Survival in the Killing Fields

by Haing Ngor

  For the last time in this book, I ask the sensitive readers to skip over the following pages until the beginning of the next chapter. Those who want to know what happened, read on:

  The soldiers didn’t take me to the prison near Phum Chhleav, where I had gone twice before. Instead, we walked across the railroad track, past my brother’s common garden, through fields where oxen and water buffalo grazed, and into the jungle.

  I felt healthy and excited. My heart was beating fast. Except for leaving Huoy a widow, I had no regrets. The waiting was over. Surely the end would come at the next turn of the path.

  Since we weren’t going to Chhleav, I assumed that the soldiers were going to execute me in some spot where they had already executed others. I had never seen such a place, but it was logical that they existed. Mass graves. Killing fields. But we walked through the jungle until it was nearly dark. We came to an old prerevolutionary village with houses on stilts, mounds of rice straw next to them, and banana and tamarind trees. Even kantout trees, the kind I had thought about using for poisoning Pen Tip. The far side of the village opened up into a view of rice fields, interrupted here and there by hillocks crowned with sprays of tall bamboo.

  The soldiers went in to report to the prison office, a small hut in Khmer Rouge style with a roof and wooden pillars but no walls. Then they took me to the outskirts of the village to a long, skinny thatch building with a corrugated metal roof and a horrible fetid smell.

  A soldier pushed me into the prison and down an aisle. I couldn’t see anything. The stench in the air made me want to vomit. Slime covered the ground under my bare feet. My left foot slipped into a ditch full of sewage. The soldier switched on a flashlight, found an empty space, untied my arms and told me to lie down on my back. I obeyed. My head knocked against something; a man’s voice objected and I apologized. The soldier shined the flashlight on my feet. He was going to lock my left ankle into a leg iron attached to a block of wood, but he saw the slime, wrinkled his face in disgust, and instead locked my right ankle, which was cleaner.

  There I was, in jail again.

  What a disappointment.

  Better that they had killed me quickly.

  I lay awake, listening.

  A mosquito whined near my ear and flew off.

  From far away came a sound of trucks on National Route 5, the road that led to Battambang City. The flash of headlights swept across the wall of the prison, then left the wall in darkness.

  I listened more carefully and heard flies buzzing around, along with the mosquitoes, and the moans of the prisoners.

  Outside, crickets chirped. Mice scampered along the metal roof.

  From somewhere near came a howling sound as the chhke char-chark drifted to the edge of the jungle and prepared to take their meals.

  The man to the right of me coughed and stirred, but the woman to my left was silent. When it grew light outside I saw she was thin and old and dead. I felt her wrist. It was as cold as stone and without a pulse. A guard unlocked her foot and then mine and then the prisoner on her far side, and the two of us carried the old woman’s body out of the building. Beyond a quick prayer for her soul I didn’t grieve. If anything I was jealous. She had taken the easy way out.

  My hands were tied again and I was taken to the administrative shack. Two soldiers entered with a big hempen rice sack.

  ‘Is your name Samnang?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are the one who lied to Angka?’

  ‘I have never lied to Angka.’

  ‘You were a military doctor, a captain.’

  Pen Tip has done this, I thought. Now I am sure.

  ‘No, comrade,’ I answered. ‘I have gone to jail before for this, but the charge is false. I was a taxi driver. You could go to Phnom Penh and check the files if you want to find out.’

  The soldier’s answer was a blow to my ribs. They beat me with sticks until I crumpled to the floor and then they took turns kicking me. They opened the rice sack and put my feet in and drew it over me until it covered everything but my head. I struggled but my hands were tied behind my back and they tied the mouth of the bag over my head, leaving me in darkness.

  They dragged me across the floor and then outdoors. Through the rough cloth I could feel the stubble of rice fields, then the bump when they dragged me up and over a paddy dyke, and then more stubble and more dykes. They stopped, then hoisted me in the air.

  ‘Say you were a doctor! Say yes! Say yes!’

  I said nothing.

  Thump! The blow hit me square across the back.

  Thump! Again.

  The bag swayed and lurched on the rope. I tucked my face between my knees as far as possible to protect my eyes.

  Thump! My body was breaking like rotten wood.

  They kept asking me if I was a doctor. I groaned but didn’t answer. Then I went silent, hoping they would think I was dead.

  Thump! No such luck. They were strong and well fed and they were taking their exercise on me.

  At last when they grew tired of hitting me with their clubs, they went away.

  The bag swung like a pendulum, back and forth, less and less, never quite stopping because of the wind. The wind penetrated the weave of the cloth, and light filtered in.

  The day passed. As the light coming through the bag took on a weaker, redder colour, footsteps approached. The bag dropped abruptly and I fell to the ground with a crash. Fresh pain exploded through my lower back, like a crushed vertabra or ruptured disk.

  The guards let me out of the bag. I lay on the ground in a fetal position, my hands still tied behind me. When I opened my eyes I saw blood on my knees. It had flowed from my head wounds and coagulated.

  The guards left me there as the sun set.

  A cool wind blew. Above me, in the branches of the tamarind tree, a bird began to sing. It flew from one branch to another, chirping and twittering sweetly.

