The old man stirred in his corner. 'He's my son,' he said, but hands were gripping my arms, the wind roaring in, solid with spray, as the door slid back. I was thrust out into the gale and I saw a buoy in the spotlight, riding the crest of a breaking wave, and right below me the inflatable bouncing alongside. The vessel rolled in the trough, hands thrusting me against the bulwarks, and above the noise of the sea I heard a voice say, 'Let him be.'
A wave rolled under us, the deck heaving and I turned on the Swede as the roll caught him off balance, hitting out at him, and in that moment I saw the old man standing in the gap of the wheelhouse door. 'Let him go.' The grip of their hands relaxed. I was suddenly free, the twisted side of my father's face lit by the oil flare, the deep gash a lurid red, his voice saying, 'He comes with us.' He was facing Dillon, and Dillon saying, 'No. He takes his chance, and whether he survives or not doesn't matter — he gets the blame.' The bows crashed down, a roar of water, the ship staggering under the impact and his voice whipped away in the wind:'… out of this. You were only brought into it because you're a Shetlander and knew…' The rest I lost as another gust hit us, the ship leaning away from it and the old man clutching at the door frame, not looking at Dillon now, but at me. I thought his lips framed the words 'my son' again, but there was no determination, no fight — only acceptance.
I shall never forget that helpless, hopeless look on his face, a man acknowledging his own son, yet acquiescing in his destruction. There were tears in his eyes and the wind tore them away. And that's all I remember — that and Dillon's face and the fist in my guts as I tried to wrench myself free of them. And then the hard top of the bulwarks against the small of my back, a voice high in the wind saying, 'Over the side,' and I was falling, the black plastic fabric of the boat coming up at me on a crest. It was half-full of water and for a moment I lay clutching at the smooth rolled air cushions as the wave broke over me, lifting me almost to the level of the deck. The Swede was fumbling at the painter, the nylon cord difficult to handle, a riding turn.
In that moment, with the Swede right above me, holding a torch and working at the cord with his other hand, the meaning of Dillon's words dawned on me, the reality of my situation suddenly very clear. A wave broke under me, lifting me in a smother of foam, and I heard the Swede call to Paulo, saw him reach out his hand for the knife, and in that moment I dived for the bows, gripping the cord, shortening up on the painter. That torch was my only hope. The next wave broke hissing behind me, the inflatable lifting me to the bulwarks again, the Swede sawing at the cord, and on the crest of that wave I reached out and grabbed hold of the torch.
The boat fell away in the trough, my whole weight on his arm, and the fool didn't let go, the trawler rolling and his body coming with the roll, sprawling over the side to hit the airtight slippery curve beside me as I fell back. The nylon cord parted, the Mary Jane's hull sliding past, faces looking down, the whole scene vivid and red in the glare.
I lay in the water, gasping, and the Swede's face close beside me disappeared, his hand scrabbling at the drum-tight curve of the fabric. Then suddenly I was alone, the boat's engine, a distant beat in the wind, gradually fading. It was quiet then, the wind almost soundless as I drifted with it, and only the hiss of the wave crests.
I didn't even feel the shock wave as they cut No. 3 cable. Sprawled in the bottom of the boat, my fingers gripping the slats of the floorboards and my head lifted to peer over the side, I saw the Mary Jane steaming across the line of the buoys, and twisting round I could see the rig growing in size, the gas jet high in the sky, the oil flare licking the night. Soon I could hear the roar of that flame, the sound of the power plant, the whole factory blaze of the giant structure going on about its business, apparently oblivious that only one of the windward anchors remained. And the wind and the sea sweeping me towards it, to pass I thought just seaward of that blinding, searing tongue of flame now looking like a beautiful frilled monster with the spray-jets gleaming red, a glorious coloured ruff, a mouth wide open, pouring out fire.
Already I was only catching glimpses of the Mary Jane, and then, when she, too, was on the top of a wave, I thought she had turned and was heading north, "and at the same moment a klaxon blared on the rig. I could hear it even above the wind, the platform so close above me now. The gas flare at the derrick top was snuffed out, the tongue of flame at the end of its boom flickered, withdrawing itself into the darkening circle of spray. Suddenly it was gone, the sea black, and only the lights of the rig to show the white of the waves rolling under me.
I was almost abreast of the rig then, drifting fast downwind to pass a cable, perhaps a cable and a half, to the north. Then for a while the rig seemed stationary again. Spotlights picked out the underside of the platform, the round fat columns with the waves breaking against them and the big tubular bracings smothered in foam. I could see the guidewires leading down to the seabed and the casing of the marine riser, and guidewires and riser were no longer vertical. They were slanting away from the wind, the angle increasing. And I was moving down past the rig then, the whole huge structure held anchored by a 20-inch casing reaching down almost 600 feet to the BOP stack on the seabed.
And then it snapped and the rig was moving with me, the guidewires trailing, men crawling like monkeys high in the night, releasing scrambling nets, checking the winch drums at each of the four corners of the platform. The rig stayed with me for perhaps ten minutes, the time it took to drift over her downwind anchors, to drag the cables, and then she held and I was being swept past it again.
Lying there, clinging on to the slats, my head twisted sideways watching the rig, I was too scared of what might happen to think of myself. At any moment I had expected the whole structure to be engulfed by flames. But something had given them the few moments they'd needed to choke the oil flow. Maybe Dillon had been so tense, so disturbed by the loss of the Swede overboard, that he had mistaken No. 1 buoy for No. 2. That would explain the quick turn and the northward run. Whatever it was, the rig was safe — for the moment. No drill hole run amok and blazing oil, nobody roasted alive in a holocaust of fire.
It was only then that I remembered the torch, my urgent reason for grabbing it, and I shone it up at the small figures loosening the nets high above me. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. I kept flicking it on and off until my thumb ached with the pressure and I was losing sight of the rig in the troughs. It was when I stopped sending that hopeless SOS that I realized I was shaking with cold, the water I was lying in warmer than the wind blowing through my sodden clothing.
I never saw her come up on me out of the night. She was just suddenly there, a trawler with her fishing lights on, her spotlight swinging back and forth across the waves. I began using the torch again and for long minutes I thought she'd never see me. Then very slowly she began to turn, her bows swinging till they pointed straight at me and she was growing larger.
v She lay-to a short distance to windward, rolling her side decks under and drifting down on me, smoothing the seas out and blocking the wind. A heaving line came rushing through the glare of her lights, missed "me by a few feet. Another whistled straight across me and I grabbed it, wrapping it round my body as the rusty steel plates of her side rolled down on top of me. Then the line tightened round my chest, dragging me into the sea and yanking me up to swing in a blinding crash against the ship's side. I remember nothing after that until I found myself sprawled on the deck and Johan's bearded face hovering over me.
CHAPTER FOUR
I remember putting my hand up to my head, blood on my fingers, and Johan saying, 'It is Gertrude you must thank.' And the next thing I knew I was on a bunk with the light in my eyes and they were pulling off my clothes. I felt dazed and I wanted to be sick. A voice, a long way away, said, 'He's coming round.' It was Gertrude's voice and I tried to raise myself, wanting to ask about the fishing boat, but I couldn't form the words. Instead I was sick, leaning over the edge of the bunk and retching up seawater.