Road to Recovery

Chapter 29

  On returning to the sanity of El Campo I concentrated more and more on my flying lessons, and after twenty-two hours dual I went solo. My first trip by myself was no problem, I was so busy that I didn’t have time to notice the empty seat beside me, but on my second one I did, and I nearly had to change my trousers after the flight.

  My first ‘passenger’ turned out to be Clyde (Bonnie didn’t like the noise one little bit and so always gave aircraft a wide berth), it was to be my sixth solo flight and I was starting to feel really confident (cocky) so when I climbed into the Cessna and found Clyde curled up on the co-pilots seat I started the engine and expected him to scarper. When he gave no indication that he wanted to vacate the aircraft, I decided to let him come along for the ride, and although I wasn’t allowed to take up human passengers yet, I didn’t think canine ones counted, so I gave Chalky a quick call on the radio and he got someone to go and retrieved one of the dog harnesses from the back of my very own 4x4, and somehow we managed to clip Clyde safely in. From then on he became my confidant in the air; he let me talk through all sorts of problems with him, and never once telling Teddy. With almost sixty hours in the air (and an awful lot more in the hangar and classroom) I paid a ‘flying’ visit to the UK, and came back clutching my Private Pilot’s Licence, although unfortunately I wasn’t finished with either the classroom or Teddy just yet, my aim was to eventually fly my own Gulfstream G450, it would take time, but one thing that I certainly had a lot of now was time!

  Paul left my employ when the Marina was completed, as I had sorted out the Trust Fund details by then. Indirectly he became a very wealthy man; he had the use of several hundred million Euros, give or take, although he couldn’t spend a cent of it. What he had to do was invest it (with the help of a lot of very wise people) and use the profits that were generated to aid ‘green projects’. My Carbon footprint quickly disappeared as I became the proud owner of new forests in Kenya, Guatemala and El Salvador, and untold new trees in the UK. There was even talk of naming a wind turbine farm after me in Scotland. At least the eco-warriors won’t be after my blood now, and Eddie, now a happily divorced man would continue supervising Phase IV, although it will now be in his new capacity as Estate Manager, with a seat at the ‘A’ team table.

  By the middle of December I was able to fly Maria, David and most of my senior staff to Germany in my brand new twin engine Beechcraft King Air 350. Apparently I had to get to the Gulfstream in stages and this twin turbo prop aircraft was stage three, thankfully there will only be one more stage to go as the G450 was already on order, although Teddy was sat in the seat beside me as I still hadn’t quite got all the requisite licences yet to haul passengers around in it, but I was getting there, I can now see what George had seen in this flying malarkey, it is certainly exhilarating, but why were we all going to Germany in the freezing cold? We were all going for a boat trip.

  The Lady S was off to sea for the first time although a lot of her luxury bits and bobs were still to be fitted, but the dockyard reckoned that she wouldn’t sink if they took her out into deep water. It was going to be more of a ‘jolly’ for us, as the dockyard personnel would be putting her through her paces, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world; and Carol would just have to sit on her hands. All of Lady S’s systems that could be, had been thoroughly tested while she was tied up alongside the jetty, but there were certain things that just cannot be simulated alongside; she needed to be put through her paces in the wide open spaces of the North Sea. The dockyard matey’s had prepared her well, so as soon as we were all on board the Lady S edged her bow away from the jetty, and then it was ‘slow ahead both’: and she worked beautifully. That first trip out was purely to make sure that all the systems were operating correctly; the stabilisers and the horn were my favourites. My ‘special’ horn was an ‘optional extra’; I just had to have one fitted. As a child I had loved that bit in the movie ‘The Guns of Navarone’ where the Destroyers had come charging in at the last moment with their horns a whoop, whoop, whooping; the stuff that childhood dreams are made of, but unfortunately the Lady S had gas turbine engines, not steam boilers, but somehow the wiz kids had created a very passable imitation of the real thing, complete with ‘steam’, and I quickly found out why they couldn’t test it whilst alongside - it was absolutely deafening. Contractors working parties were also on board for the first trip, busily checking over and calibrating their particular bits of equipment, but as virtually all the technology and systems in the Lady S were of a proven design, most of gear worked ‘as advertised’ first time, but as winter had well and truly set in in the North Sea, my personal favourite place on that first trip turned out to be the observation lounge, especially when the stabilisers were switched off; and you’ve guessed it the windscreen wipers worked perfectly as well. I would just have to save the flag pole for better weather.

