and on the other was a customs building which I might have seen before, but had never paid any attention to. The big Thailand fishing boat that had been captured a few months ago was still docked at the bank of the river. The fishing crew were expecting more of their people to come. Although the situation was not very promising, they were all happy to see each other. For countrymen in a foreign land, strangers became friends in a minute. They sounded like birds in a flock.
After we tied up the front rope, a wide and long bar of wood was used as the bridge between the boat and the bank. I walked on it carefully. Nghia followed me while Un stayed back with the boat crew. The customs' building was a big single level house. Crossing the first wide open door, I could imagine that this was a storage barn instead of an important office. Around me, there were all kinds of bags containing black pepper, garlic, sugar, mung bean, clothing materials, etc.. Where did this black-market merchandise coming from? So, not only the Navy but the Army and the local military forces also were helping Customs to get rich. Crossing one more wide open door, we saw some work tables surrounded by mountains of damp things. And we met some workers there. Nghia said first:
"My `Phoenix' wants to see your boss. This time, my `Phoenix' will give your boss a big gift!"
"Is that right? Please have a chair `Master.' I will tell someone to inform my boss!"
What the heck was "Phoenix?" Was I a "Phoenix?" No way! This word was used only by the Army, not the Navy. Well, the Army terms would be more familiar to the customs personnel, I guessed. The black-market merchandise that was transferred to this office could often come from the Army instead of from the Navy. Nghia had been clever by stealing that term. When I met the Chief of the Customs Department, I stole another term from his Customs personnel.
"Good morning, `Master.' I just came from Phu-Quoc."
"Good morning, Lieutenant. How are you? Why don't we come inside, to my office."
He and I shook hands. Then, I turned to his young deputy, about my age:
"Good morning."
"Good morning, Lieutenant. How are you?"
We both shook hands. I followed the "Master," made a few turns before reaching his office. Now, I realized that this one level house was not small as I thought. The "Master" offered me a cup of coffee. After conversation about the changing weather and prices in the market, he went directly to the subject:
"Today, I am very busy with a bunch of merchandise that has been sent down from the Kien-Luong. If you don't mind, can I talk with you later. How about 7:00 PM? If you want, you can come here and have dinner with us. We need more time, I guess."
"OK. I will let you go, now. Will see you at 7 o'clock, `Master.'"
"I am sorry . . ."
"It's all right. No problems. . ."
After that, Nghia and I went downtown to find a place to establish the frontier headquarters. We checked in to Phu-Si (Fuji in Japanese) Hotel located at the corner of Rach-Gia City's main shopping center.
At Seven o'clock, I was on time to have dinner with Mr. Dung and his wife. A small table was set up on the yard beside his house, which was used as his office and the Customs Department as well. Concrete had been poured into part of the yard, and several fruit trees like plums, guava, and mangos had been planted all over the place. Although the food looked fancy and delicious, it was not tasty to me. There were a couple of things that made me not hungry. First, the difference between our ages was quite large, so I had to pay respect to him like my old man. Second, I had to be in a hurry because my men were waiting for me to come back to have a party . . . Anyway, the deal had been re-stated: one third, one third, and one third.
Our party that night was good. The dish of "blood clams stir fried with oyster sauce" at the Kim-Thanh restaurant was perfect. The capturers and the ones who had been captured were friendly. There was no discrimination, no foreigners, because Vietnamese, Thai, or Chinese, we all worked together on the same goal: money.
Nghia put his mouth close to my ear and softly told me:
"The captain of the boat said: `You have to let him loose, Lieutenant, so he can run back to Phnom-Penh to get some bucks.' The amount of money he borrows from all the Chinese he knew around here is nothing."
What? I had to be alert. Gain a party, lose a plowing work day , I reminded myself. I wanted not to fall in the booby trap set up by the black-market traders. I disagreed with Nghia:
"No. To let him go returns the tiger to the jungle. Tell him that whatever he does, after three more days, I will unload the merchandise to the customs authority. If he has no money, I will transfer the whole boat, a hundred percent of what he has. We stay here no longer than that. We have to report everything to Sai-Gon, too."
Three days later, Nghia told me: "At his best, the captain of the boat found only a half of the set amount." I could not sleep that night. I had been thinking of many things. Did the Chinese guy not find any more money or did my men try to prolong the transferring process? Of course, the Chinese must do his best, the more money the more profit he would get later on. The blank list of the merchandise was still in my hand. With him, I hold the knife by the handle. However, I might not have my men totally under control because the deputy chief of the Customs Department had warned me:
"You had better be careful, Lieutenant. I am letting you know that your men remove some merchandise every night. We put an eye on them and we know where the merchandise goes. Because of our long friendship, I didn't want to arrest them. You need to stop this problem."
It was clear that I stood in a very dangerous position with the crane in the bottom, the hammer on the top, the bullet in the front, the arrow in the back, and pointed bars on both sides. Was it a true about my men or did the deputy chief try to take advantage of me? I hoped that one hundred kilograms of condensed sugar was still on the boat. This type of sugar was very expensive. Each container holding a thousand liter of fishsauce needed only a handful of it to have the right artificial taste. And how to remove the sugar? Where were the pockets? Oh, my gosh, that should be it. I called Un and asked:
"How much merchandise did you and the gang on this boat already sell?"
"It is only a little bit for refueling our empty pockets, Lieutenant."
"Do you think I believe what you say?"
"Live or die, we are always together, Lieutenant."
No. There was not to die but only to live. I gave them my decision to unload the boat the next day. I was a little angry about my men at first, but I calmed down later on. They were poor, too. They had to cover daily expenses for restaurants, bars, and girls. They could not wait so long for me to have their refunds. If I was in their shoes, I would do the same thing. Then, I thought of the boat's captain, the Chinese guy. He was also a true person. I had to help him although he committed a crime with our government. I gained only a half of the Navy's one third, but I put a half more for his merchandise on the transferring list. I filled out those blank spots on the transferring document. That was it, and my mission was completed. Everything now was on the hands of the Customs Department. Once more, the position of the captain of the boat was like a fish on the cutting board . I did not know what Mr. Dung would do to him. Would he have his chance, again.
That evening, Nghia, Un and I went back to Phu-Quoc by Thuan-Loi civilian bus boat. We carried three large Samsonite luggages filled up with money. There were all kinds of bills ranging from one piaster to one thousand piasters. This proved that the Chinese guy already did his best. I did not know whether the money was counted as our charity contribution or part of the military corruption.
The next afternoon, I came to see Captain Ba at his office. I warmly reported to him my fairly successful operation. Then, he said like an order:
"Give me a half. The other half is for you and your men."
I was very surprised. My respect to him was gone momentarily although I knew that many top dogs above him could share his part. Without any emotion, I replied:
"Yes, Sir. I will do whatever you say."
It was unfair for us, my fellows and I and our committee, to receive a half of the income from the special mission. Well, at least, it was good for everyone of us to have a few months extra salary because I did not tell Captain Ba the true amount, either. As the chief of the Intelligence Department, I could not afford to lose my first move.
When I got back to the office in a bad mood, Nghia happily jumped on me:
"The NOC just informs me that another black-market boat has been captured. They are on the way to the bay, Lieutenant."
"Big or small?"
Nghia's face in a frown:
"It is a small one. But there is a Buddhist monk on that boat. I am afraid that we may have a big problem instead of a `big cake '."
"What the heck is the problem? Who cares about a Buddhist monk or Catholic father? Put them all in jail! There is no black-market operation for monks and fathers, do you know?"
"I am afraid that they arrested the top monk of the Luc-Son (Six Mountain) Buddhist Temple. I hear that he could make himself disappear, Lieutenant."
What, the Luc-Son Temple? I had already been there. That was a Temple in Cambodian territory across the border from Ha-Tien District. Surrounding the Temple, there was a city of palm leaf houses where people sold all non-tax merchandise as the main black-market for Viet-Nam. And Ha-Tien, in 17th century, was the land of the Mac family who fled China for refusing to live under the new rulers, the first king of the Tang dynasty. Cuu Mac was the father and Tu Thien Mac was the son who also was a poet. His "ten poems" characterizing "ten beautiful places of Ha-Tien" were famous. Ha-Tien was also the homeland of the Dong-Ho (Phac Tan Lam) and Mong-Tuyet That-Tieu-Muoi (The Seventh Sister) poets. The well known sight-seeing places in Ha-Tien were Hon-Chong (Rock Island), Da-Dung (Rock Wall), and Thach-Dong (Deep Rock Cave), Phu-Dung Temple, and To-Chau Ferry. At the quay of this ferry, I once got so drunk that I could not even walk. I returned to my ship, HQ 405, by lying down on the bottom of the life-boat. And from the life-boat to the main deck, I had been craned up by the ship's cranẹ I could not climb the rope ladder because I was soft like a spaghetti string. . .
Finally, I met the top monk of the Luc-Son Temple, Rev. Cong-Xa-Phanh, who was a well known monk not only in Cambodia but in Viet-Nam too. I was surprised that he was big and fat like an American. He had the gesture of a general instead of a monk. The only monk characteristics were his shaved head and his yellow robe that covered the body from one shoulder down. Anyway, why was his small boat loaded with American whiskey and cigarettes?
To avoid a conflict with some sort of religious power, I had invited Mr. Phong-Hung, the owner of the Phong-Hung Fishsauce Company, to come and receive his famous monk. Mr. Phong-Hung was a Vietnamese citizen who had Cambodian roots. Again, I was surprised that Mr. Phong-Hung greeted Rev. Cong-Xa-Phanh like a live Buddha. He lay down and bowed to the live Buddha every three steps of his way with many people carrying trays of fruits.
In the middle of the cyclone of border violations, both fishing rights and black-market trading, an ordinary person like me could never understand what the religious world was. But, on the road to Deceitful Bay, did the religious people miss anything?
The cloud, the human being's image, was unclear
Sympathy for the people who fell in the area
Between truth and false
For myself, I concluded that the road to Deceitful Bay was not long like the road leading into the Thuc country-A Vietnamese saying about a long and rough road that was based on the Chinese story about the long way home to the Thuc state of the two royal sisters in the 3th century.
04. THOUGHTS OF THE ONE WHO CAME TO CAMBODIA
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Between Phu-Quoc Island of Vietnam and Cambodia, there was a small stretch of international water if the national water of a state was specified by 12 nautical miles from the shoreline. But, if the national water of a state was set 100 nautical miles from the shore line, the Vietnamese water around the northern part of Phu-Quoc Island would overlay Cambodian territory. And even with 100 nautical miles of national water, the Vietnamese water from the mainland would not reach far enough to cover the Hoang-Sa and Tay-Sa Islands in the Paracel Archipelago. These two remote islands were taken over by Red Chinese forces in 1974. With the 100 mile of national water, the Vietnamese had gained only the ocean oil bed named Rose Nọ 9, which was left alone; no company tried to drill and find oil there.
With a long friendship as next-door neighbors, Cambodian and Vietnamese governments had agreed to take the center line between Phu-Quoc Island and Cambodia's southern shoreline as their border. Of course, it was clear and fair, but, only on the map and in documents. In reality, this unseen borderline was drawn up by the one who had muscle. Strong guys win, weak guys lose or big fish eat small fish , the basic rules from the beginning of mankind were still applied here, particularly for those who wanted to make this troubled sea area their field of operation.
Who were they? Basically, they were Vietnamese fishermen, the Vietnamese Navy, Cambodian fishermen, the Cambodian Navy, and black-market traders. From long ago, these four types of people had lived together in peace. Bird on the air and fish in the water belonged to the one who caught it , another basic rule from the beginning of mankind was also still applied here. But, when the fifth type appeared, everything was changed, even the borderline. Although the population of this type was small, it included all races in the area: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian. It was the black marketeers.
Up to this point, I seemed to understand why "the Old Empire," the recent administration of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, was badly ruined. Instead of fighting the black-market traders, their main official responsibility, they jumped into the black-market trading battle not to kill, but to compete with the bad guys. They even used the naval gun ships to transport black-market merchandise such as mung beans, sugar, and clothing materials. Going out often at night, sooner or later, one would see ghosts . This proverb had been proven once more.
Learning from that very expensive lesson of seeing ghosts (getting caught by doing the wrong thing), the "New Empire" tried to bend its operations back to the right direction. Besides killing the enemy, their troops had also destroyed all illegal financing, not only of the enemy but of friends, too. To win the war of black-market trading meant to have some profits for both the government and themselves. So, everybody in the "New Empire" put all their efforts into the "search and catch" job.
It was strange that the profits sometimes were not counted by money but by fish-sauce, the plastic or metal cans of 5-liters, 10-liters, or 20-liters. It was about the Tet (Vietnamese New Year) season. I thought that fish-sauce would make a great gift for the Tet occasion, although it was smelly. So, I sent to my big bosses, my Admirals, Commodores, Captains. . ., three cans (the high, medium, and low quality fish-sauce) each. I believed that gifts always pleased the ones who received them. For me, that was a pretty way to say "Thanks" to the high ranking naval personnel who let me go where I wanted to. It cost me only a few months' salary.
Because of such spending for Tet presents, my bosses might guess that I was rich from much reward money from capturing many Thailand fishing boats and black-market trading boats. Then, they might say my gifts were too little. Anyway, nobody could think that these cans of fish-sauce were the formal contribution of the fish-sauce making companies: the Thanh-Binh, Thanh-Hai, Phong-Hung, Phuoc-Hung, Phuoc-Loc, Mai-Huong, Nghia-Thanh companies. . . I did not know much about them either because the ones who came and knocked on their doors were not me but my men.
For my family, the high quality fish-sauce was not good enough. Our fish-sauce for the Tet season had to be the top quality fish-sauce which was specially made from a separate small churn by Mr. Ben, the owner of Thanh-Binh Company. It was tasty and smelled good.
Shortly after Tet, conflict between the Cambodian and Vietnamese navies broke out, seriously. One afternoon, the commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone, Captain Ba Huu Khuong, angrily yelled on the naval radio system:
"At any price, I want you to sink those two Cambodian PCFs, right now!"
That was an order. And not carrying out the order on the battlefield was committing a crime that could mean being sentenced to death. Despite the bad communication link, I could hear clearly the trembling voice of the Captain of HQ 330, the LSS (Landing Ship Support) ship:
"My commander, please reconsider the case. To sink them down is an easy job, just a few rounds of 76.2 or 40 (Bofors) millimeter guns. But, what about the relationship between the two countries? It is not simple like opening fire on the VC ship, my commander. Please . . ."
Captain Ba seemed to be calmed down by the plea from the HQ 330's captain. He replied:
"All right! You continue to collect and report all information about their movements. Put your crew in the state of war all the time. OK!"
"Aye aye, Sir."
Then, Captain Ba came into the office of the Chief of NOC (Naval Operation Center) and telephoned Admiral Tanh Nguon Lam, the Deputy of the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations), in Sai-Gon.
One jungle could not sustain two tigers , so I believed that the muscle "show down" would happen in the future, but not this soon. Anyway, the problem was caused by the black-market traders. At the beginning, both navies had carried out "search and catch" missions only on their own national waters. But later on, the Vietnamese Navy had extended its field of operation into Cambodian waters because it simply had bigger ships and bigger guns. The Cambodian Navy's biggest ship was a very old PC (Patrol Craft) which was just for looks. This PC seldom went out to sea because it might be destroyed by the big waves. Given the poor condition of the Cambodian Navy, I could not understand why its top officer made his decision to engage the Vietnamese Navy. It was strange.
Without approval from Sai-Gon, Captain Ba moodily made another contact with the HQ 330's captain:
"What's the situation out there now?"
"We cannot stop them, commander. Our boat has been captured and the two Cambodian PCFs have pulled it deep into their water."
"How far is it from you to them?"
"Very far, commander. I do not see them clearly anymore. However, I stopped pursuing them because I am already very deep in their side."
"All right! You just stay in that area and be always ready for more orders, OK!"
"Aye aye, Sir."
Actually, who did take revenge this time? Not the Vietnamese Navy but the Cambodian Navy. The problem had occurred because before transferring the patrol region to HQ 330, HQ 609, a PGM (Patrol Gun Motor) ship had captured several Cambodian boats. These boats were not black-marketer's boats but only fishing boats. When I had received them, I had seen a fleet of poverty. And where was the point of interception? Was it on Cambodian water, Vietnamese water, or international water? Who knows! With the reported coordinate from the patrol ship, the capture point plotted on the map was always near our shoreline, almost jumping onto the foothill of the Khu-Tuong Mountain sometimes.
Without Captain "Cow-boy" Ba's hot temper, the commanding officer of the Cambodian Navy in the area had his patience. But, he was a clever man. He might have a series of conferences with his advisors to find a better strategy to fight back at the Vietnamese Navy. With his tactic of "surprising," he surely caught his opponent, Captain Ba, in the first try. Anyway, I thought that his purpose was only to take hostages for exchanging later on with Vietnamese authorities.
However, the Cambodians' big mistake was that they had captured not a civilian fishing boat but a gun boat from the Vietnamese Navy, a wide-body type of boat that belonged to the 42nd Coastal Division. This division was currently commanded by Lieutenant Hung Quang Huynh, my former senior cadet. That was the reason Captain Ba ordered HQ 330's captain to sink those two Cambodian PCFs at any price. However, did the witch go to jail when the monk stole ? No way! The captain of the HQ 330 never wanted to be the witch in this case.
Why was the gun boat of the 42nd Coastal Division captured so very easily by the Cambodian patrol crafts? Where were the crew and their weapons? Did they not know how to shoot? Did they tie their arms themselves when the Cambodians came? There were many questions without answers, and what was happening seemed to be unreal.
