Operation: North Sea

- 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.”