Slow Boats to China

by Gavin Young

  Then they explored the ship; they’d never been aboard one before. Woollen-capped swarthy heads rose cautiously over the tops of companion ways: was this a forbidden area? The ship was alive with laughter. Cabin doors opened and shut, and officers sharply ordered giggling passengers away from the sacrosanct engine room or the bridge. I, the only non-Egyptian aboard, was greeted with shouts of ‘Good morning, misterr!’ When they had inspected the ship with as much thoroughness as they would devote to a new water buffalo or a wife, they milled off to drink tea in the ship’s cafeteria and raucously debate their prospects in the unknown and immediate future that for eight hundred of them would begin at Aqaba.

  Iraq was their destination from Aqaba, the port of Jordan. Aqaba, whose capture from the Turks by the Arab irregular armies of Faisal, Abdullah and Τ. Ε. Lawrence in the First World War had created the springboard for the offensive that eventually carried the Arab revolt in triumph to Damascus. Aqaba, where King Hussein went to water-ski, would be their springboard to an expatriate life in Mesopotamia. I knew their route; I had followed it several times myself. From the seaside town of Aqaba by truck or bus up the dramatic escarpment road, through the splendour of Wadi Rumm – where Lawrence and Faisal were bombed by Turkish biplanes – along the snaking track of the old Turkish-built Hejaz railway to Amman, the track that Lawrence spent so much time and effort blowing up. From Amman, Hussein’s capital, to Mafraq (which means crossroads), the hub town from which the roads to Damascus and to Baghdad radiate. Then the long, dreary desert crossing by bus to Iraq: the descent into the steamy lushness of the basin of the great twin rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which keep Iraq alive, just as the Nile has sustained Egypt. Past Nineveh, perhaps, and Ctesiphon, the capital of the old Persian kings, past Babylon perhaps as far south as Ur of the Chaldees. The Nile to the Euphrates and Tigris: they wouldn’t know it, but Al Wid’s hopeful passengers were leaving one of the world’s nurseries of civilization for another as great.

  It was an interesting experiment in human transplantation. Iraq, rich in oil and land and poor in population, and Egypt, nearly destitute and barely able to support a population that seemed hell-bent on doubling itself in a few decades, had come to an agreement. I had seen fellahin from the Nile clumping about the riverine towns of Iraq, easily distinguishable from the native peasants by their browner skins, round-necked galabiehs and speech (the accents and idioms of Egyptian Arabic are as strange to the Arabs of Iraq as the English spoken in Kansas is to the people of Yorkshire). But not only fellahin were transplanted. Young Egyptians with some minimal experience in hotels in Cairo are to be found in the hotels and restaurants of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. It is good to see them there, because however adept or inept they may be in their work they are always cheerful; Egyptians are inveterate jokers. Iraqis, on the other hand, like the English, feel that waiters’ work is mysteriously demeaning to the soul, and work off their humiliation on the diners.

  *

  As Al Wid steamed up toward Aqaba, there was no singing or drumming from the mass of Egyptians on her decks. Most noticeably, there were no transistors; these men were too poor or frugal for such dubious luxuries. After all, no pop group can ward off the Evil Eye.

  Unlike Suez, the heat was dry here. The cliffs of both sides of the Gulf of Aqaba closed in: Arabia on the right, lifeless and bare; Sinai, still occupied by the Israelis on the left, with an occasional car or jeep speeding down a road parallel with the water.

  ‘Sinai, Egypt’s land!’ a ship’s officer announced, pointing to the coast. I handed my binoculars to a group of bejeaned Egyptians who said, ‘Thank you, misterrr,’ and passed them round, each one gaping at the strange mountain-girt bay and the ships we could now see anchored in it off the little port of Aqaba and, a little way to the west, the Israeli port of Elat. They goggled at the strange sight of an Arab and Israeli town side by side. ‘Is that Aqaba? Is that Elat? Is that Palestine? Is that Israel?’

  In Arabic I asked them where they were heading. One said, ‘To Baghdad.’ Another: ‘To Basra,’ adding, ‘I’m a mechanic’ Someone asked, ‘Is Dohuk cold?’ (Dohuk is in northern Iraq.) ‘How far is Dohuk from Baghdad?’ ‘How far is Baghdad from Amman?’ ‘Is Baghdad like Cairo?’

