Luckily there was no one else on the nearby boats and I slipped on board the four lads’ cruiser, clutching my two bags.
I had expected the door to the cabin to be locked, and already had my hands on my tool kit, but it was open and I went inside. I entered a living room with bench seats down either side. A small kitchen was tucked into the left hand corner near the entrance. To the right was a small toilet. At the far end there were two doors. Both opened onto bedrooms. The one on the left was the master bedroom with a large double bed. The one on the right was smaller with two single beds against each wall — barely inches between them. I wondered who shared the double bed?
Returning to the deck I scanned the rest of the boat. Two chairs sat either side of the door to the cabin, one with the steering wheel and various instruments in front of it.
Behind the chairs sat a horseshoe arrangement of two long runs of plastic covered seating with a gap at the rear for the entrance to the boat. In the centre of the horseshoe the floor shone with wooden decking. A large trapdoor sat near the back and when I lifted it I found myself looking down on the engine. I closed it and went back to the cabin but after a few minutes I realised there was nowhere to hide.
Back on the deck I reopened the trap door to the engine room and dropped in.
I had to bend double due to the low roof.
The room was dominated by the engine but it was possible to circle it. I did so and, at the back sat a row of cupboards. A quick search of the cupboards revealed an array of bits and bobs from rope to torches. Below them was a door that ran the width of the boat. The door opened by dropping to the floor. Inside was a dog’s dinner of material including what looked like a lifetime’s supply of porn.
I bent down and realised that if I pushed everything to the front I could slip in behind the contents and hide. I wouldn’t survive a military inspection but nothing in the cupboard looked like it was well used — save the magazines. I didn’t think that the men would be back for a while so I re-arranged the cubbyhole to leave a space at the back.
Happy that I could slip in quickly, I exited the engine room, jumped off the boat and returned to the town.
It took me half an hour to find the men. They were sitting in a restaurant chatting quietly, water not booze stood on the table and it was obvious they were keeping a clear head for the morning.
At ten thirty they waved for the bill and I made my move. I walked quickly back to their boat, jumped on board and opened the engine room door. I dropped down and pulled it shut.
The place was pitch black and I cursed myself for not bringing a torch. I banged both shins getting to the cupboard, cut my thumb fiddling with the latch and settling in took longer than I had expected. I heard the sound of footsteps on the boat just as I pulled the cubby hole door shut.
There was a lot of clumping and chat as the men readied for bed. I soon discovered that my head was below the toilet, as one of the men dropped a log that sent a nightmare smell into my space.
After an hour the boat fell quiet and I realised that I should have stayed on the dock and snuck in later. It was already getting cramped and hot but I couldn’t risk moving around. If someone heard any noise it wouldn’t take long to find me.
I tried to make myself comfortable but I was on a loser. Twisting and turning, all in silent mode, I put my hand on the familiar tube of a torch. I pulled it to my body, covered the lens and threw the switch. At least I had light. I didn’t think it would be seen upstairs. I hoped it wouldn’t be seen upstairs.
So here I lie whispering into the recorder.
I have no idea what tomorrow might bring.
Chapter 54
Wednesday August 6 th 2008
Hell. It is a simple as that. Hell. To say I am relieved to be on dry land and out of the boat is the understatement of my life.
Around seven o’clock this morning there were signs of life above. I was already in a bad place. Cramped and unable to go for a piss I had eventually emptied one of my bottles, mostly on the floor and re-filled it with urine. It was a not my finest moment but at least it was better than pissing in my trousers. Not than anyone would have noticed the smell if I had — every time any one used the toilet I got the full bhoona. I have no idea what the men were eating last night but it wasn’t a light salad.
The engine kicked into life just before seven thirty and I realised that what I thought was a crap idea took a shovel and dug deep. The noise from the engine, and it was still only on tick over, was deafening. The diesel power plant lay less than three feet from my head and the combination of the noise and vibration blocked out the world. When the engine note deepened there was a slight swaying, and I realised we were moving.
Ten minutes later the driver turned the engine up to eleven and my life became a maelstrom of noise and motion. The boat planed and I rolled towards the cubby hole door. The nose would dip to bite through a wave and I would roll to the front of the boat. Then the boat would lift clear and I would roll back — this process went on endlessly.
As we broke from the bay the current or the waves or some act of nature worked on the side of the boat and gave the up and down motion a side to side lilt. Every so often we would hit a larger than normal wave and my head would be slammed off the roof of the cubby hole.
I was forced to grab a rope coil and wrap it around my head like a Sikh’s turban. It was uncomfortable but gave me some protection against the wave movement. It also dulled the noise a little, but not much. I rearranged the angle I lay at and tried to wedge myself in a way that would reduce the rolling.
I realised that I lacked one vital piece of information that might have made the whole thing bearable. How long would this go on? I had no real idea of what the distance from Mallorca to Barcelona meant in terms of nautical time. The only information I had to go on was the discussion with the men when they said they wanted to get the trip done in daylight. Dusk was twelve hours away and I tried to settle down and ride it out.
Two hours into the journey and I was on the verge of giving up and handing myself in. It was unbearable. Even if they decided to turn back and drop me in Mallorca it had to be better than this.
The throbbing of the engine had hard-wired a headache of growing proportions into my skull. The rope around my head kept slipping off and was chafing my skin. The air was burning hot. The combination of the rising temperature outside and the heat of the engine had driven the atmosphere in the engine room to well beyond something I could survive long.
I opened the cubby hole door and rolled out into the engine room. The noise rose another notch and I crawled round to the hatchway. I was reaching up to push the hatch open when a breath of cool air brushed my wrist. Moving my arm around in the dark I picked up the draught and followed it back to its source. I felt a handle above me and the draught was coming from just beneath it. I crawled back to the cubby hole to get the torch.
Back at the handle I flipped on the light. No one would notice it up top in broad daylight. There was a small door about three feet by three feet in front of me. On my initial recce of the room I had missed it. I pulled on the handle and the door opened outwards and I was washed with cool air. I gulped it in like water to a man in the desert.
The space beyond was empty and, at the back there was another small hatch. Sunlight shone from beyond and it was through this gap that the air was coming.
I pulled myself up and into the small space, reached out and grasped the hatch. I pushed it and it started to fall away. I caught it before it fell open and crawled a bit further into the space, grateful for the cool air.
Beneath me was a metal walkway — ridged to prevent slipping and bordered with two small metal edges about an inch proud of the surface, running the length of both sides. It was a gangplank. I’d seen a few in the bigger boats at the marina. They slipped out of the rear of the boats like tongues to form a bridge between the marina pontoons and the boat.
The boat I was on had been side into the pontoon and the gangplank had been stored. I felt along the underside of the gangplank and realised that it was telescopic. My feet were hanging out into the engine room and