But, there was nothing unreal for one who knew the inside story. The real story was that the Vietnamese gun boat was not on its patrol mission, but on a fishing session! Was it wrong when the commanding officer transformed his seamen to fishmen? Did Captain Ba have to take quick action to prevent the leak of a serious corruption plan?
No. It was not a cover up action. In a different look, there was a different meaning. In this case, fishing with a gun boat was not only guiltless but sometimes heroic. For the commanding officer of the 42nd Coastal Division, there was an amount of fish and shrimp, daily. For the Chief of Intelligence Department like me, there was some confidential information about the enemy. An infiltration trail of weapons and ammunition might be discovered accidentally. So, fishing with a gun boat could be a successful operation carried out at the low cost.
Frankly, it was difficult to conclude who was bad or who was good during the war time.
Anyway, the secret operation of the commanding officer of the 42nd Coastal Division had already put the commanding officer of the 4th Coastal Zone in trouble. Although there was no defeat or casualty, Captain Ba still felt embarrassed, as the strong man in the area, by his sloppy way of doing things. Needless to say, the Cambodian Navy's commanding officer had scored at the end with his patient tactic: soft against hard . Knowing this tactic very well, Captain Ba did the same thing, he put down his gun and played the negotiation game.
That created another longer story to tell.
In the next cloudy morning, I had to say farewell to my family, my wife and children, to go to Cambodia. I took PCF 09, Captain Ba's flag boat. Compared with all PCFs from the 4th Patrol Fleet, PCF 09 was the best, both in looks and speed, because it was a fairly new boat. After passing the Cape of Hanh and getting into a north north-west direction, I told Lieutenant JG Chanh, the boat's captain:
"I have the responsibility to present this letter, Captain Ba's letter, to Captain Sam-Sa-Ray, the commanding officer of the Cambodian Navy at Ream Naval Base. My fate is the same as yours, less luck and more trouble. Everything can happen, do you know? I really depend and count on our flexibility in the circumstances.
Surprisingly, the boat's captain asked:
"Are you kidding? Do we actually go to Cambodia, Lieutenant?"
"Yes! What do you think the Cambodians will do when we get into their national water? Is there someone here who has been in Cambodia?"
The first class petty officer, a navigation specialist, shook his head:
"None of us, Lieutenant. I know that for sure because I have been on this boat for the longest time."
Lieutenant JG Chanh continued:
"They will do nothing to us, I guess, Lieutenant. They are often scared when they see us, do you know?"
"I hope what you say is correct. However, we have to be careful. We are in a dangerous situation because we have captured several of their fishing boats, and they just pulled a wide-body boat belonging to the 42nd Coastal Division."
"What? We'd better be putting our men in fighting position, Lieutenant?"
"Un uh, don't do that. The only thing we need to do is to put our weapons in ready state, I mean bullets in the barrels. Then, we put the cover back to camouflage as if nothing important is going on. Our men will have no helmets, no bullet proof vests. We have to wait and see what the Cambodian reactions will be when they first confront us."
A few hours later, we would reach Cambodian water. What would happen would happen, but I was still uncomfortable at all times. To open fire on the neighboring naval boat was a cruel action. They would think twice, I hoped. I also hoped that there were no crazy or hot-tempered officers like our Captain Ba in the Cambodian Navy. We could soon be as sacrificed goats in this heavily conflicted sea.
Not waiting for long, like the shark discovering fresh blood, two Cambodian PCFs came toward us at full speed, white waves on both sides of the boats' hulks. I could see them larger and clearer. I gradually made out their officers' beige uniforms of kaki clothing material. The color of the working uniform of the Vietnamese naval officers had been changed from beige, which was used by most of the navies around the world, to dark blue. The reason was that the beige kaki uniform was the small ceremony uniform for the Vietnamese Army. The seaman's uniform with white cap, light blue shirt, and dark blue pants, the international uniform, was currently still used in both Cambodian and Vietnamese navies. The Cambodian's flag with red foundation and the black Angkor Wat Temple at the center now could be seen. Head to head, we looked at each other. Oh, no! The Cambodian crew was in fighting position. Helmets were on their heads, and gun pads were on their shoulders. All of them were in their gun compartments. They were ready to kill. What could we do? We froze, staring at the enemy with no action taking place. I ordered to keep our speed at the same level, ignore them, and wait for the outcome. Was time still going? Was the beat of our hearts still constant? Or was it jumping up and down? Our crucial moment had come and gradually passed. . . Suddenly, the clouds on the sky were gone, and a clear afternoon seemed to begin with sunshine on the ocean. Were we out of fatal trouble yet? I held both hands tight on the captain-chair hand-hold bars with a joyous smile. That was it, the crisis finally ended.
The two Cambodian PCFs wheeled round and escorted us, one on each side. The Cambodian Navy had just received them new from the Americans. By a common way, we made friends with the Cambodians by waving our hands. Nobody could speak Cambodian. The Cambodian crew replied in the same manner. Some of them then talked and laughed loudly. We could not understand anyway, so we kept silent. All together, our three PCFs maintained the same speed and direction toward Ream, the main base of the Cambodian Navy in the area.
I tried to remember what I had learned about the Navy rules in the Academy. I had known that the Vietnamese ships or boats were Vietnamese territory. Whereever the ships or boats went in the U.S.A. or Japan, our territory must be defended as our duty, a binding duty specified in our Constitution. For example, we were proud of our race and sovereignty. Now, I felt that my responsibility was too big and heavy. I was Commander-in-Chief on this boat, this little Vietnam. I had a chance to pump all my patriotic cells into my blood vessels. I never thought that I would have that kind of feeling if all my naval life as I patrolled and guarded only along the S shaped coast of Vietnam. Anyway, I surely had shown a lot of self-confidence before a smaller foreigner.
Shortly, the Cambodian naval base at Ream appeared. I saw a long pier that stuck out from the shore with an LSM ship that docked beside it. This LSM was used as a dry dock for quick repair jobs, I thought. Docking at the pier, I also saw a boat which belonged to our 42nd Coastal Division. The boat's crew sat sadly together on the floor. A number of Cambodian naval personnel stood at the edge of the pier. The beige color of the officer's kaki uniform was mixed with the light and dark blue colors of the seaman's shirt and pants. "Hooo, heee . . .," the familiar loud sounds from the horn of the Cambodian PCFs were heard. This was a way of reporting a mission accomplished. However, it reminded me that my difficult task of "Military Ambassador" had begun. I told Chanh:
"Are you good at maneuvering? Can you make a fancy docking for the Cambodians to see?"
"Do it in cowboy style, Lieutenant!"
"Are you sure to do it good?"
"A piece of cake, Sir"
Chanh took over the control wheel from the petty officer and made a beautiful 45 degree docking path. I grasped my samsonite brief case and stepped onto the pier. Chanh and other petty officers followed me, jumping out of the boat. At close distance, I recognized that the Cambodian Navy's shoulder board of ranking was similar to that of the French Navy, with small parallel bars like the Air Vietnam Airline pilot's shoulder board of ranking. Perhaps the Cambodian Lieutenant JG who came to greet me knew my ranking. He put his hand to the cap and gave me a military salute. I replied and put my hand out for him to shake. He shook with both hands. He asked:
" Bonjour monsieur, parlez vous francaise (Good afternoon, Sir. Can you speak French)?"
Oh no! Why did he speak French? French was my first foreign language in high school while English was the second. But my skill of speaking French was in history, quite a period of time ago. I forgot it because I had to speak only English with American advisors. Now, it was difficult for me just to listen to French, how could I talk? Well, I had to make him follow my rule, the rule of the stronger party.
"No. I speak English."
He adjusted to English right away. However, his English with heavy Cambodian accent was very difficult to understand. I had to repeat a couple of times the term "say it again, please." Son-Sanh, his correct name was spelled out word by word. I wondered whether he had any kinship with Mr. Son-Ngoc-Thanh (the well known Cambodian politician who had been trained in Vietnam) or Mr. Thach Sanh in the Thach Sanh-Ly Thong fairy tale? I thought that my name was easy for him to memorize because of its ABC alphabet. In contrast, I could not pronounce his name which was printed like snakes and circles on the top of his shirt's pocket. I reminded him of my purpose:
"I have a letter from my commanding officer to your boss. I need to give it to him."
Finally, he understood. I stopped by at the Vietnamese captured boat, shook hands with the boat captain, a chief petty officer, and I gave him some words of consolation. I then followed my partner, Lieutenant JG Son-Sanh, to the base. On the front of the main building which was built in the French style, I met a group of Cambodian naval officers, lieutenants, lieutenants JG, and under. Perhaps they were informed about my coming and my foreign language preference; all of them were greeting me with English.
"Hello. How are you?"
I shook hands with them and said "Hi or Hello." Everybody seemed to enjoy getting to know me, and I was happy about that, too. I felt success from the start. Lieutenant JG Son-Sanh led me through a couple of hallways before we entered the office of the commanding officer's secretary. Mr. Secretary was a lieutenant who could not speak English at all. Now, I knew that Son-Sanh was only the briefing officer of the base's commander. I communicated with the secretary through Son-Sanh, and I understood that I had to wait here for his big boss.
Shortly, I had my chance to report to the commanding officer of Ream Naval Base, Captain Sam-Sa-Ray. I was surprised a little bit to see him looking like a Frenchman instead of a Cambodian because his skin color was light and his body was fat. I saluted and presented him the letter from my boss, Captain Ba.
I did not know the content of this letter, but I was sure that it had not been written in Vietnamese. Perhaps, the French language was used because Captain Ba, Captain Sam-Sa-Ray, and most of high ranking naval officers in Indochina usually had some sort of training in the French naval schools.
Mr. Sam-Sa-Ray did not speak French with me; he spoke Cambodian and Son-Sanh, again, acted as our interpreter. Why? Did Mr. Sam-Sa-Ray try to be proud of his nationality? Could he not speak English? Or, was I too bad for not knowing how to speak French? Nobody could easily understand the other party, particularly, the foreigner's face. I understood that I could visit the city of Ream with his briefing officer, Son-Sanh, while he prepared his letter to return to Captain Ba. I was pleased with this suggestion. I saluted him and did not forget to say the friendly words:
"Thank you, Sir."
Lieutenant JG Chanh, Ensign Hieu, and several petty officers followed me, piled up on a nice A-2 model Jeep which might belong to the top dog. Son-Sanh drove us around the city. Ream was a small town, about the size of Ha-Tien District's town in Vietnam. But, there was a big driving circle at the intersection of four or five main streets in the city. Inside that circle, two huge lions, one male and one female, were sculpted from concrete. I did not know what those figures of animals stood for and I asked myself "Did the Cambodians not have their national heros? Where were the statues of Nac-Ong-Non (the Cambodia's ruler in the 16th century in Vietnamese translation)?"
In five minutes, we came back to the same place where we began. Then, I did not know who suggested it, Son-Sanh drove us to the urban area. The paved road led to dirt road, and the dirt road became smaller and smaller, some places wide enough for only one car. He turned into an orchard with thick plants like a jungle. I had seen some familiar fruit trees such as banana, coconut, and date. A kind of purple flower like morning glories climbed on the fence of someone's shed. After passing a large prairie with tall grass, we came to a big house that was well covered under the shade of a couple of enormous trees. The house was built on the wooden floor about two yards above the ground sitting atop many posts. This was the same kind of flood-surviving house as in Chau-Doc and Long-Xuyen provinces in Vietnam. But, the roof was made of grass stalks instead of palm leaves. Son-Sanh parked the Jeep right at the center of the front yard. Scared ducks and chicken ran into the dark space under the house's floor. Climbing up a short stairway, we stepped on the "main deck" which was smooth and bright with sweat from long time use.
The living room was large. On the walls there were some posters of Cambodian movie stars and a Buddhist calendar, similar to the Tam-Tong-Mieu calendar in Vietnam. Again, I could not read those big Cambodian characters like snakes and circles. There were some wooden benches against the walls. The table and chairs were placed at the center of the room. A hot tea set on the table included a colorful tea pot container made from a big coconut husk and a plate had been filled with several tea cups. Not waiting for someone to invite us, we sat around the table and served ourselves with tea. The Cambodian air in the afternoon was hot like that of Vietnam, even in this house under the good shade of the trees. But who were the owners of the house? What kind of relationship did Son-Sanh have with them?
Never let the guests wait. The owner of the house came out to greet us. Following her, there were many young, pretty girls. They talked and laughed naturally. Oh no! Was this the Hanh-Thong-Tay or Go-Vap ghetto of Vietnam in Cambodia? Was prostitution, the oldest profession, legally operated in the country of the Angkor Wat Temple? I was still surprised when Son-Sanh told me:
"Enjoy yourself, I will be back."
I thought that he might take advantage of this free time to go back to his home or to do something else like visiting his parents. I gave him my friendly advice:
"Don't hurry, just take your time."
When he left, I began to feel uncomfortable with my Vietnamese gang. In the duty or in the play, I had to be the leader anyway. I asked Chanh:
"What do you think? Do you really want to try them out? Remember that if someone doesn't act correctly and makes his partner angry, he may be cursed (with the Vietnamese, the Cambodians were well known for their secret powers) by forgetting the way to go home, don't you know? Then, we might miss the boat for the returning trip, did you ever realize that?"
I just said what I wanted to, but I knew that my men were like the cats who sat in front of a piece of fat . They could not refuse such an offer. Chanh strongly spoke his decision:
"This is a nice gift, Lieutenant. I pick the girl who sits at the end of that bench."
Did he already choose his partner? All of them were the same to me, eighteen, seventeen or under. I turned my head to look at the one Chanh had picked, and I was so surprised. I frowned my face to ask him:
"Are you sure you like that most dark skinned girl?"
"The more darker she is, the more feeling you get, Lieutenant. I warrant that, for your whole life, you will never find anyone like her, ever. I just love it. . ."
That was the reason, but I asked him more:
"Hey, where is your Cambodian money for paying them? Hmmm. . ."
"Today, we are all important guests, Lieutenant. They would never put the handcuffs on our hands, they'd only arrest that Cambodian lieutenant JG."
"Are you sure? Remember that we are in the foreign country, we have to be careful to not lose our face, the face of the Dragon and Angel (in a fairy tale, the Angel got married with the King, the Dragon as the King's symbol, and give birth to 50 princes and 50 princesses to start the Vietnamese people)!"
One of the most proud traditions in the Navy was the respect from the officer to his senior officer. The petty officers and seamen held the same tradition. But, for right now, I did not want to take advantage of that tradition to make me dictate my decision. Frankly, I could not feel comfortable even for myself. I said:
"Well, if any of you feel OK, why don't you just do your strong attack and fast withdraw. . . to save our time."
All my men stood up at the same time. They ran and pulled their chosen partner to the back of the house. The difference of the languages was not a big problem anymore.
It was strange for me to sit at the table alone. Was I abnormal? Did I have no feeling for those young and pretty girls? I faked! I had to let my men go away, so they did not see what I would do. I stood up and signaled a mixed Chinese girl with egg-white skin to go with me. Behind the silk curtain at the door, a long hallway appeared, five rooms on either side. With two hallways, it had twenty rooms, this whore house. The bath rooms and kitchen were far in the back.
We could not talk with each other by the languages, so we communicated by our eyes, lips, hands, feet, and actions. The curving lines of the mountains and hills on the body were blurry in the dark, which was the main factor that helped to reduce the strangeness of the strangers. In the sailor's life, were there always sea storms and lightnings in their love makings, particularly, in those strange harbors?
When I returned to the living room, Son-Sanh was back. I stuck my thumb and my index finger together to make an OK sign with a smile on my face. I pulled out from my pocket some Vietnamese money and gave it to him. He refused to take it for the simple reason that he could not use it in Cambodia. But, he then changed his mind. He took one of each kind for souvenirs and gave me back the rest. He did not forget to mention that he would like me to pay him back some day when he could come to Phu-Quoc Island. What? Did he really try to give up a shrimp for catching a loster? Remember I am a piece of porcelain and he is a rough pottery product, I talked to myself. However, it was too late now. The only thing I needed to do was just to enjoy my present time.
We piled onto the Jeep again. Son-Sanh drove us back to town. He stopped at an ordinary bar with no steam bath section. And there was nothing, except Cambodian beer. I called it "water buffalo" beer because its bottles were big, about twice the size of the "tiger face" brand and three times that of the "33" brand in Vietnam. The Cambodian beer was very dark, like it had some soy sauce added. Anyway, it was too strong. I almost got drunk with only a half bottle.
When we returned to the naval base, it was time for people to get off from work. Lieutenant JG Son-Sanh and I had only a few minutes to stop by at the office of Captain Sam-Sa-Ray's secretary to pick up the written letter. Then, we went directly to the pier. I represented all the Vietnamese crew and said "Thank you" to Lieutenant JG Son-Sanh, who had become a very good friend to us in a very short time. We expressed our hope that we might meet him some day in the future in Vietnam. Although there were no tears in our farewell, I still felt sad on the way home from the country of Angkor Wat Temple. In the same manner as we were escorted in, two Cambodian PCFs one on either side escorted us to the international water.
I gave thoughts to my crew:
"I don't know what you are thinking, but for myself, I can tell you that the Cambodian is nobler than the French!"
Lieutenant JG Chanh replied:
"I am afraid that when Son-Sanh comes to our country, we may have nothing to serve him. We may lose our face of Dragon and Angel, Lieutenant. Surely, we owe him a great gift."
I complained:
"Don't worry about that, they have plenty of petty cash fund. Lieutenant JG Son-Sanh, he didn't throw any penny for us, I think. The problem is that we don't have similar accounts for party and fun like that in our navy.
The two Cambodian PCFs blew their horns and returned to Ream Naval Base. We blew our horn in reply and waved to them with our caps. Chanh shifted gear to gain full speed for home. White waves formed long at the rear.
