The Death Ship

by B. TRAVEN

  In such a heavy sea it is considered a good job if you can get half of the ashes over the rail. The other half is strewn over all the decks. And since they are ashes, it is the job of the drags to clear the decks of this useless cargo.

  Below, in the fire-hold, things are just as interesting as they are up on deck. The fireman is about to swing a beautiful shovelful into the furnace when the roller meets him square. He is thrown, and the whole shovelful of coal goes splashing right into the face of the drag. When the roller comes over from astern, the fireman, with his shovel, disappears into a pile of coal, out of which he emerges again when the Yorikke falls off from afore.

  Jolly dances take place in the bunkers. I have a huge pile of fuel, one hundred and fifty shovels, right near the hatchway to the fire-hold when a breaker throws the Yorikke over to port and my pile of coal goes the same way, back to where I had just taken it from. So this swell job has to be repeated. After a while one learns to time the rollers, and as soon as a certain amount of fuel is near the chute, one shovels it down into the stoke-hold so quickly that, before the bucket falls off to the other side, nothing is left that can go with her. A coal-drag has to know how to time the rollers correctly in heavy weather. He must therefore understand the principles of navigation just as well as the skipper does. If he could not time the moves of a ship, he might never get a single shovelful of coal in front of the boilers. But by the time a good coal-drag is through with his studies in navigation, he comes from his watch in a heavy sea brown and blue all over, with bruises and with bleeding knuckles and shins. What a merry adventurous life a sailor has! Just read the sea-stories. They can tell you all about it.

  A merry life. Hundreds of Yorikkes, hundreds of death ships are sailing the seven seas. All nations have their death ships. Proud companies with fine names and beautiful flags are not ashamed to sail death ships. There have never been so many of them as since the war for liberty and democracy that gave the world passports and immigration restrictions, and that manufactured men without nationalities and without papers by the ten thousand.

  A good capitalist system does not know waste. This system cannot allow these tens of thousands of men without papers to roam about the world. Why are insurance premiums paid? For pleasure? Everything must produce its profit. Why not make premiums produce profit?

  Why passports? Why immigration restriction? Why not let human beings go where they wish to go, North Pole or South Pole, Russia or Turkey, the States or Bolivia? Human beings must be kept under control. They cannot fly like insects about the world into which they were born without being asked. Human beings must be brought under control, under passports, under finger-print registrations. For what reason? Only to show the omnipotence of the state, and of the holy servant of the state, the bureaucrat. Bureaucracy has come to stay. It has become the great and almighty ruler of the world. It has come to stay to whip human beings into discipline and make them numbers within the state. With foot-printings of babies it has begun; the next stage will be the branding of registration numbers upon the back, properly filed, so that no mistake can be made as to the true nationality of the insect. A wall has made China what she is today. The walls all nations have built up since the war for democracy will have the same effect. Expanding markets and making large profits are a religion. It is the oldest religion perhaps, for it has the best-trained priests, and it has the most beautiful churches; yes, sir.

  33

  Overworked and overtired men do not care what goes on about them. There may be corruption, robbery, banditry, gangsterism, piracy, all at wholesale, right in their neighbor-hood. What do they care? They are the best people to govern. They never criticize, they never argue, they do not read papers, and they feel sure that everything in the world is just fine and could not be any better. They are satisfied and they hail the ruler if sometimes they get an extra ration of pudding or rum. They only sleep, and sleep, and sleep. Nothing else interests them. That was the reason why I had been a good long time on the Yorikke before I got even a dim idea what the Yorikke was really doing and how she was doing what she did.

  I was standing against the rail, rather sleepy. There were near us quite a number of feluccas, with their strange sails. They were around us as if they were about to attack us. This aroused my attention. They came and went, returned and sailed off again. Perhaps they were fishermen or smugglers. Great crowds of them often came in certain ports. There was a crowd that day when I looked at them with more interest than usual.

