Offshore (5 page)

The
three empty chairs would stand as a reminder of how dangerously
understaffed this mission had become.

Along
one wall of the mess-room ran the serving area, sections of glass,
gleaming stainless steel and halogen heat lamps from which hot
satisfying meals would normally be dispensed day and night, and
behind this stood the kitchen, the galley.

Eddie
led them through to the immaculately clean area. Their very
presence in everyday clothes and boots made the room feel
dirty.

“
I trust you all saw the collection of red and blue shipping
boxes in the container compound on your way in?”

Nods all
round.

“
Good, because your main job for today, in fact your only
job, will be to get the comestibles and other supplies from there
to—”

Reynolds
said, “What’s comestiwhatsits?”

“
It’s a fancy word for food and drink?” chipped in
McAllister.

“
The power is on, the lift is working,” said Eddie. “If you
get yourselves organised and form kind of chain it shouldn’t take
too long. Once you get them up here and into the larders, fridges
and freezers, I want you to make up a kitchen rota giving everyone
a fair turn, and stick to it. That way we don’t all end up cooking
separate meals at separate times of the day and wasting fuel and
food. Remember, we don’t have an endless supply and we won’t get
any more unless our stay is extended. When it’s gone it’s gone, so
make the most of what we have and don’t get greedy.”

All eyes
turned to Lydia.

“
I’m not doing it,” she said, folding her arms defiantly.
“Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I have to do all the
cooking. I’ll have enough work of my own to do taking care of your
boo boos and I’ll take my turn, but only my turn. And before any
one of you lazy sexists bastards makes the suggestion, I’m not
doing your laundry or cleaning your rooms either.”

“
Everyone will take a turn, even me,” said Eddie, raising
his hand to halt her before another tirade ensued. “I’m sure every
one of us is capable of keeping our rooms tidy, washing our own
socks and cooking something basic, even if it’s just boiling a
couple of eggs, or beans on toast.”

“
And I suppose while we’re breaking oor backs playing pack
mules, ye’ll be testing out that nice comfy boss’s chair in the
control room watching over us all on the telly?”

Something McDougal probably didn’t intend to say out
loud.

Under
Eddie’s furious glare, his brow creased and he sniffed. He had
crossed the line and he knew it. He dropped his eyes and at that
particular moment found his boots to be perhaps the most
interesting thing in the room.

“
So we have a plan for the rest of the day,” said Eddie once
more comfortably in command. “First, find a cabin that suits,
except A10, that’s mine –”

“
Who says?”

“
I do.”

“
Why?”

“
Because it’s the one best suited to keeping an eye on you
lot, that’s why. So, unpack your gear and get changed; have a nosey
about and get your bearings; sort out the stuff in the lounge, and
we will regroup at 15:00 hours to go down to the container compound
to make a start on shifting stuff. When we’ve got what we need
we’ll have a bite to eat and a cup of tea, and see what’s on the
cards for tomorrow. Okay?”

Muttering among themselves the small group dispersed to
select their cabins, unpack their belongings, and explore their
surroundings.

Eddie
let himself into the cabin already selected for himself, number 10
at the end of corridor A where he could keep an eye on their
comings and goings.

Safely
behind his closed door he tossed his bag onto the floor and threw
himself onto his naked mattress to lie on his back, staring up at
the ceiling.

“
What the fuck have I let myself in for?”

He
closed his eyes and breathed deeply, forcing himself to
relax.

Initially he had been looking forward to the posting to
Bravo, in fact even if the money hadn’t been so mouth-wateringly
tempting he would probably have volunteered for it.

A change
is as good as a rest, don’t they say? Ha!

A twenty
year veteran of more offshore assignments than he could shake a
stick at, in all corners of the globe, he usually relished the
prospect of platform work, often out of sight of land, isolated
from the vagaries of the real world, safe in its own little
microcosm. The constant thrum of industry played as a background to
his day; and at night, like a mother’s heartbeat it lulled him to
sleep.

Between
shifts, when others took time to socialise with their crew mates or
sleep the hours away, he preferred to lose himself in reading and
in his writing.

He had a
new novel brewing at the back of his mind and at first he hoped
this tour would see him break its back, but now he wasn’t so sure.
He wasn’t used to the silence the inactivity offered, and he
worried that the heavy feeling of desolation might work as a
negative force against his creativity - if the place didn’t fall
down around his ears in the meantime.

The room seemed to be growing duller. The port light showed
him why - nothing but shifting shades of grey as a wall of sea
mist, a
haar
, rolled in.

The
product of a warm pocket of air hitting the cold of the North Sea,
a haar could completely envelop anything in its path within
minutes, reducing visibility to practically zero as it shoogled in
to press against his rectangular window, blotting out the world
beyond. It could hang around for minutes or hours, and then as
quickly as it appeared, would lift and be gone.

On a
clear day the North Sea’s surface could be a millpond, still and
calm and as innocent as a boating lake as it stretched like a sheet
of polished steel as far as the eye could see, merging with blue
sky at the horizon, the sameness occasionally interrupted by a
sailboat, cargo ship or passenger ferry.

Small
waves, light winds, visibility excellent; perfect conditions. If he
should ever manage to swallow down his fear of heights and shin up
to the crow’s nest atop the derrick, he might be able to see the
mainland of Scotland in one direction, Norway in the other.
Unfortunately, days like those were an exception rather than a
rule.

