North Star

by Hammond Innes

  Since the discussion had centred on the condition of the cables, I was not involved, except to the extent of justifying my departure from Ken Stewart’s instructions in order to identify the fishing boat Island Girl. My action was accepted as being reasonable in the circumstances, Ed Wiseberg merely insisting that in future I adhere strictly to the barge engineer’s orders. I made no reference to that moment when I thought I had felt an explosion under water. In view of what was discovered later it would have been better if I had, but with everybody convinced that cable fatigue was the cause, it would have introduced a new dimension. I did, however, point out that the fishing boat, Island Girl, had been steaming without lights, but they merely put that down to the determination of Shetland’s fishermen to shoot their nets close in to the rig. They thought it was a political move, since the purse-seiners normally worked closer inshore, and the absence of lights was attributed to a natural desire to avoid being sighted by the guard boat.

  Immediately following that conference I had arranged to get Gertrude ashore. I had never had a woman on board a trawler before and the fact that the crew were so accustomed to her presence that, almost unconsciously, they looked to her for decisions, made my own position considerably more difficult than it would otherwise have been. Johan, in particular, had a great fondness for her, as though she were a close relative as well as the owner. In any case, we needed her back at base to organize supplies. There was no room for her on the helicopter, but when the new cables came out I got her away on Rattler. After that I was able to re-establish my authority and get a grip on the ship and her crew.

  There was a great deal of activity during the days it took to get the rig fully operational again. But once they had resumed drilling, everything settled down to normal, and the dullness of our patrol, the steady routine of watch-and-watch about, made things considerably easier for me. Throughout this period the Shetlanders gave us no trouble. Indeed, for the better part of a week we never saw a single fishing boat. Johan thought they would be fishing either west of Sumburgh or out by Fair Isle, for the weather was fine and clear. It was midsummer now, the days so long there was almost no night, only a weird pinkish twilight before the sun edged up over the horizon again.

  Twenty-third June and another clear, silky morning. I was just coming off watch when the rig called us. I was to report on board immediately – Ed Wiseberg’s orders. I found him alone in the toolpusher’s office, his hard, leathery face even more craggy than usual. ‘You’ve seen this, have you?’ It was a copy of the Shetland paper with a headline – Dragging Rig a Danger to Lives.

  ‘No, we haven’t had any papers sent out yet.’

  He grunted. ‘Then you won’t have seen the stories in your national press. The Morning Star is the worst, of course, accusing Villiers of gambling with men’s lives. But they’re all on to it – The Times, Express, Telegraph, the whole goddam lot, all screaming for our blood.’ He flung the pile down in front of me, staring at me angrily as though I personally had leaked the story. The intercom phone rang, and while he answered it, I picked up one of the papers, my eye caught by several lines of print underlined in red: It is not the first time things have gone wrong for this 51-year-old American driller. In the past six years he has had a fire, a blowout and an accident in which two men were killed. Regarded as something of a Jonah by his fellow toolpushers, it is hardly surprising that he now finds himself in charge of the oldest rig in the North Sea operating west of Shetland in the most dangerous sea area of all.

  No wonder he was angry. I turned to the Telegraph. Here, too, the story was front page news, but at that point I suddenly became interested in what he was saying over the phone – something about fishing boats and he had mentioned Gertrude Petersen’s name. He reached for a pad, made a note and then looked across at me. ‘Okay, George. I think that’s a pretty smart deal … Yeah, I guess that should cool the whole thing down, locally at any rate. When d’you reckon it’ll be on station? … That’s fine. Rattler can stand by till it arrives. Yeah, I’ll tell him. He’s here with me right now.’ And he put the phone down. ‘That was George Fuller,’ he said. For a moment he didn’t say anything more, just stood there facing me, his brows drawn down and his face grim. He was looking older than when I had last seen him, the lines of his face deeper, the shoulders sagging. The effect was to make him seem less than life size, as though the weight of responsibility had diminished his stature.

  The silence hung heavy. ‘What was it about?’ I asked him.

