That Wasn’t the Plan. Reg Sherren

That Wasn’t the Plan - Reg Sherren


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from somewhere else. They were from India or Pakistan or the Philippines, hired by the rich of Bahrain to do the jobs they did not want to do. Foreigners, who outnumbered Bahrainis by close to two to one, did most of the work.

      Tipping was strictly forbidden. In lieu of tipping everything had a 15 per cent service charge. Once a month the hotel we were staying in named their “employee of the month,” who received a bonus of two dinars. Somebody was making a lot of money and it wasn’t the employees. In our hotel, the staff all lived in a compound out back that was surrounded by a fence with barbed wire. They would move from the compound to the hotel and back again. It did not take long to figure out this was not a democracy—or anything close to it. Here foreign workers had no real rights and not much of a life either, just work and a bed.

      We had to take cabs everywhere. The cab from the airport was five dinars. I spoke with an American in the lobby who told us we paid too much. If the cabbies think they can get away with it, he said, they will charge you as much as they can, especially with all the foreign troops in town, but no cab ride should be more than half a dinar. He said if you do not barter with them, they will not respect you. Lesson learned.

      I made contact with the Canadian Navy and needed to meet with them, so I called a taxi. Before we left I asked the driver, “How much?” “Five dinars,” he replied. “That’s not a fair price,” I said, starting to get out of the cab. “But for you my friend, just half a dinar,” came the quick response. I agreed, but he would have to wait and bring me back. Even getting a cab quickly was becoming a challenge. Hold ’em while you got ’em. Lesson number two.

      The Navy was helping smooth things out with Bahraini authorities. We still didn’t have permission to videotape on land. The Bahrainis had no control over what we taped on Canadian warships, but our Navy did. Back when I had first proposed going, Canadian military authorities wanted to dog-tag us—to essentially enlist us and fly us over on military aircraft. It meant they would have complete control over what we shot and what we said. We said, “No thanks.”

      I had no interest in becoming a propaganda arm of the Canadian military. We had maintained our independence, but between the military and the Bahraini Ministry of Information, there was precious little real information to be had. It was becoming a very frustrating, hot experience, enough to drive a man to drink. And that cold Bahraini beer was financially out of reach.

      I was lamenting that very fact to my new friend the cab driver when, in a moment of mutual respect, he proposed I meet him outside the front of the hotel later that evening. When I did, he took me to the back of the hotel where another cab was waiting. In the trunk was a case of Löwenbräu beer. He asked for US$40. I countered with $30 and we settled on $35. Thanks to my new friends, I had finally accomplished something.

      The next morning, more success. A young fellow dressed in traditional Arabic attire appeared and declared he was our escort. Standing there in his flowing white linen, he didn’t appear to be more than sixteen years old. And he was driving a powerful two-door, super-charged Mustang, not exactly the perfect vehicle to be lugging around two big Canadian guys with half a ton of camera gear. I didn’t care, though—we were shooting!

      We took shots of the bustle of the city, and then, travelling at well over 160 kilometres an hour, our young friend zoomed us out to the desert, where we were surrounded by camels and oil derricks. In the city, nobody would speak on camera; off camera, Bahrainis told me they were nervous. A small island nation joined to Saudi Arabia by causeway, Bahrain’s fear was that if Saddam Hussein could march into Kuwait, what or who would stop him if he decided Bahrain was next?

      The Americans would stop him, of course, and the coalition. They had arrived with their fleet of warships, and it seemed they had almost taken over the city. They were everywhere. The Canadian military was setting up shop too, but our ships weren’t allowed in the harbour. We were told they had to anchor several kilometres offshore because they were carrying fuel and explosives. Why the Americans didn’t have to do the same is another story, but I will save that for later. Our Canadian forces were where our real story was.

      It was hard to believe, but there I was, having my picture taken in the middle of the biggest world conflict of the day. This was about as smooth as the Persian Gulf got. The Protecteur is behind me.

      There were three Canadian ships: HMCS Protecteur, HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Terra Nova. The Terra Nova and the Athabaskan were frigates, already out in the Gulf on patrol. To get to the supply ship Protecteur, which was anchored outside the harbour, we would have to take a water taxi, which was sort of like a gigantic cork rolling and bobbing on the water. It reminded me of those little one-man tugs you saw pushing logs around off the coast of British Columbia just like on The Beachcombers (if you are old enough to remember that great Canadian show!).

      I am not a good sea person. This was not a seagoing vessel. It was designed to move people around the harbour, not for sailing a couple of kilometres offshore. The Persian Gulf can get rough—we learned that soon enough. Like an ant crawling through tall grass, we moved precariously through the fleet of warships tied up everywhere in the harbour.

      On board were just me and Mark and two crew. The captain barely spoke. His assistant, who was from Bhopal, India, spoke English very well. During the ride out he told me he worked on the boat twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He slept on the small wooden bench in the cabin. He had one pair of flip-flops, two pairs of pants and two shirts. He cooked and ate on the boat, with just a couple of pots and pans. Twice a year they flew him back to India for a week to see his wife and six children. The rest of his life, he was on this boat. He seemed resigned to it all. These two gentlemen and their bobbing cork would become our only means of getting to and from HMCS Protecteur. Every trip would be an adventure.

      And today it was rough. Once we’d cleared the harbour, the swells kept getting bigger and bigger. A floating dock was attached to the Protecteur, at the time our Navy’s largest service and fuel resupply vessel, with a large flight hangar housing the Sikorsky Sea King helicopter on its stern.

      As we approached in the swells, I could see getting on that dock was going to be more than a challenge. It would mean risking our lives. At one point the dock was a good three metres above our heads, then below us, then above. We had to time it perfectly to transfer the gear and then ourselves during that brief moment when both our boat and the dock were level. One slipped step and you could lose your leg—or worse. Slowly, slowly, we timed each transfer, then counted all our fingers and toes.

      On board, the crew was excited for our arrival. Like a little piece of home, the boys from Newfoundland CBC’s Here & Now had come all the way to the Persian Gulf to see them. They were a great bunch, eager for news from home, and whenever we were on board they couldn’t do enough for us.

      The plan was to lift off the back of the Protecteur and fly out to the Athabaskan, which was patrolling off the coast of Kuwait. We would land on the back of it and shoot them on patrol, perhaps even videotape a practice attack drill. No sweat. Well, as it turned out, a lot of sweat. It was hot enough on deck. In the chopper, where we wore flight suits, helmets and water-flotation gear, it was stifling at just shy of 50°C.

      The Sea King was well maintained but old. We did a little rehearsal drill about ditching in the water. I did not want that to happen. Earlier, looking over the side of the ship, I’d seen massive sea snakes, lots of them, swimming just under the surface.

      When we lifted off there was a big swell, but nothing too serious. By the time HMCS Athabaskan came into sight, however, it had become extremely rough. It was so rough the Sea King couldn’t get onto the deck without help. Our crew dropped a grapple cable with a claw on the end. Below us, the deck crew attached it to a large steel ball on the stern, and we were literally winched down to the surface of the ship, hitting it with a not insignificant thud. And there we were, on a Canadian warship a hundred kilometres off the coast of Kuwait.

      My adrenaline was pumping and we were eager to get started, but there was a problem. The water was now so rough we could barely stand up. We attempted to do an interview,


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