The Black Tide

by Hammond Innes

  I stood there a while, taking in the details of the dhow, memorizing the faces squatting round the bubbling water pipe. Then Khalid was tugging at my arm, pulling me further back into the warehouse. The man in the kepi cap was coming along the wharf. I could see him clearly now, the sunlight providing his burly figure with a black shadow and glinting on the fair skin and the blond sun-bleached beard. He came abreast of the little group on the dhow’s poop and stopped. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it was in English with a strong accent and he indicated the warehouse. Then he was coming towards us and we shrank back into the dim interior, slipping behind a pile of mealie bags.

  He stopped in the entrance, pushing his cap back and mopping his brow as he shouted for a man called Salima Aznat who was apparently in charge of the warehouse. He wore locally-made sandals with curved-up toe guards, dark blue trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt with sweat stains under the arms. ‘Waar is het?’ he muttered to himself. ‘Waar hebben zy het verstopt?’ It sounded like Swedish, or Dutch maybe. He turned, beckoning to the Arabs loading the dhow, then began moving slowly into the warehouse, peering at the labels on the larger wooden crates, checking the stencilling on the sides.

  ‘Who is he?’ I whispered as he was joined by the warehouseman and the two of them disappeared into the cavernous recesses of the building. But Khalid didn’t know. ‘Is at your hotel,’ he said.

  ‘One of Baldwick’s people?’

  He nodded. The sound of voices echoed from the far end and a moment later there was the slam of a crate and the rumble of a trolley being dragged towards us. The little group was coming back now, two or three cases on the trolley. They reached the entrance and paused, so that I saw the man very clearly, the bleached hair, the pale eyes, his bare arms like freckled gold in the sunlight. He was talking quickly, radiating a ponderous sense of nervous energy. A round, Dutch-looking face. Hals! I was remembering what Baldwick had said at Balkaer when he’d talked about pollution. It had to be Pieter Hals. And as the little group stood there for a moment in the sun I could see the letters stencilled on the wooden sides of the nearest case, RADIO EQUIPMENT – FRAGILE – HANDLE WITH CARE. The word FRAGILE was stencilled in red.

  Back at the hotel I found that Pieter Hals had checked in that morning. I also enquired about Price, but nobody of that name had stayed in the hotel for the past month at any rate. I was convinced then that the dhow had taken him straight to the ship and that he was there on board. I didn’t see Hals again that day, and though I met up with several people I had known before and had a word with Perrin on the phone, none of them could tell me anything about Baldwick’s tanker people or where the vessel lay. I even took a taxi at considerable expense to Port Rashid, but every ship in the harbour was owned by old-established companies.

  That evening, strolling along the waterfront just as dusk was falling, I saw bin Suleiman’s dhow haul out into the crowded waterway and watched her crew hoist the lateen mainsail as she motored with a soft tonk-tonk round the down-town bend towards the open sea. From this I concluded that Baldwick’s employers must have their tanker loading at Mina Zayed in the neighbouring sheikdom of Abu Dhabi, a supposition that was to prove hopelessly wrong.

  That night I had dinner at the hotel, in the roof garden restaurant where Varsac and our two other ship’s officers had got themselves a corner table with the sort of view over the dog-legged waterway that a sheikh’s peregrine would have, poised high in the air before a stoop. The Creek was an ink-black smudge curving between dimly-lit buildings. The only brilliance seemed to be the flood-lit tracery of some sort of palace and Port Rashid with its cranes and ships and an oil rig lying to its reflection, all brightly illuminated in the loading lights. Varsac hailed me as soon as I entered the room and when I paused at their table I found myself confronted by a ferrety little Glaswegian engineer with ginger hair and a grating accent. A cigarette burned unheeded on the plate beside him and in the middle of the table was an ashtray full of stubs. ‘Ah’m Colin Fraser,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘What’s yur nem?’

  ‘Trevor Rodin.’

  ‘And yur job on boord?’

  ‘Second mate.’

  ‘Aye, weel, Ah’m an engineer mesel’, so we’ll not be seeing very much of each other now. Sit down, man, and have a drink.’

