SAILING INTO MASSAWA HARBOR, there was no doubt we had arrived in Africa. Set in a great bay with a narrow entrance, the town, steaming and dirty white, sprawled along the south shore. Away at the end of the bay, on a lush, green islet, stood the winter palace of the Emperor Haile Selassie, gleaming like snow in the hot sun through a shimmering, stinking haze.
“Salubrious,” said Conrad as he eyed the scene.
At anchor in the trembling heat lay several large dhows from as far away as Iran and Egypt. Tied up to the long quays packed with hordes of robed pilgrims waiting to pass to and from Mecca and astir with bawling camels and braying donkeys lay the smaller dzambouks. Sleek, lower sterned than the dhows, these lateen-rigged vessels are among the fastest sailing craft on the seas. These are the craft favored by the pirates, smugglers, terrorists, and other “gentlemen of the trade” of the Red Sea.
We berthed alongside the harbormaster’s office under the watchful eye of a port policeman who, though bootless, seemed to be conscientious enough, continually waving away, with threatening gestures and loud curses, a battalion of small, ragged, starved-looking children with huge round eyes, bulging stomachs, and stick-thin legs. The harbormaster, a large, heavy man, lounged in an armchair, cooled by two fans, while a continual procession of caftan-clad clerks in sandals and turbans entered, bowing. A curt hand wave and an initial scrawled on their forms sent them retiring backwards through the doors, still bowing.
Speaking bad English, the harbormaster started off by asking if Barbara carried any arms. Informed that she did not, he then asked what stores she carried. I told him I had enough to get me to Djibouti, where I hoped to restock. I said that I hoped to be in Ethiopian waters only long enough to obtain some cooking gas and diesel oil, also some fresh water.
He reflected that this was just as well, for it was dangerous to sail in these waters—banditry and guerrilla activity were rife. My safety could not be guaranteed in Ethiopia except in the ports of Massawa and Assab. Most of the rest of the coast was under the control of the Eritrean Liberation Front. He passed his finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture, all the while staring at me with small, black, avaricious eyes. “Yes,” I thought, “and if my kids were out there with those poor little beggars on the jetty and if I had to come in here bowing and scraping to a bastard like you, I’d be out there with the ELF, too!”
“Good bloke?” asked Conrad as I emerged from the office.
“Charming!” I replied. No sense in depressing him.
“I’ll bet,” he murmured.
The heat in Massawa was unbelievable. By midday it was well over 110 degrees in the shade. No breeze penetrated into the harbor. Squadrons of flies hovered over a thick layer of shit floating everywhere. Pilgrims by the thousands, along with their camels and other assorted animals, relieved themselves noisily along the jetties. The din was indescribable; all day and night the row went on, a cacophony of shouts, cries, wailing prayers, camel roars, donkey brays, beggars’ pleadings, drums beating, as the dhows loaded up, never stopping. At night the decibels were vastly increased by the addition of blaring music from several sleazy rooftop nightclubs strung along the waterfront.
Across the river, through the thick heat haze, we could see huge mountains of salt awaiting shipment. Centuries ago the Roman army was partly paid in salt from these very flats.
The morning after clearing into Ethiopia, I took off inland to Asmara, three hundred miles away and nine thousand feet above sea level. This was the nearest place that butane gas could be obtained, unless I was willing to wait three weeks for supplies to arrive on the coast. I left Conrad to guard the boat and repulse the crowd of beggars, although he had adopted one poor, thin little starveling, all big eyes and protruding belly, feeding him twice a day on rice and protein—a tiny finger in a huge dike.
The journey inland was made in an ancient bus with open sides. It crawled along, heavily laden with passengers and goods inside and out, on the back and on the top. We were preceded first by an armored car, then a truck carrying about twenty of the imperial army infantry, then an army truck loaded with stores, then another armored car, then a group of soldiers on bicycles. After them wheezed and trundled the bus. The rear guard was brought up by two motorcycles with sidecars carrying machine guns, then a truckful of soldiers, all armed to the teeth, and another armored car. This was the thrice-weekly convoy from the coast to Asmara, without which the bus dared not proceed.
