1

Steve Ridout

Oilfield Trash

Copyright S t e v e R i d o u t The right of Steve Ridout to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 84963 179 2 www.austinmacauley.com First Published (2012) Austin & Macauley Publishers Ltd. 25 Canada Square Canary Wharf London E14 5LB

Printed & Bound in Great Britain 3

Acknowledgments
To my wife Jean for putting up with everything, and to Chris Stephens for technical help. In memory of Gordon Chic who urged me to finish the book.

Foreword

In the seventies, some bored wag in the drawing office of an oil company in Libya passed hot, tedious days away by sketching a caricature of what purports to be typical Oilfield Trash. It is the name, jocularly given, to men who work on oil or gas fields, pipelines, refineries, off-shore platforms, fabrication yards and any of the dozens of jobs where the black or brown, sickly sweet smelling liquid, or vapour, is brought to the earths surface: piped, refined, stored or processed. The cartoon shows a man wearing cowboy boots, and jeans held up by a thick leather belt; with a large oval buckle conspicuously holding it tight. A back view shows the owners name stamped and painted in black or bright colours it is a fancy belt for a fancy man. Arrows on the sketch point to divorce papers poking out of one pocket of an open denim jacket, with a tax demand sticking out of another. A circle highlights an Arab puzzle ring, which has diamonds sparkling on the cleverly made interlocking pieces it indicates that he has worked in the Persian Gulf, at some time. Those rings are now almost always worn by men, but the story is told that the four, six or sometimes eight piece, finely crafted rings were, in ancient times, given to the wives of men who were going away on long journeys, or off to war. If the lady had taken the ring off to be unfaithful, while he was away, he would know because the ring would not be on her finger when he returned: women were thought not to be clever enough to put the pieces back together again. Most of the men who wear one now have it soldered, once the jeweller has shown them how to fit it together in case they have to take it off! Other circles and arrows on the drawing bring the eyes to a gold chain with a solid nameplate hanging from one wrist, while a flashy watch weighs down the other. A heavy gold-link chain is 5

draped around his neck, and a large medallion lies on a hairy chest. On one point the artist it out of date, because the oil worker is wearing an aluminium hard-hat that has been intricately embossed and hand painted, which was a speciality of Iranian craftsmen. The repoussage was so delicately worked, and carefully painted, that oil workers would pay relatively large sums to have their hard-hats decorated in Iran. One particularly rare hat, seen In Bahrain, depicted a siege from Siamese history; it showed a herd of elephants, with mahouts, attacking a city wall. Dozens of tiny arrows are being showered down from the ramparts onto the Burmese besiegers, and the scene covers the whole dome of the aluminium hat. They are no longer worn on sites, because there have been fatalities when the aluminium has touched live power-lines. Finally, in one hand our man has an airline ticket to somewhere, anywhere, which scratches a wander itch. The caricature is true for a few oilfield trash, but most of it is untrue for the majority; though they do lead unusual lives. They build pipelines in arctic conditions, and refineries in the heat of jungles. They drill for oil in the temperatures of the worlds deserts, or man steel-legged towns on the oceans of the world. They go anywhere at a moments notice, if the money is right, but know that they can be laid off just as quickly thats accepted for the chance to earn big tax-free days. Not typical of oilfield trash is 73-year-old Harris Macklin, who is from a small village in Gloucestershire but is of the world, as he likes to think. He sits in his conservatory in 2011 watching the daily happenings in Libya on his screen, and remembers

Chapter 1

He leaned again towards the window to feel the heat rising from the street below, Harry Mack should be back in a few days, Michael Lander-Dyne said, as he turned to the open doorway of the next room, if this comes off, were going to need him, urgently. Louise Dyne, his wife, stopped typing and looked up from her machine: Hes in Thailand Mike. Hell be back the day after tomorrow, fingers crossed. He was wasting time on that unusually hot, late August afternoon staring out of his full-open, third floor office window. The afternoon sun, warming the facade of the building opposite like glass, caused a second floor window, directly across in the narrow side street, to swivel open to catch any cooling breeze. Mike found himself looking at the long mirror in the changing room of a boutique, in the department store that fronted onto the high street. Mike Dyne who long ago had dropped the first part of his double-barrelled name, because it had been easier not to use it on the Saudi Arabian oilfields where hed worked years earlier thumbed droplets of sweat from his brow. What luck! Now he had something to distract himself, he thought; bloody voyeurism! He sat down and started thumbing through the Asian Oil & Gas magazine, to find the article that detailed the new project that the Kalitan oil company had started in Borneo, and sat there savouring the thought that, later that afternoon, his company Palland Limited might be part of that project, which would make them a lot of money. How would you like to live in Singapore, Lou? he said, through the doorway. What do you have in mind? she asked. Well, the future in the oil industry is out east. Theyre 7

