The Black Tide

by Hammond Innes

  The ship shuddered slightly, the beat of an auxiliary growing, a faint clanking sound. I put my eye to the peephole again. Everything was the same, the prisoners against the rail, their guards, three of them, standing watchful with automatics in their hands, the bows, lit by the flicker of torches, like a stage set with the cliffs a towering backdrop. There were two men by the anchor winch now, bending over it, and another with a hose playing a jet of water on the open vent of the hawse hole. The beat of the auxiliary slowed, it was labouring and I saw the cliffs moving.

  And then it happened and the sweat froze on my body as one of the crew turned suddenly, another with him, their hands coming away from their heads, both of them reaching for the rail. Another instant and they would have been over, for the attention of the guards had been momentarily distracted by the winch and its turning and the anchor chain coming in. The first was half over the rail when a guard fired from the hip. The clatter of the automatic came to me faint as a toy, a distant sound like the ripping of calico, and in the same instant the man straddling the rail became an animated doll, his body jerking this way and that until suddenly it toppled over, falling into the widening gap between the ship and the cliff.

  A thin cry reached me, like the scream of a far-off seabird, and the other man had gone, too. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen him leap. He must have been a young man, for he had been quicker, just the one hand on the rail and vaulting over, and all three guards rushing to the ship’s side, searching and pointing. More firing, and one of them running to the point of the bows, clambering up and standing there, braced against the flag post.

  There was silence then, except for the clank of the anchor chain, the rest of the prisoners standing as though petrified, their hands still on their heads. For a moment nobody moved. Then the man in the bows raised his automatic to his shoulder and began firing single shots. He fired half a dozen, then stopped.

  I stood back, resting my eye again. Had the second prisoner got away? I wondered who he was, whether he had found any place to land. When I looked again the bows were well clear of the cliffs and I could see the dark shape of the heights above us climbing in jagged pinnacles towards the Jebel al Harim. I could imagine what it would be like climbing those bare rock hills in the heat of the day, no water and the sun burning the skin off his back, the oven heat of the rocks blistering his feet. I didn’t think he had a hope in hell, and the only people he would meet up there would be the Shihuh who were supposed to be distinctly hostile to Christians trespassing in their barren fortress.

  The time was now 01.34 and low down by the entrance to the khawr the stars were being blotted out one by one. It took them just on twenty minutes to inch the ship away from the cliffs so that she was lying to her anchor bows-on to the entrance. By then the whole sky was clouded over and it was almost impossible for me to see anything except when the figures in the bows were illuminated by the flickering light of hand torches as they secured the anchor chain.

  I had another shower, towelled myself down and put on my clothes. By then the ship had fallen silent again, the engine noise reduced once more to the faint murmur of the generator, and no sign of anybody on the deck below. I couldn’t see the bows now and no torches flickered there. A wind had got up, a line of white beginning to show where waves were breaking against the base of the cliffs. The shamal – that was why they had decided to haul off in the middle of the night. The holding here was probably not all that good. The anchor might well drag if they tried to haul off in the teeth of a gale, and if they had stayed put, they might be held pinned against the cliffs for several days. Now we could leave at first light.

  It was past two now. Four hours to go before the first glimpse of dawn. I opened the door of my cabin and peered out into the alleyway. There was nobody there, the lights glimmering dully, the ship very still now and quite silent except for the faint background sound of the generator. I had no idea what I was going to do, I hadn’t even thought about it. I just felt I had to do something. I couldn’t just lie there, knowing what ship it was and that the crew were held in the chain locker.

  My first thought was to contact one of the Pakistani seamen. It was information I needed. How many guards on duty, for instance, where were they posted, above all, how long before we left and what was our destination? I closed the door of my cabin and stood listening for a moment, alert for those tiny sounds that occur on a ship at anchor so that I could identify them and isolate them from any other sounds I might hear as I moved about the ship. Somewhere a slight hissing sound was just audible beneath the low-toned persistent generator hum. It came from the heads where the urinal flush seemed to be constantly running, and now that I was outside Rod Selkirk’s cabin, I could hear the sound of his snoring, a regular snort followed by a whistle. Occasionally a pipe hammered softly. An airlock, probably. And sometimes I thought I could hear the soft thud of the waves slapping against the ship’s sides.

