ALL GONE TO POT
There was to be a fortnights’ break from Krona. The refit work on one ship had been completed and we were waiting for the next one to come in. After working 28 twelve-hour nights straight we were all comparatively loaded and needed a change of scene. The day after the last night’s work in the docks we were lounging about on the low wall outside Morgan’s Bar, drinking heavily, when Dave said: ‘Let’s all go to Morocco, get hold of some cheap blow and chill out for a bit till Krona starts up again.’ Dave was a very calm person. He was the son of a policeman from Birkenhead and he often came up with ideas.
‘Good idea,’ we said. The sun sank fast over the hills across the Bay.
There were seven of us: Paddy, Mark, Roger, Ben, Dave, Dominic and myself. We took the bus to Algeciras and a ferry across the Straits to Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco – Spain’s Gibraltar. We’d decided to avoid Tangier, the other main port of entry’ we’d heard the hustlers there were wolves. And from the Ceuta border post we could walk into Morocco and catch a bus to Chefchouen - a little chilled-out place we’d been told about on the edge of the dope-growing region of the Rif. We must have looked an unprepossessing bunch with our not-often-washed clothes and sun-bleached, saltwater-washed hair; a pretty uninspiring tour group carrying almost no luggage except rolled up sleeping bags hanging from shoulders on loops of string. Not the kind of tourists likely to laden the King of Morocco’s coffers, bolster the economy, spend freely in hotels and top-notch restaurants. We looked exactly like what we were: a bunch of stoners who’d smoked the last of their stash on the ferry over and were looking for more.
As we ambled up to the checkpoint it was agreed that I should go first.
‘You look like a bloody Moroccan anyway,’ it was mooted. ‘And you sound posh. We’ll hang back a bit, then, once you get your passport stamped we’ll move up. You make it clear you’re waiting for us and they’ll have to let us through.’
I felt uneasy. Checkpoints, Customs, men with guns and suspicions always made me feel uneasy. I looked at the others. ‘And if they ask how long I’m staying? What do I say?’
‘A week,’ said Paddy.
‘The weekend,’ said Mark. It was a Tuesday.
‘Tell them you have relatives in Marrakech. There’s a wedding to go to and we’re all guests,’ said Dave.
The man in the Customs shed looked at me, the policeman next to him looked out at the rest of our group. Their expressions made it clear they disliked the cut of all of our jibs. The man in the shed took my passport and languidly flicked through the pages, not really registering them, taking his time to make up his desultory mind. I looked around at all the signs in Arabic. It’s like a code, I thought, a code I’d like to crack. It was baking in the shed and I started perspiring heavily, sweat trickling down into the crack between my arse cheeks.
The official indicated I should take my passport away. I smiled. He flicked a hand as though brushing away a fly. I blinked some of the stinging sweat out of my eyes.
‘You go by Tangier.’
‘What d'you mean?’ I said as I swiped a palm across my dripping face.
‘This border closed for you,’ he said. ‘You go by Tangier.’ I looked out at the others then backed away from the shed to let Roger present himself to the official.
‘Tangier,’ the man said, and sighed. He craned his neck and looked at the rest of my friends.
‘You… You... You…,' he pointed, 'All go by Tangier.’
‘Why?’ Mark demanded. ‘We have money we want to spend in your country.’
The official gave no answer. Only made a gesture with a hand to indicate we were mere irritants to his day, then pointed towards a Moroccan man and his family who’d been waiting quietly behind my friends, and beckoned them to step forward.
We continued to stand around in the way. The man looked up.
‘Go!’ he barked. The policeman tensed.
Dave pointed to me. ‘He has family in Marrakech. A wedding.’
The official looked at me, registered my look of total disbelief at what my friend had just said, then told the Moroccan man and his family to get a move on.
As we walked back to Ceuta under the crushing sun Mark suggested going back to the border that night.
‘But this time we’ll go over the hills,’ he said.
We pointed out the sentinel soldiers with guns standing along the skyline, nodded to the barbed wire, the men with dogs.
‘We can try again tomorrow anyway,’ said Paddy. ‘They’ll have changed the guards on duty and we’ll get through. And we should go in pairs. Not all together.’
We traipsed back into Ceuta town and went for a meal in a Chinese restaurant overlooking the harbour. It was a cloudless late afternoon. A cool sea breeze blew in through an open window.
I watched a little yacht sail into the inner harbour, in past the mole. A lad of about our age, clutching a rope, jumped from the boat onto the quayside. He seemed to be making a hash of tying up, fiddling about. A middle-aged man behind the wheel in the cockpit of the yacht started gesticulating, then jumped onto the quay and took the rope from the lad and began waving his arms about. The lad climbed back aboard the yacht, disappeared inside for a few minutes, emerged carrying a rucksack, leapt onto the quay and stalked off out of sight.
We ordered. Dave asked for bird’s nest soup and when it came it looked like spew. We spotted a Spanish legionnaire wandering through the harbour, wondered whether the Spanish Foreign Legion was less harsh than the French version. Mark reckoned he’d’ve made a good legionnaire, reckoned it was only the dope that made him undisciplined. We talked about home and plans and other places in other countries we’d like to see. Then we paid the bill and went back out into the sun. Ben and Roger scored some dope and we checked into a shoddy hotel and smoked it.
