a dream come true | prachakhom lunachai

a dream come true PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

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a dream come true TRANSLATED FROM THE THAI BY MARCEL BARANG

© PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI © MARCEL BARANG for the translation Original Thai edition, Khon Kham Fan, 2000

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

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Part One

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

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PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

5 Chapter One The first time he saw him step onto the gangway and stand there, Sak was fairly certain Chap was freshly out of the monkhood. Skirting by him you’d get the scent of saffron robes and feel the refreshing emanations merit earns in temples. He was lanky and lean as a herringbone on legs. The hair on his head had hardly grown back half an inch. His skin was so pale you could see the sinews.

On the strength of a mere glance, Sak would have staked his life on Chap never having gone out at sea.

Maybe he was some hard-luck Chinese half-breed whose needy parents had had to borrow left, right and centre to have the apple of their eye ordained and who now had to wander distressingly in search of a job to do.

Sak and three or four of his crewmates sat in a group in the wheelhouse, observing the newcomer who stood clumsily on the gangway. Chap clutched in his arms a paper bag full of clothes and other essentials he had just bought. Sak and his friends took turns to comment on his appearance with relish.

‘Look at the walking scarecrow,’ one of them said, pointing. ‘Is he gonna come on board, you think?’

‘Of course not. We’re a full crew here.’

‘Maybe he’s on hold for boat two.’

Slowly shuffling his rubber thongs, Chap awkwardly stepped into the boat. In the eyes of the crew, this must A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

6 be the first time in his life he set foot on a trawler. While Chap stood swaying to and fro in the middle of the deck, a long-tailed boat raced close aboard down the canal. The waves from its trail crashed against the gunwale, the trawler rolled, sending the lanky body staggering over two or three steps.

Peals of laughter in the wheelhouse answered one another.

‘Just as well we’re fully booked,’ one of the crew said.

‘Almost fell into the drink.’

Someone suddenly popped up and told Chap to go to the crew quarters below deck. A new sailor like him should lie down there, rather than climb up and down, risk a misstep at night and fall into the water. If seasick, it was the place to be to crawl to the gunwale and vomit.

Sila 4 was 18 meters in length. It was the single-net middle-sized trawler seamen call a soft-timber boat.

With its 250 HP engine and ten deckhands, it was the biggest of Thaokae∗ Kok’s boats. It had come out of the shipyard a little over two years before. Deckhands, engineer, pilot, cook and captain – altogether fourteen lives on board. The fishing master and his nine net handlers had long been together, knew their jobs and each other’s minds well. There was no need for extra help.

The old hands were all relieved when they knew for certain Chap was to be delivered to Sila 3, which was ∗

Thaokae is a Chinese headman or tycoon, in this case a ship owner.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

7 still trawling around Tao Island. They had no time for a work mate who wasn’t up to it, like a kid they’d have to mollycoddle the whole length of the outing. If they had to have new friends, let them be men with tough frames used to working on other boats or who, even if they were going out at sea for the very first time, wouldn’t be much of a bother. A tough body was the most important requisite. If they didn’t know the job they could be taught by the by instead of simpering on their bunks until the boat returned to shore.

Chap was to be sent to the third boat to replace a greenhorn who had run away when the boat had entered the Chumphon estuary to sell its catch.

Thaokae Kok’s four boats trawled in areas close to one another. Usually they would not spend more than fifteen days at sea. But when they went far down south, the owner wanted to save on fuel while having the boats trawl for fish as long as possible, so he ordered them to return to Chumphon after trawling for ten to twelve days, unload some of their fish and shrimp, take on more fuel and ice, then go on trawling for another seven days and nights on average.

The call at Chumphon meant trouble for the fishing boats. The greenhorns who couldn’t bear the ruthlessness of life at sea took to their heels on the very night their boat called to port. Guys like these thought of nothing else but getting away from the hellish abyss they had every intention of never returning to. When A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

8 they reached the coast in one piece and found their two feet firmly on the ground, even with nothing but the shirt on their back, no money in the pocket and no idea of what nasty retributions lied ahead, they were fully prepared to face up to anything.

Each trip a greenhorn or two would make themselves scarce. Some did ask to leave beforehand, but grovel as they might, begging for sympathy with distraught faces, the captain, who held supreme power on board, would stand firm and with a harsh voice insist, You’ve got to stay on, son, the work isn’t over yet, the boat must keep on trawling for days. That was the rule boat owners had set and insisted on having upheld strictly.

The Chumphon estuary had no office for odd jobs on the sly, nor did it have young stragglers with cloth bags on their shoulders shuffling along sun-scorched streets looking for employment. The new recruits who came on board at Mahachai had to return to land where they had started.

The captain relied on the trawl master and those he trusted to keep an eye on the new hands to make sure they did not take French leave. For all his exhortations, once the catch was discharged and money apportioned to buy a few things, the trawl master as well as those others the captain trusted as his eyes and ears would usually relax their watch, letting the greenhorns who had it up to here with the sea slip away for good almost every time.

Sometimes the fugitives were corralled again. Then the PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

9 fate of these young strangers was no different from that of convicts. They were given a beating within an inch of their lives and flumped back onto the boats once again.

Thaokae Kok’s boats were infamous for this, especially boat two and boat three, whose brutish enforcement methods were known to all.

Chap sat morose in the lower quarters. The deck boss and his team were setting the fishing gear. No one thought of shouting at him to come and help. The thin young fellow wasn’t part of the crew, just a parcel that would be swung over to Sila 3 in a few days’ time.

Chap looked much younger than he was. When he had a good look at him for the first time in the galley, Sak guessed he must be around twenty (not twenty-six as he would later on learn was his real age). He had soft, boyish features, but deep in his eyes a puzzling expression was hidden. Looking at his appearance, Sak could only sigh ruefully as he thought, Poor skinny devil, how many tides will you withstand the harshness of the sea?

Sak had been with Sila 4 for nearly two years now. At first he had given himself the aim to be its pilot. It turned out the boat needed a cook—a position everyone said was harder to fill than that of captain even. Jiang knew he could cook some, so he had pleaded with him to take the job for the nonce.

He had been on boats since he was fifteen. Almost eleven full years at sea had thus gone by in a life of vagrancy, tough work, and destitution on trawlers of A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

10 various sizes, sometimes opting to work on other types of craft. Everything had gone by like in a dream. Besides his scar and physical deformity, there were only painful memories that were truly his.

Sak had hoped to work his way to important positions onboard. Several times it seemed he would. He almost made fishing master on several occasions. With perseverance, he’d make first pilot. But finally such hopes had vanished.

They were crushed in an instant. Their debris smothered his feelings, decayed with time and evaporated in the mercilessness of life. Sak at first raged and raved against one and all, venting his resentment on the lowliest crew, pouring out all of his bile onto others. When he eventually cooled down, he’d smile derisively on life, used by then to breathing listlessly. What else could he hope for?

What else could he want? The position of cook was too fancy already for someone the heavens had nothing to give to. One day at a time he ate his fill and slept soundly, saw to the green supplies, responsible as he was over the welfare of all stomachs on board, and was ‘Gimp’ to Thaokae Kok. The life of someone with a limp like him had already reached its peak.

Fate must have drawn the line for him just there.

The year Chap set foot on the boat, Thaokae Kok was sixty-two years old. He was the proud owner of four trawlers – as many as the sons his wife had borne him. The eldest was on the fourth boat, the youngest on the first, the PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

11 second oldest on boat two, the third oldest on boat three.

When the fourth boat came out of the shipyard, one of his neighbours teased him with, Surely that’s enough for you now, you aren’t going to build another, are you, unless you’ve got a minor wife stashed away somewhere who’ll give you another son in your old age?

Thaokae Kok neither smiled nor laughed. With a blank face suited to his total lack of humour, he gazed out at the canal bank where his boats were moored. If anything, his plump face betrayed his pride at having all of his sons as captains. Besides, he was probably also proud of his latest acquisition.

Sila 1 has fostered Thaokae Kok’s fortune. Jiang, his eldest son, had captained the first boat of the family for a total of twelve years. He had moved to Sila 4 when it came in commission, making way for his youngest brother, Priang, who had just got over his drug addiction. After his father had copiously threatened and mollified him, going as far as boxing his ears repeatedly, Priang had been forced to take to the sea as captain of Sila 1, with the pilot, a seasoned middle-aged man, to coach him.

Of Thaokae Kok’s four sons, Jiang was the kind one.

He was reserved and circumspect, cool as custard and not foul-mouthed as seafarers usually are, and he had never laid a finger on any of his men, not even once. He stayed mostly in his cabin and in the pilothouse. Once in a long while would he walk up to the prow and let saltwater sully his fine skin.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

12 The crew gossiped in his back, saying things like they doubted he was the son of Thaokae Kok and Mrs. Jaem Ratsamee, who was known as Granny Cheng. He must have been adopted as a baby to be so different from his father and three brothers, whose behaviour and his were as unlike as black and white. But someone as conciliating and loathe to falling out with anyone as Jiang sometimes made the men under him unhappy just the same.

Almost all sailors in the Sila company wanted to sail with Jiang, because they were certain they wouldn’t be reviled by their captain the way they were on the other boats, wouldn’t be harmed physically as well as mentally. When truly angered, Jiang would only show his feelings on his face, which turned a deep red like an oversized bird pepper, or he would down a half bottle of liquor in one sitting. It wasn’t often you heard swearwords out of his mouth, merely a ‘You damn so-and-so, you aren’t worth the rice you eat!’ For those deckhands who were used to all kinds of abuse and rudeness, the cuss words on Jiang’s lips were like refreshing puffs of breeze wafting across their faces.

The galley was dead quiet. Along the partition wall of the wheelhouse was Pilot Phoo’s bunk. He had lined up eight boards side by side, covered them with a double layer of gunny bags and propped a much squashed much sweat-stained pillow against the sill of the starboard porthole. At close to one hundred twenty kilos, PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

13 Phoo was the heaviest man on board. After his watch at the helm, he’d lie peaceably like a pig in its sty. On slack-water days, the portly swine would stew in his juices, snoring to high heaven. Next to the wooden bunk, there was a stretch of wooden floor. On the funnel side three bags of rice were stacked, and next to them there was a wide-board storage space where tools were kept.