The good result of my trip to Cambodia was the establishment of a "red channel" of communication between the Naval Bases at An-Thoi and Ream, similar to the red communication line between the White House and the Kremlin. And the result of the first conversation on the "red channel" was the release all of the hostages. Tonight, the Cambodian fishing fleet would be provided with food and fuel, and the Vietnamese boat at Ream would be treated the same way. Tomorrow, they would be free and find their way home by themselves. Once again, the unseen borderline, the national water boundary, between the two countries would be redrawn.
The friendship between the two naval forces in the area had been strengthened more when Captain Ba agreed to visit Captain Sam-Sa-Ray at Ream. The two French speaking men had their chance to talk to each other face to face. Following Captain Ba, this time, were Lieutenant Commander Tam, Deputy of Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Commander Quy, Chief of Warfare Department, myself, the Chief of the Intelligence Department, and Captain Ba's briefing officer.
Not using PCF like me, Captain Ba came to Cambodia by his helicopter. Not going to downtown Ream like Son-Sanh, Captain Sam-Sa-Ray flew his guests to the city of Sihanoukville, Kompongsom Province, by his own helicopter. Not entering the ordinary bar like Son-Sanh, Captain Sam-Sa-Ray brought his crew to a fancy restaurant in a hilltop ocean front building, like Dong-Khanh or Ma-Nhat-Tan (Manhattan) Restaurant in Saigon. Not drinking "water buffalo" beer, each man had his glass of cognac, Martel or Hennessy. And nobody thought about ordinary Cambodian girls without makeup. . .
Although the trip to Cambodia with Captain Ba was for the rich and famous, I still liked mine, because for me, mine was the only trip that could carry all "the thoughts of one who came to Cambodia."
05. THE ORIENTAL FISHING COMPANY
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Exerting great efforts, the "New Empire" brought peace back to Phu-Quoc Island in a very short period of time. A record one might say, because it took them only just about a year. Everywhere, there was no more chaos, neither the chaos that was created by the communist forces from the north, their guerrilla forces in the south, or by the invasion forces of Thailand fishing boats and the black-market trading boats in the area of Ha-Tien and Kien-Luong districts.
Why was the situation on the island so quiet now? Had we really won the battle or did the enemy retreat to strengthen forces and find some new tactics? It might be both, I thought. However, the main thing was that this calm situation had made the top Navy officers worry. They had no extra income, and I was in the same boat. Although it was not broken yet, the "rice-pot" had cracks all over it, from top to bottom. What were we supposed to do? Wait, that was what! If the ants did not come to the border of the lake, the fish could not have the bait!
Daily, officers had to come to their offices to work. But, was there anything to do in this remote island? To come late and leave early was the common style. Actually, they could do their jobs by staying at home because their apartments were only a very short distance away from their offices. They even felt bored spending time with their friends in the cafeteria. For me, the best way to kill time was by playing pool table downtown.
In order to bring up the morale of the officer and seamen which had slipped down so low because of the temporary peace time, the commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone, Captain Ba, allowed the An-Thoi Naval Base's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Cuong to throw a dancing party. All naval personnel on the island had their chance to invite partners from the mainland. This would be a life-time experience for someone who wanted to know about life on the island. So, please come and spend time with the front line soldiers to console their lonely souls. Now, the personnel of the Office of Naval Transportation in Rach-Gia City had something to do. They were happy to help family members and friends from Saigon and the southern cities, particular the females, to have cozy places on the naval boats that were used as ferries. Taking advantage of this opportunity, my cousin from the city of My-Tho came out to see her fiance. Everybody seemed to be having good times, except Commander Han, the commanding officer of the Fourth Patrol Fleet. When the party was over, he soon discovered that his wife had become addicted to dancing. This strange problem kept moving along with his family even when they came to the refugee camps in the U.S. in 1975.
For my part, I was afraid that I might make some mistakes because nothing to do often led to wrong doing . It was difficult to go back to poverty when my family and I had lived as the high income class of people for a while. However, we were lucky to see things quickly change around us. Shortly after the party, operations in Phu-Quoc turned in a new direction, not a bad direction at all for the top guys.
A nice day began. Without any clouds, the sky was clear, light blue. The morning sunlight covered everything with fresh, bright, and warm sun rays. But, it was Monday, the day for saluting the flag and inspecting the uniform. Everybody could have a chance to hear "Atten. . . tion!" and "At. . . ease!" again. The seaman played short notes on the horn for the ceremony to recall the military tradition that seemed to be forgotten. After the national anthem, the flag was hoisted to the top of the flagpole, and the uniform inspection session began. We, all staff officers of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, faced out towards the ocean. High and low ranking officers stood up in order from left to right. Of course, everybody had on their finest clothes. I knew that, sooner or later, it would be my turn. I would salute the commanding officer, Captain Ba. But at that moment, just when he side-stepped to the next guy to me, I saw several Thailand fishing boats motor quickly into the bay. What was that? Did they come here to surrender themselves?
The Monday morning ceremony was over, and everybody went back to his work place. On the way to my office, I stopped at the NOC (Naval Operation Center) to check the NOC's journal. I was surprised that there were no records about those Thailand fishing boats. Where were our patrol ships? The enemy was here, right at headquarters, and did anyone detect them? What was wrong? I went out to the flagpole to make sure whether those fishing boats were still there or had already disappeared. And I did not believe it. The Thailand fishing crews were putting down their anchors. They were not afraid of anything.
I walked back to my office. Nghia, my favorite chief petty officer, asked:
"Do you have any information about the Thai fishing boats in our bay, Lieutenant?"
"Nobody arrests or captures them. Why have they come to surrender to us? What is going on?"
"Is that right? Why don't we take the boat and come out there to check them, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, I think we have to do so. But, wait a moment, I need to double check with some other sources."
Putting my hat on the top of the secret-file-cabinet, I sat in my big chair and thought. Who would I ask? Did I need to call Captain Ba's briefing officer or secretary officer? No way, even I, the Chief of the Intelligence Department, didn't know anything about it; how could they know? I would receive no help from them if I made the calls. Well, why did I not contact directly Captain Ba? "Hmmm, that was the only way," I guessed!
While I was still wondering about how to get the information about those Thailand fishing boats, I heard Chinese accented conversation outside. It sounded like Cantonese or Wu, the two main Chinese dialects in this area. I tried to listen to what they said. Their voices could be heard clearer and clearer then suddenly they were in front of my face. Captain Ba's bodyguard saluted and introduced to me two men whom I had never met before.
"Lieutenant, Captain Ba would like you to help these two men take care of their business about the five Thailand fishing boats."
Five boats? That was the real answer! The root of the whole thing was there. I had to take a careful look at this starting point if I wanted to know thoroughly about this complicated subject.
"OK. No problem. You report back to Captain Ba that I will work closely with them myself, so he doesn't have to worry anything about it. All right?"
"Yes, Sir."
He saluted and turned around and ran. Now, these two Chinese, formal in suits and ties, were left with me. I politely put my hand out and said:
"Please, sit down."
One guy came forward and suddenly grasped my hand and shook naturally:
"My name is Ping Lee. And this man is Mr. Phong Tran, the president of the Mekong Bank. He doesn't know how to speak Vietnamese. What is your name?"
I was very surprised with his uncommon act of friendship. He seemed not to care who I was. This was our first meeting; they needed my help, but why did they not pay any attention to my position at all? They could not win anything with that kind of impolite attitude! Was this guy competent with the Vietnamese language? I doubted that. I pointed to my name badge on my shirt:
"My name is Hoang."
I then shook hands with Mr. Phong Tran. He gave me a smile and bowed his head a bit. He had the gesture of a real businessman and a big boss. He was a little bit fat. His eyes were big, and his eyebrows were thick and dark. But he had a cold face. Looking back at Ping Lee, I saw, in contrast, only the opposite. In addition to his rosy colored and smooth face, he had thin lips. Was that the look of the man who often did well in the communications and negotiations field?
Mr. Phong Tran pulled up the chair next to my desk while Ping Lee opened his Samsonite brief case. He brought out a stack of forms and put them on top of our daily memos which awaited my signature. "What the heck are these papers used for," I asked myself. With the Thailand fishing boats, I knew that there were in this world only my Intelligence Department's records, nothing else. What did these guys plan to do? Ping said:
"This case belongs to the strong old-man, Mr. Huong Van Tran, do you know?"
What? Was he kidding me? He didn't have to bring out Mr. Vice President to gain my respect! Anyway, I had to pay attention to these guys because I sensed that I might need them some day. One of them might be chairman of a Chinese trading community in Saigon, a big mob if one could wanted to say. If this happened to be true, I would be the one who needed their help! I stared at Ping Lee as he continued:
"Now, you have to sign here. You'd better hurry, so they can go fishing, OK?"
I felt a little bit angry. He was not my commanding officer and he was not supposed to give me any order. I had a strong reaction:
"Wait a minute, Sir. Before I sign it, I have to read carefully and understand thoroughly what it says. I don't want to go to prison by signing these stupid documents, don't you know?"
"It's all right. Go ahead and read it. I want you to read it aloud so I can hear, too. I tell you the truth that I cannot read Vietnamese, but if you read it wrong, I will know."
No way! Was this guy trying to play games with me? I did not do what he wanted me to. To keep him quiet, I read the papers alone, in silence, with my eyes instead of my mouth.
Oriental Fishing Company? What the heck was that? I had never heard of that kind of company in this area! And what the heck was an import and export seafood company? It was totally new to me! I kept reading and finally I hit the main ideas, the conclusion. It was a contract to legalize these Thailand fishing boats to come into Vietnamese water to steal our fish. Who was the head man? It might be Mr. Vice President as Ping Lee already told me! This was the reason our enemy had not invaded our national water for so long. "What a calm situation," as I stated previously.
Now, what was I supposed to do? According to the papers, these five Thailand fishing boats had been sold to the Vietnamese authorities in a deal between a bank in Bangkok whose name I could not understand (it was written in Thai) and the Mekong Bank in Saigon. These boats had to be checked by the Saigon Customs instead of us. Did the owner of the boats not know any rules or laws? Well, they might not have time, I thought. They just sent them to Phu-Quoc and brought the Rach-Gia's Customs out here for their convenience. "You'd better hurry, so they can go fishing," Ping Lee told me again! From now on because of these five big and well equipped fishing boats, I was afraid that the Vietnamese fishermen would not get anything for their daily trolling. I felt terribly sorry for them.
The papers were dated back several months, and I had to go backwards in time to sign. At any price, I had to sign it. The national waters' intruders had to be safe to come in. But not only me, the Chief of Customs of Rach-Gia Province had to sign it, too; there was a blank space with an X mark for his signature. I thought that I needed to talk with him, Mr. Dung. I called him for his advice:
"Hello, Master! How are you? I am calling you from Phu-Quoc Island. Do you know anything about the Thailand fishing boats of the Oriental Fishing Company? They have already come to my place. I am talking with their top officers now."
"Oh! I have the order from the Customs Central Agency in Saigon about this case. I sent my man out there last night to work with you. Did he not report to you yet?"
"Not yet. I guess he may still be eating his breakfast downtown. With these documents, I think that they are telling us to sit in the chairs which have long been set up for us. We cannot do anything else but sign our names."
"I think so, too. They will stop at my place on the way home to Saigon for me to sign. Well, just do what they say. Good luck!"
Hanging up the phone, I felt very uncomfortable. Everybody seemed to know what was going on before I did. Why did they wait for the water level to come up to my waist and tell me . . . jump ! I looked at Ping Lee and shook my head. I said:
"Now, I fully understand."
He took a long breath as if disappointed:
"If you really know what is going on, why don't you quickly sign the papers for me, please!"
I took my pen out and did my job. That was it. With the smile on his face, Ping Lee pulled an envelope from his briefcase and gave it to me. The reward only came when the job was well done . I opened it up and counted them briefly. Was it only a two months salary? These Chinese guys were too cheap!
Shortly, the officer from Rach-Gia's Customs Department came in. We all went out together in one boat to check the Thailand fishing boats. Nghia, my petty officer, followed us. When we got there, I saw a poor job of camouflaging the company name on the hulk of the boats. The wooden boards with red Vietnamese characters, saying "Oriental Fishing Company," were not long enough to cover the Thai characters of the old name of the boat engraved deeply in the wood. It was like a joke. When the boats returned to Thailand, they just removed the Vietnamese name boards and the monkeys were reborn back to monkeys . It was very convenient. Nobody died and nothing lost.
For the first time the Thai fishermen were not afraid of the Vietnamese Navy's personnel. They smiled and made friends with their foreigners. I asked Nghia:
"Do you remember anyone who has been captured by us before?"
Nghia laughed:
"To me, they all look alike. And thousands of them have been arrested, who could remember, Lieutenant?"
I heard Phong Tran and Ping Lee speak Chinese with someone who could be the captain or the executive officer of the boat. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese was commonly the leader of the group or the top guy of an agency. In trading, they were always among the best. If one could not understand Chinese, he would have some disadvantages and quickly lose some benefits. But, I guessed that the captains of the boats might just report the situation to Phong Tran and Ping Lee, their higher ranking officers. I saw a man who may have been the cook carrying up a large plate of fruits, expensive fruits such as grapes, apples, "chom-chom," and "mangcut." He had spoken some Thai, but I could not understand. "Please have some, everybody," I thought so. And I was not afraid to take my share . . .
The naval officers had nothing to do with the inspection, except just to watch. Only the man from the Customs Department had the authority to cut the ring that had a round and flat piece of lead, an international mark in the field of security. Square lids covered the container sections, which were formed by the hulk of the boat and the divided walls, had been sealed by those rings. However, everybody knew that there were no heroin, no weapons, no prohibited merchandise; there were only ice blocks under the sawdust or rice husks. It was a scene or a play in a movie staged by a poor director.
In a few minutes, the job of inspecting those boats was done. All the members of the Navy, Customs personnel, and Chinese leaders returned to the small boat to go back to headquarters. The Thai crews happily cranked up the anchors and blew the "ready-to-go-fishing" horns. One by one, they ran out of the bay in different directions. I told Nghia:
"After so many years, our naval profession of capturing the Thailand fishing boats is coming to an end, today. It is history, now. What do you think? Do you really feel sad that we are forced to kill it legally?"
"Let it die, Lieutenant. I am getting tired of doing a lot of work for nothing. We are only helping someone else gain their profits."
Nghia's ideas were totally different from mine. Frankly, we lost the pride of a seaman, a patriot who had the duty of protecting his national water. Compared with me, Nghia still kept his eye realistic.
Then, days and nights passed by in quiet. No Thailand fishing boat docked at the pier. There were no free fish for navy personnel and their families. Chaos happened only at the NOC. The messages detecting Thai intruders were sent to the NOC at a double rate because our navy ships still carried their job and duty. However, when the catch had been made, they could only release the suspects because all of them carried the Oriental Fishing Company sign. So, if someone asked me "How many boats belonging to the Oriental Fishing Company are out therẻ," my answer was "I don't know!" Of course, it was difficult to know which boats were legalized and which were not in the open sea.
The only thing I did not like was that sometimes Ping Lee brought to my house a boy who tried to hide himself from the military draft. Of course, they had to have some kind of relation with Hai Minh Truong, Ping Lee's real name on the paper. They would stay with us for only a couple of days before the Thailand fishing boats came. Then, they would go on with the Thai crew and never came back. Did Ping Lee try to give them a new type of passport to go to the other country? That might be it! I learned later that an agency which secretly exported human beings for money was discovered in Vung-Tau, a beach resort city. Well, a few guys were nothing compared with a couple of hundred men. In my position, I thought that I could not do anything different than I had been told to do, anyway. When one was on the back of the tiger, one had to ride it , as the proverb said. If one did not want to do that, one had to pay the price. That was the case of Captain Ba, later on.
However, there was a sort of close friendship between Ping Lee and my family. During the recovering time (two or three months in Vietnam instead of two or three days in the U.S.) from child delivery when my wife gave birth to our last son, Ping Lee always bought La-Han fruits for her every time he returned to Phu-Quoc Island from Saigon. These fruits, round and big like light brown pomegranates, were used to make a drink like tea to keep the body temperature cool. When the Thailand fishing boats arrived in our bay, Ping Lee always brought us some Thailand fresh fruits-apples, grapes, honeydews-that were big like watermelons (I learned its name later on when I came to the U.S. because there were no honeydews grown in Vietnam), and oriental apples. I was surprised a little bit about the size of the oriental apples from Thailand. They were big like the kiwi fruits (in Vietnam, the average size of oriental apples was about thumb size).
That was it for my responsibility with the five Thailand boats of the Oriental Fishing Company. It was easy like clapping my hands.
The most difficult duty I had to carry was to handle the black-market traders and their merchandise boats. Since we had off their infiltration system, they tried to change their strategy. Who knows both the enemy and themselves will win ? The black-market traders were sure to understand both our powers and their capabilities. When the situation was quiet, it did not mean that they had no strength left to fight back. Their secret actions sometimes were terribly effective.
One afternoon while I had my lunch at home, one guy came and knocked on my door. My wife opened it and asked:
"Excuse me, who are you looking for?"
"Ma 'am, is Lieutenant home?"
Was that a Chinese? I had recognized the accent in his voice! I came out and checked. There was a middle-aged man on my front porch. I had never met him before. He had salt and pepper hair and a bony face. He wore a white, Nilfrance material, and very thin (caused by washing so many times) shirt that showed up clearly beneath it, lines of his undershirt. He also wore old Dacron black pants with wrinkled surfaces like they never had been ironed. His black leather belt had faded. His shoes were old and in bad shape. I thought that he would be a low ranking person of a company. I put my hand out for him to shake and asked:
"Hello, do you want to see me?"
