North Star (24 page)

We steamed south and checked Nos. 1 and 2 buoys. Nothing wrong with them and I turned for the rig, calling the operator on duty to ask whether they had felt anything. But of course they hadn’t. They were too high above sea level and the drawworks and the power plant going all the time. I steamed close alongside the five south-facing column legs, then back up the north side. Everything was normal, the big tubular crossbracings solid and undamaged. By then Gertrude was on the bridge, her fair hair tousled and a duffle coat over her pyjamas. She had been roused by the changes of engine note and the wildness of the movement, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just been checking the western anchor buoys, that’s all.’ I didn’t tell her I thought I had felt some sort of explosion. It seemed too ridiculous with the rig towering over us and blazing with light, everything so obviously normal. ‘Ever seen that crack in the glass there?’ I asked her, pointing to the rev counter.

She looked puzzled, staring at it and then at me. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s been there ever since I can remember. Now it is a little more noticeable. Why?’

I shrugged. ‘I hadn’t noticed it before.’ And I walked over to the mug and picked it up. All imagination, and Gertrude standing there looking at me very oddly. Was I beginning to suffer from some sort of persecution mania? I could have convinced myself of that, too, I think, but just as I had told her irritably to go back to bed and get some sleep, Henrik drew my attention to two men high up on the helicopter deck. They were peering down over the edge of it and one of them was pointing to the column leg below winches 1 and 2. A wave reared up and I was flung against the side of the
bridge. Gertrude was close beside me. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

We were coming back on the other roll, the ship broadside to the seas as Henrik took her down the west-facing side of the rig towards the corner where the men standing high above us had been joined by several more, all of them leaning over the edge gazing down at the cable stretched from the winch to the underwater block. I rang for slow and turned the boat head-to-wind, watching from the gangway as men began running to the far side of the rig. ‘What is it?’ Gertrude called out again, and this time there was a note of urgency in her voice.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know. Ed Wiseberg’s burly figure appeared and stood there for a moment. Then he, too, was galvanized into action. The rain slammed down, a sudden squall that blurred the scene. When it had passed I saw Ken Stewart there with a walkie-talkie to his mouth, while he struggled to get an oilskin on over his short-sleeved khaki shirt. I ducked inside the bridge, pushing Gertrude out of my way, and switched on the VHF. ‘Barge to
Duchess.
Calling
Duchess
’ His voice was loud and clear above the noise of the wind. ‘Do you read me?’ And when I had switched to Receive and acknowledged, he said, ‘Check No. 2 buoy. The cable’s slack and we could be dragging. I repeat, check No. 2 buoy.’

‘I already have,’ I told him, bracing myself against the radar as a wave rolled under us.

‘Well, check again. The tension gauge is right down and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference winding in on the winch.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I suspected an explosion, but I checked myself in time. This was not the moment. ‘What about No. 1 cable?’ I asked him.

‘We’re watching it. Stay out by those buoys and keep your radio on.’

‘Roger.’ I switched to loudspeaker and rang down for half ahead. We were bucking in to it then, the waves breaking against our bows and seething along the deck. It was almost dark, no twilight now, only the beam of the spotlight sweeping back and forth and showing the break of the waves as they
swept down at us out of the night. And all the time my mind trying to sort out what had happened – the cable slack, but the buoy still in position. If No. 2 buoy was still on a line with No. 1, then the anchor couldn’t have moved. That could only mean one thing – the cable itself had parted. I was thinking of the colossal strain it was under, a slender line of twisted steel, like an umbilical cord, snaking down in a long half-mile curve to act as a leash between the anchor 100 fathoms deep on the seabed and that huge monster of a rig, and the gusts up to 45 knots now, slamming against its superstructure.

I glanced at the bridge clock, which was on Greenwich Mean Time, the hands at 01.04. It must have happened about ten minutes ago and that slam against the hull, it could have been the tensioned cable parting and curling up to crack like a whip against our underwater plating. Convinced of my reasoning, I made the following entry in the log:
00.50-54 Tension on No. 2 winch cable gone
–
suspect cable parted deep underwater.

