Looking for a Ship (17 page)
Read Looking for a Ship Online
Authors: John McPhee
On every deck of the Stella Lykes, signs are hung on the doors that connect the interior of the house to the open outside spaces:
THIS DOOR TO BE KEPT CLOSED AND
DOGGED IN ALL FOREIGN PORTS
DOGGED IN ALL FOREIGN PORTS
The doors are dogged to keep out more than pirates. Captain Washburn, who happens to be in his quarters now, lathering up for his morning shave and listening to his tape of “Heartaches,” says, “This coast is not only the drug-producing capital of the world; it is also the stowaway-producing capital of the world. Why the ships here don't have more of each is a mystery. We fight it and fight it and fight it. We try our best to hold it to a minimum.” Some years ago, the word “contraband” referred, generally, to souvenirs illegally transported by crewmen, he went on. “When you are talking about contraband now, you are talking about narcoticsâhashish, marijuana, cocaine, heroin. That stuff is doubly hard to find. Usually it's in very small packages. They can hide it in a light fixture or a shoe.”
As for stowaways, Washburn has found very few of them on ships of which he has been masterâand that is most fortunate, he adds, because stowaways are a major nuisance. If they turn up on your ship, you pay a fine. You do a great deal of paperwork. You post a sizable bond. You
don't get it back if they escape. When they go off the ship, you have to hire guards to guard them. You have to see that they are put on the right plane. “If you bring in twenty stowaways, you're looking at a couple of hundred thousand dollars. You're looking at big bucks.”
don't get it back if they escape. When they go off the ship, you have to hire guards to guard them. You have to see that they are put on the right plane. “If you bring in twenty stowaways, you're looking at a couple of hundred thousand dollars. You're looking at big bucks.”
One does not have to be a former hobo to understand that the seriousness of the stowaway problem is not in a category with the drug traffic. I cannot help wondering, though, what this son of the side-door sleeping cars, this former rider of the rails, would do with stowaways if he found them on his ship.
I ask him, and he says, “I'd take the handcuffs and the leg irons and lock them up.”
On a dock in Colombia during the previous voyage, Ron Peterson, the third mate, was about to inspect a container when a Colombian longshoreman rushed up and put a Lykes Brothers seal on it. This was to be the last container loaded on the ship, and Peterson knew that it was said to contain nothing and therefore did not require a seal. He described the scene to the chief mate, who came down the gangway, broke the seal, and looked in. Nine faces looked out.
Ecuadorian and Colombian longshoremen loading American ships used to build huts deep in the holds and bury stowaways in mountains of coffee. Some ships have diverted steam lines into cargo compartments and used a steam smothering system to flush out possible stowaways. Some have used whistles at deafening frequencies. After Delta Lines did that, Colombia complained to the United
Nations. Not long ago, the Sheldon Lykes arrived in Mobile, Alabama, with twenty-one Colombian stowaways aboard. A West German ship turned up in Jacksonville with four Ethiopians. The youngest was twelve, the oldest fifteen. Heading south, the crew of the Allison Lykes found a stowaway who had got on in New York.
Nations. Not long ago, the Sheldon Lykes arrived in Mobile, Alabama, with twenty-one Colombian stowaways aboard. A West German ship turned up in Jacksonville with four Ethiopians. The youngest was twelve, the oldest fifteen. Heading south, the crew of the Allison Lykes found a stowaway who had got on in New York.
At the end of another recent voyage, the Allison arrived in Port Newark carrying a container said to contain chocolate and addressed to a warehouse in Long Island. The United States Customs Service drilled into the chocolate and found a filling of cocaine. They resealed the container. It was offloaded, set on a tractor trailer, and driven away. Customs agents followed. At the Long Island warehouse, they arrested the recipients of the chocolate, who were members of the MedellÃn Cartel. Inside the chocolate was four hundred and eighty million dollars' worth of cocaine âthe largest single shipment of cocaine ever seized in a United States port north of Florida.
“They just try to catch what they can,” Washburn comments. “They figure they stop less than ten per cent of it.” When the Customs people appeared in Newark with fifteen dogs and unloaded seventy of Stella's containers right there on the dock, they found nothing. Nevertheless, they charged the people to whom the containers were addressed seventy-five dollars per container. When they do discover drugs, they not only will fine the shipping company but will confiscate whole ships. They fined Evergreen, of the Taiwan flag, fifty-nine and a half million dollars after eleven thousand pounds of marijuana turned up in New Orleans.
