'Yes.'
'But not the Hooll Trawlers' Officers — shipyard, isn't it?'
I didn't say anything and he grunted. 'What made you switch to trawling?'
'My own business,' I said.
'Aye.' He took the pipe out of his mouth, his eyes staring. 'But just tell me. Ah'd laike t'knaw.'
I laughed. What could I tell him? 'The sea,' I said. 'It's in my blood, I suppose.'
'You were at the Marston Yard on Clydebank, a member of the strike committee in 1968. And before that you were in prison, result of a demo that tangled with the police.'
'That's a long time ago.'
'You're still the same bloke, aren't you?'
'Come to the point,' I said.
'Orl raight, Ah will. Pierson & Watt now, if they've coom oot… Sounds laike it, an' they're non-union, all of them. Young Watt won't employ union men. So where do we go for a refit?'
'Not my problem,' I said.
'No. Not your problem. But you're doing, I reck'n.'
'Then you're wrong.'
He shook his head, an obstinate look on his face. 'You're a good mate. I grant you that. But you're a trouble-maker. I wouldn't have shipped you if-' He stuffed his pipe firmly back into his mouth.
'If what?' I asked.
'I was doing you a favour.'
'You were short of a mate.'
'Aye. But it didn't have to be you.' And then he shrugged and said, 'Orl raight, Ah'll tell you — Jimmy Watt asked me to take you. Get the bugger off our backs, that's how he put it.' And then his big forefinger was jabbing me in the chest. 'Do you deny you were on the Committee?'
'Not on the Committee. I was called in to advise them.'
'Advise them, eh?' His voice was still quiet and under control, but the Hull accent was stronger now, something building up in him, an undercurrent of menace. 'Advise them on what? Intimidation?' He leaned his round head closer, the grey eyes cold and fishlike in the hard light. 'Or did they call you in to get at Jimmy's foreman, to get Bob Entwhisle to-'
'What the hell are you talking about?' I was suddenly angry, remembering how I'd walked out of that crowded meeting, the little Congregational Hall thick with smoke and full of violence. 'You know nothing about it.'
'Doan't I? Well I know this-'
'You listen to me.' I was shouting and I reached out and grabbed hold of his shoulder.
'Doan't you dare.' He slammed his big fists down on my arms, wrenching himself free. 'Keep your hands off.'
'Just listen,' I said. 'It was the economics of the strike — the future of the yards, the financial state of shipbuilding in the North East. They were scared about their jobs.'
He glared at me. 'They doan't care about their jobs. They doan't care about anything — just so long as they can smash us all to hell.'
'You may be right.' What was the point of arguing with him? I suddenly felt tired. 'My watch,' I said. 'You'd better get some sleep yourself now.'
'Why would they ask you about the financial state of the shipbuilding industry?'
'I was trained as an economist. London School of Economics. You know so much about me you should know that.' I turned to the chart. 'What do you intend to do? You can't make another trip without a refit. There's a leak for'ard where we hit that growler-'
'Ah doan't need you to tell me that.' He relit his pipe, staring down at the chart. 'There's no roosh. Ah'll have a word with Jimmy in the morning. Aye.' He nodded to himself. 'We've a little time yet.' And he turned abruptly, without another word, and left me alone to my watch.
It was a long four hours; nothing to relieve the monotony but the slowly changing position of an oil rig seen only as a blip on the radar screen. The wind was gusting fifty knots, the ship standing on her head and no visibility in the blinding murk of sleet and spray. Plenty of time to think, and my brain too tired, too numbed by the battering to work out what I was going to tell the police when we docked. There had been two of them, two shadowy figures, and then the crash of glass, the sudden blaze, their faces lit as they turned and ran.
I switched on the Decca Navigator, concentrating on the clicking dials to get a fix, doing it automatically, knowing I could identify them both and worrying about Bucknall. Claxby I didn't care about; he was an older man, a hardline militant brought in to cause trouble. If it had been just Claxby, there on his own, I wouldn't have hesitated. But young Harry Bucknall was the son of a good honest shipyard worker who had marched to London with the Jarrow boys in the thirties. A post-graduate university student, intelligent and an anarchist. At least he had done it out of conviction, believing that violence was the path to revolution. And I had no doubt who had been the ringleader.
I entered up the fix and went back to stand by the wheel, staring out into the black night. All I had to do was tell the police. Tell them the truth. But it was the charge that worried me. If I hadn't been there, if the little girl had died in that fire, it would have been murder. The charge could still be attempted murder and myself in the witness box, the full glare of publicity, and everybody knowing I had been interrogated by the police. It would be my evidence, my evidence alone, that convicted them. I would be cast in the role of a Judas. And they hadn't meant to harm the little girl. They hadn't known she was there.
All this time I was pacing up and down, the bridge tumbling under my feet, the noise of the storm beating at my ears, the elements in tune with my mood — everything in chaos, the world, my life, everything. Was this a sort of crossroads in the long journey from womb to grave? If only there were somebody I could turn to, somebody to lean on, to give me strength, to tell me what the hell to do.
I Was thinking of Fiona then, wishing to God that just something in my life had turned out right. And then a rogue wave came out of the night, hitting us on the quarter, water roaring along the port side, and as the ship fell off the top of it with a slam that hurled me against the man at the wheel I heard him cursing under his breath. Our eyes met and his big mouth opened in a grin: 'Them lads ashore… all toocked oop in bed with their womenfolk. Makes me laff on a night like this.'
'Why?'
"Cos they doan't know when they're well off, always itching for something. Me, I joost want what they've got — raight now I'd settle for the missis, all warm and cosy laike, naice soft bed that didn't move unless I made it.' He grinned, winking an eye, the longing of weeks at sea on his face.
My watch ended and I went to my bunk, lying in the dark, thinking wearily. I was an idealist, and idealists get cut down to size when ideals are transposed into politics. Maybe I wasn't tough enough. When it came to the crunch… Was I a coward then, my ideals shattered by a petrol bomb? But the doubts had started long before that. When was it? At that Clydeside meeting when a small group of militants screamed 'Fascist!' at me because I had tried to spell out for them what would happen? I had dried up and handed the mike over to a man who talked their language, not the logic of falling orders and redundancies. Was that when the doubts had started? I couldn't be sure. It was such an accumulation of things.
It was just on ten when I went back on to the bridge, daylight now, a grey world, cloud and sea all one in colour and the whitecaps rolling in from dead astern. I glanced at the gyro and then at the skipper. 'You've altered course.'
'Aye.'
'Aberdeen?'
He nodded, his eyes on a small freighter headed for Norway and making heavy weather of it as she butted the tail end of the storm.
'Did you talk to Watt?'
He didn't answer me and after a moment I ducked out of the bridge to the door of the radio room. The fug in that little cubbyhole was overpowering, the air thick with smoke. Sparks was thumbing the key, tapping out a message in his shirt sleeves, a cigarette burning beside him in a rusty tobacco tin full of stubs. I waited, sweating there, until he had finished. 'Any news for me?' I asked.