The Black Tide

Away to port I could hear the sound of breaking waves, could just make out a line of white. Dark cliffs loomed, the line of white nearer, the sound of the waves louder. We were being set down on to the south shore of the khawr — or was it the land closing in as we neared the entrance? With the helm hard over, the bows slowly swung through the wind. I could feel it on my left side now, my eyes searching the darkness to starb’d, ears strained for the sound of breakers. I should have looked at that chart more closely, up there on the tanker’s bridge when I had the chance. There was a box fixed to the poop deck just for’ard of the helm, a big wooden box with an old-fashioned brass-knobbed binnacle in it. But I didn’t want to use my torch, and anyway I’d no idea where exactly the tanker had been moored in relation to the entrance, what the bearing would be. All I could remember was that the entrance was narrow and dog-legged, the bend being leftward going out.

The line of white was very close now, the cliffs visible as a darker darkness in the night. I put the helm over and the bows swung easily to starb’d. I glanced astern at the lights of the tanker. They were swinging across our starb’d quarter and already she looked quite small, the reddish glow of the cliffs behind her fading. I was being forced off course, but the line of broken water to port was still closing in and nothing visible to starb’d. I heard a cry and saw a figure standing clutching at the ornamental rail near the thunderbox on the port side, his arm pointing for’ard. I checked the helm, peering beyond the vague flapping bundle of the sail. A dark line showed high above the bows, the shape of low hills, and in that instant I heard waves breaking and dragged the helm across to starb’d.

There was no response.

The wind had strengthened. It was blowing half a gale and I knew we were nearing the entrance. But there was nothing I could do, the long arm of the helm right over and the dhow not responding, her head held in the grip of the wind and the engine labouring. I watched appalled as the looming outline of the land ahead grew darker and higher, the sound of the surf louder.

And then the engine note changed, a sudden surge of power and the bows were coming round. I caught a glimpse of a figure crouched, or more likely collapsed, over some sort of a control rod set into the deck. But it was only a glimpse, for we were turning to port and in the entrance now, the blackness of land

on either side, the wind howling and waves breaking all round us.

It was like that for five, perhaps ten minutes. It seemed an age. Then suddenly the wind died away, the sea took on a regular pattern with only the occasional break of a wave. We were out of the khawr. We were out into the Persian Gulf and the dhow was bashing her way through the waves, rolling wildly, the engine racing and everything rattling and shaking as we steamed into the night with no land visible any more, just an empty void of darkness all around us.

PART FIVE

VIRGINS UNLIMITED

CHAPTER ONE

Dawn broke with ragged clouds streaming low ‘overhead and a lumpy sea. It was a grey world, visibility growing reluctantly but, as the light increased, gaps appeared in the overcast, glimpses of clear sky showing a greenish tinge. The dhow wallowed sedately, rolling as her bows ploughed into the waves, and the beat of the engine was unhurried and regular. We were at least ten miles from the shore. I could see it on the starb’d quarter, low down to the south and west of the familiar Group Flash Two of the Didamar light, the dark line of it turning an arid brown as the sun rose.

We were out into the Hormuz Straits, into the main shipping lanes. There was a tanker quite close with its steaming lights still showing white, another hull-down, and a third coming up astern. I had the binnacle box open and was steering a full point east of north. Choffel, when I had hauled him off the engine speed control linkage, had muttered about the tanker’s

launch being very fast, powered by a single big outboard. But I thought it more likely they would be searching the inshore traffic zone, between the Didamar and Tawakkul lights, not right out here between the west and eastbound tanker lanes.

There was blood on the deck where Choffel had lain after collapsing at the helm, blood on the carved end of the helm itself. But he hadn’t bled where he had lain clutching the speed control lever, or in the vicinity of the thunderbox where he had hauled himself up by the rail to warn me we were driving on to the north side of the entrance. And when I had got him down to bin Suleiman’s hovel of a cabin and laid him out on a sleeping mat with a stinking salt-stiffened blanket to cover him, I didn’t think he had been bleeding then.

A pity Sadeq hadn’t killed him. Now it was up to me. I yawned, my eyes heavy-lidded, my body sagging with tiredness. I had had no sleep and I always found the first twenty-four hours at sea a little trying.