  Those were the only sounds I could identify. A torch; I’d need my torch. The quick flash of it in a man’s face could save me if I suddenly ran into one of the guards. I went back into my cabin, and after getting the torch from the locker beside my bunk, I had a last quick look through the peephole. The line of white marking the base of the cliffs was further off now. The wind must be coming straight into the khawr, the tanker lying wind-rode, stern-on to the cliffs. The deck below was a long dark blur, only discernible as a blank in the sea of broken water that glimmered white around it. I could see no movement.

  Back in the alleyway outside my cabin, I pushed through the fire doors and started down the stairs to A deck. It was a double flight and I paused on the landing. The deck below was lit by the same low wattage emergency lighting as the officers’ deck. Nothing stirred. And there were no unusual sounds, the hum of the generator a little louder, that was all. I continued on down, through the sliding fire doors to the alley that ran transversely across the ship. I hesitated then, seeing the closed doors and trying to remember visits I had made in various ports to tankers of a similar size. This would be the boat deck and usually there were offices facing for’ard at this level.

  I tried one of the doors. It was locked. They were all locked, except one, which, as soon as I opened it, I knew was occupied. I cupped my hand over my torch, moving softly past a desk littered with papers to an annexe where the body of a man lay huddled in a blanket, breathing softly, a regular sighing sound.

  He didn’t look like a Pakistani and the papers on the desk, accounts for food mainly, indicated that this was the chief steward’s office. As on the upper deck, the lift was switched off. Bolder now, I walked quickly down the port and starb’d alleyways. Most of the doors were shut, but the few that had been left latched open showed them as cabins occupied by sleeping bodies.

  I went back to the stairs then, down the final flight to the crew’s sleeping quarters. There was a smell about this deck, a mixture of stale food and human bodies overlaid with the pungent scent of spices and the background stink of hot engine oil. It was a strange feeling, wandering those empty alleyways, knowing that all around me men were sleeping. Here and there I could hear the sound of their snores, muted behind closed doors, louder where the doors were open. There was one man with an extraordinary repertoire, the tone of his snores bass on the intake, almost treble when breathing out. I was at the for’ard end of the starb’d alleyway then and I could hear him quite clearly the whole length of the passage. I shone my torch on him, but he didn’t stir, and though I was certain he was one of the Pakistani seamen, I didn’t wake him. The ship was so quiet, everything so peaceful at this level, that I thought it worth trying to have a look outside the superstructure before taking the irrevocable step of making contact with one of the crew.

  There were doors to the deck at each end of the transverse alleyway, but they were locked. I went back up the stairs, moving quickly now. At A Deck again I paused. I had already tried the doors leading direct on to the external ladders at the after end of the port and starb
’d alleyways, also those by the lift. All had been locked and it was only on the offchance that I tried the starb’d doors leading out on to the boat deck. To my surprise these were not locked. Presumably the cox’n, or whoever had been in charge of the foredeck anchor party, had left them open for the convenience of the crew if the wind increased during the night and there was a sudden emergency. I stepped out into the night, the air suddenly fresh and smelling of salt. Straight in front of me was the starb’d lifeboat, the wind thrumming at its canvas covers.

  After the sleeping stillness of the crew’s quarters the noise on the boat deck seemed shattering, the night full of the sound of breaking waves, the scream of the wind in the superstructure, and astern the continual uproar of seas foaming against the base of the cliff. It was very dark and not a light anywhere. I felt my way to the rail, standing there between the after davit and a life raft in the full force of the wind, waiting for my eyes to adjust themselves. The time was 02.19.