finding oil and gas fields everywhere: Malaysia, Thailand, Burma and, as we know, Indonesia. Therell be hundreds of off-shore rigs and thousands of people wanted; wed make a fortune. No. It is too humid for me, she said, fanning herself with papers. Those two days there, on the way back, were too much for me. You didnt think Sydney was too hot, Mike stated. It was coming on winter, Mike. Even this bloody office is too hot for me, so lets get some air conditioning put in here if were going to stay. I hope we dont have to, he said. He pressed the front of his silk shirt against his chest, to soak up the rivulets of sweat that itched their way down towards his paunch, and went through to the adjoining office to the large desk that Louise shared with his business partner, Dave Palmer. He stared at the facsimile machine lying silently against the wall. I hope weve got it, he said; more to bolster his own spirits than directly to Louise, this is the big one. He went back to the open window in his office, and stood looking down. Louise stopped reading the file she was holding. Relax love, she said then, realising that that was not enough, if you and Dave dont get it after all the work youve put in, somethings rotten in the States of America. Good word play, Mike Dyne thought. What a clever wife I have, he said, smiling back at her. They had worked hard he thought, and theyd prepared a winning package: to supply thirty men to work on pipelines and on an oil refinery extension in Borneo, for the Kalitan oil company of Indonesia with headquarters in the 1100 Milam building in downtown Houston, USA. The promised deadline for the confirmation of the deal was today; 10 oclock am, Texas time, which was fast approaching. It had taken endless hours of working out rotas and airline timetables; costing the travelling and lay-over hotels in Singapore, and doing the thousand things that were needed to put a good presentation together. Dave Palmer had made two trips to south-east Asia to dummy-run the routes, and to contact companies in Singapore who would be able to handle and process the visas to allow their group to work in Borneo it didnt have the same visa access as 8

the rest of Indonesia. Hed made a tentative agreement to use the facilities of a small accountancy firm on Robinson Road, in the business area of the city, and had been impressed by the efficiency of the young women in the office. They were also giving a lot of thought to running the contract from Singapore, which would save Palland, and the men, from paying tax in the UK. They had both made trips to Houston to review the oil companys requirements and schedules, and to see their American mentor Lawrence Kline who Mike had worked with twenty years earlier, and formed a friendship that had lasted. Hed been able to help them with information and advice, but hadnt been able to give them exact figures to enable them to secure the contract. However, he would be running the whole project, partly from Houston and partly from the companys local HQ in Samarinda, in Kalimantan the lower part of the Indonesian island of Borneo. He would be a highly placed ally, if they got the contract. To pass time, Mike went around to look at the large framed decals of what were widely known as the The Seven Sisters: the collective name given to the richest, and most powerful oil companies in the world. Mike had three of them hanging on the wall in his own office: Esso, BP and Gulf, and the other four; Texaco, Shell, Chevron and Mobil were strategically placed on the walls of the main office. Hed had a photocopy enlarged, in black and white, of the last named, and had painted the letters O, I and L in bright red. It had always annoyed him, when hed seen the Mobil sign, that the oil company hadnt done it as a small advertising feature. He hoped that visitors to the office would admire the decals, but also that someone might notice that there was something different about the Mobil one. Who knows? someone might see it, and give him the contract to run their advertising. Careers had been started on ideas as small as that, he thought. He gave up looking at the walls, and went back to staring into the ladies changing room, wishing that some pert, leggy young thing would come in and try on a frock to distract him from the agony of waiting. It wasnt a perversion was it, to admire the female form? All the same, he looked through at Louise and gave her a nervous-guilty smile, which puzzled her. She would take 9

the first chance, when he was away from his office, to sniff out what he was up to. Since Palland Limited had been formed named after the first part of both of the partners surnames, they had supplied pipeline supervisors, inspection personnel, instrument engineers, radiographers, and other skilled men for only one, long running contract in Libya. The supervisors had to be designated as inspectors, to circumvent the local labour laws. They had ten men shuttling backwards and forwards to the Nubimex oil companys Zayriir oilfield, deep in the Sahara Desert. Nubimex was one of the many independent oil companies that were part of the Libyan resources plan. Their men worked a six weeks on four weeks off schedule, working twelve hours a day except when a shamaal: the strong wind that is, conversely, given the name in Arabic of the direction to which it blows tons of sand, from the belly of the Sahara, to make drifts across the Zayriir oilfield for two or three days. Conditions are so bad then, that its impossible to walk outside the accommodation building. Sand also works its way through the edges of the frames, and leaves small mounds on the bottom corners of the windows. If they got the OK on this Indonesian contract, it would involve recruiting, processing, shepherding, and wet-nursing a bunch of individualistic men halfway around the world. It would be a big, continuous circle of men that revolved every twelve weeks. The logistics of it were complicated, and to Mike Dyne it seemed like some intricate board game: FLY TO SINGAPORE STAY TWO DAYS TO GET VISA FOR INDONESIA FLY ACROSS BORNEO TO BANJARMASIN INTERNAL FLIGHT TO SAMARINDA HELICOPTER TO OILFIELD WORK EIGHT WEEKS RETURN TO SAMARINDA RETURN TO BANJARMASIN RETURN TO SINGAPORE FLY BACK TO LONDON. Men would be arriving as others left. It would mean big problems, but it would also mean a lot of income to their small company and give them the resources to bid for other, bigger contracts, worldwide. At least, it would give them enough money to move out of these miserable rooms, he thought. 10

