This story describes how a hardbitten old transvestite ship master has his retirement plans utterly wiped out when he rescues two young girls from the aftermath of a pirate attack in the Indian Ocean.

His plans to retire to his own private little transvestite life are turned utterly upsidedown when he finds himself saddled with the children against his wishes and he finally grows to love them.

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I tapped the chart thoughtfully as the ship heaved heavily and my coffee threatened to spill across the chartroom table. Mac, the chief mate eyed me silently as I weighed up the pros and cons.

“Penny for your thoughts.” I suggested.

“Och! Ye know my thoughts.

Mac was right of course. In the old days, it was always safer to take the inshore route close to the East African coast to avoid the monsoon winds but since the destabilisation of the Horn of Africa, political forces had driven the local fishermen and political warlords to desperate alliances. Now the coast was virtually swarming with pirates looking to turn a buck any way they could. In the Western Indian Ocean just about every fishing boat or small craft posed a potential threat to legitimate traffic trading past the Horn of East Africa. Naturally, to avoid this piracy threat I had planned a voyage further out into the ocean and thus the sea was rougher because the North East Monsoon had a greater fetch. Tonight however, the Monsoon was blowing stronger than normal and our ship faced a rough passage. There was an upside to this decision however; the small boats used by the pirates would be unlikely to risk the rougher seas. I held my coffee in my hand to avoid any spillage as the ship heaved and rolled easily.

If we went inshore, there was a serious risk of being attacked by pirates and if we pushed further out to sea the heavier seas might damage our unusual deck cargo. Mac and I had worked hard to win the freight contract and after we pulled off this third voyage, we would finally pay off the mortgages on our ship.

Perhaps I should explain a bit more.

Mac and I were joint owner-partners with Jimmy, the chief engineer in our modest middle sized ship that we were sailing from Durban to the Persian Gulf. I held a half share in the ship whilst Mac and Jimmy each held quarter shares in the ship. That is not to say we owned the ship. We had mortgaged almost everything we had and taken the plunge in this shipping venture.

We each had a past and we were each looking for that final big chance to make it out of the seafaring game altogether.

The far eastern authorities had crucified me after my last ship had apparently suffered an engine-room explosion during a violent stormy night. We ended up spilling hundreds of thousands of tons of oil on the pristine coastline of a country that shall remain anonymous. (Either I or Mac or Jimmy might one day have to return there for work so - ‘no names, - no pack drill. -’ My anchors had failed to hold and my tanker had been driven onto the rocks. My constant calls for tug assistance had proved fruitless as none would attempt to face the storm and render assistance.

I had not endeared myself to the government of that country when I pointed out that in other countries; the authorities now made it a policy to have large powerful ocean-going tugs standing by at strategic locations for just such eventualities. I had of course been treated like a pariah by the authorities and the press.

After languishing in Jail without charge for nearly two years, and then being released without ever being charged, I was pretty pissed off with the whole field of international maritime law. Every politician, lawyer and press reporter was always looking to blame somebody else and it was invariably the supposedly incompetent captain who was the ‘aunt sally’, the sitting duck and the polluting criminal.

Eventually, somebody, somewhere, had bothered to examine the damage of my wrecked ship in closer detail. Divers had returned with clear evidence of explosive damage to the stern plating that evidenced something more sinister. It turned out that on the night in question, terrorists with rocket-propelled grenades had mistakenly attacked my tanker and it had never been an engine room explosion at all.

Apparently, in the pitch-black driving rain and raging storm, they had somehow managed to mistake a bloody great big lumbering super-tanker for what they thought was a giant American Aircraft Carrier. God knows! How the hell d’you do that?

The terrorists finally admitted they had not sunk the aircraft carrier after their ridiculous claims were proven to be utterly false when the supposedly sunk aircraft carrier turned up perfectly safe and sound. Of course, nobody bothered to connect a super-tanker’s engine-room explosion with a rocket attack. The thing happened close to a remote bit of coastline and it was months before anybody was allowed to properly investigate. Legal waters can get pretty bloody muddy when politics is involved and it’s always the poor bloody merchant seaman who ends up getting the shit. Soon after we were imprisoned, those same terrorists had gained power in a coup and things got even muddier. Apparently, the tug’s refusal to put to sea and render assistance was as much to do with the terrorist scenario and the deteriorating political situation as the bad weather.

