Читать книгу The Devil's Whelp - Vin Hammond Jackson - Страница 8

Work did not re-commence until they had brought Con O'Reilly back down and the medic had performed his hasty examination. He discovered a broken arm, two broken legs, a possible fractured pelvis and numerous lacerations and contusions. There was, he said, a good chance of cracked ribs, maybe a pneumothorax, then threw in concussion for good measure. The broken teeth were so obvious that he didn't bother to mention them. When asked if O'Reilly could be expected to live, Jerry Dennis had shrugged and said: "He's a mess, that's all I know."

Along with the rest of the crew, Jack Pierce watched as Con was carried to the sick bay. As the small procession moved out of sight, he made his decision and went below. He knew he'd find the Company representative in his office: whenever there was real trouble or responsibility to shoulder, that was where he ran to hide. Pierce walked purposefully to the door and went in without knocking.

Les Meyer was in his chair with his back to Pierce. He didn't bother to turn at first, although he must have known he had a visitor. He was probably contriving the expression of a man about to make a momentous decision. The fact that he had never made one in his life, spoke well for his powers of imagination. Pierce had stopped beside a metal filing cabinet. He pulled out the top drawer a few inches, then slid it back in noisily to announce his arrival. "I didn't see you on deck," he said woodenly.

Meyer's chair turned slowly. His fingertips were together as if in prayer and he touched them to his full lips. "Nothing I could do, Jack," he said quietly through the fingers. His eyes were partially closed and because of this he appeared bored, but he always looked that way. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or sneering.

Pierce studied the face and shuddered. He had heard once that Meyer's ex-wife had put a private investigator onto him. When asked for a description of her husband, she'd replied: "He's a lousy, insipid, selfish puss-bucket," which just about summed him up to a T. Having failed dismally as a husband and lover, he was now trying to reach the pits in his professional career, and was succeeding admirably. It was unlikely that a company drilling superintendent had ever been as useless, despised, and ignorant of his own incompetence as Leslie Rudolph Meyer. He started to rise out of the chair. "I suppose you're ready to dive?"

"No," Pierce stated categorically. Meyer froze statue-like and Jack began to wonder if he'd over-estimated his own determination. It was true he was scared and the O'Reilly incident had compounded his fear, but the way he felt was only responsible for what he was about to say; it wasn't a sufficient justification of it. "I'm calling the dive off."

Meyer jerked upright. "Like hell you are!"

Pierce looked away momentarily, re-building his composure, trying to find an objective excuse. "It's too dangerous right now. The yellow pod’s secure..."

"For how long?" Cut in Meyer. "What if it happens again? What if that gets damaged too? I want the blue pod repaired and back on line before the next tremor hits."

"It's my diver's life you're talking about." Jack was starting to plead. He could hear it in his wavering voice, and that wasn't good because it gave the advantage back to Meyer. "You can't just go on as if nothing's happened. There's one man in the sick bay and..."

"Christ, Pierce!" Meyer leaned heavily on his desk and glared across it into the diving supervisor's eyes. "This is the oil business, not some bloody geriatric rest home! We're sitting on top of a powder keg and the stack's the only thing keeping the lid on it! If you refuse to send a man down and the yellow pod gives out as well, we're up shit creek! We've got no backup, nothing!"

Jack could feel the heat rising in his face. "Clem says the blue pod's still working, it's just that...."

"It's pissing hydraulic fluid all over the bloody ocean," Meyer interrupted again. "That's what it's doing!" His eyes narrowed to mere slits as he grated: "Make that dive, Pierce, or by God I'll have you replaced and see to it that you never work in oil again!"

Before he knew what had happened, Jack was on his way to the communications shack. He couldn't remember whether he'd replied to Meyer's ultimatum, only that he hated the man enough to wish him dead. The main reason for his hatred was probably because the arrogant incompetent was right for once - the leak on the pod had to be fixed.

He was almost at the shack and still fuming when he noticed Eddie MacFarlane sauntering towards him. The young diver should have been waiting beside the Moon Pool for his instructions. Jack scowled at him. "Where do you think you're going?"

The edge on Pierce's voice stopped the young Scot in mid-stride. He shrugged. "Just coming tay see what gives, Jack. We figured ye'd call it a day."

"Well you figured wrong. You're going down! Do you have a problem with that?"

"I dinnay ken wha...," Eddie started, then, thought better of it. He shrugged once more and pulled a face instead. "Ye're the Chief." He turned and began retracing his steps to the ladder he'd only just climbed. The head of Bill Rose appeared at the top. Eddie gave his co-diver an almost imperceptible nod. Rose answered with an upward flick of his bushy eyebrows and began to ease his way back down to the moon pool.