No woman had yet come into the cubicle across the street; perhaps his luck was completely out. It seemed strange to him that at such an important time as this, he should be concentrating so much energy on such a silly thing as wanting to see a girl strip off to her underwear. He wondered if the combination of his nerves jangling, because of that bloody machine next door and his increased concentration on the room below, could be him trying to force his willpower to make something happen; he didnt really believe it, though, did he? Hed heard of people trying to move objects by mental power alone, and he remembered his father sitting opposite him, at their dining room table, asking him to concentrate and try to pick out a particular card from the five that he was holding. His father held four aces and a king, and young Mike had to pick the king. Hed put all his thoughts into trying to get a picture that would produce it, but it had never worked. Sometimes hed ended up with a headache, so he hated doing it. His father had finally given up because, he said, the percentage of getting the correct card was no greater than pure chance. He had a vague memory that it was called Pelmanism; a science hed no knowledge of. He remembered that hed seen it done, years later, on some TV scientific programme, with five different cards: a square, circle, star, wavy lines, and he forgot what the fifth card was. But hed bet that theyd had no better results than he and his father had who could ever know other peoples thoughts? For a moment, he questioned if it could leave him permanently drawn to voyeurism to assuage lifes tensions so deeply had he been concentrating on the window opposite. The buzz of expectation was almost as exciting as having money on a horse in the Derby and, being well behind, the horse suddenly comes with a late run in the straight its got the speed, but does it have the stamina to do the mile and a half? Mike glanced again at the fax machine lying somnolent against the wall, and wondered how much more of this waiting he could stand. Time dragged interminably, and the heat and incessant clatter of Louises typewriter made him feel a bit disorientated. At exactly four oclock, the machine came to life and started humming. A sheet of paper slid down into the tray, followed by 11

others. Without looking at him, Louise swivelled her chair around and began reading the first sheet her face remained blank. But, for that too long moment when she continued to stare intently at the paper in her hand if shed looked at him his blood would have turned to ice he knew that they had the contract. Weve got it! he said, jubilantly. He felt the relief flow through his body, and the stiffness in his neck ease. He was surprised to learn how tense hed been, but a sudden squirt of adrenalin saw him do a childish jig. Her smile confirmed it, and she leaned back in her swivel chair, laughed, and looked again at the fax, Just to make sure. Dont move your lips when you read, he said, exhaling a deep breath. His next thought was to start worrying about how they could round up so many men, of such a wide experience in the oil industry, to work on the expansion of a refinery and supervise the running of pipelines through the Borneo tropical rain forest. The four inch diameter pipes would carry crude oil from the wellheads to manifolds, which could accommodate a number of pipes; thence to a bigger diameter, main transmission pipe. The oil would then be pumped to the storage tank facility, forty miles up the coast, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to the world. That would be a continuous operation until the refinery expansion was completed, and could accept the increased flow of oil from the numerous pipelines that his men would be laying throughout the Mahakam Delta. If any of the men, working for Nubimex in Libya, could be persuaded to go to Indonesia by Harry Macklin, it would be a good start, Mike thought. He needed Harry to start it rolling, because he would have a lot of the men in one place. What he could do was talk to all the men on the Zayriir oilfield, hired through whichever agency, and get them to sign up for this project in Indonesia. Where were his people now, he wondered. He knew that Glyn Atkins had gone straight through to Libya from Thailand, without stopping in at the office. He was annoyed about that, because there had been mail to hand out in Zayriir. Harry Macklin would have to do that now, but it would have helped if he could have spoken to Glyn, directly. Billy Law, a wiry, fair-haired Scot, who had travelled home 12

