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

and secured it with a chain and padlock.

Paul made a pillow out his jacket and a few T-shirts, then lay on the bed staring up at the palm-frond roof. His mind was blank: being a prisoner, there was no need to think.

Sometime later, a woman in a kanga arrived with a plate of chicken and left it in the doorway without saying a word. Paul scoffed it down with his hands. It was delicious.

Once he’d eaten, the guard took away the plate. Paul lay back on the rudimentary bed, deciding that he needed to try to get some rest. Halfway through making the decision, he was fast asleep.

Paul woke with hands locked around his throat and was dragged from the bed by his neck, the back of his head smashed against the wall. Two thumbs squeezed his windpipe. It was the red pirate.

‘Fuck you, Mmarekani!’ he screamed.

‘Please, I told you, I’m not American, please, I’m Muafrika!’ he gasped. ‘Nelson Mandela, Bafana Bafana!’ Paul couldn’t breathe and was unable to prise the hands from his throat.

The red pirate released his grip slightly. Paul sucked in air, his throat burning, breath rasping. He could smell alcohol. The only light came from a paraffin lantern in the doorway. He could just make out his assailant’s venomous eyes.

‘Why the fuck you in my country, Mmarekani?’ spat the pirate. He released his hold so the prisoner could answer. Paul slid down the wall and slumped at the man’s feet, tears pouring down his cheeks.

‘Please, I ... I’m an African like you —’

A swinging rifle butt connected Paul’s temple with a terrific blow. Everything went black.

 

CHAPTER 26

 

Paul came to with a throbbing ache behind his eyes. He winced as he ran a hand over his temple and felt a crust of dried blood. How long had he been out? It was dark in the room and he crawled across the floor, feeling for the bed. Every movement sent a painful pulse to his head. When his hand found a bed-leg, he levered himself on to the grass mattress and lay drifting in and out of consciousness, his mind returning to the ugly face of his assailant, the stink of his breath.

A cock began to crow, followed by another. Then came the adhan from a nearby mosque. No Tannoy, simply an unamplified voice in the still morning air. The muezzin must have been close, just a few houses away, perhaps standing on a roof, for Paul had seen no minaret.

A bowl of breakfast fruit and sweet tea was placed on the floor through a half-open door. Paul ate mechanically, hoping it would help his headache. Then he stood staring out of the tiny window. All he could see was the back of another house and a window into a bedroom. There was no one inside.

For the rest of the day, he sat on his bed. Termites were building a nest using red soil and fashioning long tunnels across the wall. Paul watched their industry for hours. As his watch had been stolen by the pirates, he tracked the passing of time by the progress of a patch of sunlight across the floor. Darkness came swiftly at the end of the day and he had no light or candle. Supper comprised spaghetti with a few vegetables and hard, sweet biscuits. The pirates had not taken away his notebook, but it was too dark to write. Besides, he found he had nothing to say.

Early the following morning, Paul’s guard with the bandolier kicked open the door.

‘You, come.’ So the man did have some English after all. The guard’s keffiyeh was partly unwrapped, revealing the handsome, craggy face of a man in his fifties. He led Paul a few paces down the street to a stone house that stood beside his hut. The guard knocked and a muffled voice called from within. Paul was guided into a darkened room by the muzzle of a rifle.

‘Please, a seat,’ said a voice.

It took a moment for Paul’s eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior. The room was bare, save for a large television set balancing atop an Arab chest in the corner. A man sat cross-legged on cushions, propped against the wall. Beside him was a tray with a samovar of sweet shah and a bowl of khat. There was a cushion in the middle of the room and Paul assumed this was where he should sit.

‘You are Paul.’ It sounded like a command. ‘I know everything about you.’

Paul was scared and disconcerted. There was something uncomfortably familiar about this imposing figure, something about the eyes and the strong jaw. Paul studied him carefully: a tall man, probably in his early forties, with a gaunt face and a beard dyed with orange henna. There was a scar across his forehead, almost like a deeply etched worry line. He offered a smile that revealed a set of large, white teeth.

‘Are you —’

‘Yes, yes, I am leader of this group. My name is Mohamed.’ The man took a bushel of khat, selected a few of the softer shoots, placed them ostentatiously on his tongue and began to chew. ‘We are the badaadinta dabah, saviours of the sea. We are Somalia’s volunteer coastguard.’ He stroked his beard.

Paul felt anything but saved.

‘Your crew tell me we will get no ransom for you, that you are worthless. Worthless. We must simply let you go. What a crazy idea!’ His voice was amiable, but his eyes were cold.

‘Please, Mr Mohamed, I’m from Joburg. I write scripts for documentary films. My parents are not wealthy. They are old, retired. There’s no money anywhere in my family, I promise you.’

‘Silence! Do not promise me anything!’ he shouted and got up to stand over Paul. He grabbed him by the hair.

‘What’s this?’ He stuck his thumb roughly into the wound on