Much good it did me after two years in a stinking rotten foreign prison. Still, at least I got out alive and my savings were still intact. I had always tucked whatever savings I made safely away in a Swiss bank. Call Swiss bankers whatever you like but they do look after their customers, honest or not.

God knows what would have happened if the so-called ‘authorities’ had discovered I had a modest nest egg tucked away. They would probably have tried to take it to defray the costs of the spill. Some Joke. The spill cost billions whilst my savings ran to a few hundreds of thousands; nearly thirty hard years of struggle and sacrifice... The upshot was, that I had little chance of getting another job with another shipping company.

I left a filthy prison cell with nothing but my passport, my Master’s Licence and the clothes I stood up in but at least I was sure that my nest egg was safe.

Some weeks after my release, I found had myself thrown together with Mac and Jimmy in a Rotterdam seaman’s hostel. These hostels used to be found in lots of large European ports and they provided essential accommodation to the thousands of unmarried lonely seamen who live the transient life trading the oceans wherever there was work to be had. We three had been washed together like pieces of human flotsam. We all had money but no prospects though we seemed to get on together. We seemed destined to somehow end up working together.

I think it was Billy the engineer, who found the ship. He was idly reading a shipping newspaper as we sat around a table drowning our sorrows. There was a page of adverts about jobs, ships and equipment and Billy noticed the advert. It was a marine bankruptcy sale advertising the ship, ‘as is, where ‘somewhere up the Baltic’ is, in a remote dock. The advert contained a brief description of the ship. Billy laughed jokingly as he tapped the article with his forefinger

“Hey! Perhaps we should buy our own ship, there’s one here in the paper,”

In a drunken fuzz, we laughed about it, and then thought no more about it. Things took a different slant a few days later when I saw another advert in a different trade magazine. You’d be amazed at the variety of nautical publications can turn up in Seaman’s hostel.

A company in South Africa had won a contract in the Persian Gulf and was looking for quotes to ship a huge amount of equipment from Durban to Iran. I studied the advert and wondered. The deal was date sensitive some several months hence. This was exactly how Onassis had started, by matching a ship to a freight contract.

‘Surely it was worth investigating.’ I mused

Twelve months later, three newly become ship-owners had utterly surprised themselves as they loaded their ship for the third voyage out of Durban with machinery parts for a gas pumping and compression plant in Iran. Some of the equipment didn’t look much like gas equipment but we were not there to ask questions just recoup our investments. The freight rates reflected the dangers.

The first two trips had proved very successful and we had only to complete the third trip to pay off the mortgage on our newly bought ship. After that there were several more voyages when we would be in profit and fat profits they were.

She wasn’t a large ship but she proved Ideal for the contract because she had two very useful thirty tonne cranes and a huge central hold that was ideal for some of the larger components. The two smaller forward and after holds proved ideal for the secure storage of the more valuable smaller bits like compressors and centrifuges and stuff. (God knows what they wanted centrifuges for, but ours not to reason why!).

As we stood watching the loading of the last huge piece of machinery as deck cargo for the third voyage to Iran, we quietly congratulated ourselves with the success of our venture.

“We’ll have to avoid any bad weather for this piece,” observed Mac, “that looks like some pretty delicate equipment.”

“Yeah; and expensive I’ll wager. Still the monsoon hasn’t started yet and if we get to the Straights of Hormuz before it starts, we’ll be OK,” I finished.

Our luck only held until we passed Mombassa. The South West Monsoon started early that year. I don’t know; blame it on Global warming or whatever you like, but it blew earlier and stronger than normal and we had to stay close inshore to avoid any heavy seas striking the precious piece of deck cargo. Our plan worked well until we approached the Somali coast on the Horn of Africa. We all knew the dangers of piracy in this area and we had come well prepared. As funds became available from the charter party we invested in some proper defences for our investment. We had even installed some heavy machine guns to protect ourselves from any possible attack.