He bent his back a little bit, grasped my hand with both hands, and softly squeezed it. He went directly to the subject:
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant. I am telling you the truth that I represent the businessmen in the frontier area. I have need to discuss something with you . . ."
I stopped him because I sensed the importance of the matter.
"Please come inside the house, first. We will have plenty of time to talk about your subject."
He stepped into the living room and looked around. I could read in his mind that he was surprised to see what we had inside our house. Nothing! What a poor Chief of Intelligence! Actually, nobody wanted to over decorate their homes when they lived in the military apartment quarters. I pulled out the chair for him and sat on the other side of the table.
"Please, sit down."
Then I turned to my wife:
"Darling, make us some tea, please."
He gently sat down, then, leaning his body closer to me, he spoke out his thoughts:
"I don't want to hold anything back, Lieutenant. The truth is that our companies lost much money because the Navy keeps tightening the area and capturing the boats. Under these conditions, sooner or later, all of us will go out of business, don't you know? Everybody will go bankrupt, Lieutenant! That is the reason I have to come here to discuss with you the need to find some solutions, some compromises."
Now, I understood the problem. He was the negotiator who was sent to me by the leaders of the headquarters of the black-market traders. I asked him a simple question:
"So, how do you want me to co-operate?"
"How about this. There are two ways. One way is `a half million piasters fee for each boat,' a similar way that we have to pay the Cambodian Navy. It doesn't matter whether big or small boats. The main thing is that the route and the delivering point are to be protected. Another way is a ten percent fee, paid according to the total price of merchandise in the boat. Of course, the route and the delivering point must be protected."
Would they pay the Cambodian Navy? They already did! The Cambodian's PCFs already escorted the black-market boats on their routes. However, at the last minute at the borderline of the two national waters, the boats were left unprotected. The Cambodian Navy could not do anything else but turn around and go home. The same was true at the delivering points. Under this kind of operation, although the black-market boats were not captured by Vietnamese ships on the open sea, they were captured at the end of the route by boats of the 44th Coastal Division commanded by Lieutenant Commander Tong Vinh Dao in Ha-Tien. If the smugglers could come up with an agreement with the Vietnamese Navy, they would not even need the Cambodian Navy at all. They surely tried to kill two birds with one stone. Their routes and delivering points would be one hundred percent safe from now on. That was the whole idea.
He thought that he could read my mind. He said:
"You don't have to worry about your records. We will let you have two small boats every month for your reporting to Saigon!"
Hmmm, they had it well planned, I thought! Frankly, reporting to Saigon was not important; we had no problem because of the long period without any option. The main thing was that no commanding officer of the 4th Coastal Zone Headquarters could afford ordering his men to escort the black-market trading boats like the Cambodian Navy did. Taking his eyes off the area so they could go free was already his best action. Their request seemed too costly. Anyway, if we agreed to co-operate, I had to decide which of the two options was our best way of getting pay, a half million piasters per boat or ten percent of the total price of merchandise? Well, ten percent seemed much better to me. With ten million total price, there was a million. One million piasters could be the average fee because the black-market boats, most of the time, carried just about plus or minus ten million piasters merchandise. However, if the deal went through, oh no, our naval profession of capturing the black-market trading boats was coming to an end, too. After so many years, it would soon be history. I really felt sad about that.
My wife brought us a hot tea pot. I took it and poured him a small cup. The guest was always first, the host was next . Was he the most important guest I had ever known? Who knows? I lit up my cigarette. I stayed in my deep thoughts for a while, then I gave him my response:
"Your suggestion is very fair and logical. But, I have to report to my commanding officer. To agree or to not agree is his final decision."
"I understand. However, you must `sweet talk' him. By any means, one way or another he will have to agree."
"OK, let me try to convince him. I will let you know when I get the result. But, where do you live?"
"You don't need to know where I live, Lieutenant. Please, excuse me for my profession. I will be back in a few days."
Finishing his tea, he stood up and said "Good bye." I followed and waved at him on the front porch. Then, I came back and sat down at the table. I had many thoughts in my mind.
Cutting off one tree a day, the woods would deplenish some day . What would happen to our lives in the future? To punish someone for wrong doings was all right; but, to do the right thing sometimes got punishment, too. For example, the capturing of the black-market trading boats was one. Nobody knew who was the big boss of the black-market traders. If he was the big boss of someone's big boss, there were simply some problems there.
Back at work, the first thing I did was report the new event to Captain Ba. After describing the whole situation, I gave him my strong advice:
"If Captain Sam-Sa-Ray could do a thing like that in Cambodia, I think that we can have some easy ways to handle it, Captain!"
"Yes! Let me discuss this with Saigon before I make my decision. Tell them to wait for me for two weeks."
In those two weeks, the representative of the black-market traders, who were often considered as our enemy, came back to see me twice. The first time, I told him when he could return for the result. On the second time, I gave him the direct and clear answer:
"Sorry, my boss totally does not agree to do that!"
He was surprised and doubtfully asked:
"Is that true? Doesn't your boss remember about the rules in this area?"
"He has his rights and I cannot do anything else. Please, excuse me!"
The Chinese man knew that he could not get what he wanted that day. He sadly shook my hands and went home.
Later on, as I guessed would truly happen, the black-market trading boats which had been escorted by the Cambodian Navy strongly poured into Ha-Tien. The 44th Naval Coastal Division had only a limited number of patrol boats and could not cover both the whole coast-line and the Ha-Tien Bay. Moreover, everyone knew that the black-market trading boats often had a speed faster than that of the naval boats. Sometimes, they got caught by unluckily running into the patrol boats that were sitting ducks at their anchored spots. The fly got killed by the the dog's yawn . In general, the enemy still had a lot of problems. Their casualties, only merchandise but not human beings, were high, particularly when Captain Ba, trying to set up a blockade of the entire area, sent out a task force of PCFs and larger ships.
With that kind of situation, the Chinese man who had represented the whole black-market trading gang came back to visit me once again. He seemed to be happy this time. He brought up a new idea, a crazy suggestion if one wanted to say so:
"The trading operation in the frontier area is over. Now, we will try to do different things, big things. This time, we want to make it as big as the convoy in the Long-An Province (a convoy of military trucks carrying black-market merchandise belonging to the members of President Thieu's family, led by MP cars to Saigon through Long-An Province which were discovered and arrested by another group of MP forces loyal to Mr. Khiem, the Prime Minister). Don't you know that convoy, Lieutenant? We need only protection at the transferring point from the cargo ship to the small boats, two hours. The protection fee is ten million piasters. After that, the runners will run and the catcher will catch. No problems, business is as usual. The merchandise is nothing but American whiskey and cigarettes. What do you think, Sir?"
"Are you sure there is no heroin or marijuana?," I had that main question in my head. With some experience from the previous meeting, I said:
"As you know, my only responsibility is to report to my boss. However, I won't let you wait so long this time. I can get the result from him in a few days."
"Please, help us get `the go ahead' at once, Lieutenant. Without any agreement for so long, everyone will go bankrupt very soon, don't you know?"
I followed the rules and tried my best to get the approval from my commanding officer. But, Captain Ba flatly refused to do anything for them. The Chinese man didn't have to come back to see me twice because I had a straight answer for him:
"My boss just said `Nọ' The best thing for you guys to do is to move your operation to a different area."
"Again! Why doesn't your boss ever learn to please someone?"
"I don't know. Everybody has his own ideas."
About a month later, Captain Ba received a memo from the Navy Headquarters in Saigon removing him from his position. He was ordered to get a new job somewhere on the mainland. I recalled that he was the only commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters who stayed in power for less than a year. I asked him "Do you know what caused you to leave early?" He just shook his head and gave a deep breath. Although he did not say anything, I knew that he had lost his post not because of the Oriental Fishing Company but because of the black-market trading. I still wondered how much the government was influenced by the mobs who often controlled the national market in the dark? The proverb said: If you are on the back of the tiger, you must ride it . So, if you didn't want to ride it, you must. . . be thrown off.
06. THE ONES WHO KILLED AND ROBBED
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
The common rule for doing things in this world was that anything that goes up must come down . Or, if there was binding together, there was breaking apart , as the orientals said. In the same sense there was some luck in mishap . Were there influences from cosmic forces? What was the meaning of yin and yang ? Any philosophical thoughts were always big and difficult for me to comprehend. Therefore, if there was something I could not clearly understand, I said it was for God, its creator. For example, my fate was one-In the oriental way of believing, fate meant something like predetermined fortune. One would become what the gods would will. Success depended not only on one's own efforts, but on chance, the cosmic will.
When Captain Ba Huu Khuong, Commanding Officer of Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters, was ordered to leave, I knew that sooner or later my turn would come. A new duty position was waiting for me somewhere that might not be the same place as his. The commanding officer went first, and the Chief of Intelligence would be next. The "King and his advisor" were always in the same boat. Was that the law of the cosmic will?
Although I had worked with Captain Ba for only a very short period of time and in some cases he was unfair with me, I still had a lot of respect and love for him. In him, one could find some of the moral values of a national patriot. And frankly, he was also religious. He was the man who read the Buddha bible and prayed daily. In short, he was a gentleman.
Of his wife, Mrs. Ba, I had some good memories, too! When I told her that my son was really sick and I didn't know what to do, she anxiously gave me her advice: "You better bring him to the naval hospital right away. Go on, now. Let Dr. Thuy take care of him." I was afraid that the western drugs might kill my son because my wife had just given him some Chinese herbal medicine. Everybody knew that there were some deadly conflicts between these two kinds of drugs. However, we listened to Mrs. Ba, and my wife and I took our son to the naval hospital in a hurry. Our son's eyeball looked almost still, slowly moving side to side. He was close to death, I was afraid so. Anyway, in this kind of emergency, we could not find Dr. Thuy, lieutenant JG Thuy Huy Le, anywhere. He was not at his office. He might be having a cup of coffee in a downtown restaurant or a cafeteria in the base, I guessed. My seamen and all the male nurses had to run around looking for him, and suddenly he came back to the hospital from nowhere. It was lucky that he was on time. Mr. Thuy did save our son's life, but he also gave the boy a lifetime problem. Every night, our child's nose was stuffed up, and he often had to breath by his mouth. He gets a nose bleed easily. Was this problem caused by the suction-tube which was too big for a one year old baby or by its deep insertion into the nostril by Mr. Thuy? Anyway we were thankful for the help from both Mrs. Ba and Dr. Thuy. And we learned that the Chinese herbal medicine had only made the bronchitis worse.
Back to the story of who was going and who was staying, Captain Thien Van Nguyen, the captain of Dao Hung Tran (the Vietnamese Navy's Spiritual Saint) destroyer escort (DE), the HQ 1, was coming to replace Captain Ba. Was Mr. Thien a rising star of the Navy? Who knows! The ceremony transferring power took place quietly in front of headquarters. There was no parade or gun fire. Everybody still seemed to be surprised by the sudden departure of the old commanding officer. Compared with Captain Ba, who was thin and tall, Captain Thien was thicker and shorter. He had the mannerisms of a mean tempered person. Just looking at his bloodshot eyes, I was scared.
Every time power was transferred to new hands, people had to think and find ways to adjust. Some totally changed their way of doing things. They jumped right into the wagon at the first moment; but in contrast, some just let everything go by like there was nothing important in this world. Another "New Empire" was established, and of course, a lot of people who could not be used must go. The followers of the new king, then, would arrange to come to serve under his throne.
My future had also been set. When I met Lieutenant An Ngoc Ly, my former senior cadet who graduated with the highest rank of his class, he told me:
"Sooner or later I will come to work for Captain Thien. The best thing for you to do is switch jobs with me. It is not too bad to go to Rach Gia City and take over my 5th Intelligence Recognizance, do you know?"
Lieutenant An was the former chief of the 4th Intelligence Recognizance, the biggest and richest recognizance in the Navy Intelligence Department. After his problems involving money, the secret fund, I thought he would be called back to Navy Headquarters in Saigon for a staffing position, an officer without soldiers position, forever. At that time, however, the Navy was establishing the 5th Coastal Zone. The 5th Intelligence Recognizance, therefore, was also formed. Although it was a small recognizance, it still had all the functions of an intelligence recognizance, including the shared money that came from the secret budget.
The Navy usually had to follow the Army in setting their zones of operation. There were four Army Military Regions (MR) in the whole country. So, there were four Coastal Zones. But, there were only two Riverine Zones, the 3rd and 4th, in the southern part of the country because there were no rivers, or only short and narrow rivers in the first and second MRs, the highland and mountain MRs. The formation of the 5th Coastal Zone for the Navy was necessary because the coastlines ran on both sides of the Mekong Delta, which had the shape of the letter V. However, the 5th MR had a bad meaning with the Army soldiers. "Whoever was transferred to the 5th MR must gain the first class medal of heros (this medal was often offered to one who died in battle)," the Army men usually joked. In short, the 5th MR was a huge cemetery for the Army, the entire country.
I understood clearly what Mr. An told me, but I gave him an unclear answer:
"We still have time, Lieutenant. I have to find a much better place, don't you know? In case I don't find it, I will switch jobs with you, for sure."
"It is up to you. I just want to let you know in advance. Don't wait for the last minute. Don't miss that good chance."
"Thank you, Sir."
Why didn't I jump on that good chance that Mr. An brought to me? I had good reason! At least, I had confidence in Ping Lee, my lifebuoy, the Chinese man who took care of the five fishing boats belonging to the Oriental Fishing Company. Ping Lee once told me:
"I warrant that you won't be transferred anywhere. You have to stay here to handle those fishing boats for the old and strong man. I already told you many times that nobody can touch you now. Believe me, there is nothing to worry about, OK?"
Could I believe him? I wasn't sure! But, I was the one who had to take care of me first. I always told myself that. To get out of slavery, one should not depend on anyone else. So, I tried to make my move by knocking on someone's back door. However, the results never came through before "Black April." Man never wins over his cosmic will . I shared the same fate of all the South Vietnamese people. The fall of the Saigon regime would come soon. Was it President Thieu's dependence on the Americans that caused the Vietnamese to be powerless to fight for themselves when the American troops withdrew? That may be it! Or, did the government leaders lack governing skills to control the government and fight back the corruptions? That may be it, too! Those conditions had contributed to the overrun by the enemy in the second MR in March 1975. News of losing battles came every day. Were the North Vietnamese forces too strong? Or, were our forces breaking apart before the fighting? Who knows! Suddenly, everybody lost confidence in the government, the armed forces, and even in themselves.
To prevent causing shock among the people in the capital and to reduce the wave of people and soldiers that constantly poured into Saigon from the second MR, the 4th Coastal Zone Headquarters had been ordered to receive about 40 thousand refugees, about one third of the total refugees at Vung Tau beach resort area. They kept increasing every day.
There were at least two good reasons to chose Phu-Quoc island as the refugee camp site. First, there was a large prison there which had been used to round up the North Vietnamese POWs for exchange with the American POWs, according to the Paris treaty. This prison could be converted to a camp site overnight. Second, the Phu-Quoc was hundreds of miles from the mainland, and ferry boats were the only transportation in and out of the island. These conditions fit the job of screening out all the bad guys, the ones who killed and robbed.
Of course, everybody had sympathy for those who left their homes and everything behind. The seamen, soldiers, and people of An-Thoi community were excited and happy to help their unlucky countrymen. But, they had no experience in receiving and caring for refugees, although some of them were refugees themselves during the 1954 evacuation, the time Vietnam was split into North and South. Starting from scratch, overnight meetings were often held and unpredicted successes were often noticed.
On the Navy side, Commander Han, the commanding officer of the 4th Task Force, became the commander-in-chief of the entire campsite. A group of lieutenant commanders and high seniority lieutenants who were attending classes of intermediate or advanced courses on military staffing and administration were sent out for this emergency operation. These officers became the commanders of the campsite's quarters. On the Army side, the ground transportation division had already brought out a lot of GMC trucks. On the American part, an air lift program had been set up. Dried food such as rice, flour, canned food, cooking oil, etc. had been carried out by many C 123 and Caribou flights. Evidently, there was no shortage of food, I thought.
There were not enough places for everybody. Each quarter had mainly a pre-fabricated house which had several sections connected to each other. This structure could provide shelter for only half the number of people assigned to it. The others had to stay in the woods, in either their personal tents or in the bushes under the open sky. The most serious shortage was clean water. Each quarter had only one small, pickup-sized tank of water a day. This could teach people a good lesson in sharing their needs with a very limited amount of supply. I feared that before long all the fresh water in the wells would dry up. There was a shortage of bathrooms. This would make the women like animals that came out only at night for bathing. There was a shortage of restrooms. To solve this problem, a group of seamen was sent to near-by cities Rach Gia and Can Tho to buy all the shovels. At least three thousand shovels were needed. The refugees, men and women, used these vital tools, day and night, to dig holes in the jungle for burying their feces. The same amount of pots and pans and stoves, three thousand each at least, had to be bought right away. Heating fuel was drawn from the Navy's diesel reservoirs. And the greatest shortage was "home sweet home" which was already miles and miles away.
"Now, this is the responsibility of the Intelligence Department. First of all, your men have to disarm all the officers, soldiers, agents, government employees, and so forth. Collect all kinds of pistols and rifles for me. Second, you have to form a committee to handle the money, jewels, precious metals, and diamonds. Keep them all and issue receiving receipts. The maximum amount of cash allowed each refugee to keep is one million piaster, OK. The more cash they keep the more problems they get. Don't you know that that damned money initiates the bad habits of stealing, robbing, killing by the people who see it?"
"No problem, Sir. I will take care of that job myself."
