Page 111 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
and few had brought more than was needed. The greatest cut in
cargo came when Yuri laid his hands on our spare timber. Here I felt
as if he was stripping me personally to the skin. The four of us knew
that the wooden parts were most vulnerable on a reed-ship. The
rigging, the bridge, and particularly the shafts of the rudder-oars.
While reeds flexed under strain, wood broke. The reed bundles
were literally unbreakable. Like solid rubber. But not wood. Wood
broke in combat with the elements.
As on Ra III had brought beams, poles and hardwood pieces for
splicing broken parts. To the amazement of the already puzzled
newcomers Yuri now wanted all of it left behind. Our friends in the
balam almost sank as they accepted this precious gift with open
arms. I barely managed to save our long rowing oars, twelve in all,
and a few hardwood odds and ends for emergency splicing. Better
to re-establish mental peace right now if anyone already began to
feel uneasy. In fact, was I not one of them myself?
Tigris was fully sixty feet long as compared with the thirty feet of
Ra II. But we were eleven men on board instead of eight. And we
carried far more water and provisions than for a two months’
journey like that which confronted the Ra I and II. And again, we
still had only the word of the Marsh Arabs to counter those of the
: scientists. All we had done apart from using berdi instead of
papyrus, was to cut our reeds in August instead of in December.
We did not rise noticeably in the water by the few hundred kilos
we had carried ashore. But we were in any case still floating
incredibly high. So high that we could not bend over and grab
passing flotsam or wash our hands, a fact which almost annoyed
those of us who were used to raft-ships where we could do our
morning toilet without the use of canvas buckets.
As the heavy yardarm was hoisted to the top of the straddle-mast
our sail unfolded and the red morning sun seemed reflected in the
big red sun on our sail. Ours rose behind a stepped pyramid. The
real one rose freely above the misty sea.
Great expectations. What we had expected was a strong wind
from Iraq behind us. In the open gulf beyond the mud flats there
was nothing to give shelter. But the wind was just not there.
Strange. For this was the second day of December and during all
the winter months a steady north wind was supposed to blow
strongly from Iraq down the full length of the gulf. If we could, we
wanted to call at the island of Bahrain, which would be almost on
our way. Once they were able to import timber to build wooden
ships, the Sumerians were thought to have had easy sailing away
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