North Star (10 page)

‘I think so.’ I suddenly wanted to get out of there, the little office very quiet and his eyes fixed on me.

‘Good.’ He hesitated, then reached for the pad and pencil on the desk and wrote down a number. ‘If you find yourself getting out of your depth – ’

‘Why should I?’

He looked at me for a moment. Then he said, ‘You’re vulnerable, that’s why. You’re tough physically, but you’re vulnerable.’ He didn’t explain. He didn’t have to. ‘If you want to talk to me again, go to any police station and have them ring that number. Or you can telephone direct.’ He handed me the sheet of paper. It was an 01 number – London. ‘What’s
the name of the rig you’re going to work with?’

‘North Star
.’

‘And the company?’

‘Star-Trion, a subsidiary of Villiers Finance and Industrial.’

He nodded. ‘Well, just remember what I said, and stay out of trouble.’ He went to the door and opened it for me. But as I was going out he stopped me. ‘One other thing. Your father. He wasn’t killed in 1939.’

I stared at him incredulously. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Just that. They picked him up in Norway in 1942.’ The door closed and I was in the passage leading out of the County Buildings, past the flagpole into Town Hall Brae.

I should have gone back and asked him what else he knew. But I was scared. Those files, that dossier on me. The offences I had committed were all minor ones, but he had made them sound formidable, stringing them together like that. A pattern … Of course, there had been a pattern. And once the authorities get their teeth into you – Christ! they had taken a lot of trouble.

And my father … That plaque. Who the hell had erected that plaque? And why? Why should anybody do that if he hadn’t been killed in the defence of Madrid?

He would have been 68 now, if he were still alive. Too old to be involved in anything very active. But in 1942, when Norway was occupied by the Germans and the Russians were our allies … So many questions, and my mind in turmoil as we sweated to get that trawler fit for sea. And all the time that feeling of something hanging over me, a frightening sense of insecurity as I tried to grapple with a mental change of life that seemed to have altered my whole outlook. Work was a panacea, and God knows there was plenty of that.

We slipped on the evening of Friday, 11th April, working through the week-end to get her off at dawn on the Monday. It was the only patent slip in Lerwick and we were lucky to get the use of it, even though it meant doing most of the work ourselves. By then I had had a telegram from the Star-Trion office in Aberdeen requesting confirmation that we would be on station by 20th April as required under the terms of the charter. The location was also given – 60° 22' N, 2° 40' W, which was some 30 miles west of Papa Stour, in Block 206/17. We went for sea trials on the Thursday immediately after survey, steaming north as far as Rams Ness, the southern
point of Fetlar, in a nor’westerly Force 5–6 with a dirty sea spilling down through Colgrave Sound.

There was still a lot that needed doing. But the repairs to the hull stood up to it and the engines gave full power. We were back off Halcrow’s yard by 10.30 on the Friday morning and Gertrude got a telegram off to Star-Trion confirming. We were in business, provided we could keep the vessel going for three months at a stretch.

I was at the chart shelf outside my cabin, working out an ETD based on steaming time required to reach the location, when she returned. ‘You’ll go south round Sumburgh Head?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you can anchor at Taing and sail out to the rig from there.’

It was a thought. A last peaceful night and the chance of a final check on the way round. We could even get delivery of anything we had forgotten.

‘Then perhaps you will have time to discuss the agreement between us.’

I looked at her, standing in the doorway at the top of the companionway, a solid figure in an oilskin jacket. Clouds were scudding in over the brown stone smudge of Lerwick town. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, but her voice had sounded a little tense. ‘I’m afraid I had forgotten about that.’

‘You are not very businesslike.’ There was a pause, and then, a little hesitantly, she said, ‘How do I know you will not go off with the ship?’

‘You have Johan, Duncan, the crew – I’m the only outsider.’

‘Three months is a long time.’

I turned on her, flinging down my pencil. ‘We both signed that charter agreement,’ I said, keeping a tight hold on my tongue.

‘A piece of paper.’

‘Any agreement we draw up between us is still only a piece of paper.’