  The other man, a big Canadian, pulled out a chair for me, smiling, but not saying anything. I sat down. There wasn’t anything else I could do. Fraser turned out to be a casualty of the Iraqi-Iranian war. He had been in one of the cargo vessels stranded in the Shatt al Arab. It was Greek-owned and had been badly shelled. The end of it was her owners had abandoned her and he had been thrown on to the beach, an engineer with shrapnel wounds in the shoulder, no ship, no money, not even a fare-paid passage home. ‘Bankrupt the bastards were.’ The world was still in recession, the beach a cold place to be. ‘Och, the stories Ah could tell yer. Ah bin on rigs, ferry boats, aye, on dhows, too, an’ if it hadna bin for our mootual friend Len B …’

  He was drinking whisky and was half cut already, his voice rambling on about the despicable nature of employers and how it was they who had kept him out of a job, a black against his name and the word passed from owner to owner, even out to this Godforsaken end-of-the-earth dump. ‘Ah couldna get a job oot here if I was to promise the effing agent a whole year’s salary. It’s me politics, see.’ As far as I could gather he was well to the left of the Militant Tendency and back home in Glasgow had been a union troublemaker. ‘Colin Fraser. Ye remember surely? It was all in the papers. I took three cargo ships doon the Clyde and anchored them roond the Polaris base so the nuclear subs couldna move in or oot.’

  He also claimed to have been a member of the IRA for a short time. Stranded in Belfast when his ship couldn’t unload because of a dock strike, he had been given a Kalashnikov and had gone gunning for the RUC in the Falls Road district with a bunch of teenagers. ‘Made bombs for them, too, in a hoose doon in Crossmaglen. But they didna pay me. Risking me life Ah was …’ It was an aggrieved voice that went on and on, the Glasgow accent getting harder, the ferrety face more vicious. In the end I ignored him and talked to the Canadian who had been recruited by Hals as first mate. His name was Rod Selkirk. He had been a trapper and a sealer, had then met Farley Mowat, whose book Never Cry Wolf had affected him deeply, and after that meeting he had stopped killing animals for a living and had switched to coasters, trading into the ports of the Maritimes and the Gulf of St Lawrence. ‘Guess I’m okay on navigation, but when it comes to figures …’ He shrugged, his body as massive and solid as you would expect of a man who had spent most of his life in the hard North of Canada. His round, moonlike face broke into a smile, causing the puffed lids of the mongoloid eyes to crease into fat-crinkled almond slits. ‘I’m an inshore navigator really, so reck’n I’ll never make it any higher. I’d never pass the exams, not for my Master’s ticket.’

  ‘Where did you meet Pieter Hals?’ I asked him.

  ‘Shatt al Arab, same as Colin here. I was tramping, and they just about blew us out of the water. The Iranians. They couldn’t reach the Iraqi shore, not to hit anything worthwhile, so they took it out on us. Just for the hell of it, I guess – a bit of target practice. Infidels don’t count anyway, know what I mean?’ The smile spread into a grin. He was a very likeable giant and he hardly drank at all, his voice very soft, very restful.

  ‘What’s Hals’s job?’ I asked.

  ‘Captain.’

  Hals had only been first mate when he’d hit the headlines and been sacked for the bomb threats he had made in the Niger. ‘Is that why he’s joined this Baldwick outfit?’ I thought he might see it as his only chance for promotion after what he’d done, but the Canadian said No, it was pollution. ‘He’s got something in mind,’ he murmured hesitantly. But when I questioned him about it, he said he didn’t know. ‘You ask Pieter. Mebbe he’ll tell you, once we get aboard. Right now, he doesn’t talk about it.’ He was watching me uncertainly out of those slit eyes. ‘Marine pollu
tion mean anything to you?’

  He hadn’t read the papers, didn’t know about Karen, and when I told him she’d blown a stranded tanker up to save the coast from pollution, he smiled and said, ‘Then you and Pieter should get on. He blames it all on the industrial nations, says they’ll pollute the world to keep their bloody machines going. You feel like that?’

  ‘The transport of oil presents problems,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘That’s for sure.’ He nodded, expressing surprise that it was Baldwick who had recruited me, not Pieter Hals. ‘I never met Baldwick,’ he said, ‘but from what I hear …’ He gave an expressive shrug and left it at that.

  ‘Qu’est que c’est?’ Varsac was suddenly leaning forward. ‘What ees it you ‘ear?’