Heavy weapons were easily available in South Africa and our needs were legitimate. Every legitimate ship had a right to protect itself. Besides, it was our own ship and we were our own bosses. There were no fussy owners or accountants in some remote big city shipping office, to dictate what we could or could not do. Nearly every thing we owned was invested in the venture.

In addition, each of our Philippine crewmembers had been issued with automatic assault rifles and received training in South Africa. We couldn’t afford to take chances.

Piracy today is not a romantic business. It never was. Today’s pirate comes in many more guises though; from the armed sneak thieves who creep aboard a ship at anchor, to the smooth well-dressed trader who is cooking up some crooked plot to steal a legitimate cargo or ship in some remote port Finally there are the vicious gangs of bloody butchers who are prepared to attack a full sized ship with nothing more than a high speed boat, some rocket propelled grenades and a few Kalashnikovs to rob and murder the crew. Even a full sized passenger ship was once attacked and stopped off the Horn of Africa.

The victims are invariably passengers and crew who often get kidnapped for ransom, or worse, murdered. It’s all the same to pirates. A seaman’s life is worth nothing!

Nobody knew this better than me. One previous terrorist attack had been one too many for me, so now I was prepared. In Far Eastern waters, East African waters, West African waters and South American waters, things appeared to have deteriorated back to the days of Black Beard.

Once clear of Durban and safe in international waters, we broke the seals on the bonded store and fixed up our defences. Then we settled down to the voyage and found ourselves debating whether to go closer inshore as the weather steadily deteriorated. The South West Monsoon was blowing offshore so we had to keep close under the East African Coast to find calmer waters. Should we risk pirate attack or risk damage to the large piece of deck cargo? After a long discussion we all three, Billy, Mac and I chose to keep close inshore.

“We’ve got guns dammit!” Observed Mac. “If we can’t keep them away long enough for a warship to show up, we must be pretty dammed useless.”

“Yeah but some of these boats are little more than bloody dinghies. They’re virtually invisible in any sort of sea,” I cautioned. “I never even saw the one that attacked my tanker. Small boats are impossible to see in a heavy sea from a super-tanker’s bridge”

“Yeah but they were only aiming to sink you not rob you.” Added Billy. “If they want to rob you they have to stop you and board you. This bit of kit will keep them away.

“It makes no difference,” I finished, “they’re still bloody invisible on a stormy night. First thing you know, is Bang!, and you’ve got a bloody great hole in your hull just above the waterline. Hell! If they use the right warhead, it’s so bloody big, they can clamber though the hole to board you, if there’s no inflammable stuff inside.”

“Well, there’s no inflammable material in this cargo so all they can do is blow a hole in the hull. So; we’ll have to post extra lookouts until we get to the Emirates coast or we can fall in with a warship,” declared Mac as his face clouded. “Mind you, extra lookouts will mean a hefty overtime bill.”

“Well, Billy and I can keep extra lookout by night.” I finished, “we don’t normally stand watches.

Normally the chief engineer and master did not keep watches on merchant ships. Ours was no different. We could add to the extra need for more eyes especially at night when men were tired and vulnerable to surprise.

“Anyway,” added Mac, “this weather will keep the dinghies at home it’s only the bigger craft that can venture offshore in this weather and surely we’ll be able to see those.” Observed Billy.

We all exchanged reassuring looks. Billy was right. It was too rough for any pirates in the smallest open boats.

We arranged to pass the most dangerous location during the night. In rough seas and darkness, few would venture out in small open boats and our radars would pick up any bigger patrol type craft. Darkness was our best defence, especially if we doused our navigation lights.

