What’s In The Ship

13 July 2021

What’s in the Ship?

Stabbed and Mugged

The joys of spending most of my days watching waves peacefully crash against the dock almost makes up for the shitty pay working there. Me and my associate harbormaster Mabel were doing our daily routine of sitting together and looking out at the sleepy harbour. Our chairs had the wear and tear of two people who had been doing this far too long.

“Did you end up negotiating a retirement package?” she asked.

“Nope. Guess I get to stay here a bit longer,” I responded, the rest of my life stuck here flashing before my eyes.

She grabbed my hand and smiled, “Don’t feel so down. If you keep going the way you’re going you should be out of here in no time. We’re thirty, and by rights we should be dead like every harbormaster before us. In no time we’ll be rich and retired and we can head wherever we want.”

I smiled and squeezed her hand back, “What if I just dumped you and ran off with the money?”

“You don’t wanna know what connections I have.”

As we laughed a ship rolled in through the mist and lazily slumped against a spot in the port. I groaned and hauled myself up. It was my turn to do the checks.

Something about this ship made me wary. I ambled up to it to greet them and it seemed for all the world like it had no crew whatsoever. Nobody was topside and its leisurely pace suggested that it had drifted in, like a ghost ship. I shuffled around it from the front to the back, holding my hands above my head and anticipating any shower of rocks or bullets that would rain down on me. I looked at the side and found a large panel, one that could be missed by anyone who hadn’t been driven insane from 20 years of harbourmastering.

I stopped and slapped the panel a few times and it was alarmingly quick to topple over and almost crush me. If it wasn’t for a flurry of sidesteps I would have been pancaked. At least that would have made me stand out amongst the rest of the dead harbormasters who just get stabbed and mugged.

I stepped in and the second I did everybody who had been rolling barrels around stopped. I stared and they stared back. There really was a lot of staring and not a lot of doing happening. I was about to speak up after I thought about the precious seconds of life I had left speeding by, but a man popped out from around the hull and shocked me back onto the dock. He had the exact same dirty clothes as everyone else but was the only one wearing a headband. So, using my powers of deduction, it was safe to assume he at least had some idea of what was going on.

“My bad,” He said, “I didn’t mean to scare you. Sorry but we’re gonna need this space so you’ll have to move over.”

It took me a few seconds to realise what he was getting at.

“I’m the harbormaster, so I need to talk to you before you move anything,” I said firmly, regaining my composure and engaging serious harbormaster mode.

“Oh, sorry. We thought this harbour was abandoned.”

I looked back at the run-down, boarded-up buildings and the unmaintained streets. The only thing even vaguely alive was Mabel, staring with as much puzzlement as I was.

“Nope. You gotta go through the docking procedure.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be in and out in a flash, don’t you worry,” He said excitedly, as he motioned his crew over. They sprung into action and began rolling the barrels over to the pier with the speed of a cheetah.

“Okay, woah woah woah,” I shouted, able to block some but not all of the crew. “You can’t just start unloading without going through the docking procedure first.”

“Are you sure? Our stuff is ready to go. I mean, hey, if you’re playing in the living room and you break mum’s vase, why stop playing?”

I squinted at him, and tried my best to parse what the hell he was going on about. “What the hell are you going on about?” I asked.

“I mean, we’re here. The stuff is already on this here pier. Can’t we just assume that we’ve done all the checks and go our beautiful separate ways in life?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose and seriously debated whether I would rather be mugged and stabbed or have to deal with this.

“I have to see what’s in the barrels.”

“Well…you could. But wouldn’t you rather not?”

“You have no idea. But it is my job and the sooner I do this, the less time I have to spend talking to you.”

“Don’t I have the right to refuse?”

“You do, but then I have to turn you away from the dock.”

And there it was. When we train to be harbormasters we talk about the ‘brick wall’. The point at which someone runs out of legal means to enter a dock, and is the most likely to stab the closest person. Which, if you’ve been following, you know is gonna be the harbormaster.

The captain, quite contrary to situations like this, didn’t immediately jump to violence. In fact, he turned around and made a circle motion with his finger, zapping all of the crew into motion to wheel all of the barrels back into the ship. He turned back to me, still bewildered. “My bad, son.” I was easily twice his age. “We’ll find a different harbour, don’t you worry your head.” He patted me on the shoulder but stopped after the first pat upon seeing my reaction. “What am I gonna do, stab you and mug you? That’s psychotic!” Indeed. “We’ll just find another port on the Coral Coast or something.”

