Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2

by Bertolt Brecht

  JESSE indignantly: Call it off? I need my hand back.

  URIAH: My helmet’s in there too.

  POLLY: Then we’ll have to go through the wall.

  JESSE: Ow! Ow! Ow! He pulls his hand out. It is covered with blood. They’ll have to pay for this hand. I’m not calling it off after that. Give us a ladder, come on!

  URIAH: Wait! Hand over your paybooks first. A soldier’s paybook must never be damaged. You can replace a man anytime, but a paybook is sacred if anything is.

  They band over their paybooks to him.

  POLLY: Polly Baker.

  JESSE: Jesse Mahoney.

  JIP crawling up: Jeraiah Jip.

  URIAH: Uriah Shelley. All from the Eighth Regiment. Stationed at Kankerdan, machine-gun section. Shooting will be avoided so that no visible damage is done to the temple. Forward!

  Uriah, Jesse and Polly climb into the pagoda.

  JIP calls after them: I’ll mount guard. Then at least I won’t have gone in. The yellow face of Wang, the bonze, appears at a small window above. How do you do? Are you the honourable owner? Delightful part of the world, this.

  URIAH within: Hand me your knife, Jesse, so I can force these collection boxes open.

  Wang smiles, and Jip smiles too.

  JIP to the bonze: It is just awful, belonging to a troupe of hippopotamuses like that. The face disappears. Come on out.

  There’s a man wandering around upstairs.

  Electric bells are heard at intervals within.

  URIAH: Watch where you step. What is it, Jip?

  JIP: A man upstairs.

  URIAH: A man? Everybody out! Hoy!

  THE THREE within, shouting and cursing: Get your foot out of the way! – Let go! Now I can’t move my foot. My boot’s gone too – Don’t weaken, Polly. Never! – It’s my tunic now, Uriah! – What’s a tunic? This temple must be wiped out. Now what? – Bloody hell, my trousers are stuck. That’s what comes of being in a hurry. That idiot Jip.

  JIP: Find anything? Whisky? Rum? Gin? Brandy? Ale?

  JESSE: Uriah’s ripped his trousers on a bamboo hook, and the boot on Polly’s good foot is stuck in a mantrap.

  POLLY: And Jesse’s tangled up in electric wire.

  JIP: That’s just what I expected. Next time you go into a building why not use the front door?

  Jip goes in through the door. The three climb out above, pale, bleeding and ragged.

  POLLY: This calls for vengeance.

  URIAH: This temple doesn’t fight fair. Filthy, I call it.

  POLLY: I want to see blood.

  JIP from within: Hey!

  POLLY bloodthirstily advances on to the roof, but his boot gets stuck: Now my other boot’s gone.

  URIAH: Now I shall shoot the place up.

  The three climb down and aim their machine-gun at the pagoda.

  POLLY: Fire!

  They fire.

  JIP within: Ow! What are you doing?

  The three look up, horrified.

  POLLY: Where are you?

  JIP within: Here. You’ve gone and shot me through the finger.

  JESSE: What the devil are you up to in that rat trap, you fool?

  JIP appearing in the doorway: I wanted to get the money. Here it is.

  URIAH joyfully: Trust the biggest rumpot of us all to get it first go off. Aloud: Come out of that door at once.

  JIP sticks his head out of the door: Where did you say?

  URIAH: Out of that door at once!

  JIP: Oh, what’s this?

  POLLY: What’s up with him?

  JIP: Look!

  URIAH: Now what?

  JIP: My hair! Oh, my hair! I can’t go forwards and I can’t go back! Oh, my hair! It’s stuck fast to something. Uriah, see what’s sticking to my hair. Oh, Uriah, get me free! I’m hanging by the hair.

  Polly tiptoes over to Jip and looks down at his hair.

  POLLY: His hair is stuck to the door frame.

  URIAH shouts: Your knife, Jesse, so as I can cut him free!

  Uriah cuts him free, Jip lurches forward.

  POLLY amused: And now he’s got a bald patch.

  They examine Jip’s head.

  JESSE: A bit of the skin came off too.

  URIAH looks at the two of them, then icily: A bald patch will give us away.

  JESSE with a venomous look: A walking ‘Wanted’ notice!

  Uriah, Jesse and Polly confer among themselves.

