Last Man Out (47 page)

Like the group from Chau Doc, the people in the last group
were also upset to see us flying toward the South China Sea instead of Saigon. I had fallen asleep on the flight and was awakened by one of the Vietnamese at my side who wanted to know what was happening. I told him curtly to calm down, everything was going to be okay, and he’d thank me for it later. He started to object and I leaned in close to him and said slowly, “Did you hear me? Calm down. Shut … up.”

As we made our approach to the ship, the sun was going down and the ship’s lights were on. In the area under the landing deck I saw an assortment of lights and shapes. The ship’s air controller broke in on his landing instructions to say that the captain wanted to talk with someone in authority on the helicopter, either one of the pilots or somebody else. Hitchman said they had just the man. Mule.

“Mule?”

“A U.S. embassy man is aboard,” Hitchman said.

“He’s just the man the captain wants to talk to,” the radio operator said.

When we touched down, several Marines with guns came to the helicopter door. One Marine pointed to me and motioned me off. They escorted me, as though I were under arrest, up the same flight of stairs I had climbed that morning. The same Navy officer was standing on the bridge.

We went into his cabin and he asked me again, harshly, who had authorized this evacuation.

I said a rear admiral at MACV. I couldn’t remember his name.

The captain said nobody in Saigon knew anything about this. No one. I asked if anyone in his chain of command had talked to the ambassador’s special assistant, Jacobson.

He didn’t answer. He seemed tired of talking with me.

He said that his ship was to be in position in a matter of hours, possibly to lead the Navy up the Saigon River to evacuate the embassy. He was not in the CIA-support business or the refugee business. He was going to put us off at another ship. Now. And he was going to go on with his mission.

“Us?” I asked.

“You and all those ratty-looking people of yours below deck who themselves know nothing about this. They are below deck demonstrating, trying to attack my Marines. You, my friend, are going to
lead those people off my ship. Now, go say good-bye to your helicopter. You belong to me. And to those people of yours down there.”

This man, I surmised, was not to be argued with. But I heard myself telling him that I had to get back to the consulate. I was thinking about the two children and Loi.

Ignoring my statement, he said, “You take your people to this merchant marine ship beside us and tomorrow—if we don’t go up the Saigon River tonight—I will send someone over to pick you up, and your helicopter can come get you and take you to your consulate. It is the best deal I’m offering, and I have been very good to you. Plus, you don’t have any choice.”

He had indeed been very good to me that day, and he had a point—there were a lot of Marines outside. I went back out on the bridge and down to the helicopter. I told Hitchman to come back and pick me up in the morning, that I had to move the KIP.

The people on the flight were already off the helicopter. As it lifted off, the Marines lined them up and searched their luggage. One of the Marine officers asked if I had any weapons. I showed him my 9mm, which he said he’d take and hold for me.

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically and, though I was on a U.S. Navy ship, gave it up reluctantly.

I followed the last helicopter load of KIP as the Marines escorted them off the helipad and down into the ship. We came out below the deck and saw, under bright floodlights, landing craft tied up near walkways along the side. All of the KIP, sixty-seven people, had been herded into a corner of the docking area. Marines were standing around them with drawn weapons. Some of the more aggressive of the Vietnamese were staring angrily at the heavily armed U.S. soldiers.

One saw me and yelled. The rest looked up, and some called out my name.

“These are not VC,” I said to a Marine standing to the rear. “They are pretty good people.”

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” he said. “They are awfully pissed. And they were all armed.”

I broke through the Marines and went into the circle of Vietnamese. One of them said, “Do not tell us everything is okay again. It is not okay.” Many of the women and children were crying. Some of the older people were almost frozen with fear.
They had expected to be in Tan Son Nhut that night, not under arrest in the bowels of a monster foreign ship at sea.

One of the Navy men called out that the boats were ready. I turned to see two of the landing craft being prepared to launch from the side docks on the inside of the ship.

I led sixty-six tired, confused, angry, disheveled Vietnamese and one Cambodian past the ranks of Marines and divided them into separate groups for the two landing craft. When we were on board and outfitted with life jacket, the landing craft moved away from the dock and out the back of the ship.

