North Star (14 page)

‘North Star
to
Bowstring
– as soon as ve are in position over ze marker I tell you, then you leave
Rattler
to hold us and lay out ze first anchor, is it?’

‘Roger
North Star.
’

‘Is Number Two anchor ze virst one.’ A Dutchman by the sound of it, and in that last gleam we could see two figures on the helicopter deck, one with a walkie-talkie to his mouth as he acted as towmaster.

‘Roger – out.’

And then the other ship’s captain: ‘You’re relying on the tide to hold her, but suppose we get a cross-wind?’

‘Ze forecast is good – so ve lay anchors vast and everyzing okay, is it.’

‘Is it?’ The voice crackled with emphasis. ‘You don’t have to lay the bloody anchors in the dark, mate.’

‘Then ve lay them again tomorrow if zey are no good,’ the Dutchman replied imperturbably. And, much fainter, another voice – ‘See they lay them right first time, Pieter. I don’t want any hold-up when the drilling crews …’ The voice faded, but
something in the crispness of it made me wonder if that was Villiers standing up there beside the barge engineer. I remembered reading some years back that he had had a narrow escape when the prototype belonging to a small aircraft company he had acquired crashed while doing landing and take-off tests. He was the sort of man who would get a kick out of being on the spot at the start of a new venture.

The lurid gleam of sunlight vanished, the rig moving ponderously. Dusk came fast with low cloud rolling in, the huge structure abreast of us, 20 steel columns riding high on submerged pontoons with the derrick a latticed finger thrusting at the overcast, the ruby glow of its warning lights giving it a festive air.
Decca
to
North Star
,
North Star
to
Rattler
– our bridge radio crackled with instructions as the rig, a blaze of lights now, approached the tiny pinpoint of the location buoy.

It was night before
North Star
was in position and
Bowstring
, the smaller of the two supply ships, closed stern-on for her towing hawser to be let go. The time was 21.17. An arc light swung as the rig’s crane moved, one of the crew clinging like a fly to the deck rails, hand on the heavy hook, guiding it into the eye of an anchor pennant. The brontosaurus-like head of the crane reared up to lift the anchor clear of its housing on the underwater section of the column, then bowed downwards as
Bowstring
backed in, men moving on the flat deck of the supply ship, balanced on the stern just clear of the roller, reaching out with gloved hands to connect the pennant to their winch hawser, and the mate standing with his walkie-talkie to his ear.

I had closed in to watch how it was done, the crane head rising again and
Bowstring
pouring a white froth from her stern as the winch roared, the pennant dragging at the 15-ton anchor till the big shackle at the top of its stock came clear of the water, held hard against the fat round barrel of the stern-roller. The heavy clamp, secured by a strop to the bulwarks, was snapped on, the men on deck shackling on the long pennant wire attached to one of the 3-ton anchor
buoys and a winch drum high up on the corner of the rig paying out cable as the tow began, out to the pinprick light of the anchor position marker rising and falling in the swell.

It took almost an hour to lay that one anchor, the men on the supply ship never still, moving so nimbly as their flat craft wallowed with its load that they looked like ballet dancers on the lit stage of the after deck. By midnight the second anchor was down and
Rattler
, released from her tow, had joined
Bowstring
, the crane in almost constant motion as it fed pennants and buoys to the two of them. And all the time we lay hove-to and rolling just clear of the anchor cable lines, our radio tuned to the walkie-talkie talk. There was only one hitch, and that was towards dawn.

‘
North Star
to
Duchess
… close in to No. 5 – ve haf No. 5 anchor jammed and are zending divers down.’

Two divers in wet suits, with aqualungs on their backs, were lowered by crane in a steel cage, their torches shining like sea luminosity as they swam around the column housing of No. 5. The pennant wire had wrapped itself round one of the anchor flukes and we lay there, with the rig towering above us, while the pennant was cleared and dropped and a new pennant shackled on, the anchor hoisted clear by an auxiliary winch on the rig’s deck.

It was daylight by the time that last anchor was laid and the rig held by all eight winches under correct tension.
Bowstring
was already over the horizon,
Rattler
hull-down, both on their way back to Aberdeen. The Decca ship had gone during the night. Only ourselves left now, a lone trawler keeping watch around the rig. It was 06.28 and I handed over to Johan and turned in.

