The Black Tide (40 page)

‘The island should be on the starb’d bow,’ I told her.

‘I know.’ She nodded, staring into the mist, her eyes narrowed, all her hair, including her eyebrows, sparkling with moisture. ‘I just caught a glimpse of it, very pale and quite sheer.’ But in a mist it is so easy to imagine you can see what you are expecting to see. ‘I’m sure it was those sandstone
cliffs.’

I stayed with her, conscious of her proximity, the female scent of her, finding the bluntness of her hands on the wheel, the intentness of her square determined face somehow attractive. She was such a very capable girl, so unemotional, quite the opposite of Karen. There had been an early morning watch when everybody was still asleep and she had joined me in the cockpit, sitting so close that every time the boat rolled I could feel the pressure of her body against mine. I had touched her then and she had let me, till without saying a word, but smiling quietly to herself, she had gone below to get breakfast. But that was two days ago, when we were hove-to in the gale.

‘There!’ She pointed and I saw the mist had thinned. Something glimmered on the edge of visibility. The boat lifted on a swell and I lost it behind the port shrouds. ‘Gone again,’ she breathed. It was as though we were sailing along the edge of a cloud, a lost world, all blinding white, sea and air merged together and fleeting glimpses of blue overhead. Then I saw it myself, like a pale cliff rising out of the opaque miasma which was the horizon.

Her brown hands shifted on the wheel, the boat turning to put that pale glimmer of a cliff close on the port bow, our sight of it unobstructed by the sails. I was standing now, my eyes narrowed against the sun-glare, the mist coming and going and nothing visible any longer but a glimmering void. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘I’m steering two-forty. Shall I hold on that or get back to two-seventy?’

I hesitated. Had we really seen the cliffs of Selvagem Grande, or had it been a trick of the mist in the confusing glow of the sun’s hidden light? I brushed the moisture from my eyelashes, watching for the horizon to appear again. ‘I’ll hold on then,’ she said. ‘I’m certain it was the cliffs.’

I nodded, imagining I saw something again. But when I shifted my gaze I could see the same vague shape on the edge of visibility wherever I looked. A trick of the light. I closed my eyes, resting them against the glare, and when I opened them I could see a horizon emerging and there, over the bows, was that cliff, shining palely in that opaque world of mist and sun. ‘Something there,’ I murmured, reaching for
the binoculars, and she nodded, standing herself now and steering with her bare foot on the wheel, her hair hanging loose and all bright with moisture like an autumn web. Swirls of mist and a little breeze cat’s-pawing the surface of the sea. The binoculars were useless, making the mist worse. Then the veil was drawn back, drifting astern of us, and suddenly we were in hazy sunshine, with the horizon hardening to a line and those cliffs emerging again and sprouting a funnel.

No doubt about it now, it was a ship hull-down ahead of us. I shouted to Saltley, my voice echoing Pamela’s, and the others came tumbling up on deck. The breeze was picking up and we were moving through the water at a good five knots. Nobody spoke, all of us staring intently, willing it to be the ship we were looking for. The minutes passed slowly, the hull gradually lifting above the horizon until at last we knew it was a tanker. What is more, she was hove-to; either that or she was anchored, for the bearing didn’t change.

The time was 11.17. The date February 19. Day Thirty since the
Aurora B
had sailed. Saltley turned to Pamela. ‘I think I’d like you sunbathing on the foredeck. A bikini if you would, Pam, and a towel so that you can wave as we go close under their stern. I’ll be down below taking pictures through the hatch.’

Mark took the helm and Saltley briefed him very precisely. What he wanted was clear photographic evidence of the name and port of registry painted on the tanker’s stern. We would then sail up the vessel’s port side and he would take shots of the name on the bows.

By the time Pamela came on deck again, stripped almost to the bare flesh and bronzed like a young Amazon, the mist was a dirty smudge astern of us, the sun shining out of a clear blue sky. There was more wind now, the boat close-hauled and slipping fast through the water, the air getting warmer. The tanker was lying with her bows pointing north. She was about three miles away, and beyond her, to the north-west, we could just see the black basalt tops of Selvagem Grande lifting above the horizon.