As the boat eased away from the harbor, Sak sat massaging the instep of his foot and looking at Chap, who, squatting chin in hand, stared out the porthole. Lights from the houses along the canal glittered in the dark. He must be missing home, or else impatient to see the wondrously huge expanse of the sea. He must have heard his friends say the sea at night was beautifully smooth, faint phosphorescent mother-of-pearl scales showing off in emerald-shaded tinsels beyond both gunwales. Maybe he was waiting to see the row of shore lights recede like hundreds of stars dangling on a line that would slowly fade away swallowed by darkness.

The iron funnel that shot through the two floors of crew quarters and through their common roof was getting hot, as was the wooden partition above the engine.

That was the reason why deckhands didn’t like to sleep in the lower quarters. Sometimes the five or six boards of the floor were so hot you couldn’t put your back to them. The engine roared all the time, making conversation difficult.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

14 Unhurriedly Chap picked up his paper bag, took out a pair of Chinese trousers and a brand-new shirt that would be his work clothes and put them by his side.

Thaokae Kok had treated him as he did all new workers, giving him a three-hundred-baht advance to buy himself a few things before going aboard. He had bought a large tin of talcum powder, a pen and a write pad. Must be a letter writer who worried about home and family, a model son forced to leave his parents for the sake of money, who had come over with tears of longing he was doing his best to keep inside before anyone could notice.

A big bottle of shampoo and a big cake of soap were next to each other in a plastic bag. Seeing them, Sak chuckled to himself. ’Poor scarecrow, you’ve prepared everything to keep yourself spick and span.’ The few tanks of freshwater of a trawler wouldn’t give him much of a chance to use those articles as he pleased. He probably wouldn’t use the soap and shampoo he had bought more than a couple of times.

Sak wondered about cigarettes, which were important convenience goods on board. Eight of the ten deckhands were chain smokers. When there were no more cigarettes to be bought or borrowed, the sills of the portholes became treasure troves where they’d look for the butts they had stubbed out and dumped there. The sill groves were narrow and deep. They used strips of wood to retrieve bits of paper and cigarette butts one by one.

Chap didn’t smoke. There wasn’t even a pack of PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

15 cigarettes or a pouch of tobacco among his gear. Sak stared at Chap’s sallow face and stubbly head—must have just disrobed right at the end of Lent, a good man who knows no vice and has never got anywhere near all those dens of iniquity.

The sea has no need for good men, Sak reflected. Chap was to be thoroughly tested. For the next three to four months, the weather out there would be fierce. Tomorrow he’d get a hangover that needed no liquor to make him puke.

Chap put his things together then eased himself down, his arm supporting his crew-cut. He turned his head to look briefly at Sak with an impassive face. Didn’t seem at all excited by the sea that awaited him.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

16 Chapter Two Sila 4 had been plying gentle seas on its way south for eight hours, dropping its first net in the darkness before dawn. Shortly thereafter, the first rays of a new day greeted the sky. The southbound trawler dropped the net another three or four times, then turned to meet the other boats of the group. On every side, all was water and sky. Not a single island in sight. An electric-powered boat was anchored in the distance, its flanks shimmering with reflected lights.

The damn scarecrow wasn’t seasick, contrary to the expectations of many deckhands. Chap had got up to help with the net every time, but his behaviour was no different from that of any greenhorn. He stood clumsily, not quite knowing what to do, sometimes standing in other people’s way. Several times he was roundly shouldered away.

He staggered and almost lost his balance when the boat turned sharply round to get to the net from the rear. He rose to his full length only to be sent reeling against the ice grinder to whose feeder he clung. Astonished, he looked at the net which a pulley with two warps working alternately was hauling off the water a few yards at a time. The wires and rollers of the heavedup net landed on the deck with a clatter. The boat listed under the weight of the net as if it were about to turn turtle. At times the starboard gunwale was almost level with the water surface.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

17 Jiang stood ordering the moves by the wheelhouse door to starboard, intently watching the net’s bulging cod end emerge slowly from the water. The stretched warps of the pulley shrieked and shook. Gradually the net found itself gathered in the middle of the deck. Then the cod end was lifted, a knot opened in the bottom of the net and a mass of mud-plastered fish came gushing out.

Jiang briefly took stock of the catch, then turned to order the pilot to steer south. Three or four deckhands helped one another swing the net over the gunwale and ease it into the water bit by bit. A new trawl was beginning, the boat still heading south.

A few hours later, an island appeared to the southwest and became increasingly visible as the boat inched closer. After the next trawl, Sila 3 hauling to the wind made for Sila 4 and came alongside.

Chap gathered his belongings, walked out to stand and wait by the side of the boat. He looked briefly at Sak. Sak smiled at him by way of valediction – Have a good trip, mate. I hope you won’t suffer too much.

Sak was a hundred-percent sure he’d never see the scarecrow again. Greenhorns sent to work on Sila 3 in the past, if they didn’t vanish at Chumphon, bided their time until they landed at Mahachai. From there, they took the faint smell of seawater and the rashes on their bodies on a search for some other kind of work.

The sea was almost dormant. Chap was lucky that the A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

18 two boats could stay cheek by jowl; he crossed over easily.

The crews greeted one another. The pilot of boat three came over to get the books he had asked Jiang to buy for him, sat talking with Phoo for a while then crossed back.

The lines were released, the two boats slowly parted.

The disappearing Sila 3 was about to set its fishing gear. Dorm, the deck boss, towered at the prow, his tall body cram-packed with bulging muscles, his bare shoulders chunky like the humps of a gaur. He was past forty, but his powerful built was still that of a much younger man.

Three days went by. Sap forgot Chap completely.

Chap was like hundreds and thousands of greenhorns that just came and went. Every year, Sila 4 used no fewer than fifty or sixty such workers, each coming for a short spell. These guys had no more value than a drop of water in the ocean.

Sak took his watch at the helm after the evening net was hauled up. It was an extra job for which Thaokae Kok paid him eight hundred baht a month. He sat watching the helm and the compass for six hours, alert to any possible mishap such as stalling when the net dragged in sand or got caught on an underwater wreck or was burdened with something heavy like fish-trap rocks or thick logs. Sixty, eighty meters down below, there weren’t only the shrimp and fish they wanted; all sorts of unwelcome things were hidden there. It was PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

19 often that underwater rock or sandy soil made one of the wire lines towing the net snap.

In the hours when all lives were resting under starstudded skies and the sea moaned and groaned in the dark, the trawler was like an alert animal. It was perpetually hungry, growling as it crawled on the skin of the water. Deep down, two beams were dragged along the earth and mud of the sea bottom. The rollers whirled and bumped along the seabed, stirring the mud, turning the waters thick and murky. Startled schools of fish fled in confusion. The gaping mouth of the net sucked and swallowed the unlucky prey down its pouch every second.

With up to thirty trawlers plying the same waters back and forth and crisscrossing each other, the pilots had to keep their distance from neighbouring craft to avoid net lines or beams getting entangled. When that happened, the deckhands had to scramble up on deck to pull up the nets in a hurry. Nobody liked such emergencies: they were both a waste of time and a waste of energy.

The lantern on the roof of the boat flickered in the darkness. Way out there some boats were ablaze with lights.

The nets being hoisted threw pitch-black shadows across the decks.

These were magic hours. Sak kept informed of the moves of the other boats by two-way radio. Some pilots were talkative, always found something funny or selfserving to entertain their friends with. The one hundred A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

20 and twenty channels of the black-ant radio brought news from the land – political news, parliamentary election results, world boxing title fights, and murders on solid ground.

‘Hey you, beanpole,’ Tiang shouted, ‘step aside. Can’t you see you’re in the way?’

Chap got a new name as soon as he went to work on deck on his first day with Sila 3. Tiang’s moniker for the new deckhand with the gangly body was instantly adopted by everyone.

Chap only stood looking at other people working.

Dorm glared at him several times while the net was being hoisted. All the important tasks were taken by the old hands. Chap thus escaped being berated. Once the fishing gear was set again, he was made to shovel the fish onto the line of hold hatches running the length of the deck for others to sort out. He who had never had a shovel in his hands stood tottering. The winds of mid October whipped the sea into demented waves over every square inch. He worked sluggishly, slipping the blade of the shovel under the mass of fish and coming up with a few fishes at a time.

Shovelling fish is work that demands only strength. It doesn’t require any special knowledge or ability. The deck boss always assigns the task to greenhorns, who may know the names of only a few fish species and are in any case unable to tell them apart.

Chap kept being abused by the other deckhands, who PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

21 urged him to work faster. The four piles of fish on the hold hatches kept disappearing so fast he couldn’t keep up. It was hard for his scrawny arms and thin hands to work deftly and vigorously. It wasn’t long before he started gasping for air. The shovel was getting terribly heavy and the fish harder to scoop up with every heave.

Dorm went straight at him, knocked him on the head once. ‘Don’t be so goddamn lazy. Get a move on or you slow down the whole process.’

After getting through the big heap of fish, Chap held the hose for the old deckhands to wash the fish now sorted out in large baskets. They took a basket by its handles on both sides, stiffened their wrists and shook for the fish underneath to come up on top. There was a knack to it and it was no greenhorn’s game, so he was put to hold the hose instead.

Once the fish were washed, some of the deckhands opened the ice holds and prepared to line up the fish in crates. An inexperienced worker like Chap was put to grind the ice. Turning the wheel with his hands soon drained him of all strength. The others pulled him out and took to doing the job themselves.

He was put to lift the baskets of ice and pour the ice blocks down the mouth of the grinder. His arms were getting weaker all the time. He had hardly brought up a basket to the mouth of the grinder when a big wave crashed against the boat. He lost his balance, slipped and fell. The ice blocks scattered about.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

22 ‘You jerk!’ Dorm shouted, coming straight at him at once.