  An innocent abroad, more pushy than the rest, in a red and white sweater zipped up the front, said his name was Gamal – ‘But call me Jim.’ Like most of them he was going to Baghdad. ‘I have friends there. Look.’ He handed me a card from the Ibn Khaldoun Hotel with an Egyptian friend’s name on it. I had been to Baghdad recently to complete a book about the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, and knew one or two Egyptians there. I gave him another Egyptian name – that of Samir, the head barman at the Dar es Salaam Hotel, a kind man who would no doubt help him over his first baffling, homesick days in a strange city. He tucked the name gratefully away in his wallet.

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ he answered boldly. ‘People say there are thieves in Baghdad, but thieves are only people like me, aren’t they?’ Sententiously he added, ‘I am afraid only of God.’

  I pointed out that he was taking this adventurous step into a country whose government was at loggerheads with his own. This meant nothing to him. He said, ‘You see, misterrr, I’ve eight brothers and five sisters in Cairo, so someone has to travel to find money and send it back to them. I am the eldest, so who else should go but me? I give myself ten years’ hard work abroad, suffering maybe, until I’m thirty. Then I’ll marry and take a settled job in Egypt. By then I should have saved enough for a house and a car. Am I right, misterrr?’

  I said, ‘You are happy to go, it’s a duty to your family and you are not afraid. So you are right.’

  ‘Thank you, misterrr.’ I looked at Gamal’s – Jim’s – flushed and beaming face, the thick red hands with broken nails, and for some reason I thought of Sinatra in his tuxedo under the pyramids, facing that scintillating audience and singing to the Sphinx in the desert night.

  Eleven

  ‘Hut al habil, Hutuh! Make fast!’ Deckhands threw lines ashore from bows and stern and shouted down to make sure they were secured. Al Wid had come alongside a wharf not far from a huge column of smoke; a bush fire seemed to be nibbling at the outskirts of Aqaba. But we came safely to rest bow-to-stern behind a Saudi ferryboat, the Yarra, which plied regularly between Suez, Jedda, Port Sudan and Aqaba.

  There was a long wait before the gangway went down, and then a torrent of fellahin and other Egyptian passengers began to tumble onto the quay in an avalanche of baggage and unwinding turbans. Scenes of anarchy and despair filled the ship. Like juveniles abandoned by their parents at a pop concert, desperate Egyptians wandered through the decks of Al Wid calling for friends or searching for passports or lost belongings. At the head of the gangway a howling confusion prompted the whirlwind appearance of Jordanian policemen, one of whom in drawing back his fist to drive a way through the crowd caught me a hefty clout on the shoulder with his elbow. ‘Sorry, mister,’ he said and, on the rebound, swung at an innocent fellah who was too astounded to resist a tremendous clap on the chops.

  The Jordanian security men were faced with the problem of identifying every individual in a shouting crowd that flowed and seethed like water in a stormy bay. The loudspeaker system began an interminable appeal to missing Egyptians to report to immigration control, and here a problem of names revealed itself.

  ‘Will the following report at once to the passport department in the cafeteria,’ official voices, sharply irritable or limply indifferent, grated or drawled repeatedly over the crackling Tannoy. ‘Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, Mohamed Mohamed Ahmed, Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed, Ibrahim Mohamed Ibrahim, Ibrahim Mohamed Ahmed, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim, Ali Ahmed Ibrahim, Mohamed Mustafa Ali, Mohamed Ali Mustafa, Mustafa Ali Mohamed….?

  Like an atavistic incantation, the calling out of names went on and on in barely perceptible permutations. ‘Musa Ali Musa, Musa Musa Ali….’ Yes, one could see the problem, and it delayed us in Aqa
ba for some hours. There were known troublemakers aboard, it seemed. One or two had smuggled drugs; others had caused political trouble during earlier visits to Hussein’s kingdom. Several would-be immigrants were now rudely refused entry into Jordan. I heard an angry immigration officer shouting into a dark and tearful Nilotic face, ‘We’ve had enough of you in Jordan. Go away! Fly to Iraq from Egypt if you can, but don’t ever enter Jordan again!’

  To add to the general irritability, long before we sailed again the air conditioning was shut off and there seemed to be no cold water. In appalling heat, and with nothing better to do, some of the passengers going on to Jedda sat about indignantly comparing the uneven value of their tickets.

