For Night’s dad, Boon, day five was when his hope started to waver. It was hard not to imagine their weak little bodies wasting away in the darkness. What were they doing? Were they scared? How long could they survive?
* * *
The Wild Boars figured it might take two weeks to be rescued. But they were determined to exhaust all options of escaping by themselves. As well as digging the back wall of Nern Nom Sao, they mounted exploration missions through the partly flooded passageways. Even with their torches, the geography inside the cave could be confusing.
‘The first two days we swam and found three slopes,’ said Biw. ‘Then the third and fourth day we went there and there were four slopes. The scenery changed. Every day we made a mark and wrote a date on it, and when we came back we drew an arrow.’
Despite their efforts to keep track of days and directions, exploring the cave was mind-bending. Each day, the layout seemed different. Biw said he was walking along a passage he’d explored the day before, when suddenly there was a huge drop-off, straight down, with water below. He was sure it wasn’t there the previous day. Were they taking different routes in the dark? Could the flow of water and mud be shifting the cavescape so much overnight? Or were they just hungry and tired and desperate, and getting disoriented in the darkness?
That day, Wednesday, 27 June, the Wild Boars had a meeting to talk about their options.
They could just stay there and hope someone found them in time. Or they could try to go further into the cave and maybe find a way out. Two of the boys had reached the end of Tham Luang once before, and had heard rumours about an exit there somewhere. But they hadn’t seen it. Trying to wade through the next sump and push further into the cave was a gamble.
‘If we find an exit, we will survive,’ said Coach Ek. ‘But if we cannot find the exit, that means we are trapped by two sets of doors.’
At that moment, they heard the sound of water flowing.
Coach Ek asked the boys to be quiet. He shone his torch down to the bottom of the bank. The water was rising quickly. They had no way of knowing it but a massive downpour had hit the mountain early that morning and the water was now trickling down through the honeycombed limestone, gathering in the main drainage pipe of Tham Luang. The sump they were considering wading through quickly sealed shut. The decision had been made for them, they were trapped on the slope of Nern Nom Sao.
‘In less than an hour, the water rose around three metres. We never heard the sound of rain. After that, it was clear that we couldn’t go anywhere. We’d just have to wait until the authorities found us,’ said the coach later.
But they wouldn’t sit idle. They would keep digging.
‘We thought that at the back of the cave there was a way out,’ said Biw, referring to the wall at the top of the slope they were stranded on. ‘At the back of the mound, we tried to dig our way out. We thought we would see the orange farm, because we knew there was an orange farm there.’
Biw was half-right. There was indeed an orange orchard on the hillside. But at least 500 metres of limestone stood between them and that farm. They had no chance of digging their way to it. Even if they’d had jackhammers and shovels and enough food for a year, they still probably couldn’t have tunnelled out. But digging gave them something to do with their days. And it gave them hope.
Those who felt strong enough would fill their stomachs with water to keep the hunger pangs at bay and head up the slope of Nern Nom Sao to scrape away at the wall with fist-sized rocks.
Some of the holes went three or four metres in, said Note later. But they always hit hard rock eventually.
The boys were not fazed, though; they kept at it, working in shifts, digging hole after hole, dreaming of that orange orchard on the outside.
One day, when Dom was digging, he thought he heard the sound of children’s voices. This gave them all hope and they dug with renewed vigour.
* * *
By Friday, 29 June, the SEALs had their sights set on the T-junction. They wanted to see if the huge outpouring of muddy water had blocked the restrictions that they had cleared days earlier. They dived through the flooded sections to Chamber 3. But from there, they could only get another 100 metres further into the cave, before the strong current made diving too dangerous.
Pae and Bruce had called in the help of another friend, Belgian Ben Reymenants. Ben ran Blue Label Diving in Phuket, specialising in technical diving – wrecks, caves and how to mix gases to sustain life at depths humans were never meant to naturally go.
Even for experienced diving instructors like Ben, the conditions in the cave were something else entirely.
