Down to the Sea in Ships (11 page)

Captain H. Van Schaick remained at the helm, while the wheelhouse burned, until he got the
General Slocum
aground. He left the bridge, he said, only when his cap caught fire. Though he seems to have done everything possible to save lives he was criticised for spurning an opportunity to ground the ship earlier, at a wharf he believed was imperilled by warehouses and oil tanks. He spent three and a half years in jail and was not pardoned until eight years after the tragedy.

If ships are models of their times in miniature, the
General Slocum
's was a shadowy era. Fire hoses burst. Life jackets were rotten: some were found to have been freighted with metal by the manufacturer to make them up to the required weight. Lifeboats could not be launched: there are reports that they had been wired and painted into place. Many of the passengers could not swim. A man in a white yacht is said to have stood off the scene, watched, and made no attempt to help.

The launching of rescue boats is next. Rohan gives the briefing. It is like listening to a young captain; Rohan has the gift of commanding attention.

‘The rescue boat is gravity-dropped and control is from the deck,' he says. ‘The important thing is that the deck crew really drop it. You want a big splash. If not, the boat is hanging over the waves by the hook. I have been in this situation in training and it is very complicated and very dangerous.'

Noel, our cook, is picked on to talk us through launching the life rafts. He recites the procedure at top volume. Noel lacks Rohan's ability to transmit solemnity but his words are followed closely.

If we are a model of our time in miniature then the
Gerd
is proof of progress. There are plans, there is adequate equipment (at least the life jackets are not weighted with metal) and the drills are practised. The last time this company was faced with the real thing, dangerous cargo in the forward holds of the
Charlotte Maersk
caught fire in the Strait of Malacca. The crew were on their way to attack the fire within seven minutes of the alarm. They fought the blaze for twenty-four hours before help reached them, saving the ship and themselves. It took a further ten days to kill the fire, which engulfed more than 150 containers and burned at over a thousand degrees. One man was treated for smoke inhalation.

The incident report is terrifying reading. Flames, detonations and palls of chemical fumes did not daunt the men cooling adjacent containers, retarding the spread of the blaze. (The intense heat of the fire meant they were prevented from a direct assault, at first.) This was brave enough on its own, but the report includes a reference to a tank of liquefied petroleum gas. The
Charlotte
's captain, Dick Danielsen, decided that this tank would rule their efforts: if the flames came too close to it the ship would be abandoned. The men fought with the knowledge that the consequences an LPG explosion would surely be lethal for some of them.

What formidable courage it required of the smoke-jumpers: as they suited up for our drill and peered out through their visors I imagined Mike and Ray hurrying forward along the narrow deck, vision constricted by their masks, their breathing loud in their ears as they make their ungainly charge into danger, knowing that if anyone is going to die they will surely be the first.

There is a photograph of the crew of the
Charlotte
taken after their victory. They are an almost perfect analogy of the men of the
Gerd
: four Europeans and three Indians wear the insignia of officers; squatting at their feet is the Filipino crew. Every man is smiling. Captain Danielsen, in particular, looks euphoric.

It is not unusual for captains to serve their periods at sea knowing little of most of their men. The ship sails on an understanding of combined strength, not certainty. The expressions on the men of the
Charlotte
are triumphant not merely in achievement, but in unity: the fire put them to the question and they answered. The different scales of pay, the racial divisions in treatment and privilege, the difference between company-employed officers and voyage-contracted seafarers undermines the traditional language of the enterprise. ‘Crew' in the
Gerd
's case actually refers to a collection of entirely different classes, experiences, grades, cultures and sets of expectations which happen to be in the same boat. (It would not be strange or out of place for Captain Larsen to go halfway around the world without sharing anything but the briefest exchanges with Roy, the youngest of our crew.) But Captain Danielsen's expression is alight with pride and relief. At the moment the shutter clicked there was no captain anywhere who knew his crew better, who had endured as much with them, who had worried about them more, or achieved more with them. Of all the thousands of photographs generated and published by the company, this photograph is the only one I have seen of a complete crew.

We approach Egypt as night falls, passing south of Crete and beating on through spectral waters. The moon's broad path is cut with shadows like phantom ships. The air is milky and hot. The sea lies right down, darkest silver-blue and alive, flowing past us like a snake.

