The Sea and the Sand

by Finn Óg

  “He’s conscious and craving. He needs fluids or he’ll slip away soon and we may not get him back, even with an IV.”

  “Tease him,” said Tassels. “Fluids flow with information. Make him believe you want to get to the bottom of what happened to him – that you’re on his side. But you need the whole story. Get everything from him – the supply route for the boats, where he gets the migrants, how much they pay. We must get the details about the money.”

  “I am a doctor not an interrogator,” said the cousin.

  “You’re an educated man,” said Tassels. “You’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ve been complicit in torture, haven’t you? And I’m a police officer.”

  The cousin looked at Tassels. “I am an educated man,” he said evenly, curtailing his anger at the implicit blackmail, “which means I’m smart enough to ruin you for what you have done here,” he said, shaking mildly in an attempt to keep his voice from raising an octave.

  “If I’m exposed, then you will be exposed too – you’re clever enough to know that. Just remember why you’re indebted to me, doctor,” sneered Tassels.

  The doc closed his eyes and shuddered at the shame of it. His cousin had forced home the grip he maintained over him.

  “Those allegations went away because of me. The investigation could so easily be reopened,” said Tassels leering.

  The doctor’s shoulders made a barely discernible movement and he looked up and to the right. He knew there was truth in what his loathsome cousin said. He exhaled loudly and was about to turn the door handle to tend to his patient once more when his cousin spoke again.

  “One more thing. Find out who the tenth person was.”

  “What?”

  “There were ten people on the last boat. Make him tell you who the tenth was.”

  Wash or don’t wash, Sam reasoned, fresh water was a precious commodity at sea. It came from rainfall or the painfully slow water maker, so it suited him to save it. Trickier to set aside was the issue over names. Every movie Sam had ever seen in which language proved a barrier had gone the same way: hands on chest – say name; point to other person and they say their name. Yet the man steadfastly refused to acknowledge any understanding.

  Sam went through the rigmarole hands flat against himself, “I am Sam.” He even pointed at his daughter and said “Isla,” then threw an appealing look. The man held his gaze and said something to the woman whose eyes caught Sam’s then bolted downwards before her head turned and she looked away. Sam got the distinct impression the man had told her not to reply, then scolded himself for being ungenerous and again offered the benefit of the doubt.

  Sam checked the AIS more often than a single thirty-something checks their phone. He willed the Morocco-bound ship closer but it was still over nine miles away – two hours at current progress. He was also irritated that as he sailed towards it he was headed in the wrong direction – east not west. With every course adjustment he doubted his decisions: to take Isla to sea, to wrap her up in his world, to shun – if only for a while – ordinary life. It felt as though every tack he’d taken since Shannon died had been wrong. The one person he really wanted to look after seemed to be constantly placed in danger by his actions, his impulses and reactions. Each time it happened he considered it his comeuppance, just desserts, for all the things he’d done – the role he’d played in scrubbing out humanity in places where the presence of people like him may have been required but was also at the very least questionable.

  He tapped the screen of the plotter readout that tracked the ship and became increasingly agitated. He was sore from the stitches and the cuts on his arm, and his muscles ached every time he adjusted the sail trim. He refused to sleep while strangers were aboard but he knew he would be unable to keep that up. He had to get them off the boat and back to the routine he and Isla had come to enjoy. And he had to get west, to the European Mediterranean, and to a hospital.

  “Ah-ah,” the doctor scolded as Habid’s chin stretched for the sponge, his parched lips curled like a camel’s. “Easy does it.”

  Habid looked at the doctor with confusion.

  “I need to know what happened to you,” he said.

  “In a moment,” squeaked Habid, his neck again extending like a turtle’s, craving moisture.

  The doctor relented and offered him a swift wipe of the sponge on the stick, leaving Habid wanting more and more and more.

  “Now, I need to know everything, please, and then I can fetch you an IV – get your fluids back to normal.”

