I took the Fairmont back to the Holiday Inn, singing “A Capital Ship for an Ocean Trip” and “The Barbary Pirates.” I repacked the little canvas bag and checked out, leaving a note for Roland Graham with the Ford’s keys at the counter. It was one o’clock. If the Lucella wasn’t sailing until five, I might as well get some lunch.

By the time I’d eaten and found a taxi to take me out to Elevator 67 it was after three-thirty. The midday sun made the air hot enough for me to take off my sweater and stuff it into my canvas bag before once more climbing the ladder to the Lucella’s main deck.

They had just finished loading. The heavy grain chutes were being hauled into the elevator from above. Under the second mate’s direction, men began operating two little deck gantries to put the hatch covers back onto the hold openings. One man worked each crane, using controls in front of a small seat on the starboard side. He lifted the hatch cover while two seamen steadied it at either end—they were very large, unstable steel lids. Then he lowered the cover while the other two fitted it onto some twenty or thirty protruding bolts. The three would move along to the next cover while a fourth seaman followed behind with an enormous wrench, screwing all the bolts into place.

As I stood watching, I felt the ship begin to vibrate. The engines had been turned on. Soon the air was filled with their urgent racket. A trail of black diesel smoke drifted upward from the giant funnel. I had no idea how long the engines ran before the ship moved out, but I noticed a couple of seamen at the guy ropes on shore, ready to loose them as soon as the signal was given. I hadn’t come back a minute too early.

I felt very keyed up. I knew I was wasting time on deck when I should have been on the bridge confronting anyone who had returned, but I was very nervous and didn’t know what to say once I got up there. In my heightened state I thought I saw someone swimming away from the port side of the ship. I moved as quickly as I could past the clutter around the self-unloader but didn’t see anything. I stood straining my eyes against the reflecting water and finally saw a figure break the surface twenty yards away, close to the shore.