Great timing; just as we were going to have to walk right across the open beach to the water.
Still, we had what we had. It was time to move.
The trip across the sands seemed never-ending, and I was expecting to be challenged every step of the way. With the cloud cover shifting and exposing us, we would have looked an odd shape if anybody had been keeping an eye on the boats. I kept up a whispered commentary all the way to keep Tober in touch, letting him know how close we were. He didn’t respond but his legs kept moving, so I figured he was still in there somewhere, doing his bit.
We passed the first boat with the stripped-down engine, the water slapping gently off the hull. I steered Tober towards the middle vessel. Maybe it was the familiar noise or the smell of the sea, but suddenly his feeling for boats seemed to kick in. He lifted his head and looked around at the long dark shapes and gave a nod of approval.
‘You picked a good one?’ he asked, his words slurred. At least he remembered what he’d said to me earlier. Another good sign. His mental faculties were still in working order.
‘Two,’ I said. ‘Neither of them are dogs but you’ll have to check the engines and get one started. Can you do that?’
He grunted and shoved me away. ‘Do it with my eyes closed, pal. Just watch. Don’t reckon I’ll be able to push, though.’
He was looking down as he said this, and my gut went cold. I hadn’t noticed that the hull of the nearest boat was further up the sand than it had been earlier. It meant we’d have to move it by muscle-power alone.
Tober wasn’t waiting; he clambered into the other boat which wasn’t as far aground, and I heard him humming slightly as he traced the engine casing with his fingers, patting it like you would a pet dog and mumbling in approval.
‘S’right to go, baby,’ he said, and waved at me. ‘C’mon, Portman, y’fuckin’ Yank landlubber. Time to go sailing.’
I placed the backpack and rifles on board, then put my shoulder behind the boat and heaved. Nothing happened. It was firmly grounded.
‘Shit.’ Tober swore and almost fell out of the boat. He crouched down alongside me and put his shoulder against the stern, alongside the twin engines. ‘Nice,’ he muttered dreamily, patting the nearest casing, and I realized he was on automatic pilot, his mind taking over as a fever gradually took hold of him. ‘Go like shit off a shovel, these things.’
‘Push,’ I said, ‘or we’re going nowhere.’
Then we heard a shout from near the top of the beach, followed by a shot being fired.
We had outstayed our welcome; it was time to run.
Sixty-Six
Whatever energy Tober had left inside him resurfaced just in time. Or maybe it was the shot and pure survival instinct. With a grunt he leaned hard against the boat and I felt it shift smoothly into the water. It probably had something to do with him being out of the boat, or his feel for the weight and balance. Who knows?
I threw my weight at it, digging in my heels as hard as I could. The boat was afloat. Tober gave a wild laugh and scrambled aboard, and did something to the twin engines, dropping them into position. Moments later, as I jumped in, they started up with a deafening roar and the boat seemed to leap forward like a startled gazelle, throwing me off my feet.
I rolled across the bottom to where I’d dumped the rifles and came up facing the beach, AK in hand. And swore.
In the rush to get moving I’d forgotten to disable the other craft.
I fired several shots at the twin engine casings and a few more into the hull at water level, hoping I could do enough damage to make it unseaworthy. No float, no boat. I gave it another burst just to be sure, but by then we were bouncing through the waves and too far off to be certain of hitting anything.
Several figures were now visible racing across the sand, weapons glinting in the moonlight. A couple of the men started shooting, but mostly into the air. Then one of them must have wised up because there was a shouted order and they stopped running and brought their guns to bear. The muzzle flares came first, then the sound of the shots reached us over the noise of the twin engines. One or two rounds came close, but by then we were two hundred metres offshore and moving fast out to sea, bouncing smoothly over the gentle inshore swell.
A few minutes later, when the coastline had faded into the gloom, with only the white line of froth on the sand to mark its position, Tober turned south, cutting across the waves, which were now small to medium and not so smooth. Instinct and guts were driving him on, and I hoped he could stick at it for a while longer. I could handle the boat if I had to, but nothing makes up for the feel and experience of a seasoned boatman at the helm.
I took out the phone and called Vale. This might be the last chance I got.
‘We’re offshore and clear, heading south,’ I told him, shouting over the engine noise. ‘The rest is up to you.’
His voice was faint, but I was just able to pick out the words. ‘Got that. Call me when you make land.’ He cut the connection.
We had been running for about twenty minutes, with no visible signs of pursuit, when I noticed the bow beginning to drift. First to port, then starboard. And the shift was getting wider each time. I looked at Tober. He was slumped against the side of the boat, one arm hugging the woodwork, the other just about holding on to the tiller.
I scrambled across and helped him into the bottom of the boat where he’d be more comfortable. I couldn’t do anything to help him right now, so I grabbed the tiller and corrected our course. If I could keep this thing going in the right direction and ahead of any pursuit, we might be able to stay out of trouble.
An hour later I stopped the boat to refuel. I had no idea of the range of these things, but leaving it too long and finding we were running out of fuel while being chased was a no-brainer. Although stationary in the water, we were being thrown around uncomfortably with the choppy action of the sea, and it made getting the fuel container into position and filling the tanks hard work, without keeping an eye out for pursuit. Eventually, though, liberally soaked with splashed fuel, I replaced the caps and stowed the fuel container away, and we set off again.
At one point Tober seemed to rally. He lifted his hand and gave me a thumbs up sign, before falling asleep again. Whatever was keeping him going with two holes in him you simply couldn’t bottle, and I hoped if I was ever in the same position, I’d be able to do the same. I wanted to check on his condition, but didn’t dare stop again for fear of being caught.
After another ninety minutes, with the first signs of light stretching across the horizon to the east, and shivering almost uncontrollably in the pre-dawn cold, I turned to check the coast, trying to figure out where we were from the map in my head. I guessed we might be somewhere near the island of Lamu, although I couldn’t separate it from the mainland, which was roughly two clicks to our right. If I was correct, it meant we were roughly halfway to Malindi and well inside Kenyan territory.
A pity nobody bothered to tell the pirates.
As I glanced back towards Kamboni, I saw a flicker of movement. It was there, then gone, merging against the sea. I slowed and blinked to clear my eyes, studying the area and looking slightly off to one side, wondering if tiredness was taking its toll. But no, there it was again, barely visible, a flash of something low on the water. A submarine? Way too close to shore.