Page 135 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition

our reed-ship, with the result that Tigris began towing the Russians.
This was not quite apparent at first, as the tidal current ran our way.
Captain Igor and his heavily built second-in-command had a dinner
of salt meat and peas with us around our crowded table, and we all
rejoiced and wanted to make believe that all went well. But in the
afternoon it became clear to all that the lifeboat was only drifting
away with us along the coast and towards the much worse shallows
east and north of Failaka. The houses moved even more to the left of
their earlier bearing and the tall lighthouse on the little island began
to sink. Slavsk became more and more indistinct, and in the
afternoon it disappeared completely from view. The wind
increased in force to twenty-four knots.
At this moment a primitive-looking dhow with a powerful
engine and shallow draft suddenly appeared from nowhere. The
former mast had been sawn down. It headed for us, but did not
come close. It circled around us beyond hailing distance and
although several men were on board they were clearly afraid of
getting close. No wonder. A great many generations had passed
since their ancestors had seen a vessel in these waters as strange as
ours.
We inflated our tiny rubber dinghy, brought along for filming
and barely big enough for three men. Asbjorn, as our dinghy
captain, took Rashad with him and rowed close enough to the
frightened fishermen for Rashad to shout to them in their own
language. A moment later our two men came back and reported
that the crew of the dhow wanted 300 Kuwaiti dinars, worth more
than a thousand dollars if converted into American money, to tow
us out to Slavsk.
I was ready to start bargaining, but Igor refused to listen and told
Rashad to row back again on his behalf and offer six bottles of
vodka and two cases of wine. The two boys went over a second
time but came back with the message from the men in the dhow
that they were Moslems and did not drink alcohol. The seamen in
the dhow now realised our condition and ventured to sweep close
up past our side before they took off with no further bargaining and
seemed to resume fishing, barely visible on the eastern horizon.
The only solution left to us was to hoist sail on Tigris and
abandon further attempts at a tow back to the long since invisible
Slavsk. If we sailed as we had done before, continuing with our port
side facing the coast, the Russians could try to pull our bow slightly
into the wind and away from the coast. In this way we could
possibly fight ourselves gradually out into deep water before we
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