Surprisingly close by was another large ship at anchor. The ocean was calm as we made our way toward her. One of the sailors in the landing craft used a loudspeaker to attract the attention of someone on the ship’s deck. A rope ladder came over the side and the end of it dropped into the sea. The landing craft pulled in against the ship and aimed their floodlights up the side. The KIP began to climb up the ladder. A crane boom extended over the side of the ship and dropped a net on a line. Navy seamen filled the net with the KIP’s luggage and hauled it aboard. Ros and I were the last ones out of the boats. I was tired and had to labor to climb the ladder.

On deck, one of the crewmen, a Filipino, said the captain wanted to see me. This is becoming a common request, I said. I followed him up a couple of flights of stairs. Lights from Navy ships winked and flashed all around us. It was hard to tell how many vessels there were; there appeared to be hundreds. Below me were the open, empty holds of the cargo ship. In the distance I could see the landing craft returning to the rear of the Navy ship.

A middle-aged, beefy individual welcomed me aboard the USNS
Pioneer Contender
. He said he was Merchant Marine Capt. Ed Flink and asked who the hell I was and who were “these people.”

“They are Vietnamese staffers of the U.S. consulate in the delta,” I said.

The captain said, “That little four-year-old child down there works for the consulate?”

“Staffers and their families,” I replied.

I was very tired and did not want to go through another confrontation. All I wanted was a full night’s sleep and to be up early
in the morning so I could get back to the U.S. Navy ship and return to Can Tho. I did not want to make conversation or problems.

“Listen, my friend,” Captain Flink said, “I was recently told to go up to Da Nang—you know Da Nang—to pick up some Vietnamese staffers of the U.S. consulate there. Didn’t get what I expected. Got Vietnamese Rangers who terrorized my ship. Thousands of them. So I don’t believe you. I believe I’m getting set up again.” He paused. “What am I supposed to do with these people? I don’t have enough food. I don’t have facilities. I’m being told all the time what to do. So you tell me, what do I do? You tell me. What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They probably have some food with them. They can sleep on the deck. They will be no problem. I will be no problem, especially if you have a spare bunk, or, if you don’t I can go down there with my people and sleep.”

The captain continued to look at me. “Where’s your grip? I’ve got a room for you, but I’m telling you, I don’t want any trouble with those people down there and I don’t have anything for them to eat. Maybe some food for tonight. That’s it. They can stay in this first hold here. It’ll get them out of the weather. And I’ll have the galley make them some food for tonight. But that is all.

Period.”

“Okay,” I said. The situation was settling itself.

“Where’s your grip?” the captain asked again.

“I don’t have one. It was not my plan to be here tonight. I’m here courtesy of the U.S. Navy.”

I followed a crewman into one of the forward holds. The Vietnamese followed me. Some were still grumbling. Others were tired, like myself, and just wanted to find someplace to lie down. For all her rust and cavernous space, Capt. Flink’s ship was more friendly than the Navy ship had been, and her crew more accommodating.

On instructions from the crew, Ros and a few of the other men went to the galley and came back with pots of hot food. I said good night to the group and went up to the mess hall. After a hot meal, I sought out Captain Flink.

He was standing on the bridge with a cigarette and a cup of coffee. I explained to him about the deteriorating situation in the delta and the danger my people would face when the North Vietnamese took control of the country. I expected the government of
South Vietnam to fall within the next couple of days. There was much work that I needed to do, and I had promises to keep. I was anxious to get back to Can Tho.

He listened sympathetically and then said, “Sure. But like I said earlier, you aren’t the first person from the U.S. government to come to this ship from Vietnam and talk about evacuating people. You all act like you’re on a deadly serious mission. And you are. You all are. I know. But I think it’s beyond you a little bit. Ain’t no one in control.”

