One hundred and thirty-five of the three hundred and twenty-seven people aboard the plane died. Seventy-eight of the dead were children.
‘Oh, God! I can’t bear to think of it!’ Serena sobbed when Gabrielle broke the news to her. ‘Those children had so much to look forward to! A whole new life!’
Gabrielle put her arms around her, comforting her, her face ashen. It could so easily have been Cay Thóng children aboard the C-5A. It could so easily have been Kylie and le petit Gavin.
It was now nearly three weeks since Mike and Lewis had set off in a requisitioned army truck for the Delta. No one who knew of the expedition, apart from Gabrielle and Serena, believed that they would ever be seen again. As the first week of April drew to a close, and the noose that the Communists had thrown around Saigon tightened, even Gabrielle and Serena began to lose hope.
‘Even if they successfully reached Van Binh, how could they possibly evade the NVA on their return trip?’ Gabrielle said despairingly. ‘It is not possible, chérie.’
‘It has to be possible!’ Serena said fiercely. ‘I couldn’t survive if Mike died! I wouldn’t know how to go on living!’
Gabrielle said nothing, instead she walked to the nearby Catholic cathedral and, for the first time in years, prayed.
On the morning of 8 April nearly everyone in Saigon thought the end had come. A fighter-bomber flew in from the South, bombing the Presidential Palace and the giant fuel dumps west of the city. As anti-aircraft fire blasted in retaliation, Gabrielle and Serena ran out of the orphanage and into the street, certain that a full-scale attack was about to take place. Instead, all they saw was the lone bomber banking steeply and flying away from the city, and a battered truck, enormous red crosses painted on the roof of the cab and the sides, crawling towards them.
‘It’s Mike!’ Serena shrieked. ‘Oh, dear God! It’s Mike!’
She flew down the street, and the truck coughed and spluttered to a halt. Mike jumped down from the cab, grimy and weary and scarcely recognizable beneath a heavy growth of beard. She hurtled into his arms uncaringly. ‘I thought you were dead!’ she sobbed, hugging him so tight that she nearly knocked him off his feet. ‘Never do this to me again! Never! Never! Never!’
As well as Lewis and a remarkably composed Tam, there were also thirteen children in the truck. All of them were tired to the point of collapse, and hungry and dehydrated.
‘Let us get the children inside,’ Gabrielle was saying, hugging Lewis, hugging Tam, so relieved at seeing them that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘We’re flying out on a scheduled flight,’ Lewis said later that evening to Mike. ‘I’ve been to the embassy and I’ve got clearance for Tam. Rules are being bent now, thank God.’
Mike didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t help wryly wondering if the fact that Lewis was West Point, an ex-POW, and an adviser at the American Embassy in London might not have had a little something to do with the ease with which the rules were, for him, being bent.
The next morning he drove Lewis and Tam out to Tan Son Nhut. The route was so packed with the cars of fleeing rich Vietnamese that the normally short drive took them nearly two hours.
‘You’re sure you’ve got seats reserved?’ he asked Lewis anxiously. ‘These people are going to be willing to pay bribes of thousands in order to get on a flight out.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lewis said grimly, his arm around Tam’s shoulders. ‘I’ve got everything that is necessary, and nothing on God’s earth is going to prevent us flying out and putting Vietnam behind us forever!’
Tam had said very little to Mike on their arduous journey from Van Binh, but he was a good judge of people and he wasn’t worried about her. She would find America strange at first, but she was a very special girl who allowed nothing to faze her. And she obviously thought that Lewis was the sun and the moon and the stars. Taking into account Abbra’s marriage ceremony to Scott, a divorce between Lewis and Abbra would be quickly and easily obtained. Within months, maybe even weeks, Tam would be Mrs Lewis Ellis. Mike thought that when she was, she would be the kind of wife that any man would envy.
