Читать книгу The Angry Sea - James Deegan - Страница 24

11.

EIGHTY FEET BENEATH him, below the waterline, in the belly of the Windsor Castle, Farouk Ebrahim stood in the humming, throbbing engine room of the huge ship, looked at the wall clock, and spoke to the first engineer.

‘Excuse me, boss,’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Is okay if I go toilet?’

The first engineer – an experienced ex-Royal Navy man called Phil Clarke – glanced at Ebrahim over his clipboard.

‘Again, Farouk?’ he said. ‘That must be the fifth time today.’

‘Sorry, boss,’ said the young Filipino motorman, putting the rag into the pocket of his red overalls. ‘I have a problem in my stomach.’

Clarke scratched his head. There wasn’t much doing – the engines were only running to generate power – and Farouk seemed like a good kid.

Not long on the crew, but eager to learn, and well aware of his place in the scheme of things.

‘Okay,’ said Clarke. ‘But don’t take all day, yeah?’

Ebrahim nodded and hurried from the engine room, and up and out to the tender station on deck three.

He squeezed himself out of sight in between two of the boats and leaned on the rail, breathing deep in the sea air.

He still couldn’t believe how easy it had been to get hired, and how lax was the security. His interview for the Windsor Castle – a ship carrying five hundred Westerners, each paying a king’s ransom to float around half-naked, eating, and drowning themselves in alcohol – had taken no more than half an hour, and only five per cent of bags were screened coming aboard.

You could get anything on.

Especially if you knew the guy doing the screening.

Perhaps it was not surprising that half the crew were alternately getting high on cocaine, or mellowing out on hashish.

Or that he and a few fellow travellers had managed to slip through the net.

He looked out at the Mediterranean, shimmering in the heat haze.

He was from a long line of Mindanao fishermen, and the chances were that, at this exact moment, seven or eight thousand miles away, his father was chugging back towards the twinkling early evening lights of the harbour at General Santos City to offload his day’s catch.

Saltwater ran through Farouk Ebrahim’s veins, and the sea looked particularly beautiful today – so beautiful that he could have cried.

And, in fact, he did.

The tears came with a rush, as a sudden melancholia broke over him.

But they’d warned him to expect this, and as quickly as the tears had come they were gone.

He wiped his cheeks dry with the backs of his greasy hands and pulled himself together.

In another life, he would perhaps have joined his father and his uncle in their little wooden, three-man pump boat – would have spent his days pottering around the Sarangani Bay looking for mackerel and anchovies, and maybe a few bigeye scad, to sell at the bustling market.

He’d have got married, raised a family, lived as his ancestors had lived for generations, more or less.

But Allah had had other plans for him, and if He called then you answered.

Still, the calm, electric-blue sea… he could almost taste its fresh salt, feel its ancient and mystical powers cleansing his body and soul.

For a fleeting moment, he actually thought about jumping overboard.

But then, in his mind’s eye, he saw the pride on his father’s face, and it lent steel to his spine.

He would not let anyone down.