The Black Tide

The sun was low now, the sky paling overhead, and the sails of a dhow stood black in silhouette against the pink of cloud shapes hanging over the Iranian shore. The energy packed into that strongly-shaped body, the sense of vitality, quiet and controlled — that, too, I remembered. I’ve never faced this problem before… That was how the letter ended — I’ve never faced this problem before, so bear with me. I will be thinking of you, and praying that all goes well. Nothing else, except her signature — Pamela.

I sat there for a long time with the letter in my hand, thinking about it as the sun’s rim touched the sea and the whole desert shore blazed with fire, wondering if she had any idea what her words meant to me — that somebody, somewhere in the world, was thinking of me and believed, however temporarily, that she cared.

And then the sun was down, the cliffs behind me darkening and the dhow was feeling its way into the creek. I walked quickly back along the sands, hearing the tonk-tonk of its diesel in the fast-gathering dusk, and when I was back, at the point where the creek widened out into a large flat sheet of water, I found it lying at anchor right off the motel. I knew then that it was bin Suleiman’s dhow, but nobody came ashore from it, so that I wasn’t sure Pieter Hals was on board until we embarked the following morning.

The shamal was blowing again then and even in the shelter of the creek it took time to embark the six of us, the dhow’s only tender being a small wooden boat. Baldwick came with us and there was a quantity of locally-grown produce to load. It took altogether six trips, so that it was almost eleven before the anchor was up and we were motoring seaward. The sky was a clear, bright blue and the sun shone warm on the red cliffs, the waters of the Gulf foaming white at their base. It was a wonderful day for a sail, but where would we end up? Rod Selkirk and I were standing together on the leeward side of the high poop, both of us watching the bearded figure of bin Suleiman motionless beside the helmsman, a loose end of his turban flying in the wind. The low sand spit slid away to port and the dhow thrust its curved beak into deeper water. Would he hold his course and head for Iran, or turn along the coast?

‘I don’t get it,’ Selkirk said. ‘Why all the secrecy?’ He had spoken to Hals when he came forward, but had got nothing out of him.

We were plugging almost dead to windward, no sails set, the dhow beginning to slam as the bows thrust into the steepening waves. ‘Sure looks like Iran,’ he said, and at that moment bin Suleiman nodded to the helmsman. The long wooden arm of the tiller was thrust over and the dhow came slowly round on to a north-easterly heading. Shouts and the deck erupting into violent activity as the big lateen sail was hoisted up the mainmast. Soon both sails were set, the engine Hopped, and we were creaming along, rolling heavily

with the spray flying silver in the sun and a long vista of ochre-red cliffs opening up to starboard, the Straits of Hormuz not fifty miles away.

Pieter Hals came up from below. I think he had been checking the stores loaded at Dubai. He stood for a moment in the waist of the dhow staring out at the coast, towards the little port of Mina Saqr nestled right against the mountains. I had been there once, in the dhow that had taken me to Baluchistan. I moved across the deck to join Hals. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked him.

‘One of the khawrs.’ His voice sounded vague, his mind on something else.

The khawrs were rocky inlets. There were a lot of them cutting deep into the Musandam Peninsula on the south side of the Straits, none on the Iranian side. ‘So our ship is not in Iran?’ ‘No.’

‘Why is it anchored in one of the khawrs?’ He didn’t answer, still staring at the coast. And when I repeated the question, he turned his head slowly, staring down at me vacantly, his mind still far away. His eyes were a light blue, crease-lines in the skin at the corners, and there were freckles under the sun-bleached beard. ‘You’re Rodin, are you?’

I nodded.

‘Your wife,’ he said. ‘I read about that.’ He held out his hand. ‘Ja. She is an example to us all.’ He stared at me. ‘Tell me, did you know?’

‘Know what?’ But something in his eyes gave me the answer.

He waited.

‘I was at a meeting,’ I said. ‘She did it on the spur of the moment. When she heard the result.’

‘When she heard they weren’t going to do anything to prevent the next oil spill.’

I nodded, wishing I hadn’t spoken to him now, wanting to get away. ‘She didn’t realize the whole ship would be blown up,’ I muttered quickly. ‘She was not a very practical person.’