Hammond Innes: The Black Tide

‘Excited,’ I told him. ‘We all were, but nothing wrong with his ability to observe accurately.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Then it’s a pity he wasn’t able to decipher more of the message — if it was a message. There’s an M in several of our estuary names, the Thames, the Humber—’.

‘And the Maas,’ Evans said sharply. ‘Ports like Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bremen, and Rotterdam, there’s two Ts there.’ He pointed to the plot marked up on the large scale chart laid out on the flat surround below the Lookout windows. ‘If it’s our coast they’re headed for, they’ll have to turn soon or they’ll be blocked by the Fairy and North Hinder banks.’

‘Suppose the target were the North Sea oilfields?’

Evans shook his head. ‘Those tankers are already loaded. They’d have no excuse.’

The chop-chop-chop of a helicopter came faintly through the glass windows. I turned to Saltley. ‘Is this your idea?’ I was remembering Pamela’s warning that evening in Funchal. ‘Did you put it into his head?’ I could see myself being lowered by winch on to the deck of the Aurora B. ‘Well, I’m not going,’ I said, watching, appalled, as the helicopter emerged out of the rain, sidling towards us across the wind.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said. ‘All we want is for them to see you, on the bridge of the Tigris. A loud hailer. It’s more personal than a voice on the air.’

I think the Minister must have sensed my

reluctance, for he came over and took me by the arm. ‘Nothing to be worried about. All we want is for you to talk to him, make him see reason. And if you can’t do that, then try and get the destination out of him. In any terrorist situation, it’s getting through, making contact — that’s the important thing.’

‘Hals isn’t a terrorist,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘So I gather. You and he — you talk the same language. You’re both concerned about pollution. He won’t talk to us here, but he may to you, when he sees you right alongside him. Commander Fellowes has his instructions. Make contact with him, that’s all I ask. Find out what the target is.’ He nodded to the naval liaison officer, who took hold of my other arm and before I could do anything about it I was being hurried down the stairs and out to the car park. The noise of the helicopter was very loud. It came low over the top of the Lookout and I watched, feeling as though I was on the brink of another world, as it settled like a large mosquito in a gap between the gorse bushes. The pilot signalled to us and we ducked under the rotor blades. The door slid open and I was barely inside before it took off, not bothering to climb, but making straight out over the Dover cliffs, heading for the Tigris.

Five minutes later we landed on the pad at the frigate’s stern and I was taken straight to the bridge where the captain was waiting for me. ‘Fellowes,’ he said, shaking me by the hand. ‘We’re going close alongside now. Hope you can get some sense out of them. They’re an odd-looking crowd.’

The bridge was built on a curve, not unlike the Lookout, but the changed view from the windows was quite dramatic. From the shore-based Operations Centre the tankers had been no more than distant silhouettes low down on the horizon. Now, suddenly, I was seeing them in close-up, huge hunks of steel-plating low in the water, the Aurora B looming larger and larger as the relatively tiny frigate closed her at almost thirty knots. ‘We’ll come down to their speed when we’re abreast of the superstructure, then the idea is for you to go out on to the open deck and talk direct.’ He handed me a loud hailer. ‘Just press the trigger when you want to speak. Don’t shout or you’ll deafen yourself. It’s a pretty loud one, that.’ He turned his head, listening as the ship’s name was called on VHF. It was the Dover Coastguards wanting to know whether contact had yet been made with the Aurora B. He reached for a mike and answered direct: ‘Tigris to Coastguard. Helicopter and passenger have just arrived. We’re all set here. Am closing now. Over.’

We were coming in from the west at an oblique angle, the bulk of the Aurora B gradually blotting out the shape of the other tanker, which was about a mile to the east. The Dover cliffs showed as a dirty white smudge on our port side and there were several ships in the westbound lane, foam at their bows as the waves broke over them. Closer at hand, two small drifters danced on the skyline, and almost dead ahead of us, I could see the ungainly lanterned shape of a light vessel. ‘The Sandettie,’ Cdr Fellowes said. ‘We’ll be in the deepwater channel in ten to fifteen minutes.’ Behind

him the radio suddenly poured out a torrent of French. It was the fishery protection vessel now shadowing the tankers from the eastbound lane. We could just see it past the Aurora B’s stern steaming north-east ahead of a large ore carrier. ‘Ready?’ Fellowes asked me, and I nodded, though I didn’t feel at all ready. What the hell was I going to say to Hals?

I was still thinking about that, the loud hailer gripped in my hand, as he led me out on to the starb’d side deck below the tall square needle of the radar mast. The Tigris was turning now, her speed slowing as we ranged alongside the tanker’s superstructure. I could see the length of its deck, all the pipes and inspection hatches that I had stumbled over in the night, the long line of the catwalk. And right above me now the wheelhouse with faces I recognized framed in its big windows. Sadeq was there and the Canadian, Rod Selkirk, and two men I didn’t know, both of them dark and bearded. And then Hals appeared, his pale hair and beard framed in the glass of the bridge wing door. I raised the loud hailer to my lips. Captain Hals. I had my finger locked tight round the trigger and even my breathing came out in great audible puffs. This is Rodin. Trevor Rodin. I was with you in the Gulf, that khawr — remember? It’s Rodin, I repeated. Please come out on to the bridge wing. I want to talk to you.

I thought he was going to. I saw the uncertainty on his face, could almost read his intention in the expression of his eyes. We were that close, it seemed. I must speak to you, Pieter. About pollution. He moved then. I’m certain of it, reaching out to slide

open the door. But then Sadeq was beside hum am one of the others. A moment later they were gone, all three of them, the glass panel empty.

‘Ask for his destination,’ Fellowes said. ‘That’s what CINCHAN wants and he’s got the SoS breathing down his neck. Try again.’

But it was no use. I kept on calling over the loud hailer, but there was no response. And no faces at the window, the bridge appearing blind now as the tanker ploughed on. ‘Well, that’s that, I guess.’ Fellowes turned away, walking quickly back to his wheelhouse. I remained there, the wind on my face, sensing the heel of the ship as the Tigris pulled away from the tanker, dropping back until the light vessel became visible beyond the blunt rounded stern. It was so close now that the name SANDETTlE stood out very clear on its hull. We were in the deepwater channel.

It was then, just as I was turning to follow the captain back into the shelter of the frigate’s bridge, that something happened, up there on the tanker’s high superstructure. The door to the bridge wing was suddenly slid back, four men stumbling out in a cloud of thick billowing smoke. And the tanker was turning. I could see the bows shifting away from us, very slowly. She was turning to starb’d, towards the Sandettie bank, towards the other tanker. And her speed was increasing. She was drawing ahead, her stern turning towards us so that I could no longer see what was happening, the bridge wing empty, no sign of anybody, only the smoke hanging in a haze behind the superstructure. I dived back into the frigate’s wheelhouse