Chap was leaning forward to get up. Dorm knocked him on the head once again, hard this time, so that the thin body fell back on its bottom. Dorm stepped closer and standing on his left foot lifted his right foot for a devastating kick.

The foot slammed into something hard.

Not the nape of Chap’s neck – Chap had averted his head in time. Dorm’s foot missing its mark had crashed into the ice grinder with all its might.

Dorm withdrew his foot, bent down, put his hand over his knee and squeezed it strongly, jaws clenched. Blood gushed out of the instep. He stood rigid for a moment trying to master his pain, made to walk but his one good foot wouldn’t allow him to return to his cabin. The tall big body staggered on the verge of collapse. Three of his men rushed forth to support him under the arms.

In front of others, Dorm was unyielding. Tears fell, blood gushed all over the instep – he didn’t even grunt.

As soon as he had left and sat nursing his foot alone at the stern, his mouth opened and he screamed.

The engineer was the one who stanched the blood and applied an ointment to the wound. The metatarsi of Dorm’s right foot stuck out for all to see. The engineer checked his condition, then told Dorm, ‘You won’t be walking normal again for quite a while.’

After the work over the current catch was done, five or PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

23 six old hands set upon the goddamn beanpole. Sustained thumping went on for almost ten minutes. When the engineer and the pilot came out to put a stop to it, it was too late. Chap was sprawled out on deck, mouth full of blood, eyes puffed up and black.

That very afternoon he was sent over to Sila 2 and exchanged for another greenhorn.

Chap at this stage in life was in for bad trouble. Even though he had done no harm by himself, the very fact that by averting his head he had made Dorm kick the ice grinder was enough for Dorm to convince himself Chap was the cause of his wound and pain. Men like Dorm never blamed themselves. They were always ready to judge others guilty of their own sins. His ill will was known to all.

On Sila 3, second to Captain Tiang’s, Dorm’s decisions had force of law on all matters. He was both trawl master and first pilot. His knowledge of the sea was vastly superior to Tiang’s. If he was his second, it was only because it hadn’t been his good luck to be born a son of Thaokae Kok’s.

Wherever he was born, Dorm had come to stay with Thaokae Kok since he was a child. His resilience and loyalty to his boss had made him a trusted favourite of his. The other boat owners in the neighbourhood would often pull Thaokae Kok’s leg on the theme – You should build another boat for your fifth son. Sometimes, Thaokae Kok got the joke and answered good-humouredly.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

24 ‘I’m thinking about it. This man Dorm, you know, he’s tops in everything.’

The four Sila boats had come into being with Dorm. He went on board and left, was in and out of the wheelhouse, turned the radio on and off, moved the compass at will on each boat as if he owned them all. Even though his official job was only as fishing master, he could pilot and ease into port better than any of Thaokae Kok’s sons. He knew his trawl and how to run a deck.

As rumour had it, if Thaokae Kok got himself a new boat, no way the position of captain would go to someone else.

Countless numbers of new recruits had fallen afoul of his foul temper. Some had had their skulls split open, others their arms or legs broken. Many were left in such bad shape they had to be fed rice soup a drop at a time.

It wasn’t just his fists, feet, knees, elbows: anything close at hand—rakes, shovels, lines, hooks—became a ready weapon for Dorm to harm others with anytime.

Only a few months before Chat came on board, a lanky young man had returned ignominiously to land with a gaping wound on his head, gone straight to the police station, told his tale and demanded the arrest of the man who had done this to him. The wound had not been stitched, the physical pain had yet to subside, but the pain in the heart was even fiercer—he wanted the one who had broken the law to be punished. Five police officers went along with him to Thaokae Kok’s house, PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

25 but they didn’t go after the guilty party. Instead, they talked to Thaokae Kok on the sofas downstairs, and that was all there was to the story. The police took the plaintiff rather than the accused back to the station and didn’t enter the complaint in their log.

Out of the goodness of his heart, the officer on duty that day told the deckhand with the broken skull: ‘Go back home, buddy, get that wound on your head treated. And don’t you dare risk jail again by making false reports. You know damn well what it was you bumped your head into. Don’t cast aspersions on other people.’

Dorm got away with it nice and easy for the five-hundredth time. Every time his evil ways brought police contingents to the house along with his victims, Dorm sneaked out and put himself to pasture for a while. The police never got anywhere near him and the stories ended in Thaokae Kok’s guestroom every single time.

Besides Dorm, the other members of the crew knew that crime and the hand of the law had walls within walls between them, so that nobody wanted to argue with Dorm, everybody let him have his way—sometimes to excess, no doubt. If they couldn’t countenance it, they walked away quietly—walked away from Thaokae Kok’s house without making a hue and cry over what had been.

Chap was the first to make Dorm hurt badly. His best foot had suffered a deep wound. It had to be wrapped in A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

26 gauze and he could hardly walk. Within hours, the news of his plight was all over the other three boats of the company.

Chap went over to Sila 2 as a refugee. Tiang in his kindness didn’t want him to be set upon further, never mind the rights and wrongs of the case. Tiang was not a clever man who thought things through and he had no particular sympathy for Chap; he just wanted the incident to be over. As it happened, the second boat offered an easy way out. It had a greenhorn ready to be exchanged and it trawled nearby. It didn’t take twenty minutes to reach it and heave to.

Boat two was no secure place for Chap. Son, the trawl master, came from the same village as Dorm. Besides, it was Dorm who had taken Son to work with Thaokae Kok, who had sponsored him and trained him so he could work his way up to this important post.

Son was handsome, ten years younger than Dorm, swift and nimble, and all of one hundred seventy-five centimetres tall. Every time there was a brawl with the crews of other boats, Son was in the thick of it. He was no less partial to a fight fair or foul than Dorm was.

On port calls, Son’s waist would wear a nylon cord instead of a belt, with a lead ball half an inch thick attached to one end. It was his weapon of choice. He used it expertly and with deadly accuracy. When the lead ball at the end of the cord was sent spinning by a hand and arm powered by ten years of hard work, it PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

27 flung to the target with speed and might. If it struck legs, the other guy fell; higher, it broke an elbow or a forearm; higher still, it could burst heads open.

Son was Dorm’s deathly shadow—a loyal bodyguard, always ready to protect his flanks. When boat two and boat three happened to call to port at the same time, cruelty was in the air and dimmed the land.

Chap went over to the other boat in a parlous state.

Dry blood left splotches and streaks at the back of his shirt. His lips were swollen, his eyes black and blue.

Winds and waves gradually increased in strength.

Chap could hardly walk. He wasn’t seasick, had never ducked out of it. Even though he couldn’t help his mates very much, he came out to work on deck every time he heard the bell ring and went back to lie down together with the others.

Son knew what had happened aboard Sila 3, but he bided his time. He was a rather cautious man not much given to rash decisions. If he was to bash a deckhand out at sea, he had to have good enough reasons to explain to the captain what it was had provoked him beyond endurance. It wasn’t the same with brawls on land, where any pretext was good enough and sometimes wasn’t even needed.

Usually Son was a jolly good fellow, who liked to fool around with his men after work, kicking them in the ass for fun, grabbing one and throwing him overboard, laughing and bantering boisterously with his favorites.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

28 Son was like a slack sea but with vicious undercurrents. His number-one buddy, his mentor, his senior was in pain because of Chap. That bastard had made Dorm lose face and walk without grace. Son stole glances at Chap and waited quietly for his opportunity.

When Chap came over, the deckhands were on the point of exhaustion. The boat had been out for many days; there was no longer any fun on board: no more horsing around, no more jostling or wrestling each other on deck after work. Faces were scowling or sullen. Chap helped cheer them up a bit. He was something funny to laugh at, a target on which to work off their frustrations.

He was the latest and weakest recruit at the end of the line whose very presence raised some of the deckhands a notch, made them feel they had gained in importance.

For the first three days, Chap was a regular joke. Many ragged him, laughed when he slipped and fell or when a blue swimming crab pinched his hand and he grimaced with pain. His little miseries generated guffaws from everyone around him every time.

After that, the invectives from various mouths were meant for him alone. Some kicked him in the butt playfully then went on to knock him on the head once, threw seawater at him, grabbed a rotten fish and threw it at his back.

Chap kept quiet, reacting to no one.

By the fourth day after Sila 4 left port, the boat rode dazzling white waves, rolling under their ramming. It PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

29 was almost time to sell the catch and take on more ice and fuel at the Chumphon estuary. The heavy load helped the boat fight the waves to some extent. That night, just as Sak took his watch at the helm, Pilot Oot of Sila 2 was calling for him to get in touch. He asked him to switch the radio wavelength to one particular channel. Then he told Sak excitedly: ‘You know what? Something happened I never thought would happen. Never on my life, I swear. Nobody’s noticed the look in the dingo’s eyes. He’s got eyes like he’ll yield to no one. A brave if there’s one, I say.’

Some deckhand had thrown mud smack into Chap’s face. The mud mixed with seawater stung his eyes. He couldn’t see for a while. He put down his shovel, walked over to the gunwale to spit and retch. It took him two or three minutes to get rid of the muck in his mouth. As he scooped seawater to wash his face, one of Son’s buddies suddenly fancied he felt pity for Chap—the greenhorn was seasick and pouring his guts out. He moved close to him and started to stroke his back, but instead of his hand, he used his foot clad in a rubber boot. There he stood in his splendour, hands on hips, grinning regally to his friends.

Chap raised his head and looked over his back. A wave crashed on the gunwale. He slipped and fell hard on his bottom. The rubber-booted foot kept at his back, stroking now with increasing strength. Suddenly the spindly body sprung up, catching the foot owner unA DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

30 awares. Chap’s fist smashed half into the mouth half into the nose, sending the thickset body sprawling backward.

