I am back after almost a year since I last posted anything on my blog. It has been a fraught year trying to stay free from covid. Missing my family until last weekend when we got together.
As a start this is one of the short stories from my book The Cigar and Other Stories.
The Cigar
I was sailing as a cadet on the oil tanker Wifredo around the islands of Caribbean and ports along the eastern South American coast. It was a well organised ship and the Captain insisted that each cadet was attached to one of the ship’s deck officers. In this way the cadet would learn what duties were required of a ship’s officer both at sea and in port as part of their learning process. The officer I was to assist was the second mate. I followed him round the ship and sometimes ashore while he was working. Helping him in his jobs and running errands when ordered. Over time during the voyage we had become more than colleagues but good friends.
That day the ship berthed in one of those South American ports bordering the Caribbean Sea to load crude oil destined for Europe. As was often the case, it was the middle of the night when the ship arrived in the port. After securing the ship, the second mate and I had watched from the catwalk as guards were posted, one on deck, the other at the foot of the gangway. I asked the second mate why in this tin pot dictatorship they needed to post guards. He shrugged not really sure of the answer.
“ What are they looking for?” I asked as our bags were searched when we went ashore to deliver papers to the agent early the next morning.
“ Subversive material,” he muttered while smiling at the guard.
When we took over the loading of the cargo from the Chief Officer, it was mid morning. The water ballast had been pumped ashore and the crude oil was now about to flow into the ship’s tanks.
As we opened and closed valves to start loading into one of the tanks, the sun was beating down on the black painted deck. Heat haze rose from the steel of the deck causing the structures to shimmer and waver. The only shade from the direct sunlight was under the catwalk which joined the amidships and aft accommodation. This was high above the deck to give safe passage when the deck was battered by waves while out at sea. Joining the heat haze was the cloud of gas from the open vent through which we measured the oil depth in the tank.
By the amidships accommodation, a guard in his green uniform, gun slung over his shoulder, lounged against the rail watching our efforts. Ashore, another guard sat on a bench by the foot of the gangway chatting loudly to a refinery worker.
I measured the oil depth and reported this to the second mate.
He grinned. “ Another forty minutes until we have to change tanks. I’m off to the cargo office to enter the figures in the book.”
“ And get a mug of coffee,” I muttered.
“ I heard that,” he laughed. “Privileges of yer officer class me boy. I’ll bring one back.....”
He never finished what he was saying. Like a statue in a museum, he stood fixed to the spot, his eyes bulging from his head. I glanced in the direction in which he was looking and froze.
The guard had straightened and was pulling out of his pocket what looked like a large cigar case. Calmly, he unpacked the cigar from its silver case, throwing the case into the sea.
We stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. Both of us were silently willing him to put it back into his pocket but, after rolling it between his fingers, cutting off the end, he raised it to his lips.
After that it was, to me, as though everything happened in slow motion. There was the lifting of the arm to place the cigar in his mouth, the reaching into a pocket and extracting a lighter, the hand going round the lighter, thumb on the striker and the cupping of the hands against the breeze.
His thumb moved and the lighter sparked. Flame leapt from the wick. His head lowered until the end of the cigar disappeared into his cupped hands. He straightened and the end of the cigar glowed red.
The second mate had ducked under the catwalk and I quickly joined him, hunching down behind one of the pillars.
Nothing happened.
I took a quick look.
The guard was standing looking straight down the deck through the gas cloud pulling contentedly on his cigar. All I could see was the glowing red end. It appeared to get bigger and bigger.
“ You’ll have to order him to put it out,” I told the second mate trying to sound calm.
“ Not me after what happened to Dick the last time we were here.” The second mate sank further into the shadows under the catwalk. “ All he did was let the national flag touch the deck when he was lowering it one night. The guard shot at him and arrested him. He spent two weeks in jail before the company could get him out.”
I stepped out of the shadows and took a measurement of the oil. About half filling the tank, I thought.
A sound made me turn sharply and I once more froze to the spot. In measured steps, his gun slung jauntily across his back, the guard was walking along the catwalk towards the stern contentedly puffing on his cigar. Screaming at me from behind his back in big letters on the accommodation bulkhead. NO SMOKING in three languages.
I stood rigid and glued to the spot. The measuring tape dangled unnoticed in my hand. Clouds of gas drifted upwards over the catwalk from the tank opening. The smell of oil filled my nostrils. My stomach was filled with ice.
Clank, clank, went measured footsteps along the metal grating over my head. Clank, clank, like some sound of doom approaching, the red tip of the cigar, big and round, bright even in the sunlight.
As though out for a Sunday stroll round the village square, the guard passed overhead, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake. My eyes followed his progress but my feet were fixed to the spot. I wondered how much I would feel when the ship exploded.
The guard walked out of the gas cloud and continued until he reached the end of the catwalk. Turning towards the port side, he strolled under the NO SMOKING signs, took one last puff on his cigar and threw the butt over the side of the ship.
Looking in my direction, he grinned with pleasure. “ Very good cigar. Come from Cuba.”
