'You're thinking of that girl,' he said waspishly.
'Yes, I am. I'm thinking of her, of a Scots engineer named Duncan, of Johan, a big bearded Norwegian, of men who saved my life — and by their seamanship got you on to your bloody useless obsolete rig.'
He was silent then, and I was suddenly sorry for him. 'Do what you like,' he said quietly, the anger gone and his voice lifeless. Then he turned and went quickly out.
The spare anchor was hoisted over just before midnight. The wind speed was then thirty knots, gusting to thirty-seven. I took the reading myself. Unbelievably, the rig was not equipped with a proper anemometer, only a hand speed indicator for the use of the radio operator. Smit and his engineers, the crane driver and quite a little crowd of technicians and drilling crews were gathered round the winch. Villiers was standing a little to one side, a lone figure, his back against the guardrails. Nobody said a word as the needle suddenly came alive, swinging with a jerk round the dial, wavering and settling at around the 300 mark.
The anchor was holding and there was a sigh of relief.
Now that the wind had lessened the seas had become higher, the vertical movement of the rig under our feet considerable. As the crowd drifted off to bed I saw the indicator needle begin to move. Soon it was fluctuating wildly, reflecting the snatch on the cable as the rig rose and fell. Smit stood there watching, his face set. At one point the needle seemed to swing right off the end of its range. I think he was wishing then that he had waited until we were in shallower water, and I left him and went to my bunk, anxious to get some sleep while the going was good.
Villiers came in just as I had put my bunk light out. 'It's holding,' he said. 'But the strain on it must be very heavy.'
'It won't last long,' I told him.
But there I was wrong. It held for almost five hours, for shortly after 01.00 the wind dropped right away. If the helicopter crews, who were supposed to be standing by at Sumburgh, had been quick off the mark, it is just possible they could have snatched most of the men off, for the wind stayed light for almost three hours. Just before first light, however it veered rapidly to 200° and within less than half an hour it was blowing a gale from that quarter.
The next depression was upon us and it had already deepened to 947.
To appreciate the problems we faced that day, it is necessary to realize the large number of men we had on board; also their trades, because, in the event, our lives were to depend on some of the skills we could call upon. On board at that time were: junior toolpusher, assistant barge engineer, 5 rig technicians, 2 motor-men, 2 crane operators, 8 labourers or roustabouts, 2 welders, 2 electricians, 2 radio operators, sick bay attendant, 8 cooks and quarters staff, 2 divers, and two complete drilling teams of 8 men. A total of 52. In addition, there was Villiers and myself and the service company personnel who had been flown out to operate the pressure tests.
According to the log kept by the barge engineer, the anchor cable had finally parted at 05.42. But I didn't see that until shortly after eight. Nobody called me, and when I finally opened my eyes, it was because Villiers had switched on the light. He was dressed and I could see by his face he had been up half the night. 'Couldn't sleep,' he said after he had broken it to me that, we were adrift again.
I dragged on my clothes and dived up the tilted stairway to the toolpusher's office. The wind was already screaming out of the south-west, rain and spray lashing the windows, and intermittent glimpses of the sea showed that the waves were shaggy combers thirty feet or more in height. A hurricane all right. I had brought the hand anemometer up with me and when I held it outside for a moment, clinging to the rail, my eyes half shut against the wind and driven spray, the force of it was already beyond recording. Back in the radio room I got the Duchess on the R/T and talked briefly to Gertrude. They had two anchors out, but even close under Foula the cables were bar taut and the surface of the water being lifted off the voe. 'Will you hold all right?' I asked her.
'Maybe. I don't know. We watch and hope, ja. What about you, Michael?'
'I can have a hot bath or eat myself sick, watch a film show, read a book-' I stopped there, for Sparks was just changing the figures against the Low on the weather chart. It now stood at 941.
And then Gertrude's voice was saying. 'But you have Shetland. It is a lee shore.' There was a pause, and then she said, 'Johan says the tide could help you.' I told her I knew that and she said, 'Fine,' and signed off, wishing us luck. It was the last time I was able to speak to her.
There was no Decca Navigator on board. North Star was not a ship. It was not equipped to ride the seas unanchored and alone, and once we lost sight of Foula the rate of drift was largely guesswork. I did some rough calculations, knowing there could be only one answer — total disaster. The rate of drift affected the time, the wind direction the place, but nothing could stop us hitting the rock-bound coast of Shetland — except possibly the speed and direction of the tidal flow.
Smit's view was the same as mine now — evacuate to the derrick floor and submerge to maximum depth. It was the only way to slow the rate of drift, to give us more time. Tugs were gathering, but even if any of them could have got out to us, there was no hope of fixing a towline. But when we reported to Villiers, who was lying stretched out in his bunk, it seemed impossible to make him understand the gravity of the situation. I thought at first he was thinking of the damage to the rig, the difficulty of raising finance, all the problems he would have to face when, and if, he ever got ashore. But it was more than that. He had withdrawn inside himself. In the heat of the cabin, in the warm security of his bunk, he had reached the point where he felt that if he ignored it all the storm would go away.
But even down there, in the depths of the quarters, it was impossible to ignore what was happening outside. The howl of the wind overlaid the sound of the power plant, the crash of the seas pounding at the steel columns of the rig shook the whole structure, the noise of it so loud we had to shout.
Finally he said, 'All right, Hans. Do what you like. You're the barge engineer. It's your responsibility.'
,Hans shook his head, looking bewildered and scared. 'My responsibility, ja. But vith you on board it is impossible that I tell the men to leave their quarters and go up into the vind. They vill not accept it from me.'
Villiers didn't say anything. He just lay there, his eyes closed.
'You must tell them,' Hans said. 'To go out into the vind is like going over the top into battle. And the ballast control engineer, who vill have to leave after he has flooded the torpedo tanks, vill be lucky if he is not killed. They vill do it for you, but not for me — not vith you 'ere on board.'
Villiers didn't answer.
Time was passing, and we had no time. I ripped the blankets off him and yanked him out of the bunk. 'Come on,' I said. 'For God's sake tell them, now.'
He stood there in his underpants looking vague.
'We're more than twenty miles from the coast,' he muttered.
'Seventeen,' I said. 'Nearer sixteen now.'
'It's not necessary.'
'I'm telling you it is.'
But he shook his head, unwilling to accept it.
I grabbed hold of him then. 'Why the hell did you bring me on board if you don't accept what I'm telling you? I need you to advise me, you said. Somebody to take charge in an emergency. All right. The emergency is now and I am advising you. Get the men up to the derrick floor and submerge to depth.'