North Star (3 page)

‘I only know trawlers,’ I said. Moored there, the ship looked very sleek, very efficient, but I had seen one once heading out to the Brent in a strong westerly gale, seas breaking over the flat, open after-deck. ‘I’d rather have the
Fisher Maid up
around Bear Island than one of those in a North Sea gale.’

He shrugged, his eyes smiling behind his glasses. ‘All I’m saying is, if you got in on the act, you wouldn’t be short of a ship for years, not the way new rigs are coming into service.’

A trawler passed us very close, another just ahead of us, as we nosed our way down the length of Albert Quay, searching
for a berth. I could see the fish market now, and then a gap opened up and the skipper said quietly, ‘Looks a laikely hole. Reckon there’s just room for us.’ He ordered port wheel, our bows swinging, and I took the loudhailer out on to the wing of the bridge.

We were tied up by 14.00, the lumpers offloading the catch. Since Aberdeen was not our home port, there was no pay, only subs from the local agent to see the boys home. They had a long rail journey ahead of them and most of them were away by the time the first pound boards were being replaced and the emptied compartments hosed down. The skipper called me to his cabin. He was packing his bag. ‘You in a hurry to get back?’ He knew I was the only officer who hadn’t got a wife waiting for him in Hull.

I shook my head.

He was standing holding a shirt and a bundle of dirty socks in his hand, a slug of whisky on the locker behind him. ‘Ah thought not.’ The bulging eyeballs stared at me. ‘Take it then you won’t object to staying the night aboard. We’ve no ship’s husband here, you see, and Les doesn’t arrive till tomorrow.’ He waited a moment and then nodded. ‘Good. That’s settled then. Better use my cabin so’s you can keep an eye on things laike.’

The lumpers packed it in shortly before 19.00 and then I had the ship to myself. I sat on the bridge smoking a pipe and watching the lights come on as dusk descended over the city and the high land behind it. A stillness had settled on the Basin, the quay deserted except for the occasional figure moving along the shadowed wall of the sheds. A siren blared briefly and a trawler up near the entrance started backing out. I watched her as she headed for the open sea, thinking of the mate preparing his gear and the ice ahead and the skipper wondering where the hell he’d get a catch that would satisfy his gaffers.

After that the port seemed dead, nothing stirring. Night had closed down on Aberdeen. I tapped out my pipe and went to
the galley to collect a plateful of shepherd’s pie and veg the cook had left for me. The galley stove was still warm and I put a kettle on for coffee. With the coffee I had a glass of brandy from the officers’ ex-bond locker. A cat had come aboard and as I drank I watched it stalk its prey in the shadows cast by the deck lights.

To be suddenly alone on a ship gives one an odd feeling of isolation. All during the voyage the
Fisher Maid
had been alive with men, an organized unit of activity, her hull vibrating to the pulse of her engines, resounding to the noise of the sea. Now it was deserted, a hollow shell, inactive, still and strangely quiet. I had time to think now, but somehow I seemed unable to concentrate. I was tired, of course, but I think it was the stillness and the quiet that prevented my mind from focusing clearly. I finished my drink, went down to my cabin and packed my gear, shifting it to the skipper’s cabin in the bridge housing. Then I turned in.

I was in my pyjamas, having a last smoke, when I heard footsteps crossing the gangway, the murmur of voices. I went through into the bridge and out on to the wing. Two figures stood talking on the deck below. ‘Looking for somebody?’

They turned at the sound of my voice, their faces pale in shadow, something slightly menacing as they stared up at me. Then one of them moved, coming out of the shadows to the foot of the ladder. ‘Heard you were still aboard. We’d like a word with you.’ He started up the ladder, a short, burly figure, his round, pugnacious face framed in dark sideburns, eyes deep-set and a full-lipped mouth. ‘Remember me?’

I nodded, the sight of him taking me back to that angry meeting in Hull. He was a Newark man and nothing to do with the shipyards. His name was Bob Scunton and he had confronted me when I was still trying to address the meeting, prodding me in the stomach and telling me to belt up and stop talking a load of statistical rubbish the lads didn’t want to know. The other man I had never seen before. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You can come up.’ And I led them into the bridge.
There was only one seat, so we stood facing each other, and I didn’t like it. I had the feeling of being cornered. ‘Well, what is it?’

‘Last month, the night of the shipyard workers’ meeting.’ Scunton’s voice was slow and deliberate, his eyes watching me. ‘You got a little girl out of a burning house and handed her over to the neighbours. Didn’t give your name. Just handed her over and slipped away. Right?’

