The Black Tide

by Hammond Innes

  I stayed there, keeping a frozen vigil with the birds, until Big Ben boomed out the quarter after seven. Then I walked slowly across the Mall and up past the Palace to St James’s Street. I seemed to be the only human being left alive. A taxi crept past me as I turned into St James’s Place. The Royal Ocean Racing Club was right at the end, past the Stafford Hotel where the taxi was now trying to turn. Somebody entered the Club ahead of me, the portholes of the inner doors momentarily revealed, two brass-rimmed eyes staring out at a dirty heap of snow piled against the railings.

  Saltley was waiting for me in the bar, which was up the stairs past a nasty looking picture of the Fastnet Rock in a gale. It was a bright, cheerful place full of members locked into London by the state of the roads. He came forward to greet me, small, almost gnome-like, with pale, straw-coloured hair and thick glasses through which a pair of sharp, intensely blue eyes peered owlishly. He was younger than I had expected, mid-thirties, perhaps a little more, and as though to put me at my ease he said his odd appearance – those were the words he used, giving me a lopsided grin – was due to Swedish forebears, the name, too, originally Swedish, but bastardised to Saltley by dumb Anglo-Saxons who couldn’t get their tongues round it. The way he put it I thought he probably knew my father had been a Scot.

  Even now I don’t know Saltley’s Christian name. Everybody seemed to call him by his surname, his friends shortening it to Salt or Salty, even old Salt, but what his initials C. R. stood for I still don’t know. It didn’t take me long in the atmosphere of that club to realize why he had asked me if I were a sailing man. The conversation as we stood drinking at the bar was general, the talk all about sailing, ocean races mainly – last season’s and the Southern Cross series in Australia which had just finished with the Sydney-Hobart.

  It was only when we went into the dining-room that his attention focused on me personally. Those blue eyes, that crooked, very sensitive mouth, the soft, quiet voice – instead of finding out what it was he wanted to see me about, I found myself telling him about my life with Karen and the strange urge that had taken hold of me very early in life, trying to explain why I had wanted to become a writer. I told him something of my background, too, the way I had been brought up. ‘So you never knew your father?’ He said it very quickly, reaching for the wine bottle.

  ‘No.’ Fortunately we had a table to ourselves, the background noise of conversation drowning my words as I added with that mixture of belligerence and frankness that I could never quite conceal, ‘And my mother never married.’

  He filled my glass, smiling lopsidedly at me. ‘That worry you?’ He drank slowly, watching me and letting the silence run on. Oddly enough I felt no hostility to him, no anger at the expert way in which he had manoeuvred me into blurting out more than I had intended. ‘It shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Not now. But, of course, things were different in the fifties. Something we’re apt to forget. We live in the present and our memories are short. But scars – deep, emotional scars – they remain in all of us, rooted there and producing gut reactions.’ He cut into his steak, concentrating on his food for a moment. ‘So you ran pretty wild as a kid?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I told you, Nairobi, Dubai …’ I stopped there, remembering a scene on the waterfront, a little Baluch boy they’d drowned.

  ‘And Karachi?’ he asked. ‘Ferrers said something about Karachi.’

  I nodded.

  ‘That was after your mother died.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were fourteen then. Was it to contact your father’s old regiment that you jumped a dhow headed for Karachi?’ He was suddenly looking straight at me.

  ‘I went to Gwadar,’ I said.

  ‘Ah yes.’ He nodded. ‘Dubai-Baluchistan – the old pearls and slaves route. Quite a journey for a kid of fourteen on his own, down the Gulf, out through the Straits of Hormuz to Gwadar, then to Karachi and almost the length of West Pakistan to Peshawar.

  I stopped eating then, wondering how the hell he knew all that. ‘It was a long time ago,’ I said.

  He gave me a little apologetic smile. ‘I’ve had somebody checking up on you.’

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t answer that. And when I asked him what else he had found out about me, he said, ‘Your father was a lieutenant in the Khyber Rifles. After Partition he joined the Trucial Oman Scouts. He was stationed near Sharjah. That’s how he met your mother. She was a nurse, an Anglo-Indian, I think.’