  Suddenly I was wide awake. I could not understand at the moment what it was that had made me so. It had been like a shock. Fixing my mind upon this strange feeling, I noticed a great quietness. The engine had ceased to work. Day and night there is the noise of the engine; its stamping, rocking, and shaking make the whole ship quiver. It makes the ship a live thing. This noise creeps into your flesh and brain. The whole body falls into the same rhythm. One speaks, eats, hears, sees, sleeps, awakes, thinks, feels, and lives in this rhythm. And then quite unexpectedly the engine stops. One feels a real pain in body and mind. One feels empty, as if dropped in an elevator down the shaft at a giddy speed. You feel the earth sinking away beneath you; and on a ship you have the stark sensation that the bottom of the ship has broken off, and the whole affair, with you inside, is going right through to the opposite end of the globe. It was this sudden silence of the engine that was the cause of my awakening.

  The Yorikke drifted swanlike upon a smooth, peaceful, glittering sea. The chains were rattling, and the anchor dropped with a splash into the water.

  At this very moment Stanislav passed by, the coffee-can in his hand.

  “Pippip,” he whispered to me, “now we have to step on the gas. God damn it, below we have to raise the steam up to a hundred ninety-five.”

  “Are you mad, Lavski?” I said. “Why, we would fly up straight to Sirius without a single stop-over if you raise the steam to a hundred eighty-five. At a hundred seventy we are already twisting our bowels.”

  “Precisely, that’s the reason why I try to be up on deck as often as I get a chance,” Stanislav grinned. “Here, when the bucket goes up, you may have a chance to fly off and save your hide by getting a good swim. Below you are finished, there is no getting out. Trapped in for good until the police of the Last Judgment snatch you out of it. You see, Pippip, you have to be smart to go round the world in slippers. I mean, when I peeped so many feluccas hanging about us, then I knew the skipper is going to cash in. So below I worked like the devil to pile up a good heap of reserve fuel and so get my chance to be on deck as much as I can. I told my fireman I had got the colic, and that’s why I had to beat it every four minutes. Next time you are in this mess you will have to find some other excuse. Or he gets wise to what is going on, and he won’t stay below alone.”

  “Now, spring it, damn, what is the trouble?” I asked.

  “Don’t make me sick with your innocence. The skipper is collecting the dividends. I have never in all my life seen such a silly fool like you. What do you think you are sailing? A mail-boat under the flag of the lime-juicers? Your head is dumber than the clogs on my feet.”

  “I know well enough that I am shipping on a death bus,” I said, defending my intelligence.

  “At least something you have got clear,” Stanislav answered. “But don’t you ever believe that they are running down to ground port a bucket without music. Don’t you misjudge them. The funeral of the Yorikke is well advertised and registered. The death ticket is all written up; they have only to fill in the exact date. You see, any man playing on his last string, and knowing it, may do as he pleases. Because it cannot come worse. The Yorikke may risk whatever she wants to. If taken in by a French chaser, before she reaches port for investigation, she sinks off, plugs out. The insurance is safe. No evidence found. Just send up a glance to the topmast head. What do you see? Yep, siree. The bos’n with the skipper’s prisma-squeezer overhauling the horizon. Suppose he finds the air getting thick. Then, 0 boy of my dreams, then
you will see the Yorikke hobbling off. Tell ye, you will be surprised to see how this old maid can raise a fuss when forced to and when willing to help her master across the lazy river. For the first fifteen minutes with that steam-pressure pepped up she makes twenty-two knots, and I bet you my black girl in Tunis free of charge that she makes even twenty-five when whipped into it. French chasers afraid to take such a risk with safety-valves under screws cannot come up with this old dame. Not during the first fifteen minutes. Of course, after fifteen minutes the old jane puffs and pants through all piss-ports and buttonholes, and as long as twenty-four hours you think she is going to fall apart at all her seams. For weeks afterwards she has got the acute asthma. But she made it. She wasn’t pinched. And that’s the only important thing, not to get pinched. Well, Innocent, I have to hop below, or my fireman’ll smell a deceased monkey.”

