Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2

by Bertolt Brecht

  URIAH: All the same, I think we’d better put a little more fear of death into him.

  The artillery is heard rolling by.

  BEGBICK enters: That’s the gunners, Uriah. Help me fold up the awnings. And the rest of you, carry on taking it down.

  The soldiers go on loading sections of the canteen into the waggon. Just one plank wall remains standing. Uriah and Begbick fold the tarpaulins.

  I spoke to many people and listened

  Carefully and heard many opinions

  And heard many say of many things: ‘That is for sure’.

  But when they came back they spoke differently from the way they spoke earlier

  And it was something else of which they said: ‘That is for sure’.

  At that I told myself: of all sure things

  The surest is doubt.

  Uriah goes to the rear. So does Begbick with her laundry basket, passing Galy Gay. She sings:

  Don’t try to hold on to the wave

  That’s breaking against your foot: so long as

  You stand in the stream fresh waves

  Will always keep breaking against it.

  GALY GAY: Widow Begbick, may I ask you to get a pair of scissors and cut my moustache off?

  BEGBICK: What for?

  GALY GAY: I know what for all right.

  Begbick cuts off his moustache, wraps it in a cloth and takes it to the waggon. The soldiers reappear.

  No. IV

  URIAH calls out: And now for Number Four: the Execution of Galy Gay in the military cantoment at Kilkoa.

  BEGBICK comes up to him: Mr Uriah, I have something for you here. She whispers something in his ear and gives him the cloth with the moustache in it.

  URIAH goes to the latrine pit where Galy Gay is: Has the accused man anything further to say?

  GALY GAY: Your Honour, they tell me the criminal who sold the elephant was a man with a moustache, and I have no moustache.

  URIAH silently showing him the open cloth with the moustache: And what is this? You’ve really convicted yourself this time, my man, because cutting off that moustache of yours just shows your guilty conscience. Come now, man without a name, and hear the verdict of the Kilkoa court-martial which says that you are to be shot by a firing squad of five. The soldiers drag Galy Gay out of the latrine pit.

  GALY GAY shouting: You can’t do that to me.

  URIAH: You’ll find that we can, though. Listen carefully, my man: first because you stole and sold a WD elephant – which is theft secondly because you sold an elephant which was no elephant – which is fraud and thirdly because you are unable to produce any kind of name or identity document and may well be a spy – which is high treason.

  GALY GAY: Oh, Uriah, why are you treating me like this?

  URIAH: Come along now and conduct yourself as a good soldier like the army taught you. Quick march! Get moving so they can shoot you.

  GALY GAY: Oh, do not be so hasty. I am not the man you are looking for. I have never met him. My name is Jip, I can swear it is. What is an elephant compared to a man’s life? I didn’t see that elephant, it was just a rope I was holding. Don’t go away, please. I’m someone quite different. I am not Galy Gay. I am not.

  JESSE: Oh yes you are, and nobody else. Under the three rubber trees of Kilkoa Galy Gay will see his blood flowing.

  Get moving, Galy Gay.

  GALY GAY: O God! Wait a minute, there has to be an official record listing the charges and showing that I didn’t do it and that my name is not Galy Gay. Every detail must be weighed. You can’t rush this sort of thing when a man is about to be slaughtered.

  JESSE: Quick march!

  GALY GAY: What do you mean, quick march? I am not the man you’re looking for. All I wanted was to buy a fish, but where do you find fish around here? What are those guns rolling by? What is that battle music blaring away? No, I am not budging. I’ll cling to the grass. The whole thing must stop. And why is no one here when a man is being slaughtered?

  BEGBICK: Once they start loading the elephants if you lot aren’t ready you can be written off. She goes off.

  Galy Gay is led back and forth; he strides like the protagonist in a tragedy.

  JESSE: Make way for the criminal whom the court martial has condemned to death.

  SOLDIERS: Look, there’s someone who’s going to be shot. Perhaps it’s a pity, he’s not old yet. – And he doesn’t know how he got into this.

  URIAH: Halt! Would you like to relieve yourself one last time?

  GALY GAY: Yes.

  URIAH: Guard him closely.

  GALY GAY: They say that once the elephants arrive the soldiers will have to leave, so I must take my time to allow the elephants to get here.