‘Ja.’ She had turned back into the bridge, leaning on the telegraph and staring out through the windows. The forecast was bad and a rainstorm was curtaining the higher part of the town. ‘I’m sorry.’ She made a little movement of her hand. ‘We do not work very easily together. My fault, I think. But this ship has so many memories. We come to Shetland in her, Jan and I. When Selmvaag Vaal closed down. Jan bought her in Bergen. It cost us every penny we had, and some of our friends’ money as well.’

‘What was a Lowestoft trawler doing in Bergen?’

‘She was an MFV I think you call them. Right at the beginning of the war she was brought north to Scapa Flow as a fleet supply ship. Later she did some patrols and after that she was with the fleet in Norway. I have the logs at Taing. Then, in 1941, she is in Shetland, sailing again to Norway. It was this ship that brought Far Petersen off, from one of the fjords just east of Tromso. He had Jan with him. They often talked about that voyage. They were almost trapped by a patrol boat, but the fog saved them. A thick fog just when the bullets were hitting all round. There are some marks if you know where to look.’

‘When was this?’ I asked.

‘In 1942. It was winter. I remember the date – 27th January. That was when they land in Shetland that first time.’

‘And you have the logs?’

‘Yes. The early ones. Jan found them, tucked away at the back of a locker in the cabin there. I’ll show you when you bring her into Taing.’ She turned abruptly, moving a step towards me. ‘You will bring her in? Please.’

‘In case I run off with her?’

But she didn’t smile. ‘I’ll feel easier, that’s all.’ And she added, ‘I saw Sandford when I was ashore. He was driving past me along the Esplanade in a red car. Has he been on board?’

‘No.’

‘You haven’t seen him again?’

I shook my head, turning back to the chart shelf and measuring off the distance to Clift Sound.

‘What is he doing here in Lerwick, do you think?’

‘If you run a hotel I suppose you need supplies.’ Just over forty miles to The Taing. Say five hours’ steaming. ‘If we left at noon tomorrow –’

‘He doesn’t need to come to Lerwick for stores. He can order by telephone.’ Her voice had risen slightly, a note of tension. ‘Why does he need a ship so badly he is prepared to buy the mortgage?’

‘I told you, he’s got a contract to supply two rigs.’

‘Do you believe him?’ She had moved towards me and I could see her face now in the chart cabin light. She was frowning. ‘I think he is here because we are ready to sail.’ And, on a note of urgency, she added, ‘You must leave for Taing now. Immediately. Can you do that? Otherwise, I think perhaps we are not permitted to sail at all.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘She may not be classed Al, but the survey went off all right. And even if she didn’t pass survey, we would still have our temporary certificate of seaworthiness.’

But it wasn’t the survey she was worried about. It was the crew. Apparently she had been warned by her local councillor that Johan and the three other Norwegians might be ordered to leave Shetland. ‘Somebody has been enquiring about their work permits. We never bother about work permits before. Not for fishing. But, now that we are going to work for an oil rig, it may be different.’

‘Then you’d better apply for them.’

She nodded. ‘Of course. I have the papers already. But Mr Tulloch thinks it will be opposed and they will be ordered to leave.’

‘But if they didn’t need work permits before –’

‘He says it is politics. The fishermen here are a very strong community and they don’t like the oil companies. So, you see, it is not very difficult to stir up trouble.’

‘And you think Sandford is behind it?’

She gave a little shrug. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know. But it is one way of ensuring that we lose this charter.’ She was so urgent about it that I agreed to sail as soon as we had taken on fuel and water.

We moored at the quay, alongside a Lerwick trawler, shortly after 13.00. I think we were lucky in that it was lunchtime and the rain teeming down. All the offices were closed. Nobody bothered us and at 14.42 we slipped our warps and stood out into Bressay Sound. Visibility was bad in low cloud and rain squalls, but by 15.05 we were clear of Kirkabister Ness with Bard Head a grey lump bearing 85°.

Sea conditions were fairly good as we steamed south under the lee of the long mountain spine running down to Sumburgh Head and I had time to take a look at the Admiralty Sailing Directions. I had never before had need of Part I of the North Sea Pilot, which covers the Faroes, Shetlands and Orkneys, and I was appalled at the force of the tidal streams. The main stream was south-east-going and between Orkney and Shetland it reached a speed of 8–10 knots at the margin headlands of North Ronaldsay and Sumburgh Head. The result, of course, was violent tide races. Known as roosts in Shetland, they were to be encountered off all the major headlands, with the Sumburgh Roost the most dangerous of all – ‘As in the confused, tumbling and bursting sea, vessels often become entirely unmanageable, and sometimes founder, while others have been tossed about for days in light weather, the roost should be given a wide berth.’

