by B. TRAVEN
Damn it, damn it all, and devil and hell. Now, listen here, boy from Sconsin, that pest Yorikke cannot get you. Not you. And all the consuls neither. Chin up and get at it. Swallow the filth and digest it. Quickest way to get rid of it. Some day there will be soap and brushes again, and plenty of them. Be it New Orleans or Galveston or Los An. All the filth is only outside. Don’t let it go to your soul and spirit and your heart. Take the plunge head-first. That way you’ll feel the cold less. And now away from the railing and away from that beast that is after you. Kick him right in the pants. Sock it right in the swear-hold. Spit it out, and do it well. Spitting out the filth you feel in your throat is all you can do now. But make a good job of it. Now back into your bunk.
When I was back in the quarters, which were filled with thick kerosene smoke, I knew, and this time for certain, that I was on a death ship. But I also knew for certain that it would not be my death ship, no matter what might happen to her. I shall not help the Yorikke make insurance. I shall not be a gladiator on her. I spit right into your face, Imperator Cæsar Augustus. You have lost one of the slaves who greet you: “The moribund salute you, hail!” Save your soap and crash it down your wind-pipe. I do not need it any longer. But you shall not hear me whine again. I spit into your face. I spit at you and at your whole damn breed. Swallow that. I am ready now for battle.
28
I could not sleep. The smoke from the kerosene lamp of the seven virgins became thicker every minute, and it filled the quarter with a heavy cloud. Breathing became difficult and I felt a piercing pain in my lungs. I had no blanket, and, since the nights at sea can be very cold, I was freezing.
Just when I had fallen into a light sleep, I was shaken up and somebody dragged me by force more than half-way out of my bunk.
“Up now. Eleven. Don’t fall asleep again. I can’t come again. At ten to twelve you go get up your fireman and bring him his coffee.”
“Don’t know him. Don’t know where he bunks.”
“Get going. I’ll show you.”
I sprang up, and I was shown the bunk of my fireman, which was in the opposite quarter, at the port side.
“Hop on it. Go right away to the winch at the ash-pipe. We’ve got a hell of a load of ashes to heave.”
The man that had called me had come like a phantom, and like a phantom he disappeared. I had not seen his face.
The quarter was dark, for the virgins’ lamp gave no light. It just glimmered along.
When I came to the gangway at port side, where the ash-tube led down into the stoke-hold, Stanislav was waiting. He held an open wick-lamp which he hung up on some hook near the ash-tube.
Stanislav was the coal-drag of the watch now on duty. He tried to explain to me how to handle the winch, a sort of a windlass, which was used to heave up the heavy ash-cans from the stoke-hold.
“Now look here, Stanislav, I don’t understand anything at all here,” I said to him. “I thought I was an old salt. Yet never have I seen a bucket like this one here on which the coal-drags have to work extra watches. Why and what for?”
“You tell me. What do I know?” he said. “I am not a baby myself. Believe me, I have shipped on a good many washbasins. On any decent tub the fireman has to help, his drag clear the ashes, so that every watch is just for itself. But here the fireman never gets a rest for a minute. The drag even has to help him stoke. Or the steam comes down to a hundred twenty just like that. Everything is busted and broken. Steam doesn’t stay. See? Pipes are leaking. Furnaces rotten, see? On other ships of this size there are two firemen and a drag, or at least one fireman and a half besides the drag. Here the fireman cannot leave the fire alone for one minute. Anyway, I think by now you know where you are, my angel sailor.”
“Bet your sweet little sailor life, I am not going to become an angel on this kettle.”
“Going to skip next port, hey?” he asked. “Doesn’t work well. You will learn this pretty soon. Just make yourself comfortable, feel at home, you know. Get acquainted with the boats, I mean the life-boats. Take a good look at the one you would like to choose on a proper occasion. Talk it over with the cook. He is the grandfather on this bucket here. Warm up with him. He can be of great help to you, if you know how to take him. He doesn’t know anything about cooking. But a swell guy. He has two life-jackets stowed away.”
