The Black Tide (27 page)

This was nearly my undoing, for I started back along the catwalk. There were shelters at regular intervals, two between the fo’c’sle and the manifold, and four foam monitor platforms like gunhousings with ladders down to the deck. I was using my torch to peer inside the second of these fire-fighting platforms when a figure emerged coming towards me along the catwalk. I just had time to reach the deck and was crouched under the platform when he passed, hurrying to the fo’c’sle with something that looked like a toolbox in his hand.

He didn’t re-emerge, though I stayed there several minutes watching the point where his figure had disappeared. Cautiously I moved to the ship’s rail, not daring to go back on to the catwalk. I could see the derrick now and by keeping close to the rail I was able to bypass both the breaker
and the manifold. I was moving quite quickly, all the sounds of the ship, even the quite different sounds of the dhow scraping against its side, identified and familiar. A seabird squawked and flapped past me like an owl. I could see the dhow’s mainmast, and had just passed the portside derrick winch, when I heard the clink of metal against metal. It came from further aft, somewhere near the deeper darkness that must be the superstructure emerging out of the gloom.

I hesitated, but the sound was not repeated.

I moved away from the rail then, making diagonally across the deck towards the line of pipes running fore and aft down the centre of the ship. Moving carefully, my eyes searching ahead in the darkness, I stubbed my toe against what seemed to be some sort of a gauge. There was a sounding pipe near it and another of those access hatches to the tanks below. I could see the pipes now, and at that moment a figure seemed to rise up, a looming shadow barring my way. I dropped instantly to the deck, lying sprawled against the steel edge of the access hatch, my eyes wide, probing the darkness.

There was something there. The shape of one of the foam monitor platforms perhaps, or was it a small derrick? Something vertical. But nothing moved, no sound I didn’t know. I rose slowly to my feet, and at that same moment the shape moved, growing larger.

No good dropping to the deck again. He must have seen me. I backed away, moving carefully, step by step, hoping to God I wouldn’t stumble over another hatch. If I could back away far enough to merge into the darkness behind me … The clink of metal on metal again, very close now, very clear, and the figure still seeming to move towards me.

I felt the sweat breaking out on my body, the wind cooling it instantly so that I was suddenly shivering with cold. That metallic sound – it could only be some weapon, a machine pistol like the guard in the wheelhouse had jabbed in my stomach. I wanted to run then, take the chance of bullets spraying in the hope of escaping into the darkness. But if I did that I’d be cornered, pinned up for’ard with no hope of making it back to my cabin.

My heel touched an obstruction. I felt behind me with my
hand, not turning my head for fear of losing sight of the shape edging towards me. The winch – I was back at the derrick. I dropped slowly to the deck, crawling behind one of the winch drums and holding my breath.

Nothing moved, the figure motionless now, merging into the darkness. Had I been mistaken? Crouched there, I felt completely trapped. He had only to shine his torch …

‘Who’s there?’

The voice was barely audible, lost in the wind. The dhow thumped the side of the ship. A seabird flew screaming across the deck. Silence now, only the noise of the wind howling through pipes and derricks, making weird groans and whines against the background rushing of waves in the
khawr
, and the dhow going thump – thump.

Surely I must have imagined it?

I lifted my head above the big steel drum, staring towards the central line of pipes, seeing nothing but the vague shadow of the bridge-like outline of the firefighting platform, the foam gun like a giant’s pistol. Above my head the derrick pointed a long thick finger at the clouds.

‘Is there anybody there now?’

That voice again, in a lull and much clearer this time. So clear I thought I recognized it. But why would he be out here on the deck? And if it were Choffel, then he’d have a torch with him. He wouldn’t go standing stock still on the deck asking plaintively if anyone was there.

I thought I saw him, not coming towards me, but moving away to the right, towards the rail. He must have been standing exactly between me and the fire monitor platform, otherwise I must have seen him for he wasn’t more than ten paces away.

Then why hadn’t he shone a torch? If he were armed … But perhaps I’d been mistaken. Perhaps he wasn’t armed. Perhaps he thought I was one of the guards and then, when he’d got no reply and had seen no further sign of movement, he’d put it down to his own imagination. And the fact that he hadn’t used his torch, that could be explained by a standing order not to show a light at night except in extreme emergency.

