Down to the Sea in Ships (12 page)

In the fo'c'sle the decks are ploughed with mud, residue of last night's anchoring. The lateen sails of feluccas shine whiter than the gulls and the lake is violent blue. The anchor goes down with a titanic rumble and a high singing-whine, as if the ship is a steel goblet, rubbed round by a giant's finger.

‘One shackle up and down,' Sorin reports.

‘Up and down' means the anchor is vertically below the ship. A shackle of chain is fifteen fathoms, each of which is six feet, so we have around twenty-seven metres of water below us.

‘One up and down, very good,' says the radio, and the Captain slowly backs the ship. Three times more chain roars off the drum as the deck thrums, whines and vibrates under our feet. When they are satisfied Sorin locks the brake and the peace of being at anchor returns. We swing through a slow arc as the sun lights an escarpment to the west. There are sphinx shapes in the rocks and palms along the shore. The sun climbs higher, the light flattening and glaring as we wait for the north-bound convoy. It appears towards the end of the morning, led by a Spanish warship, the frigate
Santa Maria
.

Unfinished wars lie under all our horizons. The chart on which Chris plotted our approach to the canal shows Egypt, the Sinai, the southern end of Israel and Gaza. The refinery we saw last night was bombed by the British during the Suez crisis. During Suez, Port Fouad was the scene of one of the more dubious victories of the French Foreign Legion, which fought its way through the little town, taking no casualties while inflicting many. The lake we float on now was home to the ‘Yellow Fleet': a convoy of merchant ships trapped by the closing of the canal in 1967 during the Six Day War. They remained at anchor, blown over with desert sand, until the canal reopened in 1975, when only two of them were able to leave under their own power. One of Yellow Fleet,
African Glen
, was sunk during the battles of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The crews trapped on the Great Bitter Lake had a terrifyingly good view of this war: the canal was one of the front lines and the counter-attack which eventually ended the conflict began with Israeli tanks crossing into Egypt at Deversoir, at the northern end of the lake.

The slow withdrawal of the
Santa Maria
into the north-bound channel is a paradoxically reassuring sight, visible confirmation that NATO warships are active in the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea. Everyone on the
Gerd
hopes and believes we will not need those warships, but everyone wishes there were more of them.

In the dining room is Captain (Major Chief) Pilot Mohammed Roshdy, who is bald as a brown marble and wears elegant bifocals.

‘In 1973 I was in the Egyptian navy. In the Red Sea. Our ship was attacked.'

‘Attacked by whom?'

He gestures north-east. ‘Israeli helicopters. I was hit in the back.'

‘Does it still hurt?'

‘No, it's OK now.'

‘How do you feel about Israel?'

‘Israel! Listen, I have met the whole world – all nationalities. In this job you meet everyone. Everyone. There is no difference at all. The only difference is nationality. Nationality – it is completely meaningless, it is our greatest mistake! It is all politics and business. It means nothing. I do not believe in nationality. I believe in humanity. The only real difference on ships is the food . . .'

‘How does this compare?'

(We are eating chicken.)

‘This is good. I do not like the Russian food! Or Korean.'

The canal clear, we weigh anchor and steam slowly south into the Little Bitter Lake. What looks like a river issuing from its southern end becomes plumb line, straight and narrow. Mohammed Roshdy commentates as we bear south between crumbling sand walls: the Egyptians used them as strongpoints to fire on Israelis on the other side during the 1973 war.

‘Around here, Ismalia, is OK now,' Roshdy says. ‘This is a rich part of Egypt. In other places there is chaos. There is no law – no stability – the police are hiding. The dictator robbed us of political experience. I fear for Egypt. I fear.'

‘What about the Muslim Brotherhood?'

‘I fear fanatics, but I do not fear all the Muslim Brotherhood. Some of them are wise. They have political experience.'

For afternoon prayer Captain Roshdy unrolls his mat on the wing of the bridge, on a compass bearing to Mecca, and interrupts his worship only once: ‘Steer one eight five!'

‘One eight five,' echoes the helm.

