“If Okar isn’t the destination, why lower your box? And during siesta,” the clerk sighed.

“I’m sorry I interrupted your sleep.”

“I take a bath during siesta,” said the clerk. He did not seem angry or irritated, but he was interested in making his point. It reminded him of the bath and he smiled at the captain, or rather, he smiled just past his left ear.

The captain thought that the clerk did look very clean-Englishman-clean-and he thought that he smelled of gin. Take an Englishman and give him a job where the sun is very hot and he soon begins to smell of gin. Perhaps this one, for siesta, bathes in gin.

The captain squinted up at his ship which showed big and black against the sun, much bigger than the tramper actually was, because the pier was so low.

“The winch man dropped a crate on the box down in the hold,” said the captain, “and something cracked.”

“I can understand that,” said the clerk because he felt he should say something.

He looked at the captain and how the man sweated. How he sweats. Why doesn’t he shave off that beard? Siesta time and I must worry about his cracked box. Such a beard in this heat. Perhaps a Viking complex or something.

“So the crew in the hold,” said the captain, “two of the crew down there, they went and took a look and next they came out running and screaming. Uh-about something bad,” said the captain and looked the length of the empty pier.

The empty pier was white in the sun and much easier to look at for the moment than anything else, such as the clerk, for example, and his patient face. And why doesn’t he sweat-?

“Eh?” said the clerk.

“And they described a smell. A bad smell.”

The captain looked back at the clerk and went rasp, rasp in his throat, a sound to go with the beard.

“Now, you understand, don’t you, Whitfield, I can’t have something like that down there in my hold.”