  All the sea trials proceeded exceptionally well and so very soon some of my own crew were partaking in the trips - then eventually the big day arrived, Caroline took her out for the first time with only my own crew on board, not a dockyard matey in sight. I let her have that special day to herself; she had well and truly earned it, and I was also sure that she didn’t want the extra bother of having me getting under her feet, then just before Easter I handed over the cheque to Herr Flik (and new cars to Donald and Marta), and the keys were all mine. Of course it wasn’t quite as simple as that; they had to have a grand ceremony first, and there was quite a sizable crowd on the jetty to wave us off, some of them even having a tear in their eye, but they needn’t have worried, I’m sure that in the paperwork somewhere it said that the guarantee was only valid if I took her back for her ten thousand nautical mile service, and as spring slowly sprung Carol took the Lady S out at every possible opportunity, working up the crew and ironing out any niggly little problems, although they usually turned out to be ‘finger trouble’ on the part of the crew. The Lady S was jammed packed full of High-Tec gadgetry so as a temporary measure Carol hired a computer geek to go through all the systems and train the crew up as necessary. He turned out to have a natural flair for turning computer ‘gobbledy gook’ into understandable language, and he also got on extremely well with Carol, which was very fortunate as his name was Scott Carter – her son, he was now a freelance I.T. specialist, but there was nothing free about his fee. As often as I could I would go along for a jolly, to exercise my sea legs and finally to get myself acquainted with my collapsible flag pole (helicopters don’t seem to like having to fly around it when they are trying to land), although sometimes I would deliberately be left behind, ‘plausible deniability’ David called it. Although I didn’t know it, that empty space in the stern was no longer empty; the Lady S now had a sting in her tail, and when Carol was finally satisfied with my new toy and its crew, I decided that what was needed was a ‘shake down’ cruise, to see if she was really worth all those Euro’s, so our first voyage of discovery would be to Dubai; I had enjoyed my few days there, but I wanted to see more than just a boat show and my hotel room. Then we would be a quick trip back home, the pretty way - via Cape Town. Carol estimated that the whole trip should take about six weeks, but that would depend on how much rubber-necking there was to do on the way, and almost all of mine and Sheila’s families wanted to go on the first test drive so from the start the trip had all the makings of a repeat performance of that dreadful Christmas: but none of them had yet met my secret weapon - Lady Hyacinth. She was going to be the referee, and from day one it seemed to work.

  I left El Campo in the capable hands of Eddie and Mrs Blake, but took her husband (Nigel), along with Marcel, Bob the Bosun and a fair amount of ‘volunteers’ off for my first adventure, although some willing ‘volunteers’ had to remain behind to do the boring bits like looking after El Campo, although a change-over was planned in Cape Town to give everyone a fair crack of the whip.

  First off we scooted up the Mediterranean to Malta. Two nights in Valletta Grand Harbour and then we headed for the
Suez Canal, now that was serious sightseeing. Carol timed our arrival to perfection, breakfast slipping past Port Said and lunch passing Suez. Neither of us had ever ‘done’ the Suez Canal before but fortunately the pilot had, mega times, so we didn’t get lost, and once we were in the Gulf of Suez it was time for some serious sun worshipping and swimming, you really couldn’t tell that a five inch ‘quick fire’ gun was supposed to have gone into the hole; it looked just like a regular swimming pool to me. The next morning we woke up in the Red Sea, metaphorically speaking, this was the life, and everyone was settling down to enjoy the trip, even Lady Hyacinth was happy with my staff, praise indeed, and all went well until we entered the Gulf of Aden. The next morning I awoke to find some made-to-measure canvas bags covering some very strange looking objects on the Bridge wings, and at various other locations around my beautiful ship, and there was an even larger bag covering something forward of the pool: Bob the Bosun had obviously been very busy before we had left El Campo. Apparently during the night a ‘pirate warning’ had gone out, not Blackbeard with his cutlass and Jolly Roger, but Somali pirates armed with AK47’s and RPG’s. They were using high speed launches to come alongside ships, board them, and then either empty the ships safe or hold the vessel and its crew for ransom. Things had been quiet for the past few months but now it would seem that they were back with a vengeance, but fortunately Carol and David had been training the crew for such an eventuality, on their ‘plausible deniability’ trips. So much for ‘plausible deniability’, that hadn’t lasted very long, and now the cat was well and truly out of the bag, or rather their new canvas bags, if you can call Browning .50 calibre M2 heavy machine guns cats. Fortunately most of the ‘volunteer’ sailors were David’s Security Officers, and overnight they had switched from being very smart sailors, back into a well-trained militia force. They were not only all now dressed in their patrol blacks, but they also had on Kevlar helmets and flak jackets, with a Steyr AUG assault rifle slung over their shoulder (they certainly don’t wear them at El Campo!!!), and the two Sergeants that were on board, masquerading as sailors, now that the guns were out, were back to being Sergeants, but where had all this hardware come from? - Plausible deniability. If I had ever been asked if there were any guns on board I wouldn’t have been knowingly lying when I said no. Methinks that Carol and David had not been telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, thank goodness!!!

