Operation: North Sea

- 9 -

Somewhere several miles to the south and west of where Banks stood on the rig Wiggo chewed on another smoke and tried to peer past the rain out the floatel control room window.

“Do you have any fucking idea where we are?” he asked the operator at the control board. The man had clearly been making inroads into his whisky supply and when he spoke his speech was slurred and slow.

“Heading in the general direction of Aberdeen at about ten miles an hour. We’ll be there early tomorrow at this rate. I’ll buy you a pint when the pubs open in the morning.”

“If we’re in Aberdeen when the pubs open, you can buy me two,” Wiggo replied.

The chances of that seemed remote. The wind outside had continued to rise and the see-saw motion of the deck below them had got more pronounced, making moving around difficult; Wiggo had bounced off walls several times on his way up from the mess and had only narrowly avoided being thrown back down the stairwell. He wasn’t keen on making the descent quite yet. He lit up another smoke from the chewed butt of the last one and watched more rain lash at the windows.

“Will there be somebody out in this looking for us?” he asked.

“Probably,” the operator replied. “Some of those air-sea rescue blokes in Aberdeen are right nutters; they’ll come out in any weather. It’s like a badge of honour to them. But it’ll be risky for everybody. They can’t land on top here— there’s not a big enough flat area and we’re jinking about too much in the swell. So it’ll be a cable and winch job, one at a time. In this wind, that’s not for the faint hearted… or sober.”

He took a slug of Scotch straight out the bottle and again Wiggo refused when it was offered to him.

“Save it for the morning in Aberdeen,” he said and saw the look in the man’s face.

He doesn’t expect to make it ‘til morning.

“What are you not telling me?” Wiggo asked then asked the same question again when he didn’t get an answer. Finally, the man replied.

“Haven’t you noticed? Maybe it’s because I spend most of my time here and ken the mood of the place.”

“Noticed what?”

“We’re getting heavier in the water. There’s less rotation for one thing and we’re not moving with the wind as fast as we were; that’s leading to the sloshing around in the swell getting worse.”

“Getting heavier? What do you mean?”

“Remember the engine room and the water? I’m guessing it has got a bit deeper down there. Maybe a lot deeper.”

“You’re telling me that we’re sinking?”

“Give the man a banana.”

“How long have we got?”

“Depends on this storm, the integrity of the hull, and how quickly it’s getting in. But if I was to bet on it… three hours? Maybe. Maybe less.”

“I can see why you’ve taken to the drink,” Wiggo said grimly. The main raised the bottle in a mock salute before taking another long swig.

Wiggo left him to it and headed for the stairs. He took the descent gingerly, clinging tight to the handrail at every step and trying to match his downward steps to the rise and fall of the swell, like following a partner’s steps in a dance. He was only partially successful and smacked his shoulder hard against the wall when one particularly bad swell almost threw him off his feet. He wasn’t in the best of moods when he went down the last remaining stairs. On safely reaching the mess hall level, he headed for the door that opened onto the engine room stairwell. He didn’t have to open it to know they were in trouble; the carpet was wet before he got within six feet of the door itself and water could be seen forcing itself through the crack at the bottom where it didn’t quite touch the floor.

“Come on, big man,” he said, praying to a God he had never really believed in. “Gonnae give us a break here?”

He didn’t get an answer, but then again, he hadn’t been expecting one.

When he got back to the mess hall, he got Davies and Wilkins on their own and laid out the situation to them.

“The water’s up to the level of the top door along the corridor there, and the mannie upstairs reckons we’ve got three hours, tops, before we start circling the plughole. I think we should move everybody up to the control room,” he said. “Nice and quiet with no fuss. Tell them it’s in preparation for when the air-sea rescue chopper gets here.”

“There’s one on its way?” Davies asked.

