A Brush with the Law

 

They stand stock still, heads down. A motionless embodiment of dejection, amid a wheeling commotion of wailing sirens and gesticulating police. Four young men. Would be migrants to the United Kingdom. Two cling close together, guarding a forlorn plastic sack of clothing. Brothers perhaps. Friends, at least. Two others stand apart. Alone.

I had walked out on the harbour wall. Felt the breeze begin to increase, swing into the north east. Watched the white horses begin to prance. Reflected that the past few days, of still weather, would have been busy ones for the Border Forces of Britain and France.

Aramis slipped quietly into port. Her low grey form designed to elude the eye. A cacophany of ululating police and ambulance sirens begins as she docks. Cars and vans race to meet her. Lights ablaze, strobes flashing. On her deck lies a small upended rubber dinghy, no bigger than Stargazer's tender. The intended cross channel conveyance of the would-be voyagers.

More detainees are led up from below. They wear the identical maroon sweatshirts issued to them. Their slight figures are corralled by masked sailors standing foursquare, arms folded, in their navy uniforms.

One official, a doctor maybe, wears a white hazard suit. An outward sign of the detachment with which we (sailors, officials and onlookers) watch, as the men are shepherded ashore. Inwardly I, for one, am comparing my lot to theirs. Wondering how I would respond, were our roles to be reversed.  Wondering what quirk of fate determined our differing circumstances?

The men's body language speaks of dejection, humiliation possibly, but not defeat. Backs are unbowed, ramrod straight. Bodies resilient. Seas will run high, in the Channel, over the next forty eight hours. Once the winds abate, another attempt will be made to cross. That is the expectation of the sailors aboard Aramis. These migrants have traveled far to reach this point. Overcome setbacks greater than this. 

Fifty metres away, on the opposite side of the dock, lies Stargazer - returning from her summer cruise. The contrast, between the lives of Aramis' unwillingly passengers, and our own free wheeling lifestyle, could not be more poignant.