Chapter 1 "The Klondykers"

Last Updated on 14 May 2010 Written by Administrator

English language version. This is the first chapter from my novel "The Klondkyers". It is set in a small Highland town at the height of the Cold War, when the largest ever Russian fishing fleet was anchored off the coast of Scotland. It was also the time of the Piper Alpha disaster.

THE KLONDYKERS - CHAPTER ONE

1989

That was the reason why Donald was there, floating. The sea stretched out on either side of him.

One minute he had been sitting there eating a nice piece of Norwegian salmon. Shipped in special. That was his favourite thing about it all. The food. He could put up with no small amount of nonsense as long as the cooks got it right.

Then the next moment the ground was shaking like a parrot cage. Then slipping from the sky like a cloud skimming like a stone. And then suddenly the rig collapses meccano like a boxed up Christmas tree and the table is folding like a napkin and the salmon is swimming down the floor. He starts to think of the strangest things like... jeez my nails are getting long. He thinks about his socks. And then he’s back in the present and astronauting around the room and he’s thinking. Jesus Christ. I’m on a collapsing exploding oilrig.

Seconds later he’s thinking, it’s easy for them to say that.

People were shouting that they shouldn’t jump. It was a hundred metres from the platform to the sea. Like unset concrete it was, all that would happen was that your bones would collapse and then the little accordion of your body would sink down under so many black waves.

God, it was such a hellish night,. Why couldn’t the weather be better? That would have made things easier somehow, Donald thought.

He stood on the edge of the steel, he could feel the absolute roaring uncontrolled heat behind him. Things were starting to melt. He could feel the soles of his boots melted and sticky as if he’d stood on an ice-cream. He felt fear inside him like he couldn’t believe sucking all his movement out of him. What kind of bloody choice is this. No choice. The devil and the deep blue sea.

He albatrosses off the side. He hopes not to hit a spar on the way down. Then just as quickly as he’s done it, it’s over. He is under water, far under water. He feels things happening around him, valves popping and inflating and then he corks up to the top. A suck of air, black petrol air but air all the same. Broken legs. Adam missing ribs. He is covered in petrol, his face is hot. He screams.

He thinks, my poor mother. What she has to go through. It’s not long at all since dad died. This is going to be the real icing on the cake.

The water is full of orange astronauts, each in his little survival suit cocoon. A lot of them aren’t moving. Where’s the boat, he thinks. Surely there’s a boat to pick us all up. They won’t leave us here. He is trapped in the design of his suit. His head is kept above water. His back is to the waves. He sees one of the enormous legs in front of him and starts to kick, starts to try and swim away from this hellish engine. He is swept past it and out the other side. It is so dark away from the roman candle of the rig.

He looks up and cannot believe his eyes. Like a sparkler the whole rig is aflame. It’s legs are daddy long legs bent. He is floating in the relative calm away from the exploding world. Piper Alpha. What has happened to her. He thinks about the nice piece of salmon he was about to have. He wonders what will happen.

Like a crate of spilt oranges the men were picked up one by one. Many of them dead, from the cold. From the heat. He is unconscious when they pick him up. The rig carried on burning, plenty more where that came from. The massive six legged MSV Stadive with its giant water cannons points everything it has at what’s left of the frame.

Donald feels the thick blades of the Chinook taking him back to Aberdeen. He’s done this plenty of times before but not like this. He feels the thick crust on his face, looks at the pipes which pump things in and out of the miniature oilrig of his body. He faints from the pain even though he is full to bursting with morphine.

And then he’s home. Propped up in bed. Remote controls. Bowls of soup. He lives in this little white cube. Wishing someone would come in without a sympathetic look on their face.

On top of this layer of memories he tries to ignore Donald gets another one. The constant re-runs of television images, they’ve mixed in with his own ones now so much that he’s not sure which is which. Did he in a half drug daze look through the round window of the Chinook and see them half moon around the rotten smoking frame, or was that from some news bulletin?

He thinks of Dan Finlayson, three houses down from him, who was supposed to go out the day before but never made it. The plane to Aberdeen was delayed. Why does it work like this? Who chooses these moments for you. The guilt of surviving like a stone in his stomach.

After some time in intensive care he was delivered to his local hospital and then home. His mother and wife looking after him as the bent pins of his body started to mesh back together. His mother cooks his favourite things. Soup. Bread and butter pudding. Roast chicken. His wife trying to cope with it. His kids wondering what’s wrong. He isn’t easy to look after. He doesn’t like the light off and sometimes it’s hard to put the television on as you never knew when suddenly he’ll be plunged into re-living it.

Always the dull rock of guilt with him. More than two hundred of them, his friends, people he worked with, ate with, lived with. Sometimes he wonders if it would have been easier to not jump and that would have been it. Now he has to speak for something he doesn’t understand yet. He cannot think about compensation. About inquests and investigations. He always knew that safety wasn’t good. He needed the money so he ignored it. He doesn’t take counselling very easily.

Iain his brother comes home from University. Money is short.

Gradually, Donald comes back from the edge he was on that night. Slowly. He does things to forget it. He remembers life. He remembers playing with his children. He remembers kissing his wife. He wants to try and live it again. How to do that. How to do that. One day at a time. Sweet Jesus.

END OF CHAPTER.