As they approached the airport gates they could see barbed-wire barricades being erected. A heavy police presence was vetting every car and possibly, Mike thought, demanding bribes. When Lewis showed the pass he had been given by the embassy, there were no such demands. They were waved through without harassment, and the same treatment was accorded them once they were inside the airport building. Despite the horrendous lines and the crush at the check-in desks, Lewis’s pass insured that they were swept straight through towards the exit for departures.
‘I don’t know what the hell is on that pass of yours,’ Mike said admiringly, ‘but I wouldn’t mind having a half dozen like it!’
It was time to say good-bye. A genuine friendship, born of mutual like and respect, had sprung up between them on the perilous journey to and from Van Binh, and they shook hands warmly, clasping each other on the back.
‘Make sure Serena and le petit Gavin get out safely,’ Lewis said urgently. ‘There’s not much time left, Mike. Perhaps only days.’
‘I know,’ Mike squeezed Lewis’s hand hard one last time, kissed Tam on the cheek, and then stood back as they turned and walked out through the departure exit towards their waiting plane.
The adoption work at Cáy Thóng was facilitated by the Australian
government’s decision to take an unlimited number of children,
providing that they were going to Australian parents. Australian planes were available to fly the children out. Air France and Pan Am flights were still taking children whose adoption had been processed to their new homes in America and Europe. For Mike and Serena, their days were a treadmill of caring for the children, of obtaining exit visas and travel documentation for those about to leave, arranging escorts for them and transporting them out to Tan Son Nhut.
On 17 April, Mike and Serena and Gabrielle were officially warned by their respective embassies that they should plan to leave the country while commercial aircraft were still operating.
‘I’m not leaving yet,’ Serena had said fiercely, ‘not while there’s a remote chance of getting more children out.’
‘What about Trinh?’ Gabrielle asked. ‘Does she know what it is she has to do?’
The official Serena had spoken to at the American Embassy had agreed that Trinh and her sister and Kylie would leave the city when the order came for a final evacuation. Buses would pick up Americans and Vietnamese designated for departure at appointed places around the city and deliver them to various helicopter pads. From there they would be flown out to American ships, which would be waiting offshore.
Serena nodded. ‘Yes, she’s been given documentation and the address she has to go to immediately after the signal for the evacuation is broadcast over American armed forces radio.’
‘And what is the signal?’ Gabrielle asked curiously. As yet it was still a secret, but she knew that Lewis had informed Serena and Mike of it.
‘When time has finally run out, and the North Vietnamese are only hours away, the armed forces radio will broadcast this announcement every fifteen minutes: “The temperature in Saigon is one hundred five degrees and rising” and the announcement will be followed by Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.’
Gabrielle giggled. ‘A white Christmas in Saigon is not possible, chérie. Especially in April!’
On Friday 24 April, the last of the children for whom Mike and Serena had been able to arrange adoptions left for America. It was Serena who drove them to the airport. A report over Radio Hanoi had announced that all Vietnamese who had worked in any capacity for the adoption of orphans would be treated as war criminals. Mike had asked every one of the Vietnamese who had worked for them either as child-care helpers or as domestics if they wanted to leave the country. All those who had said they did want to leave had been officially listed as escorts for the departing children.
The flight they were leavin
g on was Pan Am’s last flight from Saigon. The simple task of escorting the children through the necessary security checks and into the departure lounge took on nightmare proportions. There was a panic-stricken crush of people pleading vainly for tickets, and even those who possessed tickets were pushing their way through into the departure lounge as if, at any moment, the tickets would be ripped from their hands and their departure foiled.
With admirable British coolness Serena shepherded her flock through the chaos. The majority of those who were also cramming into the departure lounge were Vietnamese who possessed French citizenship and French passports. They were the elite. The lucky ones.
As Serena said a last good-bye to the children and to the Vietnamese escorts who were leaving with them, fighter jets flew in low and fast, strafing the perimeter of the airfield.
‘Oh, what is happening?’ one of the Vietnamese women said tearfully, grasping hold of Serena’s hand. ‘Are we not going to be able to leave? Is our plane going to be bombed?’