  URIAH: We’ll go back to camp and get a pair of scissors, then come back this evening and crop all his hair off so the bald patch can’t be seen. He gives back the paybooks. Jesse Mahoney!

  JESSE taking his paybook: Jesse Mahoney!

  URIAH: Polly Baker!

  POLLY taking his paybook: Polly Baker!

  URIAH: Jeraiah Jip! Jip tries to get up. I’ll hold on to yours.

  He points to a palanquin in the courtyard. Sit in that leather box and wait till dark.

  Jip crawls into the palanquin. The other three walk off dejectedly shaking their heads. When they have left, Wang the bonze appears in the doorway of the pagoda and takes some of the hair stuck to it which he examines.

  3

  Country Road between Kilkoa and the Camp

  Sergeant Fairchild appears from behind a shed and nails a poster to it.

  FAIRCHILD: It is many moons since I, Bloody Five, known also as Tiger of Kilkoa, the Human Typhoon, a sergeant in the British Army, experienced anything as marvellous as this. Points at the poster. Pagoda of the Yellow God broken into. Roof of said Pagoda riddled with bullets. What have we in the way of a clue? Four ounces of hair stuck to pitch. If the roof is riddled with bullets then there must be a machine-gun section involved; if there are four ounces of hair at the scene of the crime then there must be a man who is four ounces short. So if there is a machine-gun section containing a man with a bald patch then those are the offenders. It is all plain as a pikestaff. But who is this coming? He steps behind the shed. The three approach and observe the poster with alarm. Then they go dejectedly on their way. But Fairchild appears from behind the shed and blows a police whistle. They stop.

  FAIRCHILD: Have none of you seen a man with a bald patch?

  POLLY: No.

  FAIRCHILD: Just look at you. Take your helmets off. Where is your fourth man?

  URIAH: Why, Sergeant, he’s relieving himself.

  FAIRCHILD: Then we’ll just wait for him and find out if he has seen a man with a bald patch. They wait. He seems to take a lot of relieving.

  JESSE: Yes, sergeant.

  They go on waiting.

  POLLY: Perhaps he went a different way?

  FAIRCHILD: It would be better for you, let me tell you, if you had summarily shot one another in your mothers’ wombs than if you turn up at my roll call tonight without your fourth man. Exit.

  POLLY: Let’s hope that wasn’t our new sergeant. If that rattle-snake is taking tonight’s roll-call we might as well line up against the wall straight away.

  URIAH: Before they sound the roll-call we’ll have to have a fourth man.

  POLLY: Here’s a man coming now. Let’s have a quiet look at him. They hide behind the shed. Widow Begbick comes down the street. Galy Gay is following her, carrying her basket of cucumbers.

  BEGBICK: What are you moaning about? You’re being paid by the hour, aren’t you?

  GALY GAY: That’ll be three hours then.

  BEGBICK: You’ll get your money. This is a road that hardly anyone uses. A woman might have a hard time resisting a man that wished to embrace her.

  GALY GAY: In your profession as a canteen owner always involved with soldiers, who are the worst people in the world, you must know certain holds.

  BEGBICK: Ah, sir, you should never say such things to a woman. Certain words put women in a state when their blood gets aroused.

  GALY GAY: I am only a simple porter from the harbour.

  BEGBICK: It will be roll-call for the new lot in a few minutes. You can hear the drums already. At this hour there’s not a s
oul on the road.

  GALY GAY: If it’s really as late as all that I’ll have to turn around and hurry back to the town of Kilkoa, for I still have a fish to buy.

  BEGBICK: Would you mind my asking you, Mr – I hope I’ve got the name correctly – Galy Gay, whether the profession of porter demands exceptional strength?

  GALY GAY: I could never have imagined that unforeseen events would once again delay me for almost four hours from quickly buying a fish and returning home, but I run like an express train once I get started.

  BEGBICK: Yes, there is quite a difference between buying a fish to eat and helping a lady to carry her basket. But possibly the lady might be in a position to express her gratitude in a manner that would be more enjoyable than the eating of a fish.

  GALY GAY: I must confess I would like to go and buy a fish.

  BEGBICK: How can you be such a materialist?

  GALY GAY: You know, I am a funny sort of person. Sometimes I know even before I get up: today I want a fish. Or I want a curry. When that happens the world can come to an end, but I just have to get a fish or a curry as the case may be.