  ‘If you know all that,’ I said angrily, ‘then you’ll know that he was killed in the Muscat war. You’ll also no doubt know that my mother’s mother, my grandmother, was from the North West Frontier, an Afridi.’ And I added, the tone of belligerence back in my voice, ‘My mother was hot-blooded, very beautiful, a wonderfully exciting person – but it’s nothing to do with you what she was. Nothing to do with the Petros Jupiter either.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He gave a shrug and the same little apologetic smile. ‘Force of habit. I make my living asking awkward questions.’ The strange, bony features were touched suddenly with humour, the eyes smiling at me. ‘Please – don’t let your food get cold.’ He waved his hand at my plate and switched the conversation to dinghy sailing. He navigated now for a man with a Class I ocean racer, but he’d started in dinghies.

  It was after we had finished eating, sitting over our coffee, that he finally came to the point. ‘I think you know roughly what my job is, but probably not much about the way marine solicitors operate.’ And he went on to explain that there were only about a dozen firms in the City specializing in the legal side of marine insurance. At Forthright they concentrated on hull insurance. There were other firms that concentrated on cargoes. ‘But as I say, there are only a handful of us trying to sort out all the legal problems that occur when there is an incident – fire, collision, fraud, anything concerning ships or their cargoes that results in an insurance claim. It’s very specialist and often there is a great deal of money involved. We’re so specialist, in fact, that we’re involved worldwide, not just the London market.’ He suddenly got to his feet. ‘Sorry, you haven’t got a drink. Brandy or port?’

  ‘Rum, if I could,’ I said, and he nodded. ‘Good idea. Help keep the cold out.’

  The bar was crowded and while he was getting the drink, I was wondering why he was taking all this trouble, what possible use I could be to such a specialized firm of solicitors operating in the City. I said as much when he handed me my drink and sat down again. He smiled. ‘Yes, well, let me explain. We have forty or so partners. I’m never certain what the exact number is. They’re solicitors, all of them. They each have their own clients, their own reputations. Then there are a number of trainees, a mass of articled clerks, lots of secretaries. In addition, we employ over a dozen ship captains, men who can go off to any port in the world where we have a problem and by their training and long experience can ask the right questions of the right people and assess what the answers are worth. Some of them develop a remarkable nose for ferreting out the truth. And, of course, each claim being different, and therefore requiring an individual approach, we use any method we feel may be necessary to protect our clients’ interests. And that,’ he added with a slight emphasis in his voice, ‘sometimes includes the employment of people whom we consider have special qualifications for getting at the truth of a particular case.’

  He sipped his port, the blue eyes watching me behind the thick-lensed glasses. ‘You know Karachi. You speak Urdu. And you’ve been a ship’s officer. I think you’re the man I need.’

  ‘For what?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘If I knew I wouldn’t need you, would I?’

  ‘But it’s not the Petros Jupiter’

  ‘No, it’s not the Petros Jupiter. It’s another ship. In fact, it’s two now.’ And when I told him I was only interested in the Petros Jupiter, he said, ‘Yes, of course. I understand that.’ He was leaning forward, still watching me. ‘That’s why I wanted to meet you. Nine
ty per cent of the time I’m just a hardworking solicitor slogging through the paperwork. But there’s ten per cent of the time I’m operating by the seat of my pants, sleuthing out the truth like some amateur detective. That’s the fun side – or it can be when you get it right and a hunch pays off.’ He stopped there. ‘It’s not the ship you’re interested in. It’s the engineer, isn’t it?’ He said it tentatively, not looking at me now. ‘Did Ferrers tell you he’s changed his name, flown to Bahrain and is now on board a small freighter bound for Karachi?’

  ‘Yes, he showed me the telex. It was from the Lloyd’s agent in La Rochelle where the fishing boat landed him.’

