The Unending Search

(A moving short story of Vietnamese people with the drop
of their heroic struggle against colonialism from 1950 to 1975.)

It was announced from the cockpit of the aerofloat that were 5,000 ft. above the Halang Bay, 165 kms. from Hanoi to that the plane was likely to touch down within half an hour at the International Hanoi Airport known as Gia Lam Airport. Incidentally that was the first Russian passenger plane to land after 29th March 1973 when the last G. I. left Vietnam.

Momentarily my thoughts went to those days when I and Hai, an intimate name with which I often used to call her, spent some days and relaxed in that island and in Lake Ba Be mountain resort 175 kms. from Hanoi and also paid visits to the But Thap Pagoda where the one-thousand-eyed armed Bodbisatwa was located at a distance of only 20 kms. away from Hanoi. During those memorable days when there was some respite from the severe strain undergone, after continuous working with the revolutionary fighting against the French colonial aggressors, we used to manage to keep sometime to ourselves and to visit those beautiful places.

Fortunately there was no bombing and no snipers then. Moving round rowing in an yacht round the Halang Bay Island and the mountain resort, going hand in hand round the Buddha, we spent time, all to ourselves, which passed unnoticed and made us forget for a while the troubles and tribulations we underwent in fulfilling the tasks entrusted to us with the revolutionary forces. It was then for the first time Hai (her full name is Nguven Din Hai), had narrated with tears in her eyes the sorrowful tale of woe of her family and how like many other families in Vietnam the family had become a victim of the French colonialism and got hardened with sufferings which emboldened them to stand the strain of facing the aggression against their freedom and to defend their country. Those were the days just before the final battle of Dien Bien Phiew situated 600 kms. from Hanoi in a valley surrounded by mountains when on 20-11-’53 the French colonialists supported by mercenaries supplied by other colonialist powers finally suffered a humiliating defeat by the Vietnamese revolutionaries and the bulk of their forces with all officers surrendered which resulted in the birth of a free Vietnam.

Hai’s mother was working in a hospital run by the revolutionaries as a volunteer. Flouting international law the French colonialists mostly consisting of Gendermare and mercenaries from South Africa, Thailand and South Korea attacked the hospital in a surprise raid, killed all the patients, attacked doctors, nurses and other volunteers who were rendering medical aid to patients and savagely raped some of the nurses and young girl volunteers. Hai’s father was killed in that raid and her mother was raped by three French soldiers one after another on a hospital bed from which a patient killed earlier was removed. She could not bear the barbarity of the atrocities and humiliation. Like a true revolutionary, in a savage fight, she killed three French soldiers with a knife and killed herself before she could be caught. Hai was at that time only 15 years. She managed to escape with some Gorillas and joined the revolutionaries behind the lines of battle. She was attached as a volunteer as she had some training as a nurse from her mother to a ramshackle of a hospital built with rags behind the trenches dug by the revolutionaries to prevent the French from marching forward at a distance of 15 kms. from Dien Bien Phiew where the main battle was raging to decide the fate of Vietnam.

I met her for the first time in that hospital. I was attached as a doctor to that hospital in the front line. That was my 4th hospital in the front line. Earlier I had served in three other hospitals situated at a distance of 200 to 300 miles from Hanoi; all the time, working with squads of Gorillas and revolutionaries, attending to the wounded in make shift shelters and in villages nearby where the patriotic villagers gave them shelter and provided all amenities. We were like one family. We were also attending to the sick and injured in the villages who often became victims to shelling and bombing.

My first visit to Vietnam was in December ’52 when along with Chaikovasky, another Russian friend, I volunteered to serve with the revolutionary forces to help them in their fight against the French colonialists. He was a pilot and immediately after arrival helped in arranging defences against air raids manning anti-aircraft guns, preparing the population against air raids and providing the necessary expertise to build an air defence which later on became a vulnerable force. I was a doctor by profession. My parents gave me the name of Furmanov, after a great Russian writer, though I had taken to the medical profession, because of my father’s great interest in literature.

