‘Think I didn’t look the boat over before I chartered her?’ My sarcasm seemed to have caught him on the raw, for his voice was tense as he went on, ‘You’ve never worked an island fishing boat before. Distant water, that’s all you’ve known, and a wealthy company to foot the bills.’ He leaned towards me, speaking very loudly the way some people speak to a foreigner. ‘I grew up in the post-war years when every penny counted and everything was scarce. If you wanted something, then you looked around until you found it, or made do with something else, even though it was rusty as hell or half-rotted through with damp. That’s the world I grew up in, and that’s why I don’t throw my money around.’ And then with something near to a sneer he added, ‘But I don’t expect you to understand that. Your world was very different. You never had to scrimp and save, not in the home you grew up in.’
‘Not then,’ I said. ‘But I’ve made up for it since.’
He grinned and that made me like him a little better. ‘Well, nobody gets it good all the time, not even men like Villiers. They say he’s bust if North Star doesn’t hit it with the next hole.’
‘Then you’ll have two boats out of a job.’
‘Oh, not me. I got other jobs lined up for them. And there’s always the fishing to fall back on.’ He got to his feet. ‘Let’s have a word with Harry Priest now.’
‘He says he needs at least a week to do a complete overhaul on that clapped-out old engine of ours.’
‘Well, he can have it – a week, but that’s all.’
‘What about spares? Or is that the owner’s responsibility?’
‘No, it’s mine now,’ he said. ‘The boat’s no longer under charter. I’ve bought her.’ There was pride in the way he said it, an air of cockiness, and I laughed, seeing him in his own imagination already halfway to rivalling the big Greek shipowners.
‘Who’s paying for it?’ I asked. ‘Your father?’
‘The old man?’ He shook his head. ‘Borrow from the masses, that’s what he says. Banks, insurance companies, pension funds. Or from the oil companies. Never risk your own capital. He’s a shrewd old devil. But just not interested, not for himself, anyway.’
‘Is it that easy to borrow money now?’ I was thinking of all the problems we had had with the Duchess.
He grinned at me. ‘It is so long as the boats earn more than my backer charges in interest.’
I asked him if his backer was a local man, but he shook his head. ‘A property dealer from the south who likes playing around with boats.’ There was a note of envy in his voice. ‘It’s just a leisure occupation, like birdwatching is to some of the visitors I used to have. Goes out periodically and tries new ways of fishing whenever he’s up in Shetland on business. Owns some land on Sullom Voe, and with all the oil companies negotiating for terminal facilities – well, it helps my being on the Council.’
‘Is that how you met him, through your work on the Council?’
‘No, it was the old man. He put me in touch with him.’ But when I asked his name, he closed up on me and got to his feet. ‘None of your business,’ he said sharply as though afraid I was about to steal the source of his capital. He poked his head out of the wheelhouse door, calling for Harry Priest.
He was about two hours on board and when I saw him over the side – we were anchored off at the time – he said, ‘See Harry keeps at it. A week, that’s all you’ve got. Then you’ll relieve Island Girl.’ I stared at him and he nodded. ‘That’s right. On stand-by to North Star. I’ve had to send the other boat down to Lerwick for repairs. Damaged herself alongside one of the supply ships and sprang a leak.’ He jumped down into the row boat. ‘See you in a few days’ time.’
That night I lay in my bunk listening to the lap of the water against the wooden sides, conscious of the quiet on board, with all the crew, except Priest, gone to their homes, and wondering who wanted me back with North Star, and why. An accident, Ian had said. The Island Girl’s relief boat damaged. And he had bought the Mary Jane. On the old man’s advice? Was Ian Sandford just an unwitting pawn in a game he didn’t understand, or was it all in my imagination, the feeling that I was cast in the role of scapegoat?
In the week that followed, as Priest overhauled his engine and new gear came aboard, I thought a lot about that half-brother of mine and the strange father we shared. I could have taken time off and gone to see him at Burra Firth, but I didn’t. Somehow I couldn’t face him again, that twisted face. The fact is I was scared of him.
