heads of two men. Dennis waited with muscles straining. He knew at any moment that they would look over the stern and see him. He gritted his teeth against the pain and then a strong gust of wind blew at him and his feet slipped. Now he was dangling above the water. He tried to swing his legs up. Four times he failed. Then his fingers began to slip. In desperation he swung his legs up again and wrapped them around the rope just as his right hand slipped. He hung on for dear life but for the moment he was safe. His grip wasn’t slipping any more. He flexed the fingers of his right hand to get the circulation flowing again. Then the two men finished their conversation and he heard one of them leave. The other one hawked and spat over the stern and Dennis saw the thick gob pass his head by a whisper. Then not knowing if the man was still there or not Dennis adjusted his grip on the rope and began climbing again.
He was able to grab the edge of the steel where the rope passed through and pulled himself over and dropped to the deck, breathing hard. He saw the departing back of the man who’d spat and Dennis quickly moved into hiding to get his bearings.
He could now see the helicopter was an MH-65 Dolphin. The model widely used by the United States coastguard.
Directly opposite him was a door marked ‘Mannschaft nur’ crew only. He crossed to it and went inside, closing the door quietly behind him. He went up two flights of stairs and through another door marked crew only, again in German. He went through this door and into a nicely furnished lounge. The room was carpeted, had large sofas, chairs, tables and a large plasma television, dvd player and play station 3. Another door at the end of the lounge led him to a corridor with bedrooms off to either side. At the end of the corridor were washrooms. It was here that Dennis found tall upright lockers.
He tried a few that were locked, the names of the users written on them. The second from the right was unlocked and he was pleased to find a pile of T-shirts, two pairs of jeans and some boiler suits inside.
Kicking his shoes off he quickly took his trousers and blood stained shirt off and stuffed them into the bottom of the locker. He changed into a pair of jeans and a red T-shirt and then put a boiler suit on. It was stained and smelt faintly of diesel. He was halfway through putting his arms into the sleeves when an announcement in German came out over the internal speakers. It was repeated in English but he wasn’t listening and didn’t hear it. He was just doing the poppers up on the front with his back to the door when he heard the door open.
“Didn’t you hear the announcement?” a deep voice said, “Everyone is to be on deck. The helicopter is leaving soon.”
Dennis turned slowly. The man was huge. On the breast of his boiler suit was a patch saying ‘supervisor’
“Yes sir. Sorry sir,” Dennis said as he made to move past the leviathan.
The supervisor continued to block the way.
“I thought I knew all the crew on this ship. How come I haven’t seen you before?”
“I’m the new guy. Replaced the one who was sacked,” Dennis lied, readying himself for the fight, hoping an element of surprise would catch his much larger opponent off guard. To his relief Dennis heard the supervisor say.
“Oh him! Yeah, well, he was warned about his drinking on duty. Now you’d better get topside,” the man said jerking his thumb at the door.
Dennis went out into the corridor.
“Ahem!”
He stopped and turned. The supervisor was tapping the hard hat on his head.
“Forgotten something?”
Dennis went for a hard hat hanging on the coat hooks.
“Sorry,” he said putting it on. He went to go left at the end of the corridor.
“Hey!”
“For fuck’s sake now what?” Dennis muttered to himself.
The supervisor was staring at him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the way to the heli-pad as well.
Dennis saw the sign with the helicopter on it on the wall.
“No of course not,” he smiled.
At the end of the corridor he looked back. The huge man was still glowering at him. Dennis quickly made his way on deck, relieved to be away from confrontation.
The helicopter rotor blades were already turning, getting faster and