Over the sound of artillery and mortar fire, Serena assured her that the plane was going to leave and that it was going to leave safely.
Minutes later, as the fighters disappeared, the call came for all departing passengers to make their way towards their waiting plane.
Serena watched them file away, her heart in her mouth. But the fighters did not return. The giant plane taxied down the runway, lifting smoothly into the air, taking with it the last remaining orphans for whom it had been possible to arrange adoptions. They, at least, had a future to look forward to. They were going to families who would love and cherish them. The war would mar their lives no longer. She turned away, suddenly so tired she could barely stand. Almost semiconscious with weariness, she drove back through the refugee-thronged streets towards the Continental. There, in the room that had been her home for so many years, she tumbled into bed fully dressed, asleep within seconds.
Two days later, on 26 April, it was officially announced that General Duong Van Minh would take over as president of South Vietnam. There were very few foreigners left in the city now. The British Ambassador had departed, the New Zealand Embassy was empty and deserted; even a large majority of newsmen had left.
Free of the burden of ensuring that every child with an adoptive home to go to had all the necessary documentation and a flight seat, Mike had become a full-time doctor again, spending all his time trying to alleviate the suffering of the sick and often dying refugees who were still streaming into the city.
Serena spent the entire following day with Trinh. She had already spoken to Abbra on the telephone, telling her exactly what the situation was, and asking Abbra to meet Trinh and Mai and Kylie on their arrival in the United States. The happiness in Abbra’s voice as she readily agreed, and as she told Serena of how she and Sanh and Scott were all reunited and living together as a family again, was radiant. Now Serena wanted to make sure that Trinh understood who Abbra was, and how to get in touch with her if there was any difficulty.
‘This is a photograph of Abbra,’ she said, handing a group photograph of Abbra and Scott and Sanh to Trinh.
Trinh looked down at it and then up again at Serena. ‘Her little boy. Is he Vietnamese?’
‘Yes, Abbra and Scott have adopted him. I’m sure he’ll love having visitors who are also Vietnamese, and I am sure that Kylie will make friends with him just as quickly as she did with little Gavin.’
‘Little Gavin is not so very little anymore,’ Trinh said with a rare, mischievous smile. ‘Madame Ryan will soon have to think of another name so as not to confuse him with, his father.’
No matter how many times Gabrielle and Serena had requested that Trinh cease to speak to them so formally, and to address them instead by their Christian names, she had refused.
‘This may be the last time we shall see each other in Vietnam,’ Serena said, rising to leave, suddenly serious. ‘Big Minh is to be inaugurated as president tomorrow and I think that once he is president, the end will come very quickly.’
‘But I will see you in America?’ Trinh’s dark eyes were anxious. If Kyle had been alive, America would have held no terrors for her. But Kyle wasn’t alive, and America seemed a very strange and frightening prospect.
‘Yes,’ Serena said unequivocally. ‘I shall see you in America. Cháo, Trinh.’
‘Cháo, Serena,’ Trinh said a trifle shyly.
Serena grinned. It had taken a long time, almost too long, but at last she had broken through Trinh’s doubts and reserve and gained her friendship. Kyle would have been pleased.
The next day the sky was grey and ominous, heavy clouds threatening to unleash the first monsoon of the season. The swearing-in ceremony of General Minh took place at five o’clock. It was a televised ceremony, and Gabrielle and Serena and Mike watched it together in Gabrielle and Serena’s room at the Continental.
As the general began to speak, the heavens opened, rain pouring down on the city’s roofs and pavements.
‘The situation is very critical,’ Minh said, trying to make himself heard over the sound of rolling thunder. ‘I feel a responsibility now to seek a ceasefire and bring peace on the basis of the Paris Agreements …’
Lightning cracked over the hotel, followed by a long volley of thunder. At the same time, other rumblings could be heard. Serena looked across at Mike apprehensively. ‘Artillery fire?’ she asked.
