The Death Ship

by B. TRAVEN

  As to dangerous jobs, it went like this: The chief told the second engineer, the second told the donkey, the donkey told the greaser, the greaser told the fireman, or the stoker if you want.

  Said the fireman: “Blast me somewhere, but that’s not a fireman’s job, I don’t care a bitch who does it, but I am the one who of all the cracked nuts plumb sure won’t do it, and not for twenty bucks either.”

  Goes the second to the drag of the noblemen-watch, that is the watch from eight to twelve, where only stranded princes and dukes are on watch. Says the drag of this palace-watch: “Not me, sir, and never mind the double pay and fourfold ration of rum. My great-grandmother is still alive and she is dependent on me.”

  Goes the second to the drag of the golden middle watch; that is the watch from four to eight. “Me?” he answers. “Don’t come to me that way, sweety, I don’t want to be the father of a never-born child. No, sir, my dame is still expecting something from me which I have to furnish and not leave her in the cold. Thank you just the same.”

  Goes the second to the drag of the rat: “Hey, you guy, hop on it and make it snappy. Steam is dropping like hell. No, you cannot leave now, no going out from here until it is fixed. Get at it and hell if you don’t. Stinking son of a filthy beachcomber.”

  After half an hour or so the drag of the rat-watch comes out bleeding all over, knuckles broken, bones freed of skin and flesh, body scorched and burned and scalded in fifty places, and he drops like dead.

  Goes the fireman to the greaser and says: “I have fixed it.” Goes the greaser to the donkey and says: “I have done it.” Goes the donkey to the second and says: “Sir, I did it, it is working fine now.” Goes the second to the chief and says: “Well, sir, I wish to report I have done it, all is shipshape.” Goes the chief to the skipper and says: “Sir, I wish to have the following reported in the ship’s journal, please: Chief engineer risked his life in repairing bursted steam-pipe, while boilers were overheated and the ship was falling off schedule; and by doing so saved ship from serious disaster. Yes, sir, that is right. Will you please sign it? Thank you, sir.”

  One day, when the board of directors of the company are reading the ship’s journal, the president will say: “Gentlemen, I think we ought to give this chief engineer from the Yorikke a more responsible position. He deserves it.” The chief gets it.

  As a matter of fact, it is less responsible than the position he had on the Yorikke, because these engines are almost new. But the higher responsibility means a higher salary, and that is the point which counts.

  The drag has the report on his body and in his body; he is crippled for life, and the twenty or more burns will leave their marks in his face, on his hands and arms, on his breast and on his back. Now, of course, one should not take it so hard, because why did he do it? He could have said: “Hell and devil alive, I won’t do it.” But the answer is ever ready: “Why, you man, you do not mean you are going to let the ship go to the bottom and have all your mates drowned and fed to the fish? You wouldn’t do such a thing, would you? A brave and courageous man like you? You are not yellow, are you? Could you bear it on your conscience to have a ship with its men aboard go to the bottom and never come up again? There’s a fine fellow, brave and smart, the true sailor.”

  The chief would have to do it. It’s his business to know something about boilers, and about repairing broken steam-pipes on the high sea. He has to know them and he has to know how to fix them; that’s why he was made chief engineer and why he gets the pay for it. But he cannot throw his life away, can he? The life of a filthy coal-drag is no life at all. What does such a man know about life and responsibility and the welfare of the country and of economic competition?

  Don’t let us speak about it. Oh, honey, fish him out, that dear little fly in the milk-pot; he might get drowned; please save his little life. A coal-drag? He is not like a fly who has fallen into the milk-pot. He is a filthy, dirty, lousy fellow, no soul, hardly human. He is just good enough for shoveling coal on a ship. He ought to do it just for the fun of it and for three square meals a day.

  Yells the chief: “Hey, coal-drag, come up here for a minute. Like a shot of rum?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you.”

  But he cannot have it, because the glass falls out of his hand, and the rum is over the floor. The hand is burned and cannot hold anything; yes, sir.

