Offshore (3 page)

“
Right, let’s get this place properly warmed and lit,” said
Eddie, the tip of his own nose feeling decidedly icy, his fingers
displaying interesting shades of purple and orange despite a set of
woollen fingerless gloves making it difficult to zip up his sickly
yellow-green fluorescent jacket. “Mr Shaw, would you put on your
protective gear and come with me please?”

Shaw
looked up from fiddling with his shoelaces. “Who me,
boss?”

Eddie
nodded. “Aye. I’ve got a job for you.”

Mister
Shaw’s chest puffed slightly at being selected for special
recognition, despite not knowing why. “Yes boss.”

Eddie
reached into his bag again and extracted a plastic pack from which
he took several sheets of paper, on the front face of each were
sketched floor plans of the platform’s work areas and habitat; on
the rear, several paragraphs of close type.

“
The rest of you stay here,” he said, handing the top sheet
to Reynolds. “We won’t be long, so here’s a little light reading to
keep you entertained while we’re away.”

Reynolds
screwed up his face. “What’s this?”

A sheet
went to Cameron. “Read it and see.”

“
It’s too cold to read. What’s it say?”

For God’s sake.

And one
to McDougal. “In short, there’s a map to help you find your way
about, and some health and safety bumph, most important of which is
– there will be absolutely NO smoking anywhere on board, except in
the Smoke Shack. Is that clear?”

An
order, not a question, one aimed directly at Reynolds, the one he
considered most likely to flout this particular edict for the sheer
hell of seeing if he could get away with it.

“
Be warned, this rule in particular will be most rigourously
enforced,” he added. He passed around the rest of the sheets,
saving the last for Lydia Ellis. “Don’t wander off while we’re
away,” he said. “Ready to go, Mr Shaw?”

“
Yes sir.”

“
Got your gas monitor? There might be pockets of build up
the detectors haven’t picked up on.”

From his
bag Shaw fished out a square silver coloured gadget with a digital
readout, and fiddled with it. It peeped like a drunken budgie and
he attached it to the breast pocket of his jacket. “Ready,
sir.”

“
Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir,” mimicked Reynolds in
a whiny nasal tone, receiving a hard glare in return.

“
Everyone else put yours on, too,” said Eddie. “Mr Shaw?” He
extended his arm to the exit indicating their intention to leave
the rest of them to their own devices.

Eddie
and Shaw trod their way to the generator plant room, following the
line of power cables snaking along the ceiling.

“
What a dump,” said Shaw, voicing Eddie’s own opinion. “How
the hell did it get into this state so quickly?”

“
Any place left to the mercy of the elements can fall into
wrack and ruin soon enough. My Grandma’s house for instance, left
empty for two years after she died, and then condemned because of
rampant damp and rot.” Eddie shivered. “Three months in this hole,
though. Jesus Christ. What were we thinking?”

Chapter 3

Shaw’s
bootfall echoed Eddie’s as he walked in his leader’s footprints,
like Good King Wenceslaus’s page, and he chunnered on about this
and that, but Eddie wasn’t really listening. He was trying to
concentrate on where they were going.

As they
took yet another wrong turning in the unfamiliar labyrinth Eddie
wondered what Shaw had done to end up here and not be drawing his
wages out in some tropical swamp, checking his boots for poisonous
spiders, feeding peanuts to a pet parrot and knobbing the local
lovelies. Was he, like Reynolds, McDougal too probably, being
punished for some indiscretion or other, not quite serious enough
to get sacked outright, but troublesome enough for the company to
want to teach them a lesson?

Or had
he, like himself, been bribed into spending the whole of the next
fourteen weeks out on this forbidding citadel at sea by the lure of
filthy lucre. He settled on the latter, because mercenary buggers
all, himself included, not one of them had turned up his or her
nose at double pay plus a handsome cash bonus, all tax free,
followed by a month’s leave on completion, all reasonable expenses
paid. A pretty natty package when all said and done, and nigh on
impossible to resist.

They
made another wrong turn and had to double back on themselves
before, more by good luck than good management, they came to the
room housing the massive generators - literally the powerhouse of
the whole place.

Going at
full pelt they could produce enough electricity to light ten
thousand homes. However, to preserve their restricted fuel - an
irony considering where they were, they would be running at only a
fraction of that, and heat and light would be at a
minimum.

With
hard-hat now in place and foam padded defenders cradling his ears,
Eddie entered the control booth to check the power grid status
boards. As expected all the bulbs were grey and dead, indicating
zero activity.

Shaw,
also attired in fluorescent yellow green, scuffed yellow hard-hat
and red ear defenders over a black balaclava, located the dials
measuring the levels in the two diesel fuel tanks.

Number
one tank, full; number two … only a quarter full. That couldn’t be
right. He tapped the glass and the indicator swung sharply to the
right - three quarters full. Better.

“
Can I ask you something, Mr Capstan?” he said, words
carried on a fine white cloud.

“
Sure,” said Eddie. “What’s on your mind?”

“
We all know you’re in charge, but have you had any time to
think about … about who’s going to be your second?”

Eddie
did not look up from his work. “My second?”

“
Yeah. You’ve gotta have a second, you know, in case you get
sick or have an accident or something. Got anyone in
mind?”

“
Actually I have. You ready for a manual start? I think
we’ll get away with just one genny’s output for the time
being.”

As Shaw
pumped the priming handle to fill the fuel reservoir, Eddie grasped
the large red handle of the main generator with both
hands.

“
She’s ready,” said Shaw.