  Habid stared at the doctor in amazement. Why?” he asked.

  “So we may prevent this from occurring again. I see this too often,” said the doctor.

  “You give me water, I’ll tell you what they did,” said Habid.

  The doctor dipped the cocktail sponge into a cup and raised it to Habid’s mouth and paused. “I’ll also need to know why they did this to you,” he said, waving the sponge gently.

  “Yes,” said Habid, beyond caring why this doctor gave a damn. “Ok.”

  The doctor squeezed the liquid into his patient’s mouth and began to build a plan of his own.

  The wind warmed Sam’s cheek as he sat on the port side of the cockpit, facing forward, working the wheel with his right hand. He’d spent longer on the port tack than he ought to because the position gave him relief; it didn’t place strain upon his right flank where the stitches were tautening and he could expose his trunk to the salt air, speeding up the healing.

  The rope fouled around the propeller prevented it from folding away, which he guessed was slowing them by about a knot but, still, they were making progress without the engine. Normally he’d be in his element sailing reasonably fast, the boat heeled over and slicing through the waves at close to eight knots. Normally Isla would be at his side asking questions, taking her turn on the helm or simply pottering around, drawing, trying to read, building imaginary scenarios for her teddies. Instead she was below attempting to interact with the child from who knew where. In other circumstances Sam might have taken comfort from Isla’s attempts to form a fledgling friendship. He’d often watched, baffled, as children managed to communicate. For the first few years they could barely speak, yet they seemed to crave one another’s company. Then as toddlers they’re drawn together, strangers waddling, by some kindred curiosity, their nappies in synchronised sashay as they circled like unacquainted dogs, sniffing interest.

  He could see the two girls from where he sat. Isla was sharing tiny garments as they dressed her dolls. She chattered a little but there wasn’t any response. The Arab girl seemed content or perhaps resigned to sitting at the table in the saloon watching and repeating his daughter’s actions.

  The mother sat across from them, still on edge. The niqab covered her head and eyebrows and the flap concealed everything below the bridge of her nose, so Sam’s only point of reference was her grip on the built-in furniture. Her arms were splayed in an L shape, resting atop the cushions on the corner unit she’d wedged herself into. Her hands were tensed, talon-like, clawing the fabric as if holding on. It made Sam think of the scratches she’d inflicted on his face and body. He wondered briefly whether she might be nauseous with the swell of the sea but he couldn’t tell whether she was pale.

  The man, mercifully, was asleep. Sam could just make out his loaf of black hair through a small Perspex hatch on the bulkhead. So long as that particular stranger remained still Sam was content. It allowed him to concentrate on sailing as hard as possible towards the intercept. The sooner these people were off his hands the better. There were too many unanswered questions that Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to resolve.

  No matter how much he tried not to think about it he couldn’t shake the notion that there might have been more people in the sea. Hours had passed since Isla had heard the shrill blast from the faded plastic whistle. He’d found it later, attached by a threadbare lanyard to the dilapidated life jacket. Where had the jacket come from – some old airliner? It looked decad
es old. Had this small family set to sea on their own? If so, what boat had they been in – had it sank? In Sam’s experience it was hard to completely submerge a boat at speed unless it had absolutely no buoyancy or was overturned by a massive wave. The night hadn’t been rough to begin with and the three people couldn’t have been in the sea for long. The woman and child couldn’t really swim – the failing life jacket was all that had kept them afloat. And why hadn’t the man stayed with his wife and child in the water? Sam hadn’t caught sight of him until the cloaked figure boarded their boat, which suggested he’d retained enough energy to propel himself through the sea. No, Sam concluded, whatever boat they’d been in had only just failed when he and Isla happened upon them. And what were the chances of that? Best-case scenario, they had been very, very fortunate.

