Page 187 - The Tigris Expedition

: • The Tigris Expedition
‘But how can we get the darn thing past all the backstays?’
Norman, to my amazement, only scratched his blond hair. I
needed no more to realise that we really had a white elephant. And a
big one. Norman, always so meticulously exact and forcsighted in
any planning, had planned a sail that would make Southampton
University applaud in approval. But neither he nor I could sec how
to get it on board. While we all stood there in a line, suggestions
i
rained from left and right and even from the spectators behind us.
!
We could pass behind the stays if we pulled one end in from the
stern. No, not that way, but from the bow. No, we could loosen all
port side stays and let the yardarm under while someone held the
masts. We could leave it alongside, outside all stays. We could, in
i fact, do many things. But we would be wedded to an unmanageable
. monster out at sea.
!'
! I felt that I was really losing my temper. The situation was
ridiculous. I was just on the edge of letting my anger show above all
the confused shouting when everybody down the line put on a
Sunday-go-to-church expression and lowered their voices. It was
not the Emir who arrived, but Norris with his baby. He had slipped
his part of our common burden into the hands of Khalifa and came
sneaking up with his sound-camera.
I took a brutal decision on the spur of the moment:
‘Let this white elephant down. We are going to sail without it. We
might get it on board here in port, but how the devil are we going to
handle it in a storm at sea. The mast will rip off before we find a
place for it on deck. All aboard! We’re off!’

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