by Philip Roy
“How long would it take you to sail to Australia?” said François.
“I don’t know. I never thought about it. I was planning to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and back home to Newfoundland.”
“It’s always good to go home,” said François.
“I’d go to Australia,” said Tom. “If I were in your shoes.” He looked excited.
“You just want to travel in his submarine, Tom, that’s what you want. Hah, hah!”
After supper, François and Tom showed us where we could stay for the night. Hollie and I slept in a room in a small barracks right on the dock. We were the only ones in the room. I was given a bunk bed, and there was a shower in the hall. It didn’t matter that the bed wasn’t moving; we were so tired. Hollie curled up by my feet. Seaweed was outside somewhere, maybe even sitting on the hull of the sub, because it was sitting on the surface and moored to the pier. The irony that we were being so well looked after by the navy, after hiding from navies and coastguards all over the world, was not lost on me as I drifted off to sleep. Funny, too, that it should happen in the most violent country in the world. Sometimes life was stranger than you could ever imagine it.
In the morning, François and Tom met us at the pier. I was happy to see that the sub was still there, moored between two navy harbour boats, as if it were part of the fleet. It was strange beyond words to see it tied up there. And I never had to worry about it because the pier was under constant surveillance. It almost felt like we were in the navy.
François and Tom drove onto the pier in a black pickup truck. They pulled out a bunch of supplies from the back. François had a stack of papers in his hand. “Okay, we got the paperwork done,” he said. “Here’s your passport. It’s got a stamp. And here’s a visa. You can come and go as much as you like. It’s good for one year.”
He handed me my passport. I opened it and saw the stamp, my very first one ever. There was a folded piece of paper stapled to another page. That was the visa. For the first time since I went to sea, two and a half years ago, I was actually travelling legally in another country.
“Wow! I can’t believe it. Thank you so much! This is amazing.”
“That’s not all,” said François. “We knew you didn’t have papers for your sub, and so, here they are. Your sub is now officially registered in the city of Port Elizabeth, in the country of South Africa.”
François handed me the registration papers. I stared at them and saw my name, a description of the sub, a serial number, an official stamp, and the South African flag. My mouth dropped. I really couldn’t believe it. This was official documentation. I could present this anywhere.
“And here,” said François, “is our flag.” He handed me a shiny, brand new South African flag to fly from the portal.
I was really moved. “I don’t know what to say. This is a really big thing. This will make my life so much better, I just cannot tell you. I can go through the Panama Canal now.”
François stood with folded arms and smiled.
“And,” said Tom, “we’ve got a South African navy issued rubber dinghy for you, an assortment of flares, a lifebuoy, some rope if you want it. And last, but not least, we’re going to fill your tank with fuel, compliments of the South African navy, and our mutual friend, Mickey.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “And that reminds me. I have something of Mickey’s that I’d like to give you to give to him.” I had decided this the moment I woke up.
“Sure thing. What would that be?”
“I’ll have to get it out of the sub.”
I climbed into the sub, gathered up my food tins, and carried them out. I put them down on the pier, opened them up, stuck my hands inside, and pulled out the plastic bags. François and Tom watched with confused faces.
“This was strapped to the bottom of Jones’ dinghy after the pirates had killed him. I didn’t really know what to do with it, but I realize now that it should go back to the man who found it.” I pulled the jewellery and gold coins out of the plastic bags and held them up. “Sorry my hands are all sticky.”
“Good Lord!” said François. “Tom. Go give him a call. Won’t he be thrilled to see this?”
“Will do. I’ll be right back.”
“Ahhh, you’re going to make a happy man out of a good man today, Alfred. Mickey’s put his life into finding this treasure. Lord knows he deserves it.” He paused. “You could have just kept it. You really could have. But you didn’t. Mickey said you were somebody worth helping out. And so we did as he asked us, because we owe him more good turns than I can count. But you didn’t have to give this back to him, and you did. That says a lot about you, my friend. That says a lot. We are glad to know you.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate your help.”
François slapped me on the back. “It’s nothing at all. You’re practically one of us now.”
I grinned. That didn’t sound so bad.
Chapter Twenty-nine
THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE is where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic; where the warm water meets the cold. It isn’t actually the most southerly point of Africa. That’s Cape Agulhas, a hundred miles east. But the Cape of Good Hope is where sailors from the Atlantic stop sailing south, and turn east. It is the gateway to India.
The waters are wild here, and the sea floor is a jagged maze of rock, above and below the surface, making it one of the most treacherous coastlines in the world. If there were a ghost for every drowned sailor, then the shores of South Africa would be crowded with ghosts. I wondered if they were.
We sailed into the bay in the late morning. The sun was high and the day was clear, as it always seemed to be in Africa. There were lots of tourists on the sand and on the rocks above the beach. We sailed in on the surface, with the hatch wide open and the Canadian and South African flags flying side by side in the wind. I tossed the anchor a hundred and fifty feet from the beach, inflated our new navy dinghy, climbed in with Hollie, and paddled to the beach. Seaweed was on the sand already.
