Complete Works of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  He grinned at her. “I’m goin’ to hold an inspection of the land and sea defences of the city of Havana.”

  Martha’s spectacles dropped low on her nose and, looking over the rims of them in grave meditation, she said: “If you can’t put up with codfish salad you had better make short work of your inspection of the land and sea defences of the city of Havana. You are likely to starve in the meantime. A man who is particular about his food has come to the wrong town if he is in Havana now.”

  “No, but — —” asked Johnnie seriously. “Haven’t you any bread?”

  “Bread!”

  “Well, coffee then? Coffee alone will do.”

  “Coffee!”

  Johnnie arose deliberately and took his hat. Martha eyed him. “And where do you think you are goin’?” she asked cuttingly.

  Still deliberate, Johnnie moved in the direction of the street-door. “I’m goin’ where I can get something to eat.”

  Martha sank into a chair with a moan which was a finished opinion — almost a definition — of Johnnie’s behaviour in life. “And where will you go?” she asked faintly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he rejoined. “Some café. Guess I’ll go to the Café Aguacate. They feed you well there. I remember — —”

  “You remember? They remember! They know you as well as if you were the sign over the door.”

  “Oh, they won’t give me away,” said Johnnie with stalwart confidence.

  “Gi-give you away? Give you a-way?” stammered Martha.

  The spy made no answer but went to the door, unbarred it and passed into the street. Martha caught her breath and ran after him and came face to face with him as he turned to shut the door. “Johnnie, if ye come back, bring a loaf of bread. I’m dyin’ for one good honest bite in a slice of bread.”

  She heard his peculiar derisive laugh as she bolted the door. She returned to her chair in the patio. “Well, there,” she said with affection, admiration and contempt. “There he goes! The most hard-headed little ignoramus in twenty nations! What does he care? Nothin’! And why is it? Pure bred-in-the-bone ignorance. Just because he can’t stand codfish salad he goes out to a café! A café where they know him as if they had made him!… Well…. I won’t see him again, probably…. But if he comes back, I hope he brings some bread. I’m near dead for it.”

  II

  Johnnie strolled carelessly through dark narrow streets. Near every corner were two Orden Publicos — a kind of soldier-police — quiet in the shadow of some doorway, their Remingtons ready, their eyes shining. Johnnie walked past as if he owned them, and their eyes followed him with a sort of a lazy mechanical suspicion which was militant in none of its moods.

  Johnnie was suffering from a desire to be splendidly imprudent. He wanted to make the situation gasp and thrill and tremble. From time to time he tried to conceive the idea of his being caught, but to save his eyes he could not imagine it. Such an event was impossible to his peculiar breed of fatalism which could not have conceded death until he had mouldered seven years.

  He arrived at the Café Aguacate and found it much changed. The thick wooden shutters were up to keep light from shining into the street. Inside, there were only a few Spanish officers. Johnnie walked to the private rooms at the rear. He found an empty one and pressed the electric button. When he had passed through the main part of the café no one had noted him. The first to recognise him was the waiter who answered the bell. This worthy man turned to stone before the presence of Johnnie.

  “Buenos noche, Francisco,” said the spy, enjoying himself. “I have hunger. Bring me bread, butter, eggs and coffee.” There was a silence; the waiter did not move; Johnnie smiled casually at him.

  The man’s throat moved; then like one suddenly re-endowed with life, he bolted from the room. After a long time, he returned with the proprietor of the place. In the wicked eye of the latter there gleamed the light of a plan. He did not respond to Johnnie’s genial greeting, but at once proceeded to develop his position. “Johnnie,” he said, “bread is very dear in Havana. It is very dear.”

  “Is it?” said Johnnie looking keenly at the speaker. He understood at once that here was some sort of an attack upon him.

  “Yes,” answered the proprietor of the Café Aguacate slowly and softly. “It is very dear. I think to-night one small bit of bread will cost you one centene — in advance.” A centene approximates five dollars in gold.

  The spy’s face did not change. He appeared to reflect. “And how much for the butter?” he asked at last.

  The proprietor gestured. “There is no butter. Do you think we can have everything with those Yankee pigs sitting out there on their ships?”