  ‘Suppose we were to send you to Karachi, everything paid, and a fee … You fly out, you’d be there about the time the Corsaire arrives.’ He looked at me then. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to talk to Aristides Speridion who now calls himself Henri Choffel.’ I nodded and he smiled. ‘One of our partners would be interested in that, too. He’s handling the Petros Jupiter case.’ He paused then, watching me. ‘Well, what do you say?’

  I didn’t answer immediately. In fact, I was thinking of Baldwick and his proposition. This, in a way, was even odder. Saltley misinterpreted my silence. ‘Sorry’, he said. ‘Afraid I’ve put it to you very abruptly. Let me fill you in a bit. First, the seat of the pants side of it. Back in November the Aurora B disappeared. We don’t know where. All we know is she missed her radio schedule when she should have been west of Sri Lanka and hasn’t been heard of since. Now, just a few days ago, another VLCC, the Howdo Stranger, misses her schedule.’

  ‘I was with Ferrers when the news came through,’ I said. ‘They both missed their schedules in the same area.’

  He nodded. ‘With a twice-weekly radio schedule it’s just guesswork where they disappeared. But yes, the same area roughly. Both insured at Lloyd’s, and the lead underwriter in each case Michael Stewart. He’s a member here and a friend of mine. In fact, I was at his daughter’s twenty-first today. We both started our racing together, you see, in the Lloyd’s yacht Lutine’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Not the best day to pick for a party. And the poor fellow wrote the slip for the Petros Jupiter as well, all three of them for the same syndicate, including the Sinister Syndicate, which is hard luck on the girls. He took quite a slice of it for them.’

  I suppose he sensed I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, for he said, ‘You know how Lloyd’s work do you? The Members – Names, we call them – operate in syndicates. There are around twenty thousand Names and their personal financial commitment is total. Each is limited in the extent of the premium income he, or she, can underwrite, but if things go wrong, then there’s no limit at all to the amount they may be called upon to pay out, even to the point of complete bankruptcy.’ And he added, ‘One of the syndicates involved here is a rather special one. It’s a marine syndicate composed entirely of Members’ wives and daughters. My wife’s a member of it, so is Mike’s, and now his daughter Pamela. She’s one of his regular racing crew, and her birthday being on New Year’s Eve, the party today was really more to celebrate the start of her under-writing.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Virgins Unlimited, or the Sinister Syndicate, those are the tags the syndicate has got stuck with and I’m afraid it may prove more apt than intended. They could be facing a very big loss on these three vessels if all the claims are substantiated. And that won’t do Mike’s reputation any good. He might not even survive it.’

  And then abruptly he switched back to the missing ships. ‘GODCO – that’s the company that owns the two missing VLCCs – operates right through the Gulf. They have offices not far from here, in Curzon Street of all places. But the centre of their operation is Dubai. If you went out, I’d see you had letters of introduction to Gulf Oil executives, the Lloyd’s agents of course, also some very useful contacts I’ve built up over the years. But,’ he added, ‘that’s on the official level. Much more important, I feel, is what you, with your knowledge of Urdu, might pick up unofficially, in the docks, or the bazaars, also in hotel bars. I’m thinking of Karachi, you see. I don’t know why, but ever since this second GODCO tanker went missing I’ve had a feeling …’ He hesitated, staring at me, then gave a little shrug and picked up his drink.

  ‘You think it’s sabotage?’ I asked.

  ‘It has to be, doesn’t it? Two GODCO ships in two months. They haven’t lost a VLCC in eight years. But even if I’m right, I’ve still got to prove it.’

  ‘And the Petros Jupiter?’ I asked. ‘Who owned her?’

  ‘A Dutch company.’

  ‘I thought it was Greek.’

