His eyes shifted nervously, the whites showing in the torchlight. 'Bomb — yes.'
'What's it for?' I was thinking of the force that would be generated by gelignite, or even a home-made explosive, packed into such strong cylinders, and the inflatable still with us, lashed to the stern. They could float the cylinders down in that, and if they were detonated against the riser when oil was coming up the pipe on full pressure… I was suddenly very scared, seeing in my imagination the vast explosive burn-up, the whole rig engulfed in a searing mass of flame. 'Christ Almighty,' I exclaimed. 'You can't. Just think…' I had reached down, gripping hold of his shoulder. 'There are more than sixty men-'
But he had leaped from under my grasp, a reflex action like a coiled spring triggered at the touch of my hand. The torch blinded me, but I saw the knife in his hand, heard the tension in his voice as he hissed, 'You go please.' He was poised like a man cornered.
'It's all right,' I said soothingly. 'I didn't mean to alarm you.'
But he just stood there, the steel blade of the knife glinting in the torch beam, and in the silence I could feel the tautness of his nerves. I turned with deliberate slowness, anxious not to upset him further as I moved to the bulkhead door, the skin crawling between my shoulder-blades.
,Back in the galley I glanced at my watch. It was % almost nine-thirty and I got my anorak and went up on deck to find the sun glimmering through a layer of cirrus. The wheelhouse door was closed, but through the glass side-panel I saw they were all there and Dillon with the mike of the R/T transmitter to his mouth. I slid the door open and heard his voice: '… Island Girl. Mary Jane to Island Girl. Come in, please, Island Girl. Over.'
No answer. He tried again, and then loud and clear over the loudspeaker came a Shetland voice identifying himself as Island Girl and asking why the hell they hadn't been relieved that morning.
'We'll be with you some time tonight,' Dillon said. 'I'll call you again at 19.00 hours. What's the weather like out there? Over.' He knew damn well what the weather was like, for we must have been just over the horizon from the other boat, but he waited while Island Girl's skipper talked about a heavy swell with a layer of cirrus overhead and the morning's weather bulletin forecasting a series of depressions moving in from the Atlantic. Then he asked what was happening on the rig. 'There's rumours ashore that they've struck oil. Over.'
'Aye, there's been a great coming and going these last two days. They've been running an electrical log and getting ready for what they call a drill stem test to check the pressure and rate of flow of the oil. Did you not listen to the news this morning? It seems the Company announced the strike officially late last night.' But when Dillon asked him whether they had started testing yet, he answered, 'Not yet. But there was a helicopter flight came in yesterday with service company lads. They're running a gun down the hole and there's a bloody great steel boom rigged out over the side. Ed Wiseberg was on the R/T to us a few minutes ago warning us to keep clear of it from noon onwards, so I reckon you'll see some fireworks when you arrive this evening.' And he added, 'Who's that I'm talking to? It's not Jamie?'
'No, it's his relief' Dillon said. 'Jamie and his lads were due for a bit of a break.'
'So you've a different crew, eh?' And the voice went on, 'Have you a man called Randall with you? I heard there was, 'cos the trawler Duchess of Norfolk arrived last night with Gertrude Petersen on board asking for him. Is he there now? Over.'
The mention of Gertrude, the memory of that explosives expert crouched over the cylinders… I flung the door back, Dillon denying my presence and my voice shouting, 'I'm here. Randall. Tell Ed Wiseberg…' But Dillon had dropped the mike.
'Grab him.'
I saw Paddy with his head low and out of the corner of my eye the big Swede, and I leaped at Dillon in the grip of fear and a sudden terrible desire to smash him before they got me. I saw his hand reaching into his anorak, his eyes widening, and then he ducked. My fist caught him on the side of his head, slamming him back against the radio. I saw him fall, a shocked, surprised look on his face, and then a hand gripped, ray shoulder, swung me round and something exploded in my belly. The Swede was a blurred image as I doubled up with the pain and then his fist crashed into my jaw and I lost consciousness.
The next thing I knew I was being dragged to my feet and a voice, Dillon's voice, said something about the chain locker. I saw my father, the twisted side of his face, and his eyes hurt, as though in doing what I had I had done him a personal injury. He looked at me and didn't say a word. No attempt to stop them as I was dragged out of the wheelhouse. Unconsciousness closed in on me again, the pain in my guts overwhelming, and when I came to it was in darkness with the hard feel of the anchor chain under me and the occasional slam of the bows reverberating through my head, a hanging length of chain sliding across my body.
I don't know how long I lay there in a half coma, dimly conscious of the salt sea smell of the stowage locker and of the links damp and hard against my limbs. It was freezing cold and I thanked God for my anorak, conscious of the roll and swoop as the boat lay motionless, head-to-swell, but conscious of little else until I had recovered sufficiently to drag myself to my feet.
And with consciousness I cursed myself for my stupidity, for the blind rage which had sent me for Dillon. I should have gone for the impulse transmitter. I should have found something with which to smash it. And I cursed myself for not having thrown those cases overboard. Guessing what they were, why in God's name hadn't I got rid of them when I could, instead of delivering them to Burra Firth? The excuse of time. Time on my side. Christ! All my life I seemed to have been living on borrowed time, and Wiseberg, Stewart, men I had met — a total of more than sixty — all at risk. And myself to blame, their executioner. No, not their executioner. But a party to it.
I stood there, in the blackness of the sea-stinking hole, the chain coming down through the hawsepipe, coiled like a cold steel snake under my feet. And nothing I could do. Nothing. Nothing. Shut in behind a thick barred wooden door, in a space I couldn't even stand up in properly, my head bowed by the wooden deck beams.
I sank back on to the dank hard bed of the steel links, breathing deeply, easing the pain until it was no more than a numb ache. Time passed slowly, the luminous dial of my wristwatch the only visible companion in the darkness, and nothing there that I could use on the door. Nothing to do but wait. And waiting, my mind focused incessantly on that scene in the hold, the cylinders with wires trailing from the detonators. A freedom fighter — my God! What sort of freedom was that, to roast sixty innocent men alive! Increasingly, as the power to think returned, my mind dwelt on the Duchess, the knowledge that she was out here, fishing in these waters — and Gertrude asking for me.
At irregular intervals one or other of the men who had jumped me came into the hold to check the door and make certain I was still there. The first few times I answered them, demanding water, food, anything to get a brief respite from the cramped hole. But they.didn't even reply and the next time I stayed silent. It was Paddy, and he called me several times. Then he % went away and a few minutes later he came back with the Swede, the door opening and the beam of a torch blinding me. I hesitated, and then, as I moved, the door slammed in my face.
Shortly after midday the door was opened again and a mug of beer with a thick wadge of ham and bread was set down in a coil of the chain, the Swede watching me all the time. I tried asking about the weather, anything to get them talking, but they didn't answer. I knew the weather was worsening. There was considerably more movement, the bows lifting and falling so violently that at times I had to grip hold of the chain, otherwise my body was left suspended for an instant to be slammed down on the hard steel links as we hit the troughs. Sometimes I thought I could hear the wind. I could certainly hear when the seas broke, could feel them, too, as the vessel staggered, flinging me against the wooden side of the chain locker. It was after a particularly bad slam that the ship came alive with the prop turning, the sound of it merging with the increased power from the engine to produce a steady vibration transmitted through the timbers.