Several curious people came over to meet us, including a family with a whole bunch of young kids. The kids loved Hollie, and they loved the submarine. They asked me to bring it closer, but I told them I couldn’t. It was too shallow. They asked me where I was from, and where I had been. We talked for quite a while. Then they took pictures with us at the sign that said The Cape of Good Hope. No one tried to steal the sub. No one tried to take the dinghy that I had hauled onto the beach. No one asked for my passport or looked like they were going to report us. There was nothing to report. It was wonderful.
But as I sat on the sand and watched Hollie run around with kids on the beach, I felt a terrible weight in my heart. I had been pulled into the violence that I despised so much. I had made a decision, taken an action, and a young man had drowned. He may have been a pirate, but he was a person all the same.
François said that if he hadn’t died on that day, then he would have died the next, or the day after that, or the day after that. It was a certainty that these pirates all die young, he said. Theirs is an impossible life. They have no life, no future. These boys have no future from the moment they are born.
I watched the kids playing with Hollie, and the kids being carried around by their mothers and fathers up the paths above the beach, and I wondered what kind of future they would have. Then, I remembered the face of the woman on the road, and what she had said to me, even though I hadn’t said a word to her. “Appreciate your life,” she had said. What bittersweet words they seemed right now, here, on this beautiful sand, on this beautiful day, with all these beautiful people around, while out there, somewhere in the choppy waters between the two currents, the body of a young pirate was drifting.
Later in the afternoon, we sailed into Simon’s Town. It was a pretty town, right on the water, and was home to the South African navy. We came in with both flags waving. They knew we were coming. François had called on our behalf. We were given a berth right behind some tugboats. It was cr
owded. The navy was in port. It was thrilling to see the big ships up so close. Truly, this was one of the proudest moments of my life.
We moored in Simon’s Town for three days and two nights. What a remarkable part of the world. There were more animals here, in the water and on the land, than I had ever seen anywhere. It was almost hard to believe. There were whales, dolphins, sharks, sea lions, seals, sea birds, and penguins in the water; and baboons, ostriches, zebra, deer, and penguins on the land. Hollie and I sat on the rocks and watched the penguins for hours. They lived a risky existence. They waddled around in the sun, jumped in and out of the water, but didn’t swim too far from the rocks. The water was a dangerous place for a bird with no defences. We took a long walk in the hills, then along the water, and sat on the beach and just stared at the sea, because there was always something moving, jumping or gliding by.
There was also a marine museum, with relics from the war, and maps that showed all of the wrecks around the coast of South Africa, including submarines. There were a lot more than I had imagined. The museum was particularly interesting to me, and I could have spent the whole day inside. But Hollie’s patience wore out. He stopped wagging his tail after an hour or two, and stared at every open window with such a longing look that I hurried through the last few exhibits and back out into the sunshine. Visiting Simon’s Town was like visiting a zoo, an aquarium, and a museum all at the same time.
On our second day, Hollie and I took a train ride into Cape Town. It was a big city, but not as big, and not nearly as dangerous, as Johannesburg. We saw a township on the way in. Like Soweto, it had been very clearly planned out, and was separated from the rest of the city. There were wall-to-wall shanties stretching for miles and miles, blending into a dusty brown haze as far as the eye could see. High, chain-link fences surrounded the entire community. I didn’t know if the fences were there to keep people out, or keep them in. The township ended abruptly, as if a line had been drawn in the sand. Beyond the fences was a new, beautiful and wealthy looking metropolis.
We hiked around the streets and waterfront for a few hours, then climbed Table Mountain, right in the centre. It rose high above the city, with a flat plateau on top, from which you could see far across the mountains and out to sea. It was extremely beautiful.
On the way up, we passed the homes of rich people. They were surrounded by high steel fences, with rolls upon rolls of barbed wire on top. Barbed wire surrounded schools, kindergartens and churches, too. Everywhere were signs promising quick-armed response to breaking and entering, and theft. Several of the homes looked like miniature fortresses, or prisons. How different they were from the shanties in the townships. It was hard to believe that people lived in both. When Edgar said that South Africa was a divided country, he wasn’t exaggerating.
From the top of Table Mountain, I spotted an island offshore. I asked another hiker if it was Robben Island.
“Yes. That is it. You must see it. It is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Now it is a museum. You must go see it.”
“Thank you.”
As I stood and stared at the island, clouds of fog appeared on the horizon. They came out of nowhere, and drifted into the bay with unbelievable speed. Twilight was falling. It was time to go. We climbed back down the mountain, bought a pizza, a bottle of chocolate milk, a bag of candy, and then caught the train back to Simon’s Town. As I got comfortable in my seat, with Hollie on my lap, I stared out the window and smiled. Travelling legally had its advantages.
On our last day in South Africa, I went to a laundromat and washed the Nigerian naira and the rest of the American bills. The naira was equal to seven thousand Canadian dollars. I pressed all of the money in the vise, wrapped the naira in paper, and mailed it in a package to Katharina, with a letter for her, and one for Los. I kept the American money. I could think of no better use for it than to spend it on helping the environment. I then thanked the navy officials for their hospitality, climbed into the sub with my crew, raised both flags, and headed out to sea.