Through the glasses it was already possible to see that the
superstructure, which had looked almost white glimmering at us through the mist, was in fact painted emerald green, the funnel white with a bright red band and two golden stars. The hull was black and as soon as all the details of the vessel were clearly visible Saltley was checking them against the photographs laid out on the cockpit seats. It was difficult to be sure about her tonnage, but everything else matched, except the colour. The
Howdo Stranger
had been painted in the GODCO colours of blue hull with a blue funnel above a sand-yellow superstructure.

There was little doubt in my mind, or in Saltley’s. Every little detail of the deck layout matched, and as we closed with her, making to pass close under her stern, I knew she was about the same tonnage. ‘Don’t forget,’ Saltley said to Mark as he dived below. ‘Get right under her stern, then gybe.’

We came down on her very fast, the black hull growing, until it towered above us, massive as an iron breakwater. High up on the bridge wing there was a little knot of men watching us. I counted seven, a motley group with only one of them in any sort of uniform. Pamela was lying stretched out on the foredeck. Two men in overalls appeared on the upper deck just below the lifeboat, one of them pointing as Pamela sat up and turned her head. Then she got languidly to her feet. They waved and we waved back, the group on the bridge watching us. I saw the flash of binoculars and then we lost them as we passed under the massive steel wall of her stern. And there close above us was the name,
Shah Mohammed – Basra
picked out in white and startlingly clear against the black of the hull.

A man leaning over the stern rail was joined by others, all of them waving. The yacht yawed, swinging round. ‘Duck!’ Saltley shouted. The boom came over with a crash, the sail slatting, everything in a tangle, and down below Saltley crouching out of sight, the camera with its telescopic lens directed at the ship’s name, the shutter clicking. Even with the naked eye we could see the second O of the original name just showing as a faint raised shadow in the gap between
Shah
and
Mohammed
.

Everything was very quiet, no sound of engines as we sorted out the deck, coming round on to the port tack and
sailing up the side of the tanker. In repainting the hull they appeared to have used only one coat, for here and there glimpses of the old blue showed through the black, and when we reached the bows, there it was again, the shadow of the O just visible in the middle of
Shah Mohammed
, which was again painted white so that it stood out with great clarity.

Saltley passed up an aerosol foghorn and Mark gave three blasts as we sheered away, back on to our original course. The tanker remained silent, the same little knot of watchers now transferred to the port bridge wing. Through the glasses I could see one of them gesticulating. Then, when we were almost a mile away, the
Shah Mohammed
suddenly emitted two deep long-drawn-out belches from its siren as though expressing relief at our departure.

The question now was, did we head for the nearest port with the evidence we had or wait for the
Aurora B
to show up? I wanted to get away now. I hadn’t liked the look of the little group on the bridge wing. All the original crew must be locked up in her somewhere and the sooner she was arrested the more chance there was that they’d be got out alive. But Saltley was adamant that we must wait. ‘Who do you suppose is going to arrest her?’

‘Surely the Navy—’

‘In international waters? Didn’t you see the flag she was flying, the colours they’d painted her in? Black, white and green, with red and two stars on the hoist, those are the Iraqi colours. I think
Lloyd’s List
will show the
Shah Mohammed
to be properly registered as an Iraqi vessel. They’re sure to have made it legal, to that extent, and if they have, then the Navy couldn’t possibly act without government authority, and you can just imagine the British Government authorising the seizure of a ship belonging to Iraq. It could upset the Arab world, spark off a major international row.’

I thought his twisted legal mind was splitting straws. ‘And if we wait,’ I said, ‘until we have evidence of the two ships meeting – what difference will that make?’

He shrugged. ‘Not a lot, I admit. But two ships meeting at a lonely group of islands does suggest a purpose. At least it’s something I can argue.’

‘But you’ve got the proof already,’ Mark insisted. ‘That’s
the
Howdo Stranger
out there. No doubt of it. Repainted. Renamed. But it’s still the same ship, the one Dad insured and the owners claim has disappeared. It’s there. And you’ve got photographs to prove it.’

