Page 264 - The Tigris Expedition

Tigris and the Superships: the Voyage to Pakistan
down like an empty sack. Norman had by now devised a topsail to
be hoisted on a bamboo boom, and it was a great success. It gave us
better steerage. We could resist the east wind that threatened to send
us against the rocks. Much against what would have been our own
wishes, if we had had a better choice, we began to steer out towards
the busy ocean highway we had tried to avoid. As we began to see
the ships around us again and tried to cross the traffic sector, the
wind died down and returned only as feeble gusts from varying
directions, preventing us from conducting any sensible navigation.
We lay in the midst of dense traffic, fighting with sail and steering-
oars to get out of the way of fast ocean liners and tankers as they
thundered by and left us rocking so violently that the steering
platform under our feet seemed ready to tear loose from the reeds
and capsize with cabins and masts into the sea. Carlo and Yuri were
everywhere trying to secure ropes while the rest of us struggled to
get Tigris out of this crazy marine highway where an old-fashioned
reed-ship did not belong.
By night we felt worse. We could detect at once a speck of light
wherever a ship appeared, but not seeing the vessel itself we could
never tell if it came on a collision course or would pass at a safe
distance. Lights appeared on the horizon everywhere and grew and
grew until either a little green or a little red lamp could be
distinguished in the general glare of illumination on board. If both
the green (starboard) and the red (port) lamps were visible at the
same time, then the ship was coming straight for us. We had red and
green lights on Tigris too, but in the wind the glass sooted up
terribly and the flames often blew out. Anyway, big ships rarely
had lookouts to see such modest kerosene lamps, and the biggest
tankers could neither stop nor turn by the time something was
within vision of their bridge. It was up to us to do the sighting and
patiently watch every speck of light around us until big enough and
near enough for us to distinguish the various lamps. We could then
tell, by the alignment of the two coloured lamps, combined with
one tall white lamp aft and a low one in front, whether we lay right
in the course of the vessel or whether it would pass to our left or
right. But by then we could often see the outlines of the black hull
against the night sky, with little time left to scramble out of the way
if the wind failed. We therefore organised a double night watch to
keep a sharp lookout for lights from the moment they appeared, to
know whether we had to escape to port or to starboard. It became a
routine, but the night was long and we awaited sunrise impatiently,
tired of staring into the dark, tired of the incessant battle with rope
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