‘There was a whirlpool of café latte,’ he said.
Beyond the whirlpool, the water surged out of a rocky tunnel. Ben got into the water and was immediately hit by the flow, somewhere between a fast-moving river and white-water rapids.
With such strong currents and near-zero visibility, the technical divers had to rethink their strategy. Usually cave divers carry reels and spools of thin cord. They tie on at the start of a dive and at intervals along the way, ensuring they can find their way out. They attach little plastic discs and triangles with their name written on them, known as cookies and arrows, to show who’s on the line and which direction they took at any fork in the cave system.
In Tham Luang, there was no need for cookies or arrows – each diver was registered and accounted for, and there were no real navigation choices to make; it was one way in, one way out. But the raging water meant that the standard two-millimetre or four-millimetre guide lines weren’t suitable. They needed a thick, well-secured ‘pulling line’, strong enough for a diver to haul themselves along when swimming became impossible. For this, rock-climbing rope, about as thick as a thumb, was used. If there is one golden rule of cave diving, it’s this: never lose the line. Instructors will repeat it over and over: never lose the line. In crystal-clear conditions, divers might just keep the guide line in sight, but in poor visibility they need to keep a hand on the line at all times. Ben’s job was to start laying the thick line from Chamber 3 into the tunnel.
‘Try dropping to the bottom of the Colorado River and, hand-over-hand, find your way upstream to the source,’ said Ben, when asked later to describe the conditions.
There was no chance of swimming against the torrent. Ben inched forward, buffeted this way and that, trying not to bump too hard into the jagged walls and overhangs. In narrow parts of the flooded crawlspace, he got stuck. His dive computer broke. His helmet scratched and battered the wall repeatedly. He managed to lay about 100 metres of line, but eventually the conditions became too much.
‘It was beyond my personal limits,’ said Ben. ‘All the red lights went off – can’t see, got entangled in a restriction, down currents, broken computer; just too many red flags. And – major thing – there’s no guarantee the kids are alive, there’s no guarantee they are where [the SEALs] think they are, so it’s a double speculation . . . So you’re risking your life for an if, if, if . . .’
He trailed off.
Ben dived and walked back out of the cave, telling the SEALs that it was just too dangerous to push beyond Chamber 3. The SEALs group leader, Captain Anand Surawan, thanked Ben for his advice. But he told his men they would keep trying, despite the risks. They responded with a rousing shout: ‘HOOYAH!’
Adopted from the US Navy, ‘hooyah’ is both a morale-boosting exclamation and a way to say yes or acknowledge an order. It would become a rallying cry for the mission over the days to come, not just for the SEALs but for many civilians on the mountain and Thais watching from home. For a few days in Thailand, ‘hooyah’ was everywhere – a way to urge on the rescue workers, the divers and, most importantly, the twelve boys and Coach Ek still left in the cave.
‘The SEALs [have] got the heart, my hat’s off to all of them,’ said Pae. ‘I’m really impressed with them, because zero visibility, never having the technical [cave] diving skills before . . . and some of them only have
fifty dives under their belt, and they jumped into those conditions?! Wow, mentally strong, not just physically. I couldn’t speak enough about the SEALs team, how brave they are.’
They were tough too. Ben remembered seeing a SEAL carrying an air tank into the cave, who lost his footing and smashed his shin directly onto a rock. Ben winced. The SEAL didn’t make a sound. He shouldered his air tank and kept walking.
What the SEALs lacked in cave-diving experience or specialised equipment, they made up for with gritty determination, said Pae. ‘It’s all heart.’
* * *
Overnight, large quantities of rock-climbing rope had arrived, in different colours. The colours weren’t important, it was just what Ae and Chang could get at short notice. The divers needed to lay hundreds of metres of it through the flooded sumps, to get to where they thought the boys might be trapped – at or near Pattaya Beach.