to Aberdeen on his thirty-seventh birthday, two days earlier, would be back through the office in four weeks. He wouldnt complete his next cycle until sometime in November, and then would need time off before going to Indonesia, if he accepted, but it was all up in the air at the moment. Mike would have to work out who was where, and how he could get some of the people lined up to travel together. He did know that from their leave cycles they would have to go out in at least two waves at the start, to replace each other. He also realised that he would need a supervisor in Indonesia, on the refinery project, to take overall charge of his group of men. On his visits through the office, Harry Macklin had talked about the other agency people he was working with, and the name Jimmy Austin had been brought up as someone who had authority on the site. Harry had said that he was a straight man to work for, and the Palland crew got on well with him. Jimmy Austin was a sixty-one year old, whod spent most of his working life as a welder, then supervisor, on various shipyards and oil rig construction sites on the Tyne-Tees coast, in the north of England. Hed also worked for a year in Bahrain, and spent a couple of years in the United Arab Emirates in his long working life. If it hadnt been for a good family life, he would have liked to spend more time in the Persian Gulf. He knew a lot about most things involving joining metals together: the codes that were used in the steel pipeline industry particularly API 1104, the American Pipeline Industry code, and ASME, for mechanical engineering. He also knew hardness and tensile testing, and the various requirements for different steels in most applications. He was on the Nubimex contract through another agency, but if Harry could tell him that Arnold Ronson, Sandy McCarr and Vincent Norman were all going to Borneo, Jimmy might understand that Nubimex had all of its eggs in one basket on the pipelines in Zayriir. He might also see that if there was no work being done while the company waited for replacement personnel, he could be out of a job for a long time because he was a contract worker he almost certainly would be retired, because of his age. That was one of the drawbacks, though, Mike thought; his age. But he would still make an effort to get the man signed up, because he would be valuable to them. 13

Mike thought that Vincent Norman, who lived in Malaysia, could be his Ace in the hole. His background gave him skills in all types of work which would be useful in Borneo, but even more useful to Palland was that he lived where it was just a short hop from Malaysia to Borneo. If there was any quick stand-in work to be done he would be perfectly placed, and Mike hoped to do a special deal with him. There were others at Nubimex who could possibly be induced to leave their jobs; Libya was generally detested, and Nubimex equally so. He would run adverts for the other men he would need to spread between the two countries, and the Indonesian project would let him offer more money to attract people to work in North Africa. He could upgrade radiographers and ultrasonic people and, if needs be, he could quietly put just one experienced pipeline man in to run the whole thing but Nubimex wouldnt be told about it. They still had months before the first of their men had to fly out to Singapore, so tomorrow would be soon enough to start worrying about it, he concluded. At five-thirty, when Dave Palmer arrived back from his liquid lunch hed not been able to stand the waiting and had been given the good news, Louise beckoned her husband back into his office and pointed down to the open window below and across the street. They stood looking at a tallish girl, with stylish, short hair, staring at the mirror; she was dressed only in her knickers. What have you turned into Mike Dyne? Louise asked, smirking as she said it. How do you mean Lou? he asked. Well, if you look carefully at the mirror youll see that that is definitely not the distaff side. Youve been spying on the gents outfitter, she said. I know because I shop in the store, and I know the lay out. Youre telling me that Ive? Yes, she cut in, but I forgive you as long as youre not too deeply into it, she smiled. Nothing gained there, he thought. He felt tired, but as his old dad used to say, sufficient is it unto the day. He really didnt know what it meant, but it sounded good so he used it at times. It had been a good day, and tonight he would take them all out for a meal. 14

Two days later, Sandy McCarr and Harris Macklin came into the Palland office within hours of each other, and Mike offered them both a deal to sign up people in Libya. Louise Dyne sensed that something had happened to Harry in Thailand, but he didnt say anything about it and she didnt like to ask questions. She guessed that it must have concerned his wife Wanee, and felt uneasy for him. To her, Harry had always seemed like a lost soul. His life was only about work, and she hoped that getting him away from Libya would help him.

15

Chapter 2

The seventy-three year old man, looking and feeling older than he was, sat in his conservatory on a bright September day bathing in the heat that was generated by the sun as it traced an arc across the sky it gave him a temperature that his body craved. Moonface, whose given name was Supatra, had carried the nickname since Harris Macklin and his group had come into the Trixoco bar in Borneo, almost thirty years earlier. She brought a well-iced whisky over to him, and put it on his small table. Then she turned the television off, as hed asked, ruffled his grey hair and sat peacefully in the hot, glass conservatory with him. He smiled at her, and wiped his brow with a towel that he always kept close his face was the only part of his body that welcomed the cleansing sweat, so that he could feel the instant relief as he mopped it away. Hed spent most of 2011 watching a country viciously exploding, and the last two hours watching as oil workers were rescued from various dirt airports, across Libya, carrying what bags they could. Some of them would know that they were back on the labour market, and might never work again. Certainly, for the older men it would be hard to find such highly paid employment in the oil industry. His mobile tinkled a vaguely oriental sound; the nearest he could get to a tune that gave him a remembrance of south-east Asia. He mouthed to Supatra that it was Sandy McCarr. Hiya Sandy, hows Thailand? He listened for a moment. Good. Yes, Ive been watching it. Its hard to believe that it was almost thirty years ago, but it is a coincidence isnt it? Harry Macklin said. What month was it exactly, Harry? Sandy asked. I dont remember, Sand. I know the currency exchange was early in the year, and our last trip was in September 1981. Dont 16