When he has finished we withdraw to the deck behind the bridge for cigarettes, though Captain Roshdy never takes his eyes from the canal ahead. Suez and Panama are the two places where captains cede control and technical responsibility for their vessels to pilots (though it would not take much for our Captain to wrest it back). We are passing a hellish, dictator-chic palace on the Sinai side. You would have to be utterly corrupted to approve the aesthetics of its plans, never mind the practicalities. There is a parade ground in front; a kilometre behind is accommodation for the guards: tin huts. Nothing else disturbs the yellow horizontals of desert. Below the palace on the canal bank soldiers are filling sandbags, working very slowly in forty degrees of heat. Their stooped shapes and the lassitude of their movements make human grimaces of them; the platoon on the bank below us is a line of dark teeth clenched against the sun.

On the west bank are abandoned watchtowers. The sand walls are broken where Egyptian troops threw bridges across the canal. The Third Army crossed these during Yom Kippur, only to be cut off by the Israeli forces that had crossed the other way.

‘If the revolution in Egypt succeeded you would see Saudi Arabia turn over one year later,' Roshdy says quietly. ‘One year, I promise you.'

Again he gestures in the direction of his subject. Israel is just there, Saudi is over that way, here is Egypt, this is the Sinai. From the bridge of our mobile multi-nation you glimpse the terrible intimacy of the Middle East: so much glaring space, so little of it green, everyone simultaneously out of sight and just there, all wars fought and none quite finished.

‘We must have no frontiers,' says Roshdy, ‘but how many people think like this? Nought point one per cent?'

THE TENOR OF
my messages to the company escalated from considered to desperate. I began with reasoned argument: the ship is safe, it is high in the water, it is fast, we will be travelling at twenty-three knots and there is no danger above eighteen.

Reasoned argument had no effect.

I will sign anything, I said, I will entirely absolve the company of . . .

The company was immovable. In desperation I offered to place a sum of money, all I could muster, in escrow, to be used as ransom in the event of . . .

The company's responses became terser. Its last communication contained a map of the Indian Ocean, including all the water between Suez to the north, Madagascar to the south and Sri Lanka to the east, with those three points joined by a thick red line. In this area, said the company, we carry only essential crew. You will disembark at Suez.

The Captain is consoling. ‘In this area until recently we cannot even carry cadets.'

Chris is all mockery. ‘I've worked it out. You are going to miss about half of the voyage.'

‘No I am not! I'm not even missing a third!'

Noel, the cook, is hilarious. ‘You go! You go? But you have not told my story!'

‘I am coming back to get your story, Noel.'

‘You come back? You come back OK! You tell my story! My story secret. No one ever hears!'

‘If you'll tell it to me, I'll come back.'

Joel is the only man who does not shrug off the thought of pirates.

‘Does it get frightening?'

‘Only in the meeting,' he says, quietly. ‘The meeting we have tonight when we talk about what can happen. Then you think about it and you feel a bit scared. But then you do your job, and you go on, and it's OK.'

The Captain gives me a version of the briefing.

‘We show no lights and we double the watch. We are in contact with NATO. If something happens we report to them. I will go fast, if anyone tries to come close I will use the ship to stop them. If they come on board we send our position to NATO and we go to the engineers' passage and we lock ourselves in. But anyway they can't come up because we are too high and we go too fast. What?'

‘It must be a very worrying time, Captain?'

‘Worry? No no no . . .'

His demeanour is more phlegmatic than worried. It is as if conviction and by-the-book preparation have thrust the pirates beyond the realm of the possible.

‘Are you worried, Sorin?'

Sorin shrugs. ‘No. Not really. No. We are too big, too high in water, we go too fast.'

‘Doesn't your wife worry?'

‘No. I tell her is fine, she believes.'

Leaving is miserable. To be deserting my friends when they might actually be able to use another pair of eyes . . . I begged the company to let me back on at Salalah, in Oman, but no.

‘You must be ready in fifteen minutes,' the Captain says.

Beyond the hard gold banks of the channel Suez Bay is a broadening ahead and you can feel the officers relax, as if the constriction of the land had made them hold their breath. We curve out into widening blue and now we are saying goodbye. After lots of handshakes I go down to A-deck and out into the gulf afternoon.