  When caught in heavy weather we carried a hundred fifty-five pounds steam, while the ordinary pressure was a hundred and thirty. A hundred and sixty pounds meant Attention; a hundred sixty-five Warning; at a hundred seventy-five there was the thick red line Danger which meant: one pound more and the boilers will most likely go straight up to heaven, taking the Yorikke with them. Such a hasty leave from her earthly existence, though, was prevented by the proper functioning of the safety-valve, which opened automatically when the steam had reached that high pressure, and by doing so relieved the boilers of their dangerous fevers. At the same time when the safety-valve opened, the steam blew the warning whistle, and so the boilers howled out their mistreatment to the whole world. Then the ship would get in an uproar from the skipper to the last deck-hand, and the ship would become like a stirred-up beehive.

  Now, of course, everything was different. The skipper wanted to make his collections. Therefore he had given orders to the donkey to prevent the Yorikke from crying by screwing tight her tear-ducts, so making it impossible for her to open her safety-valves when the stream-pressure threatened her life.

  The feluccas swarmed closer. Two approached the Yorikke and made fast alongside. The gangway was lowered away.

  The feluccas had fishermen of the Moroccan type aboard. These men climbed up the Yorikke like cats, swift and oily. On deck they moved about as freely and lightly as if the whole ship was theirs.

  Three Moroccans, intelligent and distinguished-looking gentlemen, though garbed like ordinary fishermen, after very ceremonial salutations toward the second mate, were led by him to the skipper’s cabin. Then the second mate came out again and directed the unloading. The first mate was on the bridge. Every once in a while he would look up at the topmast head and cry: “Orl korrect, bos’n? No nasty weather in sight?”

  “All shipshape, aye, aye, sir!” answered the bos’n from the look-out.

  Boxes and crates appeared from the holds like magic, and like magic they disappeared into the feluccas. Ants could not work better. No sooner was one felucca loaded and the cargo well covered with fish, than it pushed away from the ship and sailed lustily off. The second it was off, another one came alongside to take in cargo. Before you would have thought it fastened, it was already loaded and off on its way. Each sailed off in a different direction. Some even went seemingly toward parts where land could not be found. It would have been almost impossible for any chaser to catch more than three, at best, so widely did they stray.

  The second mate had a pencil and pad. He counted the boxes. One of the Moroccans who had an air as if he were the supercargo of the outfit repeated the numbers the second mate sang out. All the numbers were called in English.

  When the last felucca was loaded, the first were out of sight. They had sunk beneath the horizon or had been veiled by curtains of mist. The others had become tiny bits of white paper floating upon the calm sea.

  One felucca which all the time had hovered about now came close and made fast. This one took no load on. It carried only the usual cargo of fresh fish.

  The three Moroccan gentlemen who had been with the skipper came out on deck, accompanied by the old man. They all laughed and talked merrily. Then, with their beautiful courteous gestures, they took leave of the skipper and climbed down the gangway. They boarded their felucca, put the sail into the wind, and the gangway was taken in. The anchor chains began to clank, and soon the Yorikke was running wild as if chased by the bells of all religions.

  The skipper had gone to his cabin. After about fifteen minutes the skipper came out and cried up to the bridge: “Where is she?”

  “Six off the coast, sir,” the first mate answered.

  “Then we are out of the limit, mate?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Give the course to the A.B. and come below to my cabin; let’s have breakfast,” the skipper said, smiling.

  Thus the finale of this strange comedy.

  The skipper, however, was no miser. Eat and let eat, he thought. We all had the so-called after-weather dinner: fried sausages, bacon, cocoa, French potatoes; and each got his coffee-cup filled with rum. Besides this everyone received ten pesetas in cash paid out the same day at five o’clock.

  No one had to tell us. We knew the after-weather dinner, the extra rum, and the cash were mum-pay — that is, offered us to keep our swear-hatches shut up. The skipper’s and the mate’s breakfast sure was rich. The richest part of which, naturally, was not to eat; it was to be put into a pocket-book and not into a belly.