  “And how much for the coffee?” asked Johnnie musingly.

  Again the two men surveyed each other during a period of silence. Then the proprietor said gently, “I think your coffee will cost you about two centenes.”

  “And the eggs?”

  “Eggs are very dear. I think eggs would cost you about three centenes for each one.”

  The new looked at the old; the North Atlantic looked at the Mediterranean; the wooden nutmeg looked at the olive. Johnnie slowly took six centenes from his pocket and laid them on the table. “That’s for bread, coffee, and one egg. I don’t think I could eat more than one egg to-night. I’m not so hungry as I was.”

  The proprietor held a perpendicular finger and tapped the table with it. “Oh, señor,” he said politely, “I think you would like two eggs.”

  Johnnie saw the finger. He understood it. “Ye-e-es,” he drawled. “I would like two eggs.” He placed three more centenes on the table.

  “And a little thing for the waiter? I am sure his services will be excellent, invaluable.”

  “Ye-e-es, for the waiter.” Another centene was laid on the table.

  The proprietor bowed and preceded the waiter out of the room. There was a mirror on the wall and, springing to his feet, the spy thrust his face close to the honest glass. “Well, I’m damned!” he ejaculated. “Is this me or is this the Honourable D. Hayseed Whiskers of Kansas? Who am I, anyhow? Five dollars in gold!… Say, these people are clever. They know their business, they do. Bread, coffee and two eggs and not even sure of getting it! Fifty dol —— … Never mind; wait until the war is over. Fifty dollars gold!” He sat for a long time; nothing happened. “Eh,” he said at last, “that’s the game.” As the front door of the café closed upon him, he heard the proprietor and one of the waiters burst into derisive laughter.

  Martha was waiting for him. “And here ye are, safe back,” she said with delight as she let him enter. “And did ye bring the bread? Did ye bring the bread?”

  But she saw that he was raging like a lunatic. His face was red and swollen with temper; his eyes shot forth gleams. Presently he stood before her in the patio where the light fell on him. “Don’t speak to me,” he choked out waving his arms. “Don’t speak to me! Damn your bread! I went to the Café Aguacate! Oh, yes, I went there! Of course, I did! And do you know what they did to me? No! Oh, they didn’t do anything to me at all! Not a thing! Fifty dollars! Ten gold pieces!”

  “May the saints guard us,” cried Martha. “And what was that for?”

  “Because they wanted them more than I did,” snarled Johnnie. “Don’t you see the game. I go into the Café Aguacate. The owner of the place says to himself, ‘Hello! Here’s that Yankee what they call Johnnie. He’s got no right here in Havana. Guess I’ll peach on him to the police. They’ll put him in Cabanas as a spy.’ Then he does a little more thinking, and finally he says, ‘No; I guess I won’t peach on him just this minute. First, I’ll take a small flyer myself.’ So in he comes and looks me right in the eye and says, ‘Excuse me but it will be a centene for the bread, a centene for the coffee, and eggs are at three centenes each. Besides there will be a small matter of another gold-piece for the waiter.’ I think this over. I think it over hard…. He’s clever anyhow…. When this cruel war is over, I’ll be after him…. I’m a nice s
ecret agent of the United States government, I am. I come here to be too clever for all the Spanish police, and the first thing I do is get buncoed by a rotten, little thimble-rigger in a café. Oh, yes, I’m all right.”

  “May the saints guard us!” cried Martha again. “I’m old enough to be your mother, or maybe, your grandmother, and I’ve seen a lot; but it’s many a year since I laid eyes on such a ign’rant and wrong-headed little, red Indian as ye are! Why didn’t ye take my advice and stay here in the house with decency and comfort. But he must be all for doing everything high and mighty. The Café Aguacate, if ye please. No plain food for his highness. He turns up his nose at cod-fish sal — —”

  “Thunder and lightnin’, are you going to ram that thing down my throat every two minutes, are you?” And in truth she could see that one more reference to that illustrious viand would break the back of Johnnie’s gentle disposition as one breaks a twig on the knee. She shifted with Celtic ease. “Did ye bring the bread?” she asked.

