by Shaun Clarke
The majority were roustabouts, general labourers who worked on the lower decks of the rigs, unloading the supply boats and moving the machinery or steel pipes in and out of the storage space and up to the drilling floor. They did this and every other unskilled job and in general were the lowest-paid men on the rigs.
The second largest group were the roughnecks, men who worked on the drilling floor, usually around the roaring shaft, changing the bits that had broken on rocks 11,000 feet beneath the ocean bed and extending the drills by adding lengths of heavy steel piping. It was skilled, exhausting, dangerous work and the roughnecks were therefore paid more than the roustabouts.
These two very different groups formed the backbone of the rigs, but their jobs usually kept them apart. Working seven days a week, twelve hours a day, they weren’t given enough spare time to strike up close friendships with anyone outside their immediate environment.
Even more remote were the key men, the tool-pushers, who kept a tight rein on the roustabouts and roughnecks and were directly responsible only to company supervisors. The tool-pushers were a breed apart; they had total authority over the other men. If their status could be rivalled, only the divers could come close – not because they had authority, but because their high fatality rate placed them near the top of the wage structure. The divers were the most insular; their odd way of life made them so. During their time on the rigs they would either be diving or suffering the harrowing isolation of decompression. It was a bizarre way of life – like that of an astronaut. Either under the sea or in a decompression chamber, enduring the danger and monotony of relentless saturation diving, they would not be in physical touch with their fellow human beings for the whole of their two weeks on board. So they were strangers, hardly known to the other men; and in this lounge, in the grey haze of cigarette smoke, they remained a group well apart.
Listening to the murmuring, the sudden outbursts of laughter, the rattling of beer cans and scuffling of restless feet, Masters felt that he had truly come home. The fragments of conversation he overheard were a mixture of the profane and the technological, bringing back the feel and taste of a world that was as far removed from the normal world as was the moon from the earth.
‘. . . still drilling for Complex, but expect to complete the current and final hole shortly. Then the rig’ll be towed to Hamburg for the demob of diving equipment and a lengthy refit. Then God knows where else . . .’
‘. . . “rig workers’ widows”, they call them. They say they never see their men. The divorce rate’s going up and there’s far too much booze going down. That’s why my marriage is doomed . . .’
‘ . . . definitely a hell of an improvement. Unscrambled speech facilities from the diver back to the bellman; processed speech side-tone speaker for clear speech between diver and bellman; diver tape connections plus tape connections for playback in all chambers; and a good ten hours’ life in the power pack . . .’
‘. . . it can’t go on much longer. She keeps coming to the boarding house. Says I picked her up in the Granada in Peterhead and then got her pregnant. Lying cow! I don’t even know her name . . .’
‘. . . wind a hundred and fucking thirty, waves ninety foot high. Fucking tanker crashed into the platform and all hell broke loose. Five of the crew were killed, a two-mile slick on the sea, then the bloody well-head exploded and I blacked out and woke up in the knacker’s yard. What the fuck am I doing here?’
‘. . . Sidko 803 just returned to Rover Oil after drilling a well for BP. Now on permanent contract to Rover since BP no longer seem interested in the rig. Meanwhile, Beta 45 is in the Netherlands having its Comex 1000 system replaced and will soon be operating for . . .’
‘ . . . a hell of a storm. Dumb bastard fell down the moonpool. Another hit in the face with a bolt from the shaft and a load fell on the crane-driver’s cab. They tried to burn through the metal. The storm blew up again. The crane broke loose and was swept into the sea. Four degrees in there, it was . . .’
‘. . . I can’t go home again. It’s all over for good this time. She said it was the North Sea or her, so I picked the North Sea . . .’