  But it was not just a bird. It was one of the spirits of the landscape, like the gods who live in the rocks and sky and forest and water. The bird trilled and sang happily. It was telling me not to worry. Everything was going to be all right.

  Silently I gave the bird my answer: I do not agree with you. The guards are going to come back and kill me. Please, spirit, tell me what the future holds.

  The bird repeated its song, cheerfully, but its message did not change.

  I closed my eyes and thought, you are so lucky. You can fly away whenever you want. Are you consoling me, or do you bring me a message? You must tell me the truth.

  The guards took me back toward the jail that night. I limped along between them. No bones broken after all. No crushed vertebra, only a badly bruised coccyx. When I got inside the jail I lay down in the slime and listened to the groans of the other prisoners and the buzzing of the flies.

  They interrogated me again the next morning and still I would not confess to being a doctor. They beat me again and dragged me outside to a spot under a tree. They locked my wrists and ankles into brackets on the ground. I lay on my back, waiting and wondering what the torture was going to be. A Khmer Rouge wearing a Montagut shirt inside his black tunic walked up holding something that looked like a wooden vice with steel handles, though I didn’t have the chance to see it clearly. He placed the vice over my head with the two inner sides touching my temples. Then he tightened it by adjusting the handles while watching my face closely.

  The inside of the vice was studded with the sharp ends of metal spikes. He wound it tighter, tighter, then paused. The spikes felt as though they were about to break through my skin and then crush my head. He peered down on me with the concentrated expression of a man looking through a microscope, focusing on every detail but not feeling my pain.

  I moved my head incrementally to relieve the sore points on my temples. He was not touching the handles. Even so, the vice closed in a little tighter. I moved my head back to the original position – the vice tightened farther still.

  I began to understand. In some ingenio
us manner, the vice was spring-loaded. Every time I wiggled or squirmed, the vice would punish me by tightening farther. As he reached for the handle again and began to twist it, I began to cry and whimper, not out of pain but because I realized he was calibrating the tightness to my pain threshold. The vice wasn’t supposed to crush my skull. It had a far more clever purpose, and it was only part of the torture.

  Satisfied, he stood up. He lifted a pail of water above me and fastened it to a tree branch high overhead. Water leaked from a hole in the centre of the underside of the pail and dribbled onto the dirt next to me. He took a piece of rice straw and stuck it in the hole, adjusting it carefully until the drops of water rolled down the length of the rice straw and onto a spot in the middle of my forehead.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Now I understood the torture.

  The water was falling from a height of seven or eight feet, enough to give it a sharp, stinging impact. Over the course of a single Cambodian rainy season, I have seen water falling in drops from a roof drill holes into a concrete patio.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  The man in the Montagut shirt stood over me, watching intently.

  After the first five hundred drops I closed my eyes. The water hit the same spot every time, above my eyes in the middle of my forehead. My skin chafed, and the drops continued, like a pounding.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop-drop. A double beat.

  Then a missed beat.

  Then again: Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  After the thousandth drop the soreness on my skin began to turn into a headache, like the pressure of a weight on my head.

  I shifted my position so the water would hit another spot. It was a mistake: the spikes squeezed in tighter on my temples. So now I had the pounding on my forehead and the pain of the spikes too. I tried not to move but I could not help it. Each time I did, the vice grew tighter.

  His voice called from above me. ‘Comrade, are you really a doctor? If you say you were, I will stop the water.’

  ‘I was not a doctor,’ said my voice.

  ‘Strong guy, huh? We’ll just keep the water dropping on you, then. “If you live, there is no gain. If you die, there is no loss.” ’

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  How much water is in the pail?

  How long can this go on?

  The drops were solid objects. Like nails. They were drilling through my skull.

  I kept my eyes closed. The pain on my forehead grew as great as the pain in my temples. Then the pain in my forehead and temples connected. When the drops landed, the whole interior of my skull throbbed together. Each time the drops struck I saw white. My feet and legs twitched to contain the shock.

  The pail had no bottom. It contained a lake. The day took a century to pass.

  I kept my head absolutely still and thought: if the Khmer Rouge keep it up all night, I will die. The pain will kill me. I am sure.

  Twice before – with dysentery, and with being crucified in prison – I had nearly died. From that I had developed a sense, a measurement, of my life-force. I knew what I could take and what would break me.

  I sent a message to the wind, the trees, the birds, the rice fields, to every place the gods resided: if I gave too much bonjour in my previous life, now I am paying it back. If I hurt people in my previous life, now I am paying it back. Please, gods, let my next life be easier.

  Drop.

  Drop.

  Drop-drop.

  Drop.

  Drop . . .

  The Pacific Ocean is in that bucket. I have lived in agony for a thousand years.

  The man in the Montagut shirt came back and pushed the rice straw into the hole in the pail with his finger. The dripping stopped except that every minute, or every hour, a drop hit my forehead, though not in the same place as before, and then it hit on my temple and then the top of my head, in no pattern.

  I opened my eyes. The sun had set but the sky was still full of colour, and beautiful beyond belief.

  I dared not move my head to look around but sensed that I was alone.

