The water was deeper, the risk greater. And the summer gone now. They were into the period of deepening depressions and stronger winds. No time for a small supply ship like Rattler to be fooling around with anchors. And it would probably mean hanging off the drilling string in case North Star dragged. A man as desperate as Villiers must be to go on drilling into the start of winter would hardly tolerate such an apparently unnecessary delay.
The wind turned northerly at the end of the week, and when Island Girl relieved us on the Saturday morning the sky was clear and cold with cross-seas breaking on the westerly swell. She came close alongside and the skipper shouted across to Jamie, 'Ye're to proceed to Rispond in north-west Scotland to pick up some equipment. Ian Sandford's orders. There'll be a lorry on the jetty there at 19.00 hours tomorrow evening. Three cases. And you're to deliver them back to Burra Firth. Okay?'
Jamie nodded and swung the helm, turning away to the south. Fortunately we had Chart 1954 on board and Jamie knew the place — 'A wee gut they used to call the Port o' the North. Ah knew a man once who could remember the time when they sailed open boats oot of Rispond round John o' Groats and all down the east coast to Great Yarmouth for the fishing. Aye, they wore like Vikings, hard boggers, all of them.'
Rispond was a tiny inlet on the north-western point of Loch Eriboll, completely sheltered from the north and east. The distance was about 150 miles. I had the engineer check our fuel. There was plenty to get us there, but not enough to get us back to Burra Firth. 'We'll be able to take on diesel at Kinlochbervie,' Priest said. They all seemed to know the area.
Running south that evening, the crew grumbling about how they could have been coming into Scalloway with the prospect of four days ashore, I wondered why Ian was sending one of his boats all the way to Scotland to pick up a few cases when it would have been so much cheaper to ship them up in the steamer from Aberdeen. And why such a tiny, unfrequented little gut? 'You go in on the top of the tide,' Jamie had said. 'You've got to. An' if ye can't load the cases fast, then ye're stuck there for twelve hours dried out alongside a bit of a stone jetty.'
I didn't like it. Kinlochbervie would have made more sense, unless there was something about those cases and secrecy of prime importance. But at least we were running, with the cold north wind up the old girl's skirts, and we made fast time of it, arriving at the entrance to Loch Eriboll shortly after 15.00. The wind had backed westerly and we lay hove-to under the lee waiting for the tide to make. The sky had already clouded over, and as the daylight began to fade, mists came down thick over the flanks of Creag na Faoilinn to form a black mass at the bottom of the loch.
Shortly before seven o'clock we began closing the entrance to the little bolthole, nosing very slowly into the gut till we could see the small stone jetty and a trade van waiting. At least Ian had got his timing right, the tide now almost at the full, but even at high water it was still only a gut. The rocks closed in on either side as we crept forward watching the echosounder. And then we were through the rocks and there was a house, a nice house standing white beyond the jetty, with a gravel drive and a bit of a lawn right beside the water.
A man got out of the van as our bows touched the stonework. He took our warps and told us to hurry. He sounded nervous. 'There's the cases.' He had the doors open before we had made fast, and when we had got the cases aboard he made me sign for them and then he was into his van and away.
'A mick,' Jamie said and spat.
I looked at the cases. All three of them had handle with care stencilled in black across the top and marine electronics on the side. 'Better get them below.' They weren't heavy enough to contain explosives, but all the same I wanted them out of sight. Time enough to consider what was in them when we were out of the gut. I let Jamie handle her and he worked her on a springer round the end of the jetty until our bows were facing outwards, and then we steamed out on a stern bearing, the break of our wash against the rocks unpleasantly loud.
We lay the night under An t' Aigeach and in a cold green cloudless dawn we hugged the coast round Cape Wrath, taking advantage of the constant west-going stream, and carried a fair tide southward to Loch Inchard. Coming into Kinlochbervie, Sutherland looking a wild land with the great humps of Arkle and Ben Stack looming over the end of the loch, I was very conscious that I was in mainland Britain now, not in the remotest islands of the north. It was the first time in over four months and I felt suddenly uneasy as the little port opened up to the north and we turned in to drop our hook astern of two Scottish trawlers. There were others moored along the quay, a line of buildings, and more activity than I had expected.
I sent Jamie ashore to see about re-fuelling and he came back with the information that the two trawlers anchored ahead of us were waiting to re-fuel and more expected that evening. 'Ah told him we'd only be alongside a few minutes, just for water and fuel, and he agreed to squeeze us in if those two boggers don't take all afternoon.'
We had a meal and hung around waiting until shortly after five when the second of the two trawlers pulled away from the quay and we were signalled in. We had barely got the fuel line aboard when a brand new trawler with flared bows steamed in, a sister ship close behind her. They had fish to land and they lay close off the quay, their engines throbbing gently in the evening stillness.
By six we were anchored off again. There was a Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen on the quay and I sent the crew ashore in the boat. They needed a break, and I wanted to be alone. As soon as they had gone, I went down into the hold. It was dark down there, the fish smell lingering, and in the beam of my torch the three cases looked strangely menacing, alone there in the dark hollow of that empty space. I stood staring at them for a long time, wondering what the hell they contained, where they had come from?
There was only one way to find out, and I got a hammer and cold chisel and went to work. They were nail-fastened and no possibility of breaking into them without it showing. But by then I didn't care. I had to see what was inside.
The result was puzzling. The first case contained what appeared to be some sort of radio equipment, a grey metal box with tuning dials, and an electrical lead neatly coiled, the whole thing carefully packed in a moulded plastic container. The second contained a completely sealed torpedo-shaped object. There was a large towing eye at one end. It was swivelled and had an electrical socket in the centre of the eye. The case also contained a heavy reel of plastic-coated wire, one end of it fitted with a watertight plug.
I stood there for a long time staring down at those two pieces of equipment. In the light of my torch, against the rough boards stained black with fish oil, they had a deadly, futuristic gleam. Or was that my imagination again? Explanations leapt to mind. I knew nothing about electronics, but the torpedo was obviously for towing behind a vessel, and the other for sending or receiving some sort of signal. It could be some advanced scientific way of locating a shoal of fish, in which case Marine Electronics was a fair description. I was remembering what Ian had said about his backer trying new ways of fishing, remembering too what had happened out there by North Star in June. It was four months ago now, but the memory was still vivid. This sort of equipment could equally be for locating something on the seabed — an anchor, for instance, or a well-head after the rig had left the site, or broken adrift.
In the end I packed them back in their cases and nailed the boxes down again. I did it as neatly as I could, but the marks of the chisel were there for anyone to see, and the wood was split in places. I didn't bother about the third case, and when I went up on deck, glad to be in the fresh air again, I was sweating. Several more trawlers had come in. I lit my pipe and sat on the bulwarks, staring across at the fights on the quay, thinking about North Star out there to the west of Shetland. A trawler was pulling away from the quay, another nosing into the vacant berth, but my mind was so engrossed in considering whether the equipment we carried in our hold was connected in any way with the future of the rig that it was some time before the shape of that trawler registered as familiar. And then suddenly I was on my feet, staring across the water at her as she moored alongside the quay.