We sailed on 3rd October and Ian came down to see us off with two bottles of Scotch and instructions that all R/T communications were to be handled by Jamie.
‘Does Fuller know who’s skippering this boat?’ I asked him.
‘No. And if he did he wouldn’t care. He’s got other things to worry about, with men leaving and difficulty with mud and other supplies. Everything is in short supply and Star-Trion has to compete with companies that carry a lot more weight.’ He shrugged when I asked him why men were leaving. ‘They say the rig’s bad luck and the man driving them a Jonah.’
‘Ed Wiseberg, you mean?’
‘That’s right. And Villiers’ name stinks.’
‘You realize my name is on the ship’s papers,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Nobody’s going to look at them. Not with the heat on and those that have agreed to stick it out on North Star hell-bent to grab the bonuses they’ve been promised.’
It was getting late in the season, too late, I thought, for an old rig anchored in those waters. North Star was farther north and a lot farther west than Transocean III when she went down. ‘They must pull out soon.’
But he shook his head. ‘Not till they’ve drilled hole No. 3. There’s even talk that they’ll stay out there all winter if necessary.’ He finished his whisky and pushed open the door of the wheelhouse. ‘Anyway, not your worry, and not mine.’ He held out his hand to me, something he had never done before. ‘Have a good trip and stay off the R/T. It gives them confidence if they hear only Shetland voices.’
It was a dull grey morning with a light rain falling as we headed out round The Nev, turning north to take the tide round the top of Unst. The glass was falling, the forecast bad, and by nightfall we were bucking a heavy sea. It was dawn before we sighted North Star, the rig slowly coming up over the horizon and the waves breaking in a white smother of foam against the columns of her ‘legs’. Long before we had reached the eastward anchor buoys, Island Girl met us, the skipper wishing us joy of it over the loudhailer as he steamed past. I left Jamie to talk to him, keeping out of sight until he was well past us, headed for Scalloway with the wind behind him.
We had an uncomfortable week of it, doing the round of the buoys, rolling our guts out and lying hove-to head-to-wind as a series of small fronts passed through. Rattler did not come out once during the whole week. The sea was too rough for her to lie stern-on to the rig, and anyway they were fishing for a broken bit. We heard about it over the radio, van Dam trying to explain the hold-up to Fuller. And then, late on the Monday morning, when they had started drilling again, I picked up Villiers’ voice, clear and very controlled, wanting to know how long before they reached depth, and van Dam answering, ‘Two weeks maybe if ve don’t ’ave no more trouble.’ Information like that, given over an open line to London, indicated the urgency of Villiers’ situation.
Nobody had any time now for lifting and re-laying the windward anchors. I had Jamie check with the barge engineer on duty. It hadn’t been done since they had spudded in on the new location, and when I did manage to get a proper fix, I found they were well to the west of the first drill position.
The water was deeper, the risk greater. And the summer gone now. They were into the period of deepening depressions and stronger winds. No time for a small supply ship like Rattler to be fooling around with anchors. And it would probably mean hanging off the drilling string in case North Star dragged. A man as desperate as Villiers must be to go on drilling into the start of winter would hardly tolerate
such an apparently unnecessary delay.
The wind turned northerly at the end of the week, and when Island Girl relieved us on the Saturday morning the sky was clear and cold with cross-seas breaking on the westerly swell. She came close alongside and the skipper shouted across to Jamie, ‘Ye’re to proceed to Rispond in north-west Scotland to pick up some equipment. Ian Sandford’s orders. There’ll be a lorry on the jetty there at 19.00 hours tomorrow evening. Three cases. And you’re to deliver them back to Burra Firth. Okay?’
Jamie nodded and swung the helm, turning away to the south. Fortunately we had Chart 1954 on board and Jamie knew the place – ‘A wee gut they used to call the Port o’ the North. Ah knew a man once who could remember the time when they sailed open boats oot of Rispond round John o’ Groats and all down the east coast to Great Yarmouth for the fishing. Aye, they wore like Vikings, hard boggers, all of them.’
