Road to Recovery

Chapter 30

  I left most of my family and visitors behind in Dubai, in almost all cases it was for them to join in the media frenzy, and so I decided to take a quiet potter down the coast to Mombasa in Kenya, for some seriously big game hunting, with a camera! For stage two of my trip around Africa I had Alice, she was doing the whole (guilt)trip with me, the ‘Colonel’, his wife, Lady H and her husband - who was the absolute opposite of his wife, very down to earth, and once we were safely out of sight of land I went looking for David, and grabbing him by the scruff of the neck I dragged him kicking and screaming to the stern of the boat, then I woke up and asked him to show me my ‘plausible deniability’, it really was a bit late for that little secret. In the Senior Rates quarters there was a very large watertight hatch in the deck, with a very small padlock on it. As padlocks go it was a very nice little padlock, but with a half decent pair of bolt croppers most five year olds would be among the machine guns in no time at all. He unlocked it, lifted up the counter-balanced hatch and lo and behold there it was - a ladder. Bravely I descended into the unknown, and ended up in the middle of an empty room, one that I had visited several times during Lady S’s construction. Perhaps David had thrown all the incriminating evidence overboard! Then I spied two watertight doors at the rear of the open space, ‘ah ha! Eureka!’ I shouted as I flung open the first door, and found another empty room, oops better luck next time. Walking across to the other door, which Charlie and the Colonel had kindly opened for me I peered inside (no eureka this time, I had learned my lesson) and there it was again, another empty room.

  ‘Alright’ I said, ‘what have you done with them?’

  ‘Nothing, they are still there!’ said a smiling David.

  Unless they all had an ‘invisibility mode’ switch on them all was not as it would seem. I played their little game and checked over both rooms very carefully, noting the slope of the Lady S’s stern at the far end, and I even counted the rows of tiles across the floor of each room. I then added them together and counted how many tiles were across the larger space, there were exactly the same number, so no hidden compartment between them. When I finally gave up David went over to one of the Formica panels that covered the steel bulkhead (wall), which also just happened to be midway between the two doors, and taking a small remote controller out of his pocket, the same type that would open a garage door, aimed it at the panel and pressed the button. The panel moved backwards slightly and then slide away to one side. In front of me was a very stout looking armoured door, with a fingerprint/ key pad to one side. David placed his thumb on the pad, tapped in a few numbers, and the heavy door swung silently open. I walked down a narrow-ish corridor, about the same length as the two smaller rooms and almost bumped into the stern of the Lady S, almost - but not quite. Not before I stepped through a fairly large and well stocked toy cupboard. Strapped to the bulkheads were toys of every description, there were pistols, assault rifles, pump action shotguns, even a snipers rifle, the same type that David had used in the Army. There were heavy machine guns, light machine guns, RPG’s, and a pile of boxes strapped to the floor, some had BILL2 stencilled on the outside, others had FIM-92F stencilled on them, the latest version of the American ‘Stinger’ ground to air missile. The Lady S really did have a sting(er) in her tail. Along the real stern of the Lady S was a work bench with every conceivable tool clipped above it, and a row of ‘patrol blacks’ on hooks, and below them were each individual officer’s personal equipment, even down to their boots and socks. As each of the hooks had a number stencilled above it, it obviously meant that every sea going Security Officer of mine had a number not a name; again plausible deniability for them. I asked David how the floor tile count had worked out to be the same.

  ‘The same type and colour of tiles as the larger room, just slightly smaller sizes’ he chuckled.

  Another optical illusion, I had obviously not been kept ‘fully in the loop’ at every stage of Lady S’s construction – thank goodness, but from now on if any inquisitive customs official asked me if the Lady S had any weapons on board I would have to give them my version of the answer that Royal Navy Captains give when asked if their ship was carrying nuclear weapons, ‘I can neither confirm nor deny that I have any weapons on board’. If they want my money then they will just have to do a ‘Nelson’.

  As we passed down the coast of Somalia I half expected a flotilla of gunboats to come charging out seeking revenge, but there was nothing, not a single one venturing forth, mind you that may have had something to do with the American Cruiser that was tagging along with us for the next four days. The US Navy Captain took the opportunity to let his helicopters have a spot of deck landing practice on my flight deck, so twice a day a couple of his aircraft would drop a few sailors off (they were actually crammed full to the gunwales, if helicopters have gunwales) so that they could have a spot of R&R. They could laze around the pool, wander around the Lady S, perhaps watch a movie or play the latest video games, have a free lunch (or dinner, depending if they were the morning or afternoon shift) and a FEW beers – which was a treat as American warships are ‘dry’, and then they went back to reality. On the last evening, just before we ran into Mombasa, I laid on a formal dinner for the Captain and most of his Officers, and of course Marcel performed spectacularly, I had to show our American cousins that we could dish up more than just hamburgers and fries! During those four days I had around four hundred visitors on board the Lady S and not one piece of silverware went missing, and neither was one single sailor more than ‘slightly merry’ on return to his/her ship - although my new table centrepiece was firmly locked away in the safe, just in case.

