# Whisky Galore!



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

During the month of Ramadan, good Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset... and with the day-time temperatures in Dubai reaching 60° Celsius in the summer of 1977, there were a lot of very thirsty people about. Mina Hamria is a small port, cut straight out of the desert... sheet-piled in a rectangle in the sand and dug out first with a dragline, and finished off with a cutter-suction dredger.
My line manager... Mohamed Ali... pulled up in his chauffeur-driven white, stretched Mercedes limousine and climbed out of the rear door. He clambered over two water tankers by the wharf, then over the bulwarks of my ship... Dauntless Star. He chatted with my crew for a moment, before climbing the outside ladder from the weather-deck to the upper deck, and I was at the door to shake his hand and welcome him into the air-conditioned luxury of my wheelhouse.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he eagerly accepted the can of cold lager that I placed into his hand. He took several gulps before ducking down and peeking out of my wheelhouse window.
"What's the matter, Ali?" I asked him. "Are you afraid Allah will see you drinking the elicit alcohol?"
"Allah can't see me in here, this is an infidel ship. It's the police I'm worried about." He bobbed up again to look out of the wheelhouse window to the nearby quay-side. "They'll lock me up! Not as a punishment, but to make sure that I obey the laws of Ramadan."
We laughed together at the thought, and chatted for a while before he reached into his Arab dress and produced a brown A-4 envelope.
"I've a very special job for you, captain. Inside, there's twenty thousand dollars," he confided to me in a hushed voice. "Ten thousand for you to complete the job, and ten thousand to buy the items written on the list inside." He eyeballed me for a moment. "No one else must ever know what is written on that list."
I nodded at his request, assuring him of my understanding. "What's up, Ali?"
"Never mind what's up," he told me. "The instructions for you are inside. This is just baksheesh... a little palm-oil to help the wheels of business turn around. Follow the instructions inside to the letter, and then we'll all be very happy with you." He gave me a knowing grin and smiled.
After finishing off his can of beer, Mohammed Ali shook my hand and bid me goodbye. I watched him talk to my crew out on deck, who were preparing to connect up the hose to start loading water into the main hold, then clambered over the bulwarks of the two other ships, being careful not to damage his full length white Arab clothing before disappearing into his air-conditioned limousine. He was quite spritely for a short, thin, late fifty year old.
After checking the bundles of American dollars, I ran my eyes down the list that was included in the envelope. There were three hundred year old bottles of Napoleon brandy, in crystal decanters, set in sandalwood boxes covered in green baize, with pure gold Fluor-de-Lies over them. As well as several dozen cases of single malt whiskies, there was a hundred cases of the cheaper blended whisky. These were to sweeten everyone's palm after completing the month of Ramadan.

Bright and early the next morning, I stood in the desert outside the port gates waiting for a taxi to take me into Dubai... just hoping that it would be air-conditioned. The dark shadow by my feet was spreading outwards, as the sweat ran down my back and legs, then out of my shoes into the sand. I stood as still as possible so as not to sweat unnecessary. 
I caught a taxi into town, and after depositing my share of the money in my account at Barclays Bank and a few drinks in The Rose and Crown bar to celebrate this windfall, I walked to the government-owned liquor store in town. The Indian manager was extremely pleased to see me, as I was one of his best customers, and ushered his fellow Indian employees to fetch me a cold beer.
When he looked down at the list I'd prepared for him, he couldn't believe his eyes. He handed it to one of his employees, and then got another to bring me all the freebies that he had on offer. There were packets of different types of beer-mats, boxes of drinking glasses, a crystal decanter, and a case of new beer on the market that he wanted me to try out for him... all given to me free-gratis.
When the assembly of the goods on my list was completed, and several cans of beer later, he sent one of his employees out in the street with instructions to flag down two Volvo estate taxis. The two taxis were loaded with my order, and I shook hands with the manager of the liquor store before leaving for the police station. After the desk sergeant had checked off the quantity of alcohol in the two taxis with the receipt that I had handed him and stamped my paperwork, I was driven with the police escort... a police car in front and one in the back... to Mina Hamria.

My police convoy pulled up on the wharf near to the Dauntless Star. Unfortunately, we were still three hulls out, but my crew soon had a conveyor-belt going, passing the cases of alcohol hand-to-hand over to my ship. They'd had plenty of practice doing this for me, so they knew how it was done by now. When the transaction was complete, I shook hands with the four police officers and wished them a good day. They repeated their thanks to me, with a knowing grin on their faces, before departing on their way back to Dubai.
A couple of hours later... after it was dark... all the bright floodlights of the port were extinguished. There was a rumble of a fully-laden eight-wheeler cement truck coming down the wharf without its lights on. It parked up near my ship... right where my two taxis had parked earlier. The chain-gang was set up again, and all the cases of alcohol for Ahli Marine were passed... hand-to-hand once more... over to the vehicle. There was a hole in the middle of the cement bags, and all these cases of spirits were carefully packed into it, before being covered over with more bags of cement.
Once the loading was completed, the driver... Mohammed Ahli's brother... got back in the truck and drove out of the dock gates towards Dubai. After a few minutes, the harbour lights came back on again, and we settled down to a celebratory drinking session, with me placing several bottles of whisky out for my crew free-gratis to drink together with me, siting cross-legged on the wheelhouse floor.
Everyone on the list that I was given by Mohammed Ali got their bottle of whisky to help them celebrate the passing of Ramadan. From those three high-ranking ministers in the government, to the four police officers in the escort, right down to the security guard on the dock gates... everyone had a smile on their faces. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


----------