  SOLDIERS: Hurry up!

  GALY GAY: I can’t. Is that the moon?

  SOLDIERS: Yes. – It’s getting late.

  GALY GAY: Isn’t that the Widow Begbick’s bar where we always used to drink?

  URIAH: No, my boy. This is the rifle range and here is the ‘Johnny don’t wet yourself’ wall. Hey! Get fell in over there, you lot! And load your rifles. There should be five of them.

  SOLDIERS: It’s so hard to see in this light.

  URIAH: Yes, it is very hard.

  GALY GAY: Wait a moment, this won’t do. You people must be able to see when you shoot.

  URIAH to Jesse: Take that paper lantern and hold it beside him. He blindfolds Galy Gay. In a loud voice: Load your rifles! Under his breath: What are you doing, Polly? That’s a live round you’re putting in. Take it out.

  POLLY: So sorry, I almost really loaded. And that could almost have led to a real disaster.

  The elephants are heard passing in the background. The soldiers stand for a moment as if transfixed.

  BEGBICK off, calls: The elephants!

  URIAH: It’s all no use. He has got to be shot. I’ll count up to three. One!

  GALY GAY: All right, Uriah, enough is enough. The elephants have arrived, haven’t they? Am I supposed to go on standing here, Uriah? But why are you all keeping so horribly still?

  URIAH: Two!

  GALY GAY laughing: You’re a queer cuss, Uriah. I can’t see you, because you blindfolded me. But your voice sounds just like if you were dead serious about it.

  URIAH: And one more makes …

  GALY GAY: Whoah, don’t say three, or you’ll regret it. If you shoot now you’re bound to hit me. Whoah! No, not yet. Listen to me. I confess! I confess I don’t know what has been happening to me. Believe me, and don’t laugh: I’m a man who doesn’t know who he is. But I am not Galy Gay, that much I do know. I’m not the man who is supposed to be shot. Who am I, though? Because I’ve forgotten. Last night when it rained I still knew. It did rain last night, didn’t it? I beseech you, when you look over here or where this voice is coming from, it’s me, I beseech you. Call up that place, say Galy Gay or something to it, be merciful, give me a bit of meat. Where it goes in will be Galy Gay, and likewise where it comes out. Or at the very least if you come across a man who has forgotten who he is, that’ll be me. And it’s him I am beseeching you to let go.

  Uriah has whispered something in Polly’s ear; then Polly runs up behind Galy Gay and raises a big club over his head

  URIAH: Once equals never! Three!

  Galy Gay lets out a scream.

  URIAH: Fire!

  Galy Gay falls down in a faint.

  POLLY: Whoah! He fell of his own accord.

  URIAH shouts: Fire! So that he can hear he’s dead.

  The soldiers fire into the air.

  URIAH: Leave him there and get ready to move off.

  Galy Gay is left lying as all the others exeunt.

  No. IVa

  Begbick and the three are sitting outside the packed waggon at a table with five chairs. To one side lies Galy Gay covered with a sack.

  JESSE: Here’s the sergeant coming. Can you stop him poking his nose into our business, Widow Begbick?

  Fairchild is seen approaching in civilian clothes.


  BEGBICK: Yes, because that is a civilian coming. To Fairchild, who is standing in the doorway: Come and join us, Charles.

  FAIRCHILD: There you sit, you Gomorrah! Standing over Galy Gay: And what is this sozzled carcass? Silence. He pounds on the table. Atten – shun!

  URIAH from behind knocks his hat down over his ears: Stop your gob, civvy!

  Laughter.

  FAIRCHILD: Go ahead, mutiny, you sons of a gun! Observe my suit and laugh! Tear up my name that is famous from Calcutta to Cooch Behar! Give me a drink and then I’ll shoot you!

  URIAH: Come on, Fairchild old boy, show us what a brilliant shot you are.

  FAIRCHILD: No.

  BEGBICK: Nine women out of every ten fall for these top-class riflemen.

  POLLY: Get cracking, Fairchild.

  BEGBICK: You really should, for my sake.

  FAIRCHILD: O thou Babylon! Here I place one egg – here. How many paces shall I make it?

  POLLY: Four.

