Page 73 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition

in with one side of the ship, then with the other, by separate ropes
which ran in complementary spirals. When these two spiral ropes
were pulled tight by all our men, aided by blocks and pulleys, each
of the two half-bodies moved slowly in towards the central back­
bone, until this was literally squeezed into the two main sections
and became completely invisible between them. The result was a
sort of a compact catamaran with no gap between the twin hulls.
From the roof I let the three sleepy Indian dhow-sailors look
down upon the beautiful vessel from which only cabins and rigging
were missing. For a long while they seemed to admire the ship in
silence. Then Saleman said slowly:
‘And where is the engine?’
‘Engine,’ I said. ‘There will be no engine!’
‘But how will it move?’ Saleman was curious.
‘By sail, of course. Aren’t you dhow-sailors?’ I asked and looked
at the three chocolate-coloured men who gazed at the reed-ship.
‘We are dhow-sailors. But our dhows go with engines,’ said
Saleman calmly.
None of them knew how to sail, or how to make a dhow-sail! I
was horrified. But at least they could serve us as pilots through the
gulf. How many times had they made the voyage between Bombay
and Basra?
Basra? Saleman looked at Ibrahim and Ibrahim looked at Abdul.
None of them had been to Basra. None of them had seen the gulf.
I gave up. We had to send them back to Bombay. They were
visibly relieved at this decision and showed clear signs of horror
when they took their last look at the reed-ship. But before I sent
them on their long and costly journey home I had the brilliant idea
that we might still be able to use Saleman because he spoke English.
i We had seen several big Indian dhows at anchor in the river at Basra,
but all attempts to get any sense out of the idle crews failed because
none of them spoke any European language and not even Arabic. If
some of them could sail, I thought, Saleman could be interpreter.
That evening the expedition members were going to Basra by
minibus to be guests of honour at a dinner offered by the President
:
; of Basra University. But before the party, Norman, as our
i navigator and sailing master, was willing to accompany the three
Indian dhow-sailors to Basra harbour and use them to get some
information out of their countrymen at anchor in the river. Yuri
had just borrowed a beautiful new Russian car from the Soviet
Consul-General, and our Museum interpreter Shaker offered to
drive.
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