“It's our problem, but there's nothing we can do about it,” Washburn continues. “The letter of the law is that a ship is responsible for everything it brings in. But we're not there when the containers are packed. When they deliver a container down here, you certainly don't make them take the cargo out of it. They've now got containers that are built to smuggle. They've got a double wall. You couldn't detect it if you were in there. We pick up containers and we load them, and there's absolutely no way we can check the contents. We've got a piece of paper that says what's in there. âSaid to contain'âthat's all we've got. Half of these drugs are smuggled in in household articlesâlike they've got refrigerators and dryers just full of them, and overstuffed furniture. But the real kingpins are much more sophisticated than that. It's a computerized business today. It's not piecemeal or haphazard. Where they've got three or four hundred million dollars' worth coming in, the cartel may have spent two years setting that one delivery up. They even start when they're refining it. They say, âO.K., we're refining this amount. It's eventually going to go to New York in
this
type of container.' They'll even
build
a container for that special shipment. These clever Colombiansâthey trap wild dogs and keep them penned up. They use the urine of the wild dogs to smear on the packages of cocaine that they're sending in to the United States. These domestic dogs that we're using smell that wild-dog urine and they're afraid, and they don't go near that stuff. There'll be a day that these dogs will be useless to us and we'll be using pigs. They find something. We combat it. They find something else. The
drug lords threaten everyone. Oh, they're tough. They've caught American drug enforcers, and they've killed more than one, and they didn't kill âem quick, either. It took some of them two or three days to die. Just like the old days, you knowâtwo or three days and just begging for death. These Colombians don't just kill a person. They'll kill a guy's mother and father, his wife, his children. They kill the whole family. There's a viciousness about these present drug dealers that the old Mafiaâthe old under-worldânever had. The old underworld treated each other bad enough, but they weren't vicious to the general populace, ever. It was bad for business. They thought nothing of shooting or blowing up their adversary, but they never thought about hitting a guy's women and children. It wasn't their nature. But, man, these drug lordsâthey'll terrorize a whole community to have their way. They had one prosecutor in Colombia that the drug lords told him they were going to kill him and they told him there was nowhere he could hide. They told him, âBetween the North Pole and the South Pole there is nowhere you can go that we won't find you. There's no such place.' I think it was Sofia, Bulgaria, they caught up with him and killed him. That's what an honest official is up against. In Ecuador, my gosh, they're killing a prosecutor or a judge every day in the week.”
this
type of container.' They'll even
build
a container for that special shipment. These clever Colombiansâthey trap wild dogs and keep them penned up. They use the urine of the wild dogs to smear on the packages of cocaine that they're sending in to the United States. These domestic dogs that we're using smell that wild-dog urine and they're afraid, and they don't go near that stuff. There'll be a day that these dogs will be useless to us and we'll be using pigs. They find something. We combat it. They find something else. The
drug lords threaten everyone. Oh, they're tough. They've caught American drug enforcers, and they've killed more than one, and they didn't kill âem quick, either. It took some of them two or three days to die. Just like the old days, you knowâtwo or three days and just begging for death. These Colombians don't just kill a person. They'll kill a guy's mother and father, his wife, his children. They kill the whole family. There's a viciousness about these present drug dealers that the old Mafiaâthe old under-worldânever had. The old underworld treated each other bad enough, but they weren't vicious to the general populace, ever. It was bad for business. They thought nothing of shooting or blowing up their adversary, but they never thought about hitting a guy's women and children. It wasn't their nature. But, man, these drug lordsâthey'll terrorize a whole community to have their way. They had one prosecutor in Colombia that the drug lords told him they were going to kill him and they told him there was nowhere he could hide. They told him, âBetween the North Pole and the South Pole there is nowhere you can go that we won't find you. There's no such place.' I think it was Sofia, Bulgaria, they caught up with him and killed him. That's what an honest official is up against. In Ecuador, my gosh, they're killing a prosecutor or a judge every day in the week.”
