Marc Aronson: Hi, I'm Marc Aronson. And I want to tell you about my book, Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue. And this story comes with a story. So one of my earliest childhood friends is Roy Freeman, whose father was Don Freeman, the famous children's book illustrator and author. Roy is a geologist who lives in Switzerland. He was leading me and my family walking through the Alps, telling the history of the Alps through the rocks, when I learned about the thirteen boys trapped in the cave in Thailand. I was following the story, and I read one article that really moved me and made me feel like there was a book there that I needed to write. And that was I learned that Thailand has a big problem with what's called stateless people, people who come into Thailand because they can make money, they can live there, but in America would be called undocumented. And the undocumented people in Thailand are really poorly treated and have very few rights.

And I learned something really important, that the boys in this soccer team in Thailand, many of them came from what we would call undocumented or stateless families. And that this soccer team gave them kind of a little hope, a little home, something to do in these difficult lives. And then I learned something else, that when the rescuers finally reached the boys, the two rescuers who reached them spoke English. There was one boy there who was fourteen years old and spoke five languages, including English, and he is stateless. And so, to me, the story of the very person, the kind of people that some administrations try to keep out of a country, try to exclude, was the one who could communicate, was the one who made the bridge between the rescuers and the boys.

And then I learned that the entire rescue was the most international effort with the American military working with the Chinese, with the Japanese irrigation specialists helping the Thai irrigation specialists, with divers coming from Spain, coming from America, coming from England, all to help. To me, the story of the Thai cave rescue is not just an adventure story, which it is. Not just an amazing story of survival, which it is. It's a story of internationalism. And it's a story of immigration. That those people who too many want to disdain, want to look down upon . . . . If you are willing to cross a border to live and work somewhere, that takes courage. That takes will. That takes determination. You are the kind of people we do need. And I felt that the story of the fourteen year old boy who spoke five languages so that when the divers emerged he could speak with them, to me, was the heart of this story.

A short passage from Rising Water: Images haunted Volanthen's and Stanton's minds -- they kept picturing the boys swept up, overcome, drowned by the tidal surges. Around the next corner might be thirteen floating bodies. The divers reached and passed Pattaya Beach. Nothing. No sign of Ek and the team. They swam on, laying line; one hundred meters, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred. They were running out of rope. Very soon, for their own safety, they would need to turn around, go back. An air pocket. Stanton raised his head to look around, then took off his face mask to sniff the air for any trace of human scent. Until now, water rushing through the caves had kept the air clear. The smell was overwhelming -- like an outhouse. Someone was here, or had been here.

'There they are," he said. "We've found them." Found whom? Found what? The odor said people had been here. Silence. No sounds. No sign of the team. One shift was doing its work scraping at the rocks when they heard something, voices. Ek told everyone to be silent so they could listen. The boys went still. Yes, they were right. They were hearing voices, conversation. Adul grabbed the flashlight and came down the wedge of sand to see who, what, was in the water.