‘HM Trawler Hans Heine. Bound for Red Sea.’
He jumped down and waited, gave Murchison the reply.
“Heave to and wait for boat, sir.”
“Tell him I am under orders to make best speed for Port Suez, Adams.”
Christopher climbed back up and semaphored again, performing the movements of hands and arms very slowly and deliberately.
He watched as the battleship acknowledged while coming round to make a shelter for the steam picket boat it was dropping from its davits. He took up his glasses and watched as a white cap swarmed down the falls and took position in the stern.
“Officer aboard the boat, sir. Commander, by the looks of him. Probably a senior captain in command to make such a fuss and send his second; one of the oldest of the old school. Steam picket boat has a speed of maybe eight knots, sir, when she is up to full pressure. Stoker will still be building a head of steam and she is half a mile distant. She might just be able to intercept us, coming from off the port bow. Can’t change our course, sir; mustn’t be seen to run away.”
Murchison whistled down the engineroom voicepipe, called for steam for ten knots.
“Jimmy!”
A deckhand looked up inquiringly.
“Shout across to whoever’s nearest, tell them to make ten knots for the while.”
Jimmy ran to the stern and bellowed.
“Good voice on him, that lad, sir.”
“Strong lungs, our Jim, Adams.”
The picket boat fell into their wake, never able to catch up with them. They waved to the gesticulating officer aboard her.
“We will face disciplinary action when we get back to Alex, sir.”
“You might, Adams. I shall claim I did not understand and simply carried out my orders.”
“Good enough, sir. I shall blame you and smile sweetly.”
Murchison laughed.
“Make a good pair, we do, Adams. I have nothing to gain and you’ve got nothing to lose. Makes us untouchable!”
No message was sent to the naval authorities at Port Said or Port Suez and they made their transit of the Canal without difficulty, delaying only to top up their water before heading down into the Red Sea and its heat.
They formed line abreast within sight of the Arabian coast and started their search to the south, making eight knots during the daylight hours and pottering at no more than two in the night. Traffic was ordinarily busy and the trawlers stopped and searched local craft every hour. They discovered nothing – the boats were carrying grain to Jeddah, mostly, in readiness for the Haj, the great pilgrimage, due within weeks.
Late of an afternoon, a few miles south of Jeddah they spotted their first steamer, a tiny tramp. Hans Heine stopped her and held her under her guns and sent a boat across.
There were almost no English speakers aboard the smallest ships; unusually, the steamer had a mate who was fluent. Christopher was called across to him, found himself talking to a light-skinned Indian man, dressed casually as a low seaman.
“Where from, sir?”
There was no harm in being polite; the man might be so surprised by courtesy as to forget to lie.
“Out of Bombay, sir, bound for Jeddah. Our cargo is rice in bags, in its entirety.”
“What tonnage?”
“Three hundred tons, sir.”
“Have you offloaded a part cargo already?”
“No, sir.”
Christopher stared at the Indian mate, wondering just what was going on. The ship was of no great size, yet he thought she was more than a three hundred tonner. Profits were not made from running ships half-empty. He whistled to his petty officer, in charge of the naval part of the crew.
“PO, rummage the holds. Cargo should be rice solely.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The ship was old, three island configuration, the bridge placed centrally and a raised forecastle and poop. She had two holds, one fore, the other aft of the bridge, normal for the sort of ship. The PO trotted forward, pulled the covers off the forward hold and led three men down, leaving two men with rifles to guard the deck. He was out within ten minutes.
“Stacked with one hundredweight jute sacks of rice, sir. All properly laid and looking right, sir. A count says about three hundred bags to each layer and about twenty layers deep, sir.”
That would make three hundred tons in itself.
“After hold should be empty in that case. Check it PO. Carefully. Wait a moment!”
He turned to Jimmy, ordered him to yell across to Skipper Murchison to close on the freighter and turn the Vickers and pompom on her, ready to open fire.
“Mr Mate!”
“Yes, captain, sir?”
“What am I about to find in the after hold?”
Christopher drew his heavy Colt revolver and pointed it at the mate’s belly.
“You take first shot, if anything goes wrong, mister.”
The mate called to his master, waved him across gabbling anxiously.
“Sir, my owner will speak. I will say his words to you.”
“Go ahead. First though, are there soldiers in the hold?”
“Soldiers? Sepoys? No, no! None of those. Not one, sir. How could there be?”
“Turkish soldiers?”
“No! Not them. We fight them, sir.”
Christopher nodded to the PO to examine the after hold, was asked to stop him.
“He will find rifles, sir, and bullets under a layer of bags of rice. Millions of them, the bullets, and two thousands of the rifles, the best, from the arsenals, though not known to the Indian Army, sir. Please do not disturb the cover, sir. The officials in Jeddah are idle men who will not look below the first bags, provided all looks right.”
“And where will these munitions go to?”
“Jeddah, where they land as crates of mutton in cans, from Australia, so it says on them. They will go inland, somewhere, to the Arabs who are in rebellion against the Ottomans. I swear that to be truth, sir.”
There were vague stories circulating in Alexandria of uprisings among the desert Arabs – the cause was supposed to relate to religious purity, the Ottomans in some way heretic according to the Arabs.
“Who has sent this cargo? Who is it consigned from?”
The master did not know; he was sure that the manifest he had was false. He had been paid in advance, in coin, by a sahib, a soldier, he thought, standing tall and straight. The mate was very convincing in his translation, offered the tale in the most ingenuous fashion.
“The owner was English, sir. Most definitely. I have sailed four times to England, to London thrice and to Southampton, and have listened to the way the sahibs speak there.”
“Have you now? What of you? Who are you? Show me your seaman’s card and papers.”
It occurred to Christopher that the mate was too English in his accent, too easily fluent, lacked the consistent pattern of speech of a foreigner, he was distinctly pale of skin as well; all that might be for being a half-caste, given an education by a white father.
The mate suddenly whispered.
“Steady on, old chap! Don’t make too much fuss – the captain knows but the crew don’t and I would prefer it to stay that way. Mason, Captain, Bengal Native Infantry. On detachment these last few years.”
He made a play of presenting a much-folded, greasy sheet of paper, giving his identity as a seaman.
Christopher took the sheet, glanced at it and handed it back.
“Very well. Carry on with the good work. You pass muster.”
He turned away, showing nothing.
“PO! Back to the boat. Everything is as it should be.”
The party showed puzzled but obedient, the naval ratings prodding the trawlermen to obey.
“My apologies for delaying you in your voyage, sir.”
Aboard Hans Heine and Christopher explained all to Murchison.
“You took a risk, letting him go, Adams.”