  The guests all thought this was great fun, something a bit O.T.T. that had been laid on especially for their entertainment, and I let the rather naïve ones among them continue to think that, but that all changed at 14:32 local: -

  ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is ‘Fair-weather Sailor’ calling. We are being harassed by pirates and fear that we are about to be boarded. We are in the company of three other yachts and our position is…………….’.

  A group of yachts had assumed that there was safety in numbers and against all advice had decided to sail out of the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden - to take some photographs of Somalia (?). What plonkers!

  The task force Commander of ‘Combined Task Force 150’ answered the mayday, but unfortunately his nearest warship was three hours away, and even worse its helicopter was unserviceable. CTF 150 is a multinational task force that was formed to escort high value ships safely through the area, as well as carrying out anti-piracy operations, but unfortunately for the ‘Fair-weather Sailor’ the force was spread very thin. The skipper of the yacht was not happy, they were keeping the pirates at bay with their flares, fire extinguishers and beer bottles, but they were running out of beer very quickly, so Carol, David and I went into my sea cabin and it took us less than a minute to come to a decision, if four yachts could hold the pirate vessel at bay, then it should be no problem for us, and Carol was hotfoot onto the radio:-

  ‘Task force leader this is ‘M.Y. Lady S’, we are in a position to offer assistance to the ‘Fair-weather Sailor’ and will be with them in less than two zero minutes – over’.

  ‘Motor Yacht Lady S, this is task force leader, do not, I repeat do not attempt a rescue, the pirates are armed and dangerous - over’.

  ‘Task force leader, so are we – out’.

  Carol can be very forceful when she wants to be, so the pedal was firmly pushed to the metal and we took off like a racing greyhound. Metal screens were lowered over the accommodation windows, all passengers were herded below into the crew area (out of harms [and our] way) and Charlie was sent off up into the bow, with a headset on under his helmet. I thought I looked rather fetching in my matching blue Kevlar helmet and flak jacket – Rambo eat your heart out.

  We were about three minutes away from the yachts when the skipper of the ‘Fair-weather Sailor’ screamed over the radio that there was a large dhow bearing down on them ‘loaded to the gunwales with gun toting pirates’, at least he knew his nautical terminology, although using our radar it had become obvious to us that the high speed launch was not a novice; he was just the sheep dog, herding the yachts into a bay so that the Shepherd could then come in for the coup de grâce. We had already seen the dhow approaching them on our radar and were making ‘appropriate’ preparations to deal with it, even as he was screaming into his microphone. We were approaching the confrontation from behind a spur of land which jutted out into sea; it perfectly masked our approach from all and sundry.

  ‘Charlie, prepare to engage’ David said quietly into his microphone.

  ‘Roger’ came the reply (funny, I thought David’s middle name was Brian) and out of the large canvas bag came a Swedish BILL2 anti-tank guided weapon (Doesn’t everyone have one of these handy, just in case of a situation like this?), and as we cleared the headland there was the dhow two thousand metres ahead of us - perfect!

  ‘Ready’ came Charlie’s calm voice over the loudspeaker.