The worst part off the Somali coast passed uneventfully. A few targets showed up and one even ventured close, but we fired off a few heavy rounds of tracer into the sky and the target sped away, probably to find easier pickings. Mac was using the night vision binoculars and confirmed that it did not look like an official warship or anything legal. However, the Somali warlords were not above stealing a small naval vessel and using that. This made any effort to identify an approaching vessel doubly dangerous even if it looked like a legitimate naval vessel. Better to just fire off some heavy rounds of machine gun tracer and let them know we were prepared to fight. Thus we plodded on until dawn and relaxed as the Monsoon offered us mixed blessings. The rougher seas gave us protection from inshore pirates but increased the risk of damage to our deck cargo. Eventually, the island of Socotra appeared and we relaxed a little. Socotra lies at the entrance the Red Sea and lies at the cross roads of several important trade routes. The weather improved until the white horses had gone to sleep and we were free to pick a course further offshore.

As I dozed during the afternoon, my second mate Gus, called me from the chartroom settee.

“Skipper! There’s something on the port bow.”

I blinked and stumbled to the bridge as he handed me my own personal binoculars and pointed out the object

“See skipper, two points about two miles away. It looks like some sort of life raft.”

“Fuck! You’re right Gus. You’ve got bloody good eyes lad! It’s possibly a trap,” I replied, “is there anything else around?”

“Two tankers ahead, bound for the gulf, one container ship just gone across bound for the Red sea, nothing small or suspicious.”

We both continued to search the sea for any suspicious looking boats but found nothing.

As I studied the tiny orange and yellow igloo, I debated whether to stop and investigate but my cautious side was still screaming, ‘TRAP, DANGER!’

I sighed and caught Gus’s eye.

“What d’you think?” I asked him.

“They could be pirates hiding under the canopy. If they were genuine, they would be waving to us by now.”

“Gus was right. If anybody was alive, they would be screaming and waving by now for we were less than a mile away and in the still air they would have heard the thump of our engines.”

“Fire a few rounds over their heads,” I ordered, “it’ll give you some gun practice and if there’s anybody sleeping or whatever, it’ll wake them up.”

Gus grinned with delight for he had been itching to bang off a few heavy round from the machine gun. I caught his excitement and grinned.

“Only a few now Gus or you’ll make Supan the third mate jealous. Besides they’re bloody expensive.”

Gus nodded then eagerly cocked the heavy machine gun and fired off some rounds at a large piece of flotsam not far from the dinghy. He smiled with satisfaction as the rounds straddled the broken pallet and it erupted into a fountain of fragments.

“Good shooting. Let’s hope you’re that good if we ever get attacked.”

“Look! There’s somebody coming out from under the canopy!” Shouted Gus.

I brought my binoculars to bear and nearly dropped them as two longhaired blond heads appeared from under the life raft canopy and just stared at us.

“Christ they’re women skipper!” Cried Gus as he peered through the ship’s bridge binoculars. (Gus was much younger and he had young eyes.)

I studied the two figures and recognised them as two blond haired girls but I was still cautious. Pirates were up to every type of trick. Gus and I had also noticed that the raft was in pretty bad shape. One side was deflated and the thing was very low in the water. As the girls stared at us they stood up and balanced precariously. Now they were in danger of upsetting the thing.

By now the gunfire had alerted everybody and the whole crew appeared in their prearranged places all armed to the teeth.

“What do we do skipper?” Asked Gus as our ship had now drawn level with the raft and was soon to leave them behind.

“Slow down the engines, we’ll have a chat about it. Just cruise around them in a large circle.”

Gus adjusted the automatic pilot as Mac and Billy appeared on the bridge. They assessed the situation with Gus and me and we concluded the best thing was to call up a navy ship. Our efforts proved fruitless! It’s just like the bloody police; there’s never one around when you bloody need one! We contacted a shore station and they confirmed there wasn’t a warship for hundred’s of miles. Worse still, it was obvious that the life raft was slowly sinking. The two girls would be in the water long before any warship appeared to answer our call.

“We’d better lower a boat soon,” suggested Mac, “the rigid inflatable boat is pretty quick and handy. It’s also expendable if it is a trap.”

“So who’s going to risk their lives if it is a trap?” I asked as we all scanned the horizon nervously.

“I’ll go. It’ll only take one man.” Offered Mac.

