Page 220 - The Tigris Expedition

CHAPTER 7

We Search for a Pyramid
and Find Makan

If a railway engine were to come in through my door while I sat at
breakfast I would be greatly surprised. But not more surprised than
when the bow of a ship came in while I lay in my bed.
It was no dream. I was not asleep. I had awakened earlier when I
heard the sound of an engine approaching in the night and a hoarse
voice shouting something from a distance in a hostile tone. The
voice of a stranger. I recognised the familiar voices of Norris and
Rashad shouting back from the bridge as if in despair: ‘Keep off!
Keep off!’
It was 2.30 a.m. and stars could be seen through the starboard
door opening until a searchlight started to play arrogantly on the
starboard wall. I was at once wide awake.
We were somewhere off the coast of Oman. We had been filled
with warnings about this area. Small boats were said to have been
sacked and looted by unidentified modern pirates in this part of the
Arabian Sea. The papers had recently reported how a Danish couple
in a small yacht had been stripped of everything on board except a
meagre ration of water by which they survived. Whoever were out
there in the dark could not know that we were eleven men on Tigris,
and that there was an exit on either side of our tiny bamboo cabin. I
was just about to shake the others awake and sneak out through the
port side opening, where we could lie in ambush, when I stopped to
listen to the hostile voices, this time very near:
What is this?’ The angry question was shouted in English with
an Arab accent.
‘A ship,’ Rashad shouted back, almost indignantly.
‘Then what are the two big cubes you carry on board?’ The
searchlight played again on both our bamboo cabins.
‘They are cabins! Keep off! Eleven men from different countries
are asleep inside!’
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