The Death Ship

by B. TRAVEN

Finally the captain said: “That’s out, my good fellow, no Sunday dinner today, because it is Monday. But you’ll get the officers’ dinner, and double portions. I sincerely hope that it will be the last meal you ever eat in France. If I ever catch you eating another, I will see to it that you are shot, spy or no spy.”

  They started laughing again.

  16

  Two soldiers, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, accompanied me to the border. With all military honors I marched into sunny Spain.

  It was the turning-point of my life. I did not know it then, but I know it now; yes, sir.

  “He has no papers,” the corporal said to the Spanish customs officers, who appeared to be glad to get something to worry about, because the post was a quiet one.

  “Es alemán?” the Spaniard asked.

  “Si, señor,” I answered, “soy alemán con mucho hambre.” Which is Spanish and which means: “I am a Boche and I am plenty hungry.”

  “Bienvenido,” he said, which is the same as our “Be welcome.” We, of course, seldom mean it, but the Spaniards really mean it and they act accordingly.

  The soldiers presented a paper which the Spanish officer in charge signed. Then the soldiers, their duty done, sat down and talked with the Spaniards. They got wine and cheese, and they made merry, because after a while Spanish girls came along to pep up the lonely post. They played guitarras and accordions and danced. The wives of the customs officers were in the village and could not see what was going on here, where, they thought, their husbands sweated about the collection of customs and the writing of reports.

  As soon as I was handed over to the Spaniards they pulled me, almost triumphantly, into the customs house. They shook hands and embraced me. Some kissed me on my cheeks.

  War against the Americans, and you will find no better friends on earth than the Spaniards. If they had only known who I really was, that I had robbed them of Cuba and the Philippines, and that I had cracked up some of their battleships! I still wonder what they would have done to me if they had known my nationality. I was a victim of circumstances, and I hope the Spaniards will forgive me, and besides I personally had nothing to do with Cuba and the battle-ships, because all this happened before my time.

  My outward appearance was exactly what a Spaniard had imagined a German would look like. Since the Tuscaloosa had sailed, I had changed neither suit, cap, nor shoes, for there was nothing to change them for. My linen looked like linen when it has been washed in brooks, creeks, and rivers, sometimes with soap, mostly without. Yet my appearance was, to them, the best proof that I had come directly from Germany.

  They were sure that I must be as hungry as only a man who has been blockaded by the English can be. Consequently they gave me enough food to last a week. Whenever I tried to stop eating, they used all kinds of tricks to make me go through the whole course again.

  While I was eating, two of the officers went to the little town near by. When I was stuffed to the limit, the two officers came back with bundles. I got a shirt, a hat, shoes, half a dozen socks, handkers, collars, ties, a pair of pants, a jacket. I had to throw away everything I had about me, and I had to dress. When this was finished, I looked so much like a Spaniard that anyone who had known me back home would have thought I had turned bullfighter.

  It was late. The French soldiers said they had to go home. So they left, saying good-by to me. I told them to give my regards to their colonel, and thank the whole of France for what they had done to me. They won’t pay their debts anyhow, so why shouldn’t I send them my regards?

  Now the customs officers started playing cards. They invited me to play with them. I did not know how to play with those funny-looking Spanish cards, but I was taught. Soon I played so well that I won quite a stack of Spanish pesetas, which pleased them immensely, and they urged me to go on playing. I felt like a robber. Whatever I did, when a play was over, they said I had won.

  Oh, you sunny, wonderful Spain! May you prosper and live long! No one calls you God’s country. It was the first country I met in which I was not asked for a sailor’s card or for a passport. The first country in which people did not care to know my name, my age, my beliefs, my height. For the first time my pockets were not searched. I was not pushed at midnight across the border and kicked out of the country like a leper. Nobody wanted to know how much money I had, or what I had lived on for the last three months.

  The Spaniards did not fight for liberty, and that’s why they still have it.

  I spent my first night in Spain in the customs house, because it was late when we had finished playing cards, and I was not yet used to the gallons of wine I had drunk.

