By evening the ship was also being lashed by heavy rain. Winston just nodded. But, unattractive to visitors with its uneven mounds of disturbed earth and an ugly, dlisused drying kiln with a rusting jetty by the main beach, it was an ideal place to gather the captured slaves. Two diesel pumps had to be put aboard and run continuously while they waited for the seams to close up again. Once the vessel was steaming steadily head to sea the cover was removed from the hatch. Instead of taking Maria up through the hatch he dragged her to the low doorway connecting with the engine room. Tears welled in her eyes and she tried to turn away, but Thomson grabbed her thin right arm tightly saying, inexplicably, “Right then, I’ll get on and make the tail for it.”
Helena found herself roughly manhandled to the deck, someone removed her leg irons only to bind her ankles tightly together. Osasu tried to set off a parachute flair but the awash deck’s lurching caught him off balance so the blazing