It took us longer this time to locate the buoy, and then it was more by luck than judgment, for the radar was virtually useless, the object so small and the seas breaking. We fell off the top of a wave and there was one of the buoys right alongside. We wriggled clear and held it in the spotlight till we could identify it as No. 1. Having found that one, it was much easier to locate No. 2, for both buoys were correctly positioned in relation to each other. I reported to the barge engineer, ‘Both buoys in position and no indication that either of the anchors have dragged.’

But by then they knew what the trouble was. While we had been searching for the buoys, they had been winding in on No. 2 winch. ‘We got most of the cable up now, but the end of it is in a hell of a mess and jammed in the tower block. Looks like it parted close by the anchor.’

‘Wind’s south-west,’ I said, ‘and gusting up to 8.’

But he knew that, knew the whole weight of the rig was now
on a single windward anchor. His voice was high and anxious as he called to me, ‘Stay out there by No. 1 buoy. No, patrol between 1 and 2. I must know any change of position. Ed’s hauling up on the drilling string now, but if No. 1 parts, then he’ll have to operate the pipe rams, hang off the drilling string at the BOP. So watch those buoys and warn me the instant No. 1 starts dragging. Got it?’

‘Roger.’

The door to the gangway slammed and Johan was there, his yellow oilskins streaming water. ‘There is a ship out there.’ He rubbed a big paw over his wet face, peered at the compass and added, ‘About west-north-west of us.’

I switched off the spotlight and peered through the clear-view circle of revolving glass. ‘I don’t see any lights. Are you sure it was a ship?’

‘Ja. She is without lights, but I see the break of a wave against her bows.’ He lumbered across to the radar, switching to short range, his big frame very still now in concentration as he watched the sweep. ‘There! To starboard.’ He shifted to give me a clear view. The screen was flecked with breaking waves, blurred with the rain now sweeping across us again. But there, on our starboard beam, a brighter blip appeared below the sweep, gradually fading to brighten again as the sweep completed its circle. It was just over half a mile away and moving slowly in towards the rig.

I ordered starboard wheel and called down to Per to increase the revs. I had the blip right over the bows then and we were running downwind, the
Duchess
twisting and rolling in the quartering sea, closing the gap fast. But either she had picked us up on her own radar or she could see our steaming lights, for halfway in to the rig she suddenly turned north, and at the same moment Ken Stewart’s voice came over the loudspeaker: ‘Barge to
Duchess
. Tension gone on No. 1 cable. Report position of buoy. Over.’

The time was 01.27. I picked up the phone. ‘
Duchess
to barge. Have unknown vessel on my radar screen steaming
without lights inside the line of buoys. Am closing to identify. Over.’

But when I switched to Receive it was to hear his voice on a note of panic shouting, ‘I told you to stay on station by the buoys. Get back at once and report on No. 1. If it’s dragging we may have to go to emergency disconnect. I must know – now.’

I started to argue with him, but I might just as well have been talking to myself, for I got no reply. Hardly surprising if the rig had started to drag. The anchors were his responsibility and I could imagine what Ed Wiseberg would be calling him if the rig was being driven out of position with the line of drilling string still in the hole.

I stood there with the phone in my hand and Johan staring at me, waiting for my order to head back to the buoys. Gertrude, too. They were all staring at me, waiting. But instead of giving the order to turn, I switched off the navigation and steaming lights, picked up the engine-room voice pipe and called for maximum revs. Gertrude was instantly beside me, her hand on my arm. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Going after her, of course.’

‘But why?’ And Johan’s voice, as he stood over the radar, ‘There is no need. She has seen us and is heading away from the rig.’

Henrik, too, was waiting for the order to turn, and I knew so little about drilling that I was blind to the problems of a man with 600 feet of 20 inch casing stretching down to the seabed. I moved to the radar screen, estimated the intercept course and ordered him to steer it. I saw him hesitate, his eyes flickering from Gertrude to me and back again. ‘Steer 40°’, I repeated.

‘No.’ Gertrude was beside me again, two angry spots of colour flaring in the pallor of her face. ‘We must turn back to the buoys.’

‘When we’ve got the number of that fishing boat.’

‘No, now. You heard what the barge engineer said.’

A wave slammed against the port side. She clutched at me and I held her as the ship plunged. ‘Watch your helm,’ I told Henrik, letting go of her and moving to the wheel to check the compass as he slowly brought her on to course. ‘Hold it at that.’ The atmosphere in the bridge was tense. I had a feeling that if Gertrude had ordered him to steer back to the buoys, he would have obeyed her, and with Johan there, I would have been quite impotent, unable to enforce my orders against his massive bulk. But she just stood there, pale-faced and tense, her eyes staring at me with a sort of fascination.

