خاطرات کاری بخش ارتباطات دریایی ( بخش دوم )

دومین بخش از خاطرات کاری بخش کنترل ترافیک را به خاطره همکار عزیز داریوش شمسی از مرکز کنترل ترافیک بندر گناوه با متن انگلیسی اختصاص می دهیم .

 The SAR

Summer was nearly over but there was no sign of autumnal air in the South where the shrimp season was still on. Fishing and motor boats were totally engaged in their seasonal catch and the pier was busy with mongers, buyers and fishermen. Every day in the afternoon a couple of boats berthed the pier and discharged their fortnightly catch which was instantly purchased by waiting mongers and then sold to the consumers who sought the best bargain round the place. The bigger shrimps held the highest price and only affluent families managed to get hold of them while the tiniest reached the majority who stretched their expenses to afford a 10-kilo of worm-like ones. The surface of the water canal was dark and filthy filled with gasoil spill and catching litters. There were few amenities round the area to offer an air of convenience and relaxation; therefore every hustle and bustle was fleeting and hardly was any idle soul wandering there. People came on foot, motorbikes and in cars then got off, paid, got their portion and vanished. That day amidst the buzzing of shrimp purchase appeared a woman of advanced years, asked the gate guard a question and headed for a pair of caravans on the left side of the entrance gate. It was late in the afternoon and we were about to settle down for the night. She rushed to the door and began to knock.

Who 's that?

It's me. Said the woman imploringly.

How can I help you, madam?

My son. She continued tremulously.

Come in please!

No cell or anything to communicate?

No. Answered she. It's two days. He was supposed to come back yesterday or today morning.

She suggested and then sat at the front door and began to sob. Her dark complexion was profuse with sorrow. She wanted to give a pause to the sob and add something but abandoning herself to despair she could hardly talk.

The rough conditions had subsided to moderate; still swell was animate to force a great deal of rolling. Bereft of position, a shot in the dark would help do the trick and we all knew it a foregone conclusion. Amid the bafflement a fellow in his midst approached and gave himself as a sympathetic neighbour offering a hand to the guys with the bragging of knowing the whereabouts like the back of his hand. He was then given the benefit of the doubt and the guys braced themselves for the search.

Twilight was at its dawn and it dawned on us that the growing dark would hold the lowest visibility impairing the radar reducing it to a near-sighted thing with murky vision.

The old woman's sob was almost over or maybe it was going on in her heart but whatsoever it was it had abated on the surface now and just her appealing eyes were looking to us. She was murmuring

something under the decibel of our hearing and we thought it a pray for her son's return. Darkness was pushing through. Our occasional contacts delivered nothing new and we maintained it till the last one indicating the guys' obligatory return with no catch. We had no clue what to say to the grieved woman. She looked at me and said: haven't they found him? Though she knew the answer she was looking for something like solace and I said they would find him sooner rather than later. I then saw her raise her hands in a praying gesture and cried to God. We watched her and prayed for her in our silence.

Half an hour later the guys announced their arrival and disembarked. The woman went home with the eyes full of tears and a heart so broken. She said she was living alone and the missing boat was carrying her only son. She said he was all she had in the world and she didn't know why God wanted to deprive her of her sole reason to live. She said she would be back the next day.

After her we ,once more, broadcast a couple of safety messages to the ships navigating in the vicinity of the area , contacted a few fishing boats and the outcome was a couple of promises from the fishery.

Then we settled and thought of a way and then of the woman. We held the slimmest image of how she would go through that doleful night. Perhaps she would go to bed thinking of all the years she had toiled to raise the kid. Of the days when the kid was sleeping in her arms and then she began to fondle him and they both felt safe and satisfied. Of the far-fetched desires of the kid to become a doctor or a rich businessman. And the sudden departure of his father who left them out of the blue and a rickety motor-boat was his solitary legacy which they had to sell for the funeral. And then a meager portion of seafood by neighbors became their daily bread and subsistence. And then the kid dropped out early to provide for the family and then it went on for years and years. All these hard times would haunt her through the night along with the fear that his son might not be found. She, perhaps, would think of his wedding and her playing with the kids and hundreds of other thoughts that would be sometimes comforting, sometimes tormenting.

The next day she was back. She looked more confident than the day before because she knew the broad daylight would enhance the chance of locating the boat.

As the guys were starting the engine, the neighbor emerged from nowhere and some gathered around him each with a commentary on the case but it didn't last long and the boat put to sea as we watched the white foamy wake behind it.

It was the last time I saw the old woman watch the departure of the rescue boat dwindling to a dot behind the swell of the sea. She then tightened her veil and walked out of sight.

Her departing gait demonstrated a gloomy figure, a feeling of loss and loneliness among the crowd