The Black Tide

‘Ah, that nice, circular, very expensive room of yours with the pretty view of the Straits.’ He moved to the desk and sat down, his eyes fastening on me again as he took a slip of paper from his pocket. ‘We’ll assume for the moment that your statement is correct in so far as those tankers are concerned. To that extent your story is confirmed by this marine solicitor—’ He glanced down at his aide-memoire. ‘Saltley. Any news of him?’ There was silence and he nodded. ‘We must take it then that he’s still stuck in Lisbon. Pity! A trained, logical, and unemotional—’ He was looking at me again — ‘witness would have been very helpful to me. However …’ He shrugged. And then, working from his single-sheet brief, he began to cross-examine me. Was I sure about the identity of the second tanker? What were conditions like when we had sighted it? ‘You must have been tired then. Are you sure it was the Aurora B?’ And then he was asking me about the night when the two of them had tried to run us down. ‘That’s what makes your story less than entirely convincing.’ And he added, ‘My difficulty, you see, is that there are three witnesses at sea and unobtainable, and this man Saltley still lost apparently somewhere between here and Lisbon.’

I pointed out, of course, that Saltley had been present when Admiral Blaize had come on board the Prospero in Funchal, but all he said was, ‘Yes, but again it’s secondhand. Still…’ He fired a few more

questions at me, chiefly about the men who had visited us in the inflatable off Selvagem Pequena, then got up and stood for a moment at the window staring out to the harbour at an odd-looking craft with a slab-fronted superstructure and a pile of giant fenders balanced on the stern. ‘All right.’ He turned, smiling, his manner suddenly changed. ‘Let’s deal with the media. And you,’ he said to me, ‘you’ll come too and back up what I say.’

‘And the PM, sir?’ Basildon-Smith asked.

‘We’ll leave that till we’ve seen these buggers through the Straits.’

The Conference Room was big and circular, with combined desks and seats custom-built on a curve to fit its shape. Venetian blinds covered the windows. The place was full of people and there were television cameras. In the sudden silence of our entry the lash of a rainstorm was a reminder of the room’s exposed position high up over the Dover Straits.

The Minister was smiling now, looking very assured as he addressed them briefly, giving a quick resume of the situation and concluding with the words, ‘I would ask you all to bear in mind that these vessels are registered in Iraq, flying the Iraqi flag. We do not know they are planning mischief. All we know, as fact, is that they failed to report in to the French at Ushant and that they are now steaming east in the westbound traffic lane to the great danger of other vessels.’

‘And avoiding arrest by keeping well away from the French coast,’ a voice said.

‘Yes, that is a perfectly valid point. As you know,

we still do not have powers of arrest, not even in our own waters. Much as we should like these powers—’

‘Why don’t you bring in a bill then?’ somebody asked him.

‘Because we’ve not had an experience like the French. There’s been no equivalent of the Amoco Cadiz disaster on the English coast.’ Inevitably he was asked whether the Prime Minister had been informed, but instead of answering the question, he turned to me and I heard him say, ‘Most of you will recall the name Trevor Rodin in connection with a missing tanker, the Aurora B, and some of you may have seen a Reuters report issued this morning containing statements made by him yesterday evening after he had flown in from Madeira. Because those statements will have to be borne in mind when we come to the point of deciding what action we take, if any, I thought it right that you should hear what he has to say from his own lips.’

He nodded towards me, smiling as those near me moved aside so that I stood isolated and exposed. ‘May I suggest, Mr Rodin, that you start by giving the gist of the information you gave the Second Sea Lord last night, then if there are any questions …” He stepped back and I was left with the whole room staring at me. Go on. Tell us what you said. Do what the Minister says. Urged by their voices I cleared my throat, cursing the man for his cleverness in switching their attention to me and getting himself off the hook. Then, as I began speaking, I suddenly found confidence, the words pouring out of me. I could feel their

attention becoming riveted, their notebooks out, scribbling furiously, and the faint whirr of cameras turning.