I didn’t say anything, standing there, waiting, conscious of the other man with a slight cast in the left eye that made his gaze oddly disconcerting.

‘Thought no doubt you wouldn’t be recognized.’

My mouth felt dry, all my fears now suddenly realized. I knew Scunton, knew his reputation. These were men who operated in the shadows, manoeuvring and motivating others, controlling events. They weren’t union men. They weren’t members of any political party. But they were always there, in the background, whenever there was trouble. ‘Come to the point,’ I said.

‘All right, I will.’ He licked his lips, his eyes darting round the bridge. ‘What about a drink while we’re discussing it?’

‘It’s been a hard trip,’ I told him. ‘I’m tired.’

‘So are we,’ he growled. ‘Soon as we heard you weren’t putting into Hull we came north.’ He thrust his head forward. ‘You haven’t talked to the police yet, have you?’

‘No.’

He nodded. ‘Okay, but when you do, what are you going to tell them? That’s what we want to know.’

‘It’s no business of yours.’ But I knew it was. I could see it in the way the two of them glanced at each other, and suddenly all the turmoil and the doubts exploded in anger. ‘You bastards put them up to it, is that it? Is that what you’re scared of – that I’ll identify them and they’ll involve you?’

Scunton moved towards me. ‘You shop them and we’ll –’

But the other man interrupted him. ‘I’ll handle this, Bob.’ His voice was quiet, a hard, fiat voice. ‘You were recognized.
One of the neighbours, a man. The police will expect a statement.’ He paused, the disconcerting gaze sliding past me. Then suddenly he asked, ‘What were you doing standing there in the rain outside No. 5 Washbrook Road?’

I hesitated, unwilling to explain myself to men I knew would never understand. ‘You weren’t at the meeting that night.’

‘No.’

‘There was a mood of violence,’ I said. ‘A lot of threats were made, mainly directed at Pierson & Watt and the yard foreman –’

‘We believe in solidarity,’ Scunton growled in that thick voice of his. ‘Pierson & Watt were the one yard –’

‘You believe in violence,’ I told him.

‘All right. Maybe we do, when it’s necessary.’

I turned back to face the other man. ‘If I hadn’t been there, Bucknall and that fellow Claxby might well be facing a murder charge.’

‘So you know who it was,’ Scunton cut in.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know who they were.’ And suddenly I didn’t care. ‘If you want to throw petrol bombs, why the hell don’t you have the guts to do it yourselves? And to risk innocent lives – a little girl …’

‘You threw it.’ His voice was so quiet it stopped me like a bucket of ice-cold water. ‘That’s what we came to tell you.’

Staring at him, seeing the hard, bitter line of his mouth, the cold grey eyes glinting in the gleam of the deck lights, I felt suddenly scared of him. ‘Who are you?’ I asked him.

He gave a little shrug, a shut look on his face. ‘We have a witness.’ He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one, and when I pushed it away, he said, ‘You were alone, nobody to corroborate your evidence.’ He took out a cigarette and lit it, the movement of his hands deliberate. He was giving me time to take it in. ‘So it will be your word against his, and the man who will say you threw the petrol bomb is a local man. He’ll make a good witness.’

‘Get out!’
My hands were clenched, the words coming through my teeth.

He didn’t move, drawing in a lungful of smoke and staring at me. ‘Bucknall doesn’t matter. But Claxby is too useful a man to be thrown away.’

‘Get out of here!’

‘You could be useful, too.’ He said it reflectively, as though considering the matter. Then he shrugged. ‘But at the moment we’re concerned with the East Coast yards. We’ve failed with the trawlermen. The fisheries officer of their union won’t play. But if we can hold the strike long enough, then there’ll be very little fish coming in anyway. That will give the unions the leverage they need in their negotiations. A trial, with two militants in dock, wouldn’t suit us at all.’ He paused, and then added, ‘We were able to have a word with your radio operator before coming here. In a pub. You’re out of a job again, it seems.’ And when I didn’t say anything, he smiled. ‘He told us he thought you ought to be commanding a supply ship. That’s where the future lies, isn’t it?’

He was looking at me again and the expression of his eyes had a speculative quality. ‘Get into oil,’ he said quietly. ‘And forget about what you saw in Washbrook Road.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, then turned abruptly towards the door, jerking his head at Scunton. ‘Think about it,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘All you need tell the police is that it was too dark to see who they were.’

‘And if I tell them the truth?’