  ‘Ah’ll tell yu,’ Fraser cut in, laughing maliciously. ‘Ah’ll tell yu what he hears aboot Len Baldwick, that he’s a fat eunuch who’s made a pile pimping for oil-rich Arabs. That’s the worrd from the lads Ah was talking to last night. They say his fat fingers are poked up the arse of anybody who’s got dirty business going in the Gulf, an’ if yu think this little caper’s got anything to do with saving the worrld from pollution yu’re nuts. There’s fraud in it somewhere, and I wouldna be surprised to find meself fixing bombs to the hull of this tanker somewhere off the coast of Africa.’

  Varsac stared at him, his face longer and paler than ever. ‘Monsieur Baldwick m’a dit—’

  ‘Och, the hell wi’ it.’ Fraser was laughing again, prodding Varsac with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘Yu’d hardly expect him to dite yu wha’ it’s all aboot. He gets his cut, tha’s all he cares. An’ he’s no sailing wi’ the ship.’

  The Frenchman’s Adam’s apple jerked convulsively. ‘Not sailing? You know this? Ees true – certain?’ He shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t believe. I don’t believe you know anything about it. Or about him.’

  ‘Not know aboot him!’ Fraser was almost bouncing up and down in his seat. ‘Sure Ah know aboot ’im. Ah worked for the man, didn’t Ah? Ran a dhow for him. That’s how Ah know aboot Len. Cold-hearted bastard! The Baluchi lassies, now. We’d pick ’em off a bench near Pasni. Virgins by the look of them. All bleedin’ virgins. We’d take ’em across the Gulf and land them in the sand doons north-east of Sharjah. A Pakistani was behind it, some woman who gave their families a wee bit o’ money and said they would be trained as nurses. Nurses, my arse! They were being sold as whoores, and it was the Pak woman and Len Baldwick made a killing in the trade, not me, Ah just ran the bleedin’ dhow for them.’ He called for a waiter, but nobody took any notice. ‘Yu got any cigarettes?’ He cocked his head at me, fiddling with an empty packet. ‘It’s clean oot, Ah am.’

  Rumours of Baldwick’s involvement in the trade had been circulating when I was last in the Gulf, but I had never before met anybody directly implicated. I sat there, staring at him, disgusted and appalled. This vicious little Glaswegian, and right beside him, the big friendly Canadian, looking as though he’d seen a devil peeping out from under a stone … They were like oil and water. They didn’t mix. They didn’t fit. And yet they’d been recruited for the same purpose. They’d be together, on the same ship, and so would I – some of us recruited by Baldwick, some by Hals.

  I got to my feet. Fraser had found a waiter now and was ordering cigarettes and more drinks. I excused myself, took the lift down to the street and walked quickly through the alleyway to the Creek. The air was pleasantly cool, the stars bright overhead, and I sat there by the water for a long time watching the traffic and wondering what it was going to be like isolated from the rest of the world and cooped up on board a ship with a man like Fraser. And Choffel. I wished to God I knew about Choffel, whether he was on the ship or not.

  Next morning Baldwick had arrived. He was in the lobby when I went down, looking large and rumpled in a pale blue tropical suit. He had another Frenchman with him, an engineer he had picked up in Marseilles, and Mustafa was flapping around with the drivers of two Land Rovers drawn up outside the hotel. ‘You get ready please,’ he said to me. ‘We leave in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Where for?’

  But he turned away.

  ‘Where’s the ship?’ I demanded, grabbing hold of him.

  He hesitated. ‘Ask LB. He knows. Not me.’

  I turned to Baldwick then, but he had heard my question and was staring at me, his eyes red-rimmed and angry. ‘Just get your things.’

  I hesitated. But the man was tired after the flight. He’d been drinking and I’d know soon enough. ‘No, wait,’ he said as I was moving away. And he asked me what the hell I’d been up to at the GODCO offices. ‘And you went to see Gault. Why?’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Think I wouldn’t have somebody keep an eye on you.’ He came lumbering towards me. ‘You been talking?’ His tone was menacing.

  ‘I like to know what ship I’m sailing on, where it’s berthed.’

  ‘You been asking questions?’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Adrian Gault I’ve known on and off for years. Perrin, too. With time to kill I looked them up. Why not? And of course I asked them.’

  ‘I told you to keep yer mouth shut.’ He was glaring at me, and suddenly I couldn’t help it, I had to know.

  ‘Choffel,’ I said. ‘Will he be on the same ship as me?’

  ‘Choffel?’ He seemed surprised, repeating the name slowly, his voice reluctant, his eyes sharp. ‘No.’ He was frowning angrily, groping for the right reply. ‘The only engineer on board at the moment is the Chief.’ And to settle the matter he added quickly, ‘His name’s Price if you want to know.’