  FAIRCHILD takes ten paces, which Begbick counts aloud: Here I have one perfectly ordinary service revolver. He fires.

  JESSE goes over to the egg: The egg is untouched.

  POLLY: Utterly.

  URIAH: If anything it’s got bigger.

  FAIRCHILD: Strange. I thought I could hit it.

  Loud laughter.

  FAIRCHILD: Give me a drink. He drinks. I shall squash you all like bedbugs as sure as my name is Bloody Five.

  URIAH: How did you actually come by the name Bloody Five?

  JESSE seated again: Give us a demonstration.

  FAIRCHILD: Shall I tell the story, Mrs Begbick?

  BEGBICK: Eight women out of every nine would find this gory man divine.

  FAIRCHILD: Right: here we have the River Chadze. There stand five Hindus. Hands tied behind their backs. Then along comes me with an ordinary service revolver, waves it in their faces a bit and says: this revolver has been misfiring. It has got to be tested. Like this. Then I fire – bang! down you go, that man there! – and so on four times more. That’s all there was to it, gentlemen. He sits down.

  JESSE: So that is how you came by your great name, which has made this widow your slave for life? From a human point of view, of course, one might regard your conduct as unbecoming and say you are simply a swine.

  BEGBICK: Are you a monster?

  FAIRCHILD: I would be very sorry if you took it like that. Your opinion means a lot to me.

  BEGBICK: But do you accept it as final?

  FAIRCHILD looking deeply into her eyes: Absolutely.

  BEGBICK: In that case, my dear man, my opinion is that I must get my canteen packed up and have no more time for private matters, for now I can hear the lancers trotting past as they take their horses to be loaded.

  The lancers are heard riding by.

  POLLY: Are you still insisting on your own selfish desires, sir, even though the lancers are loading their horses and you have been told that for military reasons this canteen has to be packed up?

  FAIRCHILD bellowing: Yes, I am. Give me a drink.

  POLLY: All right, but we’ll soon settle your hash, my boy.

  JESSE: Sir, not all that far from here a man clad in British Army service dress is lying under a rough tarpaulin. He is recuperating after a hard day’s work. A mere twenty-four hours ago he was still – from a military point of view – a babe in arms. His wife’s voice frightened him. Without guidance he was incapable of buying a fish. In return for a cigar he was prepared to forget his father’s name. Some people took him in hand, because they happened to know of a place for him. Since then, admittedly at the cost of painful trials, he has become a man who will play his part in the battles to come. You on the other hand have declined into a mere civilian. At a time when the army is off to restore order on the northern frontier, a move that demands beer, you big shitheap are deliberately hindering the proprietress of an army canteen from getting her beer waggon entrained.

  POLLY: How can you hope to check our names at the last roll-call and enter all four of them in your sergeant’s note-book as per regulations?

  URIAH: How can you possibly hope to face a company thirsting to confront its countless enemies given the state you’re in? Get up!

  Fairchild rises unsteadily.

  POLLY: Call that getting up?

  He gives Fairchild a kick in the bottom, which makes him fall down.

  URIAH: Is this what they used to call the Human Typhoon? Chuck that wreck into the bushes or he’ll demoralise the company.

  The three start dragging Fairchild to the rear.

  A SOLDIER rushes in and stops at the rear: Is Sergeant Charles Fairchild here? The General says he is to hurry up and get his company fallen in at the goods station.

  FAIRCHILD: Don’t tell him it’s me.

  JESSE: There is no such sergeant here.

  No. V

  Begbick and the three contemplate Galy Gay, who is still lying under the sack.

  URIAH: Widow Begbick, we have reached the end of our assemblage. We believe that our man has now been reconstructed.

  POLLY: I’d say all he needs now is a human voice.

  JESSE: Have you got a human voice for this kind of eventuality, Widow Begbick?

  BEGBICK: Yes, and something for him to eat. Take this crate here and write ‘Galy Gay’ on it in black chalk and then put a cross. They do so. Then form a funeral procession and bury him. The whole operation must not last more than nine minutes, as it’s already a minute past two.

  URIAH calls out: Number Five: Obsequies and Interment of Galy Gay, last of the personalities, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-five. The soldiers enter, doing up their packs. Pick up that crate there and form a neat funeral procession. The soldiers form up at the rear with the crate.