‘The power the damn beanpole packs in his punch is no joke,’ Pilot Oot went on telling Sak gleefully. ‘The mother had glazed eyes and a bloody mouth, but the beanpole didn’t have time to admire his handiwork. Son and five deckhands fell on him there and then. He fought back without blinking. They punched and kicked him, sent him reeling, knocked him down. He got up and next found himself sprawled all over the fish with blood all over his face. He leaned forward to get up and fight on, wielding shovels awkwardly and rakes to fend off the kicks. Several shovels and rakes ended up in the water. Then he stuck his back against the ice grinder, protecting himself as best he could. Neither Son nor his men could get him without getting hurt, they all got their quotas of punches that put them on their asses one after the other.’

By the time Thiang and Pilot Oot came out of the galley to stop the fight, Chap lay unconscious by the pile of fish.

When he had been revived, he was sent over to Sila 1.

He was badly bruised. He’d have to lie down for days before he could do any work again. He was so badly hurt that, if the boat had put in at a port, he’d have had to be rushed to a doctor and would have ended on a hospital bed, destitute and out of work though he was, PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

31 with neither next of kin nor money nor insurance scheme to pay for his treatment. But that would have been better than lying moaning and groaning below deck ignored by everyone.

The other boats were eager to find out what had happened. It helped relieve boredom while you sat at the helm. Friends from the other boats questioned Pilot Oot on how the little prick was doing. Was he conscious yet?

Was he back on his feet? Could he work? He’d been sent back to land, right? Pilot Oot stalled for quite some time before he let out, He’s been sent on to Sila 1.

Some who didn’t listen to how the fight had started concluded it was Chap’s fault. He was a bad number, and that’s what had led to the fight. Provoking others like that, he’d deserve to be thrown overboard and done with.

Sak sat listening to the criticisms while stroking the scar on his instep. He felt sorry for the poor scarecrow, and was relieved to learn Sila 1 was about to return to shore – there was only one hold of ice left. He’s still lucky after all, Sak thought.

One afternoon, Sila 1 came close by while still trawling. Sak looked over and saw Chap standing shovel in hand by the pile of fish on deck. So he’s still around and apparently happy enough to be on this new boat, Sak thought with satisfaction. In a few days, the poor devil will go ashore. As soon as his feet touch the ground, I bet he’ll run away from these parts as fast he can.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

32 But Sak had guessed wrong.

The captain of boat two forbade Chap to go ashore. He had made several shovels and rakes fall overboard; he’d have to work on for some time to come to compensate for the losses.

Before Priang took Sila 1 to shore, Chap was ordered to transfer to boat three.

Sila 3 was just out of Mahachai. Dorm’s right foot must have much improved by now. Maybe he’d want to test its ability to kick once again.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

33 Chapter Three When Sila 4 put in at Mahachai, Sak learned that the stories about Chap that had spread by word of mouth were so outlandish they bore little relation to reality. In the telling, he had become an archfiend who had managed to put several men out of work. Thaokae Kok and Granny Cheng were incensed. They admonished their children, and Jiang in particular, Donʹt you let the bastard on shore yet, let him have a rough time of it for a few months.

Sila 4 was at anchor for three nights, then left to ride the waves southbound. It was getting to November, the beginning of the worst season for sailors. Nobody liked the big waves that brought cold and pain and fever to those who had been with the sea all their lives, who had gone through dozens of monsoon seasons. If they had a choice, they’d want the sea to have but gentle waves and even gentler winds to keep them cool.

The boat left port in the morning, and soon after sailing past Cha-am there was a looming mountain range and when that was left behind, after another three hours of cutting through the waves, Sila 4 met with Sila 2 which was returning to port. There was one parcel Thiang was to send across. The boats couldn’t come alongside. The end of a thick line was hurled across to receive the parcel.

Sak hobbled out and went to stand by the gunwale, saw Chap come out and stand at the prow of boat A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

34 two: he was the parcel. Sak realized then Chap had been sent over to boat two again, back among the old foes he had fought once.

Clinging to the line that dipped into the water, Chap progressed hand to hand toward Sila 4. Master Keut and two deckhands put out their arms for him to grab. Keut’s sturdy arms lifted the dripping body out of the water and laid it down on deck. Chap looked like a skinny cat under wanton torture. His wet hair, which had grown longer and pliant, stuck to the skin of his skull. His left eye was swollen and there was a gaping wound high on his forehead from which blood had begun to ooze again.

He had been dumped like a rag as the two boats passed each other. Boat two grew distant in the rear until only its mast was visible. Phoo revved the engine, taking Sila 4 toward the south. The deckhands went back to their quarters.

Chap raised his head and sat up and then stayed still as a dark shadow devoid of feeling. Waves flushed over the prow relentlessly, dousing and pummelling his body. He slowly rose, stood up unsteadily.

Uncle Nui emerged from the engine room and stood looking at Chap for quite a while before stepping up to him. ‘Why don’t you give yourself a shower, young man? Then go lie down in the galley. If you fell overboard, no one’d notice.’

Uncle Nui stood looking at Chap shower with fresh water. He followed him to the stern then called out, ‘Hey, Sak, take care of this guy, will you?’

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

35 Sak nodded. Uncle Nui crawled back down to the engine room.

Chap was left with only torn clothes. He took off his mud-splattered trousers, hung them over the wire of the stern pole outside, stepped back into the galley naked but for the briefs he wore, sat down hugging his chest, his back to the bags of rice, slowly closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

Sap sat looking at Chap and thinking of how it was it had all gone wrong for him. It was his fault to begin with that he had decided to cross the threshold of Thaokae Kok’s house, Sak thought. With this wrong first step, the next steps could only be worse and sink him deeper into torment, turning him into a defendant deprived of any means of defence.

An enormous wave rammed the boat, which shook all over. The emaciated body slumped against the bags of rice was started awake. He raised his head and looked around, arms tight around the chest, lips aquiver.

‘If you’re cold, move over to the funnel,’ Sak suggested. ‘It’ll warm you up.’

Chap turned to look at Sak briefly, lowered his head, closed his eyes and tightened the hold on his chest. His hair, dry by now, stuck up like quills. The blood had stopped flowing from the wound on his forehead and begun to coagulate into dark-red blotches.

Sak lied down on the floor next to him at about arm’s length. This was the sleeping area of the boat’s cook, next A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

36 to the stove and the pantry. Sak was used to the smell of vegetable oil, of smoke from the fire, the smell of onion, garlic and soy sauce, which mixed pungently with the wafts of engine oil and grease from the room below.

Uncle Nui too was used to this medley of smells. He had been close to Sak for the past two years. From time to time he’d emerge from the engine room to come and sit down, roll himself a cigarette and prompt Sak to talk.

He’d grin and guffaw genially.

A dour smell of sweat came from the body that slept huddled against the bags of rice. Chap’s eyes were shut tight, his breathing even. His shoulders, arms, chest and stomach were covered with small wounds and scratches and bruises. He had been beaten up many times while onboard Sila 2.

Though he was in pain, Chap was like an animal toughing it out. He felt no concern for himself, went out to work with the others as usual. He no longer had to shovel fish: this was now the duty of two greenhorns.

He sat sorting out the fish with Master Keut. Night-trawl catch was easy to sort out. It was mostly chickenfeed and tiny sand shrimp. There were only a few sorts of quality fish to put aside into crates.

Chap worked quietly, hardly talking to anyone. Once the sorting-out was done, he stood up, took a shovel, filled the crates with fish, pulled them in a row and waited to shake them clean under the hose.

Keut was a strong man of forty-seven. He never yelled at PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

37 his men, let everyone work at his own pace. Sila 4 had almost no history of deckhands being bullied by their boss.

There were hardly any quarrels. Keut had been there a long time and got along well with Jiang. Both had made Thaokae Kok’s fourth boat a heaven of peace and quiet.

Before that, Pilot Phoo was the one who was fierce. He was the only one to swear at the deckhands in the foulest language. Lately, he had gone into trade to supplement his income, buying all kinds of foodstuff and other essentials to sell onboard. As everyone was now a dear customer, he had taken to smiling and being considerate. He’d only curse when he wasn’t paid in full.

Chap’s skin began to be sunburned. His face was weathered, his back full of peeling scrapes. His hands, once so thin you could see the sinews, couldn’t quite fold into fists these days, swollen with corns and cracked as they were. After five or six days on boat four, the wound on his forehead had begun to heal. Much of the bruises and scratches on his body had gone.

He was incredibly tough. More than thirty days it was now that he hadn’t seen the land. He had gone through several rounds of bashing that had left him in critical condition, but he still put up with his fate without complaint, without opening his mouth even once to beg for sympathy.

When it was time to eat, he went on with his meal quietly. Sak observed him closely. His own mother used to tell him you can find out much about people from the A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

38 way they eat. You can see the hungry. You can see the gluttons, see those who eat like they don’t know the value of food, those who eat in order to live and those who swallow their food as they do their sorrow.

Chap ate as if it was a duty of some kind, without gusto, as though he didn’t know the taste of what he ate; each mouthful like dry straw stuffed into a bamboo tube. Sak watched him silently and couldn’t help but sigh.

Several days later, he noticed that Chap did not dare dump his plate in the big basin he had put out for the deckhands to leave their crockery in when they were finished eating. Chap would walk to the gunwale, scoop up seawater and clean his own spoon and plate.

Sak washed everybody’s plates, and charged each man ten baht per trip as a way to supplement his income. He knew Chap was being considerate, aware that he wasn’t going to stay on the boat forever and might not have the opportunity to pay his share.

One of the net beams caught one afternoon. The deckhands were ten minutes into their meal when the bell called them up on deck. Full or not, they had to rush to their respective stations at the prow. Chap stood up plate in hand.

‘Put it in the basin,’ Sak told him. ‘I’ll wash it with the others. Hurry back to work. If you’re late, you’ll have the master on your back.’

Chap let the plate slide into the basin as he was told, PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

39 looked up and held Sak’s gaze for a moment, opened his mouth slightly as if to smile, but his eyes weren’t in the least cheerful.

