The next ten minutes was all chaos and panic. Banks saw that Wiggo had brought the other squad members up top of the floatel, but there was nothing the team could really do but watch as the rig manager directed rescue lifeboats out into the storm, a risky maneuver in its own right, and one that reaped no rewards. It quickly became clear that the supply boat had been lost with all hands. The only evidence it had been there at all was some debris floating on the surface, and even that was being rapidly dissipated in the waves.
Banks waved to Wiggo, motioning that he should take the others back inside out of the storm then followed the manager back up to the second floor once they knew further searching was hopeless.
They held a conclave in the manager’s office.
“What are you planning to do now?” Banks asked.
“There were twelve men on that boat,” Smith said. He was pale in the face, on the verge of shock. “I knew them all. Most of them were at my birthday party last year.”
Seton produced his hip flask and offered it to Smith.
“Hell, I’ll need more than that,” he said, went to his desk and produced a large bottle of Bells that he drank straight from the neck for several seconds before turning to Banks. “You asked what I plan to do now? You’re the experts, you tell me. What the fuck can we do now?”
“Shut up,” Seton said.
“Let the man speak, he’s had a shock,” Hynd said.
“No, I mean, be quiet. Listen.”
It was only when they all stopped talking that Banks heard it and at first, he took it for a trick of the wind before he realised there was a tonal quality to it that sounded almost like a bagpipe drone.
Seton spoke and Banks recognised it as a quote from the sheet of paper he’d read from earlier, the record from a thousand years before.
“It sang, a mournful thing like a dirge, as if in sorrow at the carnage it wrought.”
5
The mess hall had fallen quiet since the loss of the supply vessel; there were a dozen crew present along with the three soldiers and the cook but nobody was in the mood for talking.
A droning wail rose up in the wind and all heads rose to listen until it faded away less than a minute later.
“What the fuck was that?” somebody said at a nearby table.
“Buggered if I know. But I think Willie McLeod could tell us.”
“Willie will no’ be saying anything to anybody,” someone else replied. “The boss had him put aboard the boat; he was supposed to be away home wi’ his jotters.”
That revelation drove everyone to silence again until the man who’d first spoken piped up again.
“I’ve got an awfy bad feeling about this shite.”
“You and me both,” Wiggo muttered. His voice echoed and caught the attention of the man who’d spoken.
“And what the fuck are sodjers doing here anyway?” he said. “What do you know that we don’t?”
The man made to stand and come forward towards Wiggo, but all Wiggo had to do was look at him and he backed down, muttering.
“Bloody sodjers should be sodjering, not hanging around bothering decent folks at their work.”
Wiggo decided the man was right about one thing…soldiers should be soldiering.
“Right, bugger this for a lark,” he said. “Wilko, you’re with me. We may as well take a walk around and see if there’s owt amiss. Davies, you’re on kit duty. If any of this mob gives you any nonsense, just shoot one of them—that should shut them up.”
He was looking into the face of the man who’d spoken as he said it, giving it his best cheesy grin. He didn’t get a smile in return, but that was okay by him.
A reccy of the floatel didn’t take long; it was little more than a floating cube, two floors with the mess and sleeping quarters below and a spacious control room above, with the open top deck above that. There were two men on duty in the control room, but neither of them were in the mood for talking, and merely nodded as Wiggo and Wilkins had a walk around their work area. Wiggo couldn’t make head nor tail of the bewildering ranks of monitors, dials and switches, but as long as they were still afloat and tied to the rig, that was okay by him.
Wilkins spoke as they went back to the stairwell.
“So the wee man was right about the creature?”
“Aye, a broken clock’s right twice a day, I suppose.”
“You’ve got history with him, Corp?”
“The squad’s got history with him, lad. It wasn’t his fault, that thing at Loch Ness. But he was there, and every time I see his face it reminds me of it. We lost a man; the squad’s corporal before me, my best pal on the force. And it’s his face I see when I look at the auld man.”
“But he was right back then too?”
Wiggo stopped on the landing and thought about it.
“Aye, I suppose he was, in his way. But I cannae be doing with all that superstitious crap he spouts. Don’t mind me, I’ll be fine as long as we keep out of each other’s way for a bit.”
Back downstairs all was quiet. Wiggo left Wilkins with Davies and the kit again and went out the back of the scullery. He found Tom the cook outside having another smoke and lit up again to join him.
“Hell of a thing, eh,” the big cook said.
“Aye. Did you ken the men?”
“Most of them, aye. We’re a close knit bunch oot here; a bit like you lads in a way. We spend a lot of time cooped up together. You either become best pals or worst enemies pretty quickly, and the lads out there tonight were pals.”
“Sorry, big man.”
“It wasnae your fault. But it looks like Willie was right all along, poor bugger. What happens now?”
Wiggo shrugged.
“My captain is talking to your boss. I’m guessing the plan will be to evacuate all you civilians and leave us to see what we can do.”
Tom laughed.