you remember it was their freedom day, and Green Square was ram-jam? Every few minutes, while we were watching the trials, they kept showing pictures of the Colonel and thousands of happy Libs. Do you remember that old bloke with the rifle, and no laces in his boots, sleeping against a wall? Harry smiled at the memory of an old man dressed in army clothing, too tired to care about what his leader was saying a long way in the distance, so hed sat down and fallen asleep. I cant make any sense out of it, Harry. I think theres something deep and devious about all these wars there are things happening in this country that we dont know about, Sandy said. Im glad I dont live here anymore. Harry thought, but didnt say that, since young master Blair had been down to Libya and given Colonel Qaddafi a kiss on his arse, the country had been admitted back into the world of nations and the sanctions lifted; but tectonic plates move. I think Libya signed all sorts of oil deals, with all sorts of major oil companies, just a short time ago. I may be wrong, but Ive never heard that any of the contracts have been reneged on, so I guess it isnt directly about the black liquid, Harry said. I heard that it was because he didnt dish out contracts to the Yanks or us, or even the Frogs. All the lucrative work was given to China and Russia, so who knows whats happening? Sandy said. Im glad Im not there now. You wouldnt be, youd be on a bloody plane on your way home by now, but youre right Sandy, Qaddafi has never been the Yanks man since the early seventies, so this has been brewing for a long time all it needed was a spark to light it, and our dummy to front it. Somebody in Washington says something, and our politicians become vaporous. The Yanks think the sun revolves around America, and we do everything we can to keep them thinking that, Harry said. He thought for a moment then added, In the early seventies, when all of the Arab countries put the price of oil up, he told America that he wouldnt sell it to them anymore unless they stopped supporting Israel, so even then he was their enemy. Sandy said, After we left, he nationalised the oil companies didnt he? I get lost with it all. Didnt he nationalise them a second time? Harry didnt answer. Ill give you an idea, Sandy. For years, 17

six feet and bigger diameter concrete pipes were going into Libya from Italy, because Qaddafi was harnessing the massive amount of water thats under the desert. It was to be brought to the coast, to develop an agricultural society. There were thousands of them, and I think it went as far south as Kufra, where the Tou Bou tribe comes from. Theres got to be a joke there, somewhere, Sandy laughed. But whats that got to do with the bombing, Harry? Well, dont you remember Zayriir, when things were running down? For every well that was bringing oil up at 200 pounds a square inch (psi), there were four wells, a hundred feet away in a square pattern, pumping in water at 2,000 psi each thats 8,000 psi to keep the wells producing. It was the same pattern all over the field: four water injectors to one producer. There were complaints all the time that the water table was dropping, and various oases were becoming uninhabitable. I still dont get it, Sandy said, why go to war over that? Think, Sandy. If he has drained the water from under the Sahara and there was reputed to be lakes of it the oilfields that rely on water injection, to produce crude, would be finished. So its the water they want, to keep the crude coming up? Sandy asked. Yes, high pressure water, where the oil isnt coming up easily. It could put Qaddafi back in control of his oil, for genuine reasons. Who could argue with a country wanting to feed its own people from agriculture? Britain could, if it suited Americas purpose. They only care about their own interests. And if he wants to put the water back into producing oil at a later date, he can do it, Sandy said. He can do what he wants. Listen, everyone is saying that this war is about oil. If the USA controls the country, who are they going to sell the oil to: Shell, BP, Mobil, Texaco? What will the Chinese say about that? or the Russians? or any other country thats not been dealt in for the spoils? Harry asked. Christ, it makes some sort of sense, doesnt it? It makes more sense than spending a thousand million pounds to get rid of just one man, as they did in Iraq. Still, its only the thoughts of an old man Sandy, Harry said, playing the game of a self-effacing geriatric. Its a lot of money to blow, though, Sandy said. 18