Several nights went by. Sak and Chap slept side by side amid the throbbing of the engine and the snoring of Pilot Phoo when he wasn’t on duty, amid the smell of engine oil and grease, and the smell of brine which the wind brought in through the portholes.

The smell of salt and fish that came out of Chap’s body was getting offensive. He stank like someone who hadn’t had a shower in ages. His head was white and shiny with fish scales and streaks of mud ran down his backside.

‘Hey, mate,’ Sak finally told him. ‘Why don’t you give yourself a good scrubbing for a change?’

Chap sat still, his back to the bags of rice, looking through a porthole, motionless as if he was fully caught up in the magic of the waves.

‘You’ve been at sea for more than a month, you know.’

Sak turned up his nose. ‘You should know how to clean yourself properly.’ Still not a word from Chap. Sak tried again. ‘When the work is over, you use seawater from the hose to drench yourself and get rid of the scales and mud entirely, and then pour a few scoops of water over yourself. No one will see anything wrong with that.’

That’s how the deckhands washed themselves. There was enough freshwater in the two wooden tanks in front of the quarters if it was used sparingly. At Chumphon, A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

40 the tanks were refilled at the ice factory. It wasn’t as bad as on some boats where you had to boil ice to cook the rice.

The most health-conscious deckhands covered themselves in scented talcum powder before they turned in and stretched out contentedly. If anybody in the top quarters smelled as foul as Chap did, that cramped box in which up to ten men managed to sleep would stink like a hen house.

Come the next trawl, Sak waited until Chap had finished his work and came back from the prow to beckon him over. He had prepared everything for him – a sarong, an old pair of Chinese trousers, a shirt, a piece of soap and a bottle of shampoo. ‘Here, mate, use these. Go wash yourself, so you smell good for once.’

Chap took the proffered items and walked back to the prow. Some twenty minutes later, he was back with a sparking-clean body, his hair still wet. He wore the threadbare Chinese trousers Sak had forsaken for him.

As soon as he sat down, Sak handed him a box of cooling talcum powder. ‘Take this, you’ll smell even better.’

Chap powdered his armpits and his neck, his left hand flat on the wooden floor, all five fingers inflamed. The nail of the index finger was torn off a dark-red wound. A murex shell had sliced deep into the fleshy part of his arm.

Sak walked over to the wheelhouse, opened the pharmacy and took out a small bottle of iodine and a pack of cotton.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

41 Chap sat with his legs spread out. Sak put the iodine and cotton down in front of him. ‘Rub some of this over your wounds, you’ll work the easier for it,’ he said. He took Chap’s left hand, turned it over to have a look. The hand was still slim and light, with only early stigmata of work.

‘Did you get into fights again on boat two?’ Sak asked.

Chap nodded slowly, bent over as he tended his wounds. Sak said: ‘Dorm has always been like this. And Son too. You shouldn’t argue with the likes of them, just put up with it no matter what.’

Chap looked up and smiled briefly. ‘How much is a shovel, do you know?’

Sak laughed. ‘Just a few baht. And a rake too, right?

Not even a hundred.’

Chap lowered his head, went on massaging his arm, frowning hard as he figured out his debt and wages and how long it’d be before he went to shore. Sak turned his face away with a wry smile – it wasn’t a question of a few rusty shovels and rakes. Thaokae Kok had ordered his sons to teach the troublemaker a lesson by keeping him at sea.

‘How much does a worker get?’ Chap asked, staring at Sak, waiting for his answer.

‘Maybe nine hundred?’ Sak said. ‘That’s the minimum rate. If you work better than this, know how to repair a net, say, you’ll get one thousand two to one thousand five.’

Chap turned to look through the porthole. Whitecrested waves kept chasing one another madly with A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

42 groans and crashes and hisses. He eased his back onto the bags of rice and stayed sitting in that posture for hours on end.

The boat jerked up and down with the waves, surrounded by darkness. Chap and Sak lied down to sleep.

Chap lay still, staring at the ceiling. Sak noticed it and figured he was probably thinking of the land – thinking of home, of his return. The sea was too ruthless for him.

There was nothing good in it for him – cruel crewmates, the Thaokae behaving to him without the least compassion, the four boats jailing him like a convict.

Chap wasn’t the first deckhand to go through such an ordeal, but in his case it was particularly trying as he was being punished more than the others, Sak concluded.

Sorrow and torment were nothing out of the ordinary for greenhorns. Often it was they couldn’t sleep even though they were dog-tired and hurt all over. Their work on deck over, their mates turned in and were quiet, but they, with a full load of misery in their hearts, came out to mope by a gunwale, staring emptily at the gray mass of an island on the eastern side, letting tears flow, sobs unheard, sight lost in the distance – across the sea, beyond mountains, toward the land they missed so terribly.

Chap looked obdurate. There was something strange in his eyes. Whatever he was thinking with such a look on his face, there was no way anyone would see him cry.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

43 If there was any weakness in him, he kept it well hidden deep within himself, looking for a way to solve his problems by himself, or maybe he was thinking— Sak lay recalling two greenhorns from the North.

About two years ago, they had come aboard for their first trip. As soon as they were no longer seasick, they wanted to be sent back to land and go home. They walked in concert to the pilothouse, asked to talk to Jiang, implored him to have the boat return them to shore: their hearts were heavy with sorrow; they didn’t like the hard and dirty work; they couldn’t stand the confined space and the food – no soft mattress or soft pillows, and on top of that they were woken up in the middle of the night to work in the rain. They couldn’t stand this kind of life any more, not even for a single day. Here there was no entertainment, no place to relax; there were no days off. This world without land was no place for refined folks like them.

With a flick of his hand, Jiang showed the dainty duo the door. ‘What a pair of fussy troublemakers you are!

No way I can take you back to shore, it’d be a waste of fuel and a waste of time. This isn’t a cruise: we work for a living. Since you’re here you must work till the end of the trip. The thaokae paid five hundred baht to the agency for each of you, and another three hundred to buy yourselves a few things, and then you come and won’t work? Get out!’

The pair of youngsters, crestfallen, went away to stand A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

44 forlorn at the stern. For another two days, they put their nose to the grindstone. On a night when the sea was fast asleep under a starlit sky, come the night trawl they were nowhere to be seen. A search of every nook and cranny didn’t raise even their shadows. They hadn’t become so careless as to both fall overboard but must have been determined to reach the shore, Keut maintained to Jiang, pointing to the buoys strung out in front of the quarters – there were a dozen missing.

What a crazy way out for them sissies to choose!

They’d rather travel back to their homeland at the peril of their lives than stand a work they didn’t like and a way of life that gave them no happiness.

Not a few deckhands disappeared in this way. It was a minor chronicle that went with the open sea and was told and retold, tales to fight boredom on long nights.

Some foolhardy lad would put his life at the mercy of a fistful of buoys until some other trawler rescued him.

Plied with questions, he’d soon find himself sent back to the original boat – back to the hell he had failed to escape. The oath of allegiance to the sea was too sacred to be broken just like that. Still the fellow was luckier than were many others boats picked off the water as floating corpses.

Sak cast sidelong glances at the man lying next to him.

Chap’s long neck bent, his head fell from the bags of rice to rest sideways on the wooden floor, fast asleep out of exhaustion.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

45 Poor scarecrow, Sak mused with compassion. I don’t know how far away you are from home, but I hope you won’t be short-sighted enough to decide to return to shore on buoys. If you do, you’re likely to buy your freedom with your death.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

46 Chapter Four It was as if a small glimmer of hope was heaving into sight at the end of the tunnel: Sila 4 was to enter the Chumphon estuary tomorrow morning. Sak smiled at Chap to show his delight before he told him the news.

Chap would see the land for the first time in almost two months, feel its warm breath and with a firm tread stand fully erect, calling back to himself confidence and faith in life. The land had many other attractions. A fullblooded young man like him would feast his eyes on the multicoloured apparel of young women, their joyful smiles bright like flowers in bloom, their perfume heady in a world the soles of his feet would be able to pace every which way they pleased.

He’d taste a sherbet in a small stall along the jetty, so very refreshing when a friendly young thing made it and brought it to him herself. If Chap were a drinker, tomorrow night after the catch had been taken ashore he’d have his first taste of liquor in months. Even if he wasn’t roaring drunk given the paucity of his means, at least it’d make his blood race, invigorate his heart, revive happiness like a bunch of the most beautiful flowers striving on a pile of garbage. If he shared his table, Sak would tell him of this comparison. What were sailors but meaningless drifters in towns full of people?

The happiness they could reap was like modest gleanings of flowers over stagnant backwaters.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

47 Chap had worked for almost two months, not always continuously due to various ordeals. He hadn’t stayed with any one boat, but all were Thaokae Kok’s boats. He had the right to the same wages as the others. Upon reaching Chumphon, each man, greenhorn and old hand alike, was handed three hundred baht as an advance on wages. The seasick who had lied hopelessly on their bunks for the whole twelve days and just recovered enough to get up when the boat was about to reach shore could still borrow to buy things, so why should Chap be an exception?

‘Tomorrow morning, the boat will drop anchor at Chumphon,’ Sak whispered to Chap. ‘Once the catch is sold, we’ll stay there overnight. You should buy yourself a few clothes and things, and after another eight or nine days at sea, we’ll enter Mahachai and you can go wherever you want. After working for so long, you surely will have enough for a bus ride.’

Chap smiled slightly, but in the next instant his smile was gone from the corner of his mouth like a shooting star. His voice was soft and clear, smooth and firm but seemingly deprived of feeling. ‘I have a few debts,’ he said. ‘I hope I’ll have enough left to pay for dishwashing.’

‘I’ll charge you ten baht,’ Sak said, smiling, ‘same as the others.’

The wounds on Chap’s body were all gone. The contusion around his left orbit had subsided. The gaping A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

48 wound on his forehead hadn’t quite healed, but was no longer as painful. His hands still hurt, though; they needed more time to heal.

Some seasoned deckhands used sharp fingernail files to get rid of dead skin on the palms of their hands, from the heart of the palms to the tip of each finger. Hard work year after year translated into thick tough calluses as protection against all manner of pain.

