The Black Tide

through the motions of steering quite automatically, while my mind hovered in a trance, ranging back over my life, reality and fantasy all mixed up and Karen merging into Pamela. And that black-eyed girl with a cold cursing me in French and spitting in my face. Guinevere. How odd to name a girl Guinevere.

‘That’s my daughter,’ he said.

I blinked my eyes. He was sitting up, staring at me. ‘My daughter,’ he said again. ‘You were talking about my daughter.’ There was a long silence. I could see her very clearly, the pale clear skin, the square strong features, the dark eyes and the dark hair. ‘She tried to stop me. She didn’t want me to go to sea again — ever.’ He was suddenly talking about her, his voice quick and urgent. ‘We have some caves behind our house. Champignons! Parfait pour les champignons, she said. So we grew mushrooms, and it worked, except we couldn’t market them. Not profitably. She would keep us. That was her next idea. She was a typist. She did a course, you see — secretarial — after she left school. I can earn good money, she said. But a man can’t be kept like that, not by his daughter. He’s not a man if he can’t stand on his own feet…’ His voice faded, a despairing whisper that was thick with something he had to bring up. ‘The Petros Jupiter,’ he breathed. A fish rose, a circle of phosphorus on the dark water behind him. ‘She was in tears she was so angry. They’ll get at you, she said. They’ll get at you, I know they will. And I laughed at her. I didn’t believe it. I thought the Petros Jupiter was all right.’ He choked, spitting something out on to the deck. ‘And

now I’ve got a bullet in my guts and I’ll probably die. That’s right, isn’t it? You’ll see to that and she’ll say you murdered me. She’ll kill you if you let me die. She’s like that. She’s so emotional, so possessive. The maternal instinct. It’s very strong in some women. I remember when she was about seven — she was the only one, you see — and I was back from a year’s tramping, a rusty old bucket of a wartime Liberty called St Albans, that was when she first began to take charge of me. There were things to mend — she’d just learned to sew, you see — and cooking… living in France girls get interested in the cuisine very young. She’d mother anything that came her way, injured birds, stray puppies, hedgehogs, even reptiles. Then it was people and nursing. She’s a born nurse, that’s why she works in a clinic, and beautiful — like her mother, so beautiful. Her nature. You know what I mean — so very, very beautiful, so…’ His voice choked, a sobbing sound.

He was crying. I couldn’t believe it, here on this stinking dhow, lying there with a bullet in his guts, and he was crying over his daughter. A beautiful nature — hell! A little spitfire.

‘It was after the Stella Rosa. You know about the Stella Rosa, don’t you?’

‘Speridion.’

‘Of course, you mentioned him.’ He nodded, a slight movement of the head in the dark. ‘Speridion had been paid to do it, only the thing went off prematurely, blew half his chest away. There was an Enquiry and when that was over I went home. She was still at

school then, but she’d read the papers. She knew what it was all about, and she’d no illusions. You’re a marked man, Papa. She never called me Dad or Daddy, always Papa. That was when she began to take charge, trying to mother me. Jenny wasn’t a bit like that. Jenny was my wife’s name. She was a very passive, quiet sort of person, so I don’t know where my daughter got it from.’ He stopped there, his voice grown weak; but his eyes were open, he was still conscious and I asked him about the Aurora B. ‘Did you know it was the Aurora B?’

He didn’t answer, but I knew he’d heard the question, for I could see the consciousness of it in his eyes, guessed in the wideness of their stare his knowledge of what my next question would be. Yes, he knew about the crew. He nodded slowly. He knew they were kept imprisoned in the chain locker. ‘You couldn’t help but know, not living on board as I was for over a week.’ And then, when they’d called for power to the main anchor winch, he’d known they’d have to bring the prisoners up out of the chain locker and he had come on deck to see what happened to them. ‘You saw it, too, did you?’ His voice shook. And when I nodded, he said, ‘That’s when I decided I’d have to get away. I could see the dhow and I knew it was my last chance. In the morning it would be gone. That was when I made up my mind.’ His voice dropped away. ‘Always before I’ve stayed. I never believed it could happen — not again. And when it did—’ He shook his head, murmuring — ‘But not this time. Not with a cold-blooded bastard like Sadeq. And there was you. Your coming on board—’ His voice died away completely.

‘There are two ships,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

I thought he nodded.

‘What happened to the other?’

He didn’t answer.

‘The seizing of Aurora B,’ I said, catching hold of him and almost shaking him. ‘That went wrong, didn’t it? That was the first one, and it went wrong.’