What the fuck does it matter to us, Sand? Weve not worked there for years, and our money isnt paying for any of the bombs. Youre right, Sandy agreed. Harry said, I dont know what to think about Libya now, really. He smiled, and then thought back thirty years to the time when he, and a few other men, had made plans to escape from Libya, for what might have been exactly the same dire circumstances: the chance that a war was going to break out. He told his friend what he was thinking, and in reply to something Sandy said he told him that it wasnt because of the currency exchange. It was because of what was in the newspapers that Donal Symmonds had brought with him to Zayriir. Theyd said that Israel was going to bomb Libya if they got near to producing a nuclear weapon. Dont you remember? Stan was going off his rocker, Harry said. He listened as Sandy laughed, then said: I wouldnt bet against it involving Israel again theres no buffer now, with Egypt going either way. If they turn the wrong way and Qaddafi joins in with them, its TTFN Tel Aviv. I think Israel got their proxy to light it, then they got their proxy to take it on, and we did. You think thats what happened? Sandy asked. What you mean is mugs, not proxies, Harry. Yes, but who knows? he said. Harry closed his eyes when Sandy asked him if hed seen the Zayriir camp in any of the TV footage. He tried to imagine if any of the programmes hed been watching had shown anything like the Zayriir camp, but had to tell Sandy that it had never been mentioned. He told him that theyd shown just stretches of dirt runways, and transport planes with their back-loading doors open, and oil workers carrying their bags onto the planes. Also he hadnt heard the word used in any of the coverage, and hed been watching for days. Harry said, Years after we were there the field got worked out, and they developed another field over ten miles away, to the south. It was called Akhbar, which is green in Arabic. They might have the airport under that name, now. Green Sahara, Sandy quipped. That would be a good title for a book. Do you remember Abdul Jaliil? In 1979 he was made 19

Minister for Justice, aged twenty-nine. He was one of Qaddafis monsters for thirty years; he jumped ship in February this year, and now hes one of the big-wigs who might be in the new government, Harry said. Its crazy! And Moosa Koosa, Sandy said. As I told you Harry, something Machiavellian is going on. I heard that Moosa has done a runner to Qatar, and they put up a lot of the money to get rid of the nutty colonel. That was probably to get awarded the football World Cup. Well find out, eventually. Maybe, Sandy said. Later, Harry Macklin heard that Qaddafi had been killed, and after that nothing more was heard about Libya: no correspondents news stories; no television from or about the place nothing. It must have turned instantly into a little paradise; maybe the place was now Shangri La, he thought. He changed the subject: Hey Sandy, you knew that Glyn died? There were a few lines about him in the south Wales papers, years ago; his brother must have put it in. I dont think he ever came back to Britain, at least not to spend any time here. Years ago I heard that hed landed lucky, so he stayed on in Indonesia. Poor bugger, he was only fifty-eight! What about the passport problems he had? Sandy asked. It didnt mean a thing. He had years before he needed another one, and they wouldnt have known that hed been deported from Borneo. There was only the telex fax machines were just coming in then, I think, and it was Indonesia! I met him in Singapore a couple of years after we got booted out of Borneo, Harry said. Id heard that he was doing well on that big gas plant in Aceh, and it was just bad luck that they were there when the tsunami came over them. There were hundreds of people just washed away, it shocked me. I think that stretch along the top of Sumatra was hit the worst. She was a lovely girl, Sandy said. They all were. They were both silent for a while, thinking of Maryam and Glyn. Did you tell Supatra, Harry? No. He said, looking across at Supatra to see if shed heard what they were talking about, I think it would upset her too 20

much. They spoke for a while about other people that theyd worked with, and then Harry ended the conversation: Anyway, Sandy, I have to go. You get down here before you go back, and Ill pick you up at the station. Just let me know, OK? Supatra had been listening to the scratch of Sandys voice down the line, and thought back to how shed liked all of the men whod come into the Trixoco bar, in Borneo. They had all been good fun and had spent money, but she was glad it was Harry whod come in before any of the others, and had taken up with her. In the background, she vaguely heard him speaking. His voice seemed distant, and then nothing: she was asleep. He stood up and, using his walking-stick, shambled slowly over to the window and stood staring out at his garden. But he saw nothing, other than the past. He remembered it all. He thought back to the fraud that had been pulled on him over thirty years earlier, in Thailand, by what hed thought of then as his wife Wanee. Strangely, one particular thing that had been said to him, in those days, had kept coming back to him. Hed wondered then what it could have meant. I dont know what kind of marriage ceremony you went through, Mister Macklin. That had been said to him by a policeman in a jail in northern Thailand, so hed more or less guessed that it meant his marriage had been a sham, but it hadnt dawned on him for a long time. Well, now, so what? It was a long time ago, but it had niggled over the years to think that hed been stitched up so easily. His mind ranged over his life in Libya, Indonesia, and Thailand, and he felt a pang of sadness that he was, long ago, too old to keep travelling and working. But he had good memories, he thought, looking back at Supatra who was sleeping. *** But the story continues: At age forty-three Harris Macklin, with his hair starting to grey known to his friends in the oil industry in different parts of the world as Harry Mack, was comfortably settled in a port-side, window seat, over thirty thousand feet high, flying south to Libya. His spirits were high with the knowledge that this would be 21

