From the command post, he had to cross just three hundred yards to reach the gray-brown boulders on the shore. From there, he slid into the waves. He had calculated that he needed to enter the water before low tide at 10:00 p.m., so that the force of the sea would draw him away from the land.
He had taken one other crucial step: According to military investigations, two days before he swam, Lin inspected the sentry posts along the coast, and he addressed the young recruits assigned to watch the horizon. He told them an odd joke: if, at night, you see swimmers who show no signs of attacking, don’t bother to shoot; they’re probably just “water spirits,” and if you shoot, you’ll tempt them into retribution.
Superstitions about omens and spirits thrived in Taiwan, and an offhand comment from a commander might have been just enough to make a nervous teenager think twice before raising the alarm over a mysterious flutter on the night see.
Source:
Osnos, Evan. “Unfettered” Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China. London: Vintage, 2014. 19. Print.
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