At night on the prow of the ship, looking out over the unmoving sea, she indulged the vastness of her hate. By day she was captain of the ship, controller of the commissary, doctor and sustainer of morale. Three of the women were dangerously sick; an old man had died. The ration was necessarily much smaller than planned: the rice the refugees had been sold had been mixed with white beach sand, reducing the edible portion of a sack by half. The water, taken from the clear streams around Cahn Roc, had turned brackish and bitter in the mouth. Only the fruits were enough to maintain a meagre ration.
In their second week out they had suffered a sudden and terrifying storm which had left arms broken and planks torn from the high side of the boat so that the menace of shipping water existed in everything but a calm sea.
There had been pirates too, amateurs, Thai fishermen who lacked the commitment to attack when she shouted across the water that they had cholera aboard. And there had been the sad and human quarrelling on the fishing boat itself about the distribution of rations or the allotment of sleeping places.
But against these setbacks, overwhelming them, her will burnt like a magnesium flare, stoking her determination to survive. To reach America.
Her leadership was never questioned. They looked to her for their orders, they clung to her decisions and to her own icy certainty that they would survive. Kim Hoang appointed himself her deputy, interpreting and explaining her orders to the others. They had first met as children at the orphanage. And again later, when he had come to write upbeat stories for the Cahn Roc provincial newspaper. Memories of their orphanage days enabled him to trust her: first with stories of petty corruption or disobedience, later with the names of people he met as a provincial journalist, people who were still prepared to risk their lives to escape what amounted to life in Vietnam in the early 1990s.
At nights Nan Luc slept on the prow of the fishing boat, a blanket over her, an empty rice sack for a pillow. Most nights she dreamed of Max Benning, then woke angry with herself. She had come to think that to dream of him, even to think of him, weakened the resolve which she knew must drive her through this next part of her life. She knew she had been touched by a man as she never would be again. She knew that whatever happened to her in the future she would be loyal to him as the man she loved. But she had no hope that she would see him again. As a Vietnamese woman she was certain that a life of love for this one man did not accord with her destiny. That had been set long ago in her life. The fulfilment of destiny was to reach America. To find her father. To dream and dream of Max Benning softened her, diluted the vital force that must give her the energy to succeed in her task.
The second moon of their voyage lighted a glittering sea. If lying there she sometimes let thoughts of Max come into her mind, she forced herself to think without longing. To think of him as an incident in her past, like a candle at the back of the temple, the priests said, whose flame fades each step we take from it, but whose brightness we know remains undimmed.
They had expected by now to be in the main lanes for merchant shipping but they had seen nothing but a huge ghostly oil tanker gliding across the night sea several miles ahead. They had lit their lantern and shouted and banged gongs but without real hope. That had been more than ten days ago.
Sitting on the prow of the fishing boat Nan Luc tried to analyse their position. They had been eating fish only for the last week or more but the difficulty of catching enough for over twenty people had reduced them all to a level close to starvation. Water was more serious. One US Army jerry-can was all that remained. The fishing boat itself was solid in calm conditions but in another storm it could very easily capsize. They must sight a ship in the next few days.
As dawn broke behind the boat, she lay on her stomach, her hands locked under her chin, peering into the still dark western sky. The motion of the fishing boat was easy across the slight swell. The splashing of the bow wave lulled her into thoughts of Max. She was still more than half asleep but the candle of light ahead was not disappearing. Every step you take, the priests said, every week, every year… She shook her head and a second later scrambled to her feet calling to the watch.
At sea the eyes play strange tricks. She found she was unable to decide whether it was moving right or left across their bow. It seemed almost as if the distant ship were stationary. A fishing vessel perhaps. But fishing vessels did not carry generators to produce a light like this. And yet this light, if the ship were moving towards them, grew no stronger.
Then, as they lit the lanterns she began to understand. The ship was moving towards them, but the lightening sky behind them cancelled what would have been, at night, the growing brightness of the deck lights.
She found her own excitement difficult to sustain now. If the vessel stayed on course it was bound to see them. It was surely even bound by now to have picked them up on radar. Or finally, if all else failed, would they not be bound to see against the pale lemon aureola of the rising sun the silhouette of the black-sailed fishing boat?
As the sun rose and the bright bow lights before them faded, it became easier to make out the lines of the approaching ship. By its speed and superstructure it was clearly a warship. As the angle of approach slightly changed Nan saw the American flag fluttering from its stern.
‘The captain’s on the bridge, miss,’ the lieutenant said. ‘We’re on Fleet Manoeuvres. We’re authorised to give you food, water, medical attention and even temporary repairs. But we can only take the sick on board. We cannot deviate or change course.’
‘Please let me see the captain,’ Nan Luc repeated. She had heard on the radio from Saigon that refugees were no longer welcome in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. She had heard from Van Khoa that at one time 50,000 boat people a month were asking for asylum. But she had never believed the US Navy would turn them away.
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ the American said. ‘I really am.’
She stepped back to the polished wooden rail where the cutter waited below. ‘I will go back,’ she said, ‘and arrange for the sick to be transferred to you. Where will you take them?’
‘They will be treated on board, miss. As I explained we are on Fleet Manoeuvres. We won’t be seeing land for five or six weeks.’
‘I understand, lieutenant,’ Nan Luc said.
The lieutenant nodded, relieved. ‘I’m giving orders for the food and medical stores to be brought up now.’ He paused. ‘Look, miss,’ he said, ‘you must head for Gulanga Island.’
‘How far is that?’
‘About three hundred miles due south. There’s a United Nations Camp there. I can provide you with a chart.’
‘Thank you.’ She started down the rope ladder to the cutter. ‘The problem is, lieutenant, we have nobody on board who can read a chart.’
The lieutenant leaned on the rail watching the cutter move alongside the listing fishing boat as Nan Luc climbed on to the deck. He felt bad. The girl was an American. Or at least very nearly. He had offered, on the grounds of her having an American father, to let her stay on the destroyer, but she had refused. A very tough and a very beautiful girl.
He straightened up and saluted as Commodore Brompton came down the accommodation ladder. ‘A melancholy business,’ Brompton said.
‘The girl’s half American,’ the lieutenant told him. ‘It seems to make it worse, sir. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.’
‘You offered medical supplies and repairs if necessary?’