  ‘You.’ He paused, still frowning. Then he straightened up, squaring his shoulders. ‘First, I’d better tell you the results of the laboratory tests on Nos. 1 and 2 cables. We sent the whole lot ashore, including the broken ends from both anchor chains. It wasn’t what we thought. No indication of cable fatigue. Know what it was?’ He was suddenly leaning on the desk, his head thrust aggressively forward. ‘Sabotage.’

  I was so shocked by the boldness of his statement that all I could think of was that moment on the bridge when something, some force, had slammed against the soles of my feet. So I’d been right. It had been an underwater explosion.

  ‘That surprise you?’ He glowered at me. ‘No, I bet it doesn’t. I can see it in your face. You know damn well they were ripped apart by a bomb.’

  ‘Are you accusing me?’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything. All I know is that your political record stinks, and yours was the only boat with the opportunity –’

  ‘What about that purse-seiner I reported steaming without lights?’ But I knew Island Girl hadn’t had time to undertake what would have been a very tricky operation. He knew it, too.

  ‘That fishing vessel’s got nothing to do with it. Mebbe you haven’t either. God knows how it was done. But there it is. There’s the laboratory report.’ He picked up a telex and tossed it across to me. ‘Read it if you want to. The frayed ends of those cables all showed indications of heat metamorphosis. Traces of carbon, other more technical details. It all adds up, the findings conclusive. And something else you should read.’ He reached for the local paper and handed it to me, his finger pointing to the second column of the front page story. ‘That boat you saw. It wasn’t fishing. It was tailing you. Read it.’

  ‘But it couldn’t possibly –’

  ‘Read it. Then I’ll tell you what we’ve decided.’

  It was a statement by Ian Sandford:

  The rig’s only stand-by boat is the Duchess of Norfolk, manned partly by foreigners. This is not the sort of boat that should be permitted to harry our fishing boats, which have an age-old right to fish those waters. Nor should a man with a police record be in command of the one boat with the right to come and go around the rig. This should be a Shetland responsibility. My own boat was, in fact, present in the neighbourhood of the rig at the time it began to drag. The man on watch saw the Duchess out by the windward buoys, but then she forced Island Girl to leave the area.

  The implication was obvious, and it went on: Mr Sandford, who was recently elected to the Zetland County Council, drew a hair-raising picture of what could happen if this rig were to break adrift at the moment when the drill bit had penetrated an underwater oil reservoir. ‘It could mean,’ he told our reporter, ‘vast quantities of crude oil gushing out into the waters west of Shetland. Every fisherman knows the effect this would have on his livelihood. But it’s not just the fishing that would be hit. With the prevailing winds, all the west of Shetland could be totally polluted, the whole coastline black with crude oil. The beauty of our islands, the bird life, everything that attracts the tourist, would be ruined.’

  His solution: A modern, self-positioning drilling ship in place of the obsolete North Star. And in the interim, proper surveillance with two Shetland boats sharing the guard duties, and manned by Shetlanders.

  So that was it. The man had turned politician and was using his new position to get us out and his own boats in. I looked across at the big toolpusher and knew by the look on his face I hadn’t a hope of c
hanging his mind. ‘You’re ditching us, is that it?’

  ‘Call it that if you like. I told you, when I first met you, I didn’t want you on my rig. Now I don’t want you anywhere near it – or your ship. Nor does George. You’re a political liability, and to my way of thinking a potential danger to the rig.’ He was looking down at the paper again, his voice thick with anger as he said, ‘A dynamic stationed drill ship! That shows their goddam ignorance. A dynamic stationed ship in these waters! There’s no heave compensator invented could cope with the pitch and movement of a drill ship in the waves we’ll be getting out here later in the year.’