Hai when I first met her was very shy. She had school education in the local language and also knew French. She could write and read both the languages fluently. By the time I met her I had already lived in Vietnam for about an year and already had working knowledge of the local language. I could talk to her in broken Vietnamese. I knew also a little of French. I could speak to her in French in a way she could understand. I had not known how to write the languages. She, however, preferred to talk only in Vietnamese which I reciprocated knowing her sentiments. Within two months she taught me how to read the Vietnamese language. I could read as well as write to some extent. I also taught her Russian which she briskly picked up. Thus our intimacy grew.

I still remember the day when two soldiers of the revolutionary army were injured and brought to our hospital. She was attending to them and was in tears, while cleaning their wounds. On my questioning she took me aside and with deep sorrow narrated that there were no medicines even to wash the wounds and no dressing materials and that she was using a local decoction with some leaves which were commonly used for anti-biotic purpose in the area I could understand her feelings but could do nothing. I gave her some rags which were disinfected by boiling and used for dressing I learnt later that the decoction used by her was medicinal and served as a good anti-biotic. It was during that period she received a sharpenel in the of her right shoulder and though blood was oozing out she still insisted to serve the patients. I had to forcibly remove her to bed, remove the sharpenel and bandage her wound. She had to be confined to the bed for a week, thereafter during which period our intimacy grew further.

Suddenly my thoughts stopped when the airhostess announced that the plane would land at the Hanoi airport within 10 minutes and instructed us to fasten our seat belts. Within minutes our plane landed smoothly at the airport.

Everything was peaceful there. The damage done during the bloody fighting had been repaired. There were three formal sentries at the gate. The airport and customs staff were going about their duties normally. The baggage checking was done efficiently and briskly though in a formal way and with courtesy. Within twenty minutes I entered the passenger lounge where I met Sister Michael of the Swedish Red Cross, Squadron Leader Quang Dinh and Doctor Phoung. They took me to the Red Cross Centre situated in the heart of Hanoi where I was accommodated in one of the staff rooms. It was noon by then. Without my asking, Sister Michael narrated to me the details of the enquiries made by her and wanted me to get ready within half an hour to follow her.

I was ready even in the plane. However, I got tidy to be presentable within 10 minutes and sat down waiting, brooding over the past.

Hai, again came to my mind. Just before a fortnight of the final battle at Dien Bien Piew, I and Hai were detained to work in the forward post in the hospital attached to the First Brigade of the D.R.V.N.M. which was taking the main brunt of the battle with the French forces. The very first night we had to attend to about 1,000 wounded. We had of course enough supplies and equipment. As the war gained intensity, we were shifted to a place 5 kms. from the main battle front to take charge of a major hospital there. We had to do work almost round the clock and had no time to think of anything else. It was allover within 10 days and the great heroic people of Vietnam won the battle and the French colonialists suffered a humiliating defeat. French army in thousands surrendered including several thousands of officers; lots of ammunition, vehicles and armaments were surrendered and there was celebration all over Vietnam of the great victory won by the gallant people of the republic under the indomitable leadership of the great Ho Chi Minh.

In spite of the success of the Vietnamese people there was all round gloom and the leaders of the top knew that they had to get ready to face another bloody war to fight the American colonialists and the stooges set up by them in South Vietnam under the then reactionary Ngo Dinh Diem. Political leaders compared the situation to the period immediately after the declaration of Independence of United Vietnam on September 2, 1945. by the Great Ho Chi Minh who declared that “All people on earth are equal from birth and have a right to live to be happy and free” when on 6-3-’46 the French landed at Haipong and wage a fresh colonial war of re-conquest from 1946 to 1954. It was only after their defeat in 1953 at Dien Biew Piew that the Geneva Agreement was arrived at accepting the Ben-Hai river near the 17th parallel, north of Hue as the line of demarcation between South and North Vietnams. The Americans used South Vietnam as a base for their colonialism contrary to the Geneva spirit. The same suspicion prevailed everywhere.