  From then on I had to pass every night in another house in the little town. Every family considered it partly the greatest honor, partly the highest duty, to have me. Each family wanted to keep me for a whole week. Most evenings there were fights going on over me. The family I was staying with did not want to give me up to the family whose turn it was next to have me. When all turns were up, the whole round started over again. Each family tried to do better than the former. I felt myself getting fat. Worse than that, I got sick. These people were all well-to-do. Smuggling is still a great business, and it is a very honorable business. The king of the smugglers was honored by being made mayor of the town, and the vice-king was made chief of police. No wonder these jolly folks treated me like a bishop on a vacation.

  I escaped one night. Like a thief. I am sure these good people think ill of me. They think me ungrateful for having left them without saying good-by and many thanks. Anyway, only an imbecile or a feeble-minded individual could have stood it for long. Those folks would never understand it, good-natured as they are. They think a man treated as I was treated should feel as though he’s in heaven. But even in heaven I should feel sick if I just had to sit around and eat and eat. Slavery results from such treatment. You forget how to work and how to look after yourself. I should feel unhappy in a communistic state where the community takes all the risks I want to take myself. In that Spanish town I could not even go into the back-yard without having some one yell after me if I were sure I had soft paper. Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.

  If I had not escaped, there might have come a day when I would have started to kill them, one by one, for having made me utterly useless and for making me hate myself.

  17

  When I got tired of Seville, I made for Cadiz. As soon as I began to dislike the climate of Cadiz, I returned to Seville. And when the hailing of a new-born torero was too much for me, I was again on my way to Cadiz. By doing so frequently enough, the winter passed. A winter balmier than most winters are in New Orleans. About good old New Orleans — I could have sold that ole town now for a quarter without feeling conscience-stricken. There were lots of other sunny places in the world! Why, of places, should it be just New Orleans?

  My pockets were exactly as empty as they were when I arrived at the border. And still no flat ever asked me about papers or about the means I lived by. The cops had other worries. What did they care about a penniless foreigner?

  When I had no money to buy me a bed for the night, I slept anywhere I found to stretch my bones. The morning found me lying there peacefully. The cop on the beat had passed by a hundred times, but he respected my slumber and he took goad care that nobody should kidnap me. Here homelessness and poverty aren’t crimes like at home, where they put a man in jail if he hasn’t got a place to sleep. That is why at home a man who is expert at robbing is considered a respectable citizen whose property must be protected by the police.

  Once I was awakened by a cop while asleep on a bench. He said that he was very sorry to disturb me, but he wanted to warn me that a heavy rain was on its way and that I had better go over to that shed yonder, where I would find straw and a tight roof, and where I would sleep a lot better.

  I was hungry and I stepped into a bakery and told the man behind the counter that I had no money, but was hungry. I got all the bread I needed. No one ever bored me with the silly
question: “Why don’t you work? A strong and healthy fellow like you!”

  They would have considered such a question unbecoming. They had no job to offer — they knew that jobs were scarce — but they knew that men must eat to keep the world going.

  Many ships sailed from here. Some days half a dozen at a time. Certainly there were ships among them that were short a sailor or two. That, however, did not worry me in the least. Why, there were other fellows who wanted the job. Why should I rob them of their chance? Besides, spring was here.

  Life was beautiful. The sun was so golden and so warm. The country was lovely. People were friendly, always smiling, singing; and there was music in the streets, in the gardens, on the shore. The people who sang and made music and made love were mostly in rags, but they were smiling and friendly and lovely. Above all, there was so much freedom. Do as you like, dress as you can afford, don’t molest me, and to hell with everything. And don’t you forget: Spain has no Statue of Liberty.

  In Spain no one speaks of liberty, because people have it. Perhaps their political liberty is not much compared with that of other nations; but no one butts into the private lives of the people; no one tries to tell them what they must drink or eat, or with whom they have to spend the night.

