The Black Tide

I must have veered left for I was suddenly confronted with a new sound, an intermittent thumping noise, as though somebody were regularly striking at the steel hull with a heavy wooden maul. The noise of the sea was louder here. I was almost at the port

rail and my eyes, following the line of it aft, fastened on the dark outline of a thin shaft standing straight up like a spear against the pale blur of waves breaking in the khawr beyond. For a moment I stood there, not moving and wondering what it was. Then I remembered the dhow moored amidships with its two masts just showing above deck level. I went to the rail then and looked down, the dark shape of the Arab vessel just visible as it rose and fell, its wooden hull banging regularly at the ship’s side.

A man coughed and I spun round. Nothing there, but then the cough was repeated, strident now and more like a squawk. A sudden flurry and I ducked as a vague shape took wing and disappeared into the night. I went on then, moving quickly, my hand on the rail, determined not to be scared of any more shadows. More roosting seabirds rose into the air and I jabbed my toe against a set of fairleads. There were inspection hatches at intervals, each hatch, and particularly the vents, appearing first as some lurking watcher. Then at last I was at the rise of the fo’c’sle deck with the foremast a slender shaft spearing the darkness above me.

A faint glimmer of light filtered through the cloud layer. I found the ladder to the fo’c’sle deck and felt my way through the litter of anchor and mooring machinery to the bows. Here for the first time I felt safe. I had traversed the whole length of the tanker from the bridge housing to the fo’c’sle unchallenged, and now, standing with my back to the bows, all the

details of the ship stretching aft to the superstructure invisible in the darkness, I felt relaxed and secure.

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 firefighting 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 napped 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.