I looked at the spine of the faded and dog-eared Pilot. It was dated 1921. Obviously the warning was for sailing vessels. I was checking the tide data on the chart when Johan appeared at my side. ‘You take Sumburgh very close, ja. It is the last hour of the south-going tide, so the wind is with the tide and we get a lift on the eddy by Fitful.’

I left it to him and he took the wheel himself, turning the headland so close that we seemed in imminent danger of
hitting the islet of Little Tind. The wind was westerly, force 6, the sea lumpy and full of holes, but not breaking heavily. It took us a long time to round Hog of the Holm and claw our way up to Head of the Holm with wind and tide both against us. But with Johan piloting I had no worries, except perhaps when we turned due north up the long sheer slate-grey line of Fitful Head. We were on a lee shore then, no place for an engine failure, and so close in that we were back-winded by the towering cliffs, the burst of the waves sounding like gunfire.

The tide turned and we were inside the Havras by 19.30 with the Stacks of Houssness just visible and Clift Sound opening up ahead. The light was fading, and, as we came into the shelter of East Burra, Johan sent Henrik for’ard to call the leading marks into the voe.

That first view of Taing from the sea will always remain, the evening light dulled by rain, the clouds sweeping low and the narrow tongue of land suddenly revealed as being separate from the green slopes behind. And then, as we nosed slowly in, the house suddenly appearing, a grey ghost of a building and the water below it a leaden sheet barely touched by the wind. And when we had let go our anchor, and the echo of the chain running out had died away, our engines stopped, everything so still, so absolutely quiet.

I thought Gertrude Petersen would have been down at the water’s edge to welcome her ship home, but though there was a light on in the house, nothing stirred. I had the Zodiac inflated and got over the side and rowed myself ashore, not bothering about the outboard. It was warm rowing in oilskins and farther than I thought. The rain had stopped, the evening strangely luminous with fish rising. I could hear the slap of them hitting the water and the circles rippling out were so numerous that sometimes they interlocked. I couldn’t see the the entrance to the voe, it was blocked by the lit shape of the trawler, and with the low arm of The Taing stretching out from the shore, and the steep mountain slopes beyond, it was more like a loch than an indent open to the sea.

The beach below the house was sand and rock with a small boat jetty of cemented boulder. The cement was crumbling, the boulders loose, and it was already half awash on the tide. I pulled the inflatable up on to higher ground, made fast the painter and then stood for a moment looking back at the voe and the trawler lying there, the ship, the house, the land-encircled water, everything so perfect. I was thinking of Jan Petersen then, wondering how he had acquired such a place. And a wife who would go to sea with him, stand by him through thick and thin. A refugee from another country. And I had started with so much, achieved so little. No matter that the ship was mortgaged, the house, too, probably. They were his. He had owned them. And now he was dead and I was going up to his home to make an agreement with his wife, sitting probably at that table in the window with the photograph of him and his father on their catcher.

I got out my pipe and filled it. But I didn’t light it. I just stood there, holding it in my hand as though for comfort in that quiet remoteness of the darkening landscape. The moment between light and dark, just as night closes in, is a time of silence when the soul is touched by doubts. I had that feeling now, the past a nothingness, the future all uncertain – and myself not knowing, or even understanding, what I was doing here.

I put my pipe away and turned abruptly, walking up to the house and knocking on the door. I wanted to get this over and get to sea. Three months in the loneliness of command, seeing nothing but the same patch of sea and the ugly superstructure of a floating rig – three months of that should be enough to sort myself out. The sound of my fist on the door was loud in the stillness and the lamplight streaming out from the window on my right became a muted glow as the curtains were drawn. The sound of footsteps clacking on stone, then the door opened and she was there. But not as I had expected her, in the denim slacks and faded jersey I had become accustomed to. Now she was wearing a long dress and high heeled shoes, and her fair
hair, limned by the light of an oil lamp on the chest behind her, fell to her shoulders.