It was decided by the DRVNM in January 1955 that many of the untrained nurses who had experience and served with the revolutionaries in the war should be sent for regular training to undergo short-term intensive courses in nursing to friendly countries. I undertook to take a batch to Russia for imparting to them such training. The arrangements were made within a week and a group of one hundred was organised, whom I had taken to Russia. Hai was included in the group and was its leader.

The three months we stayed together in Russia were memorable. All the girls completed the course with dedication. They also got some working knowledge of Russian. It was then that we decided to marry. The representative of the DRVNM in Russia was contacted and in his presence and in the presence of all the nursing sisters, my parents and friends and some representatives of the foreign ministry of U. S. S. R. the marriage was celebrated in April, 1955. I remember the day when like all new-weds in Moscow we paid our homage at the tomb of the unknown soldier where the ever-lasting flame was burning in the Lenin square. We also paid our homage to the great Lenin at the Lenin Mosoliem where his dead body lies in state for all people of the world to pay homage. I remember the Red Square we visited. The hot water baths we had in the hot water swimming pools and our visits to the Soviet circus, Soviet theatre and the Soviet ballet where we had the unique privilege of seeing the dance of the dying swan.

We were honoured with bouquets and citations of honour and presented on our return to Hanoi to Uncle Ho Chi Minh, the founding-father of Vietnam, who blessed us. How we cherished the reminiscences of these days!

Before I could finish thinking Sister Michael was at the door and I followed her into the jeep. Our destination was the Swedish Red Cross Camp situated at a distance of 10 kms. from Hanoi where an orphanage was being run for deserted and unclaimed children.

During the journey Hai again came into my thoughts. I always saw in her a bold and courageous Vietnamese woman who enjoyed equal rights with men and had freedom to build a happy democratic harmonious family as guaranteed under the 1959 Constitution of Vietnam. We were together till 1963 when our boy Ho Tu was born. She fell sick thereafter and had to be shifted to a civilian hospital away from the front. She was assigned special duty in a strategic hamlet in South Vietnam in 1964 where she lived with our son till 1968. She escaped from there with several young revolutionaries destroying the fortifications and supplied valuable information for its conquest by the P. R. G. The village was situated in Quan Tri Province. She narrated to me the barbarity with which the villagers who were suspected to be supporters of Viet Kong were treated by the South Vietnamese Government forces (R. S. V. N.).

We met again during the Tet offensive in 1968 near Saigon when we were attached to Unit No. 4. The boy was with us. He was aged five by then and was talking fluently in Vietnamese. Hardly had we spent together a month, our hospital was fiercely bombed. While evacuating I and Hai got separated. The boy remained with her. She was caught a prisoner. The boy escaped with the help of some Gorillas. I was in dark about their whereabouts till 1972.

It was during the savage bombing by the American Air Force in October, 1972, before the American Presidential Election. I received a letter through the Swedish Red Cross from Hai informing me that Ho Tu was missing and was probably sold as an orphan in Saigon and might be resold to some one in America or Sweden. She fervently pleaded for a search to be made for him and sent me a photograph taken when he was five years. Her whereabouts were not revealed. Before I could take any steps, I was injured in bombing and was hospitalised for three months for a brain injury. I could not do any thinking.