  ‘It was, but they sold her a few months back. We’ll be checking on the Dutch company, of course, but I’m told it’s a perfectly reputable outfit.’ He didn’t know its name or anything about it. Another partner, a man named Pritchard, was handling the Petros Jupiter. And he explained that he’d been fully occupied recently preparing a briefing for arbitration in the matter of a £30 million claim where it was suspected that navigational negligence was a contributing factor in the loss of a giant tanker. But now, with the Howdo Stranger failing to keep its radio schedule, Stewart was pressing him to begin a full scale investigation of the Aurora B claim. That meant, not one, but two new casualties added to his work load. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve made you a proposition. You go away and think about it. Tomorrow come along to our offices and have a look through the files.’ And he added, with a quick little smile, so that I knew he was baiting the hook for me, ‘The Petros Jupiter’s cargo was re-sold on the spot market the day before she was wrecked and the skipper’s statement makes it clear that his instructions to alter course for Rotterdam reached him when he was midway between Land’s End and the Scillies.’ And he added, ‘I can arrange for you to see that statement. In fact, the whole file, if you like.’

  That was how, on the following morning, with the snow still falling and half England a no-go area because of blocked roads, I came to be sitting in the offices of Forthright & Co., marine solicitors, at Saltley’s desk, with the Petros Jupiter file in front of me. All I had been given on arrival were the papers relating to the Aurora B claim. There was nothing on the Howdo Stranger. At least, that was what I was told by the only girl I could find who knew her way around the files. Saltley’s secretary hadn’t made it to the office, nor had half the Forthright staff, so that the whole place had a slightly deserted air, particularly the reception area, which must have cost a fortune in rental it was so vast. A matronly, grey-haired woman in tweeds, standing in as receptionist because neither of the girls at the two big desks had arrived, took me down a long corridor through fire doors to Saltley’s empty office. ‘Phone me if you want anything.’ She gave me the number to dial on the internal phone, then shut the door on me so that I felt like a prisoner being locked into his cell.

  It didn’t take me long to go through the Aurora B file – the failure to meet her radio schedule on November 7, details of loading at Mina Zayed, condition and rating of vessel, information about the recent installation of anti-explosion precautions, all the basic, humdrum details on which any assessment of what might have caused the vessel’s mysterious disappearance would depend. There was nothing about crew, no photograph, nothing – which was odd as GODCO always photographed and dossiered crew personnel before every voyage. I knew that because I had shipped a man once who had refused to sail on a GODCO tanker at the last moment because he wouldn’t be photographed. In the end, he told me the reason he was camera-shy was that he was bigamously married and afraid that his first wife, whom he described as a right bitch, might see it and come after him. Why we all leap so readily to fanciful conclusions I am not sure, but until then I was convinced that he was either one of the train robbers still on the run, or else a murderer.

  There was an internal and an external telephone on the desk. I lifted the external receiver and asked the switchboard operator for a line. She didn’t ask who I was or who I was going to ring at the office’s expense, she j
ust gave me the line. But when I got through to the GODCO offices in Curzon Street and asked for the current voyage Aurora B crew details and pictures, they said all crew information was held at their Dubai offices. They gave me the number and the man to contact.

  I might not have followed it up, except that I had asked for the Petros Jupiter file and the girl had come back to say that it was with Mr Pritchard and he was asking who I was and why I wanted it. While I waited, hoping he’d let me see it, I asked the switchboard if it was possible to get me the Dubai number and in a matter of minutes I was through to the GODCO Marine Superintendent’s office. The man in charge of crew dossiers said that copies of all information concerning the Aurora B and the Howdo Stranger crews, including copies of the crew pictures, had been despatched airmail to London two days ago. But when I rang the London office again the man I had spoken to before finally admitted their staff was so depleted that morning that he couldn’t tell me whether the crew details had arrived or not.

  After that there was nothing for me to do but sit there waiting in that empty office. It was an odd feeling, as though I was suspended in limbo – the frozen world outside, and here, encased in concrete and glass, an organization that fed upon disaster, encapsulating the realities of existence, the gales, the sand storms, the oiled-up beaches, the furnace heat of raging fires, into typed reports and telex messages compressed and neatly filed between plastic covers. Cargoes, ships, dockside greed and boardroom chicanery, the remote cold-bloodedness of owners whose decisions were based on money, not humanity, it was all there, neatly filed and docketed – remote, unreal. Legal cases, nothing more.