Page 94 - The Tigris Expedition

Problems Begin

waved his bit of paper at me in the middle of my speech. I grabbed
my pen to sign and get rid of him, but this made him even more
desperate. He did not want my autograph at all; he had a bill from
the resthousc for some beer one of the men had consumed after the
final accounts had been settled. I grabbed in my pocket for money
while I tried to give sense to my speech, which I discovered was
being recorded by several microphones and echoed back to me
from various translators. Someone whispered to me that the only
man I had ignored when he wanted to salute me as I climbed aboard
was the recent Minister of Information. In this utterly chaotic
atmosphere the crumbling Tower of Babel could not have created
greater linguistic confusion. We just had to get away. We would
have time to adjust the jumble of cargo on board when we were
alone and at peace on the long voyage down the calm river.
Only now, as we had anchored and fenced ourselves in with
stakes far from the Garden of Eden, could we really relax and begin
to enjoy the crazy comedy of the two weeks between launching and
departure. Only now could I really lean back in comfort against the
mast leg with a cup of hot Arab tea and take a closer look at the
strange mixture of men I had assembled around me for this
adventure.
There was - and he should not have been there at all - a Russian
carpenter who had been busy lashing the last cross-pole to the
steering bridge when we started. A good man. Nobody had
protested. Now he could help us repair the bridge. Yuri, interpret­
ing for him, said Dimitri was happy to travel as far as Basra, where
he had to report back to work. He crawled to bed on the cabin roof
in a sleeping bag originally intended for an Indian dhow-sailor.
As no one had to attend to the rudder oars, we were all eleven
together for the first time, and one by one we crawled into the cosy
cabin for a good night’s sleep. There were men seated at our table
whom I knew really well and others who were completely new
acquaintances. Our ages ranged from twenty to sixty-three. Our
nationalities and characters were no less diversified.
There was my old friend Norman Baker from the USA. Wiry
and strong. All skin and muscle. He seemed small in a winter coat
and big in swimming trunks. Our wakes had first crossed in Tahiti
twenty years earlier; he came sailing from Hawaii and I with my
expedition ship from Easter Island. Norman was now in his late
forties; Commander in the US Navy Reserve, but a New York
building contractor in private life, he had been my second in
command on both the Ra expeditions. Norman alone was enough
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