  I gave David the nod and he quietly said ‘engage’.

  A trail of smoke streaked off into the distance, but as it closed on the vessel the missile looked as though it was going too high, wrong, it was performing perfectly. It was designed to deliberately overfly its intended target and then detonate its warheads above it, striking downwards at a tank’s thinnest armour, on its top; or in this case an un-armoured dhow, that only had stacked sand bags along the edges of its decks for protection. These conveniently helped to channel the missiles explosives downwards, and then the dhow was no more, and as the Lady S continued charging in, tracer rounds from several heavy machine guns converged on the luckless launch, ripping it to shreds as well, and then unthinkingly I reached above my head and grabbed the cord of my ‘optional extra’ and yanked hard on it. Whoop, Whoop, Whoop - and it was all captured in glorious colour, although I didn’t realise it at the time.

  As we slowed and started to circle the yachts the crews were ‘very happy’ to see us, and after Carol confirmed with them that no one was injured she was on the radio again:-

  ‘Task force leader this is Warship Lady S, mission accomplished, no casualties on our side, do we qualify for a CTF 150 sticker now?’

  Quickly we rounded up the miscreant chicks and set off to meet up with the Pakistani Frigate, the one with the poorly budgie, in an arrowhead formation, with the Lady S slowly bringing up the rear, and as we slowly wend our way along the coast, twice piratical gentlemen (thieving gits) of the local area tried to borrow one of them. The first one came to the conclusion very quickly that it was better to be a live coward rather than a dead hero, and the second one erupted in a cloud of smoke and flames – budgie was better. With the Pakistani helicopter circling over our heads we finally met up with its mother ship and she reluctantly took over the task of seeing the yachts back into the safety of the Red Sea, but as we were about to depart, the skipper of the ‘Fair-weather Sailor’, who had been very quiet up until now, asked us if we could spare a few bottles of beer, they had run out. Carol quickly went over to the signal flag locker and selected two flags, and one of the crew, grinning from ear to ear, then clipped them o
n to a signal halyard and hauled them aloft, the flags? Foxtrot and Oscar of course, Carol was much too much of a lady to say it out loud.

  The next day, around lunch time, I had my first flying visit of the trip, in the shape of a very large Royal Navy helicopter. Several of Carol’s many work-up exercises for the crew had involved embarking helicopters when underway so the flight deck crew, under Chalky (I knew that I had agreed to let him come along for some obscure reason) performed to perfection, and the Merlin gently set down slap bang on its spot, and after Chalky’s crew had gone in and chocked and lashed the Merlin firmly to the deck the Commodore in charge of CTF 150 exited. It was the turn of the Royal Navy to be Task Force Leader so Commodore ‘Hank’ Williams RN had the mantle at the moment. Carol met him and his little band on the flight deck and escorted them through the rear of the hangar and into my world. He was open mouthed at the scrumptiousness of it all; he was definitely in the wrong Navy. After introductions all round and a quick ‘snifter’ (I was getting the hang of this ‘yard arm’ time) he had the quick Cook’s tour of Lady S, ending up on the bridge. He gave a little speech to the assembled throng, complimenting everyone on their selfless act and then presented me with a plaque. It had the CTF 150 crest mounted on it with a shiny brass plate below it, and etched into it was ‘Lady S ~ for conspicuous bravery ~ Somalia’, and yesterday’s date. The ‘Buffer’ on his ship had obviously been very busy throughout the night. He shook hands and presented each of the leading participants of the altercation with an embroidered CTF 150 patch (and left a large box of goodies for everyone else) then made his excuses and left, but not before first passing on his Senior Pilot’s compliments about the professionalism of my flight deck crew, perhaps I should have the Lady S re-painted grey!!!