Whenever Bill made this same journey, it always disturbed him. It was stupid really. He was a diver by profession and he liked the job. Even with all its dangers, the sea had never worried him. He knew enough about it to respect its power and its moods and never took it for granted. But most divers went to work over the side, beneath a sky that gave them warmth and light, lowering themselves into water that they recognised as a creation of nature. They didn't climb down into the belly of a ship where the sun never shone, so that they could jump through the gates of hell.

He stepped onto the catwalk and turned. There it was, the moon pool, a rectangle of black liquid that was really the sea, but Bill had never quite managed to convince himself totally of that fact. He remembered a teacher in primary school showing him an open box of matches. The teacher had closed the box and asked: "What's inside?" Bill told him. "Can you be sure?" the teacher prodded. "You can't see them. How do you know?" Bill was adamant to start with. The matches were in there before, so they must still be there. Even so, despite what he knew to be true, he'd opened the box, just to make sure.

The moon pool was like that. You went into it and out through the bottom of the ship, knowing it was the same sea that Olympian was floating on. It must be - you'd seen it topside - but when you were there, down beneath the rig floor and you couldn't see outside anymore because someone had closed the lid of the box you were in, you began to have doubts. It was as if you were passing through a secret door into a world of foreboding, an eerie, supernatural kingdom of childhood monsters and Herculean trials. It caused you to question your own courage to survive within it, and your ability to escape its clutches.

The odd part was that this was the feeling you got when you were on the catwalk, as he was then, looking down into the pool. It was ominous and you'd do almost anything not to pass through that terrible door; but when you were actually in the water underneath, you kept looking back up at that gaping hole in the bottom of the ship with longing. And when you'd finished the dive and were coming up, that same square of surface water which had looked so terrifying from above, suddenly appeared friendly and welcoming. You were glad to see it. Sometimes, if the dive had been a hairy one, you were ecstatic. It was a case of: Thank Christ, I've made it. Just a few more metres and I’m home free. One last flick of the fins and an upward thrust, up through the rippling mirror to safety.

You felt good when you were out of it, dripping water through the steel grating under your feet. You truly appreciated being alive to feel anything, for a few minutes anyway, and occasionally longer. Then the discomfort began to seep back into your gut again. It was like a vacant space where something was missing, that void which would fill up with the same tight ball that always formed there when you knew you had to go down one more time. At the moment, the space in Bill's stomach wasn't full. A few knots had collected there, but only a few, because he wasn't making the dive - Eddie was. Unless something went wrong, Bill would be up here, high and dry, keeping the door open for his partner.

Then MacFarlane was by his side. "Stupid name," commented the youngster.

The sounds of Eddie's voice seemed to echo right around the catwalk before finally returning to Bill. He couldn't make sense of the words. "What?"

"Moon pool," explained Eddie, pointing with his rat-hat, first at the water, then to the underside of the rig floor above their heads. "Ye cannay see the Moon at a' fram here."

"That's 'cos it's quarter to twelve in the morning, you bloody Galah."

"I did nay mean..."

Rose cut him short. "I know what you meant, Eddie. Now, are you going down, or do you want me to?" Another knot appeared in Bill's gut and he caught himself mentally crossing his fingers.

"I can manage very well mah sel', thank ye kindly, and I dinnay need a Sassenach tay hold mah hand."

Rose covered his relief by shaking his head in mock despair. "You can't even talk bloody English, you wee Scotch bogon."

"Scottish bogon, if ye don't mind," Eddie corrected. "Now quit blaytherin' an' hook me up, will ye?"

In the shack above, the diving super listened to the knocks and scrapes from the intercom speaker as Eddie secured his hat to the neoprene seal around his neck. Pierce adjusted the microphone stalk on his headset. "As soon as you're ready, son,"

"On mah way, Jack." Eddie's voice blared around the room.

Jack wondered whether he ought to switch off the speaker to keep the conversation a little more private. He decided against it, for the time being. "Give me a commentary on the way down, Eddie. Anything unusual, no matter how small, I want to know." He paused with his mouth open as if unsure whether to say what was on his mind. He shrugged off the thought: if Eddie started talking crazy, he could always shut him down.

His eyes flicked to the other two in the shack. Meyer was hovering buzzard-like in the background, no doubt keeping his options open for a full-frontal assault of interference, or for beating a hasty retreat should something go wrong that he couldn't handle. Clem Berry was standing between Meyer and Pierce which was advisable in all respects: Clem was both huge and laid-back, a gentle, Texas giant. If anyone on board could pour oil on the troubled waters that were Les Meyer, Clem could, and from a great height.

