'Of course.' She was looking at me searchingly.
'Are you fit enough, Michael?'
'I'm fine,' I said.
She nodded, accepting my assurance. 'Good.' And that was all, no argument, no doubts, both of us in harmony, knowing what the risks were. 'You'll make it all right,' she said smiling. 'Both of you.'
'I put you right into the net,' Johan said.
And he was as good as his word. He took the Duchess in a wide, slow turn upwind of the rig, and when she was stern-on to the waves and drifting down on to it, Villiers and I went up into the bows. Neither of us had life-jackets. We had both decided the restriction of movement outweighed the safety factor, but crouched on the stem of the boat, clinging to a ring bolt, I wasn't so sure. The wave height averaged fourteen feet, but it seemed much more, the movement very violent, a vertical lift and fall that was like riding the National on a giant steeplechaser.
It seemed an age that we were clinging there, the rig gradually appearing to lean over us as the slant of our drift brought us under the superstructure, the net coming closer. And then suddenly we were falling off the top of a wave and the net was there, right above us, bulging, wide-meshed and streaming water. The bows touched it, dragging it taut, then something caught, tearing a gap in it, and we were rising again. I felt the screw going full astern and I yelled to Villiers to jump, saw him lean out and grab hold. And then we were on the net, both of us clambering like spiders in a web as the bows fell away beneath us. The net sprang tight under my hands and I clung there, not moving, feeling it rip again. Then suddenly it was slack, the trawler backing clear and another wave rolling in, water licking up to my sea boots and my body being swung under the rig, into the welter of foam thrashing through the columns and the cross-bracings.
It was like that all the time we were climbing, our bodies swung back and forth, faces peering down at us, our arms aching, the roar of the sea and the damp smell of metal, the reek of oil. Then at last hands reached down, gripped hold of my arms, and a moment later I was standing exhausted on the catwalk beside Villiers. 'Not as bad as I feared,' he said, his dark, handsome features streaming water from the spray, his dripping anorak globuled with oil. He turned to one of the men who had hauled us on to the catwalk. 'A complete change of clothing for both of us and a pot of coffee,' he said. 'In the barge engineer's office, I think. I want Ed there and Ken's assistant — what's his name?'
'Hans. Hans Smit.' The high voice, the old-maidish manner; it was Lennie, the sick bay attendant.
'Another Dutchman, eh? Well, get those clothes quick, and a couple of towels.' Villiers nodded to me and led the way into the quarters, ignoring Lennie, who seemed scared and wanting to tell him something.
It was quiet in the barge engineer's office, no sound of the sea, only the hum of the power plant. 'You reckon they can get that spare anchor rigged without any more casualties?' he asked me as we stripped off our clothes.
'Let's get a forecast first,' I said. 'And then we'll need to know when the tug will arrive and whether she can start the tow in the sea conditions then expected. There are three anchors still out. If we get another one rigged, that's four to retrieve or cut loose before the tow can start.'
A galley hand came in with coffee, followed almost immediately by a lean, sallow-faced man of about % thirty with a crew cut and heavy horn-rimmed glasses. 'Hans Smit,' he said. 'Sorry I am not there, Mr Villiers, when you come up, but I am talking vit the tug. Conditions are no good. It vill be at least twenty-four hours before he is here and he thinks he must go through Pentland Firth, zo it vill even then depend on the tide.'
Villiers nodded. 'What's the latest forecast?'
But Smit didn't know. The last weather chart he had seen was for noon. 'But is improving all the time, I think.'
'What's the helicopter situation then?' Villiers asked. 'Has Ed arranged to fly the drill crews off?'
'No. Nothing has been decided. You see-'
"'Where the hell is Ed?' I could tell by the tone of his voice that his patience was running out. 'I want to see him — now.'
Smit's mouth opened, a look of surprise giving place to doubt. 'Didn't Lennie tell you?'
'Tell me what?'
And at that moment the sick bay attendant came in with towels, a bundle of freshly laundered clothes, overalls, gloves and safety helmets. Smit turned to him. 'Didn't you tell Mr Villiers?'
Lennie shook his head, looking nervously round the room. 'I tried, honest I did. But I couldn't seem 'What is it?' Villiers demanded. 'Where is Ed?' And Smit answered awkwardly, 'Ve don't know.
Ve think-' He gave a shrug. 'But that is just a guess.
The last I see of Ed is at midday when he is eating alone in the mess. Ve don't know what happened to him.'
'He's disappeared? Is that what you're telling me?' Villiers's voice sounded incredulous. 'You've searched-'
'Ja. Ve search the whole goddam barge. Everywhere.' Smit shook his head.
'When was this? When did you discover he was missing?'
'Ve don't discover he is missing. You see, it is not like that. There are so many places on the rig, so many things he could be checking. Zo, it is not until I don't see him for several hours-' He shrugged again, an expression of helplessness. 'Then I start enquiring. That was about vife this afternoon. He is in his office for a short time after the midday meal. Then as far as I haf been able to discover, the last person to see him is one of my engineers, who is checking No. 5 winch. Max says he saw him by No. 4. That is close to the stairway leading down under the rig.'
There was a long silence then, and I was thinking of the last time I had seen Ed Wiseberg, sitting at his desk with the papers in front of him and that paragraph underlined in red, his luck run out, and now, on top of all his record of things gone wrong, this rig — possibly the last rig he would ever get — cut adrift and dragging, a barge engineer killed and two men injured. And Villiers, his boss, the man who owned North Star, who had given him the job, coming out in a trawler to risk his life jumping for the scrambling nets. I could see him walking down that iron stairway, the same stairway that I had gone down to my waiting boat, walking perhaps with that cocky swagger, but not into a calm sea — into a roaring inferno of breaking waves. It was as good a way to end it as any, and I glanced at Villiers.
His face was set, the shadow of this new disaster showing in the sag of his shoulders, in the shocked look of his eyes. 'Start searching again,' he said in a hard, tight voice. 'Have every man on board who is in charge of anything search his particular area and report back to you when he has done so.'
Smit nodded and went out quickly, obviously glad to escape, glad of the excuse to do something instead of just standing there trying to explain the loss of the top man on the rig. Lennie scuttled out after him and Villiers turned to me. 'Not much hope, I'm afraid.' All the vigour and decisiveness had gone from his voice. 'And they'll blame me, of course. At Scalloway, there were about half a dozen of them, reporters, and their questions…' He shook his head. 'I could tell by their questions what they were thinking.' He picked up a towel and began drying himself vigorously. 'Get some clothes on and we'll go to the radio room and see about that forecast.' It cost him an effort to make even that show of decisiveness and I knew that Ed Wiseberg's disappearance had hit him very hard indeed.
The latest Met. information was that the next depression was moving in from the Atlantic faster than expected and would reach us probably by midnight. It was already 976 millibars and still deepening, wind Force 8, gusting 9, possibly more. Two further depressions were building up in the Atlantic, one of 988 and the other 982 millibars. We were still in Telecommunications when Smit reported that all areas of the rig had been thoroughly searched and no sign of Wiseberg.