  Stupid, thought Sam, a stupid thing to think. It wasn’t fortunate to end up flailing for your life one hundred miles from the nearest shore. He reckoned Crete has been the most likely destination, but without seeing what type of boat they’d been in it was hard to say for sure. He didn’t even know where they’d come from, but then he hadn’t tried very hard to find out. And what of the others, if indeed there had been any others. Had this family seen them drown?

  Sam looked at the child and her interactions with his own. Her movements were minimal, her face blank. There was no animation, no enjoyment. She approached play in a functional manner, going through the motions. The longer he watched her the more persuaded he was that she was in shock, stunned beyond any display of emotion. Understandable perhaps given all she’d just been through. Maybe that’s what was curtailing the child, why she didn’t speak, why she was functioning but not really engaging. They must have spent days at sea in the sun. Sam couldn’t even begin to imagine what had driven them to take such a risk. What drove a parent to take their child towards the horizon with no guarantees and odds stacked in favour of death by drowning?

  He let it drift. Not his problem. His problem was making contact with the merchant ship, turning tail and getting to Europe before his wound turned green.

  Big Suit’s wingspan was enormous. He was able to reach both walls of the grimy corridor to support himself. His mind fluttered to images of soldiers in rehab reteaching their legs to walk, tears in their eyes. Betrayal was burning in his heart. It was like being dumped by a girl as a teenager; rejection in favour of someone more important. Even in the narrow confines of his mind he was able to work out what Tassels had been prepared to do: sacrifice his life in favour of the rat’s. Big Suit knew he could have died on the floor as the blood was deliberately drained from him. Hours had passed since, perhaps days. He had no idea. And yet still he could barely walk, and that was just the physical.

  He was hurt. Inside. He’d given Tassels everything the man had ever asked for: loyalty, respect, brutality. In return Tassels had drained him. He’d loved that man, been devoted to him. He’d attached himself to his mentor and answered every call with enthusiasm. And at the first sign of profit his boss had forfeited him without a thought.

  “Vessel Teetaya, Teetaya, Teetaya, this is yacht Tuskar, Tuskar, Tuskar. Over.” Sam waited.

  “Our boat’s not called Tuskar,” Isla said behind him. She’d heard him use the VHF radio a hundred times.

  “Well, I have to call her something and I don’t want them knowing what she’s really called.”

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t,” he said, staring at the illuminated readout on the radio transmitter, the blocky number sixteen, the international hailing channel. He willed a response.

  Sam had caught the glow of the merchant ship’s lights, probably still two miles away, advancing slowly. He knew it was the ship he’d been waiting on from the AIS readout on the plotter.

  “Vessel Teetaya, Teetaya, Teetaya, this is yacht Tuskar, Tuskar, Tuskar. Do you read me? Over.”

  “Why are you calling the boat Tuskar?” Isla’s curiosity was insatiable, which Sam normally enjoyed but it often surfaced at the most inconvenient moments.

  “It’s a rock off the coast of Ireland. It’s what I aim for when we’re sailing home.”

  “I want to go back to Ireland,” said Isla.

  “So do I, darlin’,” he said. “So do I.”

  The radio rasped into life with a crackle and hiss. Sam reached to turn the squelch down.

  “Tuskar, Teetaya,” was all the operator could be bothered saying.

  The accent could have been anywhere between Turkey and Morocco. Good as Sam’s ear was, he had no idea.

  “Channel eight, please. Over,” he tried.

  “Madha?”

  Sam couldn’t remember what that meant exactly but he knew it was Arabic, a language in which he couldn’t count. He thought about North Africa, it’s colonial past, and tried French.

  “Huit, s’il vous plaît?”

  “Tayeb,” barked the radio.

  Ok. Sam anticipated problems. Not least because the door to the forward cabin cracked open a little, the man obviously curious as to what was going on. Sam reckoned he’d heard the Arabic, albeit there were only two words. He clicked the dial down to channel eight and started again.

  “Teetaya, Tuskar. We require assistance. Over.”

  “La afham.”