What was he doing here anyway?

Without thinking I moved forward, certain now that it must be Choffel. Curiosity, hate, determination to see what he was up to – God knows what it was that drew me after him, but I moved as though drawn by a magnet. The outline of the rail showed clear, and suddenly beyond it the dhow’s mast. The figure had drifted away, lost from sight. I blinked my eyes, quickening my step, half cursed as my foot caught against another of the tank inspection hatches. A gap in the rail, and a few yards further aft the outline of a davit. I had reached the head of the gangway.

No sign of Choffel. I stepped on to the grating at the top. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel the movement of somebody descending. The dark shape of the dhow was for’ard of the gangway so that it was obvious there must be a boat for communication between dhow and tanker.

What a moment to take him! A push, a quick push – nothing else. I could dimly see the water rushing past, small whitecaps hissing and breaking as the wind hit the sheer side of the tanker, flurries gusting down into the sea. Quickly, my hand on the rail, I began to descend. The gangway swayed, clinking against the side. I heard his voice hailing the dhow. An Arab answered and a figure appeared on the dhow’s high poop, a hurricane lamp lighting his face as he held it high, and below, in the water, I saw a small wooden boat bobbing on a rope at the dhow’s stern. ‘O-ai, O-ai!’ The sound of a human voice hurled on the wind, the words unidentifiable. More voices, the cries louder, then the light of another lamp swaying up from below.

I squatted down, sure he must see me now, crouching low and pressing my body against one of the gangway stanchions, desperately willing myself to be unseen, my guts involuntarily contracting. When he had shone that torch, screening it beneath his jacket, I had seen the thin jutting pencil line of what I was certain had been the barrel of a gun.

There was a lot of activity on the dhow now, men gathered in the waist and the boat being slowly hauled along the ship’s side in the teeth of the wind and the breaking waves. Crouched there I had a crane’s-eye view as one of the Arabs
tucked his robes up round his waist and jumped into the boat. Then they floated it down, paying out rope steadily, till it reached the staging where Choffel stood at the bottom of the gangway.

Spray flew over him as he reached down to steady the boat. Now! Now, I thought, while his mind was on the boat, and I rose to my feet, and in that instant a beam stabbed the darkness from above, groping along the side of the ship till its light fell on the boat with the Arab kneeling in it, gripping tight to the last stanchion, and Choffel just about to step into it. They remained like that for an instant, frozen into immobility, as though caught by the flash of a camera, while from aft, from the wing of the bridge came a distant cry lost in the wind.

The men on the dhow began shouting – something, I don’t know what. It was unintelligible. But they were beckoning and heaving on the rope. The man in the boat let go of the stanchion. Suddenly there was a gap opening up between the boat and the gangway and I saw Choffel’s face in the light of the torch, very pale and twisted in the expression of some strong emotion, his mouth open.

Then he had turned and was pounding up the gangway towards me.

I had no time to get out of his way. He came straight at me, and when he saw me he didn’t stop, merely flashed his torch on my face. ‘You!’ He clawed past me, and a moment later I saw him standing precariously balanced on the rail capping, watching for the sway of the dhow as it thumped the side. And then he jumped, a shadowy outline flying in the darkness, to finish up clasping his arms round the swaying mast and sliding down into the folds of the great furled sail.

No shouts from the bridge now, and everything dark again, the only light a hurricane lamp in the waist of the dhow. I felt rooted to the spot, standing there on the gangway peering down at the figures gathered on the dhow’s deck, their big-nosed, Semitic faces staring upwards. Then suddenly he was among them, standing with his gun in his hand, his cap cocked rakishly on the side of his head – I remember that distinctly, the fact that he was wearing a cap,
and at an angle – and his torch stabbing here and there as he issued orders to the dim-seen, long-robed figures gathered around him.

One of them disappeared below. The engineer, I guessed, and Choffel followed him. I started down the gangway, my mind in a whirl, descending it quickly, wondering whether he would make it out to sea, what he would do with the crew, where he would head for?