Actually, the problems could only be known when the refugees' receiving teams stepped inside the landing area. It was much different than the 1954 evacuation. In today's sophisticated world, the refugees were not transferred by military landing ships (open mouth ships as the Vietnamese called them) anymore. They were "cruised" on the big American cargo ships. Each ship could easily have 5 to 6 thousand people. From these big cruisers to the landing beach, small landing craft such as LCVP, LCM, and LCU were used. This might help the elderly and the children have room to breathe. It was also a good tactic to screen out the bad guys, the ones who killed and robbed.
The job of disarming had become easy with hands-on practice and on-the-spot training. By unloading just one small boat, one gained all the experience he needed. The big guns were usually carried on the men's shoulders, and the small pistols, some of them looked like Zippo lighters, were often hidden in the women's purses. When a weapon was detected and removed from the owner, nobody cared about it anymore. So, rifles with double length or curved magazines, pistols with long or short barrels, five or six rounds of bullets, and even the 007 secret asassination tools had only one place, an empty steel hut that was set up right at the landing beach.
I had a big problem. One person in my treasure-keeping committee pulled out of the group. Suddenly, Mr. Hy, a Second Lieutenant belonging to the Duong-Dong Military District Court, didn't want to sign the document papers and receipts for the money or jewels removed from the refugees. Of course, all the members of the treasure-keeping committee knew very well that the signature of the old man, Mr. Hy, was very important; it warranted exemption from the Military Court, even when we had done the wrong thing. Mr. Hy might see or learn some things from his experience, I guessed. Well, the remaining six members, the Navy Intelligence and Security Departments, the Phu-Quoc Special District's Intelligence and Security departments, the Phu-Quoc Military Police, and the Phu-Quoc civilian police, had to continue to work together as a new group.
I didn't know how the refugees had been fed on the American ships, but all of them looked sickly, like a bunch of prisoners, even the young couples and teenagers. They seemed to have no energy left to walk. Several old people were dying, hardly breathing. Medical tents were set up hastily along the beach. The Catholic fathers and the Buddhist monks were already sent out somewhere that I really didn't know. Water, that was right! They needed water which was limited even on the American ships! It seemed to me that there was no easy or happy route that led to freedom at all.
In the evening of the first day of transferring refugees from the American ship to the campsite, our treasure-keeping committee turned in the collection: diamond rings, gold bars, and money in cold cash. I reported my problem, the withdrawing of a crucial member. After the general meeting with all staff officers including the campsite's commander-in-chief and the camp quarters officers, Captain Thien had a special session to meet only our treasure-keeping committee. He yelled at Second Lieutenant Hy:
"Who do you think you are? Are you a God around here? I ordered you to sign those forms and the receipts! Why didn't you carry out my order?"
"Captain, please let me stay out of this dangerous and important matter. As you know, if there are some troubles later on, I can help you only when I am not involved with the mess!"
"I don't need you to talk logic with me. If I order you to sign; you must sign! If you don't sign, I will sign for you, eight days of heavy punishment. That is it. I don't need you in that job anymore. Get out of here, now!"
From this case, I realized that Captain Thien was not a cool person.
Next day, we evacuated the second ship. Everybody's job was unchanged. My fellows and I were always present at the landing beach because disarming was the first job to do when the refugees put their first step on the ground.
Although I knew very well that my relatives were never in the refugee swarm who fled their homeland from the central part of Vietnam, I always hoped to see someone I had met or known a little. I was sure that the arriving of a friend or a former girl friend would make me very happy. However, the one I had known who came to see me first was my former captain, the captain of the LSM 405 ship who had a cross-eyed (the one and only cross-eye captain in the Vietnamese Navy). He glanced (the word that my shipmate officers often preferred to use because he never seemed to look straight at anyone) at me and raised his voice to ask:
"What the heck are you doing here?"
He had the same manner when I was on his ship!
I remembered the day that he gave the order to ground me on the ship until new orders came. If he had forgotten what he said, would I have had to stay in the ship for the rest of my life? I remembered the day that he kicked me out of the ship and threw me to the PGM 617 because a quarter officer was badly needed for the crew's patrolling mission. I remembered the day that I had a drinking contest with him, to finish a can of beer as fast as I could. Of course, I could not do better than the "sewer hose," his beer drinking nick name. So, I had to crawl back and forth to the landing ramp under the loud noise of hand applause from the whole crew instead of having the seven days' vacation he promised if I had won. I remembered the day that, on his order, I had been craned up to the ship's deck from the lifeboat because I had drunk too much at the famous ferry quay of To-Chau, Ha-Tien City. And I remembered the day that I took Ngoc, his niece, to the Saigon Zoo and Botanic Garden, because of his order that no officer on the ship dare to take her out.
I could not believe that he was in the terribly bad shape I saw him in now. There was no officer's cap on his head, and his shirt was out of his trousers. On his shoulders, there was a pair of brand new commander ranking pads which were put on in hurry a moment ago. Nobody wanted to show off his identification on the chaotic ship of refugees. Officers or soldiers, it would not matter to the ones who killed and robbed. Not out of the surprise of our reunion yet, I saluted him and warmly shook his hand. I said:
"I am the Chief of Intelligence here, Sir. What has happened to you?"
He didn't answer me. He turned to the soldier who was trying to open his suitcase for checking:
"Shit! Do you know who I am? You'd better get out of my way before I kick you in the butt, boy!"
His manner never seemed to change.
With me, there was no big deal when the Army men could not recognize the ranking of the Navy men by looking at his shoulder ranking pads. I explained to the poor guy who still stared at my former captain:
"Hey, this is my former boss. Why don't you go and check those people over there!"
"Yes, Lieutenant."
My former boss asked me:
"Who is the commanding officer here?"
"Captain Thien, Thien Van Nguyen, Sir. Do you know him? He came to this island just a few months ago."
To be nice to my tired captain, I carried his suitcase and led him to the commander-in-chief of Phu-Quoc Island. It was totally OK with me to let them introduce and talk to each other themselves.
That afternoon, I finally met one of my navy classmates, Lieutenant Van Nhan. He had nothing else except the dirty uniform on his body. There was neither cap nor shoulder ranking pads. We shook hands and hugged each other.
At the same time, I heard that the top guy of the ones who killed and robbed was captured. He had been convicted of many criminal acts. Raping was one. He raped the daughter and the wife of a colonel. Murdering was an another. He killed that colonel and threw the body into the ocean. Robbing was an another. He took all the jewels from many women on the ship. Members of the victims' families had pointed him out for the authorities, who took action against him. Death for the killer , a fair punishment as the proverb said. Would he be executed to bring back morality? Would this jugdement deter others who had planned to violate the laws? Would anybody want to commit any crime in the refugee camp after the execution?
I did not know where the order came from, from Saigon or simply from Captain Thien. The only thing I saw was that Ensign Son, with the nick name "Crazy Son" who belonged to the An-Thoi shipyard, took the bad guy, whose hands were tied behind his back, to the sand beach. Son pulled out his handgun, a Colt 45, and gradually aimed at the back of the guy's head. "B. . . ang," the bad guy fell on the ground with a single bullet. His body twisted a couple of times and lay flat. The hand tied knot was still there. A human being suddenly became a piece of meat without his spirit. In a moment, I had a strange and terrible feeling. Goose bumps came up all over my body. It was similar to the TV scene of General Loan Ngoc Nguyen shooting the VC in the Saigon park. But, I could not see clearly which way the blood sprayed out because the execution place was a little bit far away from me.
I asked myself how those bad guys had crossed my committee's check point without any detection? The loot which they collected from thousands of people was not small. Why did my men not see it?
Now, I knew that my net of agents for treasure finding had a big hole. This net could only be used to catch those stupid persons who dared to put their gold and money in pockets or suitcases. However, people were not all smart, so my committee still had something to do.
If precious jewels were hidden in the special places on a woman's body, I warranted that my men could never discover them. Who dared to touch those dangerous places in daylight in public? My men were afraid to do that even if they were awarded with money, I thought so!
My guess was right. The discovery of what the women carried deep inside themselves was not our men's responsibility, but for the military female personnel such as secretaries, nurses, etc. In this running away from the communists, the role of female members in the family was always more important than the male counterparts. I was far behind in doing things. The secret team of female checkers had been established from the beginning of the refugee evacuation. No valuable thing was not uncovered. The story of my big treasure-keeping committee seemed to be a joke.
For me, the biggest joke was the uselessness and untrustworthiness of many officers who were famous with the "Old Empire." And I was happy to stay out of it. I didn't have to worry about strange orders like this one:
"Those bad guys who are captured today, are assigned to Mr. Re. Business as usual; you just take them to the jungle and "re" (meaning "spray" in Vietnamese) them all for me."
This order was repeated every night after the general meeting. It was real bad for Captain Re, the commanding officer of a local Army battalion, that his name and the action of execution by a firing squad team coincided. He had to carry out the order of spraying the bad guys with bullets, nightly.
About one week's working outside in the open sky had gradually passed by. Bath time under the hot sun was over. The transferring operation was successful. All the refugees had been moved into the camp from the American ships. Besides the large amount of money, gold, and jewels that had been collected, a lot of weapons had been captured and many of the enemy, the ones who killed and robbed, had been put out of service. This was the first time I felt very uncomfortable when many enemies had to die. Over forty. Forty-three if one wanted to count correctly! Only one had been shot at the sand beach; the rest were executed in the woods. What was the meaning of their cosmic wills?
I felt very sorry for ill fated human beings at this chaotic time. They were cheap like animals. Many had been executed without trial. They could not have a lawyer to defend them. They just died without judgement. "I am going to be murdered, I didn't do anything!" "Who hates me? Who points at me? Let me explain!" "They told me I have to do so. They would kill me if I didn't obey them! I am innocent, I am not guilty!" "Sir, please help me to contact my mom to tell her that I did not do anything wrong. They are wrong in killing me!" Those words cried out from exhausted minds and bodies. The ones who represented Captain Thien as eye witnesses never forgot those deeply emotioned moments. Some of those killed were too young to die, juveniles. Some didn't die right away from the squad team's bullets and their bodies kept jumping and jerking, waiting for the last bullet, the bonus round. Who wasn't shocked at that kind of scene?
Captain Thien's eyes seemed to be more cruel, plenty of red nerves. Who were the ones that killed and robbed? Who? Who died for their crimes and who did not? Who? Who had lived in riches with the others' treasures?
Deep in my conscience, I was sorry that Captain Ba had left his post a little bit early!
07. IN THE SCENE OF LIFE OR DEATH
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
From the day that forty thousand, plus or minus, people who ran away from the communists were put in the refugee camp, a prison, if one wanted to say, the situation on Phu-Quoc Island was unstable. At any price and by any means, the refugees tried to find ways to go back to the mainland, to Saigon. That was the reason my men, the Intelligence Department's personnel, had a new job: to detect and capture whoever escaped from the "prison." Ađitionally, to discover the entire "underground railroad" was one of their responsibilities.
I assigned that important mission to Lieutenant JG Lang Ky Nguyen, my assistant officer, my Deputy Chief. He was on his second term of assisting me. In his first term, he was also my Deputy Chief when I became Chief of Intelligence for the first time, at the Riverine Headquarters. Lang had been transferred to this island just a couple of weeks before the refugees came. He did not know much about the "real operations" in this area. Anyway, I did not pull him out here either. That was the decision of the big boss from Saigon. Frankly, we were surprised with the sudden reunion. But, it would be a much better reunion for him in the long run if Black April (the fall of South Vietnam) had not come.
As a good intelligence officer, Lang had done good work quickly. In only a week, he had arrested the whole gang that led the refugees to the ferries for money. The suspects and the evidence were brought back to our naval base. The gang leader, Second Lieutenant Liem, the Deputy Chief to Captain Minh (Chief of Intelligence for the Army Task Force on the island), was brought to Captain Thien, Commanding Officer, Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters and Commander-in-Chief of the entire island, for justice. Captain Thien yelled at him:
"I can't believe that you are the one who breaks the laws. You should know that you would be punished if you did not carry out orders properly. And now, look at yourself. How do you think when you go against the order? What punishments should you have? I sign you eight days of heavy punishments for your record, do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir. . ."
What! That was nothing compared to the matters of life and death in this troubled island. Compared to the cases of over forty guys, who had been executed by his orders for killing and robbing on American cargo ships, this punishment seemed to be totally unfair. This crooked Second Lieutenant should receive at least a downgrading in rank. I was surprised, and Lang was terrified. Lang said:
"Oh no, Lieutenant! Nobody praises you when you do good, but they will laugh at you when you do bad , this shall be the case. It would be too bad if we arrest his man, don't you think?"
I gave him my consolation:
"Well, it is too late to learn that. But, with this situation, I think that sooner or later our turn at evacuation will come. You'd better think of yourself, first"
Lang added:
"According to my investigation, I know that the commanding officer's body guard, Petty Officer (3rd Class) Sen Thach, took the PCF boat to Rach-Gia City almost daily, several days in a row. Did he have go there to buy gold for his boss? The treasure, the belongings of forty thousand people, is not small, Lieutenant!"
"Hmmm, you don't have to worry about that stolen money! Do you think they will be safe to enjoy it in the troubled days ahead? This is a matter of surviving and I only worry about my family and myself. A few days ago, I was surprised that all of our ships' captains came to us for the meteorological maps. I think that our turn for evacuation is coming soon. You have to remember that the meteorological maps cover a large area of the sea from the Gulf of Thailand to the Philippines and even further south, to Indonesia. Our coastline navigation maps cover only about one hundred nautical miles maximum from the shoreline. What do they use them for? Do you know what they say? `It's just in case,' they say. In case of what? To run away from the country, but, they never want to speak it out. `It's just in case,' I hate it."
"So, do you plan to go to the other countries? If you do, how can we go? I think that I have to go home to bring my family here for safety, Lieutenant!"
"It is too late, now. If you go back to the mainland, you will be stuck there and miss the last opportunity to go. I heard that the VC attacked Binh Tuy, Long Khanh (near Saigon). The 4th Highway was already cut several places. My wife had a very difficult time getting back to the island from a trip home to visit our families in My Tho. It may be her last trip. The Duong Dong civilian airport had been closed. My sister-in-law who followed my wife to visit us has no way of going back home. She is crying and we cannot do anything for her. Do you really want to go home? It's up to you, but, you have to be careful. The commanding officer may put you on death row if he knows. Don't be foolish!"
"Hey, the captain of the PCF 11 is one of my naval classmates, Lieutenant. When the bad thing happens, we may run away with him, what do you think?"
Since Lang spoke out his plan, I thought that I might let him know about mine. In my department, the highest ranking petty officer was Mr. Luan Van Phan, Chief Petty Officer 1st Class. Mr. Nghia Quang Le was next, my favorite Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class. Nghia was the old guard while Luan was a newcomer, just in several months. Although Luan was over forty years old, he was still single. When he had been transferred to my department, to avoid confrontation between Nghia and him, I let him take care of the departmental boat, a civilian fishing boat which was used for VC ambushing. That might help him to realize his dream, which was strongly proclaimed by the tattooed words "VC killer" on his arm. Unfortunately, Luan went out fishing every day instead of ambushing the VC. The navigation instruments, communication equipment, and ammunition and gun that had been kept under the deck were never used. Even with free diesel fuel from the Navy fuel reservoir, Mr. Luan had never brought back to me a penny. He spent all the money he made on his drinking problem. Even that was not enough because sometimes he went back to my office and begged me for some money for cigarettes. . . Well, I did not hold back anything with Lang:
"The PCF is too small. We have to go with our bigger ship for more safety. We just need a taxi to handle a short trip from the shore to the ships, do you know? That's it. I plan to use our departmental boat for the taxi. I have already called Mr. Luan to bring the boat back to base. No more fishing. I ordered him to get a full supply of fuel and food then anchor at the beach next to the fence of the Family Officers' Quarters. I also told him that if something happened, he would have to move the boat right away and dock it at the base's pier. What do you think? Do we need to have a meeting to let everybody in our department know about this plan? If our men want to go with us, they go. If they don't, they just stay back."
Day by day, the situation in Phu-Quoc Island worsened. Frankly, it was hopeless for someone who had only the empty stomach and no money in the pocket. People were trying to buy their way home, or at least to the mainland. They even traded their Honda motorcycles for the boat tickets. It was too bad for the ones who wanted to get rich fast by buying and re-selling motorcycles in the first place. Now, people would give away their Hondas to those who took them out of the prison, the refugee camps. Actually, they tried to get rid of the bikes. The Hondas were burden-treasures which had value only for the islanders who knew where the streets were. Later on, however, even the islanders did not want them. Along the shoulder of the road that ran from the prison's gate to the ferry quay, several Hondas were abandoned because the fuel tanks were empty. I had never seen so many motorcycles in Phu-Quoc. The big ones, the 90 or 125 cubic centimeter engines, were not rare anymore. The commanding officer's bodyguard, Petty Officer Sen Thach, got a brand new one too.
The situation in Phu-Quoc had reached a critical point when news of an evacuation by air to the island of the Vietnam Motherland Radio Station spread. Who could stay back when the Vietnam Motherland ran away in such a hurry? Soon, the jet fighters came! Were they damn MiGs from the North? No, that was our Air Force's planes! We better look careful! But, how could they land on the short runway of the An-Thoi air strip? We really didn't know. Besides the pilot and co-pilot, there were women and children coming along. Why didn't they fly to Thailand? Short of fuel, I guessed.
By being alert, we did not shoot those jet fighters down. Remember that all the Navy ships in An-Thoi Bay had become quarter ships. It was a lucky moment because all the gunners were in fighting position. And all the guns, the 20mm Orelicon and 40mm Bofors, were pointed up to the sky and ready to be fired. How many ships in the area? To me, it was a lot: four. The LSSL (Landing Ship Support Large) HQ-230 that belonged to Lieutenant Commander Nguyen Nguyen. The LSS (Landing Ship Support) HQ-330 that belonged to Lieutenant Commander Anh Van Nguyen. The LSSS HQ-231 that belonged to Lieutenant Commander Trieu Tan Phan. And the PGM (Patrol Gunboat Motor) HQ-616 that belonged to Lieutenant Commander Duong Minh Ngo. With the fire power of these ships, not only the national waters but the national air space at Phu-Quoc Island could be protected successfully.