  Gradually the vague outline of the ship emerged. With my head thrown back I could just make out the dark, shadowy shape of the funnel, and a little for’ard of it the mast poking its top above the side of the bridge housing. Looking aft everything was black, the cliffs and the mountains above blotting out any vestige of light filtering through the cloud. For’ard I could just see the gangway hoist and beyond it the shadowy outline of the hull stretched dark against the broken white of water far below. I thought for a moment I could see the outline of one of the jib crane masts and the manifold, but beyond that the ship disappeared into a void of darkness.

  I waited there for a good five minutes, but I could see no movement. Finally, I faced into the wind, feeling my way along the side of the lifeboat to the rail at the for’ard end of the boat deck, following it as it turned across the ship until I found the gap where the midships ladder led down to the central catwalk. I went down it, and down another, shorter ladder to the vast open stretch of the upper deck, not daring to expose myself on the catwalk.

  I had never been alone on the deck of a tanker before, always in company, and always either in daylight or in the blaze of the ship’s deck lights. Now, in the wind and in complete darkness, with the sound of broken water all round me, it was like advancing into a primeval void, and even though the tanker was quite a modest one by modern standards, the night made it seem huge.

  I was pulled up almost immediately by the sudden emergence of a crouched shape. It turned out to be one of the mooring winches and the figure beyond it one of the ‘dead men’, its head the wheel that guided the hawser from fair-lead to winch.

  I stood for a moment looking about me, checking for some movement, but it was darker now and I couldn’t see a thing. Already the dim shadow of the superstructure had disappeared, nothing visible anywhere except the nebulous outline of pipes running ahead of me and disappearing into the blackness. I felt very alone then, very naked and unarmed, the steel deck under my feet, the bulk of the winch and those pipes, nothing else visible and the knowledge that the deck went on and on until it reached the raised fo’c’sle where the captive crew had been brought up out of the chain locker and those two poor devils had gone over the side.

  I moved on, walking slowly, feeling my way with each step. Even so, I found myself tripping over the small tank washing pipes called lavomatics that were stretched across the deck at regular intervals. There were inspection hatches for each tank and purge pipes to clear the gases, and at one point I barged into a slender, screw-capped sounding pipe that was about knee-high. The deck, in fact, was littered with obstacles for a man moving warily in complete darkness, and now there was a new sound. I thought for a moment it was somebody whistling and stopped abruptly, my heart in my mouth, but it was only the wind. A little further on the sound of it changed. It was like somebody moaning. All about me the wind sighed and moaned and the sea made rushing, slapping noises, and at each new sound I paused until I had identified it, convinced that somewhere along this endless dark expanse of steel plating an armed guard lurked, my eyes searching ahead along the line of the raised catwalk for the tell-tale glow of a cigarette.

  A shape emerged, grew suddenly tall and I stopped again. I was in the centre of the ship, following the line of the pipes. The shape was away to the right, very straight and tall, motionless by the starb’d rail. I crouched down, moving slowly forward in the shadow of the pipes. There was another shape to my left now. I hesitated, my heart pounding, feeling suddenly boxed in.

  I stayed like that for maybe a minute, the figures on either side of me frozen motionless like myself. Gradually it dawned on me that they were further away than I had imagined and much taller than any man could possibly be. The derricks – the jib cranes for handling pipe! I got slowly to my feet, trembling slightly and feeling a fool as I ducked under the manifold with its mass of pipes running transversely across the ship, big valves showing like crouched figures in the gloom as I negotiated the breaker that stops waves running the length of the deck. After that there were no more pipes, only the catwalk running fore and aft.

  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 fire-fighting 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 flapped 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.

  My heel touched an obstruction. I felt behind me with my hand, not turning my head for fear of losing sight of the shape edging towards me. The winch – I was back at the derrick. I dropped slowly to the deck, crawling behind one of the winch drums and holding my breath.