Page 394 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
known as the cock-of-Mars’ (gallo-di-Marte), named after the
Koman god of war. This would have been too many evil omens for
ancient voyagers, and we could easily see how it would have
impressed them if they next discovered what we already knew, that
a war was really raging just beyond the horizon.
That same night Torn shouted from the bridge: ‘Did you hear
that?’ We did. Inside the cabin we too had heard the distant rumble
of gun-fire on the port side. And we heard it again.
Next day we even heard the growing drone of an aeroplane. ‘By
gosh, he’s coming straight for us!’ Detlef shouted from the bridge.
We all rushed out into the burning sun of the Gulf of Aden just as a
twin-engined military plane dived down over the oar in our mast
top, so low that the sails flapped back with the wind-pressure. I was
just in time to stop Detlef, who already had one leg over the bridge
railing ready to jump from the ship. We hoisted the United Nations
flag. The plane turned and, very low, came straight back again.
‘Here they come again!’ I yelled as I saw it turning. Rashad shouted
that they were customs control men coming to bomb us, thinking
we carried contraband. Asbjorn suggested they had chosen us as a
training target. ‘Hurrah, they are American marines!’ Norman
cheered and danced and waved on the cabin roof as they again
droned low overhead. Someone up there waved back from the
cockpit. We were all relieved.
Norris had filmed and tape-recorded this episode, and as a
moment later he replayed his tape on the cabin roof, everyone but
me rushed out once more as they heard my voice shouting: ‘Here
they come again’ followed by the recorded droning. We laughed,
but not for long, as Norris’s tape had not ended when the droning
came back louder than ever and of a different kind. We looked up,
and there was a military helicopter coming straight for Tigris;
Norman yelled that it was not American.
We were all ready to jump as the heavy war-bird turned so close
over the mast that we could see the uniformed men inside salute and
point to their colours: they were French! No sooner had they
disappeared into the blue before two other helicopters appeare *
one on either horizon. They came towards us from different
directions. This looked worse. They met above us and we were
safe, for one was American and the other French. Friendly pilots
photographed us from the air. Friendly to us but not to everybody
in this surrounding area. We had reached the inner end of the gult.
On port side was the last of Somalia and a front line w ic wa
guarded on either side with the support of the great powers.
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