Masters listened to the words and heard a familiar refrain. It made him think of the Royal Marine Commandos, the weapons and the boats, the exercises and the undercover activities in Belfast. It was a world in which men without women looked to hard work for comfort. It was an unstated machismo code, removing a man from the normal, and it gave rise to a feeling of freedom that was not quite definable. The North Sea held that attraction. The oil rigs were a world apart. They encouraged fierce competition and a chauvinistic pride that had long since disappeared from onshore life. Masters liked this male world, with its constant action. He’d been married, but was divorced three years later because he couldn’t stay at home for long. Masters wanted his freedom, as did a lot of the rig workers. The men who drilled the North Sea, who braved the wind and freezing rain, the dizzying heights, the constant danger, were pioneers of the most ordinary cut, but they did stand apart.
‘I think the Prime Minister’s leaving,’ Barker said. ‘Let’s take a look.’
Glancing up, Masters saw the other men turning instinctively toward the windows that overlooked the landing pads. Following Barker, he pushed through to the front and looked out at the silent helicopters. The rain was still pouring. The wind blew it across the airstrip. The sky was dark and the greyness was foreboding, the view chilly and desolate.
Farther along the airstrip, military policemen were emerging from the sandbagged entrance to the VIP lounge. Bulky in boots and helmets, carrying 9mm Sterling Light Automatic Rifles, they emerged in two lines that formed a grim, protective path for the Prime Minister. Beyond them were two aircraft hangars, rain pouring down their walls; on top of the hangars were more Army marksmen, scanning the heliport.
The Prime Minister emerged, wearing a black overcoat. A man in a dark-grey suit was holding an umbrella over his head while other men in similar suits poured out around him, their hands under their jackets, resting on their Brownings.
Masters watched them carefully. The whole scene was depressing. The men moving towards the airstrip through the rain and howling wind looked like Mafia hit men. There was no ceremony here; simply a watchful, nervous advance. The MPs, holding their sub-machine-guns at the ready, fanned out towards the nearest Wessex while the Prime Minister and his entourage hurried between them, all with heads bowed.
‘It’s still filthy weather,’ Barker said. ‘That’s a pretty strong wind out there.’
‘It must be dying,’ Masters replied. ‘Almost certainly it’s passed over the rigs. They wouldn’t let the PM take off otherwise. We’ll probably all take off soon.’
‘A lot of armour,’ Barker observed. ‘I never thought I’d see the day. There are enough weapons and ammunition in this heliport to start a bloody war.’
‘He needs it,’ Masters said. ‘The assassination list is growing. It’s even been rumoured that a bomb was found in the House of Commons. This whole country’s a war zone.’
‘Happy days,’ Barker said.
Masters looked at the distant hangars and saw the glint of binoculars, the barrel of a machine-gun moving from side to side in a slow, searching motion. Smiling tightly, shaking his head in disbelief, he returned his thoughtful gaze to the helicopters. The Prime Minister was entering the nearest one in the row, being helped up by a bodyguard. He disappeared inside, and his entourage followed him. The military police formed a cordon around the chopper as it roared into life. The rotor blades whipped up the wind as they blurred and merged into a single line. The military police stood beneath them with their uniforms flapping furiously and their weapons together covering every direction. The Wessex carrying the Prime Minister roared louder, shook and rose a little, turned towards the east, climbed higher and disappeared through the low clouds.
The men around Masters relaxed, then returned to their chairs. Their conversation became louder and more ebullient, as if a crisis
had passed. Masters remained at the window, still standing beside Barker. McGee came up to stand between them and gaze out at the cloudy grey sky.
‘He’s left,’ Masters said.
‘Sure, I saw that,’ McGee said. ‘Now maybe we can all get out of here and back to work.’
‘It won’t be long,’ Masters said.
2
The Prime Minister gazed through the window of the helicopter and saw, far below him, through the haze of thinning cloud, the choppy grey desolation of the North Sea. It made him shiver. He felt cold and slightly unreal. The sea stretched out as far as the eye could see and then was lost in drifting clouds.
‘It looks terribly cold down there,’ he said. ‘I would not like to work there.’
‘No, Prime Minister,’ replied the Under-Secretary of the Department of Energy. ‘Neither would I.’