  One man wailed bitterly, ‘I paid eighty-four Egyptian pounds for a cabin berth and no food. My friend paid only sixty-five for the same thing.’ His listeners rocked and groaned in impotent indignation. Another fumed to the accompaniment of angry cries that he had paid fifty-six pounds for a place on board – no question of a cabin and not a bite of food – ‘yet the travel agent in Cairo told me that food was included’. Cries of ‘Pimp! Dog!’ rained on the agent’s absent head. On top of this, people said that tea cost six or seven times the price in Egypt, and this was true. In such ways are the poor of the Middle East eternally cheated out of the little money they have.

  With my binoculars I searched the bay in vain for the sight of King Hussein on water-skis; instead, their pitted lenses found the familiar rearing château of the Patrick Vieljeux lying offshore in a huddle of several other large foreign vessels. A lighter lay alongside, and her derricks swung back and forth, so at least she was working. I imagined Captain Visbecq in his air-cooled cabin impatiently smoking a Gauloise under his green visor, and in my mind’s eye I saw a gigot in the galley next to a simmering pot-au-feu. The Patrick Vieljeux would certainly make much better speed than Al Wid; she would reach Jedda before us if she sailed within the next twelve hours.

  I had been thinking hard about my future hops from Jedda. My aim was to reach Djibouti, and from there to bypass Aden on my way up the side of the Arabian peninsula and around the corner to Dubai. (I doubted whether the Adenis, now friends of the Russians, would welcome a solitary ship-hopping writer from Britain – or rather, they might welcome him with an immediate jailing.) Going from Jedda to Djibouti might be accomplished direct with any luck, or, if necessary, by a swift passage across the Red Sea to Port Sudan in a ferry like the Yara. I would have to pray for a ship from there down the west coast. But I was doubtful about Port Sudan. I had no visa for Sudan and, thanks to the spineless consul at Port Said, I had a Saudi visa for a mere three days. Only an idiot would have the slightest confidence that the Saudis, truculent and bureaucratically hidebound, would extend it; unable to count on this extension, I would have to act as if it wouldn’t be granted. That is to say, I would have to find a ship to take me southwards out of Jedda with a minimum of delay. There would be precious little time to tour the shipping agencies. I began to think about Captain Visbecq and the Patrick Vieljeux: a captain I knew and who knew me, and the more I thought about him, the more I felt that he might help me out of a Saudi Arabian impasse. Still, the first thing to do was to consult Captain Mohamed el Zenati of Al Wid.

  *

  Al Wid sailed from Aqaba that evening, and by the time I was awake at eight o’clock the next morning we were passing the Strait of Tiran at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. The ridged dragon’s back of rock outside my porthole was Tiran Island, according to the map.

  From a useful and friendly publication called Ports of the World (Benn Publications, London) lent me by Captain Rashad in Alexandria, I had noted the following random characteristics of the port of Jedda: ‘Two anchorages: inner and outer. The Outer between the second and third line of reefs off Jeddah…. The practice of throwing refuse into the harbour discouraged – no tides to take it away…. Vessels strongly advised not to enter or leave port during hours of darkness due to difficult passage through reefs.’ Then came some words of great importance: ‘Holidays. Fridays, Ramadan and Eid el Hajj, both eight-day holidays. No work on these days.’ This news came as no surprise, but it impelled me in sudden alarm to see what day of the week Al Wid would strand me in the port of Jedda. The answer was Wednesday afternoon. This meant that I would have no more than half a day in which to find a ship – a half-day because in every Arab country, the Thursday before the full Friday holiday is a half-day, just as Saturday is in Christian countries, and often rather less than a half-day, given every man’s eagerness to start the weekend.

  Moving on, I read: ‘No navigation aids mark the approaches to port, and therefore there is no night navigation. A light-house and lighted marker are scheduled…. The Saudi Arabian flag (in good condition) must be flown from 0600 hrs. to sunset.’

  Poring over his charts with Captain Mohamed el Zenati later in the day, I could see the name Jedda tucked away behind a snowstorm of reefs up a narrow channel. ‘Very few lights in the Red Sea,’ sighed the captain, shaking his head. ‘Many ships have gone aground here, especially Greek ships. Greek captains go aground here very much.’ Presumably, as Ε. Μ. Forster had noted, with their charts locked up in a drawer.