He swung round on me. ‘Then you’d be a fool.’ And he added, ‘You keep your mouth shut and I’ll see our witness does the same. You understand?’ He stared at me a moment. Then he nodded and went out, Scunton following, their footsteps sounding hollow as they went down the ladder and across the deck to the gangway. And after that I was alone again, still in my pyjamas and feeling cold.

I got myself a drink, my hands trembling, wishing, as I had done so often in my life, that I had somebody to fall back on,
not just the legendary figure of my father, but somebody, something, to give me strength. And suddenly I was thinking of the islands seen the previous evening black against that green strip of sky. Shetland, the land where my father had been born. I had never been so close to Shetland before, and sitting there, the brandy warming my guts, it gradually came to me that now was the moment. I would go north to the islands – now while I had the chance.

My first sight of Shetland was a lighthouse sliding by the window and green lawn slopes falling from rock outcrops, everything fresh and clean, touched with the luminosity of evening light. The Highlander landed and I saw the remains of old wartime buildings as we taxied in to park beside a large British Airways helicopter. There was a light drizzle falling, and as I stood waiting on the apron for my baggage, the smell of the grass and the sea all about me, I had a deep sense of peace, something I hadn’t felt for a long time.

Most of my fellow passengers were oil men returning to the Redco rig. For ten minutes or so they filled the little prefab terminal with colour and the babble of their accents; then they trooped out to the waiting chopper and in a buzz-saw whirr of engines and blades they were lifted up and whirled away. Suddenly everything was very quiet, only the rattle of crockery as a woman went round the tables collecting empty cups, the murmur of voices from the BA desk where the despatch clerk was talking to the crew of the Highlander. There was an Ordnance Survey map on the wall. I got myself another cup of coffee and stood looking at it, refreshing my memory based on the Shetland charts I had pored over on the bridge of
Fisher Maid
.

Sumburgh Head is the southernmost point of the whole island chain, the tip of a long finger of mountainous land jutting south from the main port of Lerwick. The distance by road looked about 30 miles. A voice at my side said, ‘Can I help you?’ He was a small man in blue dungarees, dark-haired with bright blue eyes and a ruddy face.

‘I want to get to Hamnavoe,’ I said and pointed to the little
port, which was at the north end of the island of West Burra, a little below Lerwick, but on the west coast.

He ran a car hire business, but when I said I couldn’t afford to rent a car, that didn’t seem to worry him. ‘Hamnavoe.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t know anyone going to Hamnavoe. You’ll have to go to Lerwick first. There’s a bus in the morning, or maybe I can fix you a lift. Either way it means staying the night.’ And he added, ‘My wife can fix you bed and breakfast if that’s any help.’

His name was Wishart and I stayed the night with them, in a small house above Sumburgh village with breeze-block outbuildings in which he kept his cars. He had been a mechanic servicing local farm vehicles until the oil companies started drilling off Shetland. ‘Now I’ve got a real good business, not just tourists, you see – it’s all the year round, oil executives, contractors, technicians, commercial travellers. We’ve never known it so good.’ His face was beaming.

‘Yes, but how long is it going to last?’ his wife said quietly, and behind her words was the experience of hard times.

‘Ah!’ His eyes glanced quickly round the neat little parlour with its gleaming new furniture and bright chintz curtains. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ We had finished the meal and were sitting drinking whisky out of a gin bottle. The whisky had a strong peaty flavour. ‘You being from Aberdeen, maybe you know the answer to that.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m a trawlerman.’

‘Trawlers, eh? You looking for a job up at Hamnavoe?’

‘Maybe,’ I replied cautiously.

‘It’s a lot smaller than Lerwick, you know. You’d do better in Lerwick.’ He poured himself another finger of the pale liquor, topping my glass up at the same time. ‘Only this morning I rented a car to a man wanting to get hold of a trawler cheap – something to do with one of the rigs. But there aren’t any big boats up here, only peerie ones, and there’s none of them going cheap. Anyway, the fishermen here, they hate the oil companies. They’re scared of what could happen. The
Torrey Canyon
was bad enough, but suppose one of these production rigs blows? Particularly if they strike oil to the west; then all of the Shetland fisheries could be destroyed, millions of tons of oil polluting the seas for miles around. That’s what scares them.’ He looked at me, his eyes very bright. ‘Dangerous bloody game, anyway. Trawling, I mean. There’s just been one of them wrecked, went ashore yesterday in a north-easterly gale. Skipper dead and two of the crew injured.’