Mike shook his head, striding to the window, no longer listening to the man who was now South Vietnam’s president. ‘Yes, but there are planes as well. Their target seems to be Tan Son Nhut.’
Before he had finished speaking they were aware of firing very near to them, coming from the direction of the Presidential Palace, and then Mike swung away from the window, saying tersely, ‘Get down! The planes are coming this way, strafing as they come!’
From outside they could hear screaming in the street, and then anti-aircraft fire deafened them as they threw themselves to the floor.
When the brief attack was over, Serena ran for the phone, dialling Trinh’s number. The lines were dead. ‘I must go to her! Make sure she’s okay!’ she said frantically.
Mike walked across to her and removed the telephone receiver from her hand. ‘You will do no such thing,’ he said firmly. ‘The streets aren’t safe, there’s still tracer fire. Trinh knows exactly what she must do. She has her radio, she has her documentation, and she has her bags packed. You can’t achieve anything by going over to her.’
Serena leaned against him, knowing that he was right, hoping that now that there was no more hope for the city, the end would come swiftly.
That night Mike stayed with Serena and Gabrielle in their room at the Continental. None of them got any sleep. Tan Son Nhut was repeatedly bombed. Rocket fire lit up the night sky, and as dawn finally broke, Serena and Mike knew that the coming day was going to be the last they would spend in Saigon.
As artillery fire bombarded the outskirts of the city, Mike hurried through the now nearly deserted street, to the orphanage. There were no children there, for they had taken no more in since the last group had left for the States. He went into his office, rifling through files, selecting those that were vital, destroying those that weren’t. Then he quickly packed a small bag of personal possessions and headed back towards the Continental.
As he entered the room, Serena said to him, ‘The evacuation signal has been broadcast. It’s being broadcast every fifteen minutes. Listen.’
She turned the volume up on her radio. Music was playing. After a few minutes it came to an end and a calm, unruffled voice announced, ‘The temperature is one hundred and five degrees and rising’ and then there came the soft, dulcet tones of Bing Crosby singing ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’.
‘That’s it then,’ Mike said. ‘Let’s go.’
He turned towards Gabrielle. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing staying, Gabrielle? Are you sure, you will be safe?’
‘Oui,’ she replied with a big smile. ‘In anothe
r few hours Gavin may be in Saigon. Already he is probably on the outskirts with the army. Nothing in the world would make me leave Saigon now.’
Looking down at her, so petite and so heartbreakingly optimistic, Mike felt his throat tighten. ‘How long has it been, Gabrielle?’ he asked. ‘How long have you and Gavin been apart?’
Her eyes met his, overly bright. ‘Neuf Noëls,’ she said huskily. Nine Christmases. She looked down at her son, who had been staring at the window, gazing down into the square with rapt attention. ‘It is time for us to say au’voir for a little while, chéri,’ she said lovingly. ‘Stay with Serena and Mike. Keep very tight hold of Serena’s hand and do not let go of it, do you promise me?’
Gavin nodded. He had already spent long days trying to persuade his mother to allow him to stay with her, but it had been hopeless. She had been adamant that he leave with Serena and Mike. Now, knowing that to argue any further was useless, and looking forward to the promised helicopter ride from the roof of the embassy to a ship of the US 7th fleet far out in the China Sea, he merely said, ‘I promise, Maman,’ and then, as he had done when he was younger, he flung himself against her and hugged her tightly saying, ‘I love you, Maman!’
‘I love you too, chéri,’ Gabrielle fought back an upsurge of tears. ‘Au’voir, take care.’
The streets that had been deserted all morning were suddenly no longer deserted. Army buses and private cars and taxis began speeding through them as the remaining Americans in Saigon heeded the message that had just been broadcast to them and began heading hell-for-leather towards their prearranged pick up points.
As they did so, the Saigonese teemed out from wherever they had been sheltering, converging like lemmings on the American Embassy, determined to have one last, valiant try at hitching a helicopter ride out of their doomed city.
White Christmas in Saigon Page 69