Six o’clock was an hour past the top of the tide, and we had to clear the harbour-entrance sand bar by then or wait another ten hours. “I think so, sir,” and then, to take his mind off his troubles, and also because I was curious, I asked, “What are in those crates? Motorcars?”

“Motorcars? Are you mad?” His cold blue eye swept over the whitewashed jumble of the little town and the dark green of the steeply rising forested hills behind. “This lot couldn’t build a rabbit hutch for export, far less a motorcar. Machinery. So the bills of lading say. Dynamos, generators, refrigerating, air-conditioning, and refuelling machinery. For New York.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, carefully, “That the Generalissimo, having successfully completed the confiscation of all the American sugar-refining mills, is now dismantling them and selling the machinery back to the Americans? Barefaced theft like that?”

“Jetty larceny on the part of the individual is theft,” Captain Bullen said morosely. “When governments engage in grand larceny, it’s economics. But, it’ll be all perfectly legal, I’ve no doubt, but it still doesn’t make me feel less of a contraband runner. But if we don’t do it, someone else will. And the freight rate’s double the normal.”

“Which makes the Generalissimo and his government pretty desperate for money?”

“What do you think?” Bullen growled. “No one knows how many were killed in the capital and a dozen other towns in Tuesday’s hunger riots. Jamaican authorities reckon the number in hundreds. Since they turned out most foreigners and closed down or confiscated nearly all foreign businesses they haven’t been able to earn a penny abroad. The coffers of the revolution are as empty as a drum. Ban’s completely desperate for money.” He turned away and stood staring over the harbour, big hands wide-spaced on the guardrail, his back ramrod-stiff. He seemed in no hurry to go-and aimless loitering was no part of Captain Bullen’s life.