They
might dawn bright and clear with the promise of sunshine, and the
water may lie flat and peaceful, filling seafarers with hope for a
good crossing, but as any experienced sailor knew, looks can be
deceiving. Without warning the wind could pick up, driving a
fearsome tidal swell, or the air could suddenly fill with a dense
swirling fog, as it had today, restricting visibility from miles to
mere feet in a matter of minutes.

At times
like these all bets are off, because now the placid playground has
turned savage, merciless killer.

Eddie
closed the blind against the encroaching shroud and its silent
shifting menace, somehow alive. At the back of his mind, as usual,
lay the horrifying imagining that when he opened the blinds again,
whatever lay beyond the suffocating mantle might not be there -
erased from existence like a child’s drawing from an Etch a
Sketch.

He was
about to reach for the light switch when an ear-splitting roar
sounded, like the bellow of a wounded stegosaur - the
omnidirectional fog horn perched on top of the
structure.

Its
solar powered battery trickled just enough juice to receive the
radio signal sent by a computer onshore keeping an eye on the
weather, instructing it by remote control to blare out its warning
once every two minutes for as long as the batteries
lasted.

Only
today it was drawing full power from the generators and
reverberating a steady 120 decibels, not only for miles out through
the fog, but also through Bravo’s walls and floors, and the pit of
Eddie’s stomach.

He
unpacked his gear, storing it in the drawers under the bed,
displayed his toiletries in the bathroom and availed himself of the
toilet to pee.

A quick
brush of his teeth to freshen up before shrugging into overalls,
and putting on a fresh pair of white flannel socks.

An
affectation since childhood, he always felt better, more confident,
in clean socks, and at times of trouble or uncertainty would change
them several times a day, much to his mother’s chagrin.

What would Professor Psychologist Brewer make of
that
particular
foible?

He
slipped his Longdrift ID lanyard over his head, tucking the
laminated card into his breast pocket behind a neat row of coloured
pens.

A last
glance in the mirror, and he caught sight of the words etched along
the bottom edge of the glass;

this is the only person responsible

for your safety today.

“
And I wish you the best of luck with
it, Capstan. You’re going to need it.”

He
checked his watch - 14:59.

Chapter 7

They
were all in the lounge, dressed now in their regulation general
purpose overalls, Longdrift’s name and logo emblazoned across their
shoulders, a miniature version over their left breast pocket, none
too subtle reminders of who paid their wages.

The men
wore navy blue with white T shirts underneath; Lydia, dark green.
Eddie’s red signified his authority as team leader. All wore
identical rubber soled leather trainers and blue lanyards with
photo identity badges dangled around their necks, as if they were
going to forget who they were.

Only
Reynolds wore his issued baseball cap, its peak pulled low over his
face, and didn’t he look ridiculous in it, like a gawky beaky
bird.

They
lolled in the sofas and chairs, waiting for Cameron to find
something for them to watch on TV. He stabbed at the keys on the
remote control.

“
Maybe the channels are different. They’ll be foreign out
here, won’t they?”

“
Who cares? There’s gotta be some fitba somewhere in the
world.” Suddenly the screen turned green as it tuned in to a
football match, and a cheer went up among the men to add to the
roar of fans coming through the speakers.

The
match was indeed foreign, Ethiopia versus the Democratic Republic
of Congo, a grainy picture and dodgy sound, but football was
football and they didn’t care who was playing.

“
How long is left?” asked Eddie, feigning interest. He
preferred the high octane action and adventure of motor
sport.

“
Twenty minutes, if they don’t play extra time,” said
McAllister.

“
Okay, you can watch, but the second it’s over we get to
work. Those supplies aren’t going to move themselves and I take it
you all want to eat sometime soon. Okay?” He received nothing but a
mumbled reply, every man’s eyes fixed on the television screen …
except one. Brewer was already busy with his fancy Moleskine
notebook and Eddie watched for a moment as his pen scratched
feverishly at the lined paper.

He couldn’t know about the socks already, surely.

When he
first learned the group were to be observed by a company sponsored
nosey parker with a brief to monitor the crew’s psychological
welfare with a view to presenting a paper on ‘Stress in Isolation’,
with particular reference to platform workers, Eddie imagined the
‘prof’ would be a stiff old buffer with fluffy mint imperials in
his pocket and owlish spectacles held together with sticking
plaster.

Not a
bit of it.

Eddie
was astonished to learn that this well spoken, well groomed
busybody was not only one of Longdrift’s finest number crunchers,
with an uncanny ability to twist all manner of frankly
indecipherable data into a logical form that even an idiot like him
could understand, but also had almost double the practical shop
floor experience he did.

A true
Jack of All Trades, able to turn his hand to anything, albeit one
who had managed to get himself blown up in Siberia, shot at in
Libya, kidnapped for ransom in Nigeria, and survive a platform
sinking in the Gulf of Mexico.

A useful
asset … or a sodding jinx?

So why
end up here? Surely Longdrift could make better use of his time and
talents.

Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die...and
get paid for it.

Eddie
couldn’t stop him making his furtive observations and taking notes,
but he could make sure it didn’t get in the way of the work in
hand.

They
were short handed and the Prof had valuable experience to be
exploited. He was going to pull his weight and get his manicured
nails dirty like the rest of them, and clandestine nebbing in and
note taking would play a poor second fiddle to grafting.

Someone
else had no interest in the football either. He went over to where
Lydia was squatting, rummaging through the boxes of books and
DVDs.