Day Four Hundred Eighty Two #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

The light of the sun now shines into the depths of the ship’s hold. All to reveal a hollow space in the midst of the other containers. Was there ever a container there at all?

Tomas surmises that someone or “someones” on the crew arranged it in order to have a private spot for illicit activity. I’m not so sure. There are no signs that the space was ever occupied. And if ever there was a container to go with the paper work it must have been removed long ago. All that remains is the mystery.

I left Tomas to supervise the reloading and sought Elijah.

I found him only to learn we will not be allowed to stay ashore.

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Day Four Hundred Seventy Six #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Tomas has relieved me from all watch duty. The danger from pirates has past. Though we still exert caution not to call undue attention to ourselves from the patrolling naval vessels which seem to be everywhere.

The Captain estimates that we are three days out from our next port of call. Therefore he asked me to prepare the list of containers that will be offloaded there.

In the process I discovered a listing for a container with no destination information on its original paper work. I queried Tomas about this. He told me he had discovered the same anomaly when he was filling in as purser, but hadn’t had any time to investigate.

I put it first on my list.

Day Four Hundred Seventy Four #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Patrol boats have stopped us twice and sent us on our way. Both were satisfied with our paper work and seemed even less curious when they learned our port of call was not to be the capital, but a port hundreds of miles from here.

I suppose if we were headed to the capital we would have come under closer scrutiny.
One of the officers was curious about the shortage of people bearing the mark among us. They boasted that this definitely will be the last voyage for the ship under those circumstances. Elijah kept to the special cabin whenever officials were aboard. Each time the Captain was relieved when he did so without being asked.

And so it goes.