The SEALs devised a clever solution for how to carry it underwater without tangles. They carefully coiled the 200-metre-long rope into rice sacks, leaving one end hanging out and sealing the rest of the bag. The rope simply pulled out like a giant string dispenser. Importantly, it was neutrally buoyant in the water. Simple, but effective.
Securing the rope in the cave was a whole other matter, as one diver had found out in the early forays into the cave. He had taken some rope to lay the guide line from Chamber 3. He went slowly, feeling his way forward, tying off the rope every now and then to a rock feature, a stalactite or stalagmite. He’d gone quite a few metres, when he emerged into a chamber. However, he was most surprised to see he was back in Chamber 3. Working only by touch, he’d inadvertently looped around the passageway and returned to where he started.
The divers didn’t bother removing the loop. Instead Ben found the real passage, and connected another rope with a large rock-climbing carabiner. These clips are rarely used by cave divers because they can be tricky to open with one hand, giving them the nickname ‘suicide clips’. Instead, cave divers prefer the snap clips commonly found on dog leashes. For this purpose, though, the big carabiner was fine – something the divers couldn’t miss as they felt their way along the rope. It would, however, make a small cameo in days to come.
* * *
When the divers finished their long days, they would walk out of the cave entrance, past the shrine, to the staging area strewn with tanks, gear and busy people. Beyond this restricted area was another tent city, catering to the needs of everyone who had come to Tham Luang to help.
A small army of volunteers had arrived at the mountain. They came from all over the province and beyond, bringing whatever goods or skills they could offer. Volunteerism is in the blood of Thais. It’s encouraged in school, nurtured by Buddhist notions of doing good deeds for spiritual ‘merit’, and it comes to the fore whenever there is a crisis. This was no exception.
Food trucks, including mobile kitchens sent by the palace, served hot meals. Giant vats of curry were stirred with cricket stump–sized ladles. Volunteers stood next to huge eskies filled with water and energy drinks, handing out bottles. There was a sense of festive bustle.
The need was enormous. There were around 10,000 people involved in the operation by this stage, about half of whom depended on the volunteers to keep them fuelled. There were four rounds of food daily: breakfast, lunch, dinner and a midnight meal for those who were working the night shift. All up, the volunteers were producing around 20,000 meals each day. The food had to be easy to package, hygienic and nutritious. Sticky rice and barbecue chicken was a popular choice.
There was even a coffee machine, something greatly appreciated by the media in particular, who worked odd hours catering for their audiences in various time zones. It was always busy, serving up espressos and Americanos that rivalled anything available in Bangkok.
The volunteers didn’t just provide food and drinks.
Several long tables had been set up offering all kinds of things the rescue teams, media and families might need, all for free: spare batteries, socks, underwear, painkillers, balms, soap, candies. The thoughtfulness was impressive. Someone had brought a laminator to put plastic wrap around documents and equipment, saving them from the rain. Next to the medical tent, masseuses offered free neck rubs for stressed parents and rescue workers, while hairdressers offered to cut hair.
One day, cameraman David Leland was standing by his tripod near the food trucks, brow furrowed, trying to conceal an inner ‘meltdown’ about some work problem, when an elegantly groomed volunteer in her late fifties walked by and noticed him. She paused and said in perfect English: ‘Lighten up!’ Whatever her precise intentions, the comment did make David lighten up, realising that there were bigger things at stake than his audio-visual dilemma.
The volunteers were coordinated by District Chief Somsak. Whatever he asked for, the answer was always yes. Forty motorbike riders to bring people and goods up the mountain? Done.
While the rescue effort was predominantly male, the volunteers supporting the operation were mostly female. Many wore yellow polo shirts – the colour associated with the former King – with blue caps and yellow neckerchiefs. Such was the love for the late King Bhumibol, that when his son and successor, King Vajiralongkorn, put out a call for a new brigade of volunteers in 2017, four million Thais signed up. Governor Narongsak incorporated some of this volunteer uniform into his own dress while he led the cave search, often wearing the yellow neckerchief and blue cap. It was a nice touch, signalling that even though he was the boss, he was a man of the people and a loyal servant of the King.