The next morning we tried the border again. The guards were different to those of the day before but we still looked like vagrants and they still wouldn’t let us in. To enter Morocco by Tangier would entail us taking the ferry back to Algeciras and then buying another ticket to Tangier. If they didn’t like the look of us in Ceuta why should they look upon us any more favourably in Tangier? It wasn’t worth the effort. Fuck ‘em. Back in Ceuta town we bought some booze (it was marginally cheaper than in Gib and old habits of the impecunious die hard) and headed for the ferry terminal.
The lad I’d watched from the Chinese restaurant was on board the ferry back to Algeciras. We invited him to share our booze, out on the upper deck. He came from a place called Hope, in the New Forest. By coincidence he and I shared the same name. I asked him about the scene on the quayside.
‘I had a row with the skipper,’ he said. ‘We were meant to be going to the Caribbean but we hit a massive storm the fourth night out from Algeciras. Huge waves crashing over the boat. It was great! Like being in a blender. What a rush! We had to take down all the sails and batten down the hatches. We were heeled hard over and it was so noisy and the boat was getting thrown around all over the place but I managed to wedge myself in and sleep; I think to blot it all out. But the skipper kept waking me up and saying, “I don’t think she can take much more of this, Dan, I don’t think she can take much more.” I really thought I was going to die, out there in the Atlantic with only that total tosser to say goodbye to.
'Eventually the storm died, but the wind changed direction and started blowing us back towards Spain. It was the skipper’s first yacht. He didn’t really know what he was doing and I haven't a clue.
‘When we got to Ceuta I had trouble with the knots trying to tie up the boat. I’d never done it before. I don't know my knots. "Cam on, you useless tart!" he started shouting, "What the fack you playing at, golden bollocks!" I told him to get fucked and grabbed my stuff and left. Then I couldn’t get out of the harbour. Customs said I was an illegal alien or something. Eventually the skipper found me and signed me into Spain.’
I told the lad about Gibraltar and the work in the docks but he said the job sounded crap and he’d had enough of travelling for a while.
‘I’m going back to the UK,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go back to college, get some ‘A’ Levels and then go to university and do a language degree. In Arabic maybe… it’s like a code I want to crack. You get to spend a year studying abroad if you do a language. I’d like to see Damascus, see if I can get a year out there maybe.’
When we reached Alegeciras the lad walked through the Customs building like a drunk, weaving about all over the place. He’d sunk a few beers on the ferry but nothing serious. I asked him if he was all right.
‘Fine, ' he said. 'Just haven’t got my land legs back yet. Feels like I’m still at sea.’
He looked happy and I sort of envied him.
‘Good idea,’ we said. The sun sank fast over the hills across the Bay.
There were seven of us: Paddy, Mark, Roger, Ben, Dave, Dominic and myself. We took the bus to Algeciras and a ferry across the Straits to Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco – Spain’s Gibraltar. We’d decided to avoid Tangier, the other main port of entry’ we’d heard the hustlers there were wolves. And from the Ceuta border post we could walk into Morocco and catch a bus to Chefchouen - a little chilled-out place we’d been told about on the edge of the dope-growing region of the Rif. We must have looked an unprepossessing bunch with our not-often-washed clothes and sun-bleached, saltwater-washed hair; a pretty uninspiring tour group carrying almost no luggage except rolled up sleeping bags hanging from shoulders on loops of string. Not the kind of tourists likely to laden the King of Morocco’s coffers, bolster the economy, spend freely in hotels and top-notch restaurants. We looked exactly like what we were: a bunch of stoners who’d smoked the last of their stash on the ferry over and were looking for more.
As we ambled up to the checkpoint it was agreed that I should go first.
‘You look like a bloody Moroccan anyway,’ it was mooted. ‘And you sound posh. We’ll hang back a bit, then, once you get your passport stamped we’ll move up. You make it clear you’re waiting for us and they’ll have to let us through.’
I felt uneasy. Checkpoints, Customs, men with guns and suspicions always made me feel uneasy. I looked at the others. ‘And if they ask how long I’m staying? What do I say?’
‘A week,’ said Paddy.
‘The weekend,’ said Mark. It was a Tuesday.
‘Tell them you have relatives in Marrakech. There’s a wedding to go to and we’re all guests,’ said Dave.
The man in the Customs shed looked at me, the policeman next to him looked out at the rest of our group. Their expressions made it clear they disliked the cut of all of our jibs. The man in the shed took my passport and languidly flicked through the pages, not really registering them, taking his time to make up his desultory mind. I looked around at all the signs in Arabic. It’s like a code, I thought, a code I’d like to crack. It was baking in the shed and I started perspiring heavily, sweat trickling down into the crack between my arse cheeks.
The official indicated I should take my passport away. I smiled. He flicked a hand as though brushing away a fly. I blinked some of the stinging sweat out of my eyes.
‘You go by Tangier.’