I WAKE EARLY
and the sun is already up: our clocks remain on Central European Time but we have been steaming towards morning. As we pass Tobruk and El Alamein a helicopter comes over from the north and soon after twenty-one turtle doves descend out of the same sky, settle on a pink container and fall asleep. They have the air of having done this before. The noon horn test blasts them awake. Oil rigs appear like traffic cones, serviced by strange-shaped ships, their silhouettes stretched, crushed and platformed. Sun stars sparkle on the blue in an infinite, strobing shimmer.

At breakfast there is discussion of a ferry which turned over in the Zanzibar Channel last night. ‘And it is dark there then,' says the Captain. The ferry was overloaded. ‘And there are many sharks there,' the Captain adds, ‘great whites. Six metres. It was Christmas Eve for them.'

For hours we parallel the width of the Nile delta, which remains out of sight until an oil refinery rises over the southern horizon, the first sight of Egypt. Two flying fish skip out of a flat sea, bright silver. They change direction in the air, dipping and diving between waves, their wing-like fins extended. A pair of dolphins, bigger and jumping higher than the Biscay and western Mediterranean animals, rush up to take advantage of our wake. Huge and wild, they buck out of the water with such force that they fall head-first, their tails high in semi-somersault. Their play seems an assertion of joy or madness, the overexcitement of children disordered by wind, sugar or the moon.

It is still very hot at 5 p.m. At five thirty we eat the traditional Saturday steak and chips, with prawns in avocado halves to start. There is a general and contented chewing as we put these delicacies away, and a conversation about cars with Rohan. I despair: Nelson, Churchill,
Clarkson
? Can a professional irritant really be the blue world's most famous Briton? It is between him and Beckham. Most of those present are less keen on football than cars, because cars translate well to DVD, but seafarers have little opportunity to watch football. In place of Nelson, the greatest naval tactician in history, a man of surpassing courage who loved duty and country above all, a pantomime TV bigot is now Britain's foremost man at sea.

On the radar clots of vessels can be seen forming ahead of us, some anchoring, some exiting the canal. Container ships harlequinned with boxes follow car carriers in procession. It will cost us half a million dollars to transit to Suez, plus fees for the weight of our cargo, plus cigarettes.

‘Do you know what Egypt is called?' Sorin asks.

‘Umm – Egypt?'

‘Marlboro Country!'

Displayed in the lift is the company corruption policy. If someone tries to corrupt us we are to have nothing to do with him or her; we must report the attempt immediately. Fortunately, no one regards the cigarette price of the Suez Canal (otherwise known as ‘the Marlboro channel') as corruption. The giving of cigarettes is more like a traditional local custom.

If we arrive late at the assembly point we will forfeit half a million dollars. This eventuality falls in the Captain's broad field of impossible things which will not be permitted to happen. We make the arrival line at 1830 precisely. We lower our twenty-tonne anchor and are assigned a convoy number. We will be third.

‘Do you worry about anchoring like this?'

Lights prickle the hulls of tethered giants around us.

‘No no no I have stopped her so many times. At four knots I know I can stop her in one ship's length.'

The Captain is in a lively mood, humming to himself like a dynamo, circling the bridge, checking this and that, needling Shubd in the name of instruction.

‘Have you plotted the course?'

Shubd hesitates.

‘The COURSE!' roars the Captain.

‘Two oh nine,' says Shubd, tentative.

‘Two oh NINE,' says the Captain, decisively. ‘Then one eight two.' His finger jabs the electronic chart. ‘I will use the wind and the thrusters to swing around here, then fsshht! You see?'

With the fssht! his finger streaks south into the mouth of the canal, as if we will be doing it at light speed.

There is an unfamiliar atmosphere in the ship. I cannot understand it at first and range around quizzically until it crystallises: peace. The anchor is down; nothing will happen for three hours; we have eaten well. Joel jumps about in the gym like a bantamweight boxer, smacking his gloved fists, messing with a skipping rope, talking more than exercising. I cannot persuade him to share my incredulity at the treatment of Filipinos by the shipping industry.