Rispond was a tiny inlet on the north-western point of Loch Eriboll, completely sheltered from the north and east. The distance was about 150 miles. I had the engineer check our fuel. There was plenty to get us there, but not enough to get us back to Burra Firth. ‘We’ll be able to take on diesel at Kinlochbervie,’ Priest said. They all seemed to know the area.
Running south that evening, the crew grumbling about how they could have been coming into Scalloway with the prospect of four days ashore, I wondered why Ian was sending one of his boats all the way to Scotland to pick up a few cases when it would have been so much cheaper to ship them up in the steamer from Aberdeen. And why such a tiny, unfrequented little gut? ‘You go in on the top of the tide,’ Jamie had said. ‘You’ve got to. An’ if ye can’t load the cases fast, then ye’re stuck there for twelve hours dried out alongside a bit of a stone jetty.’
I didn’t like it. Kinlochbervie would have made more sense, unless there was something about those cases and secrecy of prime importance. But at least we were running, with the cold north wind up the old girl’s skirts, and we made fast time of it, arriving at the entrance to Loch Eriboll shortly after 15.00. The wind had backed westerly and we lay hove-to under the lee waiting for the tide to make. The sky had already clouded over, and as the daylight began to fade, mists came down thick over the flanks of Creag na Faoilinn to form a black mass at the bottom of the loch.
Shortly before seven o’clock we began closing the entrance to the little bolthole, nosing very slowly into the gut till we could see the small stone jetty and a trade van waiting. At least Ian had got his timing right, the tide now almost at the full, but even at high water it was still only a gut. The rocks closed in on either side as we crept forward watching the echo-sounder. And then we were through the rocks and there was a house, a nice house standing white beyond the jetty, with a gravel drive and a bit of a lawn right beside the water.
A man got out of the van as our bows touched the stonework. He took our warps and told us to hurry. He sounded nervous. ‘There’s the cases.’ He had the doors open before we had made fast, and when we had got the cases aboard he made me sign for them and then he was into his van and away.
‘A mick,’ Jamie said and spat.
I looked at the cases. All three of them had HANDLE WITH CARE stencilled in black across the top and MARINE ELECTRONICS on the side. ‘Better get them below.’ They weren’t heavy enough to contain explosives, but all the same I wanted them out of sight. Time enough to consider what was in them when we were out of the gut. I let Jamie handle her and he worked her on a springer round the end of the jetty until our bows were facing outwards, and then we steamed out on a stern bearing, the break of our wash against the rocks unpleasantly loud.
We lay the night under An t’ Aigeach and in a cold green cloudless dawn we hugged the coast round Cape Wrath, taking advantage of the constant west-going stream, and carried a fair tide southward to Loch Inchard. Coming into Kinlochbervie, Sutherland looking a wild land with the great bumps of Arkle and Ben Stack looming over the end of the loch, I was very conscious that I was in mainland Britain now, not in the remotest islands of the north. It was the first time in over four months and I felt suddenly uneasy as the little port opened up to the north and we turned in to drop our hook astern of two Scottish trawlers. There were others moored along the quay, a line of buildings, and more activity than I had expected.
I sent Jamie ashore to see about re-fuelling and he came back with the information that the two trawlers anchored ahead of us were waiting to re-fuel and more expected that evening. ‘Ah told him we’d only be alongside a few minutes, just for water and fuel, and he agreed to squeeze us in if those two boggers don’t take all afternoon.’
We had a meal and hung around waiting until shortly after five when the second of the two trawlers pulled away from the quay and we were signalled in. We had barely got the fuel line aboard when a brand new trawler with flared bows steamed in, a sister ship close behind her. They had fish to land and they lay close off the quay, their engines throbbing gently in the evening stillness.