“Why? Are there no jackets or vests for us?”
“Seen any?”
“Didn’t look.”
“Better don’t take anything for granted here. There isn’t even a life-ring aboard. Of course, against the mid-castle you see four gilded rings, pretty to look at. Take my advice, don’t touch any of them. If you stick your head through one of them you would be by far safer with your head stuck through the hole of a millstone. With a millstone you have a chance that a miracle might happen. But with these gilded rings around you, even your mother would say, it serves you right, boy, you ought to know better.”
“How can that lousy dog do such a thing, leave us without life-vests or jackets? So used to see them in the quarter that I didn’t notice that there were none.”
Stanislav laughed: “You never shipped a box like this one. That’s why. Yorikke is already my fourth death tub. In these days, I mean since the war is over, you can pick tubs like this one here at random. Never before seen that many.”
“Hey Lavski!” the fireman yelled from below.
“What’s up, fireman?” Stanislav cried through the ash-tube.
“Are you devils heaving ashes or are you not or you want me to come up and sock you in the grub-hold, hey?” the fireman answered.
“Shut up, down there. I have to teach the new drag how to work the ash-winch. Has never seen one in his life,” Stanislav explained.
“All right, get going and come below here. A bar fell out,” the fireman cried angrily.
“Let’s heave the ashes first, the bar can wait. I have to teach the new one,” Stanislav cried back.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Mine? Pippip.”
“Pretty name. Are you a Turk?”
“Egyptian.”
“Good to hear it. An Egyptian, eh? That’s exactly what we were missing to be complete. You see, we have all nationalities here on this can.”
“All, you say? Yanks also?”
“I guess you are still asleep to ask such a silly question. The only two representatives of foreign nations that never ship on a death can are the Yanks and the Comms.”
“Comms?”
“Don’t try that old trick on me, making me think you a baby. Playing the innocent kid. Not me, buddy. You know quite well what I mean. Comms, you ass. I mean Bolshes. Communists, you bonehead. Yanks do not hop on such a bucket, because they would die in that filth within twenty-four hours.
Apart from that, Yanks are always well tipped off by their consuls. They have got the finest consuls on earth. Almost as good as are the British.”
“And the Comms?” I asked.
“Those guys are too smart, by far too clever. Cannot catch them. I tell you they have got a smeller that knows right away what’s the matter. If they see only the mast-head of a can, they can tell you offhand every meal that is served on that ship, and they guess the pay so close to the fact that you can bet six shillings on their being correct. Whenever there is a Comm on a bucket, no insurance money can ever be cashed in. They bury every insurance policy regardless of how well it is sugar-coated. And if they smell something about the can, they right away start making a mess. No port inspector can get away with five dollars for closing his eyes. I tell you whenever you see a regular bucket on which are shipping not alone Yanks, but, what is more, Yanks that are Commses, why, man, then you may say to yourself that you are sitting now fine and deep in real sugar. Right now I am sailing for no other reason than to get some day a chance to sign on for such a can. I certainly shall never leave it again, and I wouldn’t even go ashore to have a shot, because I’d be afraid I might lose that can. I would be the lowest
drag in the lowest rat-watch to be on such a bucket. And of all the ships in the whole world the best of all are those Yanks from New Orleans. That’s the fortification of the Wobblies, and they sure know what they want. It would be paradise to have such a ship to sail on.”
“I have never seen a ship from New Orleans,” I said.
“A Yank from New Orleans would never take you on. Not even when you wait a hundred years for it. Not you. Not an Egyptian. They are particular. They don’t look at you even if you have got a sailor’s card like sweet honey, clean and honest. Well, now of course this dream, like so many others, is also gone. Any guy on earth that ever shipped on the Yorikke can never again get an honest tub. It’s after you, all the rest of your life, like the stinky pestilence. Oh, shit, let’s get at it.”
He yelled down the ash-tunnel: “Got it hooked, fire’m?” “Fire’m” meant fireman, in the Yorikke lingo.