‘What d'you mean?’ I said as I swiped a palm across my dripping face.
‘This border closed for you,’ he said. ‘You go by Tangier.’ I looked out at the others then backed away from the shed to let Roger present himself to the official.
‘Tangier,’ the man said, and sighed. He craned his neck and looked at the rest of my friends.
‘You… You... You…,' he pointed, 'All go by Tangier.’
‘Why?’ Mark demanded. ‘We have money we want to spend in your country.’
The official gave no answer. Only made a gesture with a hand to indicate we were mere irritants to his day, then pointed towards a Moroccan man and his family who’d been waiting quietly behind my friends, and beckoned them to step forward.
We continued to stand around in the way. The man looked up.
‘Go!’ he barked. The policeman tensed.
Dave pointed to me. ‘He has family in Marrakech. A wedding.’
The official looked at me, registered my look of total disbelief at what my friend had just said, then told the Moroccan man and his family to get a move on.
As we walked back to Ceuta under the crushing sun Mark suggested going back to the border that night.
‘But this time we’ll go over the hills,’ he said.
We pointed out the sentinel soldiers with guns standing along the skyline, nodded to the barbed wire, the men with dogs.
‘We can try again tomorrow anyway,’ said Paddy. ‘They’ll have changed the guards on duty and we’ll get through. And we should go in pairs. Not all together.’
We traipsed back into Ceuta town and went for a meal in a Chinese restaurant overlooking the harbour. It was a cloudless late afternoon. A cool sea breeze blew in through an open window.
I watched a little yacht sail into the inner harbour, in past the mole. A lad of about our age, clutching a rope, jumped from the boat onto the quayside. He seemed to be making a hash of tying up, fiddling about. A middle-aged man behind the wheel in the cockpit of the yacht started gesticulating, then jumped onto the quay and took the rope from the lad and began waving his arms about. The lad climbed back aboard the yacht, disappeared inside for a few minutes, emerged carrying a rucksack, leapt onto the quay and stalked off out of sight.
We ordered. Dave asked for bird’s nest soup and when it came it looked like spew. We spotted a Spanish legionnaire wandering through the harbour, wondered whether the Spanish Foreign Legion was less harsh than the French version. Mark reckoned he’d’ve made a good legionnaire, reckoned it was only the dope that made him undisciplined. We talked about home and plans and other places in other countries we’d like to see. Then we paid the bill and went back out into the sun. Ben and Roger scored some dope and we checked into a shoddy hotel and smoked it.
The next morning we tried the border again. The guards were different to those of the day before but we still looked like vagrants and they still wouldn’t let us in. To enter Morocco by Tangier would entail us taking the ferry back to Algeciras and then buying another ticket to Tangier. If they didn’t like the look of us in Ceuta why should they look upon us any more favourably in Tangier? It wasn’t worth the effort. Fuck ‘em. Back in Ceuta town we bought some booze (it was marginally cheaper than in Gib and old habits of the impecunious die hard) and headed for the ferry terminal.
The lad I’d watched from the Chinese restaurant was on board the ferry back to Algeciras. We invited him to share our booze, out on the upper deck. He came from a place called Hope, in the New Forest. By coincidence he and I shared the same name. I asked him about the scene on the quayside.
‘I had a row with the skipper,’ he said. ‘We were meant to be going to the Caribbean but we hit a massive storm the fourth night out from Algeciras. Huge waves crashing over the boat. It was great! Like being in a blender. What a rush! We had to take down all the sails and batten down the hatches. We were heeled hard over and it was so noisy and the boat was getting thrown around all over the place but I managed to wedge myself in and sleep; I think to blot it all out. But the skipper kept waking me up and saying, “I don’t think she can take much more of this, Dan, I don’t think she can take much more.” I really thought I was going to die, out there in the Atlantic with only that total tosser to say goodbye to.
'Eventually the storm died, but the wind changed direction and started blowing us back towards Spain. It was the skipper’s first yacht. He didn’t really know what he was doing and I haven't a clue.
‘When we got to Ceuta I had trouble with the knots trying to tie up the boat. I’d never done it before. I don't know my knots. "Cam on, you useless tart!" he started shouting, "What the fack you playing at, golden bollocks!" I told him to get fucked and grabbed my stuff and left. Then I couldn’t get out of the harbour. Customs said I was an illegal alien or something. Eventually the skipper found me and signed me into Spain.’
I told the lad about Gibraltar and the work in the docks but he said the job sounded crap and he’d had enough of travelling for a while.
‘I’m going back to the UK,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go back to college, get some ‘A’ Levels and then go to university and do a language degree. In Arabic maybe… it’s like a code I want to crack. You get to spend a year studying abroad if you do a language. I’d like to see Damascus, see if I can get a year out there maybe.’
When we reached Alegeciras the lad walked through the Customs building like a drunk, weaving about all over the place. He’d sunk a few beers on the ferry but nothing serious. I asked him if he was all right.
‘Fine, ' he said. 'Just haven’t got my land legs back yet. Feels like I’m still at sea.’
He looked happy and I sort of envied him.