How far to Qisham, the big island on the north side of the Straits? I couldn’t remember. And there was Larak, and inside of that Hormuz itself, both of them much smaller islands. I stood leaning on the helm, swaying with it as I tried to remember the chart, my eyes drooping, half-closed against the glare. Surely I was far enough out? Why not turn now, head eastwards into the sun? The Straits were like a horseshoe facing north. As long as I kept to the middle, steering clear of all the ships, and of the islands and reefs of Ras Musandam, following the curve of the Iranian coast, there was no reason why the dhow should attract the attention of sea or air patrols from either side, and at an estimated six to eight knots we should reach the border between Iran and Pakistan some time tomorrow night. Gwadar. If I could anchor off Gwadar. Must check the fuel. I didn’t know whether we had enough to reach Gwadar. But that was the nearest place that had an air service to Karachi. Two days to Gwadar. And if we were short of fuel, then I’d have to sail the brute. Through slitted eyes I stared up at the great curved spar with the sun-bleached, heavily-patched sail bagged up round it. My head nodded and I caught myself, wondering whether one man could possibly set it alone. But my mind drifted away, abandoning any thought of how it could be done, unable to concentrate. I was thinking of Hals, and Sadeq — Baldwick, too. A kaleidoscope of faces and that little ginger-haired Glaswegian. Sadeq spraying bullets. Standing at the head of the gangway, very much the professional, a killer. I couldn’t recall the expression on his face, only the fact that he was about to cut me down and didn’t. I owe you my life, he had said, and now I couldn’t recall his expression. Not even when he’d lifted the barrel and fired at Choffel. Hate, pleasure, anger — what the hell had he felt as the bullets slammed into the poop?
There comes a moment when tiredness so takes hold of the body that the only alternative to sleep is some form of physical activity. When I opened my eyes and found the sun’s glare behind me and the dhow rolling along almost broadside to the waves, I knew that point had arrived. The sun was higher now, the time 08.23, and a big fully-loaded tanker was pushing a huge bow wave barely a mile away. I wondered how long I had been dreaming at the helm with the dhow headed west into the Persian Gulf. Not that it made much difference, with no chart and only the vaguest idea where we were. I hauled the tiller over, bringing the bows corkscrewing through the waves until the compass showed us headed east of north. There was a rusty iron gear lever set in the deck close by the engine control arm and after throttling right down, I put the lever into neutral. Lengths of frayed rope, looped through holes cut in the bulwarks either side of the tiller arm, enabled me to make the helm fast so that we were lying wind-rode with our bows headed east into the Hormuz Straits.
I went for’ard then, into the waist of the vessel, running my eye over the bundled sail as I relieved myself to leeward. Then I went round the ship, checking the gear. It was something I would have had to do sooner or later, but doing it then I knew it was a displacement activity, putting off the moment when I would have to go into the dark hole of the shelter under the poop and deal with Choffel.
The dhow was rolling heavily. With no cargo to steady her, she was riding high out of the water, heeled slightly to starb’d by the wind and wallowing with an unpredictable motion, so that I had to hold on all the time or be thrown across the deck. I was feeling slightly nauseous, dreading the thought of that dark hole as I made my way aft. The entrance to it was right by the steps leading to the poop, the door closed with a large wooden latch. I couldn’t remember closing it, but perhaps it had banged to on a roll. I pulled it open and went in.
It was the smell that hit me. Predominantly it was the hot stink of diesel oil, but behind that was the smell of stale sweat, vomit and excrement. At the stern of the cabin two shuttered windows either side of the rudder post showed chinks of light. I had settled Choffel on a mat on the starb’d side. We had been heeled to starb’d then, as we were now, but sometime during the night, or perhaps in the dawn when I was off-course, he must have been rolled right across the ship, for I found his body precariously huddled on the port side. I could only just see it in the dim light from the doorway, the blanket I had wrapped him in flung into a heap at his feet and his hands pressed against the timbers of the deck in an effort to hold himself steady.
He looked so lifeless I thought for a moment he was dead. I was not so much glad as relieved, his stubble-dark features white against the bare boards, his eyes wide and staring and his body moving helplessly to the sudden shifts of the ship wallowing in the seaway. I started to back away, the smell and the diesel fumes too much for me. The engine noise was much louder here, and though it was only idling, the sound of it almost drowned the groans of the ship’s timbers. They were very human groans, and seeing the man’s head roll as the deck lifted to a wave, I had a sense of horror, as though this were a ghost come to haunt me.
Suddenly I felt very sick.
I turned, ducking my head for the doorway and some fresh air, and at that moment a voice behind me murmured, ‘Is that you, Gwyn?’ I hesitated, looking back. The dhow lifted to the surge of a wave, rolled to starb’d and, as it rolled, his body rolled with it, his groan echoing the groan of the timbers. ‘Water!’ He suddenly sat up with a shrill gasp that. was like a scream suppressed. One hand was pressed against the boards to support him, the other clutched at his stomach. He was groaning as he called for water again. ‘Where are you now? I can’t see you.’ His voice was a clotted whisper, his eyes staring. ‘Water please.’
‘I’ll get you some.’ It was the salt in the air. I was thirsty myself. The salt and the stench, and the movement of the boat.
There was a door I hadn’t noticed before on the port side. It opened on to a store cupboard, oil cans and paint side by side with sacks of millet, some dried meat that was probably goat, dates and dried banana in plastic bags, a swab and buckets, bags of charcoal and several large plastic containers. These last were the dhow’s water supply, but before I could do anything about it, my body broke out into a cold sweat and I had to make a dash for the starb’d bulwarks.
It was very seldom I was sick at sea. The wind carried the sickly smell of the injured man to my nostrils as I leaned out over the side retching dryly. It would have been better if I had had more to bring up. I dredged up some seawater in one of the buckets. We were on the edge of a slick and it smelt of oil, but I washed my face in it, then went back to that messy cubby-hole of a store. There were tin mugs, plates and big earthenware cooking pots on a shelf that sagged where the supports had come away from the ship’s side. I had a drink myself, then refilled the mug and took it in to Choffel.
He drank eagerly, water running down his dark-stubbled chin, his eyes staring at me with a vacant look. It was only when he had drunk nearly the whole of a mugful that it occurred to me the water was probably contaminated and should have been boiled. In Karachi everybody boiled their water and I wondered where the containers had last been filled. ‘Where am I? What’s happened?’ He was suddenly conscious, his eyes searching my face. His voice was stronger, too. ‘It’s dark in here. Would you pull the curtains please.’
‘You’re on a dhow,’ I said.
The ship lurched and he nodded. ‘The shots — Sadeq.’ He nodded, again feeling at his stomach. ‘I remember now.’ He was quite lucid in this moment, his eyes, wide in the gloom, looking me straight in the face. ‘You were going to kill me, is that right?’