[Harry Nicholson]

I'm still tapping away at this keyboard. The latest chapter of unpublished book4 is a 'creative' recall of a few hours at the Eritrean port of Assab. I've posted it here, just in case any of you chaps know this port at about that year. My wife was allowed to sail as supernumerary on this trip to Calcutta.

I feel the piece needs some filling out. Any comments? Observations? I'll be 86 in three weeks, and enjoy a bit of feedback.


29th June 1960
The little port of Assab is hardly eighty miles from the Danakil Depression, said to be the hottest place on Earth, and today feels like it. To escape the heat, a stroll ashore seems a good plan. We are the only ship in the harbour, and are tied up beneath a clanking crane that lifts cases of Carreras Craven 'A' cigarettes out of one of Marwarri's holds, followed by crated wireless sets.
The police have departed. As soon as we came alongside, many thousands of heavy coins, in stout boxes, were hauled by hand from our bullion room. Under armed guard, the currency was rushed away to Addis Ababa by military transport. These Maria Theresa thalers (dollars) are brand new, from the Royal Mint in London. Each silver coin is dated 1780 and inscribed with a string of abbreviations which decode as Maria Theresa, by the grace of God, Empress of the Romans, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, Countess of Tyrol. It bears the profile of a corpulent Maria Theresa, hence the most trusted coin in East Africa is fondly termed The Fat Lady. If I were to be paid in Fat Ladies, I reckon I'd be handed four a day.
The ship seems to pant. There's no escape. To touch a steel surface is to invite burnt flesh. The cabins are uninhabitable, so those free of duty wander ashore in search of shade. We sail as soon as discharge is done, so we must watch the time.
The dusty little town, carpeted with blown sand, has a Mediterranean character with touches of Italy here and there. Not to be left out of Europe's 'Scramble for Africa', in 1869 an Italian missionary in the pay of his government bought Assab from two Danakil chieftains for 6,000 Maria Theresa thalers. So began Italy's empire south of the Sahara. Mussolini ran this port, and the rest of Eritrea, until defeated by British troops in 1941. The province is now federated with Haile Selassie's landlocked kingdom of Ethiopia, which is where our cargo is destined.
Defined streets are rare. Our group of four wanders among haphazard houses with pierced white walls. We dive into the first cafe. The owner is a sad little Italian who has yet to go home. There are few windows, but the walls are pieced like a lattice to aid air flow. In the dim coolness, beneath the whispering blades of two ceiling fans, we find the bottled beer is chilled, but far too sweet. The yellow and red label shows a mounted Saint George in the act of shoving his lance into the throat of a green dragon. St George is the patron saint of Ethiopia, and a few other places apart from England. Ethiopia gave up a version of Judaism to become Christian in 330AD, three-hundred years before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons got underway. The emperor Haile Selassie descends from Menelek, the first emperor of Ethiopia and son out of a union of King Solomon of Israel with the Queen of Sheba. He glories in the title, The Lion of Judah. All this we discover from a local schoolteacher who sips coffee at the next table. He urges us to visit the Church of Saint Michael on the edge of town. It proves to be a handsome building --- three green domes, a belfry, and many narrow windows of stained glass. Shoes have been left by the door. Within will be coolness, but on trying to enter, a barefooted sexton on the door bars our way. 'Haile Selassie church,' he shouts. 'Not for you.'
By now, we droop with the heat. I'm anxious. Beryl is not walking in a straight line, and keeps taking a rest in any morsel of shade. A single blast from Marwarri's whistle warns she'll be sailing soon. Good! We need to get out of this place.
*
After the shimmering furnace of today's shore, the motion of a ship is sweet. As soon as we cast off, Beryl took to her bed while Marwarri took the channel that sweeps around the thirty islands in the Bay of Assab and made for the open sea. It was disconcerting to open the wireless room door. Sealed on the orders of the port authority, even though for just a few hours, the heat within was tremendous. Bob and I stood back and waited for the oven to cool a little. I touched the surface of the cabin door. My finger came away tacky. On all varnished surfaces, doors, cupboards, the ancient coats, layered one on top of another over the years, had become semi-molten. It has slumped downwards in glowing ripples.
I turn to Bob. 'See that? Years of gleaming care gone to wrinkles like a prune.'
'Aye,' he says. 'Right enough. The place is like Ayesha's two-thousand-year-old skin after she lost the elixir of youth.'
I give him a quizzical glance. 'What have you been reading?'
'Rider Haggard's She. It's in the library box. She who must be obeyed.' He points to the orange mountains that march along the burning coast off our starboard side. 'The story happens somewhere amongst that lot. The land of Prester John, according to some.'
I nod. 'Your brother Scot, John Buchan, puts the mythical Prester a good bit south of here. Right-oh, let's see if the gear works. Whatever else's gone on, the cockroaches will be nicely done to a turn.'
We open both portholes and switch on the nodding electric fan. In a few minutes, with the door wide open, the temperature collapses below 100 Fahrenheit, and we start the gear. Bob calls up the primitive Assab telegraphy station and tells them of our departure bound for Djibouti. The bridge has fired up the radar. I must check all is well with that mass of valves, resonant cavities, wave guides, and gas cells. It will be needed tonight when we pass through the straits of Bab el Mandeb, the southern end of the Red Sea, and a place of islands, reefs, and a major shipping lane.










**