“Heave up!” the fireman cried.
Stanislav moved the lever, and the ash-can came up, rattling against the tunnel-walls. As soon as it appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, Stanislav moved back the lever, and the can swung out.
“Now take the can off the hook and carry it to the railing, and there you dump the ashes into the sea. I warn you, do it carefully or the whole can’ll go overboard. Then we sit here and have to do the whole shit with only one can.”
The can was so hot that only with pain could I get a good grip on it. Stanislav saw it and said: “Hot, is it? You’ll get used to that after your hands have been scorched enough, don’t you worry. It won’t be long.”
The can was heavy. Eighty or ninety pounds when full. I carried it, holding it against my chest, across the gangway, which was about twelve feet. At the railing there was a short wooden shoot through which the ashes were dumped into the sea. This wooden shoot prevented the outside hull from being soiled by the ashes. The ashes were swallowed up by the sea with a loud, angry, whistling hiss. I carried the can back to the opening, hung it on the chain, and Stanislav pushed forward the lever. The can went down the tunnel like thunder.
“Naturally,” Stanislav said, “it’s clear why the life-jackets and the rings are gone. They say the old man sold them to make some extra coin. I know better. It wasn’t just for making that side money. You see the whole thing is like this: if there are no life-jackets, then there can be no witnesses. And if there are no witnesses, there can be no proper hearing in the court of the shipping board, see? Guess you get me. Old trick. They never can depend on witnesses. Witnesses might have seen something- or heard something, and then the insurance would get pretty sour with all the presidents and vice-presidents. You shouldn’t miss looking at the boats some time. What was your name? Yes, what I said, Pippip, look at the boats. You can throw both your shoes straight through the cracks the boats have. No survivors. Sorry, no witnesses.”
“Don’t tell me tales, young man. Doesn’t the skipper want to get out safely?”
“Now don’t you worry about the old man. Look after your own skin first,” Stanislav said ironically. “The skipper will get out all right. Never mind him. Would to the devil that you knew everything as well as that. He will make it fine. Ought to see how he is fixed.”
“But didn’t you come home safely from three death tubs already?” I asked.
“Yip. That’s true. The last one that shuffled down I forgot, at the last port, to board, and so I let her go without me. You just have to figure out when and where is the best time to stay behind. As to the other two, well, you have to have a bit of good luck. If you haven’t got luck, not any, you better stay away from the water by all means, or else you might get drowned even in a wash-basin when bathing your feet. They haven’t invented yet any kind of useful water in which you can find hooks hanging around wherever you grasp.”
“Lavski! What for thousand devils are you doing up there?” the fireman yelled up through the tunnel.
“Oh chucks,” Stanislav cried, “the chains have gone off the drum. I’ll have them fixed in a minute.”
“Now, you try the winch,” said Stanislav to me. “Take care. It kicks and hammers and jams worse than an overfed horse. It knocks your head off just like that if you don’t look out.”
I pushed the lever forward and the can was shot up right against the top of the tunnel. It sounded as if the whole tunnel would go to pieces. Before I could snatch the lever to pull it back, the winch set in reverse by itself, and the can shot down into the stoke-hold, hitting the bottom with such a bang that I thought the whole can must be smashed. The fireman bellowed that if I had any intention to kill him I should come down and do it like a brave sailor. I had not yet caught his words in full when the winch again reversed itself and the can, now half empty, thundered up the tunnel and again crashed with a bang against the top. When the can was just about to shoot down again into the tunnel, Stanislav grasped the lever. The can stood still as death the same instant.
“You see,” he said, “it isn’t quite as easy as kissing the bride. You will learn that all right. Just get all your knuckles peeled off and then you will know how it is done. Tomorrow at daylight I will show you the trick. You better go now, shovel the ash into the cans, hang them on the hooks, and I will serve the winch up here. You might smash the winch.