  He gazed at her for a moment and suddenly laughed. “I forgot to mention,” he informed her impressively, “that they did not take the trouble to give me either the bread, the coffee or the eggs.”

  “The powers!” cried Martha.

  “But it’s all right. I stopped at a shop.” From his pockets, he brought a small loaf, some kind of German sausage and a flask of Jamaica rum. “About all I could get. And they didn’t want to sell them either. They expect presently they can exchange a box of sardines for a grand piano.”

  “‘We are not blockaded by the Yankee warships; we are blockaded by our grocers,’” said Martha, quoting the epidemic Havana saying. But she did not delay long from the little loaf. She cut a slice from it and sat eagerly munching. Johnnie seemed more interested in the Jamaica rum. He looked up from his second glass, however, because he heard a peculiar sound. The old woman was weeping. “Hey, what’s this?” he demanded in distress, but with the manner of a man who thinks gruffness is the only thing that will make people feel better and cease. “What’s this anyhow? What are you cryin’ for?”

  “It’s the bread,” sobbed Martha. “It’s the — the br-e-a-ddd.”

  “Huh? What’s the matter with it?”

  “It’s so good, so g-good.” The rain of tears did not prevent her from continuing her unusual report. “Oh, it’s so good! This is the first in weeks. I didn’t know bread could be so l-like heaven.”

  “Here,” said Johnnie seriously. “Take a little mouthful of this rum. It will do you good.”

  “No; I only want the bub-bub-bread.”

  “Well, take the bread, too…. There you are. Now you feel better…. By Jove, when I think of that Café Aguacate man! Fifty dollars gold! And then not to get anything either. Say, after the war, I’m going there, and I’m just going to raze that place to the ground. You see! I’ll make him think he can charge ME fifteen dollars for an egg…. And then not give me the egg.”

  III

  Johnnie’s subsequent activity in Havana could truthfully be related in part to a certain temporary price of eggs. It is interesting to note how close that famous event got to his eye so that, according to the law of perspective, it was as big as the Capitol of Washington, where centres the spirit of his nation. Around him, he felt a similar and ferocious expression of life which informed him too plainly that if he was caught, he was doomed. Neither the garrison nor the citizens of Havana would tolerate any nonsense in regard to him if he was caught. He would have the steel screw against his neck in short order. And what was the main thing to bear him up against the desire to run away before his work was done? A certain temporary price of eggs! It not only hid the Capitol at Washington; it obscured the dangers in Havana.

  Something was learned of the Santa Clara battery, because one morning an old lady in black accompanied by a young man — evidently her son — visited a house which was to rent on the height, in rear of the battery. The portero was too lazy and sleepy to show them over the premises, but he granted them permission to investigate for themselves. They spent most of their time on the flat parapeted roof of the house. At length they came down and said that the place did not suit them. The portero went to sleep again.

  Johnnie was never discouraged by the thought that his operations would be of small benefit to the admiral commanding the fleet in adjacent waters, and to the general commanding the army which was not going to attack Havana from the land side. At that time it was all the world’s opinion that the army from Tampa would presently appear on the Cuban beach at some convenient point to the east or west of Havana. It turned out, of course, that the condition of the defences of Havana was of not the slightest military importance to the United States since the city was never attacked either by land or sea. But Johnnie could not foresee this. He continued to take his fancy risk, continued his majestic lie, with satisfaction, sometimes with delight, and with pride. And in the psychologic distance was old Martha dancing with fear and shouting: “Oh, Johnnie, me son, what a born fool ye are!”

  Sometimes she would address him thus: “And when ye learn all this, how are ye goin’ to get out with it?” She was contemptuous.

  He would reply, as serious as a Cossack in his fatalism. “Oh, I’ll get out some way.”