  But I wasn’t interested. To hell with drill ships and technicalities. All I cared about in that moment was the Duchess and Gertrude. Myself, too. ‘We’ve a contract,’ I said. ‘And provided we can keep on station –’

  His fist came down, hammering at the desk. ‘I don’t give a damn about your contract. No doubt you’ll get compensation, if that’s what you’re worrying about. George can sort that one out with the Petersen woman. Now get back to your ship and get it out of here. Okay? Rattler takes over from the Duchess as of now.’

  I was so angry I had to push my hands down into my pockets to stop myself doing something stupid. ‘Have you thought about how an explosive device could have been attached to the cables – close to the anchor stocks in 500 feet of water?’ I was holding myself in, my voice tight and controlled. ‘You think about that. A bomb slid down the pennant wire from buoy to anchor would cut the buoy adrift and mark the anchor when it exploded. I saw those anchors as Rattler hauled them up. They were undamaged. And the buoys didn’t break adrift. Both pennant wires were intact. And if you think somebody could slide a device down the cable from the rig end of it on a snap block, then you just try it, see whether it gets anywhere near as close as the point of break on those two cables.’

  I had his attention then. ‘Okay. How do you think it was done then?’

  It was a matter I had given some thought to, but I hesitated, suspecting a trap. When a man has virtually accused you of sabotaging his anchor cables, you don’t expect him to enquire about the method used without some ulterior motive. But Ed Wiseberg wasn’t built that way. He was a rugged, straightforward drill operator and there was no guile in the grey eyes waiting upon my answer. Their expression was one of puzzlement, and it came as a shock to realize that the man was out of his depth and profoundly worried. He really was seeking my advice. ‘Christ! You expect me to tell you?’

  ‘Not if you had a hand in it. No.’ He shrugged, and then suddenly that craggy face broke into a smile. ‘But I’m asking you all the same. You know about the sea. I don’t.’

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. ‘You asking me!’ The bloody nerve of it! ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you.’ And I cursed myself for a fool. But you couldn’t help liking him, and he knew how to handle men. ‘It could only have been done by a ship towing a grapnel. I can’t think of any other way. If a grapnel were towed just the rig side of one of the anchor buoys it would be bound to grab hold of the cable. The device could then have been slipped down the grapnel line. A good lead weight on top of that, then cut the line adrift and let it sink.’

  ‘And how do you set it off – delayed action?’

  ‘Either that, or fasten a thin connecting wire to the side of the anchor buoy so that you can detonate by radio signal.’ Even as I said it, thinking the method out as I went along, the real reason for the presence of that fishing boat flashed into my mind. ‘Since they needed a gale to make the operation worthwhile, radio signal would be the sensible method of triggering the bomb off.’

  ‘So we inspect the buoys, a daily routine.’ He nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s the answer.’ He came round the edge of the desk. ‘I guess you think I’m being pretty rough, hm? Well, nothing I can do about that. I got the rig to consider and the bloody Shetlanders on my back.’ He held out his hand, the tough, leathery features lit by a smile of surprising charm. ‘I hear the fishing’s good now, so no hard feelings, eh?’

  I shook his hand. What else? It wasn’t his fault. And no good telling him that in getting rid of me he was losing the one person who knew enough to give the rig some protection. ‘Good luck!’ I said, and I meant it, remembering that paragraph in the Express underlined in red.

  He nodded, reached for his safety helmet and gloves, and then he was gone, striding out on to the helicopter deck. I watched him through the window as he headed for the derrick floor, back to the world that was his life, the world he knew and understood.

  I thought then, and still think, that the division between toolpushers and barge engineers is a dangerous one. How can you expect a man who has spent most of his life drilling on land to adapt himself to the sea in middle life? Ed Wiseberg at 51 couldn’t be expected to think in terms of a real Shetland gale. He couldn’t even conceive what it was like. Yet so long as North Star was drilling, he was in charge.

  I went slowly out on to the deck, pausing a moment to see his heavy figure climbing the long iron stairway at the base of the derrick that led from pipe deck to derrick floor, climbing with a sort of punchy swagger. He flung open the corrugated iron door and stood there for a moment surveying the scene, a lone figure standing right above the pipe skid, the noise of the drawworks blasting out and the men inside dancing a strange ballet around the kelly, the tongs in their hands and the winches screaming. Then he stepped forward into that hell’s kitchen of machinery and closed the door behind him, safe now among the tools that were his trade.