“You’ll have to take one more, if only to provide cover.”

“Any body willing to come with me?” Asked Mac.

There was a short pause then Supan the third mate spoke up.

“You pay me, I’ll go.”

“It’s volunteers I asked for, not pressed men. I can’t pay you if you’re dead.” I growled. You can take one of the kalashnikovs. We’ll video events from here.

His smile grew wider as he grinned fatefully. I liked Supan; he was a young bright cheerful kid who was driven only by profit. Because of the dangers inherent to the voyage, we paid top dollar. The charter rates could easily support it. Supan had his dreams just like all of us.

He was also saving up to start his ‘jeepney’ fleet of buses back in Manila. Unlike Gus the second mate, Supan had no family. He was an ideal candidate to volunteer for any risky venture.

Neither did Mac have any family; that is if you did not count his boyfriend Billy. Yes, Mac and Billy were gay partners, but hey, what the hell I was in no place to judge. I had my own squalid little secrets.

I caught the concern in Billy’s eyes as he considered Mac’s offer to volunteer.

“You be damned careful,” cautioned Billy to Mac.

At that Gus piped up.

“Shit! Skipper, the raft is starting to sink.”

We all turned to see the igloo shaped cover start to deflate and we realized things were deteriorating quickly.

The girls seemed paralysed with fear and we wondered if there was somebody inside the raft with a weapon. However as the tiny rubber cockleshell began to settle, it was becoming obvious there were only two persons in the raft. The rest of it was already partially submerged.

I took the controls and slowed the ship down as Mac, Supan and Billy made their way to the hoist were the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) was stowed. Within minutes the inflatable was speeding across the waves as Gus kept the machine gun trained directly on the remains of the raft. The rest of the crew knew exactly what to do and kept their eyes peeled in all directions. The rescue was effected with little delay. The life raft had now all but sunk and the girls were soon plucked from the water. They were soon speeding back with the girls aboard. It was only when I could compare the girls alongside Mac’s bulk that I realised they were children. It’s almost impossible to judge scale at a distance on the open sea. This was confirmed as they climber nervously aboard and stood shivering fearfully on the deck as my crew recovered the RIB and tattered remains of the life-raft with the hoist.

What meagre clothes the two children wore had already been torn and shredded by whatever experiences they had suffered. I shouted down to Supan from the bridge wing.

“Get them some blankets and bring them up here.” I heard Mac direct Supan to take the girls up to me as Mac and Billy stowed the RIB. The poor kids eventually appeared before me shivering with either fear or exposure. I didn’t know which so I smiled to reassure them but they stood in shocked silence.

“Who are you?” I asked in as soft a voice as possible so as not to scare them. For it was obvious the pair were petrified.

They stared wide-eyed in shock but stayed silent.

“What happened to you? Where’s your ship?” I tried a different tack but still met with nothing but silence. I tried a bit of French then Spanish but neither language had any effect.

“They haven’t spoken since we rescued them.” Declared Supan.

“They must be in shock or something,” I replied as I tried again.

“Aren’t you even going to tell me your names?”

Again there was nothing, just two wild-eyed stares and a deafening silence. I bent down to make myself smaller and reached out slowly to reassure them. They flinched then tensed but they allowed me to touch their sunburnt arms softly. The silence prevailed and I studied their cracked lips.

“D’you want something to drink?” I persisted.

Their eyes flickered and I took that to mean yes, but I made no headway against the silence. By now Mac and Billy had returned from the deck and Gus had the ship under way again.

“They must be in shock,” said Mac, “the life raft was a mess. Torn to ribbons. I brought it back though. The bosun’s storing the remains in the mast house. We don’t want another ship seeing it and raising a false alarm or something.”

“Was there anything in it?”

“No. Nothing. Supan and I searched it thoroughly.

This left me in a quandary. Who where these children and where had they come from. Mac tried some simple German but that elicited nothing, then Billy tried some simple Danish. Our efforts reflected our various backgrounds and seafaring experiences but none of our efforts succeeded. Gus even tried his native Philippine Tagalog but that elicited nothing either. We had exhausted our reservoir of languages. If they weren’t able to speak then we would get nowhere. I hoped that perhaps the life raft’s number would tell us something. By now the cook arrived with some cold fruit juice and the children drank greedily.

