Page 209 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
my binoculars swung out and hit me in the jaw. Shirts, jackets and
trousers hanging from bamboo rods on walls and ceiling performed
a synchronised show, like a ghostly army of robots doing morning
exercise together with clockwork precision. All swung at the same
moment, in the same direction, at the same angle. Towels and
underwear, buckets and baskets, lamps and watches, all rose from
the wall together and swung together, right and left, forward and
aft, until they flopped back against the wall in a common clash.
Finding it impossible either to sit or to kneel inside the cabin I
crawled out with my lifeline and fully appreciated Norman’s
acrobatic skill when I heard him shouting to us from the top of the
swaying mast that he saw light-flashes ahead. So far they were only
i
rhythmic reflections in the sky of revolving beams from some
distant lighthouse that would soon rise above the horizon on the
port side of the bow. Detlef shouted back from the bridge that it
must be the lighthouse on the other side of the entrance to the
Hormuz Strait. We now had to keep it to starboard in order to clear
the last, invisible cape of the Arabian peninsula, but later we had to
turn at a sharp angle and keep it on the port side as we swung into
the open strait.
I
By now the wind had started noticeably to turn more westerly,
fulfilling our wildest hopes. I was convinced that the flow of the sea
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beneath us had also been turned by the impassable rock barrier and
was forced to follow the coastline in our direction. The strain on the
rudder-oars had been so strong that the port-side fork began to gape
again and threatened to burst Carlo’s ropes. To relieve part of the
I men aft and pulled the heavy oar shaft up until a quarter of its blade
violent pressure before a catastrophe occurred we summoned all

was out of the water. The tiller of this oar could then no longer be
reached from the floor of the steering platform, and a new form of
maritime acrobatics had to be introduced just as the rolling was at
its worst. The starboard helmsman had to be in charge of the
normal steering and shout up to the man on the port-side tiller each
time assistance was needed from this second and now most cum­
bersome oar. In the dark Carlo was to do the proper steering and I
climbed up on the bridge rail to reach the other tiller, while
slackened woodwork joints bit and shrieked like angry cats in their
lashings, and special care was needed not to get a finger or toe
caught. With one foot on the cabin roof and the other balancing on a
narrow plank tied on outside the bridge rail to steady the oar, I saw
nothing but a dancing glow from a lamp Asbjorn had hoisted to the
swinging masthead. I knew that even with a flashlight there would

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