I was halfway down when the dhow’s engine coughed behind me, then spluttered into life. And at that instant a torch flashed out from the deck above. Somebody shouted. I waved acknowledgment, pretending I understood and was trying to prevent the dhow’s escape. I was at the bottom of the gangway now, standing helpless, wondering whether I could swim for it, knowing I’d be swept away, and remembering the look of panic on the man’s face, the way his mouth had opened – ‘You!’ he had exclaimed, hurling himself past me. Only a man driven by fear and desperation would have made that incredible jump for the mast.

And now – now there was no way I could stop him. I should have reacted quicker. I should have taken him on the gangway, the moment he recognized me, when he was off-balance, held there for a second by the shock of seeing me.

A shot sounded, but not from above. It came from the dhow, the stern of it growing bigger. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Instead of swinging out from the side of the tanker, it was falling back towards me. It cleared the gangway by inches, then the big hull closed in, grinding along the grating, slowly crushing it. Arab faces, pallid and jabbering with anger, peered down at me. Somewhere for’ard along the dhow’s deck a voice screamed – ‘Go! Go now!’ There was the sound of a shot, very loud, the crack of a bullet and the beam of a torch stabbing the gloom.

The waist was abreast of me, and without thinking I seized hold of a rope, pulled myself up and over the bulwarks, and as I dropped to the deck, the Arab crew were clawing their way over the side, tumbling down on to the gangway grating to lie there in a heap, bin Suleiman among them, his eyes rolling in the light of a powerful spotlight
directed from high up on the bridge wing as bullets sang through the rigging, ploughing into the woodwork, sending splinters flying.

‘Insh’Allah!’ I think it was the
naukkada
’s voice, but whether it was his ship or his own life he was committing into the hands of God I don’t know, for Choffel was coming aft, running through the spatter of bullets. He had let go the for’ard mooring line and the dhow was sliding back, its hull grating against the gangway and along the ship’s side. Then it was brought up short, still held on the stern mooring line so that it hung there for a moment, illumined by the spotlight, while the Arabs went scrambling up the gangway on to the tanker’s deck. There was no sign of Choffel. Crouched there by the bulwarks, I had a vague impression of his having leapt for the steps leading up to the poop.

Slowly we began to swing away from the ship’s side. The dhow was turning in the wind, swinging on the stern warp, and then in a rush we closed the tanker again, the wooden timbers on the far side crashing against the steel plates with a jar that went right through me. The deck lights were switched on, everything suddenly sharp-etched, the shattered remains of the dhow’s boat drifting past and faces peering down from the rail high above. Sadeq was there. He had brushed the Arabs aside and was standing at the head of the gangway, his bearded face clear in the lights as he seized hold of a guard’s machine pistol, rammed in another clip, and then, holding the gun close at his waist, swung it towards me, his movements deliberate, his expression coldly professional. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go, the muzzle pointing straight down at me, his hand on the trigger. Then he seemed to freeze into immobility, his eyes narrowing as he saw who it was he was about to kill. It must have been that, for after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted the barrel of the gun, lifted it deliberately away from me, aiming at the dhow’s poop, his finger contracting, the muzzle jerking to the spit of bullets, and the staccato chatter of it echoed by the sound of them slamming into wood, splinters flying and a man screaming.

I thought Choffel fired back, but it was just a single shot
followed by a sharp twanging sound as the stern line parted. Then we were bumping along the tanker’s side, the hull moving past us faster and faster, and the high wooden bulk of the poop between me and the shots being fired. I heard the engine note change, suddenly deepening, felt the throb of the screw as it gripped the water and I got to my feet.

We were clear of the tanker’s stern now and turning into the wind, no longer falling back towards the cliffs, but slowly turning into the seas, and the whole vast bulk of the brightly lit tanker stretched out high above us on the starb’d quarter. We turned till the superstructure was astern of us, and it was only then that I heard a voice calling my name. It came like a gull crying in the night, a voice of pain and fear and exasperation – ‘Ro-o-d-in! Ro-o-d-in!’ Then – ‘Quick – hu-rry!’