The PM chuckled and gave a fleeting, sardonic smile. He had a florid, well-fleshed, stubborn face with cold blue eyes and grey hair. The Under-Secretary, beside him, had the appearance of a young executive; unlike the PM he had not come up the hard way and the differences between them often showed. Now the PM sighed, keeping his gaze on the North Sea, and his large body shifted uneasily as the clouds drifted past him.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s not a job for the likes of me. It’s a job for the sort of man my father was. It must be a rough life.’
Opening his briefcase, the Under-Secretary glanced up in surprise. His accent, unlike the PM’s, was public-school.
‘You sound almost nostalgic, Prime Minister. That world died a long time ago.’
‘Did it? I’m not so sure of that. Those lads aren’t paid as much as they’re worth and both of us know it.’
‘I thought they were paid quite well.’
‘You think the miners get paid well?’
‘Don’t they?’
‘The pay’s good, but it’s not enough for what we ask them to do. And I believe the North Sea’s worse than the mines. The fatality rate is high. In fact, according to my reports, the chances of death are ten times as great as in mining.’
‘And fifty times as great as in general industry, Prime Minister.’
‘Precisely.’
The PM sounded annoyed and the Under-Secretary, smiling slightly, removed some papers from his briefcase. The PM turned his head, saw the papers, and returned his gaze to the sea below.
‘Where are the guards?’ he asked.
‘Up at the front.’
‘SAS?’
‘SBS – Special Boat Squadron.’
‘In case we go down?’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’
The PM grinned sardonically, still studying the restless sea a long way below him. ‘I’ve got to stay on the rig until tomorrow night?’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’
‘I hope I’m not seasick.’
‘You won’t be. You’ll be staying on the concrete platform, not on a rig.’
‘I thought they were all rigs.’
‘No, they’re not. It’s the rig that makes one seasick. A rig is used for test drilling – to check if there’s oil in a given spot. Most of the rigs are semi-submersible, with the greater portion of their weight below water, usually in the shape of enormous pontoons and held down by fourteen-ton anchors. They are, in a sense, like floating factories and they do pitch and sway just like ships. But the platforms are different. Once a rig finds an oilfield, a platform is sent out to replace it. The rig drills to find oil; the platform houses the production machinery when they actually start bringing the oil up. Made of concrete, the platform’s main deck is about the size of Trafalgar Square, and its legs are planted firmly on the seabed. It’s more an island than a mere floating factory and it probably doesn’t sway as much as high-rise flats. We’re going to the new Forties Field platform, the largest in the North Sea. All the oil from the other fields now flows through the Forties and goes back through a single pipeline to Peterhead.’ The Under-Secretary paused to give the Prime Minister time to take in this information. ‘This platform is really huge. It’s almost a self-contained refinery. We won’t feel a tremor and I really don’t think you’ll be seasick.’
The PM nodded, his gaze still fixed on the grey sheet of cold, deadly water. The Wessex roared and shuddered. There was still a wind outside. Inside there were forty-four seats with not one of them vacant. The PM sighed, feeling tired and edgy. The last three years had been terrible, a general election was being demanded, and the importance of this trip weighed heavily upon him, making him nervous.
‘What do you think?’ he asked abruptly.
‘About the oil companies?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think we’ll have to tread with care. They’re not easy to deal with.’
‘No. They’re not easy to deal with. I sometimes wonder who really runs the country – us or the conglomerates.’
The Under-Secretary smiled, knowing what the PM meant. He gazed at the reports in his hand but learnt little from them.
‘They’re a problem,’ he agreed. ‘They’re almost beyond jurisdiction. We have to think of the voters, British interests, the long term, but the conglomerates are nearly all multinational and don’t recognize boundaries. They’re not tied to any single country. They simply trade among themselves. If they have a problem with one country, they move their assets to another and there’s always one that will offer a tax haven. That’s why we’re in trouble. They’re not willing to pay our taxes. Now they’ve practically stopped work in the North Sea and instead have turned their attention to the Middle East, where they enjoy tax-free profits beyond belief.’
