The customs service
night watchman - there is always a watchman of some kind aboard
every ship, passenger or freighter, all the time she is in port -
seemed to understand, for he admitted us after a word with Kennedy.
Threading our way carefully among the boxes, and bales, and crates
which were piled high, we proceeded down the wharf. Under the
electric lights the longshoremen were working feverishly, for the
unloading and loading of a giant transAtlantic vessel in the rush
season is a long and tedious process at best, requiring night work
and overtime, for every moment, like every cubic foot of space,
counts.
Once within the door, however, no one paid much attention to us.
They seemed to take it for granted that we had some right there.
We boarded the ship by one of the many entrances and then proceeded
down to a deck where apparently no one was working. It was more
like a great house than a ship, I felt, and I wondered whether
Kennedy's search was not more of a hunt for a needle in a haystack
than anything else. Yet he seemed to know what he was after.
We had descended to what I imagined must be the quarters of the
steward. About us were many large cases and chests, stacked up
and marked as belonging to the ship.
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