  JESSE: And I shall step up to him and say: You are to deliver a funeral oration for Galy Gay. To Begbick: He won’t eat anything.

  BEGBICK: That kind eats even when he’s nobody.

  She takes her basket over to Galy Gay, removes his sack and gives him food.

  GALY GAY: More!

  She gives him more; then she signals to Uriah and the procession comes downstage.

  GALY GAY: Who’s that they’re carrying?

  BEGBICK That is someone who was shot at the last minute.

  GALY GAY: What is he called?

  BEGBICK: Wait a moment. Unless I am mistaken he was called Galy Gay.

  GALY GAY: And what’s to happen to him now?

  BEGBICK: To whom?

  GALY GAY: To this Galy Gay fellow.

  BEGBICK: Now they’re going to bury him.

  GALY GAY: Was he a good man or a bad one?

  BEGBICK: Oh, he was a dangerous man.

  GALY GAY: Yes, he was shot, wasn’t he; I was present.

  The procession passes. Jesse stops and speaks to Galy Gay.

  JESSE: Surely that is Jip? Jip, you must get up at once and give the address at this fellow Galy Gay’s funeral, as you probably knew him better than any of us.

  GALY GAY: Hey, are you actually able to see me down here?

  Jesse points at him. Yes, that’s right. And what am I doing now? He bends his arm.

  JESSE: Bending your arm.

  GALY GAY: So I’ve bent my arm twice now. And now?

  JESSE: Now you are walking like a soldier.

  GALY GAY: Do you people walk the same way?

  JESSE: Exactly the same way.

  GALY GAY: And how will you address me when you want something?

  JESSE: Jip.

  GALY GAY: Try saying: Jip, walk around.

  JESSE: Jip, walk around. Walk around under the rubber trees and rehearse your funeral oration for Galy Gay.

  GALY GAY slowly walks over to the crate: Is this the crate he’s in?

  He walks around the procession as they hold up the crate. He walks faster and faster and tries to run away. Begbick holds him back.

  BEGBICK: Are you looking for something? The Army’s one remedy for all diseases, up to and including cholera, is cas
tor oil. No soldier has any disease that castor oil won’t cure. Would you like some castor oil?

  GALY GAY shakes his head:

  My mother on her calendar marked the day

  When I came out, and the thing that cried was me.

  This bundle of flesh, nails and hair

  Is me, is me.

  JESSE: Yes, Jeraiah Jip, Jeraiah Jip from Tipperary.

  GALY GAY: Someone who carried cucumbers for tips. Swindled by an elephant, he had to sleep quickly on a wooden chair for lack of time, because the fish water was boiling in his hut. Nor had the machine-gun yet been cleaned, for they presented him with a cigar and five rifle barrels of which one was missing. Oh, what was his name?

  URIAH: Jip. Jeraiah Jip.

  Sounds of train whistling.

  SOLDIERS: The trains are whistling. – Now it’s every man for himself. They fling down the crate and run off.

  JESSE: The convoy leaves in six minutes. He’ll have to come as he is.

  URIAH: Listen, Polly, and you too, Jesse. Fellow-soldiers! We are three survivors, and now that they have started sawing through the hair by which the three of us are suspended over the precipice you had better listen carefully to what I say beneath the last wall of Kilkoa at approximately two o’clock in the morning. The man we want must be allowed a little time, since it is for all eternity that he will be changing. Therefore I, Uriah Shelley, am now drawing my service revolver and threatening you with instant death if any of you moves.

  POLLY: But if he looks inside the crate we are sunk. Galy Gay sits down beside the crate.

  GALY GAY:

  I could not, without instant death

  Gaze into a crate at a drained face

  Of some person once familiar to me from the water’s surface

  Into which a man looked who, so I realise, died.

  Therefore I am unable to open this crate

  Because this fear is in the both of me, for perhaps

  I am the Both which has just come about

  On our earth’s transformable top surface:

  A chopped-off batlike thing hanging

  Betwixt rubber trees and hut, a night bird

  A thing that would gladly be cheerful.

  One man equals no man. Some one has to call him.