PART 4: Living in No Man's Land

[Mike Newton]

Day 5 started slowly. The ship lay, swinging lazily on its anchor, in the hot still air. Everything was quiet, and those Vietnamese not included in the various work parties spent the time pacing restlessly up and down the deck. For the adults this new day brought more uneasiness. What was happening? What were the powers-that-be in some far off land deciding? What would be their fate?

Nerves tightened when a cutter was seen leaving the shore and heading directly towards Wellpark. As it reached the gangway we heard our new visitor was no less than one of Denholm Ship Management’s senior Director’s flown out from the UK to assist our situation. Knowing that he was on board in meetings with the Captain and senior officer’s demonstrated the seriousness of our position, one that I and the younger members of the crew had so far thought of as a jolly adventure.

Fortunately the children, who made up half the ship’s population, could not be kept down. They were everywhere, unaware of the tension that enveloped the adults. They played, and laughed, tagging along behind the cadets as if they were older brothers. In return most of the cadets, not so long out of school themselves, could not resist the urge to have fun where it was possible. To the children the ship was a massive and exciting playground, but it could also be a very dangerous place. As potential officers we were thoroughly trained in safety matters, proficient in first aid, and as firefighters and lifeboatmen. So the children were always in safe hands, not least because the crew had a genuine affection for them. We couldn’t resist their sense of fun and their smiles. Smiles are infectious things and seeing and having happy children around, I’m sure helped divert their parents minds from more worrying matters.

Sometime during the day another cadet told me to go and look at the ship’s notice board. There were a few crew members already there, reading a letter pinned to the board. It was a letter of thanks from the Vietnamese. It read:

On behalf of all the refugees in the ship and of myself May I address to you, the General Manager of the Denholm Ship Management Limited, to the Dymandee’s commander, Officers and all the Crews members our profound and Grateful thanks for Saving us from the coming death on our boat.
We believe that October the Second 1978 will be an unforgotten day among the coming remaining days of our life, and we think our relative, parents and children will hear from our mouth the Dymandee’s noble and humanitarians task very soon.
Really, excepted a Small privileged part of us on the boat, we were in a Semi-consciousness caused by the days lack of food, by the high move of the sea, by the mechanical trouble of the boat.
So far the desire to escape has nourished our hope and given us faith. We believe in God and happily our boat was lost on Dymandees road.
And Dymandee with her mechanical and human forces managed by a handful of energetic humanitarian people has pulled three hundred and fifty human lives from the nightmare of coming death to the brightness of life, from the unimaginable lack of air in the last hole of the boat, to the bright and hopeful Dymandee’s deck.
So Dymandee has saved us!
Thanks to God!
Thanks to Dymandee’s Managers
Thanks to Dymandee’s Commander, Officers and all the members of the crew

Signed, Ny quy Bao

We understood what the name Dymandee was. It’s customary for ships to have the same name on their lifeboats too. But Wellpark was a training ship and she had one addition to the lifeboats in the shape of a small sailing dinghy stowed on the stern. This little boat had been named Dymandee, a name created from the Denholm Line crest, or logo, of a blue diamond shape with a white ‘D’ in the middle of it; hence, Dymandee. Seeing the dinghy with its name on it, it is understandable someone might believe the ship was called Dymandee.

But we overlooked the error of the name. The emotive phrasing of the letter in front of us at first seemed somewhat melodramatic. But slowly as each of us read on, realisation began to dawn on us. As a youthful and carefree ship’s crew, death always seemed a lifetime away. Here, for the first time we began to appreciate that the people we now shared life with really had believed death for them was only a matter of hours or a day away. Hope had slipped away with their last food, the last distress flare and the light of day. And then came the lights of Wellpark, turning towards them like an Angel out of the darkness of despair. That letter was a message of gratitude that sank deep into the psyche of all that read it.

All that day there was no new news for the refugees. All day long we kept glancing up towards the ship’s accommodation within which we knew the Captain and Denholm Director must be in conference calls with Head Office in Glasgow and various government departments discussing what would happen next. It seemed a long drawn out day and the nightly gathering after dark on the hatch lid had a more sombre air to it. It can’t have been easy for the Vietnamese to sleep on the steel hatch cover that night.

Over in the UK my mother hadn't the slightest idea what I was doing. It would be five days more before our families and the British public would be told what had happened on the night of 1st October.

It was the same routine the next day. The bodies stirred under the blankets at about 6.30am. By that time we were already on duty again, and some of the Vietnamese asked when we slept, for they noticed we were active about the ship when they went to sleep and ’still’ on duty when they awoke. Of course we were getting sleep but only for a few hours a day.

Word was passed round that Wellpark would dock later that day at the grain terminal a few miles away. Whilst the crew test opened the cargo hatch lids, the refugees did their best to keep themselves busy. Some washed or repaired clothes, whilst the younger children drew pictures or cut shapes out of card with scissors. Many spent time washing, cleaning or reorganising the few items that constituted their home on the hatchlid, straightening and folding the few blankets each family had. Many were off the hatchlid helping in the ship’s galleys with preparing food and others in various work parties helping out the crew where it was requested. Having been strictly ordered to stay on the hatchlid in the first day, the ‘barriers’ had been eased and now some felt free to roam the ships open deck, but the ship’s accommodation remained off-limits unless the individual was on ‘official duties’.