  When I was in Barcelona, one day I passed a huge, sinister-looking building, out of which came horrible shrieks.

  “What’s going on in there?” I asked a man who happened along.

  “That’s the military prison,” he said.

  “But why do the people inside cry so heart-breakingly?”

  “People? They are not people. They are only communists.”

  “They don’t have to cry because they are communists,” I said.

  “Oh yes, they do. They are beaten up by the sergeants, and they are tortured. See?”

  “Why are they beaten?”

  “Didn’t I tell you they are communists?”

  “No reason to beat them up. Lots of them in Russia.”

  “We don’t want them here. That’s why they are beaten until they die. Beaten and whipped to death. At night they are taken out and buried secretly.”

  “Then they must be criminals?”

  “No, they are not criminals. They haven’t stolen anything. Some killed the minister. But those have been dead a long time. They are beaten and tortured just because they are communists.”

  “I tell you again, amigo, I still cannot understand why they are killed in such a horrible way.”

  “Can’t you see? Those men are communists. They want to change everything in the whole world. They want to make slaves of everybody, so that nobody can do what he pleases. Those silly people want the state to do everything, regulate everything, so we should be only slaves of the state. We don’t want this. We honest people want to work when and how we wish to. And if we don’t wish to work and we prefer to go hungry, then we don’t work and we go hungry. We want to be free and to stay free. If we starve to death, that is nobody’s business but our own. But the communists want to interfere with everything, with our private lives, with our occupations, with our marriages, and they say the state should command and order everything and leave nothing for us to worry about. That is why these communists are beaten to death, and it serves them right.”

  There seemed to be a cloud over sunny Spain, but soon the cloud went away. Why should I condemn Spain because of what I had heard? I do not want to judge. Each age and each country tortures its Christians. That which was tortured yesterday is the powerful church today and a religion in decay tomorrow. The deplorable thing, the most deplorable thing, is that the people who were tortured yesterday, torture today. The communists in Russia are no less despotic than the Fascists in Italy or the textile-mill magnates in America. The Irish who came five years ago to the States and who took out citizenship papers yesterday are today the most ardent supporters of all the narrow-minded God’s-country-praisers who want to bar from these United States everyone who did not ask his parents to be hundred-per-centers. Whose fault is it that a Jew was born a Jew? Had he a chance to ask to be born a Chinese? Did the Negro ask the English or the Puritans to bring him to the only country worth living in? Since the great George was not an Indian, he must have been an offspring of one of those god-damned immigrants, and to hell with them.

  So why should I feel a furrener in Spain, where shines the same sun that shines in Sconsin. The moon is just the same, too; Honey may see it in New Orleans, when she thinks of me. If she does. The Tuscaloosa is back by now. I shall look into the matter later. Let us have Spain first. It’s closer, anyway.

  There is no reason why I should run after a job. I’d have to stand up before the manager like a beggar, cap in hand, as sheepishly as if I were asking him to let me shine his shoes with my spit. In fact, usually it is less humiliating to beg for a meal than to ask for work. Can the skipper sail his bucket without sailors? Or can the engineer, no matter how clever he is, build a locomotive without workers? Nevertheless, the worker has to stand with his cap in hand and beg for a job. He has to stand there like a dog about to be beaten.

  Thinking of all the humiliation made it easy for me to go to a restaurant or hotel to ask for the left-overs. The cook doesn’t treat me as degradingly as foremen and bosses do.

  After all, why chase jobs when the sun is so golden and clear and the skies are so blue, so wonderfully blue, tinged with flares of white gold? Why hang around factory gates when people are so friendly and so polite even to me. As long as I don’t commit murder or burglary, I am a decent citizen, and everybody respects me as such. No cop comes up and wants to search my pockets to see if he can find a lost formula for the manufacture of unbreakable wineglasses.

  One day I smelled fried fish. When I came up to ask for the left-overs, the people begged my pardon for not having anything to give me.