‘Given time and a court of law.’ Saltley nodded. ‘Yes, I think we probably could prove it. But I’ve got to persuade top-level civil servants at the Foreign Office to advise the Secretary of State he’s justified in authorising what amounts to a flagrant breach of international law. I’ve got to convince them there’s no risk to them or to the country, that what they find on board will prove absolutely the hostile and deadly nature of the operation.’ He was standing in the hatch and he leaned forward, his hands on the teak decking. ‘If you can tell me what that operation is …’ He paused, his eyes staring at me, very blue under the dark peaked cap. ‘But you don’t know, do you? You don’t know what it’s all about and you never thought to question Choffel about it.’ His eyes shifted to the stationary tanker. ‘So we wait for the
Aurora B
. Agreed?’ He stared at us for a moment, then, when nobody answered him, he turned abruptly and went down into the saloon.

A moment later he was back with glasses and a bottle of gin, a conciliatory gesture, for I don’t think he liked it any more than I did. We drank in moody silence, none of us doubting now that the
Aurora B
would appear in due course, but all wondering how long it would be before we were released from our lonely vigil.

The rest of the day proved fine and bright. We lay hove-to off the western coast of Selvagem Grande till nightfall, then shifted our station two miles to the north with the light bearing 145°. There was no sign of the tanker. I was certain she was still there, lying hove-to without lights. Saltley was certain, too, but when the moon rose and still no sign of her, he had sail hoisted and we back-tracked towards the position where we had originally found her.

I didn’t like it and I said so. I was certain our metal mast would show up as a clear blip on their radar screen. After a while we turned south-west towards Selvagem Pequena, reducing sail until we were moving at little more than three
knots. We heard the swell breaking on the rocks before we could see the island, and then suddenly there was our tanker lying just to the south of Fora.

We turned then, heading north, back towards Selvagem Grande. ‘I think she’s seen us.’ Mark was watching through the glasses. ‘She’s under way and heading towards us.’

We hoisted the genoa again and seemed to hold our own for a while, then she came up on us very fast, steaming at full ahead and pushing a mountain of water ahead of her broad deep-laden bows. We altered course to starb’d as though making for the landing place on Selvagem Grande. The tanker also altered course, so that the bows were less than a cable’s length away as she steamed up abreast of us. A searchlight stabbed the night from high up on her superstructure, flooding the water round us until it picked up the white of our sails and fixed on us, blindingly, as the long black hull went thumping past. The stink of diesel fumes enveloped us seconds before we were picked up by the massive bow wave and flung sideways into the suck and break of such a massive bulk being driven through the water at about fifteen knots.

For a moment all hell seemed to break loose. Toni Bartello was flung against me so that I ended up half-bent over one of the sheet winches with a sharp pain in the lower part of my rib cage. Pamela was on her knees clinging to the guardrail and down below the crash of crockery and other loose objects flying about the saloon was almost as loud as the slatting of sails and boom. And all the time the searchlight remained fixed on us.

Then suddenly we were out of the wash, everything preternaturally quiet. Blackness closed over us as the searchlight went out. It took a little while for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. Somebody said, ‘She had her nav lights on.’ I could see the broad back of her now, the stern light showing white and the Iraqi flag picked out by the steaming light on her after-mast. Moonlight gradually revealed the surface of the sea. Was this her final departure? Had the
Aurora B
arrived in the darkness? We searched the horizon, but no sign of another tanker, and shortly after
03.00 we lost sight of the
Shah Mohammed
behind the dark outline of Selvagem Grande.

When dawn broke the sea was empty and no vessel in sight.

We were north of the island ourselves then, all of us very tired and arguing wearily about what we should do. In the end, we turned downwind with the intention of checking that the tanker hadn’t returned to her old position south of Fora. Shortly after noon I heard Toni Bartello wake Saltley to tell him he had sighted the smaller islands and a tanker lying to the south of them.

We were all up then, putting about and changing sail so that we lay hove-to with the tanker just in sight like a sheer rock on the edge of visibility. We kept it in sight all afternoon, lying drowsily on deck, stripped to the waist and warm in the sun.

Towards evening the wind began to back, the air thickening till we could no longer see the tanker. A small boat came out from under the lee of Pequena, its bows lifted and moving fast. It was an inflatable with three men in it. We could hear the sound of its outboard clear and strident above the growing rumble of the reef surf as it made straight towards us. Only when it was a few yards off did the man at the wheel cut the engine and swing it broadside to us. One of the three stood up, clasping the top of the windshield to steady himself. ‘Who is Captain here?’ His face was narrow with a high-bridged nose and a little black moustache, and his accent was similar to Sadeq’s.