By six we were anchored off again. There was a Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen on the quay and I sent the crew ashore in the boat. They needed a break, and I wanted to be alone. As soon as they had gone, I went down into the hold. It was dark down there, the fish smell lingering, and in the beam of my torch the three cases looked strangely menacing, alone there in the dark hollow of that empty space. I stood staring at them for a long time, wondering what the hell they contained, where they had come from?
There was only one way to find out, and I got a hammer and cold chisel and went to work. They were nail-fastened and no possibility of breaking into them without it showing. But by then I didn’t care. I had to see what was inside.
The result was puzzling. The first case contained what appeared to be some sort of radio equipment, a grey metal box with tuning dials, and an electrical lead neatly coiled, the whole thing carefully packed in a moulded plastic container. The second contained a completely sealed torpedo-shaped object. There was a large towing eye at one end. It was swivelled and had an electrical socket in the centre of the eye. The case also contained a heavy reel of plastic-coated wire, one end of it fitted with a watertight plug.
I stood there for a long time staring down at those two pieces of equipment. In the light of my torch, against the rough boards stained black with fish oil, they had a deadly, futuristic gleam. Or was that my imagination again? Explanations leapt to mind. I knew nothing about electronics, but the torpedo was obviously for towing behind a vessel, and the other for sending or receiving some sort of signal. It could be some advanced scientific way of locating a shoal of fish, in which case Marine Electronics was a fair description. I was remembering what Ian had said about his backer trying new ways of fishing, remembering too what had happened out there by North Star in June. It was four months ago now, but the memory was still vivid. This sort of equipment could equally be for locating something on the seabed – an anchor, for instance, or a wellhead after the rig had left the site, or broken adrift.
In the end I packed them back in their cases and nailed the boxes down again. I did it as neatly as I could, but the marks of the chisel were there for anyone to see, and the wood was split in places. I didn’t bother about the third case, and when I went up on deck, glad to be in the fresh air again, I was sweating. Several more trawlers had come in. I lit my pipe and sat on the bulwarks, staring across at the lights on the quay, thinking about North Star out there to the west of Shetland. A trawler was pulling away from the quay, another nosing into the vacant berth, but my mind was so engrossed in considering whether the equipment we carried in our hold was connected in any way with the future of the rig that it was some time before the shape of that trawler registered as familiar. And then suddenly I was on my feet, staring across the water at her as she moored alongside the quay.
She was against the lights, in silhouette, her hull black as the water that separated us. But when you have worked on the hull of a ship, when you know every inch of her, you cannot mistake her lines. No
doubt at all – it was the Duchess lying there against the quay. And my boat ashore, no means of getting to her.
I forgot about Marine Electronics after that. I was thinking of Gertrude, of what I would say to her when we met. Would she slam the door in my face? And if she didn’t, what then? All the explanations, the fight to try and clear myself. Nothing else would do. I knew that. And suddenly I realized she was the crossroads in my life. She was the focal point of all my doubts, the centre around which I could rebuild my life – if I had the guts.
The boat came back about ten o’clock. By then the Duchess was anchored off and I had drunk a lot of whisky. I decided to leave it till morning. In the morning I would be sober enough and clearheaded enough to face her. But when I went across to her in the cold grey light of dawn her decks were deserted. The other trawlers had all gone or were getting under way, but the Duchess lay there silent and asleep.
Nobody answered my hail, and when I climbed on board and went through the starboard gangway into what had been my cabin, it was empty. Her things were there, her clothes in the locker, but the bunk had not been slept in. I routed Johan out and he stared at me as though I were a ghost.
‘Where’s Gertrude?’ I asked him.
‘Ashore,’ he growled.
‘At the hotel?’
‘No. She is gone to Inverness.’
I felt at a loss, utterly deflated. The confrontation for which I had prepared myself was suddenly not there. ‘What the hell’s she doing in Inverness?’
‘A message we have over the R/T when we are fishing.’ And there was hostility in his voice as he added, ‘It is about you, so we have to haul our gear and come in here.’
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