Harbor Troubles

The voyage over to Mexico was a tiresome affair. Moira Baker spent many long hours mending wounds of her compatriots. On the evening before they were scheduled to arrive at Campeche, most patients were feeling much better, and thus she told her former patients to go fuck themselves as she made a sombrero out of a dried grass basket, downed all the alcohol from her big medicine bag, and started using two pill jars as maracas.

From the diary of Franz Alter:

Campeche seems to be teeming with revolutionaries of every political color. S/S William Alexander was not being unloaded, and the longshoremen of Campeche were holding a political meeting on the evening of Sunday, June 14. Mackie, Felix, and myself decided to pay them a visit, and it turned out that the longshoremen were praising Leo Trotsky and spreading rumors of Yankees coming to dump wages and use their own labor. We spoke to the chairman of the longshoremen's union, a wiry young man named Felipe Augustin, who simply adores Trotsky and all that he stands for, global revolution and all. We had quite an argument, but eventually we decided to meet next morning to negotiate a mutually beneficial solution to our disagreements. Interestingly enough, it seemed as if nobody could find the origins of the rumors about Yankees. Is this the result simple slander, or is there some other force behind these rumors?

A strange incident happened later that day, only hours after the longshoremen started unloading the William Alexander. I was schvitzing quite a bit in the Mexican sun, and I looked up as I removed my hat to wipe to wipe my brow. It was then I saw a large crate filled with tools coming loose from a crane and almost crushing Mackie and Felix. I yelled, and they dodged the crate, but by the narrowest of margins. Upon examination it turned out that someone had tampered with the ropes attaching the crate to the crane. I can't say I feel too welcome to Campeche. We decided to place guards by the Willaim Alexander as well as by the warehouse we were using as a staging area. The Cormoran was left under guard by the other members of our party and Captain Sharkey.

From the diary of Dr. MacNamara:

When we found out that the longshoremen were refusing to unload the William Alexander, we managed to find out the whereabouts of their foreman, a certain Ramon Sotomayor. He was sitting in front of a puddle of cheap beer at a harbor bar called Primavera Bar, and he was both rude and not very interested in helping us, not to mention large and loud. He went on about Communists, conspiracies and what the Guardia Civil should do with them, but he was of little help.

Ramon Sotomayor

Although Dr. Evan Sinclair has been most helpful and efficient in organizing the expedition, there's still so much to be done. It seems as if we'll have to stay at the Bristol for a week or so before everything is offloaded, checked, and assembled. We also had dozens of graduate students milling about, and it was a good thing that we established a guard schedule, since these young men and women need something to do. However, we still need to find out who harbors ill will to us! I do not know what to think, but I may have spotted one of the men who were staking us out outside the Santa Anna Hospital in Havana. What is going on?    

From the diary of Felix Jeremiah:

So, I was teamed up with this strange guy Franz to do the midnight shift guarding the warehouse where we were stashing the stuff for that expedition. Franz Alter is an odd bird. Clearly a kike from the Lower East Side, he seems to be really skilled in the use of all kinds of chemicals. But I'm, telling you those hands. They are creepy. It seems as if could strangle a squid with those hands. And then, let me tell you about his mother! That guy Freud would have one or two things to say about their relationship. Anyway. Perfesserdocter MacNamara had the shift before ours, and she was sitting smack in the middle of the warehouse under one of the two dim ceiling lamps reading something about Egypt, like the dirty secrets of Cleopatra or something similar. She was smoking a cigarette, and I decided to play a trick on her a surprise and sneak up behind me. My plan didn't really work out the way I wanted to, since I stepped in a pile or really stinky shit, fresh from something's butthole. Not that I'm a poopologist, but the turds didn't seem to come from a human. Mackie MacNamara was laughing her breeches off, while Franz simply looked uncomfortable. This was when we heard a really throaty growl that ended Mackie's bout of mirth. She walked up to the door, but the fucker was locked from the outside!

Something was stalking us in the shadows of the warehouse, and fortunately, Franz had brought a flashlight, and both Franz and I were packing. I was planning on climbing up on a pallet of boxes to get a better view of things when an ear-splitting roar was heard, and an enormous panther leapt over me and down on to Mackie, who was holding Franz's flashlight and a chair. She managed to get the chair between her and the panther just before the light went out, and the darkness was only illuminated by the flailing flashlight and muzzle flashes from our guns. After what seemed like an eternity, the panther was shot dead and Mackie pretty badly mauled. Moira and some of the members of the expedition were breaking up the lock, and later on we found a large cage that had been pushed up against the other end of the warehouse. According to Foreman Sotomayor, this was the work of Commies and Anarchists, but I dunno.