by B. TRAVEN
Stanislav was, moving his mouth in a strange way. I thought he was trying to swallow his tongue. His tongue was swollen and seemed not to fit any longer in his mouth. So I thought again that he might try to spit it out and relieve himself from this nuisance.
He looked at me as though scrutinizing my face. Blood seemed to run into his eyes in streams. He flew into a rage and yelled with all the might of his voice: “You dirty liar, you dog! You have always said the fresh water on the Yorikke is stinking and pesty. You stinking rat, you funker! Water on the Yorikke is the finest water in the world, coming from the cool springs of Nampamptantin of Hamtinoa of the springs of the of the of the springs the springs of the pine forest — of the fresh of the water — of the crystal springs — of wandering in pine forest.”
I did not think that he was talking nonsense. It was all clear to me, like short commands from the bridge. I said: “Right you are, Stanislav, good boy. The water on the Yorikke was iced water from the pole, and the coffee was excellent. Have I ever said a word against the coffee on the Yorikke? I have not. Never will.”
Stanislav was working again with his tongue. It looked as if he were in need of breath or as though choking to death. He swallowed and made an effort to press his lips together. He closed his eyes and I thought he would fall asleep.
With a jerk he awoke and yelled somewhere into the far distance without giving me a glance: “Twenty to five, Pippip. Get the hell up and out. Bring the breakfast. Sixty six flytee ashes cans with ashes coal fuel boiler cans with ashes to be heaved. Heave up! Throw the lever around. Smash the pipe. Get the breakfast. Potatoes again and stinking. And smoked herring sick. The coffee. Much coffee. Much much more coffee.
Where is the coffee? Water. Bring the water, cool the glowing cinder. The water. Water. Water.”
“I cannot get up;” I said. “I cannot make it today. I am too tired. I am all in. You have to heave the ashes alone this morn. Where is all the coffee?”
What was that? Now? I heard Stanislav yelling. But I heard him yelling from three miles away. My own voice also was three miles away.
Three furnaces then broke open. Heaps of live coal were falling out. The heat—I could not bear it any more. I rushed up to the air-funnel to turn it round to catch the breeze and blow it down into the fire-hold. Spainy, my fireman, hollered at me: “Pippip, for hell’s sake, shut the furnace doors. The steam is falling. Steam is falling. Falling. Falling. All falling. Breaking. Hop away, Pip, ash-funnel is coming down. Smash your belly. Breaking.”
The steam-pipes burst, and all the steam hissed in the fire-hold, and upon me, boiling me and scalding me. I rushed to the trough in which we kept the water to cool off the cinders. I wanted to drink that muddy water because I was thirsty. Devil, how thirsty I was! But it was all salty and thick. I drank and drank as if I’d never be filled up. The furnaces were still open. I could not shut them. They were too heavy. I had to leave them open. They were high above me, and I saw it was the sun burning down upon me and I was lapping up water from the sea.
I got tired trying to close the furnaces and I fell asleep, dropping into my bunk as if dead. The fireman took up the trough and with a wide swing he threw all the water about the fire-hold. The water drenched me, I awoke, and a wave had come splashing over our raft.
“There is the Yorikke! “ Stanislav yelled all of a sudden, pointing in some empty space above the waves. His voice was hundreds of miles away. Or my ears had lost the ability to judge distances. Stanislav began to yell louder. I could see it, that he was yelling as mightily as his voice would allow. Yet I could catch it only as a very thin sound, as far away as heaven. “There, there! There is the death ship. She is standing by. The port. Do you see the Norske ship? There she is. All glory. All in golden sun. She has iced water from the fjords. Can’t you see, can’t you see, Pippip?”
He had partly risen, squatting upon his knees. With both his arms he was pointing into space.
“Where is the Yorikke?” I too began now to yell.
“Man, old man, can’t you see her? Are you blind? There she turns about. Now standing by. Please, please, can’t you see her?”
His voice became pitifully pleading.
