Finding Moon

Moon looked at Osa. She must have told them he was a mechanic, told them about what he did in the army, about J.D’s pickup engine awaiting his return in Durance, Colorado. Cold, clean, safe, restful Durance, Colorado.

“I believe you were a mechanic in your military career,” Mr. Lee said. “Somewhat like your brother, but working on the engines of tanks and big vehicles.”

Moon nodded. But not really like his brother. Moon was the grease monkey. Ricky was the boss. “But this will be a marine diesel. Probably much bigger. Much different.” Which was probably baloney. A diesel was a diesel, much alike and all knuckle-busters to work on.

“Do you think you could make it run well again?” Mr. Lee asked.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

“Captain Teele will be able to tell you,” Mr. Lee said. “He is waiting upstairs.”

Upstairs, for the first time in quite a while, Moon found himself the second largest man in the room. Forced to guess, Moon would have named Teele a Samoan pro football lineman. Certainly not the captain of a schooner named Glory of the Sea. He was dressed in a well-worn pinstriped business suit that had probably fit him well enough when he’d bought it but now bulged where he had added muscle. His hair was long and streaked with gray, and his dark face was marred by scarring and weathered by too many years of strong sun and salty winds.

He bowed to Osa and smiled. To Moon and George Rice he offered a large square hand and said something in a language that was new to Moon. By the sound of it, the statement seemed to end with a question.

“He wishes you well,” Mr. Lee said, “and he asks if you can fix his engine so it will run better.”

“Tell him I need to know what is wrong with it,” Moon said. And thereby began one of those three-sided translated conversations that left Captain Teele looking doubtful and Moon wondering if Teele had even the vaguest notion of what caused ignition inside a diesel engine.

“Tell him I have to go see it,” Moon said.

“Ah,” Mr. Lee said. “Then I think you believe you can fix this problem?”

“Who knows?” Moon said. But as a matter of fact, Moon did think he could fix it. From the captain’s admittedly hazy descriptions, it had the sound of a fuel-injection problem. In the glossary of things that can go wrong with engines that depend on pressure-induced heat to ignite vapors, those were the problems Moon preferred.

“We will go to the ship then,” Mr. Lee said. “But we will wait awhile first. We will give the police time to go to bed.”

Osa, Rice, and Moon waited in the room under the floor. Captain Teele and Lum Lee had bowed them out with smiles and good wishes, and they had climbed back down the stairway, with Mr. Tung lighting their way with a carbide lamp. He left it behind for them.

The lamp hissed and buzzed and added its peculiar chemical odor to the various perfumes the room already offered. But it was better than waiting in the dark. Moon resumed his position on the sofa, sighed, and relaxed. Rice was relating his misadventures in the jungle. Osa was listening. They would wake him when they needed him.

“Why not one of the beds?” Osa asked. “You would be more comfortable.”

“I really don’t know,” Moon said. “I know you’re right. I think it’s because I have the idea that the lady should get the bed and the man should sleep on the sofa. Or because I’m stubborn. Or maybe I just enjoy having these cramps in my leg muscles.” He thought of another theory that had something to do with his headache. But Osa had lost patience with him. She was talking to George Rice.

“Did you see how they keep the water out of this room? When the high tide comes, these boards pull down into these slots and-see how tightly they fit.”

Moon didn’t hear the rest of it. He was asleep again.

Special to the New York Times

SAIGON, South Vietnam, April 24-Panic is clearly visible in Saigon now as thousands of Vietnamese try desperately to find ways to flee their country.

Few exits are left and most involve knowing Americans. U.S. Air Force C-141 transports took off all day and night from Tan Son Nhut air base with lucky passengers en route to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

The Fifteenth Day

April 27, 1975

IT TOOK MOON A FEW MOMENTS to focus well enough to read the numbers on his watch: 1:07 A.M. When he blinked, it became 1:08.

Mr. Tung was holding back the bamboo screen. In front of it, five squared timbers had been dropped into place across the opening in the wall. The tide must have come in, because Moon could see the prow of a little boat nudged up against the planks.

“Be careful,” Mr. Tung said. “I think maybe you will have to get yourself just a little bit wet.”

Careful or not, Moon was soaked to about six inches above the knees. Cool water. It helped jar him awake. Mr. Tung stepped from the topmost timber into the boat, agile as a monkey. Captain Teele, now wearing a grimy Beatles T-shirt and pants that seemed to be made of canvas, sat amidships, holding a long-handled paddle.

Mr. Tung said, “We go now” in English and something in some other language. Teele slid them soundlessly down the bamboo tunnel and out into open water. Moon could see now that Mr. Tung’s hideaway was located behind the Puerto Princesa wharves, and once away from it there was less effort to maintain total silence. Teele allowed his sculling oar to splash. Moon scooped up a handful of water and splashed it on his face. He felt lousy. Tension. Change of food and water. Too little sleep. Someday he would lie down on something soft and sleep forever. If anyone came to wake him he would strangle them.

Captain Teele sculled past the barnacle-encrusted pillars supporting the dock, past what seemed to be some sort of naval auxiliary vessel, rusted and in need of paint. A dim light burned on its mast, but there was no sign that anyone aboard was awake. Probably an old U.S. Navy minesweeper, Moon guessed, turned over to the Philippine navy. They passed under the bow of a barge that smelled of turpentine and dead fish. Then the white shape of the Glory of the Sea was just ahead.

Moon had always loved cars and airplanes. In the army, he had even come to feel a rapport with tanks. Nothing that floated had ever interested him, though. But now the sleek white shape of the Glory of the Sea rose above its reflection in the still water, and Moon saw the beauty of it. Someone had built this thing with pride. He looked at Captain Teele, now steering their little boat carefully to the boarding ladder. The captain was smiling. As well he should be, Moon thought. A captain should love this ship. At the moment, however, Moon was feeling no such sentiment himself. He was feeling faintly seasick.

Nor, once on board, did the engine inspire any affection. It was an old Euclid, probably salvaged out of a landing craft left on a beach somewhere after World War II. A burly young man, barefoot and wearing only walking shorts, was standing beside it watching Moon approach, his face full of doubt. His hair hung in a long black braid. A design that suggested either a dragon or a tiger was tattooed on his shoulder, apparently by an amateur.

“Mr. Suhuannaphum,” Captain Teele said, “Mr. Moon.” Mr. Suhuannaphum bowed over his hands and pointed to the diesel. “Old,” he said.

“Do you speak English?”

Mr. Suhuannaphum looked nervously at Captain Teele, seeking guidance. Receiving none, he shrugged, produced a self-deprecatory smile, and said something in a language entirely new to Moon.

“Thai,” Captain Teele said, and made a wry face, as if that explained everything.

“Okay,” Moon said. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Moon discovered very quickly that what they had here was very close to the diagnosis he’d made sight unseen. Something was wrong with the fuel-injection system. Apparently Mr. Suhuannaphum had already reached that same conclusion and had done the preliminary dismantling. The injection system was mechanical, a system long