The Black Tide

Slowly we began to swing away from the ship’s side. The dhow was turning in the wind, swinging on the stern warp, and then in a rush we closed the tanker again, the wooden timbers on the far side crashing against the steel plates with a jar that went right through me. The deck lights were switched on, everything suddenly sharp-etched, the shattered remains of the dhow’s boat drifting past and faces peering down from the rail high above. Sadeq was there. He had brushed the Arabs aside and was standing at the head of the gangway, his bearded face clear in the lights as he seized hold of a guard’s machine pistol, rammed in another clip, and then, holding the gun close at his waist, swung it towards me, his movements deliberate, his expression coldly professional. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go, the muzzle pointing straight down at me, his hand on the trigger. Then he seemed to freeze into immobility, his eyes narrowing as he saw who it was he was about to kill. It must have been that, for after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted the barrel of the gun, lifted it deliberately away

from me, aiming at the dhow’s poop, his finger contracting, the muzzle jerking to the spit of bullets, and the staccato chatter of it echoed by the sound of them slamming into wood, splinters flying and a man screaming.

I thought Choffel fired back, but it was just a single shot followed by a sharp twanging sound as the stern line parted. Then we were bumping along the tanker’s side, the hull moving past us faster and faster, and the high wooden bulk of the poop between me and the shots being fired. I heard the engine note change, suddenly deepening, felt the throb of the screw as it gripped the water and I got to my feet.

We were clear of the tanker’s stern now and turning into the wind, no longer falling back towards the cliffs, but slowly turning into the seas, and the whole vast bulk of the brightly lit tanker stretched out high above us on the starb’d quarter. We turned till the superstructure was astern of us, and it was only then that I heard a voice calling my name. It came like a gull crying in the night, a voice of pain and fear and exasperation — ‘Ro-o-d-in! Ro-o-d-in!’ Then — ‘Quick — hu-rry!’

I felt my way in the blackness over piles of rope to the outline of the high poop deck, found the wooden steps leading up to it and came out on to the top of the dhow’s great after castle to see the dim outline of a figure sprawled across the helm. ‘Take her, man! The entrance. There’s a launch, you see — inflatable — take time to launch it though.’ His voice came slowly, full of coughs and gurgles, so that I knew there was blood in his throat.

‘You’re hit,’ I said. It was a bloody stupid remark.

‘Take the helm,’ he gurgled, slipping away from me in the dark and sliding to the deck.

The dhow yawed, the swept-up curve of the bow swinging away to port, the wind lifting the furled sail so that it flapped with a loud cracking noise. I looked up from the dark shape sprawled at my feet to see the lit tanker with the frowning cliffs behind it swinging across our stern. The movement quickened, the wind catching the bows, and I dived for the helm, throwing my weight against the long timber arm of it, forcing it over to port. I felt the pressure of the water on the rudder and slowly the bows steadied and began to swing back into the wind.

I waited until the tanker was directly astern of us, then I centred the helm, holding the dhow into the wind, hoping I was steering for the entrance. There was no chance of doing anything for Choffel or even finding out how badly he was injured. The dhow wasn’t easy to steer. Like most straight-keeled vessels I had to anticipate her movements, countering each attempt of the head to pay off with a slight correction to the helm. She waddled and yawed like an old woman and once the wind got hold of her she was hard to control, very slow to respond and the engine labouring.

Ahead, I couldn’t seem to see anything beyond the ship’s stem, the lights of the tanker producing just enough of a glow to illumine the waist with its muddle of ropes, pulleys, sleeping mats and cooking gear and the mast with the great roll of sail strapped to the

curved wing of the spar. These were all very clearly picked out, the upswing of the prow, too. But beyond that there was nothing, just a stygian blackness.

I could hear Choffel groaning. Once I thought he cried out. But the dhow required all my concentration and when I did glance down I couldn’t see him. That was when I remembered he was armed, but the dhow was paying off, the wind catching hold of the rolled-up sail and the bows falling off. Part of the sail had come loose, a fold of it billowing out in a dark bubble of canvas so that I thought I’d never get the bows back into the wind.