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recommendation.” A wave breaks beside the boat, producing a sudden, spitting froth. “Is okay,” the chief officer says, “I put in good word for you?”
    Rodolfo blinks, slowly, and says, “Yes.”
    “Because you must know, Bosun, that you are the sort of man who can go far. Maybe become an officer, who know?”
    “Thank you, Chief.”
    For the next few minutes, they have a halting conversation about the ballast holds, and the tendency for the
Maersk Dubai
to list in high water, and how if they had any sense they would have the containers reconfigured once they reached Halifax. The chief officer clears his throat.
    “Bosun,” he says. “Yesterday, the stowaways, is unfortunate.”
    Rodolfo nods weakly while continuing to look into darkness.
    “It is unfortunate business.”
    Rodolfo parts his lips and quietly says, “Yes, Chief.”
    “But you know these stowaway, they come on board and they hide weapon and in the middle of the night they get them and use them. Maybe knives, guns, who know? This happen to me once, near South Africa. Is very difficult, with stowaway. They are more like, uh, pirate, you know? I have been to sea for many year, Bosun, and I know. I know.”
    No
, Rodolfo thinks,
they were frightened. They were hungry.
    “Yes, I tell you, Bosun, the captain he is a smart man, making that decision. He was very smart. Is sometime happen you have to make the
tough
decision. Plus the condition of the sea much worse than we think, but who is to know? The ocean is always a mystery, so yes, is bad, but sometime bad thing happen on a ship, is that not right, Bosun? Do you not think, Bosun?”
    I will not look at you
, Rodolfo thinks.
I will not turn my head.
    “Bosun?”
    “Yes,” Rodolfo mumbles. “It was a mistake.”
    “Yes! A mistake. Is what you say. I am happy you think so. A mistake. I am happy we agree on this.”
    There is a pause.
    “Bosun?”
    “Yes?”
    “Good evening.”

    He wants to tell the other Filipinos about his conversation with the chief officer. Yet he dares not, for the silence on board the
Maersk Dubai
is like some new regulation, one that upsets stomachs and frazzles nerves and sparks headaches. He tells only Manuel, never guessing that in other parts of the ship, other crew members are confiding that they, too, were promised promotions by the officers.
    He struggles through his day. On deck, working alone, he hears the way that noises are amplified by worried ears. In the seamen’s mess, the sound of the food being chewed drives him mad. Walking through the corridors of the accommodation, he hears whispers waft through deadened air, only to turn a corner and seea pair of cabin doors being gently pulled shut. The seamen’s rec room stays empty, even though the officers have stocked it with beer and cigarettes; at most, someone might wander in for a few minutes and turn on a video before quickly losing interest. Often, the muffled sound of car crashes and gunshots and the screams of women echo through the big ship’s hallways.
    In place of the recreation normally practised by sailors— cards, videos, cups of coffee, gossip—Rodolfo watches. He keeps his eyes and ears open. He reads the information given by the state of a man’s clothing, or by the flicker of a man’s eye, or by minute changes in a man’s scent. Small clues begin to form, so that slowly, Rodolfo begins to sense which of the seamen will remain scarred by what they saw on that March morning, and which of the seamen will grow to accept it.
    A patient man, he hears things. A fight between the Chinese head cook and the Filipino second cook (and could this mean that the second cook is not totally loyal to his officer?). A rumour, passed around in Tagalog, that two Filipinos in the engine room, the oiler and the third engineer, had protested putting the stowaways overboard. Or the fitter, not quite disobeying an order from the chief engineer but, in response to instructions he thought were stupid, throwing up