Chap turned the palms of his hands upward. All of his fingers were swollen. Corns were forming in places.

Some fingers had broken nails. He could still close his hands into half fists only.

‘You should buy yourself gloves,’ Sak suggested.

‘Gloves would help, I guess,’ Chap acquiesced ‘Sure they do, a lot.’

Those net handlers who cared about their looks bought cloth gloves by the dozen for each trip. They didn’t only protect their hands against the chafing of the net threads; they also covered every inch of the rest of their bodies with Chinese trousers, long-sleeved shirts, broad-brimmed hats and rubber boots. Some even wore hoods over their faces, unlike others who couldn’t be bothered, went through work in their skivvies, their bare back exposed to the sun, truly facing waves, wind and rain in the flesh.

Sak took the night watch, rang the bell for the morning trawl at seven, left the helm to Phoo then walked over to the cold room, took canned mackerel together with PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

49 vegetables and condiments to prepare breakfast. Chap turned to look at him with a smile. He was bursting with the hope of going to shore, of feeling the land he had left for so long.

The fishing gear was retrieved. Sak stood at the stern.

Sila 3 was coming right at them. Chap must already know what his fate was to be.

‘Fucked up again, damn it,’ Sak swore.

Chap went out to wait by the side of the boat, his eyes glued to the foam stirred by the waves. They slammed into the gunwales, withdrew and swirled to form anew.

Chap was like froth pulled further and further away from shore.

Chap disappeared into the waves and winds of November. This time he was gone for so long it was as though he had finally been sent back to shore. The crews of the other boats no longer talked about him. Sak himself didn’t dare to ask, until almost two months later he learned Chap was still around, transferred from boat one to boat two to boat three on and on trip after trip.

Sak thought of the impassive look in Chap’s eyes, which sometimes was infuriating. There was no way Dorm would ever like a subordinate like this, someone who refused to lower his head in respect, parrot his words or believe the moon was made of green cheese on his say so.

Several years ago, Thaokae Kok had been cheated by valiant workers who, old bags in hand, came to apply A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

50 for a job, got advance money, then disappeared without trace. The bags they left behind were stuffed with newspapers. After being cheated several times, a wrathful Thaokae Kok ordered Dorm to spread his men out and search all likely places – the jetty for trawlers, the jetty for local boats, the dives of the all-night market, the bus terminal, the municipal port. There should be a place where Dorm and his posse would catch the guys who had played fast and loose with the advance money.

Dorm would draw a blank almost every time he dealt with professional con men. People like these would have long set sail as they knew all the getaways and had performed their swindle dozens of time. Some needed money to buy enough white powder to fix themselves this once, some merely hoped to have enough for booze or a woman in some joint to last them the night.

But others wanted to get away from the sea. They had been away from home for ages but, unable to hang on to their wages, they only needed a couple or three hundred baht for bus fare. Those guys were easy to trace and catch. If Dorm met one of them himself, he’d smile coldly, walk up to the young fellow from elsewhere and talk to him in a friendly way. ‘No problem, pal. Just return to the boat. You took the money, didn’t you?’

Dorm’s voice was solemn, full of authority. He’d put out a hand and pat the young man on the shoulder, force a quick smile as he took the prey by the arm to get him inside a three-wheeler. He’d take the unfortunate young PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

51 man along deserted roads. When he was sure there was no one around, he’d tell him to get down, asking with concern, ‘Have you eaten yet, young man?’ He’d pretend to take him to some place to eat or for a quiet chat to help out with any problem he might have. ‘Me? I’m no different, you know: I also left home to earn a living.’

When the time was right, he’d teach the young man away from home a lesson that’d leave him out cold by some expanse of wild grass.

Thaokae Kok gave every opportunity to Dorm to hurt the wayward and assured him the story would never reach the ears of the police. He just kept admonishing him, Don’t have them die, that’s all. Just enough so they never forget. Thaokae Kok was very fussy about this, teaching Dorm how to harm people and get away with it. Make ’m hurt or smash ’m up inside, but don’t let any wound show.

Thaokae Kok’s fuss didn’t stop there. Everyone on board would have his wages cut as soon as he broke or lost things, smuggled out expensive fishes to give friends onshore, or was too sick to work. He was fussy with the employees, but lax about his sons’ behavior.

Tiang had once been thrashed to within an inch of his life by local sailors in a joint of the all-night market at Prachuap Khirikhan. Thiang got himself knifed in Hua Hin. And many years ago Priang had been caught by the police with half a ‘big’ of white powder in Mahachai.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

52 That time, Thaokae Kok had to move heaven and earth and cough up quite a bit of money before the police changed the exhibit from snow to grass, thus having the penalty reduced from six to ten years in jail to a mere six months. The real culprit drifted away to dry out in a temple. Dorm took his place in jail. Nobody knew what kind of pact Thaokae Kok had made with Dorm.

After six months, Dorm got out of jail; Priang rallied his strength and spirit and returned as a reborn Priang who called Dorm ‘elder brother’ every other word.

If Dorm killed Chap and dumped him overboard, all on boat three would keep their mouths shut tight.

Chap’s body weighed down with fish-trap stones would sink to the bottom of the sea. If some trawler ever hauled it in, only a skeleton would be left; that of a nameless man discovered by chance.

No news from boat three. Sak only hoped Chap’s fate wasn’t that evil.

When Sila 4 left the shore that time, the waves had calmed down. At the approach of the hot season, the evil dragon that turned every square inch of sea into chaos dived back down and left behind an emerald mirror of becalmed waters. The smoothness of the surface allowed the two boats to come alongside each other.

Chap was sent over from Sila 2. The raw-meat body was laid down in front of the water tanks at the stern.

Pilot Oot threw a bag of medicine at Sak, lifted one eyebrow as a way of saying, We’ll talk after dark.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

53 The two boats drew apart. Keut and one of his men lifted Chap and took him to lie down in the galley. Sak holding the medicine bag followed them.

‘Er, Sak.’ Keut turned around. ‘Take care of the fellow, will you. This time, he’s been really badly beaten up.’

Chap wearing only his briefs lay sidelong on the wooden floor. The lacerations on his back swelled in spots, ringed with wide yellow streaks of dried iodine.

His right thigh wore three deep holes from the prongs of an ice rake. Another two holes were mere abrasions.

Blood still clotted up and oozed out. The smell of blood mixed with the smell of iodine was sickening.

Chap clenched his teeth tight, his face burrowed into the bags of rice, eyes damp with the tears of forbearance – not of sorrow or defeat – squeezed out of the vice of excruciating pain.

Sak stood still looking at Chap for a long time, appalled at the fate of the guy. It was ghastly; it was much worse than he had ever feared.

He went to sit beside him, opened the medicine bag, tore open the box of cotton. In the bag, besides two bottles of iodine, there was a disinfectant and a small packet of pills against pain and fever.

There were shouted instructions from Jiang at the prow. Keut and a deckhand stood by the pulley, lifting the beams. The boat was about to set the fishing gear again. Sak reached out and closed the two portholes shut.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

54 ‘How could they do this to you?’ Sak bent to look at Chap.

He had been flailed on the back with the spine of a rake and rake prongs had punctured his thigh. The wounds didn’t look too bad, though. Sak set about cleaning them, with generous doses of hydrogen peroxide. He let the white foam spread at the edges of the wounds for a while then took it off with cotton, applied iodine then let Chap lie on his side.

‘You won’t heal easily this time, you know,’ Sak said.

‘I don’t know why they won’t let you to shore.’

Chap breathed heavily and said with a shaky voice: ‘What’s the date today?’

‘Fifteenth of March,’ Sak answered.

A tear rolled down and splotched onto the wooden floor. Chap, teeth clenched, remained silent and still.

Sak sighed softly. He pitied the guy. Chap was now aware of the time that had gone by, almost half a year, the time gone by in the sea of sorrow in which he floated, slowly sinking into the hellish abyss of his fate. It was so long since he had been on firm land and there was no way of knowing how long it would be before his feet would step onto the road of life whose glimmer of hope shone somewhere ahead.

Maybe he was to spend the remaining of his days in torment. They all conspired to make his life hell – Dorm, Son, the four sons of the thaokae. The dreadful moment was creeping up. If his condition took a turn for the PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

55 worse, wounds festered with pus and temperature rose, the chances of his recovering would slowly come to naught. He’d be tossed into the sea like a worthless piece of wood.

Sak boiled some rice soup for him to eat and fed him drugs. Chap lay moaning. As soon as the drugs worked he fell into a deep sleep. Sak would have liked him to sleep like that, oblivious to himself, and wake up only once his wounds were healed.

Chap lay half on his belly half on his left side, left arm under the head in lieu of a pillow, ribcage pressed to the floor, right leg slightly folded at the knee.

Before Sak took the night watch, Chap was still sleeping peacefully. Sak called out. Uncle Nui emerged from the engine room, sat down and rolled himself a cigarette next to Chap. His bloodshot eyes stared at the body that lay inert like a rag. ‘I wonder if he’ll make it.’ He puffed out some smoke. ‘I’m afraid they’ll throw him overboard in a few days.’

‘Maybe he’ll scrape through,’ Sak said half-heartedly.

‘He’s always been willing to work. Things like this shouldn’t happen.’ Pilot Oot’s voice came loudly through the speakers of the radio over the hush of wave and wind on a quiet night.

When he was sent back to Sila 2 this last time, Chap applied himself to his work, quiet and reserved like one who knew well he had no friends and people around him were waiting for an opportunity to hurt him. He A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

56 never raised his voice against anyone, lowered his head under the strings of abuse and yelled threats. His ears were deaf to all coarseness, whether from Master Son or from his crewmates.

A fourteen-year-old brat tried to provoke him every time he came out to work on deck. Chap was used to his jeers and provocations. He was like a stray dog well aware of its fate, tail trailing to the ground, head turned away without a bark or growl. This but further encouraged the youngster, who yelled and swore at him, threw mud at his back, doused him with seawater from the hose to his heart’s content.