‘Those are British companies.’
‘No, Prime Minister, they’re not. They’re multinationals with their roots overseas; the so-called British companies are merely their subsidiaries. As for the British companies, they’re simply sitting on their oil, claiming they can’t afford to invest any more and patiently waiting for us to give in and lower the current oil tax.’
‘Bastards,’ the Prime Minister said flatly.
‘Exactly,’ the Under-Secretary said. ‘But we no longer have a choice; we have to negotiate with them.’
The PM shuddered again. He had been feeling older recently. He sometimes felt that he had been at this game too long; that he could no longer handle it. There were no simple answers, the ground was shifting all the time, and the politician had to share all his decisions with the unions and businessmen. Who indeed ran the country? It was a question he often asked himself. There were forces beyond the reach of mere governments that could make and break policies. The government was no more than a mouthpiece, an imperfect focus for public attention. Behind the scenes, in private boardrooms and in far-away continents, the real decision-makers ruled the world.
‘How far out is the Forties Field?’ he asked, keen to change the subject.
‘Just over a hundred miles.’
‘It’s not near Shetland, then?’
‘No. Frigg and Beryl are near Shetland; about halfway between Shetland and Norway.’
‘Still, it’ll be cold there.’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’
‘I hope they don’t get any gales.’
‘Unfortunately, they get a lot. They even get gales in summer. Work on the rigs is totally subject to weather and the North Sea is terrible in that respect. It makes things costly, destroying rigs, wrecking schedules. Supply boats often toss at anchor for days, sometimes weeks, just waiting until unloading can start. They often can’t tow rigs away, men are frequently swept overboard, and rigs are sometimes blown off their sites and have to be towed back. So yes, they get gales all right.’
The PM shifted uneasily in the seat and massaged his ruddy chin with his right hand.
‘The Scots won’t like it,’ he said, returning to the first, uncomfortable subject. ‘They’ll say we’re giving their oil away to make a quick profit. They’re getting close to a majority, they’re demanding independence, and they’ll want t
he oil to be there when they get it.’
‘If they get it, Prime Minister.’
‘I don’t think we can discount the possibility, though it may take a long time. Meanwhile, we’ve the Irish to contend with. What about them?’
‘You mean their threats against the oil rigs?’
‘Precisely.’
‘The rumours that the IRA are planning to hijack the rigs and hold the British government to ransom remain just that: rumours. So far we have no cause to think otherwise.’
‘But what if they did do what they threatened and captured the oil rigs? How would that effect us?’
‘Frankly, Prime Minister, it would be a catastrophe. With the economy on the verge of collapse, only North Sea oil revenue can possibly save it. The Irish Troubles continue, our unemployment is shockingly high, overseas investors are pulling out with increasing frequency, and the possibility of economic collapse has become public knowledge. That’s why we so desperately need the oil revenue: it’s all we have left. If the rigs were to be taken over or, even worse, destroyed, our economy would collapse overnight.’
‘Wonderful,’ the PM said drily. ‘I trust we’ve taken the necessary safeguards.’
‘Yes, Prime Minister. Naturally. There’s at least one top security man on every rig and platform. Each rig and platform also has an SBS intelligence man operating under cover as a rig worker. On shore, both the SBS and the SAS are on constant alert, ready to be flown in at thirty minutes’ notice. Even if these measures fail and one of the rigs or platforms is somehow captured, it will be an isolated incident that can’t affect the other rigs and platforms. By this I mean that no group can steal the entire oilfield network, which is what they’d have to do in order to hold us to ransom. For instance, if a bunch of terrorists capture a rig, we’ll simply leave them there until they give in, letting them starve to death if necessary. Meanwhile the other rigs, being many, sometimes hundreds of miles apart, will keep operating. In other words, individual rigs or platforms may be endangered, but the oilfields are safe.’