The Black Tide

Suddenly the phone rang. It was Ahmad Khan’s office. Muscat had reported both reconnaissance planes back at base. They had been in the air over 3V2 hours and had covered virtually the whole of the Gulf from the Straits right down to Ras al Had, southeast of Muscat, and had also flown 300 miles into the Arabian Sea. Of all the tankers they had sighted only five or six had approximated to the size of the Aurora B, and none of those had answered to the description I had given. Also, most of the ships sighted had been contacted.by radio and none had reported seeing anything resembling the Aurora B. All the ships sighted had been in the normal shipping lanes. They had seen nothing outside these lanes and the search had now been called off. The same negative report had been made by seaborne helicopters searching the Musandam Peninsula and the foothills of the Jebel al Harim. That search had also been called off.

He put the phone down and picked up his jacket. ‘I am instructed to escort you to the airport and see that you leave on the next flight to the UK. Please, you will now get ready.’

‘Any reason?’

He hesitated, then gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t think it matters that you know. Your allegations have been discussed in the highest quarters. They are regarded as very sensitive. Accordingly your Consul has been informed that you are persona non grata in this country. You understand?’

I nodded. I felt suddenly as though I had some contagious disease, everybody distancing themselves from me. But at least I was being allowed to leave.

‘You come now please.’ Ahmad Khan had his jacket slung over his shoulder and was standing waiting for me. I had nothing, only the shirt and

trousers in which I had arrived. ‘I’ll need a sweater, something warm. It’s winter in London.’

But all he said was, ‘That is for your Consul. Come please.’ Hussain was standing with the door open. We went back down the cement corridors, the room bearer following us a little forlornly. We left him at the lift muttering to himself. A driver was waiting for us at the reception desk, a big, serious-looking man with a black moustache and a sort of turban, who led us out to an official car. We went first to the Abdullah Haroon Road Bazaar, where I had passport photos taken, and after that we drove out on the Khayaban-i-Iobal road to the British Consulate, which was close to the Clifton seaside resort. I had been there once before. It was up a long drive through a well-tended estate and gardens.

I asked to see the Consul himself, but he, too, was distancing himself from the whole affair. He wasn’t available and I had to be content with a grey-haired, harassed-looking Pakistani, who issued me with temporary papers and then, by raiding some emergency stores, produced a pair of patched grey flannel trousers and a blue seaman’s jersey, socks and a pair of boots.

It was in this peculiar rig that thirteen hours later I arrived at Heathrow. Ahmad Khan had stayed with me until I was actually on the plane. In fact, he saw me to my seat, accompanied by the senior steward. It was a PIA aircraft full of emigrants going to join relatives in Britain, a bedlam of a journey with the toilets awash and one or two children who had never seen a flush lavatory before in their lives. I don’t know what chief steward was told about me, but he and the i

ardess kept a very careful watch over me with the result that I had excellent service, my every want attended to immediately.

Brown had not seen fit to see me off and I had been refused permission to telephone. However, I was told he had been informed of my time of departure and flight number, and I presumed he would have passed this on to Saltley so that he would know my ETA at Heathrow. But there was nobody there to meet me and no message. I was delayed only a few moments at Immigration and then I was through and just one of the great flood of humanity that washes through Heathrow Airport. There is nothing more depressing than to be on your own in one of the terminals, all of London before you and nobody expecting you, no plans. The time was 08.27 and it was Sunday. Also it was blowing hard from the north-west and raining, the temperature only a little above freezing — a typical late January day. I changed my salt-stiffened franc notes and Emirate currency, got myself a coffee and sat over it, smoking a duty-free cigarette and thinking over all that had happened since I had left for Nantes ten days ago. No good ringing Forthright’s, the office would be closed and I hadn’t Saltley’s home number.

In the end I took the tube to Stepney Green and just over an hour later I was back in the same basement room, lying on the bed, smoking a cigarette with the legs of passers-by parading across the top of the grime-streaked window. I was looking at the typescript of

my book again. ‘You left it her,’ Mrs Steinway had

said to me when she brought it down from her room