4
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