  His manœuvres in the vicinity of Regla and Guanabacoa were of a brilliant character. He haunted the sunny long grass in the manner of a jack-rabbit. Sometimes he slept under a palm, dreaming of the American advance fighting its way along the military road to the foot of Spanish defences. Even when awake, he often dreamed it and thought of the all-day crash and hot roar of an assault. Without consulting Washington, he had decided that Havana should be attacked from the south-east. An advance from the west could be contested right up to the bar of the Hotel Inglaterra, but when the first ridge in the south-east would be taken, the whole city with most of its defences would lie under the American siege guns. And the approach to this position was as reasonable as is any approach toward the muzzles of magazine rifles. Johnnie viewed the grassy fields always as a prospective battle-ground, and one can see him lying there, filling the landscape with visions of slow-crawling black infantry columns, galloping batteries of artillery, streaks of faint blue smoke marking the modern firing lines, clouds of dust, a vision of ten thousand tragedies. And his ears heard the noises.

  But he was no idle shepherd boy with a head haunted by sombre and glorious fancies. On the contrary, he was much occupied with practical matters. Some months after the close of the war, he asked me: “Were you ever fired at from very near?” I explained some experiences which I had stupidly esteemed as having been rather near. “But did you ever have’m fire a volley on you from close — very close — say, thirty feet?”

  Highly scandalised I answered, “No; in that case, I would not be the crowning feature of the Smithsonian Institute.”

  “Well,” he said, “it’s a funny effect. You feel as every hair on your head had been snatched out by the roots.” Questioned further he said, “I walked right up on a Spanish outpost at daybreak once, and about twenty men let go at me. Thought I was a Cuban army, I suppose.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I run.”

  “Did they hit you, at all?”

  “Naw.”

  It had been arranged that some light ship of the squadron should rendezvous with him at a certain lonely spot on the coast on a certain day and hour and pick him up. He was to wave something white. His shirt was not white, but he waved it whenever he could see the signal-tops of a war-ship. It was a very tattered banner. After a ten-mile scramble through almost pathless thickets, he had very little on him which respectable men would call a shirt, and the less one says about his trousers the better. This naked savage, then, walked all day up and down a small bit of beach waving a brown rag. At night, he slept in the sand. At full daybreak he began to wave his rag; at noon he was waving his rag; at night-fall he donned his rag and strove to think of it as a shirt. Thus passed two days, and nothing had happened. Then he retra
ced a twenty-five mile way to the house of old Martha. At first she took him to be one of Havana’s terrible beggars and cried, “And do you come here for alms? Look out, that I do not beg of you.” The one unchanged thing was his laugh of pure mockery. When she heard it, she dragged him through the door. He paid no heed to her ejaculations but went straight to where he had hidden some gold. As he was untying a bit of string from the neck of a small bag, he said, “How is little Alfred?” “Recovered, thank Heaven.” He handed Martha a piece of gold. “Take this and buy what you can on the corner. I’m hungry.” Martha departed with expedition. Upon her return, she was beaming. She had foraged a thin chicken, a bunch of radishes and two bottles of wine. Johnnie had finished the radishes and one bottle of wine when the chicken was still a long way from the table. He called stoutly for more, and so Martha passed again into the street with another gold piece. She bought more radishes, more wine and some cheese. They had a grand feast, with Johnnie audibly wondering until a late hour why he had waved his rag in vain.

  There was no end to his suspense, no end to his work. He knew everything. He was an animate guide-book. After he knew a thing once, he verified it in several different ways in order to make sure. He fitted himself for a useful career, like a young man in a college — with the difference that the shadow of the garote fell ever upon his way, and that he was occasionally shot at, and that he could not get enough to eat, and that his existence was apparently forgotten, and that he contracted the fever. But ——

  One cannot think of the terms in which to describe a futility so vast, so colossal. He had builded a little boat, and the sea had receded and left him and his boat a thousand miles inland on the top of a mountain. The war-fate had left Havana out of its plan and thus isolated Johnnie and his several pounds of useful information. The war-fate left Havana to become the somewhat indignant victim of a peaceful occupation at the close of the conflict, and Johnnie’s data were worth as much as a carpenter’s lien on the north pole. He had suffered and laboured for about as complete a bit of absolute nothing as one could invent. If the company which owned the sugar plantation had not generously continued his salary during the war, he would not have been able to pay his expenses on the amount allowed him by the government, which, by the way, was a more complete bit of absolute nothing than one could possibly invent.