“Aye, good luck with that in this weather. There’ll be nothing coming out of Aberdeen by air or sea until things settle down a bit. We sit tight. That’s what we always do.”
“And yon beastie? It disnae worry you?”
“Oh aye, it worries me. But so does the weather, and the fact that if there’s a fire, we’re toast pretty damn quick. And the cauld…that bothers me too. But that’s just life on a rig, man. You take the risks when you take the job.”
Wiggo laughed at that.
“Well maybe you are a wee bit like us sodjers after all. How did you get into this business?”
“I was working in a cafe in Partick; the tips were shite, the place was a fucking shithole, and the clientele were mostly drunk. So I upped sticks, came up to Aberdeen on speck, and the next thing I know I’m in the training program one week and out here the next. It’s no’ a bad job for a single man with no ties like me. The money’s good, and I get to enjoy myself plenty in my time off.”
Wiggo laughed at that.
“Then again, maybe we’re no’ all that similar.”
The next half-hour passed quietly on Wiggo’s return to the mess. The mood was sombre. Tom served food but few seemed inclined to eat it. Wiggo settled for coffee, as strong as Tom could make it, and silently wished that wee Seton had left his hip flask behind when he’d departed.
“Do you think the captain will get anywhere with the suits?” Davies asked quietly.
“Depends whether they value their money or their workers,” Wiggo replied and got a barking laugh in reply.
“Aye, we all ken the answer to that wan, don’t we?” Davies replied. “I was nearly wan of these guys, you know?”
“Really. It disnae seem your style somehow.”
“I was younger, just out of school. And the money was a big draw, for my maw was struggling at the time; shift work with the promise of overtime seemed like a way out.”
“And what stopped you?”
Davies laughed.
“The thought of nights like this one. My stomach gets fragile on the Govan ferry; I could never handle weeks on end of this
.”
Wiggo understood only too well. He’d never had any problems with his constitution on boats before now, but the constant rocking in the big swell was beginning to get to him and he found that he had to keep his gaze on a fixed spot, else the room around him seemed to spin. It was worse when standing up so Wiggo sat with the other two playing brag for a time. Without the Sarge’s involvement, the game was more even and Wiggo managed to lose himself in it for a few minutes.
The relative calm was broken when the whole structure of the floatel took a sudden lurch upwards. Everyone in the room was thrown out of their seats, plates crashed, shouts of surprise and yells of pain echoed around them, and they didn’t have time to react before they hit the water with a crash that threw them all around again.
When things calmed and it was apparent that whatever had happened was over, for the time being at least, Wiggo got his feet gingerly. His first thought was for his men. Both Davies and Wilkins looked fine, if a bit shaken, and both gave a thumbs up when he asked how they were doing. Some of the crew hadn’t been so lucky. There were several who’d have egg-sized bruises on their skulls by morning and one lad looked to have broken his arm. The next thing Wiggo noticed was that the whole structure appeared to be spinning; it wasn’t just his sense of balance playing up either, for he felt it through the soles of his boots. There was a definite sense of movement that hadn’t been present before.
“Davies, Wilko, see what you can do for the hurt lads. I’ll check on the control room, find out what the fuck just happened.”
He had a bit of trouble with the stairs; the whole floatel appeared to be moving underneath him, bucking like a rodeo bull, forcing him to take each step carefully lest he be tossed backwards onto his arse. When he reached the upstairs room, it was to find the two men on duty frantically working at the control boards. He didn’t have to ask what the problem was; all he had to do was look out of the window.
The floatel was indeed spinning and while it was doing so, it was getting farther and farther away from the lights of the main rig.
“Can you get us back?” Wiggo asked.
One of the men at the board turned, his face white.
“We’ve broken our moorings and we’ve lost power to our engines. Basically, we’re adrift in the North Sea, in a storm, in a floating metal box.”
“What he’s trying to tell you,” the other man said, “is that we’re fucked.”
6
Banks and Seton had spent a frustrating half-hour on the radio trying to persuade Smith’s bosses and then a series of minor ranked politicians that the rig needed to be evacuated. Eventually, they got some kind of agreement.
“But you’ll have to wait the storm out,” a clipped, almost bored civil servant in Edinburgh said. “We can’t afford to risk any more losses. The papers are gearing up for a field day already.”
Seton stepped in before Banks said something he’d definitely regret later and surprised Banks by asking to speak to someone higher up. He mentioned a few names that Banks recognised, intimated that he was friends with them and that they might not be happy to hear that Seton’s wishes were being denied, and suddenly the corridors of power were being opened to them.
“The old boy network,” Seton said with a wry grin. “Never fails, especially if you’re a very old boy like me.”
They were waiting for a final decision from Edinburgh when an alarm sounded outside, an insistent claxon. A breathless worker burst in without knocking.
“It’s the floatel, boss. We’ve lost the floatel.”
Banks’ heart sank, fearing the same fate had befell it as the supply vessel earlier. And this time it would have taken three of his squad with it. He was ahead of everyone else on the way out the door, almost running along the corridor to the gantry that overlooked the docking area.