On one of Stella's voyages, under another captain, a Colombian brought to the ship a twenty-kilogram carton labeled as coffee. He said it was for the bosun, and he departed. Crew members routinely buy Colombian coffee, but not the brand mentioned on the carton. The bosun said
he had purchased none. Lock it up, said the captain. After the ship sailed, he ordered an inspection. According to Peewee, who was working that voyage, the box contained well over a million dollars' worth of uncut crackâtwelve tightly wrapped packets of white powder, at any rate, each weighing more than three and a half pounds. The captain told the mate to break open the packets and pour the contents into the ocean. “That saved a lot of paperwork,” Peewee said as he finished telling the story. “A lot of paperwork and a lot of jive.” The deliveryman had evidently erred. Not long before he reached the dock, another ship had sailed for the United States.
he had purchased none. Lock it up, said the captain. After the ship sailed, he ordered an inspection. According to Peewee, who was working that voyage, the box contained well over a million dollars' worth of uncut crackâtwelve tightly wrapped packets of white powder, at any rate, each weighing more than three and a half pounds. The captain told the mate to break open the packets and pour the contents into the ocean. “That saved a lot of paperwork,” Peewee said as he finished telling the story. “A lot of paperwork and a lot of jive.” The deliveryman had evidently erred. Not long before he reached the dock, another ship had sailed for the United States.
Some years ago, after a sailor just off the Joseph Lykes was found with two million dollars' worth of cocaine, Lykes Brothers was fined two hundred thousand dollars. Washburn believes that American sailors do very little smuggling anymore. Among other things, they have come to know that people who sell drugs to Americans are likely to go straight to the American Embassy and report the transaction in order to claim a finder's fee. The United States pays finder's fees of up to fifty thousand dollars.
Washburn likes to tell a story about an old Lykes Brothers stick ship that “brought a couple and their camper-type van from the Gulf down to either Colombia or Ecuador on this run, and put them off.” He continues, “What these people were going to do was tour South America, and then they were going to come back on this same ship to the United States. They left the ship in either Guayaquil or BuenaventuraâI forget which. Weeks later, the couple
came aboard, with their ticket and everything, and the ship was loading their camper. The chief mate happened to notice that the ship's cargo gearâthose single-stick boomsâcould hardly pick that camper up. They got it aboard, but just barely. And he became suspicious, and they searched that camper, and there was three tons of cocaine in a special-built floor in the bottom of the camper. It was not in there haphazard. It was almost like that camper had been rebuilt. Three tons of cocaine is worth about a hundred and eighty million dollars.”
came aboard, with their ticket and everything, and the ship was loading their camper. The chief mate happened to notice that the ship's cargo gearâthose single-stick boomsâcould hardly pick that camper up. They got it aboard, but just barely. And he became suspicious, and they searched that camper, and there was three tons of cocaine in a special-built floor in the bottom of the camper. It was not in there haphazard. It was almost like that camper had been rebuilt. Three tons of cocaine is worth about a hundred and eighty million dollars.”
Washburn stares for a while into the passing mangroves, the ragged edge of the olive river. Then he says, “The basis of the problem is the American appetite for this stuff. I can put everybody else down, but
we're the customers
. I'm sittin' here puttin' Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador down, and
we're
the customers. It's our ferocious appetite. It's an illness. And if anybody has it we all have it. Hey, if I caught my son with that stuff I would bag him quicker than I would anyone else. I'd bag him first. If I knew it was in my house, I wouldn't send for the city police, I'd send for the narcs, and they could have him. He'd be goneâgee oh enn ee. It's sick, disgusting, debasing, dehumanizing.”
we're the customers
. I'm sittin' here puttin' Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador down, and
we're
the customers. It's our ferocious appetite. It's an illness. And if anybody has it we all have it. Hey, if I caught my son with that stuff I would bag him quicker than I would anyone else. I'd bag him first. If I knew it was in my house, I wouldn't send for the city police, I'd send for the narcs, and they could have him. He'd be goneâgee oh enn ee. It's sick, disgusting, debasing, dehumanizing.”
Having entered something called the Explosive Anchorageâa piece of the river where ships wait for berths at the maritime port of GuayaquilâStella gives up her thrusting and slowly glides to a stop. Bank to bank, the width here is nearly a mile. Beside the water is little solid ground, just mangrove swamp: the
manglar
. In one place there is firmness enough to support three tin shacks on stilts.