“Can’t you see, Pippip? The devil, six grate-bars have dropped. Damn the whole shit. Now funking eight. Get me the can with the plum jelly put into the furnace to finish the grate-bars. Where is the coffee? Why didn’t you leave me a drop? That’s no Chinese laundry soap, it’s butter, golden butter, you funking liar. Get me the tea! God damn, where is that coffee again? Eat the whole can of milk in one seat, Pippip. They steal it. All highwaymen. Another shot. Straight, I said; can’t you hear me? Off your skirt, you little hussy, sweety! Get the coffee!”
I, not knowing if I was in my mind or out of it, watched Stanislav. It came to me, thinking what power he had, how he fought before breaking down. He hammered the raft with his fists. He worked his whole body, still bound by the rope. He threw his arms and his upper body into all directions, pointing here and there, yelling at me and asking if I did not see the Yorikke, once under full steam, then turning about, then standing by and lowering away anchor.
I became indifferent to everything. It began to hurt me to turn my head to see the port or to watch the maneuvers of the Yorikke coming up to reach us.
Stanislav, unceasingly watching something on the sea which he believed real, started hollering again: “Hold her, hold her!
Pippip, we are drifting away. She cannot make it after all. I must now get her. All the bars are out now. Do you see the fireman? My fire’m is in the boiler. Where is the water? I have to hurry now to run along and hop on or she makes off.”
He worked on the rope with which he had fastened himself to the raft. He had lost his ability to loosen knots. He worked at them like a monkey, not knowing any longer how to pull them open. In fact he tightened himself up more while he thought that he was getting out.
“Where is the shovel? Hell, let’s cut the leg for once. Or I am going down. The water is rushing in already.” He went about the rope more hastily, yet with still less skill. Of course, the rope, not very strong from the beginning, rubbed and torn constantly against the iron rings and brass handles and worked at with the hard hands of Stanislav, could not last long. It finally began to break and to loosen. With a last hard jerk Stanislav freed himself of his entanglement.
“The Yorikke is sailing. She is off. Quick, quick, Pippip! The Norske has iced water. See the guys standing at the rail waving the coffee-pot? I won’t stay on a death ship. I won’t. I won’t.”
Stanislav trembled in excitement. He got wilder every minute. His feet were still in a few slings of the rope. He noticed it with the last flicker of his dying mind. He pulled his legs out of these slings. Then he sat on the raft with his legs hanging down in the water.
All this I saw and took note of as if it were happening a hundred miles away and as though I watched it through a field-glass. I had no personal concern in it. Such was my feeling, strange as it may seem.
“There is the Yorikke. The skipper is saluting us. See him, Pippip? He tips his cap. Lump of coal at the leg. Why don’t you come?”
I stared at him. I could not grasp what he was saying. I could not form his words into an idea. They were just words.
“Hop on, Pippip! Tea and raisin cake and cocoa and after-gale.”
Now I saw, he was right. Yes, no doubt, there was the Yorikke. Floating above the waters in a sort of majestic silence. She made no wash. I could see her quite clearly. I recognized her by her funny-looking bridge, which always hung high up in the air.
Sure, there was the Yorikke. They were having breakfast now. And prunes in a bluish starch paste for pudding. The tea was not so bad. It was even good when there was no milk and no sugar. The fresh water did not stink, and the tanks were clean as if new.
I got busy to loosen the knots of the cord I was tied with to the raft. My fingers, however, did not obey me. They were just fumbling, doing nothing I wanted them to do.<
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I called upon Stanislav to help me untie the cord. He had no time. He did not even pay attention to my calling him. I do not know how he had managed it, but I noted that his feet were entangled again in the slings. He was working hurriedly to free himself once more.
His yelling and his ceaseless working at the rope had caused his wounds to break open. The wounds on his head which he had received when fighting the shanghaiing gang. Thick blood broke out of those scars and trickled down his face. It did not concern him. He didn’t notice it at all.
