The Black Tide (30 page)

The sunset was all purples and greens with clouds hanging on the sea’s eastern rim. Those clouds would be over Pakistan and I wondered whether we’d make it as I stood there munching a date and watching the sun sink behind the jagged outline of the Omani mountains and the colour fade from the sky. To port, night had already fallen over Iran. The stars came out. I picked a planet and steered on that.
Lighthouse flashes and the moving lights of passing ships, the dark confusion of the waves – soon I was so sleepy I was incapable of holding a course for more than a few minutes at a time.

Towards midnight a tanker overhauled us, outward-bound from the Gulf. I was steering south-east then, clear of the Straits now and heading into the Gulf of Oman. The tanker passed us quite close and there were others moving towards the Straits. Once a plane flew low overhead. Sometime around 02.00 I fell into a deep sleep.

I was jerked awake by a hand on my face. It was cold and clammy and I knew instantly that he’d come back to me out of the sea into which I’d thrown him.
No. I didn’t do it. You must have fallen
. I could hear my voice, high-pitched and scared. And then he was saying, ‘You’ve got to keep awake. I can’t steer, you see. I’ve tried, but I can’t – it hurts so.’

I could smell him then and I knew he was real, that I wasn’t dreaming. I was sprawled on the deck and he was crouched over me. ‘And the engine,’ he breathed. ‘It’s old. It eats oil. I can hear the big ends knocking themselves to pieces. It needs oil, man.’

There were cans of oil held by a loop of wire to one of the frames of the engine compartment. The filler cap was missing and there was no dipstick. I poured in half a can and hoped for the best. The engine certainly sounded quieter. Back on the poop I found him collapsed again against the binnacle box and the dhow with its bows turned towards the north star. A tanker passed us quite close, her deck lights blazing, figures moving by the midship derricks which were hoisting lengths of pipe! How I envied the bastards – cabins to go to, fresh water showers, clean clothes and drinks, everything immaculate, and no smell. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was food I wanted most or some ice-cold beer. The cold beer probably. My mouth was parched with the salt, my eyes gritty with lack of sleep. Choffel lay motionless, a dark heap on the deck and the minutes passed like hours.

Strange how proximity alters one’s view of a person, familiarity fostering acceptance. I didn’t hate him now. He
was there, a dark bundle curled up like a foetus on the deck, and I accepted him, a silent companion, part of the ship. The idea of killing him had become quite remote. It was my state of mind, of course. I was no longer rational, my body going through the motions of steering quite automatically, while my mind hovered in a trance, ranging back over my life, reality and fantasy all mixed up and Karen merging into Pamela. And that black-eyed girl with a cold cursing me in French and spitting in my face.
Guinevere
. How odd to name a girl
Guinevere
.

‘That’s my daughter,’ he said.

I blinked my eyes. He was sitting up, staring at me. ‘My daughter,’ he said again. ‘You were talking about my daughter.’ There was a long silence. I could see her very clearly, the pale clear skin, the square strong features, the dark eyes and the dark hair. ‘She tried to stop me. She didn’t want me to go to sea again – ever.’ He was suddenly talking about her, his voice quick and urgent. ‘We have some caves behind our house. Champignons! Parfait pour les champignons, she said. So we grew mushrooms, and it worked, except we couldn’t market them. Not profitably. She would keep us. That was her next idea. She was a typist. She did a course, you see – secretarial – after she left school. I can earn good money, she said. But a man can’t be kept like that, not by his daughter. He’s not a man if he can’t stand on his own feet …’ His voice faded, a despairing whisper that was thick with something he had to bring up. ‘The
Petros Jupiter
,’ he breathed. A fish rose, a circle of phosphorus on the dark water behind him. ‘She was in tears she was so angry. They’ll get at you, she said. They’ll get at you, I know they will. And I laughed at her. I didn’t believe it. I thought the
Petros Jupiter
was all right.’ He choked, spitting something out on to the deck. ‘And now I’ve got a bullet in my guts and I’ll probably die. That’s right, isn’t it? You’ll see to that and she’ll say you murdered me. She’ll kill you if you let me die. She’s like that. She’s so emotional, so possessive. The maternal instinct. It’s very strong in some women. I remember when she was about seven – she was the only one, you see – and I was back from a year’s tramping, a rusty old bucket
of a wartime Liberty called
St Albans
, that was when she first began to take charge of me. There were things to mend – she’d just learned to sew, you see – and cooking … living in France girls get interested in the cuisine very young. She’d mother anything that came her way, injured birds, stray puppies, hedgehogs, even reptiles. Then it was people and nursing. She’s a born nurse, that’s why she works in a clinic, and beautiful – like her mother, so beautiful. Her nature. You know what I mean – so very, very beautiful, so …’ His voice choked, a sobbing sound.

