“Now gentlemen — a little refreshment perhaps?” Big J looked at them expectantly.
“Well it’s almost noon,” Martin peered at his wristwatch. “How about one of those old colonial traditions: Gin and Tonic I believe?” Martin Ho the taller of the two replied, smiling in innocent anticipation.
Manuel nodded his approval.
“Make that two please,” he confirmed.
Big J prepared the drinks in 250ml. glass tankards; the ice and lemon danced in the sparkling liquid. He placed the drinks on the mat in front of each of his expectant guests.
“Well gentlemen, here’s to your good health.” Big J raised his own drink and took a substantial draught. The others followed suit. “Now I’d say that’s something the old order had right, wouldn’t you?” he concluded with relish and relaxed in his chair.
“That’s not all they had right,” Martin whispered, looking anxiously towards the bridge, not wishing to be overheard by the customs officers still talking with John.
Big J noted the gesture and nodded understanding.
“So to business?” He looked at the pad in front of him. “According to our contract, we are supposed to train about a dozen of your people in the use of your underwater vehicles and re-commission your de-compression facility. Yes?” He looked up, raising his eyebrows. “What went wrong with it?”
“You need to understand the bureaucracy here. Because agreements with the multinational oil companies were not properly honoured, they in turn refuse to carry out any support services. Our people think that you can simply jump into an underwater research vehicle and drive it away.” He looked across the harbour in despair. “When the wellhead was damaged and we were unable to fix it, by some miracle the decision was made to subcontract you to complete the repairs, which in turn allows them to save face of course.” He looked towards the other man. “Manuel here has lost seven divers in the last twelve months, mainly because he has been forced by those stupid idiots to dive in unsuitable conditions; they are ignorant of the dangers associated with diving and don’t seem to want to understand. Most men have been lost either through our poor deep diving techniques or more importantly because of the lack of the skills to operate the equipment.”
“Yes,” Manuel took up the story. “We have plenty of strong willing men. Good practical divers but they desperately need training to cope with the new equipment and the deeper environment it leads them into.”
“Well I understood most of that when we negotiated the contract but we can only do so much in two weeks,” Big J shrugged his shoulders. “Add to that, we have to do all the training within the confines of the harbour!”
“Security!” Martin exclaimed. “It’s because of security. You’ll see what I mean when you get started. I tell you, this place is paranoid about security. Who could possibly want anything we have here?” he added sounding despondent.
Manuel came from the Portuguese colony of Macao but had married a young Chinese girl in Hong Kong. They’d decided in their youth that the new order would be good for them. Now they lived in a small but economic high-rise apartment in the north of the City. The elevators broke down regularly and the public areas were filthy. No one seemed to care any more.
Martin was in charge of the harbour diving team. They were perfectly well equipped and trained to service the underwater facilities and work on ships in the harbour but not on the growing number of offshore oil and gas wells. The political and higher authority, he felt, didn’t seem to understand the difference.
“We have divers don’t we?” Martin had been told. “We don’t need these bloated imperialists, when we can send in our own men!”
In fact their military facilities were more than capable of making the repair but they had been specifically ordered, “not to become involved in commercial activities”. “Security reasons” was always the official excuse.
Manuel had therefore been obliged to send some of his own crew to attempt a repair on a gas well in sixty-five metres of water. They’d applied all their standard knowledge to the work but more and more men suffered with decompression sickness — the bends — and worst of all the dreaded narcosis.
The decompression chambers available to them were old and inadequate. The seals were worn and it became more and more difficult to control the recompression pressures.
“Seven men have died over the last twelve months through political pigheadedness,” Martin admitted, angrily ignoring the possibility of being overheard now. “More than anything we need our chamber sorting out and we need the divers trained to use the new gas mixtures and, finally, we must be able to handle our two underwater vehicles. They’ve been sitting on the quay turning into bits of rusty old iron since the oil company left them to us.”
The two men had hardly touched their drinks.
“OK fellers, so let’s see if we can cut through the red tape. I’ll get my people to start by examining those ‘bits of rusty old iron’ as you describe them and we sort your decompression chamber at the same time. The three surviving divers we had with us last week have proved to be eager to learn and are very good team members. They have learned quite a lot of practical stuff in the time. The other two cocky buggers spent almost all of their time in our decompression chamber. I just hope the stupid bastards have learned a lesson that they’ll never forget! Incidentally, do all your other divers speak good English like those guys?”
“Some better than others but I expect they all understand it pretty well,” Manuel replied.
“Good, so we’ll start with getting your guys into the basics of the gas mixes and the new gear. Then we launch the two vehicles, if they’re still seaworthy. I think we should aim to have everything underway by tomorrow morning. OK with you?”
“Sounds good to me and wonderfully refreshing to hear someone making instant decisions for a change.” Martin looked at Manuel. “OK with you?”
“You bet! The boys have been waiting for this moment like expectant fathers; there’ll be no complaints there,” he smiled with confidence.
“I don’t know what your plans are for this evening but Hong Kong still has some excellent eating places, if you’d care to join us?” Martin asked hesitantly.
“That’s a great idea. The boys will be tasting the spirit of Hong Kong I’m sure, so why not the captain as well?”
They rose and made their way back to the bridge. John had completed the formalities and escorted the officers to the Customs Cutter and was climbing back up to the bridge.
“The customs boys happy?” Big J asked.
“No bother. As soon as I showed them the Chinese government dive contract summary, they simply signed the clearance and left. You’re right — they do love lots of bits of official paper; it’s called passing the buck!” John grinned, satisfied with himself.
“This is Martin from the HK Harbour Authority and this is Manuel. He’s in charge of their divers,” Big J introduced the two men.
John shook hands first with Martin. “Good to meet you both. So we’re going to be working together then?” John turned to Manuel, shaking his hand in turn.
“Yes the Captain has already outlined the programme. It’s all going to be very exciting. I’m looking forward to it all,” Manuel confirmed enthusiastically.
“We’ve invited Big J to eat ashore with us tonight. Do you fancy joining us?” Martin asked politely.
“Thank you, but someone has to stay aboard while the others play,” he replied, looking sorry for himself but changed his expression to a smile. “If I may, I’ll go the next time, you know, when we go to the really expensive place, OK?” he smiled cheekily.
“That’s a date,” Manuel replied happily.
The two men boarded the harbour launch; it pulled slowly away from the tug and headed back towards the main harbour.