As he turned back to his crew I finally exhaled for the first time in what felt like an hour. I turned back and gave a thumbs up to Mabel, reassuring her that I had indeed not been assaulted with any sharp implements. She was leaning forward on the edge of her seat, and clearly had done so for a while as she threw herself back and threw me a thumbs up. A congratulations for not being horribly maimed.

I walked back to my seat, not a hard feat since the city had long since sold much of the pier for scrap. As I got back Mabel looked at the end of the dock and widened her eyes. “Uh…” She murmured as she pointed where I had just come from. I turned around and saw the same helpful, cooperative captain helping the crew unload barrels onto the pier.

“HEY, HEY, WHAT THE HELL!?” I shouted, marching back with decidedly less composure. Now every crew member was frozen, but the captain seemed to not notice. Fighting off every urge I had to not sucker punch him, I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Oh hello Mr Harbormaster! Fancy seeing you here again.”

“I had your word that you were leaving, why the fuck are you unloading again?” I shouted, knowing I was only going to get more profane from here.

“I’m sorry,” he said, seeming genuinely surprised he was being yelled at, “I was under the impression we had completed the pre-docking procedures.” He glanced over at the crew and rotated his wrist, motioning them to continue.

“That!? That was me telling you to piss off. And that is still my position unless you submit your cargo and ship for mandatory inspection!”

He bunched up his mouth and threw on a face like a child being told they couldn’t go outside today. I wasn’t going to endure the ensuing awkward silence and I thought of any law from the town docking rules that could get him out of my sight quicker.

“I am willing to only inspect SOME of your cargo,” I muttered.

He was surprised, and most likely you are too. A few decades ago the mayor was more…flexible with arriving captains and introduced a few rules to both protect the harbormasters and save the wealthier captains a lot of headache. However, most of the new rules had one stipulation.

“But I gotta take a hefty sum to do so.”

And it would go straight to the mayor. It absolutely makes my skin crawl whenever I have to use any of them, but I think the benefits here definitely outweighed the drawbacks. Especially since, after the assassination, the office of mayor was vacant, and had been for the past decade. We’d been keeping the money in a box in the lighthouse.

The captain pondered for a moment, as if he had any choice, and spun around to look at his still still crew. “Lads! Empty out your pockets.”

Without hesitation, every crew member reached into what pockets and bags they had that weren’t tattered and eagerly held it out for the captain. He went from crew to crew and they all dumped it, the jangling of the bag getting louder with each deposit. Grinning, the captain shoved the bag into my hand as I stood there, still dumbfounded.

“Alright, you can have a peek at…” He turned and pointed, “That barrel, that barrel…and that one.” The crew eagerly rolled the aforementioned barrels over and ducked back behind the captain. I jerked it around and…it was surprisingly light. I opened up and surely enough there was nothing.

“Why is this empty?” I asked, mentally preparing for my next bout of manic shouting.

“You wanted to inspect the barrels, didn’t you?” He said, again seeming genuinely surprised at my rising anger.

I walked to the other two and sure enough, after rattling each of them, nothing. Before I could start my exploding the captain said, “Well, now that you’re done we’d better start unloading.”

“Stop! You fucking prick.” I was no longer tethered by my desire not to be stabbed.

“Now now, there’s no need for that,” the captain said, more upset than angry.

“Are you sure? Are you really sure about that!? I just want you to get off my fucking harbour and if you’d just have given me a barrel with sawdust in it or something you could have been on your way. But an empty barrel!? Three of them, in fact. News flash! I can’t legally inspect these as part of your cargo. And now I have to interact with you for more time. And any time spent even in your general vicinity is precious seconds of my short short life wasted. You piece of shit, I’m just going to break the law and investigate your cargo myself. I’m done with you.”

I stepped past him and towards the rest of the cargo. I caught a glimpse of the captain starting to tear up. I could clearly hear some stifled sniffling coming from him, but at this point any empathy I had was drowned in a pool of rage. I knocked one over and heard the distinct clattering metal of swords.

After I righted it I peeked inside and saw the tips of about 20 swords peeking back. I glared back at the captain, who at this point had tears streaming down his face. “You do realise this is a weapons-grade port, right? You ARE allowed to bring these into town.”

Almost immediately the redness in his eyes disappeared and he gave his cheeks a few wipes. “Oh…um…thanks,” was all he could muster before he walked past me and began directing his crew to unload the rest of the cargo.

I stumbled back over to the chair and flopped onto it, waking a now fast asleep Mabel. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Just stab me now, please.”