“
Three … two … one …”

Eddie
heaved the handle upwards and Shaw depressed the green battery
powered ‘start’ button. Nothing.

“
Did you flood the reservoir, Dip?”

“
Nope. She’s just cold. Try again.”

Again
they tried. Still nothing.

“
Third time’s a charm … if the battery hasn’t gone
flat.”

Shaw
mashed the button. The generator turned over, coughed like an
asthmatic chain smoker, and whirred laboriously, almost giving up
the ghost before spluttering reluctantly into life.

It
grumbled and groused as it built up speed, eventually reaching the
required rate of revolutions per minute, and settled into a
monotonous hum. Indicator gauges swung wildly before settling at
somewhere around the centre mark.

After a
brief pause, the lights in the room came on, starting off a dirty
yellow, but as energy flowed and normalised, they brightened,
reaching full intensity within less than a minute.

“
Let there be light,” Eddie declared, locking his handle
into place.

In the
plant control booth a complicated pattern of red dots now glowed on
the board, each connected to the other by an intricate spider-web
of silver lines, making a rough outline of the entire structure,
and each one indicating a sector of the platform where no power was
available.

Eddie
selected several buttons and switches, flicked and clicked and
pressed, changing the widespread pattern of red LEDs to a more
compact one in green, directing power to where lighting, air
conditioning, and heating would be needed most. It would get the
essential desalinators and water filters into production
too.

“
So …” urged Shaw, a keen and hopeful edge to his
query.

“
So what?”

“
Your second? Can you tell us who it’s going to be, so I can
get my knee pads on in case I have to get down and start brown
nosing?”

“
I have given it some consideration,” said Eddie.

“
And?”

“
You’d have to be a contortionist.”

“
Eh?”

“
To brown nose yourself. I was going to give it to Niall
Shanks ‘til the silly bugger went down with the lurgy, so …” A
pregnant pause. “The job’s yours if you want it.”

Shaw
pushed his hard hat back off his brow. “Me?”

“
That’s why you were asking, wasn’t it? Testing the
water?”

“
No!” Cough. “Well … sort of … okay, yeah. I did sorta
hope.”

Eddie
laughed. “So do you think you can work with me, follow my
instructions, even when you don’t agree with them?”

“
Yeah, sure, as long as you don’t make me look like a
div.”

“
I’ll try not to, although they do say the apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree.”

“
Sir?”

“
As the others already think I’m a bit of a wanker, it might
be construed as guilt by association.”

“
Ah gotcha.” A nonchalant shrug. “I’ll try and cope with
it... sir.”

“
Good man. And you can drop the sir. Guv or boss, or chief,
will do.”

Shaw’s
face broke into a wide grin. “Yes sir. . shit! Sorry, sir … fuck!
Sorry, boss … guv … ah, bugger it.”

When a grinning Eddie turned his back to adjust the heating
thermostat, Shaw mouthed a silent
Yeeessssss
, and punched the air with
glee.

On their
way back to the locker room to rejoin the waiting crew, Shaw made
his first request of his new boss. “Can I ask a favour,
guv?”

“
Sure, Dip. What is it?”

“
That.”

Eddie
stopped in his step. “What?”

“
The nickname.”

“
What’s wrong with it?”

“
It’s … childish, and it really pisses me off. Skinny I
might be, I can’t help that, but I’m no Rodney Trotter. I’m not an
idiot. Would you mind?” He looked almost apologetic for
asking.

Eddie
clapped a friendly hand on his bony shoulder. “No, Matt, I don’t
mind at all. And I know you are certainly not stupid. If I thought
for one minute you weren’t the sharpest chisel in the entire
woodshed, I would never have asked you to be my exec.
Okay?”

Shaw
nodded, relieved and thankful. “Okay. Thanks chief.”

In a dark corner of the second sub-level workshop, ears
more sensitive than a dog’s picked
up the distinctive rapid
whap whap
of helicopter
rotors.

Faint at first but getting closer, louder.

Directly above now, settling to a constant drone, sending
waves of vibrations through the wall. Touch down?

Wait. Listen. A resurgence of power – take off. Rotor noise
fading until no longer audible, followed by the telltale rhythm of
footsteps.

Silence. And then a new sound, one the inhabitant of the dark
and dingy workshop noted with interest. Not the helicopter this
time; something different - rhythmic, powerful; a regular
mechanical thrumming.

They wouldn’t fire up the generators unless they intended to
stay, would they?

Chapter 4

Eddie
opened the locker-room door. As he stepped through he was
immediately struck in the face by something sharp and white. He
flinched and batted the paper dart to the floor. Several others
were strewn about the room.

Caught
in the act playing immature games, the group stood about in
embarrassed silence.

Without
a word Eddie gathered up the paper playthings, straightened them
out, and put them back into his bag.

Waste of time and effort. Ungrateful bastards.

“
Shall we go?” he said stiffly, and picked up the
bag.

The ten minute trek to the accommodation block aroused yet
more grouses and complaints from the little gaggle of workers as
they trudged down narrow but now brightly lit corridors, their
shoes ringing on th
e metal floor plates.

They
climbed several flights of steps and passed through more fireproof
bulkhead doors, closing them securely behind them.

Eddie
wasn’t complaining. At least Falcon Bravo had an integrated habitat
block, unlike on his previous assignment when several times a day
he had to traverse a shifting, open, house of horrors type walkway
nearly a hundred metres long and fifteen metres above a swelling
unsympathetic sea to reach the separate block, grasping onto the
handrail for dear life with his heart always in his mouth as he
expected every wave breaking over him to be the one which swept him
to his doom.