I had hardly closed my eyes, it seemed, before a hand was shaking me and Henrik’s voice said, ‘The rig has sent a boat for you.’ It was an inflatable rescue boat with one of the divers at the outboard motor, an Italian with dark curly hair and thin olive features. ‘Issa Mr Villiers. ’E wanta speak wiz you.’

It was a bumpy ride, the boat driven at speed and the northerly
breeze kicking up small waves, only snatches of talk possible. His name was Alfredo and he was one of the divers who had been down clearing the anchor. ‘Issa very cold, si … Where is my ’ome? It is Milano. But not in a long time, I mean.’ He had been in the North Sea for two years now, before that in Nigeria. ‘Si, I have a wife and two bambini. Those-a boys, they are growing with a Scotch accent.’ White teeth flashing with laughter and the bows dropping as we swept in under the giant pier-shadow of the rig. The slop of waves against the columns, the swirl of the tide running, and then the rusty iron of an endless stairway embracing a column and rising to the distant glint of sky high above. ‘You go to toolpusher’s office. They tella you where is Mr Villiers. Okay?’

Even though the ballast tanks had been blown and the torpedo-shaped pontoons sunk from the towing to the drilling depth of almost 60 feet, I reckoned it was well over 50 feet from sea level to the helicopter deck. I came out just beside the monstrous drum of No. 4 winch. The toolpusher’s office was a steel shack, the entrance leading off the helicopter deck, and behind it was the pipe deck piled high with pipe, steel casing, drill bits, all the ironmongery of drilling, some 2,000 tons of it. Beyond the pipe deck was the steel skid for lifting pipe to the derrick floor, and reared above it, like an enormous pylon, the derrick tower itself.

I pushed open the door of the toolpusher’s office and a leathery-faced man wearing a bright red peaked cap looked up from the girlie picture mag he was reading. Behind him was a complicated diagram with the emergency indicators for blowout prevention. Of course, they would have precautions, and that diagram, so detailed, so comprehensive – I stood there for a moment staring up at it. Pipe rams, blind shear – I can’t remember all of them, but four or five fail-safes, each with a red warning light to beam out its danger signals once action had been taken. With all those safety measures there did not seem much danger of a dragging anchor causing oil pollution.

‘You looking for somebody?’ The man in the peaked cap was regarding me suspiciously.

‘Mr Villiers,’ I said. More than anything else, the sight of that diagram brought home to me the nature of this colossal machine, the complications of operating deep under water and deeper still into layers of rock below the seabed.

Offhandedly he directed me to the barge engineer’s office. This was one deck down into the crew’s quarters, right opposite the ballast control room. I caught a glimpse of an engineer seated at an enormous console full of pressure gauges and the whole wall facing him taken up by a diagram panel with red and green lights, flanked by ballast indicators that looked like giant temperature gauges. Then I was into the office and two men were standing at a table in the corner, poring over a large design sheet, their white safety helmets perched on a pile of books. They turned as I entered and one of them, a short bulky man with hair that stood up like a brush and very blue eyes in a crinkled sun-worn face, folded the design, leaning on it with his hands. He wore a faded anorak over a grubby T-shirt. The other was dressed in a sky-blue sweater, with the clean collar of a white shirt showing above it, and neatly creased, immaculate trousers. He was taller, thinner, with livelier features. ‘You the skipper of that trawler?’ he asked. I nodded and he held out his hand. ‘Vic Villiers.’ His grip was firm, his eyes on my face, summing me up. ‘A long night, eh?’

‘I had just turned in,’ I said.

‘Sorry about that. How would you like to be running one of those supply ships?’

‘I think I might have a nervous breakdown.’

He laughed. ‘You’ve never seen a rig laying anchors before?’

‘No.’

‘Nor had I. Fascinating!’ There was an undercurrent of excitement in his voice. ‘This is Pieter van Dam.’ He turned to the man beside him. ‘God knows how many times he’s done it, eh, Pieter? And not an ulcer in his belly.’

The Dutchman’s stolid face broke into a smile as he made
an exaggerated effort to pull in his protruding stomach. ‘The ulcers only come ven you begin losing lifes, is it?’

