The Magic Medallion

I woke up with Spot tugging at my shirt collar ‘What is it?’ ‘Sshh, listen’ he whispered.’ There were voices coming from below us, it was Ngolo and Nswala. ‘That was a good idea of Impases, to get Nagala imprisoned and out of the way, he will reward us handsomely when he becomes the chief of the Ashanti people.’ ’Yes he will Ngolo, but not if we don’t find the Medallion, he will be nothing without it.’ ‘Your right Nswala, that meddling fool and his dog has spoilt our plan.’ ‘Not yet they haven’t Ngolo, they have to be on the ship somewhere and they must be very very hungry by now.’ ‘I wonder where they could be hiding, did we look in this lifeboat.’ Spot could feel me tense up with fear. ‘Yes we did Nswala, ‘Let us try forward again there are still a few places up there, where they could be hiding.’ ‘Yes, we have not looked in the foredeep tank, or the Bosuns locker.’ Their voices trailed off as they moved away. ‘They have gone Ken.’ ‘Phew. That was a near thing, if they had looked in here the game was up for us. Did you hear that Spot, Impase is intent on being the next chief of the Ashanti, and he is just using the Pygmies to help him in his dirty deed, when he succeeds he will most certainly get rid of them.’ It was getting very hot under the tarpaulin now as we were not far off the African mainland, and the temperature had been rising day by day. ‘The day after tomorrow should see us docking in the port of Dhaka Spot.’ ‘Will I be glad of that Ken? I can’t wait to get out of this lifeboat and back on dry land.’ ‘Yes me too Spot, but the danger for us is far from over, we have to get ashore first, and those two will be on full alert waiting and watching for us to break cover and show our faces.’ ‘I wonder how Nagala is getting on with his new shipmates.’ ‘A lot better than he was with these I bet, anyway Pedro will be at hand to help him.’ ‘Yes it was a piece of good fortune to run into him again Ken.’ ‘As they say Spot it’s a small world.’ ‘Who said?’ ‘Oh never mind Spot.’ We finished off the last of the food we had and kept a half bottle of water for later. Then suddenly without warning there was an almighty crack. Spot snuggled himself under my arm, and then the drumming started as the rain hit the tarpaulin. What a fright we both got. It was an African storm; it lasted about fifteen minutes and stopped as suddenly as it had started. What luck? We managed to fill both our bottles again with the rainwater, and it also cooled down our cramped conditions in the lifeboat. ‘Do you feel a lot better now Spot.’ ‘Yes Ken it was getting a bit sticky under here with the sun being so hot.’ I lifted the tarpaulin and peeped out, it was night time again, the sky was pitch black but clear, the stars were glittering like diamonds. ‘See the stars Spot.’ ‘Yes Ken.’ ‘The sailors use them to guide the ship from place to place, as they travel around the world.’ ‘How do they do that?’ ‘It’s too complicated for me to explain exactly how, but they read the sky like a road map. ‘You see, the North Star it is always in the northern part of the sky, then there is the great bear, the plough, Orion and so on, They all have names and also have there own position in the sky. As the ship moves through the sea the navigation officer who is on duty reads the sky and takes the position of the stars, when he knows where they are he marks it down on the ships chart, and this tells him exactly where the ship is on the ocean.’ ‘What do they do in the daytime? ‘They take readings from the sun at noon, and work it out on the ships chart where they are, its all very clever stuff.’ ‘So do you Ken know all that?’ ‘Thanks Spot, you are a flatterer.’ The next day the sun was very hot again but at least we had plenty of water from the rainstorm we had last night and if I have reckoned up the days correctly we should be arriving in Dhaka sometime today. We spent most of the day just dozing and quenching our thirst, from the bottles of rainwater we had saved from the downpour. ‘Hear that noise Spot.’ ‘Yes Ken what is it?’ I peeped out from under the tarpaulin it was just what I had hoped to see. ‘It is the tugs Spot they will tow us into the port of Dhaka.’ It was not long before we were under the power of the tugs. They went about their business of slowly pulling us into the harbour entrance, on route to the berth in Dhaka. ‘One good thing Spot it will soon be dark, we have been lucky that way. It makes it a little easier and better for us to get off the ship without being seen, I didn’t fancy staying all day alongside the jetty in the hot African sun beating down onto the lifeboat tarpaulin.’