It was obvious that the children had been adrift for some time but there was little else we could tell about them. Their bleached hair told of years under a tropical sun but that could be anywhere from Australia to South Africa to America or the Mediterranean. Fortunately, several of the ship’s cabins were empty for we sailed with a minimum crew to pay higher wages because of the dangers.

I motioned for the children to follow me and showed them a cabin with two bunk beds next to Supan’s cabin. It had once been the apprentice’s cabin but cadets and apprentices were a luxury I could ill afford. The children entered it with a nervous curiosity but seemed to settle a little when I told them we would bring food in a few minutes. I then left them to their own devices but left the door open to demonstrate they were not some sort of prisoners. Apart from that there was little I could do. We had no children’s clothing and I was keen to get on. I wanted to get to the Straights of Hormuz before another Monsoon wind arrived. I reported the incident to the International rescue centre with details of the life raft’s identity numbers then settled down to await events. Our destination was Karg Island in Iran and then Abidjan. The first was an island with a large storage installation and tanker terminal at the top of the Persian Gulf. The second was a cargo port where we were to unload the centrifuges. Karg Island was where the gas compression plant was being built. The island is almost totally devoted to oil production except for a tiny ancient fishing village that existed before oil was discovered.

We arrived without further incident and the authorities came on board to discuss the two castaway’s plight. A kindly Iranian lady doctor checked them over and declared that apart from the shock thing they were in good physical health. As to the children’s mental health, well nobody could say. God alone knew what they had seen. The loss of their parents or adult carers was the one certainty and that alone would have sent any child into shock.

The numbers on the life raft finally proved useless. If the life-raft had come from a properly registered commercial ship there would have been records to confirm validity and test dates. This life-raft’s numbers told us nothing more than what we already knew. It had proved to be a typical small life raft sold to yachtsmen in just about every marina on the planet. The numbers provided no identity unlike the carefully prepared and listed details on the life rafts of a proper ship. It only provided a possible story about a private yacht that must have been attacked by pirates or overwhelmed by a storm. Somehow, the children must had escaped into the life raft or been deliberately placed in it. The only thing that could be said about the life raft was that it had worked; it had saved the children’s lives. Either way we would never know until the children recovered from shock and told us their story.

The next shock destroyed what little faith I had left in Human nature. It appeared that because the children had no proper identities, no western country would accept responsibilities for them. The Iranian authorities offered to find adoptive parents in Iran but I had grave reservations about that. The children were obviously from a European background and it would have been unfair to expose them to a culture as oppressive and alien to their birthright as that of Iran. I declared that I would carry the children back to South Africa and find suitable care for them there. Technically, they were still my responsibility under maritime law. Anyway, the Iranian authorities seemed relieved to be free of the problem and agreed to let them travel back with our ship.

We had developed a good relationship with the Iranians during the previous voyages but we still kept a polite respectful distance between them and us. I had little time for the oppressive culture that prevailed in that country and felt it would be cruel to expose two young girls to such a misogynist (by my occidental standards) existence. Nevertheless, I did manage to persuade the authorities to allow me to take the two children ashore on Karg Island to buy them some clothes. The few Iranian women in the fishing village, made a huge fuss of them but even their friendliness failed to cut through the mantle of the children’s silence. We came back with some extra clothes but both girls were still in shock.

With the discharge completed we returned to Durban and I finally made detailed arrangements for their care. There was a Catholic orphanage up country where the nuns could take care of them. I wasn’t a religious man. God knows, I’d suffered enough for my transgressions during my own childhood what with six years in a psychiatric unit then nearly three years in Borstal! I assumed, (wrongly as it turned out,) that the two girls would be well looked after in a religious establishment, but hell! What did I know?

