Salad Days.15

The rest of the crew baulked at the news we were going to the Persian Gulf, it was clear they didn't relish the prospect. I was upbeat however. Even though I suspected there wouldn't be a lot of fun to be had after my experiences in Saudi and the UAE, I was happy to know we would be visiting Iran. My joy was simplistic, it just meant another country I could tick off the list in my quest to visit as many as possible.

Sky blue waters seemed to be a feature of the Red Sea, mirroring the cloudless sky above. A calm had settled over the ship but the foreboding was ever present. We stopped in Jeddah for bunkers but once again Saudi Arabian soil was uninviting and elusive. We were a mere 80 miles from Mecca but like my visit to Israel, I felt nothing. Jeddah wasn't a total washout though. The barge that came alongside was crewed by Somali's and one had a huge bag of weed. In hindsight it was only that weed that later prevented wholesale slaughter on board.           

Emerging into the Arabian Sea the waters changed suddenly. The sea was dark blue, almost black, but the sun remained high in the sky beating down on us relentlessly, sapping strength. In a couple of days we entered the Persian Gulf and once again the waters turned sky blue and alluring.

The heat became stifling as we headed to our port of call, Bandar Shahpour (now known as Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni) in Iran. Three new crew members came aboard by launch as we had to wait a few days before a berth would be free in the port. One of those was the new deck-boy and I immediately felt sorry for the poor lad. He looked pretty much as I did at sixteen..... twelve. On another ship he would have been fine but with this crew there was always going to be problems.

I was reminded of my own naivety when I saw the new deck-boy. He was wearing a suit, just as I had when joining the super-tanker, beads of sweat running down his forehead and into his eyes causing him to blink. As he came on board just as we were leaving.
"Come on lad" the big Geordie donkey-greaser said "Put your bags inside quick, we're just gannin' ashore"

The deck-boy, whose name we learned was Jim, scurried off into the accommodation and unceremoniously dumped his bags and jacket the first place he found space. He looked to be pleased at being included immediately but I had an uneasy feeling. On the launch Jim attracted attention of a dubious kind from the local crew members. Seeing this one of the AB's grabbed Jim around the waste and picked him up, bending him over. Another AB pulled Jim's pants exposing the boy's buttocks/under the watchful eye of the launch's captain.
"How much?" the first AB asked giving Jim's bum a pat.

You could see the look in the captain's eye as he tried to figure out if the AB was being serious or not. He decided to take a chance.
"Ninety Rials" he offered.

Jim was squirming when his pants were pulled down but on hearing the offer being made, his attempts to get away from the AB became frenzied and he escaped, tripping over in his haste to get away and pull his pants up at the same time. We were laughing hysterically but Jim wasn't amused and the launch captain looked confused.

We found a bar but only stayed for one drink. It was small and very hot. We quickly found out the best place to drink was in the hotels. The incident on the launched had caused a lot of hilarity so it became a standing joke that in every hotel we went to we would try to sell the boy. By about the fourth hotel Jim had begun to relax, or more accurately was drunk. He even bent over and showed prospective buyers his buttocks without any prompting. And there was no shortage of interested parties.

Maybe it was because I was closest in age to Jim, or perhaps it was due to me being one of the few not trying to sell him, I don't know, but Jim seemed to trust me.
"They're not really going to sell me are they?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yeah they are" I told him "They're just waiting for the best price"

I know but hey, I couldn't resist it. Pretty soon afterwards Jim was out for the count anyway. It was the first time he had ever drunk beer and couldn't handle it. 

At the time it never really struck me because as a seaman, our lewd behaviour seemed absolutely normal, but later I thought of the hypocrisy. In these middle-eastern countries homosexuality was illegal, even punishable by death. Yet here we were offering a lad for sale with no shortage of prospective buyers. The manner in which it was done was making it clear it would be for sexual purposes, so how were these interested parties so brazen in a country where the punishment was so severe? It didn't make sense to me.

Eventually we made our way back to the launch - carrying Jim - and all a little worse for the wear. It may have seemed callous but the lad was never in any danger. The real danger came when back on board the ship. Some of the AB's made Jim some sandwiches to eat and were stuffing them in his mouth as his head lolled about.

"Come on lad, eat something it will make you feel better"

They meant well but were very drunk and I had visions of Jim choking to death. I nudged one of the stewards.
"Let's get him out of here before the silly bastards kill him"

Nobody objected when the two us carried Jim out of the messroom and down to his cabin. We just managed to get him on his bunk - which would have been a lot easier had we not been so drunk ourselves - when Jim started puking everywhere. He was throwing his head side to side and projectile vomit was spread far and wide. Just as we were leaving his cabin the 2nd Mate walked passed and saw him.
"You can't leave him like that, he'll choke on his own vomit. You've got to turn him on his side" the 2nd Mate told us.

The three of us looked at Jim from the relative safety of his doorway as a scene from the Exorcist was being re-enacted.
"Okay" I said to the 2nd Mate "If you're so concerned, you shift him"

There was a pause as we all looked at Jim again. Jeez how much puke could be in a lad that size. It showed no signs of letting up.
"He should be okay" the 2nd Mate said finally and we shut the door.

We left the next morning headed for Cape Town for further orders. There were several ports of call we had in the Persian Gulf but Iraq had a huge queue of ships waiting at anchor for their turn to traverse the Shatt al-Arab waterways on the journey to Basrah. The idea was to register in the queue then sneak off to the other ports before returning further up the queue.

It was a reasonable idea but didn't really help much as you will see in the next post.