I tore and pulled at my cord. It was too thick, and it had been tied up too well by Stanislav. I could not break it, nor rub it through, nor was I able to wind myself out snake-fashion. Whenever I thought I had won a few inches, I only found that I was fastened better than before. The water had tightened the cord so much so that the knots were as if soldered. I looked around for an ax, a knife, a shovel. This reminded me that some years ago, on one occasion, I had helped flatten out a shovel to cut a mast which caused a Negro to cry. Anyway, the compass fell into the water again, and I had to fish it out with a grate-bar that was still red-hot. I was still working at the cord. It refused to let me out. This made me think I was wrangling with a policeman who had searched my pockets right in front of the American consul, who asked if I wanted a meal-ticket. The knots of the cord got tighter. This made me mad, and I cursed whomever I could think of, even God and my mother.
Stanislav, quite cunningly, had got his legs again into the water, but was still sitting on the raft.
He turned around to me, but looked not at me but by me. He shook his head. Then he yelled: “Come here, Pipplav Pap Pip. Only twenty yards’ run. All sand. Just run. Grates are all out. Water minutes to seven engineer. Get up. Below all full of ashes. Get up. Shake out of it!”
Then the gangway was shrieking: “No Yorikke. There is no Yorikke. It is all fluttering mist. There is no — no —”
The noise hurt me, and I hollered as loud as I could: “There is no Yorikke! It is a hellish lie. There is no Yorikke!”
I grabbed the cord with all my strength, because I looked around and saw that the Yorikke had gone far away. I saw only the sea. I saw only the waves rolling from horizon to horizon like eternity in movement.
“Stanskinslovski, don’t jump! For God’s sake, stay on!” I howled. I became terribly frightened. I felt as though I had lost something which I had found and could not have any more, no matter how much I might want it. “Stanislav, don’t jump! Don’t jump! Stay! Stay on! Hold on! Never give up!”
“She is heaving short. Hauling in. I am running to the death ship. I have to run to catch the Yorikke by the buttocks. Running. Running. Hundred yards. Fünen, ahoy! Com’a! Come’a!”
He jumped. He did it. He jumped. There was no riverbank. There was no port. There was no ship. No shore. Only the sea. Only the waves rolling from horizon to horizon, kissing the heavens, glittering like the mirrors of sunken suns.
He made a few splashing strokes in no definite direction. Then he lifted his arms. He went down. In deep silence.
I looked at the hole through which he had slipped off. I could see the hole for a long while. I saw it as if from a great distance.
I yelled at the hole: “Stanislav. Lavski. Brother. Comrade. Sailor. Dear, dear comrade. Come here. Ahoy! Man, ahoy! Sailor, ahoy! Come here. I am standing by. Come on!”
He did not hear me. He would have come. Sure he would. He did not come up any more. There was no death ship. No port. No Yorikke. He did not come up any more. No, sir.
There was something very remarkable about it. He did not rise. He would have come up. I could not understand.
He had signed on for a long voyage. For a very great voyage.
I could not understand this. How could he have signed on? He had no sailor’s card. No papers whatever. They would kick him off right away.
Yet he did not come up. The Great Skipper had signed him on. He had taken him without papers.
And the Great Skipper said to him: “Come, Stanislav Koslovski, give me your hand. Shake. Come up, sailor! I shall sign you on for a fine ship. For an honest and decent ship. The finest we have. Never mind the papers. You will not need any here. You are on an honest ship. Go to your quarters, Stanislav. Can you read what is written above the quarters, Stanislav?”
And Stanislav said: “Aye, aye, sir. He who enters here will be for ever free of pain!”
Appendix A – “B. Traven – An Anti-Biography”
Much has been written about the mysterious life of the author of this novel. There are plenty of books you can read on the subject. We are reproducing this article because it gives a good summary of what is actually known about the man and why he chose to remain anonymous.
B. Traven – An Anti-Biography
“An author should have no other biography than his books.
The biography of a creative man is completely unimportant.”
– B. Traven
If one has an interest in B. Traven, it should be — as he wished — as a result of what he wrote. Traven took great effort throughout his life to avoid any cult of personality or role of fame. Traven was only a name, one of many used in his life. The man behind the names was a complex character, famous for his novels as B. Traven — and, ironically, eventually famous for being someone trying to avoid fame. We will try to trace his history, sifting the facts from the speculation wherever possible. As Traven intended, what is fact and what remains speculation is still disputed by biographers.