  BEGBICK: I understand, sir. But isn’t it too late? The shops are closed and they are out of fish.

  GALY GAY: You see, I am a man with great powers of imagination; I get fed up with a fish, for instance, even before I have set eyes on it. People set out to buy a fish, and first of all they buy that fish and secondly they carry that fish home, and thirdly they cook that fish till it is done, and fourthly they devour that fish, then at night after they have drawn a thick black line under their digestion they are still preoccupied with the same depressing fish, just because they are the sort who have no power of imagination.

  BEGBICK: I see, you’re only thinking of yourself all the time. Pause. Hm. If you are only thinking of yourself I suggest you take your fish money and buy this cucumber, which I will let you have as a favour. The cucumber is worth more, but you can keep the difference in return for carrying my basket.

  GALY GAY: But I do not require a cucumber.

  BEGBICK: I would never have expected you to humiliate me so.

  GALY GAY: It is just that the water for the fish has already been put on.

  BEGBICK: I see. Have it your own way. Have it your own way.

  GALY GAY: No, no, believe me, I’d be only too glad to oblige you.

  BEGBICK: Not another word, talking only makes it worse.

  GALY GAY: Far be it from me to disappoint you. If you are still prepared to let me have the cucumber, here is the money.

  URIAH to Jesse and Polly: That is a man who can’t say no.

  GALY GAY: Careful, there are soldiers about.

  BEGBICK: God knows what they are doing around here at this hour. It is almost time for roll-call. Quick, hand me my basket, why should I go on wasting any more time standing here gossipping with you? But I would be happy to welcome you as a visitor to my beer waggon at the camp, for I am the widow Begbick, and my beer waggon is famous from Hyderabad to Rangoon. She takes her packages and leaves.

  URIAH: That’s our man.

  JESSE: Someone who can’t say no.

  POLLY: And he even has red hair like old Jip.

  The three set out.

  JESSE: Nice evening tonight.

  GALY GAY: Yes, sir.

  JESSE: It’s a funny thing, sir, but something tells me you come from Kilkoa.

  GALY GAY: Kilkoa? Why, yes. That’s where my cabin is, so to speak.

  JESSE: I’m exceptionally glad to hear that, Mr …

  GALY GAY: Galy Gay.

  JESSE: You’ve got a cabin there, haven’t you?

  GALY GAY: Oh, have you met me already, as you know that? Or my wife perhaps?

  JESSE: You’re called, why yes, you’re called … half a moment … Galy Gay.

  GALY GAY: Perfectly true, that’s my name.

  JESSE: I knew it right away. You see, that’s the way I am. For instance, I bet you’re married. But why are we standing around like this, Mr Galy Gay? These are my friends Polly and Uriah. Won’t you smoke a pipe with us in our canteen?

  Pause. Galy Gay looks at them suspiciously.

  GALY GAY: Many thanks. Unfortunately my wife is waiting for me in Kilkoa. Besides, I haven’t personally got a pipe, absurd as that may seem to you.

  JESSE: A cigar then. No, you can’t refuse, it’s such a nice evening.

  GALY GAY: Well, in that case I can’t say no.

  POLLY: And you shall have your cigar.

  Exeunt all four.

  4

  Canteen of the Widow Leokadja Begbick

  Soldiers are singing ‘The Song of Widow Begbick’s Drinking Truck’.

  SOLDIERS:

  In Widow Begbick’s drinking truck

  You smokes and swigs and sleeps your time away.

  You buys your beer and tries your luck

  From Jubbulpore to Mandalay.

  From Halifax to Hindustan

  Horse, foot and guns, the service man

  Wants what the widow has to sell.

  It’s toddy, gum and hi, hi, hi

  Bypassing heaven and skirting hell.

  Shut your big mouth, Tommy, keep your hair on, Tommy

  As you slide down Soda Mountain into Whisky Dell.

  In Widow Begbick’s drinking tank

  You always gets the things that you likes best.

  That’s where the Indian Army drank

  When you was drinking at Mummy’s breast.

  From Halifax to Hindustan

  Horse, foot and guns, the service man

  Wants what the widow has to sell.

  It’s toddy, gum and hi, hi, hi

  Bypassing heaven and skirting hell.

  Shut your big mouth, Tommy, keep your hair on, Tommy

  As you slide down Soda Mountain into Whisky Dell.