Sooner or later we had to evacuate, I thought. Particularly as we were the intelligence personnel who would receive the highest priority to die if the VC captured us. But, I did not believe we had to run too early when we had so many generals and soldiers in our armed forces. I heard that the commanding officer had ordered his close men to bring down rice and food to the HQ-230 of Lieutenant Commander Nguyen, the highest seniority captain of the four in the area. Information was very difficult to collect now. Everyone tried to keep secrets to himself, not only the commanding officer.
On April 29th, 1975, I heard that the personnel of the Vietnam Motherland Radio Station had been moved out to the American ship, the Challenger, one of the three ships left in the An-Thoi Bay. The Challenger had anchored near the Cape of Ong-Doi (Sergeant Cape) while the other two stayed on the west side of Lon (Large) Island near the Cape of Hanh. Everything seemed to be breaking apart. It was danger. According to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), the VC was on the way to the capital. However, according to the Saigon Station, our forces were strong and had pushed back all offensive attacks. There was nothing new. There was no other news.
Nobody had predicted that the night of the April 29th would be a terrible night. About midnight someone discovered that Captain Thien, the commanding officer, had gone. His jeep was unattended on the pier; neither driver nor watcher was there. Not waiting for long, everybody took turns driving the jeep back to his own apartment and bringing his family. Then, they prepared to go out to the big ships. I could not get the jeep, so I walked back home. People in the entire Family Officers' Quarter were awakening. I saw my wife and her sister gather our valuable things and put them in the suitcases and the marine bags. I walked back to the pier to check if Luan, my Chief Petty Officer, had brought in our taxi boat. A couple of families used the Yabuta (a kind of navy boat) to leave the pier for the ships. There was still enough time, and everybody was going quietly and calmly. Outside the base, the civilians were still in their good and deep midnight sleep.
Suddenly, the "Death Ghost" had appeared! Had the commanding officer not gone yet? A PCF came in fast from the sea and docked at the pier. From the PCF's deck, Captain Thien yelled:
"What the heck are all of you doing here? Are you trying to make more trouble? I am still here and you are running away? Do you want me to shoot all of you down? Go home, now!"
The whole flock of people, not able go out to the ships, quickly returned to their apartments. I was the first one because I did not want the commanding officer to see me. When I got home, my wife and her sister had not finished their job of stuffing things yet. People in the Family Officers' Quarters had shaky feelings. Conversation in small groups between family members and neighbors were in session everywhere. My next door neighbor, Mr. Kha and his family, were still not back. Perhaps they all had gone to the navy vessels. Then, I heard that the commanding officer's family had been transported to the American ship, the Challenger. Why didn't he care about the other families? He should let us go too! The chaos gradually calmed down. With all the worrying, everyone went to bed late.
The next day, April 30th, 1975, I woke up around 10 o'clock in the morning. I forgot about going to my office to work. I saw Mr. Kha and his wife walk home from the beach in front of our apartment building. I thought that he was afraid the commanding officer would give him hard punishment. It was easy to get killed at this time for the crime of deserting.
However, shortly the fate of the country and the people of South Vietnam came, the fall of Saigon regime. I heard General "Big" Minh, Minh Van Duong, in his "surrender speech" on the Saigon Radio Station. I was terrified at what had happened. I did not know what to do next. I told my wife:
"I am going to headquarters to learn the commanding officer's decision. Everybody prepare to run. I will be back right away."
At the headquarters' gate, the guard told me that an emergency meeting was called by the commanding officer at the ballroom. I took a short cut and ran through the Seaman's Club. A lot of officers had come already. I stood in the back and looked over the shoulders of the others. I saw someone raise his hand and ask:
"Sir, do you go or not?"
Slowly, the commanding officer replied:
"For my part, if everybody needs me to stay and keep order for the ones who want to go, just go; the ones who choose to stay, just stay. I will stay. But, at the last minute, I must go. Even with a small boat on the open sea, I must go. I cannot live with the communists. . ."
That was enough. I turned and ran. The meeting seemed to end at that time because I saw many people come out and run with me. I met my wife and children and my wife's sister just inside the main gate. They were busy with several suitcases and marine bags. My wife complained:
"Where did you go? We waited for you for so long! Do you know that a strange woman came and asked the direction to the houses of Lieutenant Kha and Lieutenant JG Tu. I am afraid that she is a VC. She looked at your decorative rifles on the wall. . ."
"And what else?"
"I said that `everybody had already gone, so I have to run, toọ' She gave me her advice that `the peace had finally come, you should stay back to enjoy it. You don't have to run.' It terrified me."
I put the heaviest marine bag on my shoulder and carried a big suitcase in my hand. I led my family to the sand beach near the pier. My children were surprised to see so many people running around back and forth like in a Tet (new year) market place. All the members of my Intelligence Department and their families had come to the rendez-vous point. On the pier, the Phu-Quoc Naval Base personnel and their families were crowded together. One by one, either coming or leaving, all kinds of navy boats were used as taxi boats from the pier to the larger vessels. But I did not see our departmental boat anywhere. Could I trust my own man, Chief Petty Officer Luan?
I could not wait any longer and I made my decision:
"Now, everybody stay here. I have to find Luan. If he comes, just let people get in the boat and wait for me to come back."
I ran through the main gate. Some civilian families were coming to the base. I ran through the Family Officer Quarters. No one had left. I ran through the long sand beach which had a dry well. When I reached the fence, I was so happy to see our departmental boat still anchoring there. But, I also got angry with Luan, too. It was a very simple thing to do and he should have done it. I did not care about my clothes and my socks and shoes. I stepped in the water and walked out. The water level kept rising higher and higher over my body, first the feet, the lower leg, the thigh, and last the waist. Finally, I touched the boat's hulk. I did not believe that Mr. Luan was sleeping. He might have gotten drunk last night. I yelled loudly:
"Luan, Luan, Luan. . . wake up Luan, run Luan. . ."
He awoke, jumped out of the cabin, and pulled me up on the deck. Angrily, I yelled at him louder:
"What the heck are you waiting for, old man. Start the engine and go. Now. I told you to do just one simple thing, and you could not even do it right. That's stupid."
Luan jumped down to the engine room and cranked up the engine by hand (not battery operated in Vietnam). Three times in a row, the engine would not fire. I asked:
"Did it ever do like this?"
"No, Sir. It's very easy to start. I always crank up just once. Why doesn't it want to run at this kind of time?"
I had never cranked up the marine engine in my life, but it didn't seem to be complicated-opening a valve, turning the fly wheel faster and faster, and closing the valve back. I said:
"Let me try."
Luan stepped aside, and I jumped down. Like a professional, I cranked it up, kept it going much much faster than Luan did. I closed the valve. The Yanmar, a 10 horsepower, one cylinder engine, fired. . . rum, rum, rum. . . several times and stopped. It was much better, I guessed. With all the energy left, I tried it again. At very high speed, I closed the valve and suddenly and finally the engine started. I was so happy. I almost knelt down to say "Thank God."
When we brought the boat to the rendez-vous place, it was too late. Civilian people already overran Navy Headquarters. Besides my family, there were my departmental personnel and their families including Lieutenant JG Lang, Chief Petty Officer Nghia and his family, and Khuong and Nhieu, my seamen. The other members including Chief Petty Officer Thai and his family and Un, my interpreter of Thai and Cambodian languages, didn't show up. I kept the boat a distance from the shore. In my wet clothes, I jumped into the water to keep the boarding in order. I pulled out my Colt 45 from my chest holster and jerked the breech to load a bullet in the barrel. One by one the people came out. My group was first, of course. The other navy personnel and their families were next. In a very short time, the boat was full. With a boy on his shoulder, an old man who wasn't afraid to die swam out and begged:
"Lieutenant, please let the two of us go. I will pay you 4 onces of gold."
"I am sorry, but no gold or silver this time, Sir. The boat is already too crowded. We don't want to be drowned in the ocean, you know? Why don't you just wait for the next one, OK?"
I pushed the front end of the boat out and at the same time I jumped and climbed onto the deck. I signaled the engine room for my men to increase the speed. Rum, rum, rum. . ., the sound kept going faster and louder. Everybody on the boat was happy to leave the troubled moment behind. Looking back at the shoreline, I trembled to see a sea of people. And I was more terrified when I heard several guns fire somewhere. How much more afraid would I be if I were still there? I did not know!
The American ships started to move. The rising black smoke in the sky could be seen from far, far away. The Navy ships had begun to line up. The LSSL HQ-230, the last ship, had cranked up her anchor. We were just in time. I signaled the engine room to slow for docking aside the big ship. But suddenly . . . bang, bang, bang. . ., we had been shot! Why? I looked up at the main deck and I saw the captain, Lieutenant Commander Nguyen Nguyen. He was the man I had met at Tan Chau Naval Base when he was the commanding officer there. He was the man I had lunch with when I came to visit his unit by following Admiral Hung Manh Dinh, the commanding officer of the Riverine Forces, and Admiral Phu Van Nghiem, the commanding officer of the 212 Task Forces. He was the man who came to my office for meteorological maps of the Pacific Ocean a few days ago. I gained some confidence when I saw him, and I put my hands around my mouth and cried loudly:
"Commander, commander, let us aboard your ship, please. We are all navy personnel and families."
A series of M 16 bullets splashing at the water in front of me was the answer. With a megaphone, a seaman walked back and forth along the rail line and repeatedly warned:
"No boat can come close to the ship. No boat. . . can come close to the ship."
Oh no, suddenly, I knew my problem. I had picked the wrong ship. This one had been reserved for the commanding officer. It would be better to get out of here fast. I signaled to the control room to run for the other, the HQ 330 nearby. But, it was too late because the ship had already begun to move. Even with our engine at full speed, the distance between our boat and the HQ 330 kept widening and widening. Shortly, the ship took off like a horse. There was no chance to keep up with it; I ordered Nghia, who had the steering wheel, to go in a different direction:
"Turn to the Cape of Hanh for me, Nghia. We may get to the American ships that are anchoring somewhere on the other side of Lon Island."
Nghia did what I said. About fifteen minutes later, a huge dark cloud came and a heavy down pouring shower dropped on our heads. Everybody got wet instantly. The gusty wind suddenly made the sea rough. High waves rose up about us. The boat almost sank a few times from the rolling and pushing down on it. Only about thirty feet long and several feet wide, the boat was too small to carry over twenty people, adults and children. I thought of my family and I did not want to be in the case of You Have To Live ,-The title of a Vietnamese novel in which there was a famous story of the wife of the main character who had to leave him and die in the middle of the stormy river in order for him to survive and raise the children-so I ordered Nghia again:
"Slow down, Nghia. We cannot go on. The boat will sink. You'd better turn back to the pier. We will pump some fuel and find some way out later."
Perhaps Nghia saw the same way that I did. He quickly changed the direction and followed the waves less roughly. Nobody said a word. I knew that I still had authority over my men and even over all the other passengers who did not belong to our department.
We pulled back to the same place where we had started. Only a few navy personnel and their families remained on the pier. The civilians could return home or go somewhere else since the main transportation to other countries, the big ships, had gone. For us too, the chance of running away from the communists was lost. But, look there, the PCF 11 was still docked at the pier. . . Our slim hope collapsed when the captain, Lang's classmate, decided to wait only for his boss, Commander Han, Commanding Officer of the Fourth Coastal Fleet.
I thought that my fate had been set by the cosmic will: I could not get out of the country and that could not be changed. That was the reason I made my decision to go home to the mainland after refueling. Once more, nobody said a word. Nobody had any other ideas. I made a quick check of who was on the boat. Besides my family and my departmental personnel and their families, there were the others*: Lieutenant Ngoc Nguyen and his family, Lieutenant Kim Vu Pham and his family, Petty Officer Le Quang Le and his family, Chief Petty Officer Liem Thanh Vo, and many single men whom I did not yet know at that time like Mr. Hai, Mr. Loc. . . and one more person who just jumped down, Lieutenant Commander Tan Huu Tran.
It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. My mind was empty. I did not know who I should blame. Was it true that operation came from men but success came from God ? Neither of our plans, my assistant officer's plan or mine, worked. "Surprise," no one knew before it came.
Luan told the seamen to bring up all the weapons that were stored under the deck to protect ourselves. Besides individual M 16 rifles, there was an M 30 machine gun, an M 79 grenade launcher, and a PRC 25 communication transceiver. The ammunition was more than enough. But, what was their condition? Were all the gun barrels rusty inside from long disuse in the salty air? Would they explode when the first bullet was fired? Who knew!
It seemed to me that we were missing something very important. I asked:
"Where is the compass, Luan? Why didn't they bring it up?"
Luan winked his eyes a few times and gave me a soft answer:
"You won't get angry when I say, right? Please! I didn't bring it down here yet. It's still in the drawer of our file cabinet, Lieutenant."
"What? How can the navy man navigate without the compass? Are you trying to kill me?"
"Lieutenant, you know very well that I need no compass to go around Phu-Quoc Island. And frankly, the fishermen will know where it came from: from the Navy, from the PCF boat. We cannot camouflage that sort of equipment. In fact, that will give us away!"
"Camouflage, camouflage . . . you always say that. Don't you know there are many fishermen using PCF compasses around here? So, what the heck are we supposed to do now? Hmmm, Rach-Gia Harbor, is to the east. The only way is to keep the sun at the rear. . . Nghia, do you hear what I say?"
"Yes, Sir. Don't worry about it, Lieutenant. I am very familiar with this route!"
"Are you sure? You aren't going to start with me like Luan! I may give up because of all of you, soon!"
In the wide open sea, I could see how small this boat was. That was one of the reasons Luan had not saved any money in months of fishing. Everybody had to sit in a small space on a crowded cabin or on the open deck. My wife brought out some food for our children- French bread, long submarine sandwiches that Minh, Lieutenant Kha's younger brother, had helped her to buy this morning. The other women did the same thing for their children. Everybody seemed to have brought along some cooked or dry foods. But, what about drinking water? It was the most important substance now! I knew that there was only half of a small container at the rear of the boat. A limited amount of usage must be set for everybody, I guessed.
It was evening now. The sun already came down near to the horizon. The sky was above, the water was below, and the sailor was in the middle ! I did not feel any sense of the hero in that saying anymore; I only felt very little and alone on the open sea. The sea was so immense. The sea was so silent. There were waves and waves, nothing else. The engine sound was a monotone in the light wind. The boat speed was no faster than the speed of the waves. Everything seemed to slow down. Everybody seemed tired after several hours of being sitting ducks on the boat. But, why did we not see Nghe Island? Could we have gotten lost? For a sailor, the biggest problem was always his point! Where did I stand? Why was there only water?
Suddenly "br. . . upt," a strange noise in the engine room. It sounded like the propeller hitting a log or a shark! A shark? Don't ever think about it! I was sure that the boat had not grounded on a coral bank or a submerged sand bar because it kept going smoothly. But, oh oh, where was the water coming from? It was up to the foot of the engine. I yelled in a hurry:
"Khuong, jump down and pump the water out. Is it broken somewhere? Why is the water coming in so fast?"
Khuong, my youngest seaman, quickly did what I said. And a strange young boy whom I did not know also jumped down and gave Khuong a hand. One used an open five gallon kerosene container and another used Luan's large rice cooking-pot. Luan removed the deck's wooden bars at the rear of the boat to find the hole. The oval iron piece around the propeller's shaft was loose. The nails and bolts had been rusty and had broken inside the wood. Luan tried to stop the leak by pushing a piece of rug into the gap. The engine was kept at low speed now to save the wooden keel. The road back home was still a long, long way. And how many unexpected and deadly obstacles were waiting for us? At this end, there was a prayer whose fingers from one shoulder to the other made a cross sign. At the other end, there was a prayer whose hands were held together in front of his chest. . .
Suddenly, a Thailand fishing boat appeared on the left horizon. Did this boat belong to the Oriental Fishing Company, under the protection of Mr. Vice President Huong Van Tran? Was it an illegal company that I had orders from the boss to made legal? If this boat was one of their, oh no, we were lost far out in the open sea. I knew for sure that those big Thailand fishing boats never operated in the shallow area.
I had no intention to chase the Thailand fishing boats. Even the gunships sometimes could not run fast enough to catch them when they were only several hundred yards apart. There was a big difference between being on land and in water. In the water, one meter apart was several nautical miles for ones who did not know how to swim and did not have any other tools in hand. Sometimes, it seemed to be too close, but in truth it was too far, especially, with the addition of no human heart to rescue us.
Shortly, another Thailand fishing boat, a little bit smaller, rose on the right horizon. The two boats seemed to be on the way to meet each other for. . . information, I guessed. The boats grew bigger and bigger in the sky, and I realized that their meeting point was right on my route. What was going on? I turned around to my navigator:
"Nghia, you'd better run to the right between the two Thai boats. If these guys hit us, I warrant that we will be cut clean in two pieces."
Nghia turned a little bit to the right. He tried to adjust both the direction and the pace. However, "Hummm. . .," my wife made a clear sound in her mouth and started to complain:
"Why didn't you try to board the Thailand fishing boat?"
Naturally, I asked her back:
"Do you really want to go to the foreign countries?"
My wife got a little bit angry:
"By boarding their boats, we may get something we really need, food, fuel. . . Why don't you think straight?"