Traven’s novels began appearing in the German language in 1926. They were sent from Mexico to the ‘Buchergilde Gutenberg’, a German Left Book Club; the author’s only contact address was a post box in a rural area. Speculation began soon after they were published; stylistic similarities in the writing style to a former anarchist comrade, Ret Marut, were noted by some of Marut’s old friends.
Marut was a touring bit-part actor and writer, based in Munich; he had participated in the Bavarian Council Republic established in 1919 during the German Revolution when workers councils appeared across the country. In the preceding years he had produced an individualist Stirnerite-influenced anarchist paper called ‘Der Zeigelbrenner’ — the ‘Brickburner’ (or ‘Brickmaker’). He was obviously not a purist individualist, for he participated wholeheartedly in the Bavarian movement. When it was finally crushed by troops under the direction of the Social Democrats, Marut was apparently arrested; facing a death sentence for ‘high treason’, he later related how he managed to escape in the nick of time. A wanted man, he travelled across Europe for the next three years, finally landing in London, where it’s likely he was helped by Sylvia Pankhurst, the suffragette turned anti-parliamentarist communist. But he was arrested for failing to register as an alien and ended up in Brixton Prison where he was interrogated several times by the police.
It was probably the fear of being extradited back to Germany to face the treason charges that accounted, at least in part, for Traven’s concealment of his identity for the rest of his life. Yet even earlier in his life he had apparently adopted a new identity as ‘Ret Marut’, so perhaps it was also part of a more general personality trait.
During his questioning, Marut, understandably in view of the likely consequences of being repatriated, gave several false stories as to his origin and various false names. (Several decades later, this information was to give significant clues to a biographer of his real likely origins.) Marut was trying to convince the US Embassy to accept him as an American-born citizen, claiming his birth records had been destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Neither the US or British authorities were convinced – he was eventually released and caught a ship out of the London docks. He ended his journey in Mexico, where he settled for the rest of his life.
Traven took various kinds of employment in the new country, mainly manual work, and several trips to more remote parts of Mexico - particularly Chiapas. As he developed a greater understanding of Mexican culture he would later write a
series of novels based on the recent revolutionary history of the country. But his first novels drew on his own recent history, or Ret Marut’s. (He was now often calling himself ‘Torsvan’ or similar.) ‘The Cotton Pickers’ (also sometimes known as Der Wobbly) dealt with the Mexican adventures of an American ‘Wobbly’ or member of the Industrial Workers of the World — a US-based revolutionary industrial union that also had a wider presence, including in Mexico. This was based on Traven’s working experiences when he first arrived in Mexico, in a variety of manual jobs.
‘The Death Ship’ was certainly based to some extent on his experiences on the way to Mexico and his time as a fugitive in Europe — it told the tale of a sailor who, in the aftermath of WWI, has lost his identity papers. No country will accept him or issue new identification — he is now officially a ‘non-person’. In desperation he enlists on a ‘death ship’, the only vessel that will accept those with no papers. Death ships are destined to be sunk at sea so the owners can claim the insurance money. The crew knows this and can only try to be vigilant and prepared enough to maximise their chances of survival when the ship is finally scuppered.
Traven later wrote ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ and this was filmed by John Huston with Humphrey Bogart playing the main character. The story is of three men who combine to mine a rich source of gold and the greed and tragedy it introduces to their social relations. Traven was contacted by the film company via his Mexican mail box and asked to be a paid advisor during the film shoot. Traven declined but instead arranged to send his agent, Hal Croves, along to advise in his absence. It was suspected by some at the time, and much later confirmed by photographic and other evidence, that Croves was in fact Traven himself. The film was a major success and is now considered a classic, yet did not lead to further English language adaptations of his work. (But several Spanish language versions of his novels were later filmed in Mexico. ‘The Death Ship’ was also filmed in Germany.)