As the grain berth became vacant by mid-afternoon, Wellpark was ordered in. The crew were busy on the bow raising the 5 tonne anchor. On the bridge wing the Captain and the Pilot were occupied passing orders from bridge wing to the man at the wheel, steering the 30,000 tonne ship towards the berth. A couple of tugs came out to assist, and as the Vietnamese watched, the ship was nudged into her parking spot opposite the grain elevators. The cadets once again showed the skills they had used in securing the refugee boat six days earlier, as they tied Wellpark tight up against the quay.

The sun was setting as two of the giant hatchlids were opened on their hydraulic rams. Almost straightaway two grain elevators marched up, guided from their little wooden control huts mounted up high, and started to suck the grain out of the ship’s holds. And they kept going. Later the refugees settled off to sleep. But the constant hum of the machinery, and the bright lights they used to work by, must have been an ugly intruder of their dreams throughout the night.

Once again I was already on duty when the Vietnamese peeked out from under their blankets next morning. I had started work again at 4.00 am, my duties to control access to the ship on the Gangway watch. We had two Taiwanese Police on board and a total of seven cadets patrolling the ship at any time on a so-called Security watch. From time to time some Taiwanese dock workers would come on board. I didn’t like their attitude. They were nosey. Too often they wandered close to the area where the refugees were sleeping, dressing or sitting. I often had to confront them. But up close I saw they appeared to be bleeding in their mouths. There was red stuff around their teeth like blood. And every so often they would spit the 'blood' on the deck. It was disgusting. Even when I discovered the red stuff they were chewing was beetlejuice, I still found the habit disgusting, as they obscenely desecrated our ‘home’ with patches of spat ‘blood’ all over the place.

Now life for the Vietnamese was less pleasant. As the grain was lifted from the holds dust drifted on the light breeze across the ship’s deck. It got everywhere and the refugees were meticulous in cleaning it from their space on the hatchlid. But worse for them , the weather turned cooler. Used to a life in tropical Vietnam, Taiwan was unfavourably cool by their standards.

Fortunately news of their plight seems to have been broadcast in Taiwan, no doubt with some anti-communist twist to it. Looking down from the gangway we were initially mystified to see large bags being dropped on the quayside by dock workers. The pile grew, until eventually it was gathered up in a crane sling and hauled on board. In it were bags and bags of clothes and footwear. The bags were opened and the whole was made into a long pile some five or six feet wide and perhaps forty feet long down the port side of No.5 hatch. It was probably one to two feet deep in places, all of it clothing donated by the peoples of Kaohsiung. The Vietnamese rummaged amongst it lifting a shirt here, a jumper there, trying on trousers or shoes. In no time the Vietnamese were re-clothed and the pyjama style clothes so many of the women and girls wore, disappeared in favour of warmer and cleaner clothes.

In fact, so many bundles of clothes were donated that a sign was placed at the foot of the gangway explaining the situation and requesting specific items, which seemed to magically appear almost immediately. A huge television turned up from somewhere and this was placed on deck for the refugees, it’s original packing box being used to shade it from the sun. It always had an audience, eager for world news sitting cross-legged on the deck in front of it. Their future was completely unknown and they looked for some clue in the news programmes as to what would happen to them. Word had it that their new home would almost certainly be in the USA.

By 9th October, life on Wellpark had settled into a regular pattern. The ship continued to unload cargo 24 hours a day. To prevent stress to the ship’s hull they had to unload the cargo reasonably evenly so this meant moving the elevators from hold to hold. A time came when the cargo had to be emptied from Hatch No.5. The games nets were taken down, along with the assorted lifeboat and winchcovers, dinghy sail and swimming pool awning that had provided patchy cover. All 346 refugees were moved up the deck to make a new home on No.3 hatch cover. Later they were moved to No.2. Each time it meant building new cover from the weather that increasingly threatened rain. But unlike ten days earlier where we raided the ship for equipment and machinery covers, we now had huge rolls of tough, blue and white stripped plastic sheeting. It made sense to rig this into Arabian tent-like shapes along side the hatch covers.

With a supply of constant fresh water available from the shore by hose, the swimming pool area on the ship was made into a crude washing station where the Vietnamese could not only wash themselves but also use the freshwater to clean clothes. Still, only refugees who were on special duties were allowed in to the ship’s accommodation. There was no apparent resentment to this, and now the crew were surrounded by friendly smiles and respectful assistance wherever they went.

Every day the Captain headed a party of senior officers and Refugee Committee members as they toured the ship, clipboard in hand checking every detail of the social arrangements for the 400 on board. With considerable organisation they considered sleeping arrangements, the shelters, food, washing facilities, and even what could be done to relieve boredom. But much of the time the Captain and Committee members were out of sight, discussing and liaising with government authorities on what would happen. If they had some idea, out on deck they gave no clue to what they knew.

Life for the crew was different. We were still only getting a few hours sleep a night, but at least we slept in mattressed bunks in air conditioned cabins, and now there was an adequate supply of freshwater, we could shower at will. We were also free to leave the ship when off-duty and most made at least one trip in to the city of Kaohsiung. Some were heading on appointments to dentists or doctors, but after browsing a few shops and markets, inevitably we sought out the bars for a cold beer and some ‘cultural education’. Normally after any long period at sea, and it had been two months since I had stepped ashore, we were eager to explore a new country, but this time, after just a brief walk, I knew I just wanted to get back to Wellpark. I bought a black leather bomber jacket thinking it was a wonderful bargain. I hadn’t heard of ‘imitation’ leather before, but that was the greatest thing about going to sea as a young man. You learnt so much in such a short time, sometimes by your mistakes!