Operation: North Sea

- 2 -

Captain Banks had been watching Seton closely. The wee man seemed sincere enough and didn’t appear to be trying to yank their chains but even despite everything they’d encountered and seen these recent years, Banks was still having trouble believing the tale.

“So it’s what, exactly? A thousand-year-old beastie that just happens to be back now?”

Seton shrugged.

“It appears so. I might conjecture it has something to do with a renewed period of drilling in that particular area, a disturbance that might mirror the quarrying done at Dunnottar all those years ago, but that would only be conjecture.”

“In that case,” Banks continued, “I’ve got another question or you. I understand the rig managers being concerned about something strange happening at the rig. But why you? How did you get to be the one involved enough to be able to persuade our colonel to send us?

Seton tapped the side of his nose and smiled.

“I ken a man who kens a man. One of the benefits of a great age spent mixing with people who mix in the corridors of power. Besides, you got the job done at Loch Ness… I knew immediately this was something you should be involved in.”

“Don’t do us any more favors, would you not?” Wiggo said bitterly. The corporal stood and left before Seton could reply, and Banks let him go; Wiggo wasn’t the only one who’d mourned for the loss of their previous corporal on the shores of Loch Ness.

Banks turned his attention to Seton.

“So you’ve got us here. What do you expect us to do? Short of hiring a sub and roaming the seas, I don’t see that there’s much we can do.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to go searching, Captain,” Seton replied. “I think it’ll come to us. They’ve already started drilling again as of about an hour ago. If my hunch is right, whatever’s down there will be coming up again for another look.”

It appeared Seton had said all there was to say. Banks addressed the squad.

“Looks like it’s another monster hunt, lads,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to offer beyond what the man here said; we’ll get to the rig and see what’s what. We’ll have to plan this one as it comes. We’ve got a couple of hours sailing before that, so take a breather or get your heads down. Report back here at fourteen hundred hours; we should be getting close by then.”

Banks waited until the men had dispersed then followed Seton as they went back up on deck. Wiggo was just finishing a smoke; he flipped the still glowing butt overboard and walked away, head down, without acknowledging either Banks or Seton.

Banks took a cigarette from Seton when the older man offered.

“He blames me for the Loch Ness thing, doesn’t he?” Seton said.

“No, that’s not it. He blames himself, the same way I do. Losing a man is tough. Losing a friend is tougher. Then, just when you think you might have put it behind you, a face from the past pops up and the memories… and emotions… come back as if they’ve never been gone.”

Seton nodded.

“I know that for myself from bitter experience. But I meant what I said back there—the things we saw at Loch Ness might be useful in figuring out what is going on here.”

Banks remembered the house on the lochside, the nightmare descent into the bowels of the earth and the magical practices they’d uncovered.

“There’s no mumbo-jumbo involved, is there? A big beastie I can handle but all that pseudo-mystical bollocks can go fuck itself.”

Seton shrugged again.

“With cryptozoological beasts such as this one, there is always an almost mythical element; what we carry in our heads and hearts becomes reflected in the physical environment and is made real in many cases.”

Banks laughed.

“See, pseudo-mystical bollocks. I knew it.”

Seton had the good grace to laugh in return.

“I cannot promise you a one hundred percent physically real beastie,” he said. “But I can promise to keep out of your way until we are sure one way or the other. Please don’t discount my expertise just because it doesn’t fit your personal mental construct, Captain. It might get us both killed.”

Even as Seton spoke, Banks was remembering times when reality had seemed malleable—in the Amazon with snakes who might be people or people who might be snakes, in Antarctica with a flying saucer that thrummed with a power sufficient to revive the dead, and, of course, on Loch Ness, where the same wee man that stood before him now had shown himself capable of using a magic ritual to soothe a savage beast.

“I’ll return a promise to you then,” Banks said. “You watch our backs, and I promise to watch yours.”