  We had no complaints whatever. With that skipper we would have sailed straight to hell if he had wished us to. No thumb-screw would ever squeeze out of us what we had seen.

  Yes, of course, we had seen something. Our engine, on account of being overheated, had become defective, and the ship had come to a stop, until the damage had been repaired. While we stood by for repairs, several feluccas had come alongside, offering us for sale fruit, fresh fish, and vegetables. The cook bought fish and vegetables, and the officers had bought bananas, pineapples, and oranges.

  Swear to that? Of course, quite simple, because it is the truth and nothing but, so help me, lordy. Yes, sir.

  You don’t suppose a decent sailor gives his skipper away, do you? No, sir, certainly not. If pirates have got their honor, how much more so do decent sailors have theirs, if the skipper treats them like decent sailors.

  34

  Any man who is not overworked and not overtired begins to worry about things which ought to be of no concern to him. Right away he has ideas and an imagination which, when nursed and pepped up, might easily start to nibble at the very foundations of the state and of its sacred institutions and constitutions. Therefore a very good piece of advice to a sailor who wishes to stay an honest sailor runs thus: “Remain where you are, at your wheel, and at your paint; do not think about how the world is run; then you will always be a good sailor, beloved by everyone. Trouble-makers are hated everywhere.”

  The chief ordered open a coal-bunker which was right at the back of the fire-hold. More, the Yorikke coaled in the next port, and we had all the fuel so close at hand that we almost fell over it when at work before the boilers. This rare pleasure lasted three days and three nights. There were watches beautiful as holidays with money. Hardly any work at all. Just heaving ashes, and occasionally one bar to be set in.

  While we were coaling through lighters, a mile and a half or so out of port, I noticed that, besides coal, other cargo was taken in. It must have been somewhere off the coast of Portugal, for the men bringing on the cargo spoke Portuguese. The loading was not so much different from the unloading that had taken place some time before.

  Two men, clothed like simple fishermen, but who otherwise did not look like it, came aboard from one of the lighters. They went to the skipper’s cabin. While they were talking things over with the old man, boxes were unloaded from the lighters. The boxes had been hidden under the coal. Smaller boats came alongside the Yorikke, and, taken out from under loads of fish and vegetables, more cargo was heaved in. Cargo in boxes, in barrels, in crates, in bales. It was loaded from starboard, while the port side
was toward the coast. Therefore from the harbor nobody could have seen what was going on at the opposite side of the Yorikke.

  As soon as all the coaling was done, the two gentlemen left the ship. The gangway was still lowered and the two gentlemen were barely in their boat when the anchor came up and the Yorikke went under full steam.

  This time no after-weather dinner was served. We had only cocoa and raisin cake. Because there was nothing yet to swear about and tell the truth and nothing but.

  Said Stanislav: “And why should you have to swear, anyway? Suppose somebody comes aboard and starts looking around. Let him open the hatchway. What is he to find? Boxes and crates and barrels. Naturally, you cannot deny that. You cannot swear that there are no boxes aboard when the reeker has got his hands upon them. Only the skipper will have to swear what is inside and what he means to do with the contents. None of your business, Pippip. Never worry about the old man, he sure will know all right what he is going to swear about, bet your life and my black girl free of charge.”

  Did we have elegant watches then? I should say we had. The ash-cans heaved and dumped off, the fires stirred, the slags broken off, and then you went just to the bunkers at the back, opened the gate, and the stoke-hold was filled with fuel. No dragging, no hauling, no shoveling, no pushing the wheelbarrow and knocking off your knuckles.

  During one of these blissful watches I started to examine the holds so as to see if there was some loot loose. Sometimes there is genuine money in that game if you have a soft hand. Oranges, nuts, tobacco leaves, and lots of other things which any decent tavern-keeper likes to take for cash. At times one has to open a few boxes to see if there are shirts, or silk hose, or shoes, or soap. Man has to live. Morals are taught and preached not for the sake of heaven, but to assist those people on earth who have everything they need and more to retain their possessions and to help them to accumulate still more. Morals is the butter for those who have no bread.