Chap didn’t mind the kid; he just did his best to avoid him.

The last time he had been roughed up, it was on this boat. He had been kicked and punched fiercely but hadn’t fought back, hadn’t even tried. It was to his passivity he owed his safety until he was sent over to boat three – Dorm hadn’t been able to find a pretext to harm him.

That afternoon, Chap was busy shovelling fish into crates when the young fellow came up in his back and bumped into him deliberately and forcefully. He was the one to lose his balance, slip and fall. As soon as he was back on his feet, he bawled out, pointing a finger at Chap.

‘Why are you bullying a child, ha?’ came out someone’s voice from among the deckhands gathered by the gunwale on the other side.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

57 Several pairs of hostile eyes bore on Chap. Son walked up to him with anger on his face.

Son greeted Chap with a straight punch, which caught the forehead expertly. Chap sprawled backward right over the pile of fish. Son stood firm, waiting for Chap to raise his head, preparing to kick him in the chin, his right foot up in cold anticipation.

Chap raised his head and the shovel in his hand lashed at Son’s incoming shin. In the blinking of an eye, the situation was reversed. Son half twisted, lost his balance and fell hard on his bottom. The shovel in Chap’s hand scored again, this time right between the eyebrows. Son collapsed, blood all over his nose and mouth.

The celebration of gang reprisals on the high seas then commenced. In a few minutes, Chap lay flat on his face, the recipient of countless blows by fists and feet and elbows.

‘I saw it all from the wheelhouse,’ Pilot Oot told Sak through the black-ant radio. ‘I saw the damn Son stagger up, grab an ice rake and go straight at the beanpole, too fast for anyone to prevent him. Lusting for blood he was, lifted the rake and brought it down with all his might. At first he didn’t quite succeed—just grazed his back. The beanpole tried to move away, but the second time the rake caught him deep in the thigh. Blood gushed out like it was a fountain. ’Twas then Thiang just got up took in the scene and rushed to grab Son, otherwise the beanpole would’ve been gored on the spot.’

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

58 Chap spent another night in agony onboard Sila 2. Son and many of his men wouldn’t give up and tried to find a way to do him in.

Chap could only lie twisted on the floor. There were crusts of old tears at the corners of his eyelids. His eyes were fixed and unresponsive. His back and thigh were a deep yellow from the only salve on board. Traces of blood and iodine stained the wooden floor in an everwidening circle.

At the end of the night watch, before going down to make breakfast for the crew, Sak would go and see how Chap was. He used a length of cloth dipped in warm water to clean his face and body, squeezed the cloth, dipped it again in warm water and cleaned a second time round the edges of the wounds and the bruises on his legs and arms. He fed him rice soup and pills and when he was done let him lie on his side. Not a word escaped Chap’s mouth. Uncle Nui and Master Keut looked at him quietly from the other side.

‘Last night, he was burning with fever,’ Uncle Nui said. ‘He lay groaning as if he was going to die. I didn’t know what to do to be of help.’

‘Way too much,’ Keut mumbled. ‘Jiang should send him to shore, or put him on some other boat.’

‘I think he’s worried.’ Uncle Nui shook his head slowly. ‘This could go to court and Son and the others might end up in jail. Besides, if the cops hear of it, boat two will be grounded for days.’

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

59 In the afternoon, Chap’s fever abated. Fine drops of sweat appeared at the tip of his nose. Sak searched the pharmacy in the wheelhouse, found two sachets of antiseptic powder, took some cotton to wash the wounds, cleaned the abrasions on his back. They were still swollen and red, as was the thigh, now dark red. Around the wounds the flesh had hardened into ridges so tense they seemed about to burst. Dried blood turned them into dark streaks.

Sak massaged Chap’s leg, kneading it gently. ‘Does it hurt?’

Chap clipped his lips, breathing strongly. Sak dressed his wounds slowly, then withdrew to sit against the partition, chin in hand and deep in thought.

Sak stole a glance at the scar on his own instep— almost three years now and it still protruded awkwardly. He reached out to stroke it softly, felt the bumps over the bones. It didn’t hurt any more, but the flame of memory wasn’t out of fuel. The damn scar would make him hobble until the day he died. This wound on the open sea had hurt and tormented him so much he thought his heart would break. There was no way he could ever forget.

That year, he had drifted all the way down to Phuket, working on a purse-seine trawler catching tuna. The boat went on the open sea hundreds of miles from shore.

It was in the middle of the cold season, when the westerlies whipped the waves into frenzy. In the middle A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

60 of the night, he came out of the quarters to help lower the anchor. The twenty-eight deckhands on board were divided into seven shifts. The three other workers on his shift were busy playing cards. Sak tied the line to the hoop and pulled out the anchor toward the gunwale. It was a folding anchor, too heavy for him to lift overboard on his own. As he was hesitating, one fluke came unfastened and in the same instant fell on his right foot in a tremendous crunch of iron on flesh and floorboard. Sak opened his mouth and screamed. His friends in the crew quarters came rushing out.

Sak and Uncle Nui took turns taking care of Chap. The morning of the second and third days, his face was still livid because he had lost much blood. His wounds hurt so much he couldn’t sleep. His temperature rose every night. He did but moan and rave.

‘I don’t think he’ll make it,’ Uncle Nui whispered wistfully. ‘As soon as he’s sent back to Tiang’s boat, he’ll be thrown overboard right away.’

‘If he stays with us, he’ll be okay,’ Sak said. ‘Jiang’s a mean bastard.’

‘You can’t say that, Sak. He doesn’t think the same as us.’

‘A rotten bastard,’ Sak swore.

After six days Chap’s condition improved a little. His back had stopped swelling. The flesh around the edges of the wounds on his thigh was still hard and knotty.

The fever had gone down some. There were no drugs PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

61 left to fight fever and pain. No salve or cotton either.

There was only the hand of time to tend the wounds and perhaps heal them.

The boat was about due back to shore. Sak knew Chap would have to go lie sidelong on Sila 1 next.

‘My friend,’ Sak said to console him, ‘try to bear it a while longer. On the next outing, I’ll buy some medicine for you.’ Chap kept silent. Sak tried to get him to talk. ‘Is there anything you want? Strawberry ice cream? A nice piece of cake?’

Chap’s left hand wiped tears brought up by the pain.

He held out his right hand to Sak. They shook hands.

Chap squeezed Sak’s hand firmly. Sak felt Chap’s hand had begun to toughen, but certainly wasn’t up to uncoiling a net or doing hard work with the others just yet.

Chap still pressing Sak’s hand stared him in the eye and said with a shaky voice: ‘Thank you very much?’

Sak slowly nodded. ‘I’ll get you some good medicine, you’ll soon be healed. Next trip out you’ll probably be sent back here.’ Chap swallowed hard and tightened his lips. Sak smiled at him. ‘If you’re on another boat, I’ll find a way to get them over to you.’

The day Chap was sent back to Sila 1, he could stand up and sit down some. A smidgen of life flickered in his eyes. His face had begun to regain some colouring, but his hope had dried up—the hope to return to shore and have a normal happy life. That hope had got lost in the immensity of the sea and the tides of untold torment.

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62

synopsis

Part One (continued) No more corporeal punishment, but it isn’t the end of Chap’s ordeal. If Jiang won’t have him transferred to either Sila 2 (because of Son) or Sila 3 (because of Dorm), if Chap recovers almost entirely within three months, it’ll be altogether eleven months before he is allowed back to shore. It takes him a full five minutes before he can walk straight again.

Meanwhile, his friendship with Sak has been growing (‘I owe you a lot. If I don’t die before, I’ll be sure to pay you back.’). Chap, we learn, is from Trat (a Thai port near Cambo‐ dia), a child of the sea. If he signed up with Thaokae Kok, it was just for one outing: he was due to leave within thirty days on a seagoing ship. But fate decided otherwise.

Sak himself has this impossible dream of one day giving up the sea to open a small restaurant. Why not, says Chap, ‘A life without hope is a dead life.’

Chap, intensely disliked by Thaokae Kok and Granny Cheng, is given a miserly Baht 1000 wage for his eleven‐month ordeal. A mortified Captain Jiang gives him an extra B100 in his father’s name. Chap takes it without a word. He volunteers to work on, but only on Sila 4. Jiang gives him an extra B500 and promises to give him fair wages.

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63

Part Two In Mahachai, Sak takes Chap around and then to his house built on a piece of land he rents out of the woman who runs a grocery‐cum‐eating place next door. At Chap’s prompting, Sak starts reading food books, and later tries his hand at new dishes. He will become an outstanding cook.

Chap on board learns the chores, how to repair the net, how to handle the various tasks on deck. He learns fast, works well, is well liked. Master Keut tells Jiang: ‘He’s good; before long, he can be fishing master.’ Indeed, Chap soon becomes the number‐two deck boss.

Sak shows him how to handle helm and compass. Chap has an uncanny ability to handle the waves.

After nine months at sea, he asks for his money. Jiang reckons he is worth B2,000 a month and Thaokae Kok and Granny Cheng have no choice but to cough up.

On a long trip down south, there is no more food but what Pilot Phoo has for sale. Phoo runs a hi‐lo game and fleeces the crew. Fed up with being tapped for loans, Chap decides to play – small amounts at first, but he keeps winning and winning with ever bigger stakes until Phoo asks for one more chance to make up his losses. Right then, the bell rings, calling the deckhands on deck. When the game resumes, Chap holds the bank and soon it A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

64 comes down to one last gambit: all of the crew’s debts con‐ tracted with Phoo. Phoo looses. Chap cancels all debts. We will learn that Chap has a long experience of hi‐lo, thanks to his uncle, a professional gambler.

Chap takes Sak to the bank to open a savings account. ‘We sailors never think about the future.’ Later, Sak will take others to open similar accounts. All of them, of course, are awed and not a little uncomfortable with the banking world.

But they will soon know how to handle their money—and spend it on short‐term fancies.