Off site, more generosity went largely unseen. Hotels, resorts and village homes opened their doors for the rescue teams, providing accommodation, cooking meals and washing mud-covered clothes, also for free.
There is no doubt that without the thousands of volunteers, the search for the Wild Boars would have soon collapsed in a hungry, dirty mess.
* * *
For engineer Suttisak and his drill team, walking up the side of the mountain was exhausting. That Friday, they were scouring the face of the Sleeping Lady, looking for a suitable spot to park their drill machine.
It had to be just right.
Going directly above the cave and drilling straight down was out of the question. It was simply too far to drill. The cave entrance of Tham Luang was around 460 metres above sea level, while the ridgeline above rose to 1096 metres above the T-junction. Further along, at the nose of the Sleeping Lady, it was even higher.
Before their trek, Suttisak had asked the SEALs about their trips through the cave. Did the tunnel go up or down? The SEALs said there were rises and dips, but they weren’t big. The deepest dive was just six metres. That information, combined with what the engineers knew about the direction the water flowed, suggested the cave probably stayed roughly horizontal. So there was around 600 metres of mountain directly above the cave. While heavy-duty drills can bore a kilometre deep, something that powerful would be too heavy to airlift onto the mountainside.
Suttisak’s drill maxed out at 300 metres. So their hole would have to angle in from the side of the Sleeping Lady’s right cheek – not too far from where the hairpin that killed her in the legend might have been pierced. The engineers wanted to avoid the layers of hard granite on the lower west side of the mountain and begin drilling just where the softer limestone started.
They hiked up and down the mountain for two days, looking for a place that fulfilled their criteria. It was humid. It was raining. It was muddy. On the second day, some of the American soldiers joined them. Eventually they settled on a spot, but it was all based on guesswork.
‘We were quite clear about the topography outside, but inside – nobody knows,’ said Suttisak. ‘That’s our main problem.’
They were relying heavily on Martin Ellis’s map of the Tham Luang cave complex, which was hugely helpful, but the engineers estimated a margin of error of between ten and one hundred metres. (Martin himself urged caution when using his map for the rescue.) Plus, there
was no detailed information on the vertical aspect of the cave. So their hole might easily pass above or below their target. It was, to use Governor Narongsak’s expression, ‘like trying to hit a green target in a forest’.
However, if their calculations were correct, their twelve-centimetre-wide drill bit should hit the cave around Pattaya Beach, where the search efforts were focused. Such a small hole wouldn’t provide an escape route, but it might help narrow the search if sounds of life were detected. It might also be useful for dropping in water and food – if the Wild Boars were indeed found alive.
But there was another reason for drilling, something not found in any engineering textbook.
‘We imagined that if we were in the dark for six days . . . the thing that we’re going to lose is hope,’ said Suttisak. ‘So how can we keep the kids hopeful? We’d like to drill to make noise.’
While the drill team thought their hole could be of practical use, they also wanted to make an almighty racket pounding a drill bit through the mountain, so the sound would vibrate and echo through the porous limestone. They hoped this would send a message to the Wild Boars, letting them know: we’re coming for you.
* * *
Amidst the constant dripping of water, and the thuds and scrapes of their digging, sometimes the boys did in fact hear sounds. One day, Titan thought he heard a helicopter. Biw heard a rooster crow. Another time, a dog barked – they all heard that one.
Where were the sounds coming from? Were their minds playing tricks on them after so much time in the dark, hungry and scared?
Suttisak was right, some of these sounds did give the boys hope. But other sounds scared them.
‘Sometimes we heard people’s voices talking [at the bottom of the mound] and we came down, but we did not see anyone there,’ said Biw.
Even more frightening was the unnerving sound of someone calling their names. It summoned up Thai horror stories of ghosts visiting when people had low energy, unable to defend themselves. ‘Coach Ek told us that if we hear somebody call our names at night, don’t answer,’ said Biw.
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