In the position of an officer, same as the others, I could not change my decision so quick as that. The hero always said it once , and he tried to do what he had said because he, of course, had studied very carefully before making the decision. I wanted to do the same. Was my decision of going home clearly set? What happened if I changed it? What could I gain if I boarded the Thailand fishing boats? I would have my last chance to run away from the enemy, I guessed. I would have my last chance not to die in the ocean with this small and paralyzed boat that I had known. The two boys continued to pump out the water by hand. What troubles could I run into if I boarded the Thailand fishing boats? I might get shot at as the Navy ship had shot at me, I supposed. And because of the difference in languages, the crew members might think that we were pirates, the Vikings. They would kill us before we attacked the boats. Well, it would not hurt to try. I would never know if I did not challenge it. I stood up on the deck and gave my order:
"Nghia, prepare to dock beside the Thailand fishing boat. You'd better go a little bit faster before it is too late. And Luan, bring all the weapons down. Hurry up, hurry up. . ."
"Bring them down for what, Lieutenant? Let me take care of the Thais!"
"Are you crazy? Bring them down for me, right now. We have to negotiate in peace, don't you know?"
Luan did what I said, but he didn't like it much. I didn't care about his reaction either. I took off my shirt and my T-shirt. I intended to use my T-shirt as the SOS flag because its white color could be seen easier at sea. I put my shirt back. I needed my shoulder board of ranking for gaining some respect from the Thai crews, I hoped.
The two Thailand fishing boats had met each other at the rendez-vous point which was not far away from our boat now. They kept the engines running neutrally at idled speed. I held up my T-shirt and waved at them while Nghia tried to go straight toward the bigger one. I looked at the main deck and was happy to see the captain who was familiar to me. I thought that I had seen him every time during the traditional customs check at An-Thoi Bay. I hoped that Nghia had taken him to the Kim-Thai whorehouse at least once. By that nice experience, the captain might think well of him in this circumstance.
The engine suddenly ran uncontrolled at very high speed for about two hundred feet with a lot of black smoke coming out from the exhaust pipe, "bang, bang, bang. . .," and finally . . . stopped. What's going on? Were we running in the trouble again? Oh no, the propeller shaft had made a big hole at the back of the boat's keel, and water poured in freely. The acceleration cable, a transparent nylon cord, was cut at the same time. The two boys kept pumping the water out at their highest speed, but they did not seem to keep up with the incoming water. It was too late, I thought. But a man jumped down and used his hands to plug up the hole. Clothing was thrown at him for helping to close the gap. Everybody was terrified. They picked whatever they could and waved for help. I did the same thing. I put my T-shirt on the top of my M-16 rifle and waved as fast as I could. Crying for help instantly broke out by many voices. I did not pray in silence anymore but in words, saying: "Oh God, please save us, please . . ."
In a minute that seemed as long as a century I saw the executive officer of the Thailand fishing boat take the control wheel from the captain. The gear had been shifted and the big boat advanced drifting. What a happiness for dead people who suddenly felt reborn! God had saved us, I knew.
When the two boats were side by side, the rough sea automatically rose without a strong wind or big waves. Our small boat was up, then down like a log in a fast current. With no waiting, everybody tried to find a way to climb up the big and safe boat. I pushed my wife and children first, the luggage later. Some Thai fishermen jumped to our boat and helped to fix it. They pumped out the water and filled up the hole with proper materials. The rest of the crew happily pulled people aboard their boat.
While the others set up their tents, Lieutenant Commander Tan and I tried to communicate with the captain and his executive officer. We spoke English, of course, and wrote down what we said on a piece of paper. With big help from the only interpreter on the boat, the cook who had a little kindergarten level English, we seemed to understand each other. The main thing was that they agreed to let us stay on their boat for the sake of women and children recovering from sea sickness. During that time, they would fix our small boat, and when the small boat was fixed, we had to return to it and keep going on to our destination. What kind of decision was that! Who would want to commit suicide in that broken junk? There was no way to force us to go back, I thought!
The Thai crew had talents. In a short while, they completed their renovation job. The sinking boat had rode up high at its normal level. They had also found and connected the acceleration cable and re-started the engine. Then, I was afraid that they would throw us back. Ođly, a man came and begged me for that boat. He signaled me by pointing his index finger a couple of times to his chest. I was so happy to say "yes" by bowing my head several times. He was happy, too. He smiled and tied the leading rope of the small boat to the rear of the big boat. Then, the convoy started to move. Although the evening was getting dark, I still recognized that we were going to the south. Why didn't they go to the west? Did they plan to continue to fish? Did they not know anything about the fall of Saigon? Who cared? Wherever they went, I was pleased every minute I could stay on the big boat!
It was time for dinner. Everybody went to the rear where there was a small kitchen. The refugees became guests and had the right to eat first. In the Navy, we usually stood up and ate when the sea was rough. Each of us had his own plate. In the Thailand fishing forces, the crew often stood and ate their meal. Each of them had his own container, an aluminum wok, and a spoon. Rice, meat, fish, and soup was delivered in one pot. A thin layer of red hot-pepper covered everything. The leek and garlic pickle were never in shortage. Anyway, anything was tasty when one was hungry.
Our boat, belonging to the Intelligence Department, a gift that I had given to a Thai fisherman, was about half sunk now. The fisherman knew that the boat could not be used again. He also knew that the big boat could not drag it any longer. "H. . . mmm," he took a long machete and angrily cut the rope. The boat seemed to jerk once, then, gradually floated away like a leaf in the stream. It became smaller and smaller in the dark sea. I felt bad for its fate in its time of passing away. I felt that it was one of my relatives who cared about me for its whole life and happily ended on the bottom of the ocean. "Good-bye forever," those words seemed to be real! I suddenly saluted in silence until I could not see anything.
Our fate of life or death was to be stuck with this Thailand fishing boat, the Manechai Sakhorn 10 . But, it was not quite over yet because shortly an island appeared in front of us. Lights from the homes of the islanders scattered everywhere. Oh no, this was Poulo Dama! We were still deep inside Vietnamese waters! Why did the Thai crew come here? Right away, I had the answer from my instinct:
"I cannot bring you to Thailand; I have to put you here. I will lose my job as the captain of the boat if I don't do this. My wife and children will go hungry and my house will be put up for sale. Please, understand me, my friends."
I was terrified once more. It was lucky that the "intelligence boat" had been sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I had to use it as my new strategic move for finding ways to stay in the Thailand fishing boat. With the language of body signals and drawing symbols, I tried to convey my message:
"Many people in our group cannot swim. Do you see a bunch of women and children? Do you really want to kill us? Nobody can swim a mile long distance from here to the island. And do you see there is no boat around? All the boats have been used to go to the other countries, don't you know?"
Although I knew that the captain could not throw us out of the boat, I had to continue giving him my suggestions:
"Why didn't you make contact with your bosses in Bangkok? You may become a hero if they say `yes,' do you know? Saving lives in the ocean is the common responsibility of the sailors and fishermen; you should know that, shouldn't you?"
"We have to wait until mid-night. We only make contact twice a day, mid-night and mid-day."
I finally understood their reason. I pointed to the map and gave him a new idea:
"How about this. We will go with you toward the west to Poulo Panjang. We will wait until mid-night for you to talk with your bosses. If they don't allow you to take us home, we will land on that island, OK?"
"OK!"
Now, I suspected that Luan had a plan to use force. In his mind, the use of force to take control of the Thai boat was the best idea. Could we carry off such a pirate action? Because of the lives of my wife and children, I seemed to have no choice. I had to think twice and come up with a new plan. But, I hoped that I did not have to carry out that plan which was my last solution, the unwanted solution. With our fire power, I could take over not one but the whole fleet of Thailand fishing boats. Why did the Thai crew not think of that? They seemed to care of nothing. Well, I had to wait until mid-night.
During that time, there was someone who wanted to tell everybody his true story. He was Hieu, Hieu Thanh Ha, the strange young-boy who helped Khuong, my seaman, pump the water from our boat during the flooding crisis. The story was that he had no relationship with anyone in our group. At the base, with his cleverness, he acted as anyone's servant. He helped to carry the stuff, luggage and marine bags, that belonged to everybody. He got a seat on the boat by just doing that. I couldn't believe we were the members of an intelligence department! We should have detected him on the first place. What would happen if he was a VC sapper, a frogman? Anyway, why did he have to wait so long before let everybody know his identity? Well, he might have been afraid that I would throw him out to the ocean, I guessed!
Because they improperly carried out their responsibilities, Hieu and Khuong gave me a big problem. My wife kept complaining:
"You should have let the old man and his grandchild go! It was worth nothing to bring along these guys who never show any appreciation. You always care about other people, and they never care about you and your family. Why is everyone else's stuff brought up while they let some of our stuff sink along with the boat? Don't you see that the more good you do for them the more bad they will return to you?"
It seemed to be logical to me, too. I knew that from the time our group came aboard the Thailand fishing boat, my responsibility to my people, both my fellows and the free loaders, had come to an end. For me, it was a successful operation although there were many problems from the beginning. Now, I returned the power of being an officer to the Vietnamese Navy which was on the way to vanishing. I also returned the ownership of our departmental boat to the deep sea. Everybody seemed to be equal. Everybody seemed to start all over from scratch. I knew it. But, I felt bad that no one seemed to appreciate what I had done for them. They thought that everything dropped in place from the sky, from heaven. No one said "Thanks" to me. That was the reason I thought that all the valued things, both moral and material, seemed not to exist anymore . . . in the scene of life or death.
Time slowly passed by as everybody waited for the important mid-night. The mid-night of a lifetime in the open sea had finally come. Once again, we had been saved and no happiness was bigger than that. The Thailand fishing company's owner was very pleased and proud to rescue us and the captain was pronounced a hero of the sea. That was it. I rather thought of eating and sleeping well and poem in the pocket and liquor in the churn for my future.
Silently, I gave the executive officer of the Thailand fishing boat my Colt 45 pistol, the greatest gift he ever had in his fisherman's life, to say: "Thanks."
* Lieutenant Ngoc Nguyen was my 17th naval classmate and his final position was secretary to the commanding officer of the Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters. Lieutenant Kim Vu Pham was my 16th senior naval classmate and his final position was Chief of the Communication Department, Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters. Petty Officer Le Quang Le was Nghia's younger brother. Chief Petty Officer Liem Thanh Vo was belonbed to the Communication Department, Fourth Coastal Zone Headquarters. Lieutenant Commander Tan Huu Tran was also my 16th senior naval classmate who was sent out from the Saigon Training Center to help the refugee crisis.
08. DAYS IN THE STRANGE COUNTRY
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
After three days and three nights of an unexpected cruise in the ocean, we came to the harbor of Samut-Sakhorn, Thailand. It was in the dawn of a new day. Everything was still covered under a thin layer of fog and dew drops, the mystic atmosphere of a Buddhist country. Deep inside the land, the city was awakening. Lights of civilization were bright everywhere, and I felt that the scene of Saigon's ship loading quarter was in front of my eyes. The only difference was the missing of the darkness of the Thu-Thiem rice field on the east bank of Saigon river. Here, both sides of this big river were crowded with houses and stores. The ships and boats ran back and forth like shuttles in the loom.
Was it a foreign country? Everybody rubbed their eyes to look around with a strange and sorrowful feeling. It was strange because it was true that we were in the new land. And it was sorrowful because our motherland was too far away, now. When would we have a chance to come home? It might take a long, long time. I suddenly felt so alone like a child leaving his mother's arms. Where could I find my hometown, my school, and my relatives?
Finally, our Thailand fishing boat, the Manechai Sakhorn 10, docked at its company's small and private pier. There were a lot of people on the bank. I did not know whether they came to greet us or just to see their crews back home after a month long fishing period at sea. Anyway, the first group of men boarding the boat were the local policemen who wore white shirts, blue pants, and blue caps. They didn't mean to harass us. I could understand that by looking at their eyes. They just did what they had to do for the arriving foreigners. They made a quick check of our belongings, the luggage and marine bags. They counted and kept all our weapons and military equipment. As the leader of the group, I signed my name on the document papers.
Then, the civilian people were allowed to come down. They brought fruits, food, clothes and some miscellaneous but important things like thermostats and women's needs. It was not worth much but it meant a lot of hearty caring from the people who loved the others like themselves . Shortly, it was time for us to leave the boat. Some of the Thai people helped us carry our stuff. The nice gestures had filled up the gaps of the differences in languages.
It was always difficult to say "good-bye," and the real "good-bye" moment finally had come between the crew members and us, their once-in-a-life-time travelers. Everybody felt sad to take their hands off their friends' hands. A big van was waiting for the foreigners. We were transported to the clubhouse of the city. We stepped inside a very large room, like those often seen in fine hotels which big enterprises had usually used for their corporate meetings. The city mayor and his administration staff members and the fishing company owner and his executive officers were there. The television and newspaper broadcasters also had come to the right place on time. I thought that this was a very good occasion for a fishing company to make its impressive advertisement.
However, I was very surprised that Mr. Phong Tran, a big boss of the Mekong Bank in Saigon was here, too. I recalled that I had met him just once in Phu-Quoc Island. Well, it was good to have someone I at least knew about in this foreign country. It was easier to gain a friendly relationship between the two who had the same root. Naturally, I greeted him in Vietnamese:
"Good morning, Sir."
He asked me right back:
"Where is Ping Lee? Did he escape with you?"
Oh no, what was going on? I was most surprised because I remembered Ping Lee had said that Mr. Phong Tran did not speak Vietnamese. That was the time I had been told to sign the documents for legalizing their illegal company, the Oriental Fishing Company. And here, how come Mr. Phong Tran spoke Vietnamese more fluently than Ping Lee? Hmmm, Mr. Hai Minh Truong (Ping Lee's name used on his identification card as I knew) had lied to me. What did he do that for? It's difficult to understand what is in the heart of other people, especially one who made a living under his illegal trading company. I told him the truth:
"Ping Lee didn't flee with us. I am not sure that he can get out of the country. It was very chaotic at that time. Everybody thought only of taking care of himself."
I wanted to tell Mr. Phong Tran that perhaps Ping Lee could have already escaped with Commander Tho, the commanding officer of the An-Thoi naval shipyard, but I didn't. Beside my family Commander Tho was Ping Lee's good friend. I had known that he let Ping Lee stay in a nice trailer home near his house. Ping Lee would be safe if he had followed Commander Tho who, of course, had many landing craft such as LCM (Landing Craft Motor) and LCU (Landing Craft Unit).
Mr. Phong Tran turned to his old friend who, I thought, might be the owner of the fishing company:
"We have to fly to Saigon today before it is too late. We also have to take care of Ping's family, his wife and children. What's the situation at Tan-Son-Nhat Airport? Can we land there?"
What did these guys think, I asked myself? Were they not afraid to be stuck there, in Vietnam? Well, it might be OK with them because they had a lot of money, I guessed. With their own plane, if they could not land at the Tan-Son-Nhat Airport, they could land easily at the Bien-Hoa or Tay-Ninh Airport and come back to Saigon by highway (only 30 and 15 kilometers from the capital, respectively). However, Mr. Phong Tran's old friend said:
"We only need to phone them and let those other guys over there take care of the rest. . ."
Then, he switched to Chinese. I could not understand what they discussed anymore. After a while, he turned back to me and shook my hands:
"Good luck to you and your family."
"Thank you."
Then, both of them left for somewhere else. The press reporters jumped right in. They asked us why we had to leave our country and how we had been saved by the Thailand fishing boat. All my answers were short because my English was not very good at that time. It was lucky that they never asked me how Thailand fishing boats could operate freely in Vietnamese water. The story was still secret. To avoid any problems for our family members back home, I had made a request of the reporters that none of our pictures should appear anywhere on the newspapers and they agreed.
My wife smiled and pulled me aside:
"Darling, can you believe that this man wants to adopt our two boys. He said that he will pay us whatever amount of money we ask for. He has many fishing boats and he promises that he will give one to each of the boys when they grow up."
No way. What were these fishermen trying to do? Lang, my assistant officer, had just told me a similar story. He said that the Thailand fishing company would offer him a job as a fishing boat's captain. His salary was good, of course. It was not easy for the company to find a captain who knew the Vietnamese waters, language, and even the culture! Hmmm, I saw it now. I told my wife:
"They don't mean to adopt any children. They only mean to find some slaves. We will go on to the Americas. Don't be foolish to stay on this poor land!"
"I am just telling you what they were asking me. No woman would give away her children whom she carried for many months long and suffered for by giving birth. You are supposed to know that."
It was time for our breakfast. There was one thing on the menu: rice stew with bacon chunks. I did not know where it came from, but one large aluminum pot was brought in. Compared with the rice soup and salty boiled eggs, this kind of stew was not tasty for me. But, I had no choice.
After receiving some more gifts from the civilian Thais, most of them half Chinese, we had to return to the van and go back to the fishing company's pier. I guessed that we had to go on because nobody wanted to make Samut-Sakhorn his new country. This time, we were aboard a much smaller boat, a local short distance ferry it seemed to be. Once again, we went back out to the sea with waves and water to an unknown destination.
I had hoped that we would be sent to an American naval base so we could make contact with the American authorities. However, in the afternoon, we arrived at Sattahip, a very small port in Chonburi Province. The Thai Navy had escorted us instead of the American Navy. This was the first time I met Thai navy sailors, both officers and seamen. Although their boats looked old, their uniforms were nice and made of beige polyester material instead of beige kaki like the Vietnamese counterparts. But the "ta-han" (Navy in Thai language) didn't seem to welcome us at all, the navy personnel of a regime that was falling down. They did not give us a place to stay in their bases, and even gave us to someone else!
