The Final Hours
“We did it” breathed Ali.
“You did it” said Rachel, and for him that was what
mattered.
It was so close now. We could see waves breaking on the
beach, we could see the entrance to Gaza’s harbour, we could see crowds waiting
for us. I watched this from inside my sleeping bag, lower half kept warm while
my head popped out to watch our arrival, our triumph.
No boat could catch us now, for we’d outrun them all, their
navel boats gunmetal grey smudges miles behind us.
I looked up at the massive wing glinting in the first rays
of this, the new day. There was a line of holes from the encounter in the
night, bullet holes. I shivered and snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag.
It was reflected in its mirrored surface that I first saw
them. A pair of Cobra helicopter gunships, racing towards us like Terminator
wasps, angry and dangerous.
Everyone watched them, unsure of how to respond. They’d been
focussing for so long on sailing they’d forgotten there are other ways to
travel.
“We keep going” said Michael.
“I will tell them who we are” said Rachel.
She got out the VHF again.
“I am Israeli, there are three Israelis on-board. There is a
journalist on-board. We have no weapons, no fight.”
The helicopters tracked us, the speed we were so proud of
nothing to their air frames, even though they were dwarfed by our wing.
Rachel raised her passport high in one hand.
“See” she said. “We mean no harm.”
She raised other hand high as if to surrender, and it was
then the gunship opened fire. A stream of shells cut her in two, her top half
tumbled overboard while the legs remained lying on the netting.
There was pandemonium, chaos in which they lost control of Luna Rossa, the giant craft nose diving
into the waves, fling me headfirst into the surf. Bullets and shells continued
to fly, picking off the others as they dangled on the netting, their screams cutting
short one by one.
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