He was crying. I couldn’t believe it, here on this stinking dhow, lying there with a bullet in his guts, and he was crying over his daughter. A beautiful nature – hell! A little spitfire.

‘It was after the
Stella Rosa
. You know about the
Stella Rosa
, don’t you?’

‘Speridion.’

‘Of course, you mentioned him.’ He nodded, a slight movement of the head in the dark. ‘Speridion had been paid to do it, only the thing went off prematurely, blew half his chest away. There was an Enquiry and when that was over I went home. She was still at school then, but she’d read the papers. She knew what it was all about, and she’d no illusions. You’re a marked man, Papa. She never called me Dad or Daddy, always Papa. That was when she began to take charge, trying to mother me. Jenny wasn’t a bit like that. Jenny was my wife’s name. She was a very passive, quiet sort of person, so I don’t know where my daughter got it from.’ He stopped there, his voice grown weak; but his eyes were open, he was still conscious and I asked him about the
Aurora B
. ‘Did you know it was the
Aurora B?
’

He didn’t answer, but I knew he’d heard the question, for I could see the consciousness of it in his eyes, guessed in the wideness of their stare his knowledge of what my next question would be. Yes, he knew about the crew. He nodded slowly. He knew they were kept imprisoned in the chain locker. ‘You couldn’t help but know, not living on board as I was for over a week.’ And then, when they’d called for power to the main anchor winch, he’d known they’d have to bring the prisoners up out of the chain locker and he had come on
deck to see what happened to them. ‘You saw it, too, did you?’ His voice shook. And when I nodded, he said, ‘That’s when I decided I’d have to get away. I could see the dhow and I knew it was my last chance. In the morning it would be gone. That was when I made up my mind.’ His voice dropped away. ‘Always before I’ve stayed. I never believed it could happen – not again. And when it did—’ He shook his head, murmuring – ‘But not this time. Not with a coldblooded bastard like Sadeq. And there was you. Your coming on board—’ His voice died away completely.

‘There are two ships,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

I thought he nodded.

‘What happened to the other?’

He didn’t answer.

‘The seizing of
Aurora B
,’ I said, catching hold of him and almost shaking him. ‘That went wrong, didn’t it? That was the first one, and it went wrong.’

He stared up at me, his eyes wide, not saying anything. ‘And then they grabbed the second ship, the
Howdo Stranger
. Did you see her?’

‘No.’ He said it fiercely, an urgent whisper. ‘I don’t know anything about it. Nothing at all.’

‘Are they going to meet up? Is that why they’re getting the
Aurora B
officered and ready for sea?’ His eyes had closed, his body limp. ‘Where are they going to meet up? Where are they going to spill their oil? They’re going to spill it on the coast of Europe. Isn’t that the plan?’ I was shaking him violently now, so violently that he screamed out with the pain of it like a shot rabbit.

‘Please, for God’s sake!’ His voice was thick with blood and hardly audible.

‘Where?’ I shouted at him.

But he had fainted away, mumbling something about the salvage, which I didn’t understand, his body collapsing in the grip of my hand. I cursed myself for having been too rough, the man in a coma now, his body shifting limply to the movement of the ship. I went back to the helm then, and though I called him several times, repeating my questions over and over again, he never answered. I passed the time
watching the fish rise, pools of brightness in the dark, and our wake a fading lane of sparkling brilliance. We were well into the Gulf of Oman now, the fish more numerous than ever and the sea’s phosphorescence quite spectacular. Sharks went under us leaving torpedo-like wakes and shoals of fish broke up like galaxies exploding. It was a fantastic pyrotechnic show of brilliant white lights forming below the surface of the sea and then bursting, constantly vanishing only to reappear, another patch of dark water suddenly illuminated.

Dawn came at last, a greying in the east, on the port bow. My second dawn at the dhow’s helm and still nothing hot to eat, only dates and unboiled water. It came quickly, a magic burst of violent colour thrusting in flame over the horizon and then the sun like a great curved crimson wheel showing its hot iron rim and lifting fast, a visible movement.

