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 had collected there, but only a few, because he wasn't making the dive - Eddie was. Unless something went wrong, Bill would be up here, high and dry, keeping the door open for his partner.
Then MacFarlane was by his side. "Stupid name," commented the youngster.
The sounds of Eddie's voice seemed to echo right around the catwalk before finally returning to Bill. He couldn't make sense of the words. "What?"
"Moon pool," explained Eddie, pointing with his rat-hat, first at the water, then to the underside of the rig floor above their heads. "Ye cannay see the Moon at a' fram here."
"That's 'cos it's quarter to twelve in the morning, you bloody Galah."
"I did nay mean..."
Rose cut him short. "I know what you meant, Eddie. Now, are you going down, or do you want me to?" Another knot appeared in Bill's gut and he caught himself mentally crossing his fingers.
"I can manage very well mah sel', thank ye kindly, and I dinnay need a Sassenach tay hold mah hand."
Rose covered his relief by shaking his head in mock despair. "You can't even talk bloody English, you wee Scotch bogon."
"Scottish bogon, if ye don't mind," Eddie corrected. "Now quit blaytherin' an' hook me up, will ye?"
In the shack above, the diving super listened to the knocks and scrapes from the intercom speaker as Eddie secured his hat to the neoprene seal around his neck. Pierce adjusted the microphone stalk on his headset. "As soon as you're ready, son,"
"On mah way, Jack." Eddie's voice blared around the room.
Jack wondered whether he ought to switch off the speaker to keep the conversation a little more private. He decided against it, for the time being. "Give me a commentary on the way down, Eddie. Anything unusual, no matter how small, I want to know." He paused with his mouth open as if unsure whether to say what was on his mind. He shrugged off the thought: if Eddie started talking crazy, he could always shut him down.
His eyes flicked to the other two in the shack. Meyer was hovering buzzard-like in the background, no doubt keeping his options open for a full-frontal assault of interference, or for beating a hasty retreat should something go wrong that he couldn't handle. Clem Berry was standing between Meyer and Pierce which was advisable in all respects: Clem was both huge and laid-back, a gentle, Texas giant. If anyone on board could pour oil on the troubled waters that were Les Meyer, Clem could, and from a great height.
When he began to feel his earlier hatred for Meyer returning, Pierce went back to concentrating on his equipment and his diver. Eddie's hollow narrative was drifting through the speaker, losing itself in the space of the room. He was just talking his way down, telling of things they already knew. Jack was never bored by it. As long as he could hear the commentary, no matter how routine or mundane it might seem to an outsider, to him it meant that his man was okay and functioning as normally as anyone could under the circumstances.
MacFarlane's voice stopped. Pierce's hand flew to the switch and cut off the intercom's speaker. He realised too late that it was a mistake he would probably regret and was aware of movement as Meyer shuffled closer. "Eddie?" Jack enquired casually, as much for Meyer's benefit as the young Scot's.
"It’s okay, Jack," Eddie returned almost immediately. "Just having trouble clearing mah head." He paused for a few seconds. "Alright, now. Going down again."
Pierce signalled to the two behind him that all was well. The room darkened suddenly and he glanced at the door to see why. Doug Bromley was standing there, blocking the sunlight. They all knew where the toolpusher had been - in the sick bay with Con O'Reilly. It was typical that it would be Clem and not Meyer who asked: "How is he?"
Doug half-turned to face Clem. "He should make it, eventually." He shucked his head to indicate Pierce. "What's happening?"
Meyer was annoyed that Bromley had not addressed the question to him. "Nothing yet," Les drawled sourly, "MacFarlane's on his way down."
Unable to hear the young diver's commentary now, they waited in relative silence, Bromley and Meyer re-asserting the extent of their individual authority over each other with their eyes, Clem recording points scored with casual interest. At least, he seemed indifferent to their silent feud, when, in fact, he was more than
