The Black Tide

Hals had only been first mate when he’d hit the headlines and been sacked for the bomb threats he had made in the Niger. ‘Is that why he’s joined this Baldwick outfit?’ I thought he might see it as his only chance for promotion after what he’d done, but the Canadian said No, it was pollution. ‘He’s got something in mind,’ he murmured hesitantly. But when I questioned him about it, he said he didn’t know. ‘You ask Pieter. Mebbe he’ll tell you, once we get aboard. Right now, he doesn’t talk about it.’ He was watching me uncertainly out of those slit eyes. ‘Marine pollution mean anything to you?’

He hadn’t read the papers, didn’t know about Karen, and when I told him she’d blown a stranded tanker up to save the coast from pollution, he smiled and said, ‘Then you and Pieter should get on. He blames it all on the industrial nations, says they’ll

pollute the world to keep their bloody machines going. You feel like that?’

‘The transport of oil presents problems,’ I said cautiously.

‘That’s for sure.’ He nodded, expressing surprise that it was Baldwick who had recruited me, not Pieter Hals. ‘I never met Baldwick,’ he said, ‘but from what I hear…’ He gave an expressive shrug and left it at that.

‘Qu’est que c’est?’ Varsac was suddenly leaning forward. ‘What ees it you ‘ear?’

‘Ah’ll tell yu,’ Fraser cut in, laughing maliciously. ‘Ah’ll tell yu what he hears aboot Len Baldwick, that he’s a fat eunuch who’s made a pile pimping for oil-rich Arabs. That’s the worrd from the lads Ah was talking to last night. They say his fat fingers are poked up the arse of anybody who’s got dirty business going in the Gulf, an’ if yu think this little caper’s got anything to do with saving the worrld from pollution yu’re nuts. There’s fraud in it somewhere, and I wouldna be surprised to find meself fixing bombs to the hull of this tanker somewhere off the coast of Africa.’

Varsac stared at him, his face longer and paler than ever. ‘Monsieur Baldwick m’a dit—’

‘Och, the hell wi’ it.’ Fraser was laughing again, prodding Varsac with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘Yu’d hardly expect him to dite yu wha’ it’s all aboot. He gets his cut, tha’s all he cares. An’ he’s no sailing wi’ the ship.’

The Frenchman’s Adam’s apple jerked convulsively. ‘Not sailing? You know this? Ees true — certain?’ He

shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t believe. I don’t believe you know anything about it. Or about him.’

‘Not know aboot him!’ Fraser was almost bouncing up and down in his seat. ‘Sure Ah know aboot ‘im. Ah worked for the man, didn’t Ah? Ran a dhow for him. That’s how Ah know aboot Len. Cold-hearted bastard! The Baluchi lassies, now. We’d pick ‘em off a bench near Pasni. Virgins by the look of them. All bleedin’ virgins. We’d take ‘em across the Gulf and land them in the sand doons north-east of Sharjah. A Pakistani was behind it, some woman who gave their families a wee bit o’ money and said they would be trained as nurses. Nurses, my arse! They were being sold as whoores, and it was the Pak woman and Len Baldwick made a killing in the trade, not me, Ah just ran the bleedin’ dhow for them.’ He called for a waiter, but nobody took any notice. ‘Yu got any cigarettes?’ He cocked his head at me, fiddling with an empty packet. ‘It’s clean oot, Ah am.’

Rumours of Baldwick’s involvement in the trade had been circulating when I was last in the Gulf, but I had never before met anybody directly implicated. I sat there, staring at him, disgusted and appalled. This vicious little Glaswegian, and right beside him, the big friendly Canadian, looking as though he’d seen a devil peeping out from under a stone… They were like oil and water. They didn’t mix. They didn’t fit. And yet they’d been recruited for the same purpose. They’d be together, on the same ship, and so would I — some of us recruited by Baldwick, some by Hals.

I got to my feet. Fraser had found a waiter now

and was ordering cigarettes and more drinks. I excused myself, took the lift down to the street and walked quickly through the alleyway to the Creek. The air was pleasantly cool, the stars bright overhead, and I sat there by the water for a long time watching the traffic and wondering what it was going to be like isolated from the rest of the world and cooped up on board a ship with a man like Fraser. And Choffel. I wished to God I knew about Choffel, whether he was on the ship or not.

Next morning Baldwick had arrived. He was in the lobby when I went down, looking large and rumpled in a pale blue tropical suit. He had another Frenchman with him, an engineer he had picked up in Marseilles, and Mustafa was flapping around with the drivers of two Land Rovers drawn up outside the hotel. ‘You get ready please,’ he said to me. ‘We leave in twenty minutes.’

‘Where for?’

But he turned away.

‘Where’s the ship?’ I demanded, grabbing hold of him.

He hesitated. ‘Ask LB. He knows. Not me.’

I turned to Baldwick then, but he had heard my question and was staring at me, his eyes red-rimmed and angry. ‘Just get your things.’