They stood smoking in silence for a while looking out over the North Sea, each lost in thought. It was a chill, grey day despite it being only August, the promise of autumnal winds and swell to come already evident across the face of the water. Banks’ recent adventures in the heat of the Congo seemed farther than a world away and he pulled his jacket tight around his chest as a fresh breeze threatened to cut him in two.

“Discretion is the better part of valor in this weather,” he said, more to himself than to Seton, but the older man seemed to agree, and they went back together to the coffee room. All of the other members of the squad were already there around the small table playing three card brag for cigarettes. As usual, Sergeant Hynd was winning, and Banks knew better than to get involved when the sarge was on a streak; it had taken him years of bitter experience to gain that solitary bit of wisdom. He could only hope the other lads didn’t take that long to gain it for themselves; there might not be enough cigarettes in the world.

Over the next few hours, he was proved right—the sarge accumulated smokes on his side of the table while emptying the others out; young Wilkins got wiped out first, then Davies. Wiggo held on pluckily but in the end, the sarge was able to squirrel away all four packs that had been on the table. The game had been of some use though, for Wiggo seemed to be back to his old self.

“Hey, wee man,” he said, addressing Seton. “Any chance of an advance on that whisky? I’m gasping here.”

Seton surprised them by reaching into his inside pocket and bringing out a hip flask.

“I never leave home without it,” he said, smiling. “Slainte.”

He passed the flask to Wiggins who took a long gulp then passed it on. Both privates turned it down, but first the sarge and then Banks took slugs of their own. He knew as soon as it touched his lips it was the best quality stuff, going down smooth like warm honey and immediately bringing a glow to his belly that quickly spread out; the water of life indeed. Banks had a look at the flask before handing it back. It looked old, burnished silver at a guess, and carved with an intricate depiction of a serpent eating its own tail. He raised an eyebrow as he passed it back to Seton. The smaller man smiled again.

“As your corporal would say, that’s a long story for another time over a pint. Let’s just say it’s a family tradition. The rest of the story will have to wait. I believe we are nearing the rig.”

As if in reply to Seton’s words, the sound of the engines changed somewhere below and the boat took a slight lurch to starboard. The rig came into view on the porthole window on that side.

“All ashore who’s going ashore,” Seton said.

It only took Banks two minutes to get the squad in order, kitted up, and ready to move out.

Sergeant Hynd held Banks back as they were about to leave the room.

“John,” he said. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“John, is it?” Banks replied, laughing. “It must be serious.”

He saw that the sarge wasn’t joking and they’d been friends long enough for him to also see that wherever it was, it was troubling the other man a great deal.

“We don’t have time now,” Banks replied, “but when we get a quiet moment I’ll cadge the auld man’s hip flask, we’ll share the whisky, and you can tell me what this is all about. Deal?”

“Deal,” Hynd replied. “But don’t leave it too long, eh?”

By the time they arrived on deck, the boat was already being tied up and there was an open cage elevator waiting on the other side of the docking bay.

A small man clad in a bulky over jacket several sizes too big for him ran across the open area towards them.

“The boss is in his office. He says to go on up; second floor, second on the right, you can’t miss it.”

There was no sign that any provision had been made for the squad or their kit and Banks wasn’t about to leave any of either standing on a cold, windy dock, so they squashed together, men and kit all squeezed into the elevator which wheezed clanked and clattered as if protesting against the weight as it took them up to the second-floor corridor. The rig manager’s office was likewise basic and cramped, but they all fit inside well enough. They dumped their kit on the floor as a burly bear of a man came ‘round from behind his desk to greet them.

He shook Banks by the hand, ignored Seton’s outstretched offer of a handshake, and took Banks by the arm, over to the desk.

“Sorry to have to drag you and your men all the way out here for nothing,” he said in a broad Northern English accent. “You were on your way before I could stop you; that wee scaremongering ginger bastard’s fault no doubt. It’s all a big misunderstanding, a prank that got out of hand. The man’s been disciplined and the rig is fully operational. There’s nothing to see here. You can go home as soon as the boat has delivered its supplies.”