Whoever Fears the Sea, Justin Fox [i love reading .TXT] 📗

the next he was soaring high above the waves. Eventually, his business done, he emerged from the box feeling queasy.

‘Next time you can drop me on a beach,’ he muttered to Husni, who wore a wide grin but passed no comment.

Young Rafiki shouted something from the bows and pointed to a grey shape on the eastern horizon.

‘American destroyer,’ said Husni. ‘Hunting Osama. They are probably looking at us right now; maybe took pictures of you on the toilet.’

‘More gunboat diplomacy,’ said Paul. ‘Do you think Al-Qaeda is here?’

‘Yes, probably. We have heard there are training bases. The refugee camps in Kenya are terrible places that breed trouble. There are thousands of Somalis in them. These things make me worry. It touches all of us.’

The afternoon wore on. Husni was steering; Paul sat next to him. The crew lay sprawled on the deck amidships, whipping and splicing rope or simply dozing. Husni told Paul how he went about selecting his men. He chose those whom he’d sailed with before, men from his own village or whose families he knew. Foredeck hands like Rafiki and Latif were usually happy-go-lucky youngsters, while those on the quarterdeck, like Nuru, took the sailing more seriously. Perhaps one day he too might skipper a big, coasting dhow. He, too, might acquire the skills of usukuni. More than mere helmsmanship, this was an art that involved reading wind and tide, steering with the least amount of helm, trimming the sails perfectly and having an understanding of coastal navigation that was elevated to a form of instinct. Few dhows carried charts, compasses or even binoculars. Bringing a vessel safely home was a matter of knowing the currents, the weather, every feature of the shoreline and which stars to steer by.

‘My younger brother was the best skipper in Kizingitini,’ said Husni. ‘He’s a natural. You’ll meet him in Galoh.’

‘You said you hadn’t seen him in years?’

‘Mohamed is a wanderer. He was always the bright one. Good at school. He was going to do great things, but he never kept his focus. After high school he went to university in Nairobi, but only lasted a year. He became very religious for a while, ended up at an Islamic college in Sudan. We did not have news from him for a long time. When he moved to Galoh, we heard he’d found a woman, settled down. He is the skipper of a fishing dhow. My mother wants to know everything. She says I must instruct him to come home for Eid. It is her wish. If he has a wife, she must come too.’

‘Are you looking forward to seeing him?’

He shrugged. ‘You never know what you will find.’

Towards sunset, Jamal edged closer to the coast. Husni frequently called for a change of course, seeing sandbanks where Paul saw only monochromatic blue. They found a gap in the barrier reef and turned inshore. Nuru steered them into a cove in the lee of a big atoll covered in scrubby foliage with palms and baobab trees on its eastern shore. Long-limbed Latif climbed on to the foredeck and tipped the anchor over the side. There was a splash and Paul watched the hook sink to the bottom through water mottled with coral outcrops. Jamal came to a gentle stop and turned to face her anchor rope. Paul scanned the shore: there was no sign of life. The mainland lay a few hundred metres to the west, equally wild and deserted. The island’s small, moon-shaped bay almost completely encircled the dhow, creating an ideal anchorage.

Donning a mask and snorkel, Paul jumped into the warm water and swam towards the shore. He spotted a few Moorish idols, a shoal of chocolate dips and one busy parrotfish. Reaching the atoll, he climbed out on to a powdery white beach. His were the only footprints. He scrambled up a coral outcrop on the northern headland to watch a scarlet sun dip behind the mainland dunes. Paul could see the bowed figures of the crew at evening prayers on Jamal. They’d rolled out their mats on the quarterdeck and were all facing north, to Mecca, kneeling and prostrating themselves. The sound of their voices reached him faintly across the water.

Walking back along the beach, he came upon a bone washed up on the high-tide line. It was bleached and brittle, the femur of some animal. Could it be human? He kicked it with his foot. Probably baboon.

Back on board, Paul helped Taki and Latif drag the yellow tarpaulin over the lowered yard as rain clouds were threatening again. With its ends tethered to the gunnel, the tarpaulin created a makeshift tent amidships. Nuru’s radio played Somali pop music, Rafiki set to grating more coconuts and the doc busied himself cooking a shark they’d caught off Kiwayu while Paul had been ashore. Taki was telling another string of unfunny jokes and Latif’s deep laugh burbled across the deck. Husni and Paul sat in the bows watching the first stars dance in the water.

‘There aren’t any more dhows from Arabia, are there?’ asked Paul.

‘Just a few from Yemen to fish or sell dried shark. They arrive with the Kaskazi. It takes them about a week to sail down to Mombasa and they normally motor back up.’

‘It’s progress, I suppose. Container ships, tankers, airliners.’

Paul thought how the Swahili were, once again in their turbulent history, being subjected to dramatic change. They’d been on the back foot for centuries, it seemed. And yet the culture still thrived in pockets, even on the Somali coast. It was evident in the makuti-and-coral architecture, in the language and poetry, cuisine and dress. And of course there were still the dhows, the most beautiful of all African boats. Paul pictured Jamal surfing down a long ocean swell, her white lateen etched against the sky. Yes, a civilisation born on the monsoon, and one that learnt to prosper