As the silent girls were driven away by the nuns, I returned to my other duties of supervising the loading for the next voyage. This time all the cargo was under deck. All the first stage big stuff had been delivered and there would be no more deck cargoes until the sixth or seventh voyages. By that time, the monsoons would be over. We took a course well clear of the Somali coast and completed the next voyage without incident.

Billy, Mac and I were now well into profit and relished the end of the contract in nine months time. By then we would be bankrolled for life.

The next two voyages also passed without incident and as predicted, the seventh voyage involved more deck cargo because the monsoons were over. This or the eighth or ninth voyage was to be the last, depending on some further negotiations between the South Africans and the Iranians. They struck a deal and we smiled as we confirmed a tenth voyage. It transpired that the last cargoes also involved some military supplies but we weren’t bothered. Technically, the deal was legal for there was no trade embargo between South Africa and Iran at that time.

For Mac, Billy and I it just meant higher freight rates and more money into our respective pension funds. We returned to Durban for the last time and loaded the military equipment in addition to the last of the gas compression equipment and some very strange looking cargo that resembled nothing like gas stuff.

Before we set off for Iran we talked long and hard about the future of our ship owning. We decided that I would keep a third share in the ship and act as a cargo broker whilst Mac took command and Billy continued as Chief engineer. I sold my one-sixth share between Mac and Billy for they could now easily afford it so that we were now each equal one-third parties in the venture. Frankly I was now in my fifties and getting tired of the nomadic life at sea. I wanted to put down roots and live a very private life indulging my squalid little secret.

Oh did I mention that I was a transvestite. Correction; I AM a transvestite!

As the last cargo was being loaded, we despatched our registration papers to a contract lawyer in London and waited for our Baltic Exchange agent to find the next cargo or preferably, long term charter. With all angles covered we left Durban in high spirits but a little nervous about the future.

We were two days out of Durban when we all had the shocks of our lives.

Supan was standing watch on the bridge when two little frightened faces appeared in the chartroom. He let out a shocked gasp as he recognised the two little girls. My phone rang as Supan babbled down the phone.

“Skipper! Skipper! Come up quickly!”

Not knowing what to expect but anticipating a pirate attack, I rushed to the bridge immediately and gaped in shock at the pair. For long moments, my mind raced as I stared stupidly. For some inexplicable reason, I still assumed that they couldn’t or wouldn’t speak, but this delusion was quickly rectified. It was Supan who delivered us of our misapprehensions as he gasped stupidly.

“Where did you two come from?” He squawked.

“We escaped from the nuns,” replied the older one.

Her reply brought us to our senses and I felt a load shed from my shoulders. Now we would get some answers. Now the poor kids might be able to tell us what had happened.

“Why have you come back here? Why did you leave the orphanage?

For answer, the girls pulled off their tops to expose bruises and cuts across their backs. Supan gasped and I stared disbelievingly at their backs. I had seen enough and their stories of abuse in the orphanage were amply supported by the brutal wounds on their backs. These kids were not going back to any bloody orphanage. I couldn’t send them anyway; we were already seven hundred miles from Durban.

“OK. Put your tops back. Is it sore?”

The girls nodded so I took a series of photographs as evidence of the abuse. Naturally, the ship carried both a 35mm still camera and a video camera to record any evidence on the ship that might lead to litigation. Usually this was for pictures of any cargo damage or hull damage caused by any of a thousand maritime risks. I was well trained in taking forensic evidence and I changed the lenses several times to achieve expanded ‘blown up’ close ups of the injuries. I used the exercise to show Supan how to do this for it was obvious he might one day need such skills if he ever made command.

With the evidence secured I took the girls down to the ships medicine locker and instructed Supan to ask Mac to relieve him then join me. I thought that the girls seemed to prefer Supan to anybody else. After all it was to him that they had declared themselves as stowaways. Perhaps it was his age, or more likely his friendly nature and easy smile. Whatever the reason, I wanted a ‘chaperone’ to witness their treatment. My transvestism had long ago made me doubly cautious about accusations of paedophilia and there was no adult woman on the ship. Supan would be my best witness because, as gay men, Mac and Billy risked the same accusations as me. Despite homosexuality being legal, there was always that further potential to smear their good names.