Prashant is at the gangway controls. An electrician who has been fiddling with our radar goes down first. His boat comes to get him, there is a deal of gesticulation, Prashant adjusts the gangway, the electrician skips to safety, and it is my turn.

The gangway bobs beneath me, airily emphasising the fragility of the exercise. Chris appears, grinning.

‘Safe journey, Chris!'

‘Yeah. See you in TPP.'

‘If Captain Prashant doesn't drop me.'

Bounce, bounce, down I go, bag balanced, one hand for the rail, no trouble. The ship is massive now, stacks of crates and the accommodation like a tower block atop the cliff of the hull. In comes the agent's boat, shoe-shaped with a little cab and a battling engine, making game way against the
Gerd
's displacement wave, butting up to her vast shoulder. A man on the foredeck is signalling to Prashant to lower, then raise. I am hanging on and pretending to be confident. The foot of the elongated aluminium stepladder seems to be attached to Prashant's winch by two skipping ropes. Didn't Chris tell me the ladder is not designed to raise or lower more than its own weight? Didn't he see one collapse in training? How much does my bag weigh?

The water boils white-green between the little boat and the steel wall. You are suddenly aware of the
Gerd
's speed.

‘Have you got a passport?' shouts the agent.

‘Yes!'

The water is hypnotic, just a couple of metres below. Prashant is a small head peering over the rail and Chris a blue blob. There will be a perfect moment to commit to the step across. I have watched many pilots do this, from high up on the bridge and that instant, that just-so second, is always clear, even from up there. It is as though anyone attentive can sense it, the way a crowd watching sport all see as one – now . . . It's a step and a jump down to the little boat's deck on legs suddenly shaky. I wave madly at Chris and Prashant as we pull away.

The
Gerd
's nation has changed again. They will anchor in the Bay of Suez this evening, change pilots and wait for clearance to move along the recommended safe transit corridor down the eastern side of the Red Sea. They will sail at midnight.

She looks so brave and resolute as she curves away. Chris and Prashant are absorbed into her size, the wide bridge high up reveals no tiny head: it as though she has gathered her crew to her, and proceeds by her own laws. The scoop below the overhang of her poop deck is dramatic from down here. She is light, the top of the rudder two metres proud of the turquoise water. Now imagine she is moving three times faster than this, and the Captain is throwing her about, and the sea is not flat. It would take a brave pirate or a lunatic.

‘We heard them attack,' says Khalid.

I nearly lost Khalid's trunk between the agent's boat and the
Kiel
, the ship behind us which Khalid was leaving. We clawed the trunk towards us, just. Seafarers are famous among themselves for the heroism of their airport transits: apocryphal Filipinos cross departure lounges with wide-screen TVs under one arm, towing suitcases and clutching a chainsaw. Khalid has six months of his life and a judicious selection of booty in his trunk, homeward bound to Bangladesh. We sit on the foredeck of the pilot boat in ruffling sun as our ships steam away and Suez chugs towards us.

‘It was a ship behind us. A tanker, in the Gulf of Aden. We heard it on the radio.'

‘What did you hear?'

‘We heard them screaming. The pirates were shooting. They want to slow them down, confuse them, so they attack the bridge with machine guns and RPGs.'

The ship was taken. The crew, Khalid says, are still being held.

Khalid's ambition was to see the world. ‘I wanted to be an airline pilot but in my country you must get into the air force first. But the air force refused to take me because my hands – they sweat.'

‘I don't understand – your hands?'

‘My hands sweat!'

‘Your hands sweat?'

‘You cannot join the air force if your hands sweat. This was terrible disappointment for me. I chose ships instead.'

‘So you still travel the world?'

‘Yes! But I am an engineering cadet! I travel the world in the engine room.'

The port of Suez at Bur Ibrahim is raucous with house crows and dusty. A man in a white uniform watches the afternoon from his deckchair in the shade. Dogs scatter past, hurried and glancing, as if chased by a pack of phantoms. Two more men in whites staff the immigration office, where there is a wooden chest of a hundred drawers left over from the 1930s. The halls of the passenger terminal echo our steps. A man X-rays our bags, and there is nobody, nobody else at all, it seems, here in Suez port. One of the gateways of the world is deserted.