‘They always say it's the market,' he shrugs.

In the engine control room Andreas is crawling around under Rohan's desk.

‘What's up, Chief?'

‘His music is not working. How can he work without his music?'

He makes an adjustment and the room fills with Robbie Williams announcing he just wants to feel real love and know it's for real . . . Rohan smiles and continues clicking through the graphic screens which report the status of all the mechanical systems.

Outside the saloon nine pairs of flip-flops are arranged on the mat. The door is closed and singing issues from within: a mewing, Americanised but clearly not American love song, soft rock. I very much want to go in but something prevents me: karaoke is a participant's pastime, not an observer's, and its place among Filipino seafarers is near-sacred. Filipino crews have the union-negotiated right to a karaoke machine and this one is being used with total commitment. A critic might not be kind about the voice of the singer but you could only applaud the sincerity of his song. He left his love behind, you see.

We haul anchor as the Captain turns us gently around it. Egypt is a sprinkle of lights in the dark. You can make out a minaret, oil flares and street lights, orange and white. A moon-sheen falls from a partly occluded sky, glimmering on the containers. Port Said Control is voluble on the radio. The Suez pilots are demanding that everyone lower the gangways and ladders on their starboard sides. The vessel in front of us, a big container carrier with a Russian captain, by the sound of him, objects that he has the other ladder down.

‘Listen to this
Russian
,' Sorin says, with a withering emphasis.

‘Put gangway down on starboard side,' Port Said Control insists.

‘Repeat, gangway and ladder down on port side,' counters the Russian.

‘Do you want to transit tonight or not?' snaps Port Said.

There is a pause. Every watch on every ship in the convoy is listening to this.

‘Lowering starboard ladder,' concedes the Russian, wearily.

Our bridge roars with laughter.

The pilots then ignore the Russian's new ladder and board his ship on the port side.

As we cross the start line, marked by a winking yellow buoy, a fleet of pilot boats comes buffeting up to our flanks, searchlights jumping in the darkness. The first man aboard is a Suez pilot, Pharaonic with his white ducks, cap and prominent belly. He asks for a present: one carton of cigarettes. He asks for a second present but does not get it. Now the Maersk terminal at Port Fouad slips by on our left and three more pilot boats jostle for access to our ladder. They form a surging raft with men jumping between them. Two men appear on our bridge, present papers for signature and disappear, all in moments, and a small war breaks out on the starboard side.

Should our engine fail, the Suez crew will take our lines to buoys in the canal. Since they travel with us down the canal they need their boat hauled out of the water with them in it, and no stopping is permitted, so the operation takes place at twelve knots. In their little craft, far below, they can be seen gesticulating as our hook dandles above them. Tiny howls reach us on the bridge.

‘What can I do?' Chris mutters, untroubled. ‘I only have three men.' There is a degree of scepticism between the seafarers and the pilots. ‘They think we're a five-star hotel,' someone says, scornfully. Chris is sceptical that the facilities on offer for emergency mooring in the canal – crumbling concrete cakes with inset iron rings – are good enough for us. ‘That's what you get for a billion krone ship?'

It is no little thing to hoist a little boat and three men up to the deck of a giant without stopping but the hook is attached, the boat and its crew lurch into the air and Chris reels them in. The men disappear to the Suez Lounge, a cabin containing bunks, a table and a bathroom. They slam the door, retreating into querulous Arabic and cigarette smoke, as we process past Port Fouad and lagoons of darkness, a line of giants steaming towards Ismalia.

Dawn treads over the Sinai as we prepare to anchor in the Great Bitter Lake. The air smells of dank ashes. The lake is highly saline; beneath the water salt deposits, sand and gypsum mix with decaying layers of organic matter and produce a tight, hydrogen-sulphide smell. Hypersalinity in the Great and Little Bitter Lakes has steadily diminished with the passage of ships and the flow of currents, allowing the migration of Red Sea fish north into the Mediterranean. A man and two boys are trying to catch them. The man backs his oars as the boys haul in the net, hand over hand. They cannot be more than twelve or thirteen years old. The hauling takes an age and the boys do not wear gloves. They bring in about a dozen fish.