Relief washed over him when he saw that the floating vessel hadn’t sunk but that quickly changed to despair when he saw it was moving away from the main rig, a twenty-meter gap becoming forty in the space of seconds. The vessel bobbed and weaved, tossed high then plunged low in the swell and it was spinning anti-clockwise as it wheeled away from them.
“Get it back. Right now,” he said to the rig manager.
The burly man had gone white again and seemed incapable of speaking. The crew member who had brought the news spoke for him.
“We cannae dae that from here, sir,” he said. “If she’s to come back, it has to be under her own steam, but it looks like their engines went at the same time as the moorings. She’s adrift, and there’s bugger all we can do about it.”
Banks watched the vessel get increasingly farther away from the rig. It wasn’t going to be too long before it was lost in the growing darkness.
“Can we at least speak to them, find out if they’re okay?”
The crewman spoke up again.
“The lads in the control room will be on that. I can take you down there if you’d like. But I warn you now, it’s probably going to be a madhouse.”
The rig boss was still staring out to sea in shock. Banks left him there and, with Hynd and Seton in tow, followed the crewman out into the weather and down two flights of open stairs. They were soaking wet again as they were shown into the control room.
‘Madhouse’ was too small a word for the frenetic chaos inside but it was obvious that the three crewmen present were doing everything they could under the circumstances and any intervention by Banks at this point was just going to get in their way, so he hung back near the door and watched, ready to make a move if he was needed.
He realised that they were in radio contact with the stricken floatel; he heard near panic in the voice at the other end, then another voice came on the air, one he knew all too well.
“Cap, are you there?”
“Who is this,” the operator in front of Banks said. “I can’t allow any unauthorised personnel on the air.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you can’t allow. Get me Captain Banks and get him right fucking now.”
Before anyone could stop him, Banks stepped forward, gently pushed the operator aside, and took control of the mike.
“Wiggo, it’s me. Everybody okay over there?”
“Me and the lads are fine, Cap. One of the crew’s got some broken bones…Davies is seeing to him right now…but the rest are fine, just bashes and bruises. But tell me you’ve got a plan; it’s like the Big Dipper at the Pleasure Beach in here, and getting worse by the minute.”
“They’re working on it, Wiggo,” Banks said. “Hang in there.”
“We don’t have much choice, do we? Just give me some warning if you see yon big beastie heading our way; I’d like to make myself ready if we’re going to become its supper.”
Banks saw out of the big display window that the lights of the floatel were still receding away from them at speed; he wasn’t going to be seeing it for much longer.
“I promise you, Wiggo, I’ll see you safe,” he said. “But in the meantime, you’re in charge over there; this is going to be your first command if we lose contact. So stay tight and cool, and bring everybody home.”
“You ken me, Cap,” Wiggo said, and before Banks replied the line went dead, only crackling static coming from the speaker.
“We’ve lost comms,” the operator said, muscling his way back into his position and pushing Banks aside.
“You don’t say?” Banks replied, but stepped back to let the man work.
It quickly became obvious that it was a lost cause; nothing any of the operators tried was of any use. The floatel disappeared out of view into the storm. Night was falling out beyond the window, but even then there was no sign of the vessel’s lights. Wiggo and the two privates were lost in the storm.
“Don’t you have procedures for this sort of emergency?” Seton said at Banks’ back.
“Aye,” one of the operators said, sounding tired and resigned. “And we’ve just tried them all. The only option left is to get air-sea rescue out from Aberdeen and I doubt
if anybody will be willing to chance it in this weather. The only good news is that the wind’s taking them towards the coast rather than further out to sea, but that’s the only good news.”
“Can you get me a line to my HQ in Lossiemouth?” Banks asked.
The operator nodded.
“I think so. Comms with the mainland are still operating. Who do you need to call?”
Five minutes later, Banks was in contact with the colonel back at base.
“Leave it with me,” the colonel said on being apprised of the situation. “Air-Sea rescue will be on the case in five minutes and if they’re not, they’ll be getting a rocket up the arse from the powers that be.”
And that was that as far as Banks’ ideas were concerned; as a man of action, he hated being powerless in any situation, even more so when his men were in danger and he was separated from them, but he couldn’t see any plan other than waiting it out.
That didn’t mean he had to stand around with his thumb up his arse though.
He turned to Hynd.
“Sarge, see if you can wrangle a waterproof from somebody. I need you outside, and high, somewhere we can see that beastie coming.”
The operator stopped him.
“No need for that, sir. We still have radar, and our underwater cameras are functioning. It gave off an almighty blip the last time; we’ll know if it’s coming back.”
“And then what?” Seton said softly.
Banks didn’t have an answer. But he was working on it.
7
Wiggo shouted into the mike.
“Cap? Cap? Come back.”
The operator took it gently from him.
“They’ve gone,” he said. “We’re on our own.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I doubt it,” the operator said. “I run the thing, I don’t mend it. The electric laddie who does the heavy lifting is back on the rig.”
Operation: North Sea (S-Squad Book 10) Page 3