Hunting Pirate Heaven by Kevin Rushby

Author:Kevin Rushby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2008-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

9

Marooned

O my America, my new found land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,

My mine of precious stones, my empery,

How blessed am I in this discovering thee!

John Donne, Elegie: To His Mistress Going to Bed, 1593–6

Next morning, after three hours of interminable paperwork, we were free to go ashore and did so immediately.

Dzaoudzi is a pretty little place with its bougainvillea bushes and palm trees. The entire coraline plug is barely a quarter of a mile in diameter and is infested with giant fruit bats, legionnaires and bureaucrats. Of these the bats are by far the most pleasant: squabbling in the mango trees by day and defecating from great heights during the night. The leathery slap of their wings and piercing squeaks are never out of earshot as they show little fear of humans – surprising, as the humans often spit-roast them as kebabs and serve them on the quayside along with deep-fried green bananas. This is the only way to eat out cheaply on Dzaoudzi, indeed on the whole of Mayotte because the three islands are addicted to a prodigal Parisian lifestyle based on a 98 per cent French subsidy.

On the ferry from Dzaoudzi to Mamoudzou, the main town on Gran Terre, this was soon apparent: snappy black dudes with bleached blond cropped haircuts driving black Italian scooters; girls with long braided hair in clothes made of lycra and velcro clutching boutique bags; then the French men in tight white shorts, plastic sandals and Raybans. It was clear that wealth and progressive westernised attitudes were inversely linked to quantity of clothing as the more traditional ladies were swathed in yards of red and white cotton while a few of the men wore capacious Arab robes. My interest in clothing was also drawn to a large red emergency box on the deck of the ferry on which the words ‘30 brassieres’ were written. It seemed a peculiarly French thing to throw to a drowning man.

As we approached Mamoudzou, I stood by the rail and examined the town. It was a crowded little place, all clearly centred on the ferry landing point. Behind this the hillside rose up steeply, covered in a tangle of concrete and stone with some conspicuous new blocks of steel and glass. Further away the money ran out and I could see ramshackle huts with corrugated iron roofs. Often these were the houses of immigrants from the other islands, Anjouan in particular, many who had come illegally. The journey across the fifty-mile strait is hazardous in the extreme: forty-three died in one incident, others simply go missing, but still they come, and the gendarmes spend their time catching them and sending them back.

On landing, I left Lucy and Per and went off to ask about boats to Anjouan. A bar-owner directed me to a small tatty kiosk where a youth was watching French satellite television. When I asked about Anjouan, he merely flicked a newspaper towards me.

It was the local Mahorais daily and the front page exclusive was accompanied by a fuzzy picture of people running through a street in the capital of Anjouan.

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