When Supan joined us, I was reading ‘The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide’ while the girls sat nervously on the iron bed in the little hospital. I turned to Supan and explained.

“The best I can do is wash their backs with antiseptic then put a dressing on them. These wounds are quite nasty look. They haven’t been treated for a few days but they’re still not healing. There might be some infection or something.”

I motioned to Supan to sit and hold the girl’s hands as I warned the older girl.

“This will sting a lot. I’ll try a small patch first on the worst cut.”

The girl bit her lip and tensed her back as I prepared to gently dab the worst weal mark. She whimpered and I stopped.

“Can you stand any more?”

Tears came to her eyes but she bit her lip and nodded stoically.

“That’s a brave girl. Tell me to stop if it’s too sore.”

Tears came to my eyes and Supan’s as I dabbed her back as gently as I could and I then asked Supan to place a loose dressing over the wounds as I approached the younger girl.

“Can you be brave as well?”

She stared silently for a long minute then nodded slowly as the older girl smiled to reassure her. I was as gentle as I could be but the child whimpered cruelly and I felt as guilty as hell. Finally I gave the girls each a jab of broad-spectrum antibiotics. A shipmaster has some rudimentary medical training and administering injections is amongst it. Eventually the ordeal was over and Supan showed the girls back to the cadet’s cabin next to his. I cleared up the medicines then locked the medicine cabinet and joined the girls with Supan in their cabin. There I explained the rules. They were simple.

A ship is a dangerous place and they must stay out of the engine room unless accompanied by an adult.

They must also be with an adult if they want to go out on the main cargo deck.

They could play all around the accommodation and out on the accommodation decks.

They had to ask permission to go into anybody else’s cabin, as that was a man’s personal home space.

They were in charge of their own cabin and nobody could come in unless they were invited.

Meals were to be eaten in the mess-room with the rest of the crew at the usual set times.

At this stage I felt the girls ordeal had been enough. I did not even ask their names. They would probably volunteer information if and when they grew more comfortable with the ship and our crew. The fact that they had somehow made it to the ship and decided to join us indicated that they saw us as some sort of refuge. I felt secretly pleased to be so honoured but I was still alert to the problems that lay ahead. The big problem would be in Iran when the girls turned up for a second time.

I was leaving the ship there to return to Britain and a well-earned retirement. Mac would finally get his own command of his own ship. It had always been his ambition.

I thought that getting the girls off the ship and to a safe country would prove to be Hell’s own problem.

The last trip to Iran proved uneventful. We stayed well clear of the Horn of Africa and arrived at Karg Island on schedule. Throughout the passage we delicately tried to find out how the girls had come to be cast adrift in a life raft but the trauma had obviously left them in some sort of shock. They simply refused to speak about it, though they did talk about the cruelty in the orphanage.

Once again when we arrived in Iran we had to explain about the two girls but when the Iranians saw the photographs of the children’s injuries they accepted our story and the girls testimony. I contacted the British Consul and arranged with the Iranian Sharia Courts to have the children put on my passport as dependants. They spoke English with a British accent anyway and that satisfied the consul. We still hadn’t established their full identity but the girls confirmed their names as Jennifer and Beatrice and said they came from a small village in Devon in England.

As their rescuer and saviour, the Iranian authorities invoked Sharia law and allowed me to adopt them temporarily under Iranian law. There were no known surviving adult relatives in Iran and the judge demonstrated abundant common sense. I swore an affidavit that on arrival in the UK, I would make every effort to locate their family; that was grand parents or aunts or something. This was the lever that opened the door towards having the pair put on my passport temporarily until arrangements could be made in the UK. The British consul issued Jenny and Bea with emergency passports and we prepared to fly home to Britain. The last few days were spent saying our goodbyes to the crew and completing arrangements for the ship’s future. There were two possible options, both long-term charters in Europe so we were happy that we would soon meet again. Jenny, Bea and I stood waving on the jetty in Karg Island as we watched our ship departing. Then it was a rush to catch the connection to Tehran and on to London.