On another long trip south, the engine of Sila 4 conks out.

No help to be expected: there is a storm coming. Uncle Nui tries his best, but the engine won’t start, and threatens to be flooded. Finally, Chap intervenes and fixes it: it turns out he studied as a mechanic and did two years fixing engines in a shipyard.

Three years go by. In the year that follows, several characters enter the scene: Pan, a new recruit and child of a Bangkok slum, an orphan and a jailbird; three months later, Ngon, a sturdy farmer‐cum‐thief, beaten up by Son; four months later still, Withoon, a quiet worker, also given the Son treatment. These will form a nucleus of friends with Sak and Chap, helping one another, teaching one another’s skills.

Their friendship is a big plus in their lives, and they start dreaming of getting away from the sea to do their own thing on some piece of land somewhere.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

65 Thaokae Kok, who has a fish factory employing nearly 30 people, gives his newly graduated nephew Chote responsibility over fishing activities. Chote says that next year the boats will be equipped with radar and sounder and move to fish in Cambodian waters.

Then comes the big news: Sila 2 comes to port with a man tied up and beaten up: he has knifed Son to death.

The crews are reshuffled, all the more so as Sila 5 comes into being: Dorm is in charge, Keut is deck boss, Phoo is pilot.

Sila 5 and Sila 4 will go to fish into Cambodian waters after two more outings.

Part Three Koot and Kong Islands are strategic outposts off Cambodian waters: there is ice, fuel, victuals, hi‐lo, billiard, and women.

Meaning fun and losses and the clap. They are useful stop‐ overs not just for Thai trawlers but for Thai boats ferrying contraband, mostly second‐hand goods from Singapore to Cambodia. Singapore and Thai seagoing ships bring fuel and ice to working boats.

Sila 4 has been outfitted with not only radar and sounder but also with a ‘triple‐mouth net’ whose handling proves to be rather trying at first. There are now 12 deckhands instead of 10. Sak cooks five meals a day. It’s heavy work all around. Whenever a A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

66 black dot appears on the radar screen, it means a ‘ghost boat’ – i.e. a Vietnamese warship defending Cambodian waters. Time and again, dozens of Thai trawlers flee for their lives.

The port of call is Tha Chalaep, some way from Chantha‐ buri. There the Sila 4 crew enjoys quiet breaks. It is there too that Chat falls in love with Namthip, a young woman who comes to port with her young brother to shop once or twice a month. When her long‐tail boat breaks down, Chap restarts the engine, jumps onboard and throttles away with her.

He comes back smiling: Namthip lives on an orchard. Her parents and elder brother have welcomed him, as he repaired the water pump and ran an electricity line for them.

But soon they have to return to Mahachai, where Sila 4 is due for repairs. In a few months, Sila 6 (32 meters long, three floors of living quarters) will come out. No more fish in the Gulf of Thailand: it’ll be either Indonesia or Bangladesh, which require permits that take time to acquire.

Sila 4 goes back to Tha Chalaep, but when Jiang learns that Thaokae Kok his father is sick, he offers Chap to take over the boat, as a temporary captain.

The net gets stuck, Chap manages the boat well, but the catch isn’t that great. On the next outing, he decides to take the boat into Vietnamese waters, and returns with a phenomenal catch.

Jiang tells the crew: if you keep getting such good catches until the boat goes to the yard in two months time, you’ll all get a share of the catch on top of your wages.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

67 Of course, this is risky business. But there are hundreds of bigger trawlers out there, and why should the Vietnamese ‘ghost boats’ pick on tiny Sila 4? Chap tells his men: ‘We must dream and it’ll happen sooner than we think, but we must risk some, like tearing out fetters from our legs—there may be some wounds.’

The next few trips bring record catches, never less than B300,000 (about US$12,000 then).

Once, at Tha Chalaep, as Chap and Sak are quietly sipping beer, a young fellow collapses in front of them: Yong‐yut is a former clerk accused of theft and bodily assault who is just out of jail. He is hired and soon adopted.

Dorm’s Sila 5 has engine trouble. Sila 4 undertakes to tow it to Khao Laem. Chap goes over to try to fix the engine prob‐ lem. Withoon, thinking Chap may be in trouble, is prepared to tackle Dorm. Sak tells him to cool off. Indeed, after three days of tinkering, Chap gets the engine going again. Dorm says thanks to Chap, who says nothing, then sheepishly asks Sak to tell Chap he’d like to invite him for a drink. When Sak does so, Chap smiles and accepts the offer.

There is one more outing due before Sila 4 enters the yard.

But Jiang relays the order: another three trips. Jiang gives his word this is final. But at the end of the three trips, it turns out Sila 3 has taken the space at the yard. Jiang begs for one more, one final trip.

And on this last trip, the black dot appears on the radar A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

68 screen of a big trawler. The news spreads and dozens of trawlers scramble away at full speed. But with its 250 HP, Sila 4 is lagging behind. The Vietnamese warship is gaining on it and soon heaves in sight. The engine begins to overheat and almost all the ice onboard is dumped on it. Yet, nothing doing, the ship is looming closer, until— Two trawlers whose engines have burst are lying still, sitting ducks for the Vietnamese warship. Sila 4 safely repairs to Mahachai.

Part Four As they come in, they learn Jiang has had to leave to attend to Sila 2, which has developed engine trouble.

One boat owner makes it known he’d like to hire Chap as captain.

Once the fish is sold, it’s pay time. Thaokae Kok (who has long recovered from his illness) announces that everyone’s wages have been raised and there’ll be another raise in three months time when Sila 2 comes out of the yard. Everybody cheers. Of course there is no question of a share of the catch, but each will receive a B5,000 bonus. All are outraged, but Jiang is not here to back them up. Sak protests in the name of all. Thaokae Kok rubs it in, he won’t give a percent either to ‘that one’ (meaning Chap).

More protest. Thaokae Kok says, okay, here is an extra thousand PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

69 each; and 15,000 for your cap’. Sak shouts at him and smashes every flowerpot on the court‐yard tiles.

Chap will say, ‘I goofed, it’s my fault.’ No official captain title; no evidence of the deal with Jiang. He has figured out how much profit the thaokae has made and says he will pay his men their share out of his own money.

They first refuse but finally accept and disband with the understanding that they will gather again in a few months’ time and Chap will find them a good ship to work on.

The news of what happened spreads. Chaps accepts to work for another owner together with the five friends that have stayed with him, but asks Sak to stay on land – to wait for the others to come back.

Jiang comes several times to apologize and finally, to everyone’s surprise, strikes a deal with Chap: all aboard Sila 6. Twenty‐six days after their departure from shore, they return with a huge catch.

But soon, bad news: Jiang has been badly hurt in a car crash and is in ICU. Four days later he is dead.

All boats return to Mahachai for the funeral – all but Sila 6.

Thaokae Kok has called back Sila 6, but the rumour is, it’s only to change its captain.

Three days later, it is learned that the Vietnamese have caught 36 Thai trawlers in their waters. Sila 6 isn’t one of them, but it hasn’t come back, and it is probably among those boats the Vietnamese sunk.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

70 When the boats are released, Sila 6 isn’t among them either. Sak now knows his friends are dead. He gets roaring drunk.

Then one day, one small boat tows a stripped Sila 6 right to the front of Thaokae Kok’s house. The mute boat pilot hands over a small package to the thaokae, accepts some money and is gone. The thaokae opens the package, looks over its contents, turns pale then pretends nothing has happened. He will soon retire from the business and make donations to temples.

The rumour spreads that Sila 6 was not intercepted by a Vietnamese warship but by pirates, who killed all on board and sold the catch and everything of value.

Sak organizes a ceremony in memory of his friends.

After one year, he decides to give up his house for a small shophouse restaurant at the all‐night market. At first he thrives, but competition soon runs him down, he can’t stand the rowdy behaviour of young customers, closes the restau‐ rant and lives on his own with the last of his savings.

One day, after three years have gone by, his former landlady comes by to deliver a letter to him.

When he sees the writing on the envelope, his hair stands on end.

‘My very dear friend Sak, I’m not dead yet and you must still be alive too—’ The letter has instructions for him to follow: pretend to be PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE

71 a rich tourist at the border (which border is left unsaid). Cross the border. Take this boat. Stay at this seaside hotel. Another boat ride the next day to this island. Then the rest of the trip on foot.

Sak complies and when he reaches a hill that overlooks a beach, here are his friends – Ngon, now married, Yong‐yut, Keut, Withoon, Pan. They form a small, carefree community.

Everyone has been waiting for him; even his future restaurant has been built. Namthip has been with Chap for more than two years and they have a son.

What happened then? Chap had sold the catch and return‐ ed Sila 6 to Thaokae Kok with a detailed explanation of how much profit the Thaokae had swindled them off. This amount Chap apportioned to the crew and with his five or six faithful friends had journeyed to this island.

With these preliminary explanations given, they are all eager to take Sak to meet Chap, so they go up the hillock to the beach. And then— They all stopped in their tracks, stilled as if under a spell. Ahead of them at a distance of about ten meters a hammock the colour of the sea swung between two young coconut trees by the beach. A man lay in it reading a book, his legs swinging on either side, one foot softly beating time.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, the book was shut and the legs stilled. Slowly a head rose for a look.

A DREAM COME TRUE | PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI

72 Chap sat up and stared at Sak as Sak stared at Chap.

Both were silent and still. The next moment, Chap’s lips slowly parted wide.

It was the brightest grin Sak had ever seen.

This novel, published in Thai in April 2000, was nominated for the prestigious SEA Write Award. It is 355 pages long in Thai. The translated first four chapters presented here cover 44 pages.

Prachakhom Lunachai, born in 1959, hails from Yasothon in Northeast Thailand. He spent some ten years as a sailor, and after doing various menial jobs is now a full�time writer in Bangkok, whose steady outflow of novels and short stories have earned him all manner of national literary awards.

PRACHAKHOM LUNACHAI | A DREAM COME TRUE