“I’ve no fucking clue,” Wiggo answered. “But don’t quote me on that. But the mannie upstairs has an idea on that as well; he thinks there’ll be somebody coming out of Aberdeen looking for us. So we act as if there is and keep acting that way as long as we can. Got it?”

“Got it, Corp,” both privates said in unison.

They got no argument from the crew when they relayed the idea to them. Their mood was sombre now and they all appeared to have accepted Wiggo in the role of the man with the plan. Wiggo stayed at the rear while the privates shepherded the crew upstairs. They had to take it slowly with the lad with the broken arm and even then he was thrown against the wall when the vessel lurched in a particularly heavy swell. He let out a yelp of pain that echoed loudly through the mess hall.

The chef, Tom, stayed behind beside Wiggo and helped him lug the remaining kit bags up the stairs.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” the big man said.

“Always,” Wiggo replied. “Comes with the job, as you said. But no worries. My captain will get us out of here. It’s kinda what he does.”

“What is he, fucking Rambo?”

“Better,” Wiggo replied. “He’s Scottish.”

There weren’t enough chairs to go ‘round in the control room and when Wiggo arrived there, he found men scattered around the perimeter on the floor, backs to any wall space they could find to sit against. He was amused to see that the operator had hidden his whisky bottle away, unwilling to see it emptied in sharing among so many.

“What now?” one of the crew asked.

“Now we wait for the rescue chopper,” Wiggo said. “Smoke them if you’ve got them.”

The rain continued to lash against the windows, and the vessel lurched in the swell. And now he was looking for it, Wiggo noticed that the floatel did indeed feel heavy, lower in the water.

“Come on, Cap,” he whispered, praying to someone he actually had faith in. “Get us out of here.”

The only sound in the room was the patter of rain and the whistle of wind from the storm outside. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts; Wiggo, for one, wished he could shut them down, but the worry kept rising up, threatening panic.

He’d often secretly wished for more responsibility and had been quietly proud as punch when the captain promoted him to corporal, despite the fact he’d done it on the back of the death of his best friend in the Loch Ness affair. Since then, he’d been kept busy looking after the younger lads in Syria, Norway, Mongolia, and the Congo. He’d thought he was handling that duty just fine.

But now he had this roomful of men looking to him for leadership and command.

And I’m not sure I’m up to it.

He was still trying to push the negative thoughts away to make room for some positivity when there was a loud crackling spark from the control panel and a puff of black smoke rose ‘round the operator sitting there.

The lights failed two seconds later, plunging them into blackness.

The room echoed with yelps of panic that were allayed when Wiggo switched on the sight-light of his rifle and the privates followed suit.

“Davies, we got any torches in the kit?”

“I’ll check.”

Wiggo waved his light around the room until it fell on the operator at the control panel.

“What happened?”

“We lost power,” the man said.

“No shit, Sherlock. What caused it?”

“My guess? Water got into the main panel in the engine room.”

“Backup generator?”

“Also in the engine room.”

“I can fix that up right quick,” one of the crew said.

“I’ll go with you,” another piped up.

“Sorry, lads,” Wiggo said, raising his voice so all could hear. “You can’t do that.”

“You can’t tell us what to do,” the first man replied.

“In this case, I can. The engine room’s flooded. The water’s all the way up the stairs to the door on the deck below us. It’s why I moved us all up here in the first place.”

A stunned quiet fell over the room.

“We’re sinking?” Tom said, little more than a whisper.

“Aye. But slowly. The chopper will be here before we get into real trouble.”

He tried to put some conviction into his voice but as he waved his light beam around, he saw the skepticism on the men’s faces.

Davies came up out of the kit back with two flashlights. Wiggo passed one to Tom and one to the operator at the control desk.

“I don’t ken how old the batteries are in these, so save them until we really need them.”

He had Davies and Wilkins switch off their rifle lights, aimed his own at the ceiling, and they all sat there, quiet again, under the umbrella of dim light it cast.

“Anytime now will do, Cap,” he whispered. “Anytime now.”