Then he paused and looked toward the ships on the horizon. “I was on my way from Hong Kong to Singapore and was told to lay in near Hue to evacuate some Americans from Hue, only we were too late. So at the end of March, they told us to go on to Da Nang and evacuate some Americans there. Some of your people came on board and said something much like you just did, that they had some people to evacuate because if the Commies caught them they’d be killed. Well, what ended up on my ship were those South Vietnamese Rangers I was telling you about. Wild, crazy people. I took two loads out of Da Nang—thousands of ’em, there were so many they couldn’t all find room to lay down—and the Vietnamese Rangers that second time took over my ship. Took over my ship. Killed, raped, robbed. You could hear gunshots all the time. Soldiers were walking around with bloody knives. We had to lock ourselves in the pilothouse. I only had a crew of forty, plus some security, but there were thousands of those wild, crazy Vietnamese people.

“They finally shot some of the worst once we docked at that island, Phu Quoc, and the people got off, but I’ll tell you, son, it was hell. We found bodies all over the ship after everyone got off. Babies, old women, young boys. Cut, shot, and trampled to death. And it all started when some of your friends came aboard talking about taking on some good Vietnamese refugees who’d be badly treated if the Commies got ’em. Well, if they were talking about those Rangers, I know why they would have been treated badly. They were crazy.”

“It’ll be different this time. There are only sixty-seven civilians with me,” I said, aware that I wasn’t the only one trying to find my way safely through this morass. “I’m sorry about your problems before. We won’t be a problem.” Flink rolled his eyes
and in short order showed me to my quarters, a stateroom with bunk beds and a shower. He said he had taken the liberty of providing some toilet articles out of the ship’s store.

I thanked him, shut the door, and fell across the bottom bunk. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The following morning, Tuesday, 29 April, I was up before 0500 and on the bridge.

The
Pioneer Contender
was alone.

There were no U.S. Navy ships around—nothing but flat sea for as far as I could make out in the half light.

“Where’s the Navy?” I asked the two men on duty in the control room.

“Left in the middle of the night, I think. Pulled out to the north.”

“Oh, give me a break,” I said. “Where’s your radio? How do I call the U.S. Navy?”

“Sparky’s still asleep,” one of the seamen said. “He don’t have no communication with the Navy, though. We do have this,” he said and offered a small portable radio, not unlike a Radio Shack Christmas toy.

“Who do you talk to on this?” I asked, in an incredulous tone.

“Ship Control, I think, is the call sign. It’s part of the Sealift Command,” he said.

The seaman was not used to a lot of questions from strangers in his control room so early in the morning.

“Yeah, okay, that’s what I want, Ship Control; I want a pickup,” I said.

I walked out of the room onto the bridge and turned on the radio. The frequency was crowded with transmissions, some weak, some strong.

There was no Ship Control, although a common call sign was Tugboat Control. I made several efforts to call but got no response. Finally a ship relayed to Tugboat Control that the
Pioneer Contender
was trying to reach him.

“Yeah, what does she want?” Tugboat Control asked in a decidedly unmilitary tone.

“What do you want,
Pioneer Contender
?” asked the intermediary.

“I’m an embassy officer on board, and I want a pickup for delivery back to the USS
Vancouver
so that I can get to Can Tho. Where’s
Vancouver
?” I asked.

“We don’t know. Tugboat Control doesn’t know. That’s naval operations.”

“What does the
Pioneer Contender
want?” asked Tugboat Control.

“It’s some guy trying to get on shore. Everyone’s trying to get out. He’s trying to get in.”

It was hard to tell exactly what was going on with Tugboat Control. Apparently it was involved in a massive way with what we had been doing on a small scale the previous day, getting Vietnamese civilians out to ships, and probably operating some distance from the lonely, empty sea around us. Evacuating people from Saigon, I guessed.

There was nothing I could do. I was stuck on a merchant ship sitting at anchor.

I returned the radio to the seamen in the pilothouse and asked them to get me if the U.S. Navy reappeared. I went back to my stateroom, took a bath, and went back to bed. At mid-morning, I awoke, dressed, and went out on deck.

Ros was standing close by and listening to a commercial radio station on a portable AM radio. He said the station was reporting that North Vietnamese troops were entering Saigon. The U.S. embassy was being evacuated. The radio broadcast was crowded with the voices of excited people.