  Supper was on the table. Right in front of me. I felt hungry. So I thought I might just as well eat the supper.

  I looked around for the mess-gear; I mean for spoons, forks, knives, plates.

  “Hey, you bird,” somebody cried at me, “leave that plate alone, it’s mine.”

  “All right, all right. Where do I get a plate and a spoon?”

  “If you haven’t brought any, you will have to do without, son.”

  “Ain’t they supplied here on this tub?”

  “All the supplies here have to be your own.”

  “How, then, can I eat not having a plate or a spoon?”

  “That’s your business, not mine. Invent something new.”

  “Listen here, you newcomer,” somebody cried out from his bunk. “You can have my things to eat with, also my coffee-cup. Of course, you will have to wash them and keep them always clean for me in return for me being so kind to you.”

  One man had a cracked plate, but no cup; another had a fork, but no spoon. When the grub was brought in, there usually started a fight about who might have the plate and spoon first. Whoever had them was the lucky bird who fished the best pieces out of the kettles, leaving to the others the meager remains.

  Whenever the Yorikke left a port, there were always spoons, forks, knives, plates, cups missing in taverns. Nothing mysterious about the disappearing of such things when the Yorikke was in port.

  The liquid called tea was brown water. Usually it was not hot, but lukewarm. And then it tasted like — like — yes, sir, right you are, it tasted exactly like that. Another liquid, which was called the coffee, was served at breakfast and about three in the afternoon. This afternoon coffee I seldom saw, because I was at that time busy at the boilers. When I returned from my watch, there was nothing left of the coffee. Sometimes there was some hot water found in the galley to make your own tea or coffee. But if you have no coffee-beans it is rather tough to make coffee, no matter how good you are at it.

  The more your coffee and tea are free from real coffee and tea, the more you wish to improve these wonderful drinks with milk and sugar, so as to liven up your imagination. Every three weeks each man received as his ration one six-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, and every week one pound of sugar. Coffee and tea came from the galley without sugar or milk, just plain.

  Upon receiving your can of milk you opened it, took out one teaspoonful, and with it you made a beautiful-looking cloud in your tea. After having done so, being an economical fellow, you carefully stowed away your can of milk to use for your next cup of coffee, because you knew that during the next twenty-one days you would not see another can of milk.

  While I was at my watch, my can of milk was not stolen. Nobody stole anything aboard the Yorikke. But my can of milk was used up to the last drop by my fellow-sailors, who had used up their milk long before, and they were hungry. No hiding-place was so secret that it could not be detected, and since there were no doors in the wardrobes, you could lock nothing in, even if you had a padlock. Only once did my milk disappear without my assistance. The next time I received my ration of milk I ate it up at one sitting. I did not mind having a sour stomach. I had found out that the only sure and safe hiding-place for all such things was your own belly. Only what was inside your stomach was safe. After I had hidden my milk in this hiding-place I learned that every member of the crew did exactly the same. No one had ever been told to do so. No one had ever lost more than his first can of milk.

  We did the same with the sugar. No sooner had you received your pound of sugar than you sat down and ate it up. Once we came to a gentleman’s agreement. Th
e sugar of the whole quarter was to be put together in one box. Whenever tea or coffee came in, each man was allowed to take one teaspoonful of sugar out of the box and sweeten his coffee. The agreement was all right, only the gentlemen were missing. Because it turned out that on the second day after the agreement was signed the entire ration of sugar had disappeared. All that was left was an empty box which I found on coming from my watch with the idea of sweetening my coffee; yes, sir.

  Each day fresh bread was made by the cook. Something was always wrong with it. Sometimes it was badly kneaded, usually only half baked, often burned black. Each week every man got a cake of margarine. It was sufficient to last for a week. Yet nobody could eat it, no matter how hungry he might be. For it tasted like bad soap.