  The Lady S spent ten days alongside in Mombasa (giving my own crew some well-deserved R&R) whilst my much depleted band of visitors and I flew off for the camera safari, although I left Bonnie and Clyde behind on board; I didn’t want them to end up as some lion’s Yorkshire pudding!! We spent a week on a Land Rover safari, enjoying the sights and sounds (and sometimes the smells) of the wilds, then it was into Elsa’s Kopje safari lodge for a few days to get some feeling back into our rather numb nether regions. Once I was reunited with Bonnie and Clyde (and after being well and truly checked over for strange ‘sniffs’) we were off, but not very far, next stop Zanzibar, Alice wanted to swim with the Dolphins, and what an unforgettable experience that was. After that we were off on a longer trip, this time down to the Atlantic Ocean, after first squeezing between Madagascar and Mozambique, the gap was actually over two hundred nautical miles wide, but it looked awfully narrow on the map. Cape Town was definitely on our ‘must visit’ list, not only because it had a petrol pump large enough to fill up the Lady S (we had covered just over five thousand nautical miles since leaving Dubai) but also for the photo opportunities; photo of me at the top of Table Mountain, photo of me beside the Cape of Good Hope Lighthouse, photo of me with one foot in the Indian Ocean and the other in the Atlantic Ocean, and nearly one of me giving a two fingered salute to some reporters and photographers, don’t they ever give up.

  After the scheduled crew change (although somehow only about a quarter of them actually departed for Spain) most of my remaining guests also reluctantly departed, leaving just Alice and I to make our own weary way back up hill to meet up with Paul. We met him off the coast of the Republic of the Congo (not the larger Democratic Republic of the Congo) and were flown by light aircraft up to a Gorilla Reserve that I was funding. Yet more reporters were there, but fortunately these were of the friendly variety, what they wanted was to find out about my ‘green credentials’, which Paul was more than happy to fill them in on (I nearly said ‘bring them up to speed on’), as he knew far more about them than I did. He even had a glossy hand-out for each of them, explaining what ‘I’ was doing, very eco-friendly I’m sure. After that he joined us on the Lady S for a couple of days of sea time and then it was more P.R. work (is there no rest for the wicked?) in Ghana, and by the time we left there I was feeling very humbled indeed, what I needed was some ser
ious partying to snap me out of it.

  Alice’s ‘most favouritest (?) place in the whole wide world’ was apparently the Canary’s, not the birds, the Islands, and as it just happened to be on our way home she suggested that we give it a whirl, so we ‘whirled’, but unfortunately it was for only one night, and then we took off like the proverbial greyhound. It had nothing to do with the night life, or the fact that my friend from Marigot town on St Martin was in the first bar that we visited (and things then definitely started to warm up), it was the Atlantic; it was going to get very, very lumpy - very, very quickly. What was brewing was possibly going to turn out to be the worst storm that the Atlantic had seen in twenty-five years, and ships of all sizes were running for cover, so the next morning Carol had a quiet word in my shell like hangover and suggested that we beat a hasty retreat into the shelter of Gibraltar. That was to be our next port of call anyway as Alice needed some new undies from Marks and Sparks!

  As we slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar just ahead of the storm I was sat in my own personal ‘high chair’ on the bridge. Carol of course had one as well, but mine was slightly better, RHIP as David would say, and she was just giving a sigh of relief from hers when the radio burst into life.

  ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the container ship ‘Tonkun’. One of my containers has exploded causing debris to enter my engine room, and other containers to break loose. My Chief Engineer is seriously injured and I am taking on water. My rudder machinery is damaged and I am starting to list to port. My position is …..’.

  ‘Poor sods’ Carol muttered as the Tonkun’s plea was answered by Gibraltar military radio, ‘with that list it will take her out into the centre of the storm’, but there was nothing we could do, and an hour later we tied up behind RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) Fort Brockhurst, a large ‘one stop’ replenishment ship belonging to the Royal Navy. Alice went to her cabin to prepare for some serious retail therapy, so as I was at a loose end I strolled through the hangar and out on to the flight deck for a breath of fresh air, and casually glanced up at the Fort Brockhurst’s flight deck (we were stern to stern) – big mistake!!! Looking down at me was its Captain and two regular naval Officers - and they were in deep conversation. I rather foolishly waved up at them, and changed my life forever.