  I concluded that the best way to eat fried fish is to catch’m and fry’m. I was used to asking for a meal, yet I thought it rather unusual to go begging for hooks and a line to fish with. I waited at the pier until a passenger boat came in, and then I waited outside of the customs house. Somebody handed me a bag and told me to follow him to his hotel. He gave me three pesetas and his thanks.

  I went to a hardware store and bought a line and a couple of hooks. It amounted to about a peseta. Just to make friends, I told the salesman that I was a stranded sailor in Spain, waiting for a ship to pick me up. He wrapped up the goods for me, and when I handed him my peseta he said: “It’s all paid for, sailor. Thank you very much for your patronage. Good luck in fishing. Adios.”

  Such a country I should leave? Such people I should spoil by chasing jobs and looking busy and hustling? Not for the world.

  Spain backward? Don’t make me laugh, sir. Those folks know more about the values of life and the destinies of the human race than any prof of phil at the State U of Sconsin.

  18

  I was sitting on the quay with my hook and line in the water. The fish wouldn’t bite. I did my best to feed them with black sausage, which I had got from a Dutch that had come in the day before. She was going to Java or thereabouts.

  I had gone cooking to the Dutch. “To go cooking” is another way of saying “to make friends with the crew” of a bucket that’s in port to get the meals so necessary for the health of a stranded sailor who is in Spain just to study the land and the people. To go cooking is not always a pleasure, sir. No, it is not.

  The worker who has a job feels superior to a worker who is without one. Workers are not at all as chummy toward each other as some people think when they see them marching with red flags to Union Square and getting noisy about a paradise in Russia. Workers might have a big word in all affairs were it not for the middle-class ideas they can’t shake off. The one who makes the delicate parts of an engine feels superior to the man who stands before a lathe making bolts by the ten thousand. And the man at the lathe feels superior to the poor Czech who gathers up the scraps from the floor and carries them in a wheelbarrow to the back-
yard.

  Sometimes, while standing on the quay, looking up at the fore of a tub where the hands sit at lunch, I hear one of them yell out: “Hey, you bums, you stinking beachcombers, nothing to swallow, hey? I suppose you want to come up here and lick spit, hey? All right, but only two of you, so we can keep an eye on you thieves.”

  There were others who enjoyed throwing all the food — soup, meat, bread, beans, prunes, coffee into one pot together with all their half-chewed left-overs, and then handing us this mess and saying: “Well, if you are really hungry, eat that, and say thanks, buddy.” We were hungry and we had to eat it.

  Or they gave us a huge bowl full of good soup, and then threw into it all the spoons they had, and we had to fish the spoons out with our dirty fingers, to the merriment of the comrades. They did not mean it, they just wanted to be funny. And funny, too, were those who saw us standing hungrily on the quay and yet would throw, before our eyes, half a dozen loaves of white bread into the sea, and potfuls of meat.

  Since no working-man can ever be sure of his job and of his superior standing, it happened often that one of those friendly fellow-proletarians was left behind when the ship sailed. He then had to go cooking with us to the buckets coming in, and he learned how it felt to be on the shore and to be treated that way by members of his own class.

  They were not all of this sort. Most of them were really true fellow-workers who parted easily with a peseta or a pair of pants and with the best meals they could offer. There were some who even went to the cabins of the officers and stole soap and towels for us, and dozens of cans of meat from the galley. Once I got twelve roasted chickens for lunch and I couldn’t keep the left-overs for a rainy day because I had no refrigerator in my pocket.

  The crews of the French and the American ships were the best of all. When there happened to be exceptions, they were foreigners to the flag under which they sailed. The German ships were, with very rare exceptions, the worst of all. It was not the crew that was nasty, although sometimes they were too. It was the officers who acted like little gods. The German ships, long before they put in, fastened at the railings huge wooden posters with gigantic letters: “No Admittance”; and to be sure, they never forgot to hang out the same poster in Spanish. I still wonder what the Germans do with their left-overs. I suppose they can them and store them away for the next war. Yes, sir.