  There were quite a few days when the skipper made his pocket-money, and then we had to close our eyes and shut out swear-holds and keep mum. On such days each man received a ration of two good-sized glasses of fairly good rum and half a cup of marmalade. Those were the days when some mysterious business was going on.

  For breakfast we had a thick barley soup cooked with prunes. Sometimes the breakfast consisted of black sausage with rice. Then again it was potatoes in their skins with salted herring; another course was beans with smoked fish. Every four days the same dish appeared again, beginning with thick barley soup cooked with prunes.

  Never before had I known that all such things could be eaten by human beings, and that such strange mixtures could exist anywhere on this earth where ships with steam-engines had been seen.

  The dinner on Sunday consisted of boiled beef with mustard sauce, or corned beef and a slimy gravy, and sometimes cabbage, but mostly potatoes. Monday dinner was salt meat which no one ever ate, for it was only a sort of meat-crust soaked in salt. Tuesday we had dried salt fish, which was always stinking. Wednesday it was vegetables, and prunes swimming in a paste of potato-starch. This paste was called the pudding. Thursday the dinner was again salted meat which nobody could eat.

  Supper was either one of the dinners or one of the breakfasts. Potatoes came with each meal. Potatoes were the backbone of all our eats. Half of the potatoes, however, were so bad that we could not eat them. Sometimes we had a cargo of fresh young potatoes, so-called spring potatoes. The cook stored up well from this cargo, and we had really excellent potatoes. But when we didn’t have such cargoes, the cheapest potatoes the skipper could buy were served for our food.

  For blinds not only potatoes were taken in, but also bananas, pineapples (real pineapples of course, not moonshine), tomatoes, dates, figs, coconuts, sweet chestnuts. Only on account of such cargoes was it possible at all for us to survive the food which was served to us. Men who had been for five years soldiers in the last war can well imagine how much a human being can endure before breaking down in health and spirit. Yet a man who has sailed on the Yorikke will know for sure what and how much an individual can bear and still not go overboard.

  Supper over, I had to wash the kettles in which the food had been brought in. Also I had to clean the dishes that had been used on the table, at least those which I had used in common with the fellows who had been kind enough to lend them to me.

  I looked around and I began to feel sick. I could not live in this dirt. It seemed impossible. I made up my mind to clean the quarter.

  After the men had eaten, they let themselves drop into their bunks as if they were dead. While they had been eating, hardly one word had been said. One could easily get the impression that hogs were eating from their trough. But this impression I lost entirely before I was one full week on the Yorikke. Then I could no longer make any comparison. The capacity to make comparisons or to recall my former existence had been killed. I was positive that any newcomer on the Yorikke who still had a light cover of civilization would have thought precisely the same of me when seeing me eating as I had thought of my fellow-sailors when I saw them for the first time.

  “No soap supplied,” somebody yelled from his bunk. “And no scrubbers and brushes either. And for devil’s sake keep quiet now and leave the quarter as you found it. Hell, I want to sleep, bigud, I need it. Shut your grub-hold.”

  I rushed to the chief’s cabin and knocked at the door.

  “I want soap and something to scrub with. I want to clean up that shit in the foc’sle.”

  “What do you think I am? You do not mean to suggest that I have to buy soap and scrubbers for the crew, do you? Nothing doing here. Go to the captain.”

  “All right, sir. But now what about me? I haven’t got any soap to wash even my face. And I have to work in the stoke-hold, haven’t I?”

  “You are not a kid-sailor, are you? Don’t look like it to me. You are an old salt. Ought to know better any decent sailor provides his own soap. Part of his outfit.”

  “Maybe. News to me, sir. Fine soap of course. But not ordinary soap. Soap for the black gang has to be supplied by the company. It’s regulation. Also sweat towels. What sort of a bucket is this anyway? Every decent ship supplies mattresses, pillows, blankets, ordinary towels. And above all things plates, cups, spoons, knives, forks. We are no pigs.”

  “Every man knows best what he is.”