his last trip to the dry, sand-blown Sahara Desert. Hed worked there for over two dreary years, but would soon be heading to the, equatorial heat of Indonesia. He gulped a slug of Bells whisky from a quarter bottle that hed bought in London, earlier in the day, before Mick Dyne had driven him and Sandy McCarr down to Gatwick airport to catch the British Caledonian flight to Tripoli. He was thankful that Louise had been able to get them onto the Cally flight, rather than Libyan airlines. It was friendlier than most of the other airlines hed ever travelled on, and he mentally toasted the men and women who dished out the service and put up with so much boisterousness; particularly on the release from jail flight, back from Tripoli. If some of the antics that happened on that particular flight were to happen on any another airline, two laughing coppers would be waiting at the exit gate and the next touchdown for the reveller would be the local nick. He gave one of the angels a smile as she went past, but she looked at him as if he was mad. He felt annoyed that alcohol was not allowed to be sold, for flights to Libya, in the airport duty-free shopping area, and that hed had to sneak his own supplies onto the plane. The more he thought about it the more annoyed he became. To think that the Land of Hope and Glory kowtowed to a jumped-up dictator like Qaddafi, and let him tell the people of the UK what they could buy in their airports! That was the respect that Britain was held in these days, he thought, and seemed happy to accept. Mind you, he remembered that the boys who were called up with him for national service didnt have much respect for Britannia, either: Low pay, bad grub; sea sickness getting to some God forsaken country and homesickness when you got there; Mother of the free, my arse! He remembered the old song they used to sing when they were pissed: #Rule Britannia, let them all go hang. One Chinese cracker up her arsehole: bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. On the second line they would wave their Lee Enfield, boltaction 303s around, and shoot everything that moved. Fortunately they didnt have ammunition, so hundreds of lives were saved. He silently mouthed the bangs, and smiled as he remembered the 22

past. Come to think of it, they didnt sing it at all when they were up in the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus, searching for General George Grivas and the EOKA terrorists. Their throats were dry, most of the time, and they had to keep swallowing every few seconds. Harry took another swig of his whisky, and stared out at the sun-bright, snowy mountains and dark, shaded fields, far below. The low drone from the engines lulled him into drowsiness as Mont Blanc passed slowly, down to his left and he dozed. A couple of rows behind him, through the babble of conversation and general noise, he vaguely heard Sandy McCarrs loud, false guffawing at some joke hed just made, or heard. He hadnt changed at all over the years that Harry had known him, except for that laugh. Hed started it recently, and it was meant to ridicule whoever Sandy had a run-in with, particularly in Libya. It seemed to fit his personality, though. A while later, breaking out of his reverie, Harry saw a coastline, diagonally across in the distance, and knew that in a short time the sea would give way to narrow sandy beaches. Soon, they would be low enough to see oranges on the trees in the dark soil, and dried-up wadis at the carpet edge of the Sahara. He stood up quickly, and excused himself along the busy aisle to a vacant toilet at the rear, giving Sandy McCarr a thumbs-up on the way. Inside the small cubicle Harry took his windcheater off and hung it on the door and did the same with his denim shirt, but facing towards him. He took two, flat, half bottles of whisky out of the small bag he was carrying, and slipped them into two, strong cloth pockets that had been sewn close together into the shirt at the small of the back. He put his shirt back on, and tucked it in tight at the front. He then pulled his belt in to the last hole, to stop the shirt pulling down at the back, where it would be left loose and hanging down outside his trousers. He kept the two middle buttons on the shirt done up, to stop it pulling across his shoulders. He would leave his windcheater open and flapping at the back, so any bulge would be hidden. The Libyans had never gone as far as a personal search before, so he didnt expect there to be any trouble this time. Anyway, his front was showing an honest openness, and with the jacket unzipped everything would look natural. It was like 23

someone menacing you you always faced them. The danger, in this case, would be the Libyan officials at the airport, and those he was dealing with would always be front-on to him. He would have Sandy covering his back. He then took two more bottles from the bag, and pushed one down each of his wide-topped cowboy boots. Fiddling out a small roll of brown parcel-tape from a side pocket, he bent down and rolled a loop around the top of each boot to hold the bottles firm. He smiled when he remembered what Mike Dyne had told him about the oil areas of Saudi Arabia, and how they moved alcohol around in specially made stainless steel tanks attached to the underside of their vehicles. His leather boots had been bought, years earlier, specifically for the purpose of smuggling bottles of alcohol. He also wore jeans that had been slightly altered, to widen from the knee down. They had a bell-bottom look, and the extra width allowed them to fit over any bulge in the boots, to disguise it. Harry had a few pairs of jeans like it, and over the years hed taken small amounts of whisky into a lot of dry countries. He liked the image of himself as a bootlegger. On the way back to his seat, he gave Sandy a smile and a nod. He was now a committed smuggler of alcohol again, but if he was found out at Tripoli airport he would be held, probably, until the Cally flight was ready to return to the UK. Then, he would be on it without his baggage and personal belongings. Back in his seat, he took a last sip of whisky before putting the empty bottle on the floor and preparing himself for the landing. A few bumps along the runway, and they were down and rolling slowly towards the Tripoli airport terminal. Harry Macklin, pipeline supervisor for the Nubimex oil company of Libya, yawned and stretched his frame as the heat hit him coming down the steps of the British Caledonian airlines Boeing 737, from Gatwick. He unzipped his light-weight overlarge windcheater, and sauntered towards the airport building. He joined a group of oil workers shuffling towards three immigration booths, on their way to various desert locations. Harry automatically scanned the lines ahead to see which was the shortest, but the spread was about equal so he settled himself for a long wait. Back to the sweaty crotch, he said, loudly, to no-one in 24