‘Well, you’re not losing any here.’ There was a subtle change in Villiers’ manner, the smile gone and the moment of humour with it. ‘You’re off on the first flight, aren’t you? I’ll see you before you go.’ He gave a brief nod of dismissal and turned to me. ‘Sit down.’ He waved me to one of the chairs drawn up round a low table littered with empty coffee cups and oil industry magazines. The door closed behind the Dutchman and we were alone. The room was stuffy, full of stale cigarette and cigar smoke, the glare of fluorescent lighting. I was nervous and suddenly very tired, the all-pervading hum of machinery a soporific.

‘You wanted to see me,’ I murmured. He was standing there, staring at me, and I wondered whether he suspected anything. ‘Is it about the work permits?’ If it wasn’t about the work permits …

‘We had a report, of course. Putting to sea like that was a little high-handed, the sort of thing that upsets the locals.’ But he was smiling as he sat down opposite me. ‘I’ve had Fuller open an office in Scalloway now. He’ll fix it for you. In any case, you don’t have to worry about work permits here.’ He stretched out his legs, leaning back, the light on the dark stubble of his jaw. ‘What did you think of Fuller by the way?’

I shrugged. What the hell did he expect me to say? ‘He’s a good man from your point of view.’

‘No hard feelings?’

‘What about?’

His hand had moved to the table, long sensitive fingers beating a light tattoo. ‘That charter. He pulled a fast one on you, didn’t he?’

‘I imagined it was your idea to buy the mortgage.’

‘Well that much of it is to your advantage, so long as you do the job and stay on station.’ He sat there for a moment, staring at me, not saying anything, and I had a feeling he was
trying to make up his mind about something, the fingers still tapping at the table top. ‘You’re wondering why I got you over here, after we’ve both of us been up all night.’ His tanned face was handsome, almost boyish, his eyes dark under dark brows, his hair almost black. ‘You probably think that because I deal in company finance I’m not interested in people. But running a business or running a trawler, it’s the same thing – everybody’s got to fit. You, for instance.’ He shifted a little forward in his chair. ‘What made you salvage that boat and then take on a three-month charter?’

‘It’s suitable employment for an old trawler.’

‘And you like the sea.’ He smiled, leaning back again. He knew it didn’t answer his question, but he let it go, asking me instead about the salvage and how we had managed to get her off the rocks and repaired in time. He seemed genuinely interested. It was a side of him I hadn’t expected, an enthusiasm for physical practicalities, and as I tried to answer his detailed questions, I began to understand what it was that had induced him to gamble in oil, why he was out here taking a personal interest in the anchoring of this rig he had acquired more or less by chance. And because he seemed impressed by what we had done, I found myself warming to him.

It was very naïve of me, but I was tired and the atmosphere relaxed. And when he progressed to enquiring about my background, it seemed quite natural. I suppose I was a little flattered, too, and because I thought his questions stemmed from a business man’s desire to make the fullest use of anybody associated with him, I told him just enough about myself to give him confidence.

‘So your stepfather was an industrialist?’

‘Yes – a small arms factory. That was during the war. Afterwards he switched to consumer durables.’

‘And you came over to England to study at the LSE and work as a financial journalist.’ But instead of asking me why I hadn’t stayed in journalism, he began discussing the present economic outlook, the fuel situation and the future of the
country in a monetary world dominated by the oil revenues of Middle East potentates. He was even more optimistic than the press, or even the politicians, believing that offshore oil could solve Britain’s whole balance of payment problems. It was a long time since I had talked to anybody of his calibre and, tired as I was, I found it immensely stimulating.

‘So we have this chance to become rich again, to change the whole economic climate of the country. But what about the political climate? Will that change?’ And without thinking I said, ‘Yes. The political climate depends on the economic, doesn’t it?’ And I added, conscious that I was now giving form to thoughts that had been vaguely in my mind for some time, ‘This is something our political leaders, certainly our union leaders, have been slow to grasp. The mass of the people, of course, they haven’t a clue – not about economics. But the political climate, that’s different. They are the political climate, and in some subtle way they sense a change without understanding the cause.’

‘You really think that?’

‘Yes, I do. You change the economic climate, then the political climate must change, too.’