After I got well I requested the Swedish Red Cross to search for Hai and Ho Tu and supplied photographs. I was informed in January, 1973, that a boy with features similar to Ho Tu was found in a private orphanage in Bangkok and that there was the probability of hie sale. Sale of unclaimed children had become a flourishing trade in Thailand and Saigon by then by unscrupulous adventurers. When I rushed to Bangkok I was informed that some orphans were rescued by the representatives of DRVNM, and that before the rescue, some were sold to be adopted by some families in Sweden. The owner of the orphanage identified the photograph of Ho Tu and told me that he was sold under the name of Ho Trung to a family in Sweden a week before my arrival. I rushed to Sweden as the Passport Office in Bangkok was in a mess and no information could be traced out from that office. During February, 1972, through the help of the Swedish Red Cross and the Foreign Office I made enquiries and found a boy similar in features to the photograph of Ho Tu was adopted into a Swedish family and was being looked after well. He was only five years by then whereas Ho Tu must have been nine years. The mistaken identification was due to the photograph which depicted Ho Tu as a five year old boy. From Sweden I went to Russia where I had to undergo an operation for setting properly a fractured bone and got hospitalised for a month. I sent messages to the Red Cross in Vietnam and some of my friends to search for Hai and Ho Tu and returned again to Hanoi, after the final victory of DRVNM and the March, 1973, Paris Agreement which paved the way for ending war and withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

The orphanage was situated in the midst of a farm and named after the founder of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh. It was in charge of Thao Toun an elderly soldier in his sixties who had seen much of the fighting in Vietnam from 1945. Sister Michael introduced me. Even before my arrival he was informed of my search. He took out the photograph of Ho Tu from an album and instructed a woman assistant to bring a packet first. After it was brought I found my name written on it by a familiar hand, that of Hai. I was moved. I burst into tears. It contained a letter written in red ink, a red bordered handkerchief and a faded red rose. I presented her with a red rose when we first met. When my finger was cut in the hospital during the first few days of our association she tied me a bandage with the same kerchief which she kept as a memento.

I opened the letter. There were marks of tears on it. “I found Ho Tu in Saigon and saved him from being sold as an orphan and removed from our native land. I handed him over to the PRG Rescue Squad to be brought up in the orphanage near Hanoi. I know that one day you would find him. He is the son of Vietnam and a symbol of the solidarity between Russia and Vietnam in the great revolution in Vietnam. His parents played a great part in it. I wish that he should remain as any other beloved son in Vietnam and work for the revolution. Please do not take him away to Russia.

“I am now engaged in the task of rendering help to the heroic Vietcong revolutionaries till liberation of the entire fatherland, occupation of Saigon and unification of Vietnam. Do not search for me. I am somewhere in the Makong Delta. If I survive the final victory, I will join you.” When I lifted my head, Ho Tu was there. I extended my arms and took him into my embrace. I was told that Ho Tu was being taught Russian along with three other children of Russian origin. He could speak to me in broken Russian to my great satisfaction.

That day I returned from the orphanage in the evening and brought with me Ho Tu. We lived together for a week, whereafter I left him in the orphanage.

My duty was clear to me. Hai had laid it bare before me. Till 1975 I made enquiries from the Government representatives of the DRVNM and PRG and the Swedish Red Cross about the whereabouts of Hai. None could give me any information except the news that she was fighting with the revolutionaries in the Makong Delta, in the outskirts of Saigon and was a heroic daughter of Vietnam. I was shown a war bulletin which reported a citation presented to her for bravery, risking her life in saving the lives of the patients in a hospital in her care, in removing single-handed some unexploded hand grenades and arranging their evacuation. She was reported as untraced in the bulletin.

After final victory a political conference for reunification of Vietnam was held on 21-11-’75 and in 1976 both the Vietnams were reunified into the Socialistic Republic of Vietnam. There has been no trace of Hai in spite of all my efforts. I returned to Russia in July, 1976. A month thereafter I received a notice published by the South Vietnamese Government in English and Vietnamese with the photograph of Hai describing her as a dangerous revolutionary and spy and ordering her to be caught alive or shot in case of resistance. That was sent by Squad Leader Qwang Dinh.

I returned to Vietnam in Sept. 1976. I could not succeed in obtaining any information about Hai. On his questioning I assured Ho Tu that his mother would surely see him soon.

My long search for Hai is unending and shall ever continue.