particular, and was rewarded with a few ironic smiles from the men nearest to him for the comic description. Sandy McCarr, forty-one year old radiography inspector and ultrasonic technician, who could weld and take charge of pipelines he would tell you, came down the steps of the plane not far behind Harry Macklin. He was wearing a short-trousered, khaki, tropical suit and industrial Red Wing boots. Hed always dressed like that coming into Libya and, apart from being practical he liked the thought that it looked as if he was arriving to claim the place from the savages. If he could have got hold of a pith helmet, to make the image complete, he would have worn one. He thought of Libya as the worst country hed ever worked in. He mostly worked on the same pipelines as Harry, so they took home leave, usually, at the same time. They made a good team and got on well together, despite being such disparate people. Harry was mainly a dour introvert, and was a strange man to read there was no box he could be fitted into. Sandy moved into the line behind Harry, and they shuffled along with the rest. As the queue moved slowly forward, Harry thought about the men they would have to pirate away from the Nubimex oil company in the next weeks. Sandy had grabbed the Indonesian deal, and Harry laughed at the idea that Mike Dyne was going to pay them a bonus of a hundred pounds, for every man on the Zayriir oilfield that they could recruit to go to Borneo. If Mike had known it, both of them would have paid him to get out of the Libyan rat-hole with a guaranteed job in such an exotic location as Indonesia. Probably so would most oil workers in Libya, and Harry was banking on that to pull a few away from the desert. Of the others that they worked with on the Zayriir field, about three hundred miles south east of Tripoli with sand and scrub to the horizon in all directions, Harry considered that Stan Fennel would be one of the few who wouldnt want to go to Indonesia. He would probably want to stay in the desert, because of the good leave rotation, and for personal reasons. Stan valued the four weeks off, at the end of every six weeks that he worked; but it would be just two extra weeks working with three weeks off, Harry thought. It would be four, almost, if you counted the three days in Singapore waiting for working visas and flights, and 25

two on the way back. He could even spend time on a tropical beach, if he fancied. Just to be annoying, they both lit up cigars and blew smoke around to show that they werent overawed by all the uniforms. At the immigration desk the man gave some exaggerated signs of irritation as the smoke wafted around him and, looking up, he saw Sandys face almost over his desk, peering down. A quick, heavy stamp on Harry Macks passport and he was through, but he took a long time checking Sandys papers; all the time giving out signs of displeasure, and menace. Finally, he could detain Sandy no longer, and the two of them moved on to collect their bags. The official continued to fire looks of hate at their backs as they moved on to the next point. It didnt hurt to have Sandy guffawing and playing the fool alongside him, Harry thought, to distract Qaddafis last line of defence against naughty goods getting into the country. Immigration had been easy, but the customs people would be a lot smarter. Oh yes? Harry sneered smarter; as in throwing vacuum-sealed packets of bacon on the ground and stamping on them? As they moved on to the customs station, Harry knew that he had a trump card on top of the working clothes in his case. In fact he had two trump cards, and a clincher just underneath the denim shirt that was on top of his case. There was a packet of Danish bacon, visible as the lid was opened, and loose packets of condoms on top of that. He smiled as he looked down at the open case, showing the lures that he knew they would grab. There was also a copy of Playboy, underneath the top shirt, and those should be enough to sidetrack them from finding the extra whisky that was buried at the bottom of the case. They should be, and they were they fell for it every time! Harry chuckled to himself as the official threw the sealed bacon package and the condoms below the counter. After further rummaging, he found the dirty magazine and, after shaking it under Harrys nose, threw it so that it slid towards an open office door his search was over. Bacon served as fish red herring, Harry smirked. He still had two large tins of Spam at the bottom of his hand luggage, and that would fry up for breakfast with the black pudding and bacon that would make it through in someone elses luggage. Some 26

guy would bring in enough grub to cook a Full English in one of the contractors kitchens; where nobody objected to porcine nosh. The two men strolled out of Tripoli airport, for the last time, in a cloud of King Edward smoke thankful that they wouldnt have to go through anything like that again. The next time they would be going through customs would be back in Blighty, which didnt count. But after that it would be Singapore, where they would hang you if you were carrying dope.

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