Should that happen, my boy well, I would not wish it to you nor to me. Then we would have to carry all the cans up here on our backs. Don’t you ever wish it, man. After we are through just with the ash of one watch, you would no longer know if the sky is above you or below. We would not walk, we would crawl instead. We sure would just roll from one place to the other. So better treat the windlass with love and kisses.”
“Let me try once more, Lavski,” I asked him. “I will say Gracious Lady to her. Maybe if I consider that winch a person, then she will do it and work with papa.”
I yelled down: “Hook on!”
“Heave up! “ came the call.
“Hello, Duchess, come, let’s do it together. Come, come, come, up with the shirt.”
Mohammed is my witness, she did it, and fine she came along. Like oil and soft flesh. Gentle like a lambkin. Papa is not without experience. I guess I know the Yorikke better than her skipper or her grandfather, the wise cook. That winch was still the same that was used by old man Noah. And the Yorikke had been built after blueprints left over by the Ark-builder. This windlass, therefore, belonged to pre-Flood times. All the little goblins of those far-off times which were to be destroyed by the Flood had found refuge in the Yorikke, where they lived in all the corners and nooks. The worst of these little evil spirits had taken up quarters in this winch. Consequently the winch had to be respected and the goblins hidden within her had to be treated well. Stanislav had won over these ghosts by long practice. I tried to make them friendly with noble speeches.
“Hey, Your Highness, once more, get your legs going, please.”
And how she came, that winch! Smoothly and with a decent shame. The can stood like a soldier exactly where I wanted it to make my embrace more powerful and carry the ash to sleep in the sea.
Of course, the winch was not all the time good-humored. More than a hundred times she played me nasty tricks. What else can you expect from women? If the lever was not pushed or pulled exactly at the right fraction of the right second at the right distance, the can shot with rattling thunder up against the top of the tunnel so that the whole ship seemed to shake in her bones. Pushing the lever in or pushing it out one thirty-second of an inch too far made all the difference in whether the can stopped exactly in the right position.
Stanislav had gone below to shovel the ash and the slags into the cans. After I had heaved about fifty cans, Stanislav cried up that we would leave the rest to take out during the next watch.
I felt like breaking down at my knees after having carried so many heavy cans across the gangway. Hardly could I catch my breath. But before I had time to get acquainted with my feeling of collapse, Stanislav bellowed: “Hey, get ready, you, twenty to twelve.”
<
br /> Partly crawling, partly staggering, I dragged my carcass to the foc’sle. There was no light on deck. Kerosene costs money. The company could not afford it on account of hard competition with other companies who offered still lower rates.
Several times I struck my knees and shins against something hard before I reached the quarters. Not easy to describe in detail everything that was lying about the deck. To make the description short I would say: everything possible under heaven was lying on deck. Even a ship’s carpenter was lying there, drunk like a helpless gun with all its ammunition shot off. Later I learned that this carpenter got drunk in every port we put in, and that, for this reason, during the first two days after the ship was out he could not be used even to scrub the deck. The skipper always felt lucky when the A.B.’s did not join the carpenter in his happiness, and when at least one A.B. was left sound enough to hold the wheel fairly by the course. The carpenter and the three A.B.’s were, by the way, so thoroughly drenched in body and brain that the skipper could give them life-jackets without any fear of making them bad witnesses when riding out the insurance. They had lost every ability to gather and to assort their ideas of what they had seen and what they had not seen. All they knew about the economic welfare of civilized nations was the exact price of whisky in the various taverns of the different ports the Yorikke usually put in. The skipper mentioned frequently that he considered these four men real pearls of first-class sailors.
In the quarter I fetched the coffee-can, went with it to the galley, and filled it with hot coffee which stood on the stove. With this coffee-can in hand I again had to make my way across the dark deck to the quarters. By now my shins and knees were bleeding, so often had I knocked them against boxes, hold-shafts, beams, chains, anchors. There was no such thing aboard as first-aid. The first mate played doctor. The medicine and other helpful material were stowed away well, so as not to make any extra expenses. With trifles like these — bleeding shins and knees and knuckles, anyway — one could not have gone to the first mate.