  Sam looked at Isla. Isla looked back.

  “I don’t know what he’s saying,” she said.

  “I don’t think he knows what we’re saying.” He shrugged to her.

  Normally Sam would smile at her reassuringly but he wanted more than anything in that moment to get the migrant family off their boat. The door to the forward cabin creaked a little more and the woman emerged. She sat by the table in the saloon and looked in their direction.

  “Do you know what he’s saying?” Sam asked her, then sighed. “You probably do, but you haven’t a bloody clue what I’m saying.”

  “Daddy,” Isla scolded him for swearing.

  He ignored it. “Hablo Inglese?” Sam tried into the handset, aware that he was now trying Spanish where he had just succeeded with French.

  There was no response.

  “Vous s’appellez anglais?” Sam hunted his head for the right phrase and realised he had just asked whether they were called English. Again, no response. He dropped his forehead onto the back of his wrist, the radio mic hanging limply in his hand.

  “Daddy, what’s wrong? Who are you trying to speak to?”

  “I want to get a ship nearby to take the people we rescued off the boat.”

  For a moment Sam thought the woman’s head shifted a little – a robotic, involuntary twitch. He noted it but was interrupted by a blast from the speaker.

  “What you want, Tuskar?” A new voice, no less rude but at least in a language Sam understood.

  “Teetaya, Tuskar. I have two adults and one child on board in need of assistance. They were rescued from the sea and need repatriation.”

  “Sick?” came the curt response.

  “Negative, Teetaya,” Sam said.

  “Injuries?”

  “None,” said Sam without thinking, abandoning his radio etiquette to match the abrupt turn the conversation had taken.

  He imagined a ship would be reluctant to take sick people on board and considered their health an advantage.

  “Then why need off boat?”

  Good question, thought Sam. “They are from North Africa,” he tried. “You are going to Morocco.”

  “Where exact people are from?” the voice asked, more curious now.

  Sam looked at the woman and sighed. “I don’t know, they don’t speak English.”

  “Where you going?” the operator asked.

  “Ireland,” Sam replied, and again caught a movement from the woman out of the corner of his eye.

  “Take people to Ireland,” the voice said.

  “I can’t.” Sam’s anger grew. “They’re not European – they’ll not get in. I need to get them back to where they came from.”

  “You not know where they came from,” t
he operator remarked, and Sam’s exhaustion and discomfort overtook him.

  “You have an obligation to help distressed persons at sea. You need to send a rigid inflatable and take them ashore.”

  “You say they are not distressed. No sick. No injured.”

  Sam realised his mistake and cursed himself for not having thought the exchange through in advance. He’d assumed the crew would be willing to help but that flew in the face of everything he’d learned in recent years about the cut-throat world of commercial shipping.

  “If you do not take them, I will report you to the authorities,” Sam tried, knowing it was useless.

  “Fuck-a-off,” came the reply.

  Sam ground his teeth and slammed the chart table triggering stabbing pain from his arm and side. “I have your IMO, I have your vessel’s name. One day, you bastards and I will cross course again and I will fuck you up!” he shouted into the handset and threw it down, cackling laughter returning through the speaker.

  He turned to find Isla staring at him with tears in her eyes and the black drapes of the woman disappearing into the forward cabin.

  “What is your name?”

  “You first,” said the doc.

  The rat looked at the cup of water swaying in the doctor’s hand and gave in immediately.

  “Habid.”

  The doctor pursed his lips. “You can call me doctor. Now, tell me what happened.”

  Habid didn’t like that. “Tell me your name.”

  The doctor looked at his patient and deflected. “You should tell me what they did to you. Maybe I can stop them from doing it again.”

  “Who called you here?” Habid was lucid enough to try and set some ground rules.

  “The police.”

  “The small man – with the tassels on his shoes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he the chief?”

  The doctor laughed. “No, he might have had the chance to be once upon a time but he is too dangerous.”