  My eyes closed again. I had sunk deep inside my being. My mind sent messages to Huoy:

  Huoy, in your whole life you have not suffered like this. Even to see me now would make you cry out. You cried when the Khmer Rouge tied me up and pushed me down. I do not think you could stand it here. I’m glad you’re not here. You’re not strong enough to be here. Let the wind tell you this: for now, they have stopped torturing me. I pray that the wind blows over the landscape and around our house and brings the news to you. I pray that the gods console you.

  I lay there locked in the brace, dreaming but not sleeping.

  The next morning the man with the Montagut shirt came back and poured fresh water into the pail. He missed, and some of the water spilled over the side and onto my face. I opened my mouth and swallowed what I could.

  He asked if I were a doctor.

  I said no.

  He adjusted the rice straw. The water ran out of the hole in the bucket, down the straw and onto me.

  The drops started again.

  Regularly.

  That day, my mother and father appeared before me and talked to me. Then Huoy, then Huoy and her mother, and finally Huoy alone.

  At every drop my body went numb for an instant, and then the sensation flooded back, and then at the next drop I went numb again. Then the numb parts blurred together and I couldn’t feel anything.

  The sun woke me once in its afternoon position, but after that I don’t remember much. A small part of my brain reminded me that I was still alive.

  Some men came and asked one another if I was in a coma. I heard them, but even if I had wanted to I could not have summoned the control over my muscles to tell them no. They were too far away from me. They were so far away.

  And I don’t even know if they stopped the water torture or not.

  The next thing I knew the sun was a swollen red ball on the horizon and I was lying down. The pail wasn’t overhead anymore, and the vice was gone.

  I was lying on my back on the ground. My head was turned to the side, and there was nothing to hold it in place. Ants were biting me, and from the smell I knew I had shat in my trousers.

  I closed my eyes.

  I told myself not to move, or lose self-control, or be angry. Just to rest.

  Sometime later footsteps approached and then I was nudged on the shoulder and a voice shouted at me to wake up, but I pretended to be unconscious.

  ‘Wake up! It’s dinnertime!’ the voice said.

  I turned my head slowly, opened my eyes and raised an arm, then let my head and hand drop, pretending to fall asleep.

  ‘Wake up! Eat! Eat!’

  A foot kicked me a few times, not hard, and I said, ‘Yes,’ in a low, dull voice but still pretended to be asleep.

  The guard grabbed my wrist and yanked me up to a sitting position. On the ground next to me was a shallow bowl of watery rice. I wanted it but slumped back to the ground again, still acting, and he pulled me up again. This time I ate the food very slowly, savouring the taste.

  Then I went back to sleep on my side.

  That night they brought me to the jail. If the flies landed on me or the mosquitoes bit me, I did not know. It did not matter. On the outside were the flies and the slime and the bruises. Deep within me, the force of life was recovering.

  The next day passed inside the jail. The long narrow building, with its double row of prisoners lying on their backs head to head, was raised in the middle, so the shit and piss would simply flow downhill to the sewage canals along the walls. Four of us prisoners were locked into the same heavy block of wood, next to another foursome, who were next to the door. We got one meal of watery rice, served in bowls spattered with excrement. Flies with red eyes buzzed around us like miniature helicopter
s, hovering, then darting off, then hovering again. It was hot in the jail, because of the sun on the metal roof. It must have been over a hundred degrees.

  At night I dozed but didn’t sleep. There were no lights. My sense of hearing had sharpened to the night sounds, the insects and the faraway trucks and the occasional call of the chhke char-chark.

  There was another sound I couldn’t place, a rustling outside the perimeter of the building. I lay quietly with my eyes shut, listening.

  The rustling started again, then stopped.

  It was not the sound of mice. Mice made a smaller, scampering noise.

  Somebody was just outside the jail, walking in the leaves.

  What is wrong? I asked myself. What is this sudden cold sweat on my limbs? Why do I know to be afraid?

  Listen!

  There is more than one of them.

  I nudged the prisoners to either side.

  ‘Stay awake,’ I whispered to them. ‘The prison is surrounded. Something’s going to happen.’

  My neighbours passed the word along.

  We waited.

  The crickets chirped steadily.

  When it finally happened, it was fast. The quiet of one moment changed to confused yelling as flames roared through the thatch. As the walls went up in fire, the bamboo restraining strips were illuminated in outline for a few brief seconds before they caught fire too, and the prisoners jumping and yelling were silhouetted in the light. The four of us in the heavy wooden block jumped to our feet and dragged the block toward the door. The woman next to me fell, twisting the wood and wrenching the leg irons against our ankles. I picked her up and we dragged her and the heavy block outside into clear air. From the outside we could see the jail burning and one end of the metal roof falling on top of the screaming prisoners trapped inside. We felt the blast of heat against our skins, and then we heard the rapid bursts of gunfire from the other side of the jail as the guards mowed prisoners down. Other groups of four, sixteen or twenty people in all, hobbled out of our side of the jail before the whole building collapsed, and the guards ran around to our side holding M-16s and looking fierce in the firelight, but they didn’t shoot us. Still in our blocks, we moved farther away from the building, listening to the screams of the dying inside.