I had parted company with the tanker traffic at the beginning of the dawn watch, steering a course just south of east that I hoped would close the coast in the region of the Pakistan-Iranian frontier. There were moments when I thought I could see it, a vague smudge like a brown crayon line away to port just for’ard of the thunderbox. But I couldn’t be sure, my eyes playing me tricks and the sun’s rapidly growing heat drawing moisture from the sea, the atmosphere thickening into a milky haze. Another eighteen hours! I went below and dipped the fuel tank. It was almost empty. Smears of dried blood marked the poop deck.

Choffel’s eyes were closed, his head lolling. His features, his whole body seemed to have shrunk in the night, so that he was like a wax doll curled up there by the binnacle.

I secured the helm and went up into the thunderbox to squat there with my bottom hung out over a slat and bare to the waves, my head poked out above the wood surround, looking at the dhow and the injured man and the water creaming past. Afterwards I stripped off and sluiced myself down with buckets of sea water. And then I carried him back to the lazarette.

It was too hot for an injured man on the deck. That’s what I told myself anyway, but the truth was I couldn’t stand him
there. He had begun mumbling to himself.
Jenny!
He kept on saying Jenny, so I knew he was talking to his wife. I didn’t want to know the intimate details of their life together. I didn’t want to be drawn closer to him through a knowledge of his own private hell.
Jenny, oh my darling – I can’t help
. He choked over the words.
I’ve nothing left to give you
. And then he whispered,
The stomach again, is it? He said he’d bring more pills
. He nodded, playing the part.
Yes, the doctor’s coming, darling. He’ll be here any minute
. His eyes were closed, his voice quite clear, trembling with the intensity of recollection.
Doctor!
His eyes were suddenly open, staring at me, but without sight.
Have you brought them? For the pain. It’s in the belly
… I put him down quickly and fled, back into the sunlight and the sanity of steering.

A few minutes later the engine gave its first tentative cough. I thought perhaps I was mistaken, for it went on as before giving out full power. But it coughed again, checking, then picking up. It picked up on the dip of the bows, so I knew it was now dependent on the last vestige of fuel being slopped back and forth in the bottom of the tank. I suppose we covered another two or three miles under increasingly uneven power, then suddenly all was quiet, only the splash and gurgle of water along the ship’s side. The engine had finally died, the tiller going slack as we lost way.

The air was heavy and very still, only occasional cat’s-paws ruffling the oily calm that stretched away on all sides until lost in the white glare of the heat haze. A sudden whisper of spray to starb’d and the whole surface of the sea took off, a thousand little skittering slivers of silver breaking the surface, and behind the shoal a dozen king mackerel arched their leaping bodies in pursuit, scattering prisms of rainbow colours in the splash of a myriad droplets. Again and again they leaped, the shoals skittering ahead of them in a panic of sparkling silver; then suddenly it was over, the oily surface of the sea undisturbed again, so undisturbed that the voracious demonstration of the hard piscatorial world below might never have been.

It was very humid, unseasonally so, since it was still the period of the north-east monsoon, and now that we were into
the Arabian Sea we should have had the benefit of at least a breeze from that direction. The current, which was anticlockwise for another month, would have a westerly set and would thus be against us. I spent over an hour and all my energy unfurling and setting the heavy lateen sail. To do this I had to shin up the spar with a butcher’s knife from the store and cut the rope tie-ers. The rest was relatively simple, just a matter of hard work, using the block and tackle already attached to the spar and another that acted as a sheet for the sail. With so little wind it hung over me in folds, flapping to the slow motion of the ship. But it did provide some shade on deck and in an instant I was wedged into the scuppers fast asleep.

I woke to the sound of water rushing past, opening my eyes to see the great curved sail bellied out and full of wind. Even as I watched, it began to shiver. I leaped to my feet, wide awake and diving up the steps to the tiller, hauling it over just in time to avoid being taken aback. The wind was north-west about force 3, still in the
shamal
quarter, so that I could only just lay my course. The coast was clearly visible now. The haze had gone, the day bright and clear, the sea sparkling, and the sun was almost overhead. I glanced at my watch. It was 13.05. I couldn’t believe it. I had been asleep for something like four hours.