  As we continued on with our interrupted journey the crew started to become very busy. Earlier, when I had said that all our relatives had wanted to come on Lady S’s test drive, I wasn’t entirely accurate. What they really wanted was to be in on its first ‘Cockers P’, my first full blown cocktail party - in Dubai. When I had approached Lady Hyacinth about coming on part, or even the entire shakedown cruise she had readily agreed, and was turning into the consummate ‘Lady of the house’, without any of the complications, but a week after speaking to her I received a call from Clarence house. Funny, I didn’t know any Clarence’s, or their houses - and then the penny dropped. It was the ‘very senior Royals’ P.P.S., I could almost feel his ‘grey suite’ down the telephone. He would just like to make me aware of the fact that ‘if’ I happened to be holding a soirée on the evening of the twenty-third (when the Lady S would just happen be alongside in Dubai); HRH would look favourably on any invitation that might just be in the post, as he was in Dubai promoting British business that week; and that helped polarised things no end, but as the crew busily slaved away Scott came looking for me, and he found me ‘chilling’ in my sea cabin.

  ‘Have you been watching Sky News?’ he blurted out.

  ‘Nope, only a chat show on the Beeb’.

  ‘Well I think you should change the habit of a lifetime and give it a whirl’.

  So exerting an enormous amount of energy I pointed the remote at the plasma TV that was tucked away in the corner (it was a very large corner), pressed the correct button and - JESUS H CHRIST!!!! There was the Lady S whooping her way into the bay, shooting up all and sundry. The banner headline at the bottom of the screen screamed ‘Breaking news - British Billionaire takes on Somali pirates single handed’. I hate inaccuracies in the media, I’m sure that I had someone else on board with me at the time, and for the next few hours Carol, David, Charlie and I watched the story unfold. I couldn’t quite work out if I was a latter day hero or a billionaire buccaneer, and I don’t think that they had worked that bit out yet either, but the holder of what must have been a very expensive camcorder was certainly in line for an award. First off there were close-ups of the two pirate vessels, then, following a shout from behind him, the cameraman smoothly panned round and got the Lady S quickly into focus, just as Charlie squeezed the trigger. He then tracked the missile to its destination (some of that footage was deliberately obscured), and then swung quickly back to the Lady S; just in time for the fireworks display from the heavy machine guns. Another smooth pan round - disintegrating speed boat (more obscuration)(is that a word?) then back to the Lady S, and there she was, in absolutely perfect filming weather, charging majestically into the bay, horn a whoop, whoop whooping away (I liked that bit), J Lee Thompson (Director of the Guns of Navarone) eat your heart out. The final shot (in the shortened version) was me, still resplendent in my Kevlar helmet and flak jacket magnanimously waving down at them, oops!

  After the incident, as we were still escorting the yachts back to safety I’d had the sense to get on the satellite phone to Vicente, who then got on his mobile phone (he was shopping in Carrefour) to experts in International and Maritime law, and a little while later he got back to me saying that the consensus of opinion of the experts was that there should be no problem with what I had just done (the buck stops here), Lady S was clearly in Sovereign, not International waters and so it would be up to the Somali Government to take any action against me if they felt that I had something to answer for - and at the moment they couldn’t even agree on what day of the week it was.

  From then on our radio was going nonstop; every journalist on the planet wanted an interview or quote, and as the story on the TV grew legs, anyone remotely connected to me, my crew, my friends, or my ship was interviewed. I thought that Herr Flik’s ‘tea’ (or had she now reverted back to ‘coffee’) lady gave an exceptionally good one; she gave a particularly glowing description of Carol.

  As the ruler of Dubai’s personal pilot edged Lady S alongside his personal jetty I already knew the reason why our docking arrangements had been changed, ever since coming within flying distance of civilisation we’d had aircraft circling above us, and the closer we got to land the more boats came out to greet us as well (usually packed to the ‘gunwales’ with reporters and photographers). Security would have been a nightmare on a public jetty so we had been moved to the Sheikh’s well protected private one. I had offered to skip Dubai altogether if I was going to be the cause of too much bother, but they wouldn’t hear of it, I was their new hero, and on the jetty to greet me, apart from half the Princes and Sheikh’s in the known World, and what seemed to me like the remainder of my staff from El Campo (they obviously had no intentions of missing out on any of the fun) was, tucked right at the very back in the shadows, the consultant I was searching for, Vicente thought I might need him - his speciality, the media, and he was the first to come on board, and was quickly frog marched into my cabin.

