Hammond Innes - Campbell's Kingdom

I don’t know quite how I had expected it to look by daylight, but when I reached the window and looked out across the Kingdom, drab grey and swept by rain, I stood appalled. There was no sign of the gas jet. There was nothing to show we’d ever drilled there or ever had a rig there. I was looking out across a wide expanse of water. It began just beyond the barns and extended right across to the slopes of the mountains on the farther side. The Kingdom was already half flooded. It was a lake and the wind was driving across it, ploughing it up into waves and flecking it with white. ‘Oh God!’ I said and I dropped my head on my arms.

Steve Strachan did his best to try and visualise the well blowing in as we had seen it, but I knew he wasn’t really convinced. It wasn’t that he thought we were crooks, making up the story for the sake of proving what we knew wasn’t true. It was just that he knew how strung up we all were. I suppose he felt that in these circumstances a man is capable of seeing something that never really happened. He did his best. He made polite noises as we described every detail of it. But every now and then he’d say, ‘Yes, I know, but I’ve got to convince my editor.’ Or in answer to a question: ‘Sure I believe you, but just show me something concrete that’ll prove it really happened.’

But what evidence had we? Soaked to the skin, we trudged along the shores of that damned lake looking for a slick of oil, or stood, searching the spot where the rig had been, trying to locate the bubbles that the escaping gas must be making. But little white-caps frisked across the spot and even through glasses we could see no sign of bubbles. The memory of that gas vent flaring high into the night faded until it was difficult for those of us who had actually seen it to believe that it had been real.

I remember Garry standing there cursing whilst the rain streamed down his lined face as though he were crying. We were huddled there in a little bunch by the edge of that sudden lake, our faces grey as the leaden cloud that blanketed the slopes of the mountains opposite with rain, and exhaustion and despair were stamped on our features. We had the grim, hopeless, half-drowned look of a shipwrecked crew.

‘If only they’d waited till the time they said,’ Boy murmured.

‘They could see it blow in as well as we could,’ Garry said. He turned to me. ‘Remember the water we ran into when we got clear of the rig and the reflection of the moonlight? They were flooding then, flooding up to the rig, just in case. And when they saw the rig go…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘God dammit. One more day.’ There was all the bitterness of a gambler who has lost in his voice. ‘Our only hope is to persuade them to drain the Kingdom. Independent judges could tell at a glance that we’d struck oil bearing country.’

‘How?’ Steve Strachan asked.

‘How?’ By the way the pipe is bent, you fool. By the way the rig is smashed.’ His voice was high and taut. ‘Come on, Bruce. We’d better get over there and have a word with them.’

I nodded reluctantly, afraid he might do something stupid when faced with Trevedian. He was at the end of his tether and his big hands twitched as though he wanted to get them round the throat of some adversary. We took two horses and cantered along the shores of the lake, below the buttress and across the rock outcrops to where the wire ran down the mountainside and into the water. They had seen us coming and there was a little group waiting for us like a reception committee. There was Trevedian and the policeman who had come with him the previous day and two of Trevedian’s men with rifles slung over their shoulders.

For a moment we sat on our horses looking at them and they stood looking at us. I could see anger building up inside Garry’s big frame. Trevedian waited, his small eyes alert, watching us curiously. The policeman said nothing. For my part I knew it was useless. Words suddenly burst from Garry’s lips with explosive force. ‘What the hell do you mean by drowning my rig? You gave us till ten this morning.’

‘My warning referred to the house and buildings.’

Trevedian glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now nine-twenty. You’ve forty minutes to get clear of the buildings.’

‘But what about the rig?’ Garry demanded. ‘What right had you-’

‘You could have moved it,’ Trevedian cut in. ‘However, since you haven’t I’ve no doubt the courts will include the value of it in their grant of compensation.’

Garry turned to the police officer. ‘Were you up here last night when they began flooding?’

The man shook his head. ‘No. I came up here this morning in case there was trouble.’

‘Well, there’s going to be plenty of trouble,’ Garry snapped. ‘Do you realise you’ve drowned an oil well? We struck it at approximately two-fifteen this morning.’

Trevedian laughed. ‘Be damned to that for a tale,’ he said.

‘You know damn well it’s true,’ Garry shouted. ‘Don’t tell me you couldn’t see what happened from here.’

‘I didn’t see anything.’ Trevedian turned to the two guards. ‘Did you?’ They shook their heads dutifully. ‘They were with me when I gave the order to close the sluices,’ Trevedian added as he turned to face us, hardly troubling to conceal a slight smile. ‘We were naturally watching the rig to see that you all got clear of the water. We saw nothing unusual.’

‘By God,’ Garry cried, ‘you dirty, crooked little liar! Don’t ever let me get my hands on you or as sure as hell I’ll wring your neck.’

‘It seems I was right in insisting on police protec tion up here.’ Trevedian smiled and glanced at his watch again. ‘Better get your things clear of the ranch buildings now, Wetheral,’ he said. ‘I’m going to finish flooding.’ He turned away, the policeman followed him.

‘Just a minute,’ I called. ‘What time did you come up here?’ They had paused and I was addressing the policeman.

‘At eight o’clock this morning,’ he answered.

‘And you weren’t up here when the order to flood was given?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Mr Trevedian didn’t expect any trouble until this morning.’

‘You mean he was prepared to deal with it himself during the hours of darkness.’

The other shrugged his shoulders. ‘My orders were to be up here at eight this morning.’

‘Are you here as an official of the Provincial Police or have the company hired you as a watchdog?’

‘Both,’ he said rather tersely.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘In other words, you’re employed by the company and take your orders from Trevedian. That’s all I wanted to know.’ I turned my horse. ‘We’re wasting our time here,’ I said to Garry. ‘This will have to be fought out in the courts.’

He nodded slowly and we rode back to the ranch-house in silence. His face looked drawn and haggard. The fire of anger had gone out of him and he slumped in his saddle like a bag of bones and flesh. He didn’t say anything all the way back, but I was very conscious of the fact that he’d lost his rig, everything he had made in over fifteen years. It deepened the mood of black despair that had gripped me since I woke up and found the Kingdom had become a lake overnight. It was difficult to remember the elation that had filled us in the early hours when the drenching rain had obliterated the broken rig from our sight.

When we reached the ranch-house we were greeted with the news that the water was rising again. They had thrust a stake in at the edge of the lake and even as we watched the water ran past it and in a moment it was. several feet out from the lake’s edge. All our energies were concentrated then on salvaging what we could. We loaded Boy’s vehicles with all our kit and movable equipment and drove them up to the edge of the timber. Jean and I harnessed the horses to an old wagon we found and in this way I managed to get some of my grandfather’s belongings out. And then as the rain slackened and a misty sun shone through we made camp in the shelter of the trees and drank hot tea and watched the water creep slowly up to the ends of the barns and then trickle in clutching fingers round the back of the ranch-house. By midday the place my grandfather had built with his own hands was a quarter of a mile out in the lake and the water was up to the windows. For five miles there was nothing but water flecked with white as the wind whipped across it.