We climbed up and up the winding mountain road, until it became cooler and then positively cold. First we passed half-naked peasants on the road, driving camels, and natives wearing goatskin jerkins, and finally fully-robed Tigrean tribesmen, armed with ancient muskets and scimitars, tending herds of very moth-eaten looking cattle by the roadside.
The scenery on this route was sublime, green mountains covered in jungle, falling away into the distance. The relief from the coastal heat was fantastic.
At last the convoy sputtered and wheezed into Asmara, a large town built mostly by the Italians during their occupation of Eritrea in the 1920s and 1930s. A modern town, it even has some factories. The nights were cold, a complete contrast to stifling Massawa.
The next day, refreshed by a freezing sleep in a tiny hotel, I turned up at the bus station to find that the army had, by the emperor’s command, been confined to barracks, and there was to be no escort back to the coast. The bus would return alone. Would all passengers therefore make sure that they carried a minimum amount of cash, jewelry, or other valuables? This did not concern me, for I was down to ten dollars anyway, and the only valuable I had with me was the bottle of butane gas.
Midway down the long, winding descent to the coast, a roadblock appeared, manned by some very fierce-looking gentlemen, half of whom were clad in goatskins and bandoleers, the other half in khaki denims. All carried arms. We were politely but firmly requested to step out of the bus and lined up willy-nilly along the roadside, while two of the soldiers passed along the line accepting contributions. I handed over my ten dollars, comforting myself that the show was worth every cent, while hoping they would not “collect” my butane gas when they searched the luggage. They did not, and soon we all reboarded the bus, with the exception of one young man who stayed with the “freedom fighters.” I was afterwards told by another passenger, in halting Italian, that this young man was probably the bandits’ agent.
The bandits gave us a wave as we passed their roadblock of felled trees and rumbled off down to the shit, flies, and heat of Massawa.
That evening, back on board, I recounted the occurrence to Conrad. It was funny, even if we had lost our only cash. Fortunately the gas bottle connection fit Barbara’s system, and we could cook hot food after living four days on cold canned fish and meat with biscuits.
We stayed in Massawa for two weeks. During that period we took off to the Dahlak Islands with six cadets from the Imperial Navy. We took them at the request of the commanding officer, an Englishman, who told us that the only Ethiopian navy ship had broken down in far-off Madagascar. She had been there for over a year and was not expected to return home for another year, if ever. We would do the navy a favor by giving them some sea experience.
Together with the cadets, we sailed over to Great Dahlak, a very barren island ringed round an immense lagoon teeming with fish. We spent a very enjoyable two days exploring these islands, which had recently been visited and explored by a British army team.
I met the chief of the island, who had been Lawrence of Arabia’s bodyguard and had, in fact, been with the mystery man when he entered Damascus in 1918. He had a great respect, even love, for the British, the “Ferenghi,” as he called us, and made us welcome.
The day before we left Massawa was Ethiopian navy day, of all things. The Emperor Haile Selassie himself came down to Massawa with all his court to visit the ships of several different powers, including Russia and the United States.
The day before he arrived a very harassed-looking naval lieutenant climbed aboard to inform me breathlessly that the Emperor Haile Selassie was due to visit the port and would we make sure the boat was clean with no laundry hanging out.
Next day, early, all the dzambouks were cleared away from the jetties, all the pilgrims disappeared as if by magic, the streets were swept, all the tiny, starving beggars dissolved into thin air. God was in his heaven, all was right with the world—the emperor was coming!
He duly appeared about eleven o’clock, driving along the empty, unrecognizable waterfront in a Rolls-Royce, with his immediate family accompanying him. When he arrived alongside Barbara, the convoy stopped. He got out, hovered over by a huge bodyguard in a sparkling white uniform, a black, black man, probably Sudanese, so huge he seemed to be eight feet tall, bearing a great sword. Behind him stood another group of guards, all toting machine pistols.
With the emperor was the British naval commander, who introduced me to His Imperial Majesty. He was tiny and very stern looking and said to me in very good English (probably a relic of his exile in England in the thirties), “Captain Jones, I do not know what makes a man like you tick!”
I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Your Majesty, I don’t know what makes a man like you tick!” He laughed out loud and climbed back into the Rolls.
That night Captain Bob Jones, United States Navy destroyer Glennon, visited Barbara, and we talked of John Paul Jones, our common forerunner.