“Bonne chance, mon ami,” he whispered.

A second later he plunged into the darkness that smelled of gunpowder, the cold metal of the rifles touching his skin, the die already cast.

2

After a while, Fermín noticed that the rumbling of the engines had stopped and the ship was swaying, lying at rest in the calm waters of the harbor. It was too early for them to have reached the docks, by his reckoning. After two or three ports of call on the journey, his ears had learned to read the protocol and the cacophony that issued from a docking maneuver, from the casting off of the mooring rope and the hammering sound of the anchor chains to the groaning of the ship’s frame under the strain of the hull as it was being dragged against the dock. Aside from an unusual stir of footsteps and voices on deck, Fermín recognized none of those signs. For some reason the captain had decided to stop the boat earlier, and Fermín, who after almost two years of war had learned that the unexpected often goes hand in hand with the unwelcome, gritted his teeth and made the sign of the cross once again.

“My little Virgin, I renounce my irreverent agnosticism and all the malicious suggestions of modern science,” he murmured, confined in the makeshift coffin he shared with thirdhand rifles.

His prayer did not take long to be answered. Fermín heard what sounded like another vessel, a smaller one, approaching and scraping the hull of the ship. Moments later, almost martial footsteps landed on the deck amid the bustle of the crew. Fermín swallowed hard. They had been boarded.

3

Thirty years at sea, Captain Arráez thought, and the worst always comes when you reach land. He stood on the bridge, watching the group of men who had just climbed up the steps on the port side. They brandished their guns threateningly and pushed the crew aside, clearing the way for the man he supposed was their leader.

Arráez was one of those seamen whose skin and hair had a coppery glaze from the sun and the sea air, and whose watery eyes always seemed veiled with tears. As a young man he believed that you went to sea in search of adventure, but time had taught him that adventure was always waiting in the port, and with nefarious motives. There was nothing to fear at sea. On dry land, however, and more so in those days, he was often overcome by nausea.

“Bermejo,” he said, “grab the radio and let the port know that we’ve been detained momentarily and will be arriving with some delay.”

Next to him, Bermejo, his first mate, went pale and was hit by one of those trembling fits he’d been prone to during the recent months of bombings and skirmishes. Formerly a boatswain in pleasure cruises along the Guadalquivir, poor Bermejo didn’t have the stomach for the job. “Who do I say has detained us, Captain?”