Pirate - Duncan Falconer [28]
The old Somali directed the first two bearers to wait to one side and ordered the next two men forward. And so it went, until Stratton and Hopper stepped up to pull a box off the back of the collapsed truck and stood with it at the end of the line. The box weighed about fifty or sixty kilos, Stratton guessed. The old Somali walked to the front of the line and waved for the group to follow him. The guards got to their feet and followed at the back.
The chain gang made its slow way along the hard-packed sand in the direction of the cargo ships. They got about two hundred metres before one of the Korean-looking sailors dropped the end of his crate into the sand. His buddy put down his own end of the box, and they both rubbed their fingers. The guards suddenly came to life, running right up to the two men and whaling on them to pick up the crate. Screaming in the Koreans’ faces. The two Koreans looked tired, like they had no energy. Stratton wondered how long they’d been hijacked. The first Korean, overweight, listless-looking, stepped back from the Somalis. He should have stepped to the box because the Somali took it as a show of weakness and punched the butt of his rifle into the man’s guts. The Korean went down to his knees in pain. The other Korean stepped away in fear, his arms up to protect himself. Another guard forearmed the stock of his AK-47 into the Korean’s face and he went down.
The Somalis kept on shouting until the two Koreans, one bloodied across the face, got up and picked up the crate and started walking.
It was hard going in the heat, especially when they hit the soft sand.
There was already a large collection of crates and boxes of all sizes laid out on the sand in front of the vessels. Many had been ripped open to expose their contents. Scattered around were brand-new pieces of machinery spare parts, miles of plastic piping, tins of paint and sprays and all kinds of building material. It looked like the crates had been ransacked then discarded because they had no value to the Somalis.
Stratton studied the ships now that they were closer. The largest and nearest was called the Oasis. The merchantman had a Liberian flag hanging over the stern and a Dutch one above the bridge. It was over a hundred metres long and thirty wide. Easily forty-five thousand tonnes. The middle one, a black and white carrier with two jumbo booms, had a Greek name he couldn’t read and the ship in front of that was a low flat carrier with vertical East Asian writing down one side. Furthest from him was the bulker the pirates had just hijacked.
The Oasis looked in fairly good condition but the others looked like they had either been abandoned months ago or the masters and crew had cared little for them. All showed signs of engine activity. Waste water came from exhaust holes close to the water line and the funnels leaked whiffs of smoke. Stratton guessed the Somalis put a skeleton crew on them to keep the engines turning over and the bilge pumps running or the things would sink. That would be the end of their value.
He could see men on all of the decks. On the new bulker, men were using ropes to lower boxes over the side into fishing boats. One was bringing its load towards the beach.
The old Somali guard indicated where he wanted the prisoners to stack the boxes. After the first pair had put down their load on to the sand, he ordered them back to the truck for another. He did the same with the others.
On the Oasis, several Somalis stood on the bridge wings and main deck looking over the rails. They weren’t loading or unloading, they were just standing there like they were waiting for something. A couple were watching the sky through binoculars. Stratton looked at the other guards on the beach. Several of them were searching the skies. He sensed a definite atmosphere of expectancy but no fear, no concern.
They were clearly waiting for something to happen.
5
It took four journeys to unload the truck and ferry the crates to the beach, by which time Stratton and Hopper were tired.
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