It was a military government.

Soldiers have a drum-head method of leaving nothing to discuss except where the corpse is to be buried.
I forced my way aft--got some gasoline out of the tank into a tin cup--thrust aside Ahmed and two other men--and primed the engine liberally.

The engine coughed next time they moved the wheel, and in thirty seconds more we had it going.

Ahmed came in for a volley of mockery for having to be shown the way to start his engine; but from the sour way he looked at me I was nearly sure he had stalled deliberately.
We backed away from shore, and Anazeh steered the boat's nose eastward.

Then somebody at the reversing lever threw it forward too suddenly, and the still chilled engine stopped.