Neither of these factors worried the Susanne Hanke’s bearded German master or his two-man crew, as they held a steady westwards course in the heated wheelhouse. But they had a disastrous effect on the passengers. Cheerfully exchanged cigarettes and optimistic bursts of Hindi film song swiftly gave way to retching and misery. The men tried to remain seated on their benches, but the motion of the boat alternately pitched them backwards against the bulwarks or forwards into the ice-cold bilge at their feet. The overalls were soon streaked with bile and vomit-and, in a couple of cases, blood from cracked noses. Above their heads the men’s suitcases and haversacks swung crazily in the netting carrier.
And the weather, as the hours passed, had got steadily worse. The seas, although invisible to the men crouched beneath the foredeck, were mountainous. The men clutched each other as the hull reared and fell, but were thrown, hour after hour, around the steel-ribbed hold. Their bodies battered and bruised, their feet frozen, their throats raw from heaving, they had given up any pretence of dignity.
Faraj Mansoor concentrated on survival. The cold he could deal with; he was a mountain man. With the exception of the Somali, who was groaning tearfully to his left, they could all deal with the cold. But this nausea was something else, and he worried that it would weaken him beyond the point where he could defend himself.
The migrants hadn’t been prepared for the rigours of the four-hundred-mile voyage. The crossing of Iran in the stifling heat of the container had been uncomfortable, but from Turkey onwards-through Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Hungary-their progress had been relatively painless. There had been fearful moments, but the Caravan drivers knew which were the most porous borders, and which the easiest-bribed border guards.
Most, but not all, of the border crossings had been effected at night. At Esztergom, in northwest Hungary, they had found a deserted playing field and an old football and enjoyed a kick-around and a smoke before trooping back into the truck for the Morava river crossing into the Slovak Republic. The final crossing, into Germany, had taken place at Liberec, fifty miles north of Prague, and a day later they were stretching their legs in Bremerhaven. There, they had dossed down amongst the warehouse’s disused lathes and workbenches. The photographer had come, and twelve hours later they had received their passports, and in the case of Faraj, his UK driving licence. Along with his other documents, this was now zipped into the inside pocket of the windcheater which he was wearing beneath the filthy overalls.
Bracing himself in his seat, Faraj rode out the Susanne Hanke’s rise and fall. Was it his imagination, or were those hellish peaks and troughs finally beginning to subside? He pressed the Indiglo light button on his watch. It was a little past 2 a.m., UK time. In the watch’s tiny glow he could see the pale, fearful faces of his fellow travellers, huddled like ghosts. To rally them, he suggested prayers.
At 2:30 a.m., Ray Gunter finally saw it. The light that the Susanne Hanke was showing was too muted to register to the naked eye, but through the image-intensifiers it showed up as a clear green bloom near the horizon.
“Gotcha,” he muttered, flipping the butt of his cigarette to the shingle. His hands were frozen but tension, as always, kept the cold at bay.
“We on?” asked Kieran Mitchell.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Together they pushed the boats into the water, felt the spray at their faces and the icy water at their calves. As the more experienced seaman, Gunter took the lead vessel. Cracking a lightstick so that it glowed a fluorescent blue, he placed it in a holder on the stern; it was essential that the two boats did not get separated.
Yards apart, the two men began to row through the choppy offshore swell, correcting against the hard eastern blow. Both of them were wearing heavyweight waterproofs and lifejackets. A hundred yards out they shipped their oars and pull-started the Evinrude outboards. These burbled into life, their sound carried away on the wind. Locking into Gunter’s wake, his eyes fixed on the lightstick, Mitchell followed the other man out to sea.
Ten minutes later they were alongside the Susanne Hanke. Clutching their meagre baggage items, and divested of the fouled overalls (which would be washed in preparation for the next consignment of illegals), the passengers exited the hold one by one, and were helped down a ladder to the boats. This was a slow and dangerous process to undertake in near darkness and high seas, but half an hour later all twenty-one of them were seated with their baggage stowed at their feet. All except one, that is. One of them, a courteous but determined figure, insisted on carrying his heavy rucksack on his back. And if you go over the side, mate, thought Mitchell, it’s your bloody lookout.
Kieran Mitchell knew only one word of Urdu-khamosh, which means “silence.” In the event, though, he had no need of it. The cargo, as usual, looked cowed, fearful and properly respectful. As a self-styled patriot Mitchell had no time for raghead illegals, and would have been much happier sending the whole bloody lot of them home. As a businessman, however-and a businessman in the full-time employ of Melvin Eastman-his hands were tied.
The return journey to shore was the part Mitchell dreaded. The old wooden fishing boats could only just manage a complement of twelve, and sat terrifyingly low in the water. Superior seamanship kept Gunter’s people more or less dry, but Mitchell’s were not so lucky. Waves broke almost continuously over their bows, drenching them. In the end it was a shivering and bedraggled group which helped him drag the boat up the beach and-as every consignment did-fell to its collective knees on the wet shingle to give thanks for its safe arrival. All except one, that is. All except the man with the black rucksack, who just stood there, looking around him.
Once the boats were in place Gunter and Mitchell removed their lifejackets and waterproofs. As Gunter unlocked a small wooden shed at the beach’s edge and hung the gear inside, Mitchell lined the men up and led them in single file away from the sea.
The shingle gave way to a turf path, which in turn led up to an open ironwork gate, which Mitchell closed behind them. They marched upwards, and the shapes of trees appeared against the faint illumination of the false dawn. These gave way to formal hedges and the flat plane of a lawn before the path led them to the left. A high wall appeared in front of them, and a door. Gunter opened this with a key, and Mitchell pulled it shut behind the last man. They were now in a narrow side road bordered by the wall on one side and by trees on the other. Some fifty yards up the road, hard against the trees, was the dim outline of an articulated truck.
Unpadlocking the back entrance of the truck, Mitchell led the migrants inside. When they were all in position at the front of the container, Mitchell pulled an alloy barrier across which, draped as it was with ropes and sacking, effectively formed a false front to the container. Beyond it, the migrants were crammed into an area approximately three feet deep, with a ventilation fan in the ceiling. The arrangement was not foolproof, but to the casual observer-a policeman with a torch, for example, looking in from the back-the artic was empty.
Mitchell drove, and Gunter took the passenger seat next to him. To begin with, for a good five minutes, they crept along an uneven country lane without showing any lights. Once in sight of the main road, however, Mitchell turned on the headlights and accelerated.
“Force nine out there earlier,” he said. “Bet they’ve been spewing their guts all the way.”