  So I was right. That picture with Baldwick on the edge of it, at Sennen, when the crew came ashore. He had recruited him then, made all the arrangements for getting him to the Gulf. And now he was on board. He was there, waiting for me. I suppose I must have been staring open-mouthed. ‘You don’t concern yourself with Price. Understand?’ He was glaring at me, conscious that the name had meant something to me, but not certain what. ‘You’re not an engineer. You’ve never met him before.’ He was still glaring at me doubtfully and it was Varsac who came to my rescue. He had been talking very fast in French to the new arrival. Now they were both of them looking at Baldwick – the same question.

  ‘Le tankair. Où ça?’

  Baldwick turned his head slowly, like a bull wearily finding himself baited from another direction. ‘We’re keeping it as a surprise for you,’ he growled. ‘Where the hell d’you think it is? In the bloody water, of course.’ His small eyes shifted to me, a quick glance, then he went off to get a shower.

  We all had breakfast together, coffee and boiled eggs, with Baldwick’s beady little eyes watching me as though I was some dangerous beast he had to keep an eye on. Afterwards, when I had packed and was coming away from reception after handing in my room key, Khalid suddenly appeared at my side. ‘For you, Said.’ He slipped me a blue envelope. ‘Sahib say it arrive last night.’ He was gone in a flash, scuttling out into the street, and I was left with an English air mail letter card in my hand. The writing was unfamiliar, a round, flowing hand, and the sender’s name and address on the back came as a surprise. It was from Pamela Stewart.

  I was thinking back to that lunch at Lloyd’s, the Nelson Exhibition room. It was all so remote. And to have reached me now she must have sent the letter off the instant Gault had reported my arrival in Dubai. The Land Rovers had started up, Baldwick shouting to me, and I slipped it into my pocket, wondering why she should have written, why the urgency.

  It was just after ten as we pulled away from the hotel, Baldwick with the engineer officers in the first Land Rover, Mustafa with myself and the other deck officers in the second. There was no sign of Pieter Hals. I slit open the air mail letter and began reading it as we threaded our way through Dubai’s crowded streets. It appeared to have been written in a hurry, the writing very difficult to read in places. Dear Trevor Rodin, it began. Daddy doesn’t I’m know I’m writing, but I thought somebody s
hould tell you how much we appreciate what you are doing and that our thoughts are with you. It went on like that for almost half a page, then suddenly she abandoned the rather formal language, her mood changing. I was a fool, leaving you like that. We should have gone on to a club and got drunk, or gone for a walk together, done whatever people do when the heart’s too full for sensible words. Instead, I made a silly excuse and left you standing there under the Nelson picture. Please forgive me. I was upset. And my mind’s been in a turmoil ever since.

  I stopped there, staring down at the round, orderly writing on the blue paper, aware suddenly that this wasn’t an ordinary letter. ‘God Almighty!’ I breathed.

  The Canadian was saying something. His hand gripped my arm. ‘It’s not Mina Zayed. Abu Dhabi is west of Dubai. We’ve turned east.’

  I slipped the letter back into my pocket and looked out at the chaos of construction work through which we were driving. This was the outskirts of Dubai and he was right. We were on the coast road headed east towards Sharjah, and the shamal was starting to blow little streamers of sand across the tarmac road.

  ‘Is it Mina Khalid, you reck’n?’ I shook my head. I didn’t think it was deep enough. ‘Mebbe an SMB.’ He turned to Mustafa. ‘They got one of the big single mooring buoys for tanker loading along the coast here?’ he asked.

  The Libyan stared at him blankly.

  ‘Well, where the hell are we going?’

  But all Mustafa said was, ‘You see. Very good accommodation. Sea view very fine.’

  I was staring out of the sand-blown side window, memories of childhood flooding back. Nothing had changed, only the road and a few modern buildings. The country either side was just the same – a vast vista of sky and sand. We passed the remains of the little tin-roofed hospital where my mother had been a nurse. I could remember playing in the dunes there, pretending to be Sayid bin Maktun, the old sheikh of Dubai who had surprised a big raiding force from Abu Dhabi and slaughtered 60 of them at their camp in the desert. We played at pirates, too, using an old dugout canoe we had found washed up on a sand spit in the silted Sharjah estuary and the little Baluch boy was our slave.