  “All these things are part of the equipment of the ship and are no part of the sailor’s outfit.”

  “Not here. Not with us. And besides, if you don’t like it here, why the hell don’t you go where you came from?”

  “You dirty chunk.”

  “Out of my cabin and stay out. I shall report you to the skipper.”

  “In iron, hey?”

  “Not us. We are not that crazy. I need the drags badly. And I need you even more badly. No, not iron. It will cost you two months’ pay for subordination. We cannot afford iron or chains, see. And whipping neither. You cannot heave coal with a sore back.”

  “You are a fine bunch,” I said. “So low you even steal the poor sailor’s pay.”

  The chief grinned and said: “How come stealing your pay? I didn’t invite you to come here into my cabin and insult me.”

  I could have socked him fine. But it would have cost me another two months’ wages, and I could never sign off as long as I would not have money coming.

  “I just wanted to see clear,” I said. “I wanted to hear from you, from the chief, that we cannot have a cake of ordinary soap, and that we have to live here like hogs.”

  “Tell all this to your grandmother,” he said; “maybe she’ll listen to that nonsense. But I do not like it at all. And now get out of here; and do not dare step in again until you are called. Out! You had better turn in. Your watch starts at eleven.”

  “My watch starts at twelve. From twelve to four.”

  “Who said so? Not here with us. And most certainly not with the coal-shovelers. You start at eleven and you heave ashes first until twelve. Understand?”

  “Heaving ashes is overtime, of course?”

  “Of course not. No overtime paid for clearing ashes. Not with us. It’s part of your regular work. That’s what you have signed on for.”

  Which age was I living in? Among what sort of people had I fallen by accident? In ancient Rome and Greece even the slaves had certain rights.

  My mind befogged, I staggered to the fore.

  I leaned against the railing, trying to find myself back where I really was in the world.

  There was the sea. That blue glorious sea which I loved better than I ever could think of loving a Jane. That wonder of a sea, in which to be drowned as an honorable sailor when doing my duty I would have felt to be the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon me. That sea, that capricious woman whom alone I felt truly married to, that wonderful woman who can smile so charmingly, can sing such bewitching cradlesongs, that can rage so furiously, that can show such a savage and alluring temperament, and then fall asleep so sweetly and so dreamily that one could do nothing better than just kiss her and kiss her over and over again.

  It was that same sea on which thousands and thousands of decent and honest ships were sailing
at this very time. And I, of all sane persons on earth and on sea, I had to ship on this can that was suffering from leprosy. A bucket that was sailing for no other reason but that the sea might have pity on her. Somehow, I felt that the sea would not take this tub, which had all the diseases known under heaven, for the simple reason that the sea did not wish to be infected with leprosy and pus. Not yet at least. She, the sea, still waited for the day when the Yorikke would have to be in some port far out of the way and when this old maid, for some reason or other, would then burst or explode or fall apart and so save the sea from being used as cemetery for this pest of the oceans.

  So standing against the railing and looking up to the star-loaded sky above me, before me the whitish glimmering waves of the sea that lullingly splashed against the ship’s hull as the Yorikke furrowed her way, and thinking of my lost New Orleans and of my dear sunny Spain, a feeling I had never had before tried to get hold of me. I thought: What’s the use?

  Make a clean short cut, old boy from Sconsin, chuck the coal-drag, and hop over; have done with that filth and dung. Make the hop and enter the good old sea while you’re still a clean Yank sailor, and before you get soiled all over and make the sea ashamed of you when you come to kiss her good-by. But then where is the salvation? It cannot be done that easily. Because there would be only another poor, overtired, ragged, starved, and tortured coal-drag who would have to go on double watch on account of your having kicked off. This fellow-drag of mine, left behind with a double watch, would make my last trip so unbearable that I could not stay below, and it might happen that I would have to come up again just to say: “Hey, brother-sailor, I am sorry, please forgive me. Won’t you forgive me, so that I may stay below?” Suppose he doesn’t. What then?