Otherwise the river on either side is backlashed with vegetation, impenetrableâconcealing in wilderness the seaport that is around two bends and less than five miles away. Now, after all the talk of world piracy from the Strait of Malacca to the Bight of Benin, after the crescendo of pirate stories aboard this ship as we have come ever farther up the Guayas River, we have again reached the war-zone front, the precincts of Guayaquil. The bosun has assembled the A.B.s and ordinaries of the idle watches. They are spread around the deck like an army. The slower the ship moves, the greater the tension grows. The anchor is about to go down. Louis Smothers, in his Queen Mary cap, says, “I ain't going to put a fire hose on nobody's child. You do that and they'll send your name up and down the coast. They'll break your legs. And when you go in the hospital this ship will sail on with its cargo. When you're lying in the hospital, the doctors and the nurses will finish you off.”
manglar
. In one place there is firmness enough to support three tin shacks on stilts.
Otherwise the river on either side is backlashed with vegetation, impenetrableâconcealing in wilderness the seaport that is around two bends and less than five miles away. Now, after all the talk of world piracy from the Strait of Malacca to the Bight of Benin, after the crescendo of pirate stories aboard this ship as we have come ever farther up the Guayas River, we have again reached the war-zone front, the precincts of Guayaquil. The bosun has assembled the A.B.s and ordinaries of the idle watches. They are spread around the deck like an army. The slower the ship moves, the greater the tension grows. The anchor is about to go down. Louis Smothers, in his Queen Mary cap, says, “I ain't going to put a fire hose on nobody's child. You do that and they'll send your name up and down the coast. They'll break your legs. And when you go in the hospital this ship will sail on with its cargo. When you're lying in the hospital, the doctors and the nurses will finish you off.”
Jim Gossett the electrician, tall and scant, who looks like an old ranch hand with his frayed jeans and weathered face, says, with a wild glint in his eye, “I'm a company man. I save the cargo.”
Murray the ordinary says, “I'm going to the stern. If anyone comes up there, I'll point the way. I'll tell him where to go.”
Pirogues have collected on the port side. Some call them beggar boats. There are four, and one is a dugout. Paddlers, facing each other, are in the bows and sterns, holding position in the current with hand-carved paddles. Other people ride in the middle, with fold-open nets to
catch the bars of soap, the cans of Coca-Cola, the bags of cookies that are raining down from the ship. Calvin King buys cookies at the duty-free shops in Balboa to throw to these people in Guayaquil. Skippers warn one another that the people in these pirogues could be the accomplices of pirates, here to create a diversion. There are children, old women, middle-aged men, a dog. In the bow of one boat is a supple young woman in redâred skirt, white blouse, red jacket, bare feet. Graham Ramsay says, “I wonder if she got my allotment check.”
catch the bars of soap, the cans of Coca-Cola, the bags of cookies that are raining down from the ship. Calvin King buys cookies at the duty-free shops in Balboa to throw to these people in Guayaquil. Skippers warn one another that the people in these pirogues could be the accomplices of pirates, here to create a diversion. There are children, old women, middle-aged men, a dog. In the bow of one boat is a supple young woman in redâred skirt, white blouse, red jacket, bare feet. Graham Ramsay says, “I wonder if she got my allotment check.”
Trevor Procter retorts, “It wouldn't be the first time that someone got an allotment check from two people.”
A heaving line comes floating down the river and is picked up by the people in the dugout. Procter says, “That's our linel” On a transceiver he calls the bosun: “Hey, bose, I see your heaving line floating down the river.”
The bosun tells him to notify the mate.
Pirates have boarded the ship, evidently up the anchor chain and through the hawsepipe to the fo'c'sle deck. How many of them? Where are they now? Who knows?
Understand: this ship is about the length of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Rockefeller Center, Pennsylvania Station, Union Square. To berth her you need almost three city blocks. With her piled-high containers divided by canyons under the jumbo boom, she is, if nothing else, labyrinthine. She carries a crew of thirty-four. Thirty-four highly trained SWAT troops would have a hard time defending Rockefeller Center, so what can be expected of a militia of aging gourds? Moreover, there's so much of the ship and
so few of them that the ship might as well be an open city. Action that occurs at Fifty-third Street escapes all notice at Fifty-sixth.
so few of them that the ship might as well be an open city. Action that occurs at Fifty-third Street escapes all notice at Fifty-sixth.
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