Culver touched the wounds, then closed his eyes, quickly opening them again when his thoughts became even more vivid. He stared into the surrounding fog and Kate became aware that he was trembling. She assumed it was a reaction to the previous night's events and quickly changed position to put an arm around his shoulder.
‘You did what you could for all of them, Steve. Don't let it prey on your mind. You can't be responsible for all our lives.'
His words were sharp as he pulled away. 'I know that!'
Kate did not allow the rebuttal; she moved with him. 'What is it, Steve? There's something more that you won't tell me. Clare mentioned something to me back there in the shelter, when you were sick. You were delirious, talking, calling out for someone. Clare thought it was a woman, a girl, someone who meant a great deal to you and who drowned. You've never told me, Steve, not in all the time we were inside the shelter; can't you tell me now?'
Kate was surprised to see a smile appear, albeit a bitter one.
'Clare got it wrong. It wasn't someone close and it wasn't a girl. It was a machine.'
She stared at him in confusion.
'A goddam helicopter, Kate. Not a person, not a wife or lover; a Sikorsky S61 helicopter.' His short laugh expressed the bitterness of his smile. 'I crashed the bloody thing because of my own stupid carelessness.'
She was relieved, but could not understand why the memory still haunted him.
As if reading her mind, he added, 'I crashed her into the sea and eighteen men went down with her.'
It made sense to her now: his frequent remoteness, the aloofness towards the happenings around them and the decisions that had had to be made, yet the reckless bravery to save others, the risks he took. For some reason he blamed himself for the deaths of these eighteen men and, a natural survivor, he disdained his own survival. He had no death wish, of that she was sure, but his 'life' wish was not so strong either. So far it seemed to be the survival of others that drove him on, starting at the very beginning with Alex Dealey. She hesitated for a moment, but she had to dare to ask, had to know how justified his guilt feelings were.
Will you tell me what happened?' she said.
At first, when the coldness crept into his blue-grey eyes, she thought he would decline; then his gaze swept past her, staring intently into the mist as if seeing the destruction beyond. Whatever inner battle was taking place, it was soon resolved. Perhaps his own guilt feelings paled into insignificance against this vast obscene backdrop, itself a devastating indictment of mankind's culpability; or perhaps he had just wearied of his self-inflicted penance and felt admission -confession? - would expel its demons. Whatever the motive, he lay back against the scorched grass and began to tell her.
Tears ago, when the North Sea oil boom really took off, the big charter companies found themselves desperately short of helicopter pilots to ferry oil-rig crews back and forth. Bristow's could take an experienced single-wing pilot and turn him into an experienced chopper pilot in three months, with no charge for the training; an agreement to work for them for at least two years was the only stipulation. I signed on, went through their training, but unfortunately didn't quite manage to fulfil the contract.'
He avoided her eyes and flicked at a fly that was buzzing close to his head.
The money and conditions were great,' Culver went on, 'so was the company. There wasn't much risk involved because flying wasn't permitted under extreme weather
conditions; occasionally an emergency would take us out at such times, and now and again bad weather caught us without warning. The morning my chopper went down into the sea started perfectly: sun shining, calm waters, little breeze. I guess if it hadn't been like that, none of us would have survived.'
He fell into silence once more and Kate thought he had changed his mind, had decided the memory was best left undisturbed. He looked at her as if asking her trust and, by lying close beside him, head resting against his shoulder, she gave it.
'I had a full load,' he finally went on. Twenty-six passengers - engineers, riggers, a relief medical team -
and everyone seemed cheered by the fine weather. I remember the sun dazzling off the water as if it were no more than a huge placid lake. We took off and flew at a height of fifteen hundred feet towards our designated oil rig. We were soon over it and flying past, gradually descending to our inbound level...'
Kate raised her head and looked at him in puzzlement.
'Sorry,' he said. 'Standard procedure for rig landing is to fly five miles beyond, descend to two hundred feet and head back, preferably with the wind behind. The rig shows on radar, although the blip disappears from the scanner when it's within a mile's range; after that you rely on sight.
'Everything was normal, no problems at all. I was still on the outbound course, levelling off, when we ran smack into a thick sea mist.'
He shivered, his body becoming tense, and Kate held him tight.
'It was sudden, but no cause for alarm. I turned the machine and headed back in the direction of the rig, flying even lower to keep visual contact with the sea. I should have risen above the fog bank, but I figured we were close to the rig and would soon be clear of the mist.
But you see, the fog was shifting and moving in the same direction - that's why it had come up on us so swiftly when we were outbound. Then, without any warning, I had nothing at all to focus on.
'I should have switched to instrument flying, but I was confident I could rely on my own instincts to take us clear; all I had to do was maintain a constant altitude. The Civil Aviation Authority has a term for it:
'Pilot disorientation', an overwhelming compulsion for a pilot to believe in his own senses rather than what his instruments tell him. They say it's a common phenomenon, even among the most experienced aircrew; all I know is that my stupidity cost the lives of those men.'
'Steve, you can't blame yourself.' She tugged at his collar as if to shake sense into him.
'I can, and I do,' he said quietly. 'Every pilot who has lost his aircraft and killed his passengers and who has himself survived feels the same way, even when no fingers are pointed at him. It's something there's just no refuge from.'
She saw it was pointless to argue at that moment. Tell me what happened,' she said, and this time there was no reluctance on his part to continue.
We hit the sea and bounced off. We hit again and the floor was ripped out. One of the flotation tanks must have been damaged, too, because next time we hit, the copter flipped over and sank.
'I found myself outside, lungs full of freezing water. Don't ask me how I got out, I don't remember; maybe through an escape hatch, or maybe I just floated through the ripped floor. I was semi-conscious, but I could see the helicopter below, sinking fast, disappearing into that deep, never-ending gloom. I broke surface, coughing water, half-drowned, that
murky vision already working its own special torture. I tried to get rid of my lifejacket, tried to tear it off so I could go back down, help those still trapped inside the helicopter, anything to relieve me of my guilt there and then, even if it meant my own death; but other hands grabbed me, held me there. My junior captain had escaped, too, and was clinging to me, one of the surviving riggers helping him. They stopped me diving and sometimes I curse them for it.
'Only eight of us made it. Other bodies were recovered later, but most went down with the Sikorsky.
We were lucky that another helicopter was preparing for take-off on another rig close to the one we were headed for; when we lost radio contact and disappeared from the radar scanner, it was sent out to search for us. By the time it reached our last point of contact, the fog bank had drifted on and we were visible. They winched us aboard just in time; any longer and the cold would have finished us, even though the weather itself was mild.'
Culver sighed deep and long, as though some of the pain had been released with the telling. His voice became flat, unemotional. The wreckage was never recovered, so the investigators couldn't be sure if instrument failure had been involved; but from my own account and my co-pilot's, 'pilot disorientation'
was assumed. The CAA rarely classes it as a sign of incompetence or negligence, so no action was taken against me. It was my fault, of course, but not officially, and no one voiced any accusations.'
'And yet you blamed yourself,' said Kate.
'If I'd followed the book, those people would still be alive.'
