We hadn’t been told where we were going to land, for security reasons. In the early fifteenth century, Qui Nhon had been a stop for the Ming dynasty eunuch Admiral Zheng He when his armada of treasure ships loaded with gems, gold, porcelain, and even giraffes was returning from one of its expeditions commissioned by the Chinese emperor. Nowadays in Qui Nhon, a provincial capital four hundred miles northeast of Saigon, the treasure was oil—it was the primary place where the US military transferred petroleum products from oceangoing vessels to the giant fuel tanks I could see up on the hillside.
What a target for sappers—commandos who’d attach explosives to hulls—the ships were; Tommy Collins’s task as a military policeman (MP) was to guard them. Our cargo was to be unloaded by the ship’s cranes way out in the harbor onto barges, and we mariners were not to disembark the entire time. I hoped my plan would work, and that the captain would make an exception and let me go ashore.
Now, I usually didn’t like captains. I don’t like authority figures in general, but captains especially. I didn’t speak to them unless it was necessary. The ones I’ve worked under are usually more like James Cagney’s dictatorial Captain Morton in the film Mister Roberts than Tom Hanks’s noble Captain Richard Phillips in Captain Phillips.
Once, when we had delivered cargo to the air force base at Cam Ranh Bay, one of our mariners was sick with jaundice. The captain refused to let him go ashore for treatment. Yet only a few hours later, the captain’s Doberman pinscher jumped down the hatch and hurt itself. He immediately had a boat put in the water and commanded two crew members to bring the dog to the medics on the base.
The captain was preparing to go visit his pooch when he called us all on deck.
“I want you to unload all the wood we used to shore up the cargo and load it onto the military trucks at the end of the pier,” he ordered gruffly. “After you’re finished, don’t get any ideas about leaving. I want the hold cleaned spotless after you’ve emptied it.” Then he took off.
The first thing some of us did was take our mate to sick bay at the base.
The next thing we did was unload the fifty spare mattresses we had on our giant ship. I had learned that the young airmen on the base slept on cots, probably tossing and turning in the heat. I explained the situation to my fellow seamen, and, given that we were such a small crew, they all agreed that we should load the Sealy Posturepedics, still in their wrapping, onto the military trucks and cover them with the lumber. The captain wouldn’t find out till the ship was back home and its owner discovered the mattresses were missing. By then, we’d be long gone.
In fairness to captains, I wasn’t always a teacher’s pet, either. It was my custom to have a good time whenever we pulled into port and enjoy what that city had to offer. Isn’t that what traveling the world is all about? Admittedly, there had been occasions when I had been brought back to the ship courtesy of a police escort. Like the time in Durban, South Africa, when I was cuffed and arrested by six cops for drinking in a “coloreds-only” club. The dancing in that place was a lot more fun than in Lily White’s All-Night Apartheid Hideaway, let me tell you.
This time I wasn’t even sure that they would allow us mariners off the ship once we anchored off Vietnam. I’d been in war ports where we offloaded cargo—especially dangerous cargo—by crane onto barges in the middle of the harbor while you gazed longingly at the shore. If that were so, I hoped that, because I was the union chairman, the captain would look the other way. I absolutely had to disembark in Vietnam.
I’d also learned that the only thing that captains give a damn about is that the ship’s work gets done. And that nobody bothers them in the process.
Once we anchored off Qui Nhon, I went to the captain. He regarded me warily, since we had barely exchanged a word during the entire journey.
“Captain?”
“What is it, Donohue? I’m very busy here.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know if you know this, but I have a stepbrother serving here in Vietnam . . .”
“How would I know that?”
“Well, you wouldn’t, of course, Captain, but, anyway, we’ve had terrible news in the family which I feel I have to break to him personally, as he’s in a stressful enough situation here and—”
“Are you shitting me, Donohue? You really wanna go to a brothel, am I right?”
“No, no, no, Captain! It really is quite devastating news, and I really have to see my stepbrother face-to-face, or the news might be too much.”
I didn’t want to actually lie and say, “Our mother has cancer,” or something like that and jinx her! And I said “stepbrother,” in case he checked on the last name.
Sure enough, all he cared about was the job.
“What about the engine room?!” he fumed. It still had to be maintained, though we were at anchor. I had traded nine extra shifts with my shipmates to cover my pilgrimage.
“Don’t worry, Captain,” I said. “My shifts are covered for the next three days.”
That’s how long I thought my mission would take. I guess I was a little naïve.
He paused for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he blurted out, “All right, Donohue. But you’d better be back on deck by 0800 hours Monday, you understand?”
“Yes, sir, thank you!”
“In the meantime, Donohue, don’t get killed. I wouldn’t want to do all that paperwork.”