  At noon Captain el Zenati, a brisk, cheerful man of about forty, invited me to his cabin. He told me that while waiting for the emigrants to disembark at Aqaba he had gone next door to see his friend the captain of the Yara, and bought a bottle of whisky. He proceeded to open it, and poured two hefty ones, adding cold water from a small refrigerator.

  Though still a youngish man, Captain el Zenati had served eighteen years in submarines of the Egyptian navy, ending up as a captain. ‘I loved subs,’ he said. ‘Even though ours were old Soviet vessels, they were exceptionally stable. I must admit that some of the technical aids were certainly not of the latest.’ He laughed. ‘Still, they were as good or better than French or American subs of the same age.’

  He had served through the wars of 1967 and 1973 against Israel, and surprised me by saying that the Egyptian navy had never lost a submarine. ‘The Israelis lost three,’ he added. He himself had torpedoed a ship in the Red Sea during the war of 1973. ‘Do you know, what I enjoyed about subs was the necessity for extreme precision. One mistake – pouf! – and you’re gone. Cheers!’

  Captain el Zenati seemed typical of his class and age in Egypt. He had actually enjoyed eighteen years in submarines, so perhaps he was braver than most. But, like many Egyptians, he was a man of much laughter and kindness; he was also very serious and a passionate talker. He had strong convictions: why not, he said, after what Egypt had been through? For instance, he was convinced that after 1973 Egypt could not have fought another war. He blamed Nasser for the defeat of 1967 and for the ‘pointless debacle’ of the Yemen War, where Egyptian troops – those boys from the delta – were required to fight a bewildering mountain war for which they were never trained, against Yemeni tribesmen who knew every peak and gully. Nasser was responsible for the pauperization of Egypt.

  ‘Are you happy, then?’ I was eager to know whether he thought Sadat’s plans for peace stood any reasonable chance. If not, was the alternative ‘phwee! … a big bang’, as the skittish officer in Suez had said as the trains hooted past our terrace table?

  ‘Directed democracy,’ the captain said. ‘That’s what I think is necessary. Strong government based on Islam. A modern state on Islamic lines – but not extremist or intolerant, like Khomeini. Modern, but more aware of Arab culture, so that Arabs will be proud people.’ Yes, perhaps Egyptians could do with a little more pride, but I was sure that the Saudi bourgeoisie were too proud already.

  We walked out onto the wing of the bridge and watched the Red Sea water flow by. It was windless and sticky. ‘You know, Egypt and the Arabs need another really big leader. God knows where he’ll come from, but we need him – now. Sadat is right to look for peace’ – every Egyptian I had met since I stepped on Al Anoud at Limassol had said this – ‘but there will be no end to the conflict if Ara
bs and Israelis don’t agree to share a state together.’ At this point a shadow fell on the conversation, for neither of us could imagine that this desirable state of affairs would be effected during our lifetimes.

  In a lighter tone, Captain el Zenati said, ‘About your best plan at Jedda, I’m not sure what ships go to Port Sudan or when. Our agent there is a good Saudi; I’ll ask him. Maybe you should try to return to the French ship. At least you know the captain and you want to see Djibouti.’ Remembering something, he shook his head and added, ‘I knew a ship that foundered near Djibouti. She was overloaded above and below decks with camels, sheep, buffaloes, cows and I don’t know what. There was a heavy swell and she began to list and then kept on going. The crew got off in time; they were close to shore. But you ought to have heard the pandemonium in the holds – the animals, all packed in down there in the dark, feeling the ship going, smelling the water, smelling death…. And the sea was full of sharks. What a field day for the sharks!’

  ‘Can sharks get into the hold of a ship?’

  ‘When a shark smells meat he’ll get in anywhere.’ For a moment I thought of that roaring, struggling mass in the black steel belly of the doomed ship, and took a second large whisky without being asked.

  ‘Not a nice idea,’ agreed Captain Mohamed el Zenati. He changed the subject. ‘Let’s see if the French ship is near us when we dock at Jedda. I’ll do what I can.’

  *

  The Jedda skyline astonished me. I had seen it, though not from the sea, in 1964 on a return visit at the time of the Yemen War. Travelling down to the Yemeni border at Jizan, I had walked across into northern Yemen with the Imam’s tribal supporters, and then returned to a semi-modern Jedda with an ugly new hotel where Western businessmen sat about drinking non-alcoholic beer.