It took us just over ten minutes to close the gap. Then suddenly we were right on top of her, the spotlight pinpointing her black hull rolling on the crest of a wave. She was a fishing boat all right, and I closed right in until I could read her number. I veered away then, steering past her stern, and as it lifted to the seas the spotlight picked out her name –
ISLAND GIRL
, and underneath the one word
BURRA
.

Island Girl!
The boat that had followed us to Foula with Stevens on board. I turned to Gertrude. ‘Sandford’s boat,’ I said. ‘Remember? You sent me a cutting. A West Burra boat from Hamnavoe.’ She was staring out at the blunt stern now falling away in a trough, her mouth half open. ‘What’s she doing out here?’ I demanded. ‘The paper said he’d bought her as a rig supply boat.’

She shook her head, a surprised, incredulous look on her face, and the bridge silent, only the sound of the engines, the noise of the sea. Perhaps she would believe me now. The boat was gone, the night swallowing it as we swung away in a wide turn and headed back, the rig barely visible, a blurred glow through the rain. ‘She certainly wasn’t fishing.’

‘No.’

‘Then what was she up to? What was she doing out here when every other fishing vessel has headed in for shelter?’ A breaking wave cascaded over our bows, solid water slamming against the windows. I cut the revs, straddling my feet, bracing myself against the forward pitch as we slammed into the trough. ‘You think I’m
crazy talking about bombs and sabotage, but –’

‘Please.’ Her voice was wild, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ And she turned abruptly and went blindly back to the cabin. Christ! I thought. Women! Why couldn’t she be logical, face up to the facts? The rig was coming closer, the lit bulk of it rising solid, the red warning lights on the drill tower giving a warm glow to the low-scudding clouds.

I switched my mind back to the fishing boat, trying to understand the reason for its presence. It couldn’t possibly have been responsible for the cables breaking. We had been between the rig and the buoy when No. 2 cable had parted. No sign of it then. And it had been well clear of No. 1 cable when that had gone, so a mine, or some sort of a depth charge, was out of the question. Anyway, in this weather there was no way of dropping an explosive device directly on to the slender line of a cable deep under water. So what
was
it doing?

And then Ken Stewart’s voice crackling out of the speaker: ‘Barge to
Duchess
. Cancel previous order. Proceed to No. 3 and 4 buoys and stay with them. We’ve got a shift of wind, north-west in the gusts now and we’re holding. But there’s a lot of strain on the marine riser. If either of those buoys move, call me. Over.’

I ordered a small change of course and reached for the phone. ‘
Duchess
to barge. I’m heading for them now.’ And Stewart’s voice again, ‘I can’t see your lights. Where are you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but added, ‘Stay on top of those buoys and if you think they’re dragging …’ His words were cut off, but he still had his hand on the transmitting button and faintly I heard him say, ‘What’s that – No. 3? Christ! Wind in on that bloody winch. Wind in!’ We were so close to the rig by then that I could see him running along the edge of the helicopter deck.

‘I think they are in trouble,’ Johan said. I nodded. It wasn’t
easy to visualize the turmoil up there on the high platform of the rig, but in my mind’s eye I saw the headlines –
An obsolete rig moored in waters too deep and too dangerous
,
and Villiers trying for a fortune by risking men’s lives
… They’d roast him if it ever leaked out that
North Star
had cut adrift in a gale. Was that what Sandford’s boat was doing, watching for trouble? I was back with politics again, and I cursed under my breath, visualizing another headline with my own name in black type. ‘A blip,’ Johan called out, and he made way for me so that I could see for myself. There was the rig showing on the screen like a great moon in the Milky Way of breaking waves. I was remembering Gertrude’s words as she had fled from the bridge. I didn’t want to think about it either. ‘There.’ Johan pointed a thick finger. ‘Two of them now.’ The rain had stopped and we were closing the area north-west of the rig, the two little blips becoming clearer. A few minutes later we picked up No. 4 can in the spotlight. At slow ahead we moved on to No. 3. It was out of position. I tried to report it, but no answer.