Paul Torday: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Of course the boss expected it to work. He had no conception of how much work had gone into the project, how much effort I had put into making sure it happened against all obstacles, how I had supported Fred Jones and the sheikh. I looked around me while the boss and the sheikh started shaking hands all over again for the benefit of the journos and the TV cameras, and I heard Fred at my side say, ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’

‘It’s fantastic,’ I said, with real enthusiasm. ‘I had no idea of the scale of all of this.’ I gestured to the concrete walls of the holding basins and the channels waiting for the gates to be opened and the salmon to come tumbling and leaping out. ‘Our project is going to be a huge success, Fred.’ I saw he was holding a landing net.

‘We hope so,’ he said, and gave me a smile of real friendliness. For a moment I found myself liking the guy. I’d never given him much thought before, not as a person, I mean. ‘Come and look at the salmon,’ he said. The boss and the sheikh, the boss’s security people and some of the press were making their way up a ramp to the edge of a holding basin. The sheikh’s men mostly held back. I noticed again that a few of them held rifles and remembered where we were-in the heart of the Yemen, not visiting a new hospital in Dulwich. But, I thought, the Yemen must be safe now, mustn’t it? The security people would never have let the boss come if it hadn’t been. I mean, there had been that strange story about al-Qaeda attempting to murder the sheikh in Scotland, but we had all discounted that as a piece invented by some Scottish newspaper.

We stood at the top of the ramp and looked over the edge of the wall. The basin was full of silver salmon, darting here and there or else lying motionless in the shaded parts of the water. At intervals around the edge of the basin were machines that looked a bit like huge outboard motors, churning and aerating the water.

‘How are they doing?’ I asked Fred.

‘We’ve had a few deaths from stress, but whether that was from the heat or the journey I’m not really sure. Anyway, the number of deaths is well within our projections, and the temperature of the water in here is quite stable.’

I stared at the fish, quite fascinated. Then I looked around me at the towering mountains, the slopes of sand and gravel below us, the palm trees and the Yemeni tribesmen standing guard on the top of rocks and on the nearer ridges.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ I said. ‘If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes…’

‘You see,’ said Fred, ‘the sheikh was right. He has made us all believe. And now we are ready to open the sluice gates, and the miracle will begin.’

‘Will it?’ I asked him. I could see Fred was tense, but I think it was anticipation and not doubt.

‘There’s every chance. The air temperature has dropped steadily for the last few days. It’s only about 25 degrees Celsius now, and we are coming up to the hottest part of the day. The water temperature in the wadi is perfect and…’ He glanced up at the sky, where fluffy grey and white cumulus now obscured the sun. ‘I think we can expect some more rain soon.’

We trooped back down the ramp and walked past the platform to a row of Portakabins. Jay and the sheikh went inside to change into their fishing kit and Colin McPherson, whom I hadn’t seen in the crowd before, started unloading rods from the back of a pickup, and then assembling them and making up the cast and flies. A crowd of excited tribesmen gathered around him shouting and gesticulating. Not all of them, though; I could still see a watchful ring of guards further away, staying aloof from the proceedings and scanning the hills around us. One in particular, it struck me, would make a particularly dramatic photo: he stood higher up than the others, on a rocky promontory overlooking the river, his robes fluttering in the strengthening breeze, his rifle resting on his shoulder, the muzzle pointing uphill. I thought of asking a friendly cameraman to take a picture for me, but then there was a roar of applause as Jay and the sheikh both appeared from the Portakabin, wearing chest waders and tartan shirts. They walked towards the pickup, where McPherson was handing out rods to a select few of the tribesmen. When Jay and the sheikh drew near, he picked out two rods he had reserved for them and handed them over. There was another roar of applause, and some of the tribesmen started ululating. Even the journos were entering into the spirit of the moment. I saw old McLeish from the Telegraph , a hardened cynic if ever there was one, brush something from his eye. I like to think it was a tear but it may only have been a piece of grit.

Jay and the sheikh walked back to the wooden platform beside the first holding basin. As they did so, I felt something hit the back of my neck, and I looked up in surprise. It was beginning to rain: just a few drops, big, surprisingly cold drops, which made little craters in the dust where they fell. Somebody handed Jay a portable transmitter, and everyone started going, ‘Sssh! Ssssh!’ Gradually the silence spread, until the only sound was the busy murmuring of the water a few hundred yards downhill. Into that silence, the boss spoke. ‘What a tremendous honour it is,’ he said, ‘to be asked to be here today.’

More cheers and ululations, but the boss held up his hand, and dead silence fell again. He turned to the sheikh. ‘Thank you, Sheikh Muhammad, for inviting me, and from the bottom of my heart I say this: yours is the vision, yours is the imagination, yours is the boundless financial generosity without which this project would never have been realised. And we are proud, proud that you have chosen to work with British scientists, British engineers, and indeed engineers of many nations, to realise this project and bring it to fruition. Who would ever have dreamed that one day salmon would swim in the rivers of the Yemen?’

He paused again. The silence was again absolute.

‘You dreamed it, Sheikh Muhammad. You had that courage and that determination, and now today, at last, the moment has come. Let us go together, you and I, and fish for salmon in the Wadi Aleyn!’

Tremendous cheering started, faded away and then started again as the boss held the transmitter up in the air, so that we could all see what was happening, and then pointed it, like a TV remote, at the sluice gates. He pressed a button. Slowly, the gates began to open. They did not open fully, but enough for a steady flow of water to emerge, enough for the fish to swim in. In the water spouting from the foot of the sluice gates and in the concrete channel I could see glistening shapes tumbling and wriggling as they were swept down to the river.

At once the crowd started moving towards the river. It was beginning to rain quite steadily now, and it was getting darker. We all bunched up together near where the concrete channel debouched into the wadi itself.

‘Make way for Dr Alfred,’ cried the sheikh in a clear voice, and the crowd fell back to allow Fred to come forward. He was not wearing waders, but nevertheless he strode in his boots into the stream and peered down into the water. We were all going to get wet soon enough anyway, I thought. It was raining harder and the sky far above us at the head of the wadi was almost black.

Even from where I stood I could see the fins of the salmon cutting through the shallow waters of the Wadi Aleyn. Some of them leaped from the water, almost dancing on its surface. And they were turning upstream! A few were going the wrong way, downriver, but most of the salmon were going upstream. The salmon were running the waters of the Wadi Aleyn, in the heart of the mountains of Heraz!

Jay and the sheikh waded into the river holding their fishing rods, and picked their way carefully over boulders until they were each standing in the centre of the wadi about thirty yards apart. The press cameras and TV videocams were now all pointing at the two of them. We had live feed to Sky TV, BBC2-4, ITV, CNN and al-Jazeera. Amidst all the press crouching or standing on the riverbank, I saw Colin keeping an eye on his master. I saw our security people take up positions on the bank opposite Jay, their eyes watchful, their hands never far from the concealed holsters they wore, scanning the rocks and ridges on either side of the river. A dozen Yemenis carrying their fishing rods and landing nets strode past, along the new track that ran along the wadi, heading for the casting platforms that had been built further upstream.