We had to land again. After collecting more gifts including clothes, mosquito nets, straw rugs, and food from the Thai civilian people, we had to climb onto a large truck. Where would we go? Nobody knew! But, now, I had a chance to see the countryside in Thailand. It seemed to me not much different than that of Vietnam. The only difference I noted right away was that people drove their cars and trucks on the left side. I was afraid that they might hit each other very easily at that very high kind of speed!
Finally, we came to an empty American base, an open ammunition field without shells and bullets. There were two buildings at the back of the field that formed an L. The building that faced the road was pre-fabricated with the front half open; the other was a brick building. In front of the pre-fabricated building, there was a large field covered with asphalt that ran up to the roadside. Around the area, stood a fence with barbed wire running through holes in cement posts of human height. A company of Thai Marines had been assigned to do the job of setting up temporary tents. The first tent near the pre-fabricated building, which was used as the troop's headquarters, was already finished. The one next to the first had only a plywood floor with no canvas roof yet. Anyway, I could see that the Thai Marines were building a refugee camp. So, when were we supposed to talk with the American authorities? And how long would we have to wait here? No one knew!
A few hours later, another group of Vietnamese refugees came in a big school bus. They were no strangers to me. They were the administration personnel and families of Rach-Gia City, Kien-Giang Province, including Major Thao, the Chief of police, Mr. Luan, the Chief of Phoenix task force, Mr. Toai and Mr. Hy, the Captains of the special police task force (national guards), and Mr. Dung, the Chief of Customs whom I had known fairly well in my operation of capturing the black-market traders. Mr. Dung and his family joined us to stay at the first tent and the rest of the group went to the brick building.
It didn't take much time for Mr. Dung and his family to put things in order on the tent's floor. When there was nobody around, I asked him:
"Did you bring along your treasure, `master'?"
He did not seem to hold back anything:
"The most precious things that we brought along were our lives. I gave my houses and vehicles to my fellows who wanted to stay back. In the same sort of situation as others in my group, I did not prepare for this. I just ran when they said run."
At that time, he was the only one who knew if what he said was true. But later on, everybody understood clearly that he had brought along with him his treasure, which was never left unwatched by family members, most of the time by his wife. Perhaps, he wished to stay with us because he did not want to be too close to his group, the people who knew his past very well.
At the same time, I felt that I was also in his shoes. It would be better for me to stay not too close with my fellows, I guessed. They seemed to think that I had brought along a lot of money and did not share it with them. They were jealous about it. But, they did not know that on the last trip to visit our home at My-Tho City, my wife withdrew all of our money from the bank and bought gold bars. Unfortunately, she left them with my parents for safety. So, I was actually broke like them. (Later on, I understood that my fate was no different than that of my predecessor, Chief of Intelligence, Lieutenant Xe. All the money that I had gained had to be returned to someone, some place, because those gold bars had only caused my sister and brother be captured earlier in their first try to escape the country by boat. It wasn't even enough, and my parents had to spend more and more money to get them out of the prison. As I mentioned before, the mystery of Phu-Quoc Island was still there. Newcomers could easily make a lot of money, but they would gain nothing when they left).
On the next day in the afternoon, the third large group of Vietnamese refugees came by many buses. Many boats had arrived at the same time, I guessed. In this group, there was a special family, the family of General Mau Do. They went to the brick building. At that time, several tents had been set up, and the refugees could stay at any tent and have as much floor room as they wanted. Some of them wanted only what they needed, the full stomach came from how to eat and the body warmth came from how to curl up . But, some people always needed more than what they asked.
During that easy time, I moved my family to the brick building. We had a small room which was at one end while the General's family had the other. (Later on, we made good friends with the General's family because, perhaps, we saw each other day by day. The truth was that Mr. Do, the General, was no different than other ordinary refugees now. All day long, his time was tea time. His elder sons, Mr. Dung Huu Do and Mr. Tai Huu Do, had very good communication skills. They spoke very fluently in both English and French. But, they did not take any post in the camp's administration, accept as advisors. Anyway, my "One Time As An Intelligence Officer" was nothing compared with the General's whole life as the "Chief of National Secret Police").
I had two reasons to move my family to the brick building. First, I did not know how long we had to stay at the camp. What happened if we were stuck up here for several months or a year? I had rather live in a cooler brick building instead of in the hot tent! "All of you will stay here for only a couple of days before going to the American air base, the Utapao Air Base, which is about ten miles from the camp," could we believe what the Thai authorities said? A couple of days had already passed by! Would we finally come to the airport that had a bunch of B 52 bombers, the ones that dropped millions of tons of bombs in Vietnam? I had a doubt about that! Like Mr. Thao Tao (a Chinese General in the 3rd century who trusted no one), as an intelligence officer, I needed to learn to trust no one, too.
Secondly, I did not know what my fellows thought about me. Did they begin to see me not only as their former officer but an ordinary refugee like them? Similarly, did they distrust me? With those questions in my mind, it would be better for me and my family to move far away as soon as possible. One more day to stay back at the tent, one more day I had to suffer with miscellaneous things from dividing and receiving gifts from the Red Cross, food, clothes, etc.
Furthermore, my group had been split into many small groups. Mr. Tan, my former Senior Lieutenant Commander Tan Huu Tran, became the leader of the most important small group formed by all the single guys who left their families behind. Lieutenant JG Lang, my two time assistant officer, kept complaining about how I did not let him take a vacation and go back to his home in Saigon several days before the run. It seemed that I was guilty for separating them. I had to accept it because what could I do now?
I decided to pull away and didn't care what my fellows thought about me. They might say that I only cared about my family and myself instead of the whole group. It was OK with me. Any breaking up often left a wound in the heart. But, it would be better for me in the long run because I had known that all of my tent-mates, including those who had been in a matter of life or death with me, were together only on the outside skin. Sometimes, something that should never happen happens, and this was one such time.
Nobody learned the word "surprise" before it came. During that time, nobody knew what the fate of a refugee was. The truth was that a refugee had to spend a long period of time in the refugee camp!
From the beginning, it was a pleasure time. The refugees did nothing but wander around and talk to each other after eating their the meals. The Thai Marines took care of everything, including preparing food, cooking meals, setting up tables, and cleaning up dishes. It looked like a military school. The mess hall had rows of American picnic tables. Tent by tent, the refugees were called to eat like the cadets. The refugees were carefully served. Even the temporary bathrooms and toilets were also cleaned by the Thai Marines. I did not know how much their ancestors owed our ancestors, and that they, now, began to repay us!
In only a few weeks, the Thai Marines had completely repaid their ancestors' debts because the number of refugees had increased in terms of a geometric progression faster than the highest birth rate in China's history. At that time, there about a thousand refugees were in the camp of Vayama, Sattahip District. In the other camps like Songkla, Liemsing the situation was about the same.
The refugees gained back their powers of self governing. The chief of the tents had been elected, and the whole camp's administrative body had been created. Then, the refugees did not like what the Thai Marines cooked, too much hot pepper, so they wanted to cook for themselves. The famous cooks, the ex-cooks at fine restaurants like Dong-Khanh, Ma-Nhat-Tan (Manhattan), were recruited. They also did not like the way the Thai Marines cleaned their bathrooms and toilets; they wanted to take over those smelly jobs. I was once forced to be elected as the chief of the building. But, I had to resign as quickly as I could because my wife really complained about that:
"It is fine to be an ordinary refugee. You don't have to become the building chief who only has the responsibility of dividing the Red Cross supplies and listening to trivial words from the people who are hard to please."
Very quickly, I saw her point.
The red silk covered the mirror stand
You had to love each other, countrymen.
This patriotic folk song was meaningful in the case of the refugees because they did not have a cube of sugar but a piece of salt rock. So, by loving each other, they would share the salty taste. With the sweet thing, they would, of course, eat the whole thing. Then, the nice leaves covered the torn leaves , these words did not fit anymore. They often let the torn leaves become more torn and let the nice leaves, which were made of gold and diamonds, be protected.
In time, everybody knew who were the nice leaves and who were the torn leaves around them, particularly when the exchange of the Vietnamese and Thai currencies occurred right at the barbed wire fence. Ten piasters was equal to one "bath". And the refugees could not stay inside the camp to just sit and look at the Thai money. They wanted to spend it. "Phum dat by ta-lat" meant "I wanted to go to the market," translated word by word. From the beginning, only people who made friends with the camp's administration personnel, the Thai Marine officers, were allowed. Secretly, they went with their friends in their private cars. But later on, a GMC military truck was provided daily for the market goers.
It was lucky that my wife still kept some Vietnamese money in her purse, a small amount of my several monthly salaries. We tried to find someone who was willing to exchange all at one time. After a few weeks of waiting, we finally got a deal with a little bit better rate, seven piasters for one "bath." When we were in the ocean, we did not imagine that our money could be used one day and we almost threw the "scrap paper" away. And now, that "scrap paper" really helped us to buy some fresh fish or chicken to support the monotonous camp menu of bacon pumpkin soup and bacon water-green stir fry.
The mountain would be flat if one ate and did nothing . That was our situation. We were broke again and began to sell our things. First, I sold my Samsonite briefcase to Commander Duc Huu Nguyen, also an ex-Navy officer. Then, I sold my waterproof camera which belonged to the Intelligence Department to a Thai Marine. Next, I sold my binoculars, which also belonged to the Intelligence Department, to a Thai Marine sergeant. . . Understanding our circumstance, our Thai Marine friends, officers and soldiers, gave us money sometimes. They did not want to see our four cute children unhappy with their meals, I thought. (Compared with the Thai pirates now in the Gulf of Thailand, the Thai Marine friends at that time were completely different, like one was on the top and one was on the bottom of the moral scale).
Later on we found a new type of merchandise, Red Cross clothes, and a new type of customer, the people in the Thai fishing village. Water collected from the rivers must go to the sea , as the folk song said.
The trail that led to the Thai village from the refugee camp was several kilometers long. Passing through the barbed wire fence at the back of the camp, one would find a large rush swamp. In some places, rushes were higher than human height, but other places, were covered only by water. Wild water-greens were everywhere. We often gathered them for our dinner. The fresh water-greens mixed with lime juice or plain boiled water-greens always tasted better than bacon water-green stir-fried from the camp's mess hall.
Next to the rush swamp, lay a secret trail under a very thick canopy of tropical forest. That was the reason this trail was named the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail by the refugees. I did not know what the real Ho-Chi-Minh Trail was, but on this Ho-Chi-Minh Trail I found two interesting things, mango and yucca trees (cassava).
I did not think that the mango trees had been planted there by anyone. But there were a lot along the trail. The green mangos hung in the air by long stems everywhere, surprise presents for those who discovered (not built) the trail. Tara trees were everywhere on the ground. They spread by themselves in the jungle because the old trees could easily be put down on the top of the soil layer by strong winds. Only the yucca's roots or young leaves could be eaten. With the total amount of yucca roots under this tropical forest, I warranted that all the refugees in the camp could survive many years. Every time I lifted up a tree, I would push it down if I saw its roots were too big. I often found the right sized roots by pulling those trees on the slope of the hill.
Passing through the tropical forest that had no tigers, one came upon a civilian's plantation. I could feel the reaching out of human hands in this area because I could see clearly the other side like at the end of a tunnel. Although the canopy still completely blocked the sun light, some fruit trees-coconuts, dates, and palms-were spotted among the big unknown trees.
Getting out of the plantation-like jungle, I could see a village with a bunch of palm leaf huts next to the muddy beach. I was surprised that this fishing village was very poor, poorer than those fishing villages I had visited in the central part of Vietnam. The villagers did not even have money to buy our Red Cross clothes which they liked very much. The poor had met the poorer. Finally, I traded some fresh fish with them instead of giving away our "products."
There was a little Buddhist Temple in the village. Actually, the temple was a larger house that had a small front yard covered with cement and a small vase of water also made of cement block in the corner for the pilgrims to clean their feet before stepping inside. An old monk and several under teen followers lived there. I gave them our Red Cross clothes which they might need for their families. I gained back a necklace pendant that had the Buddha head. After many times going back and forth, I collected a number of pendants made of different materials like copper, brass, or stainless steel with different types of Buddha pictures. I wore them all like an ordinary Thai.
While my family financial situation kept going down, many rich families had popped up in the camp. Similar to the yucca trees, the rich people here had climbed up to the sky often by themselves or by their tent-mates. Of course, they did not intend to do that sometimes. Anyway, rotting was always from the inside out .
Robbery was often caused by the poverty . At night, the poor refugees went around finding and robbing the rich refugees. Then, the problems were reported to the Thai Marine officers, the only authority that could resolve fights or settle conflicts. At the same time, however, the refugees let the Thai Marines know where the torn temple that had a golden Buddha (rich man) was. Consequently, the Thai Marine personnel jumped on the wagon of night robbery. These new bad guys were more dangerous because they had their weapons, knives, machetes, and even guns. How could we stop them? The only way was to establish a system of night guards at each tent. It was too bad that the guards did not have any weapons, except cooking pots and wooden sticks for noise making. The guards were no different than the quarter soldiers. I thought that my military life did not seem to end yet. That made me disgusted.
From the day the majority of the poor refugees had agreed to become the treasure watchers of the minority of rich refugees, the situation in the camp had gradually come back to normal. The camp's administration group was also well established. Several branches were formed involving cooking, cleaning, sports' coaching, English teaching, nursing, music band, and. . . Chinese chess which I had joined. The music band was led by its drummer, my ex-assistant officer, Lieutenant JG Lang. Their important mission was to perform traditional music for the refugees once in a while or during the time there were some VIP like royalty, high ranking monks, or charity organization delegates who had come to visit the camp.
The most happy and sympathetic moment was the greeting ceremony for Mrs. Catherine Van Dongen. Her maiden name was Hong Tuyet Bui, the wife of the Honorable Ambassador of the Royalty of the Netherlands in Thailand. Because she was a true descendent of those who had the father as a Dragon and the mother as an Angel (Vietnamese), she always cried when she came to visit the refugees. She had tried all the ways she could to help our desperate community. There were not many people like her.
By good self-governing, the Vayama refugee camp at Sattahip had gradually become a standard one.
According to the information from Mrs. Ambassador, very soon the United States and the other countries like England, France, West Germany, Canada, Australia, Brazil. . . would send their delegates to the camp. All the refugees' chances of resettlement in a new country depended on their interviews by those delegates. That was true. A few weeks later, the first group, the Americans, came. They were only three, an interviewer, an assistant clerk, and an oriental typist. A small room was made for them in front of the pre-fabricated building as their work place.
It was unlucky for those who had been called earlier for interviewing. They often failed to meet the requirements. I thought that the Americans and the whole world had already known who we were. So, what were the requirements for people who were clearly escaping from the communists, the enemy? It was ridiculous! Anyway, the rumor had spread out that to qualify for immigration in the United States, one must have relatives who were currently living there. Oh no, that was really a difficult situation for everybody. I did not believe that they had done it to us. Where could I dig up my relatives? I had been told that the American interviewer was a very good Vietnamese speaking guy, and it was very difficult to lie to him. And when he knew that you did lie to him, he might never give you a second chance, never recall you for an interview again. Then, you had to wait for the other countries' delegates. Suddenly, I felt that my family was in danger. When I was in the Navy, I had many American advisors. But, I didn't have their addresses and I remembered only their first names. At that time, a lot of my Vietnamese friends and, perhaps, relatives might have arrived in the United States, however, how could I reach them? It was too late for me to post my name in the newspapers to look for relatives, classmates, or shipmates.
I was surprised that the amount of mail that came to our Vayama Camp from the other camps in the United States such as Pendleton, Fort Chaffee, Indiana Town Gap, and Eglin had increased every day. And there was a lot of mail that did not have receivers. I got some letters that had the same last name with me, Nguyen, from the mail-person daily. Finally, I got one letter whose addressee was almost mine with only one accent difference. The written words inside fit well in my case, too. Oh, God had brought to me a younger brother who had just came to the United States and was looking for me, his older brother (who had both a different father and mother from him). . .
"Do you have any relatives in the United States?"
"Yes, Sir. I have my blood brother who was in Fort Chaffee Camp."
"Do you have any proof?"
"Yes, Sir. I have his letter. . ."
I checked my pants' left pocket, right pocket. It was gone. I checked my shirt pocket. It wasn't there either. Naturally, I said:
"I am sorry, I didn't bring it along. I will be back real soon. . ."
I just said what I had been practicing so many times. I thought that my acting skill was not very bad compared with that of Kim-Cuong, Tuy-Hong, and Tan Thoai La, those famous Vietnamese actresses and actors. (On the first three days after the fall of Saigon, the Americans would take unconditionally any Vietnamese who reached Thailand. Unfortunately, we came on the beginning of the fourth day, and we were made to stay in the refugee camp).
About a month after the interview, everybody in my family was happy to jump on the bus going to the Utapao Air Base. Only half of my friends had come to say good-bye to us because the other half had been relocated in the United States. "Beep," the horn was sounded and the bus started to roll. Behind us, there was the Vayama Camp with a lot of memories, both sad and happy. Days in the strange country (about four and half months for us) would never be forgotten in my mind.
Stepping on the ground of the White-Site Camp, Utapao Air Base, was like stepping inside the United States. Health checking and getting immunization shots was the only process that needed to be done. Two weeks of eating American food and swimming in Thai beaches slowly passed by. Finally, my family and a few hundred other refugees were flown to the promised land by a DC 10 of TWA, the Trans World Airline. It was a 32 hour, approximately, airplane flight that stopped at Hongkong of United Kingdom, Tokyo of Japan, Anchorage of Alaska, El Toro of California, and at last, Fort Chaffee of Arkansas.
Compared with other rich families who brought along their treasures, my family, my wife and I and our children had only our empty hands. We had known it, however, and we were very happy to accept our fates.
Who made the tide go up and down
A lot of things to have when you were up
But, nothing was left when you were down.
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