  And when it’s war in Cooch Behar

  We’ll stock ourselves with gum and smokes and beer

  And climb on Begbick’s drinking car

  To show those wogs who’s master here.

  From Halifax to Hindustan

  Horse, foot and guns, the service man

  Wants what the widow has to sell.

  It’s toddy, gum and hi, hi, hi

  Bypassing heaven and skirting hell.

  Shut your big mouth, Tommy, keep your hair on, Tommy

  As you slide down Soda Mountain into Whisky Dell.

  BEGBICK entering: Good evening, you military gentlemen. I am the Widow Begbick and this is my beer waggon which gets hooked on to the great troop trains and goes rolling over the entire Indian railway system; and because you can travel and drink beer and sleep in it at one and the same time it is called ‘Widow Begbick’s Beer Waggon’ and everybody from Hyderabad to Rangoon knows that it has been a refuge to many an affronted soldier.

  In the doorway stand the three soldiers with Galy Gay. They thrust him back.

  URIAH: Is this the Eighth Regiment canteen?

  POLLY: Are we addressing the owner of the canteen, the world-famous Widow Begbick? We are the machine-gun section of the Eighth Regiment.

  BEGBICK: Only three of you? Where is your fourth man? They enter without answering, pick up two tables and carry them to the left where they build a kind of partition. The other soldiers look on in astonishment.

  JESSE: What kind of a man is the sergeant?

  BEGBICK: Not nice.

  POLLY: It is most disagreeable that the sergeant should not be nice.

  BEGBICK: They call him Bloody Five, alias The Tiger of Kilkoa, the Human Typhoon. He has an unnatural sense of smell, he can smell criminal activity.

  Jesse, Polly and Uriah look at one another.

  URIAH: Indeed.

  BEGBICK to her guests: This is the famous MG section which swung the battle of Hyderabad and is known as The Shower.

  SOLDIERS: From now on they’re part of our lot. Their crimes are said to follow them like shadows. A soldier brings in a ‘Wanted’ notice which he nails up. And right on their tail come
s another of those signs.

  The guests have stood up and slowly leave the canteen. Uriah whistles.

  GALY GAY entering: I’ve been to this kind of establishment before. Printed menus. They have a whopping one at the Siam Hotel, gold on white. I bought one once. If you’ve got the right contacts you can get anything. One thing on it is Chicauqua sauce. And that’s just a side dish. Chicauqua sauce!

  JESSE pushing Galy Gay towards the partition: My dear sir, you are in a position to do three poor soldiers in distress a little service with no inconvenience to yourself.

  POLLY: Our fourth man has been delayed taking leave of his wife, and if there are not four of us at roll-call we shall all be thrown into the black dungeons of Kilkoa.

  URIAH: So it would help if you would put on one of our uniforms. You’d only need to be present when they number off the new arrivals and answer to his name. Just to keep the record straight.

  JESSE: That’s all.

  POLLY: A cigar more or less that you might feel like smoking at our expense would not be worth mentioning.

  GALY GAY: It is not that I am reluctant to oblige you, but unfortunately I have to hurry home. I have bought a cucumber for dinner and therefore cannot do exactly as I would like.

  JESSE: Thank you. Frankly, it is what I expected of you. That’s the point: you cannot do exactly as you would like.

  You would like to go home, but you cannot. Thank you, sir, for justifying the confidence we placed in you the instant we set eyes on you. Your hand, sir.

  He seizes Galy Gay’s hand. Uriah motions him imperiously to go into the corner behind the tables. As soon as he is in the corner all three rush him and undress him except for his shirt.

  URIAH: Permit us, for the said purpose, to clothe you in the noble garb of the glorious British Army. He rings. Begbick appears. Widow Begbick, can a man speak freely in these parts? We need a complete uniform. Begbick produces a box and tosses it to Uriah. Uriah throws it to Polly.

  POLLY to Galy Gay: Here is the noble garb we purchased for you.

  JESSE showing him the trousers: Put this garb on, brother Galy Gay.

  POLLY to Begbick: It’s because he lost his uniform.

  The three of them dress Galy Gay.

  BEGBICK: I see. He lost his uniform.

  POLLY: Yes, a Chinese in the bath house managed to abstract our friend Jip’s service dress.

  BEGBICK: I see: in the bath house?