When he began to feel his earlier hatred for Meyer returning, Pierce went back to concentrating on his equipment and his diver. Eddie's hollow narrative was drifting through the speaker, losing itself in the space of the room. He was just talking his way down, telling of things they already knew. Jack was never bored by it. As long as he could hear the commentary, no matter how routine or mundane it might seem to an outsider, to him it meant that his man was okay and functioning as normally as anyone could under the circumstances.

MacFarlane's voice stopped. Pierce's hand flew to the switch and cut off the intercom's speaker. He realised too late that it was a mistake he would probably regret and was aware of movement as Meyer shuffled closer. "Eddie?" Jack enquired casually, as much for Meyer's benefit as the young Scot's.

"It’s okay, Jack," Eddie returned almost immediately. "Just having trouble clearing mah head." He paused for a few seconds. "Alright, now. Going down again."

Pierce signalled to the two behind him that all was well. The room darkened suddenly and he glanced at the door to see why. Doug Bromley was standing there, blocking the sunlight. They all knew where the toolpusher had been - in the sick bay with Con O'Reilly. It was typical that it would be Clem and not Meyer who asked: "How is he?"

Doug half-turned to face Clem. "He should make it, eventually." He shucked his head to indicate Pierce. "What's happening?"

Meyer was annoyed that Bromley had not addressed the question to him. "Nothing yet," Les drawled sourly, "MacFarlane's on his way down."

Unable to hear the young diver's commentary now, they waited in relative silence, Bromley and Meyer re-asserting the extent of their individual authority over each other with their eyes, Clem recording points scored with casual interest. At least, he seemed indifferent to their silent feud, when, in fact, he was more than a little concerned by it.

Really, they were two chiefs scrapping over who should lead the tribe. That was okay: as one of the Indians, Clem took orders and didn't pay no never-mind to who was calling the shots just so long as they were the right ones and only one chief was doing the calling. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in this particular instance. As the drilling superintendent responsible to Denoco Inc for expenditure and results, Meyer figured he was Top Gun, only he didn't know a rat's ass about drilling for oil and even less about how to handle people.

Then there was Doug Bromley - the toolpusher. Now, the toolpusher worked for the drilling contractor - in this case, International Exploration and Drilling (Australia) Ltd - and, by virtue of the fact that 98% of the crew did as well, he really ran the whole shooting match. He was like the sergeant of Clem's platoon in 'Nam. He was the one who fought the real war. The officers gave the orders, but it was Sarge Paxton who made it all work. The big difference between the officers and the Sarge was that, for him, the guys always came first.

That was how Bromley came across. He was a good toolpusher who knew his job and wasn't afraid to take calculated risks to bring it in, but the bottom line was always the safety of his men. That was how it ought to be, but Meyer couldn't see it. Bromley saw the danger and said: "No." Meyer counted the dollars and said: "Go." In the final analysis, a toolpusher like Bromley who had experience and the respect of his men - and that meant the entire drilling crew - could pull the plug in a second. But it wasn't likely to come to that because Meyer would get in the last word, and if he did that, considering his connections, Bromley would be labelled as black as a Little Rock night and would wind up picking cotton till his dying day.

"He's at the top of the blowout preventer," Pierce announced, breaking individual trains of thought. Three very long minutes passed, then Jack turned to the sub-sea engineer. "He's ready and waiting, Clem. You can change over now."

The big Texan was glad to leave the claustrophobic atmosphere of the communications shack. Now he could get back to doing what he was paid for. Before going to his control panel, he paused by the TV monitor to take a quick look. The camera was down below, trained on the stack. That was how he'd seen the leak in the first place. There was no sign of Eddie, but the camera couldn't see everywhere at once. He was around somewhere.

Clem went to the panel and switched from the yellow pod back to the blue, then returned to the screen. If anything, the water around the stack had become even more cloudy. He didn't think it was caused by the leak which he could see quite clearly and, in his opinion, wasn't big enough to have made such a difference in so short a time. Anyway, this wasn't hydraulic fluid, he was sure of it. This was more milky and it had a kind-of glow to it. He panned the camera and watched for a minute or so. It was probably spawn, or something similar. He'd report it as a matter of course, but it was most likely nothing. After a final check, he turned his back on the screen and retraced his steps along the deck.

Cooking smells drifted on the wind. Clem was able to pick out onions and the distinctive aroma of chilli. It was his favourite and under different circumstances a single whiff would have made him feel hungry. But not now. Now he didn't know how he felt, but it sure wasn't hungry.