Epilogue
ROBBEN ISLAND WAS cloaked in fog in the middle of the night. The island, the bay and the whole city of Cape Town were hidden in heavy fog. I had read that the waters off Cape Town were always rough. Were they ever! You couldn’t drop anchor anywhere on the west side of the island. There was pounding surf, and the sea floor was impossibly rocky and jagged. The island was about five miles from the mainland. The water was cold, the waves high, and the current so strong it would carry away even the best distance swimmers. It was also full of sharks. This made it the perfect spot for a prison. No one who escaped the buildings had ever survived the swim.
On the east side was a breakwater where small ferry boats carried tourists over in the day. I steered into the man-made cove. There was no one there. My guidebook said that the prison where Nelson Mandela had been kept was close to the ferry dock. The whole island was only two miles long, but I didn’t want to get lost wandering around and be here when the sun came up. I just wanted to have a look at the prison, and leave.
I left the crew inside, shut the hatch, tied up in a dark corner, climbed a rusty ladder, and stepped through the fog. It was dead quiet. I bet they didn’t bother patrolling here at night. Who would ever come here?
It was spooky in the fog. It was spooky to think that this place had kept people imprisoned for hundreds of years. It had also been home to a leper colony. As I walked through the fog towards a long stone barracks with a light on one side, I wondered how Mandela felt when he was first brought here, and how he felt when he left. He came as a young man in chains. He left to become the leader of his country. Now, he was one of the most famous people of the twentieth century. But here, on this bleak rock, for more years than I had been alive, he had been a prisoner.
I was hoping there were windows, so I could peek inside with the flashlight. Well, there were, but the light didn’t show through very well. I saw bars, and a blank wall, nothing else. Which cell was Mandela’s? I knew it didn’t make much difference, but I wanted to see it.
I went to the front. The door probably wouldn’t be open, but I would try it anyway. Maybe they didn’t bother to lock these buildings. To my surprise, the handle turned. I pulled open the door and slipped inside.
There was a long, dimly lit hall with evenly spaced doors on one side. The doors were made of bars. These were the cells. They were just small, plain rooms with enough space for a single bed and a small desk, nothing else. A sign in front of one of the cells said that it belonged to Nelson Mandela. I swung the flashlight inside, stood for a while, and stared. I tried to imagine the famous man sitting there on his bed, thinking about his friends and family that he could never see, sitting and watching his life slowly pass him by. He grew a lot older here, right here. Now, he was gone. I wondered how he had kept his sanity. How did he keep believing in what he believed? Could I have done that? No. No way. I couldn’t. I would have been one of the ones who escaped and tried to swim for it. I’d like to think I would have made it.
There was a noise in another room. It sounded like a chair moving. Shoot! I didn’t want to get caught. I shut the flashlight off and listened. Maybe I should run for it. I stopped breathing and listened carefully. I heard a light shuffling sound, like someone moving his feet on the floor. There was someone here, for sure, but they weren’t moving much. Was it a guard? But there were no lights on, except for the weak lights above the doors. Who was here in the dark?
I crept down the hall towards a door on the left that opened into a large room. I stopped, shut my eyes, and listened. Someone was breathing inside the room. “Hello?” I said quietly.
There was silence, and then . . . “Hello.”
It was an old man’s voice: rough, but quiet.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I live here. What are you doing here?”
“I’m visiting.”
“You’re visiting in the middle of the night?”
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“Yes. I travel in a submarine. I didn’t want to moor it in Cape Town in the day, but I wanted to see Nelson Mandela’s prison, so I thought I’d take a look at night. I didn’t expect it to be open.”
“It isn’t just Nelson Mandela’s prison. Come in and sit down.”
I came into the room. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw a small old man sitting on a chair on one side of the room. Except for a few chairs, the room was empty. I picked up another chair, put it down about ten feet away from him, and sat down. “My name is Alfred. I’m from Canada.”
“I am Tony.”
“Do you really live here?” For a split second it occurred to me he might be a ghost. He sort of looked like one. But he didn’t sound like one.
“Yes, I live here. I have a small house. Many former prisoners have houses here.”
“You were a prisoner here?”
“Yes. Now, I am a tour guide. Every day I lead people through here, talk to them, and tell them what it was like to be a prisoner here.”
“Wow. That’s cool. But . . . why are you here now, in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know. To remember, I guess. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I like to come here. I like to sit in the dark and remember. In the day, it is too busy. Too many people. People come from all over the world. That is not how it was then. At night, in the dark, when no one is here, I can remember how it was.”
“Why do you want to remember that?”
He hesitated. Then he laughed. “I don’t know.”
“Did you know Nelson Mandela?”
“Yes, very well. We were prisoners together. There were many other prisoners here. Nelson Mandela was just the most famous one. We have had many reunions since then, and he has come back often. But he is old now, and not so well. I haven’t seen him for a while. Now, everyone wants to see Robben Island, because of him. Many famous people come here.”