Merchant Navy Memories - Whatever Happened to Bassala?
by Published on 30th June 2022 08:27 AM
Bassala and another Egyptian, I think he was called Ahmed, joined my ship (MV Captain Avgerinos) in Ceuta. I remember thinking how had these two bedraggle unemployed seaman finished up in Ceuta. Dressed in long faded shirts and turbans, they looked like they had stepped out of the 1942 movie, Casablanca.
The captain signed them on as ABs. For all their impoverished appearance they turned out to be fairly competent seamen, especially the 50-year-old Bassala. Not so much the younger Ahmed, who I thought was a bit gormless. Bassala on the other hand was educated and spoke good English.
Bassala had previously visited Southampton and his enduring memory of England was seeing men eating fish and chips out of newspaper, then screwing up the paper and dropping it in the street. He thought this was uncouth, and if I strolled into the wheelhouse while he was on the helm, he would taunt me by calling, “Fish and chips in the corner.” I would respond with a counter-insult, mimicking a soldier holding a rifle and running backwards saying, “You know what this is, Bassala? It’s an Egyptian soldier charging, backwards.” He’d say, “We kicked you British out of Egypt in 1956.” I’d say, “Rubbish, all the British Paras and Royal Marines found when they invaded Suez was piles of army boots your soldiers had kicked off so they could run away faster.” And so on, exchanging light-hearted insults. However, in spite of Bassala’s anti-British rhetoric, he and I became good friends.
Later when my wife joined the ship for transit from Avonmouth to Immingham, Kathleen also got on well with Bassala and we had many laughs together. Also, Bassala took good care of me in Alexandria making sure I was safe in the bars and cafés of the Egyptian seaport.
On the 28th September 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president died. Bassala and Ahmed were working on the deck, I went outside and called down to them, “Hey, Bassala. Your President has just died, Nasser is dead.” Well, I thought they would just shrug and say, “So what.” Instead, they both went into deep mourning, both refusing to work and for two days wouldn’t come out of their cabin.
The tanker began trading between Venezuela and the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. While in Vera la Crux, I, along with the second mate, visited a local bar. Bassala was already in the bar. I remember seeing him at a table in deep conversation with a couple of unsavoury-looking Venezuelans. One of the girls in the bar pointed out the men to me saying, “Those men are very bad men. They are gangsters from Caracas.” About an hour later Bassala left the bar with the two men. That was the last time I ever saw Bassala.
The next day we were fully loaded and ready for sailing. The pilot was aboard and getting impatient to let go. We waited in vain for about an hour hoping Bassala would turn up. Bassala enjoyed the company of women, so we guessed he was in bed with one of the many prostitutes of Vera la Cruz. The captain advised the ship’s agent that when Bassala turned up, to put him up in a hotel until we returned to Venezuela.
We later found out from Ahmed, who reluctantly informed us that his friend Bassala had been trying to buy drugs from the two men. He had money on him in the bar and told the men that he had more money on the ship. Bassala and the two men had returned to the ship to collect the extra money ($100) and then had gone back ashore together, presumably to collect the drugs. I’m not sure what drugs were being bought, cocaine or possibly heroin. What we do know for sure is, that was the last anyone saw of Bassala.
On return to Vera la Crux a month or so later, he still had not shown up. The agent and police assumed that because Bassala had vanished into thin air, he may have been murdered by the gangsters and his body dumped somewhere in the hills. They said men have been murdered for much less than $100. The captain and mate dealt with his belongings. I paid off the ship in Curaçao around February 1971, flying home via Caracas, looking down over the Venezuelan Hills wondering, “Whatever happened to Bassala?”
PC - R710198
