Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 | Page 253

What We Fight For
St. Paul's Convent School, Kwok, Ka Hang - 13
“What are you fighting for?”
My mother’s voice rang through my skull.
Why now? When I am facing unavoidable doom, when Chen Zuyi’s fleets are drawing near? Why
did her voice, my mother’s voice, the one who gave me life— why did her voice ring through my skull at
this hour?
It’s been two years since I last saw her. We are supposed to be going home, I am supposed to be
seeing her in a few months’ time, but why are we suddenly fighting pirates? Chen Zuyi and his infamous
fleets—how will I, a low-ranked soldier, survive in the front lines?
“What are you fighting for?”
Her voice again. This is what she asked me when I was recruited into the navy. When I had to I
leave for the Western Ocean under the Emperor’s order, she asked me this again.
“I do not know, mother.”
That was my answer.
In the third lunar month of 1405, the Emperor commanded Admiral Zheng He to lead more than
twenty thousand troops to the Western Ocean, I am one of the chosen ones for the voyage. Since our
departure, we have sailed to Java, Malacca, Aru, Ceylon……and hundreds of other places I have only ever
dreamt of visiting. It’s an honour, it really is, but I just wish I could return home and be with my family.
In the first few months at sail, I couldn’t help getting seasick. I was given ginger to chew on
whenever I felt nauseous, but eventually got used to the constant motion of the ship. Life at sea wasn’t as
tough as I had imagined it to be, but of course, it is much tougher than being on land. There are certain
things I can no longer do, such as eating fresh vegetables as we have to preserve our food, especially us in
the lower ranks. I miss my mother’s dishes. Our meals are certainly nothing fancy, but my mother is skilled
and can make vegetables from a bad harvest, which taste like a dish of the Gods.
How can I, as a son, repay her? I have taken from her in my whole life— her care, her teachings,
her sweat, her love; I am supposed to repay her once I have grown up. Yet, I joined the navy and left her all
alone in our homeland.
I don’t want to die with a heart full of regret. I don’t want to leave her.
How would my mother react when she heard no news of my whereabouts when the fleets
returned? Would she weep for her only son? Would she curse my name, for abandoning her?
I shook the thoughts out of my head, trying to put my full attention on the threat ahead.
Chen Zuyi’s fleets were drawing near, the blurry silhouettes were starting to form into thousands of
mountainous pirate ships. The sea was calm, so calm that the ship barely rocked. It was as if the sea god had
silenced the seas for us to look at one last time.
I tried to put on a brave face, but I was shivering in my boots, my face already dripping with sweat.