  Ten minutes later Captain ‘Tosh’ McGregor was sat in my lounge, along with Lt Commander ‘Spiv’ Leahy RN and Lt ‘Calvin’ Kline USN, an American ‘exchange’ pilot (why can’t they all use their given names like the rest of us). A lot had happened in the past hour, and it was very clear that there were no suitable ships in the area that could go to the Tonkun’s aid; it took more than just good intentions to affect a rescue of this magnitude in storm force seas. The Fort Brockhurst had limped into Gibraltar earlier that day, she had been returning to the UK after her stint with CTF 150 when one of her propeller shaft bearings had disintegrated, so she definitely couldn’t go to the Tonkun’s aid, BUT she still had her three serviceable Sea King helicopters in the hangar. ‘Question, would two of them fit into the Lady S’s?’

  ‘Why’, may you ask ‘were they asking me this question?’ Because the injured engineer on the Tonkun was Chief Engineer ‘Jock’ McGregor, Captain ‘Tosh’ McGregor’s brother, so Alice’s shopping trip was put on hold; in fact she was unceremoniously booted off the Lady S, along with Bonnie, Clyde, and every person that was not essential to the rescue mission. A jackstay was quickly slung between the two flight decks and pallets of ‘essentials’ were soon sliding down, to be whisked away by the special pallet handling trolleys that the Brockhurst provided, to be secured to the sides of the hangar, under the professional eye of ‘Chalky’. A long ‘rather large diameter’ hose suddenly floated from the Brockhurst along to the Lady S. It was quickly manhandled onto the weather deck and connected to a convenient coupling, and within minutes fuel was gushing into Lady S’s depleted tanks, then a second smaller bore hose quickly followed, and this topped up our aircraft fuel tanks with AVCAT (Aviation ‘Carrier’ turbine fuel, which is used by gas turbine (jet) engined aircraft at sea). Never had the tanks ever been so full, but it was not all one way, as goodies were sliding down the jackstay, fragile ‘breakables’ were being hauled up, for the Brockhurst to look after until we returned. Bone china is apparently very susceptible to damage when it is thrown across a galley floor in high seas, and so their Stores Officer sent us over three hundred stainless steel trays that had indented compartments in them - they took the food direct, so no plates were required. As all this was going on Marcus was getting very busy, I had absolutely no idea whatsoever what he was doing on board, but he was now working away like a Trojan. He was now the Lady S’s Accommodation Officer. As 844 (‘B flight’) Naval Air Squadron aircrew and maintainers came pouring on board he allocated them bunks, although the aircrew had some of the plusher cabins as they were hopefully going to be well and truly earning their keep in a few days’ time. We also inherited another Watch Keeping Officer for the bridge (he was experienced in manoeuvring ships during flying operations, especially in bad weather) and a Flight Deck Officer, much to Chalky’s disgust. Finally a large dockside crane positioned itself between the two ships and swung into action. First over was a mobile electricity generator for use by the aircraft, and then two very heavy diesel-engine powered mechanical handlers, for moving the aircraft about on the soon to be heaving flight deck. Finally two shiny Westland Sea King HC4’s, blades folded back, were swung over, they already had their bright yellow ‘Forth Road Bridge’ frames fitted, safely clamping the five heavy main rotor blades to the fuselage, for when we ventured out into the stormy Atlantic. Chalky supervised the moving of the two ‘cabs’ into the hangar, he was well into his element. It was a squeeze with all the extra equipment but he slotted them in side by side and ‘nose to tail’. They were then firmly lashed down to the steel deck using special chain lashings which had heavy duty turnbuckles on them. The three undercarriage legs of each aircraft ‘had more chains coming off of them than you could shake a big stick at’, according to one Petty Officer Air Engineering Mechanic, more quaint nautical language, perhaps David could act as interpreter. With both aircraft safely on board, and all the Lady S’s fuel and fresh water tanks topped up, we were ready to slip. ‘Pontius’, the pilot came on board and Carol waved at the Stevedores to remove the gangway, and they very nearly did. Just as the crane was taking the weight two taxis’ screeched to a halt alongside Lady S, and out poured a Sky TV crew. I had forgotten all about them, and if I had known that Sandra Bolting was involved I would have instantly reneged on the deal anyway. The local press and TV stations had gotten to hear about our impending rescue attempt and were out in force on the jetty, snapping and filming away, along with a sizable crowd of well-wishers, but they scattered to the four winds as the infamous Sandra Bolting carved a path to the ‘about to become airborne’ gangway; her instantly recognisable mane of blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. A Stevedore shouted a warning but she contemptuously ignored him and leapt onto the gangway. Not wanting to become famous as the one that finally ‘did her in’ the crane driver lowered the now airborne gangway gently back down. It was touch and go but I made it to the end of the gangway seconds before she arrived on board. When we were off Somalia, I had often wondered what I would have done if pirates had actually tried to board my ship. Would I fight them to the death, or put my hands in the air? I then found out the answer, I would have taken their brief case.

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