  God help him, I thought, as I turned away, wondering how he would measure up if he was caught in a real storm.

  The Duchess was wallowing in the bright sunlight out by No. 7 buoy. I went down the stairway then to the waiting boat, and as the outboard pushed us clear of the cold cavern of the rig’s undersection, I was considering how I would break it to the crew. They had been out here for over two months now, sacrificing shore time for the benefit of their ship. I wasn’t angry. I was past that. But the humiliation of it sickened me, knowing that they would have nobody to blame but myself. And later, when we reached Shetland, there would be Gertrude to tell.

  I climbed on board and went straight to the bridge. Lars was at the wheel and I told him to turn in towards Rattler. She was still moored stern-on to the rig unloading stores. I steamed close past her bows, hailing her skipper and telling him it was all his now. He wished us luck and I was thinking I could certainly do with some as I swung away to point our bows towards Mainland of Shetland. Then I called the crew to the bridge and told them why we were leaving.

  I could see the shock and dismay in their faces and I didn’t wait for the inevitable questions, but ducked into the chart recess to lose myself for a moment in the practicalities of working out the course for Scalloway. Johan followed me shortly afterwards. ‘So we get compensation and Gertrude pays off the mortgage, then we go fishing, ja?’ He was smiling and I guessed what he was thinking. That close positive relation between them would be resumed and everything would go on as it had before. He put a great paw on my arm. ‘What will you do then?’ To my surprise there was real concern in his voice.

  ‘I haven’t thought about that,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Well, time you think about it.’ He hesitated, his head turned away from me, staring out through the doorway as he said, ‘You are a good captain, a good seaman, ja – but for you it is not enough to fish.’ He spoke slowly, awkwardly, as though afraid of giving offence. ‘Fishing is a good life. But not for you. You need something bigger. Politics per’aps, or oil.’

  ‘You may be right,’ I said and gave him the course. He didn’t say anything after that. For him it had been a long speech. We had moved into the bridge and we were silent, both of us wrapped in our own thoughts, the only sounds the sounds of the sea and the hum of the engines.

  The evening was deepening into twilight as we steamed through the Middle Channel into Scalloway, and we had barely dropped our anchor under the castle ruins wh
en a boat put out from the shore and came alongside. The old man at the oars wore a fisherman’s cap. He said his name was McIver and that he had a note for me from Gertrude Petersen. All this in a high piping voice like the call of a curlew. I bent over the bulwarks and took the note from his outstretched hand, ripping open the envelope and reading it by the light of the deck light. It was dated 23rd June at 14.15:

  I think perhaps you do not come into The Taing but go direct to Scalloway. In case, this is to tell you that a Detective-Sergeant from Hull came to the house this morning. He is asking for you, but will not say why. His name is Gorse and he is waiting for you at the hotel in Scalloway. I think you may like to know so I am leaving this note for Terry McIver of Dun Croft to give you as soon as you arrive. It is more trouble for you, I think, so let me know if there is anything I can do. G. And she had added a PS: Sandford now has the Star-Trion contract. He is providing two Shetland boats to replace the Duchess.

  I looked across at the lights of the little port, thinking there wasn’t much time now to do what I had to do. Any moment a boat would put out from the pier and I had no doubts as to why Gorse was here. ‘Do you have a car?’ I asked the old man. But he shook his head. ‘Know anybody who could run me over to Taing?’

  ‘Aye. My son. He’s got a Ford van.’

  I told him to wait and went to my cabin, hurriedly stuffing the things I’d need into my grip. I took my anorak, and sea boots as well, shouted to Johan that he was in charge now, and a moment later I was in the boat and being rowed ashore. Money and a vehicle, those were the two essentials, and I just hoped Gertrude had meant it when she had asked if she could do anything.