  ‘Call me Max’ had been very busy over the past twenty-four hours, and once the introductions were over he took charge, media wise, and within a few hours the media scrum was ‘chaotic’, which was a vast improvement over ‘absolute mayhem’, and by the next morning (cockers P day) sanity had finally returned, but it was at a price. Sky news, who had broken the story (god bless their little cotton socks) would have ‘exclusivity’ (that’s a nice word – I also like Ayuntamiento, that’s another nice word, I really am a sad little Muppet), but it would cost me my virginity! (He considered me a media ‘virgin’), but he reckoned that it would be well worth it, and so an hour later Kay and her film crew were shepherded on board and ‘Max the Media’ went to work. He had already selected where the interview would take place (on the flying bridge), what the questions were going to be, along with what my answers would be, so why had Sky agreed to this? - Because he had offered them a ‘fly on the wall exclusive’ later on. When the Lady S had done the Cape Town bit, and gone up the left hand side of Africa they would be allowed to embark a film crew at Gibraltar. They could then remain on board, filming away to their hearts content until we finally arrived back at El Campo, with several ‘fairly’ uncensored interviews with Carol and I, guaranteed, although Max would still retain some editorial control.
Sky must have thought that it was worth it because they grabbed at it with both hands, and threw in a cheque book for good measure, they agreed to make a hefty donation ‘to a charity of my choice’; I was starting to like them, not a lot - but a little, and the interview went surprisingly well. Kay first warmed me up with some easy background questions without the cameras rolling (Max only had to jump down her throat once), and then ‘hey presto’, that evening, just before the cockers P got under way I watched myself giving my first television interview, but I wonder how that flak jacket had gotten itself into the background?

  The cocktail party was jammed packed with Royalty and ‘A’ list’ers, and it was a roaring success, which was a bit of a surprise to me as I had only invited a handful of guests. Apparently in Dubai invitations are for lesser beings, and HRH didn’t even wait until we got to the flight deck; he had a go at me as soon as he stepped off the gangway.

  ‘Where is my invitation?’ young ‘Billy’ had visited El Campo a few weeks earlier with his girlfriend and they had apparently thoroughly enjoyed themselves. My ‘rule number one’ had been ‘I don’t do the subservient serf bit away from the cameras’, and apparently it had gone down very well.

  After meeting and greeting Carol, Lady Hyacinth, David (‘hello David, how was your hangover?’) and the rest of my ‘A’ team and the family, he then went on to congratulate me on my recent escapade, ‘I suppose you will be expecting a banquet at the Guildhall next’. We then had a lazy stroll around Lady S, and as we walked through the various rooms he kept on favourably comparing them with the late Royal Yacht Britannia. I was half expecting him to ask if he could borrow her the next time he went off on a State visit. He did, but he was only joking – I think!

  After the last of my guests had departed I gathered everyone in the hangar for a well-deserved drink, especially the ‘guides’ who had all evening been patiently shown my visitors every nook and cranny of the ship. One guide had even overheard a very Princely Prince wondering if perhaps there was a Ticonderoga (a class of U.S. Navy Cruiser) hull going spare, to them size is extremely important, and just as I was finishing off a well-deserved Bacardi and coke - with a bacon butty chaser (Marcel was staring to get a very ‘well rounded’ repertoire), we heard a cacophony of sirens coming up the jetty, oops, had the Islamic fundamentalists got x-ray vision and seen through the hangar walls? No it was just two of the bosses Rolls Royce pick-up trucks doing deliveries. In the back of the first one was a BILL2 anti-tank missile, to replace the one that Charlie had used. They must have found a spare one just laying around, and in the back of the other, surrounded by Sikh bodyguards resplendent in their rich uniforms, Turbans, flowing beards, rather nasty looking swords, and sub machine guns (that sort of spoiled the effect), was a rather large box. What was in the box? An equally large centre piece to go on my lounge table, apparently Sheila’s favourite Lladro piece was not ostentatious enough for a man of my stature. If ever I got brassic enough to have to start flogging things off, I don’t know which would have the higher price tag, Lady S or that centre piece. The next morning, at the crack of mid-day I was awoken by a rather large yacht coming alongside, was the jetty getting that crowded? Nope, it turned out to be the Royal re-fuelling barge. They quickly topped the Lady S up with four Star, and then were off, just like that - and not a green shield stamp in sight: mind you I suppose you have to pay for your fuel to qualify for them, another sign of their appreciation. I really was enjoying my stay in Dubai.

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