The Death Ship

by B. TRAVEN

  13

  Going south, following the sun. I wandered along roads as old as the history of Europe. Perhaps older.

  I stuck now to my new nationality, merely to see what would happen so soon after the war to a vagabond in France who said openly: “I am a Boche.” It appeared that everybody took it good-naturedly, sometimes entirely indifferently. Wherever I asked I got food; and the peasants were always willing to put me up for the night in their barns, often even in their spare rooms inside the house.

  Instinctively, it seemed, I had hit upon the right nail. Nobody liked Americans. The French peasants cursed us. We were the robbers. We coined our dollars out of the blood of the glorious French youth. We were the Shylocks and the usurers. We cut their throats; we made money out of the tears of the French orphans and widows. We took away from them their last cow and goat. We could not swallow all the gold we already had, but we wanted the last French gold coin found in the stocking of the poor grandmother.

  No matter where I met those small-town folk and village people, it was always the same: “If we only had one of those damned Americans here, we would beat him up as we do all swindlers. They don’t deserve anything better than to be treated like a filthy dog. Did they fight for us? The hell they did. They only ran after our women. They sold us ammunition. But what sort? We couldn’t kill a single German soldier with their ammunition. Their shells killed our own soldiers, because they always came out backwards. Fought for us? Don’t make me laugh. They sent their men over not to fight for us, but only to look after their money.

  “Where do you intend to go now, boy? To Spain? That’s right. A good idea, a splendid idea. Spain is pretty. And warm.

  They have more than we have to feed you. Just look what those Americans have done to Spain. They cannot leave any country alone. They must put their fingers into every country on earth and make all the people in the world slave for their bankers. What have they done to Spain? I mention only Cuba, and the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, and Florida, and California. Always robbing us poor European countries. Now go on and eat, just help yourself. We have still a few potatoes left and a stale bread crust.

  “And when a poor fellow saves up a little money, and wants to go to America to earn a few dollars and send them home to his poor parents, do they let him in? They do not. First they steal all the land from the defenseless Indians, and then they want to keep it all for themselves.

  “Say, Boche, do you know what? Look here, you stay here with us for a couple of weeks and work. Spain is still far, far off. Mon lieu, far off. Of course, we cannot pay you very much for your work, because the Americans haven’t left us anything. Let’s say thirty francs a month. Eight a week. Before the war we paid only three francs to our farm-hands. Then, of course, our franc was worth a lot more than now. For a franc you could buy five times what you can buy now, or even ten times. We had a Boche here working with us during the war. He was a prisoner of war. I have to say this much about him, he was an industrious laborer. We were all very sad when the war was over and he had to go back to his country. Say, Antoine, wasn’t that Boche a hard worker? I should say he was. Wil’em was his name. But he said he wasn’t related to the emperor. Just his name. We all liked him a lot. People told us we were treating him too well, since he was only a prisoner who had killed perhaps a thousand of our boys. Anyway, he didn’t look that way. He was tame and he knew how to work on a farm. He worked like three oxen, didn’t he, Antoine? I should say he did.”

  I stayed and worked there. Soon I learned that Wil’em must indeed have been a worker such as none other under the sun. Half a dozen times every day I had to listen to some remark like this: “I don’t understand, but Wil’em must have come from another part of the country than you. You cannot work as Wil’em could. Am I right, Antoine?”

  Antoine answered: “You are right, mother. He is surely not from the same province. He cannot work like Wil’em. I suppose even among you Boches there are differences, just as with us; some are good workers, some are so bad they don’t even earn the salt they put in their soup.”

  This soon got on my nerves. Wil’em must have understood more about farming than I. One doesn’t learn agriculture in Lincoln Avenue in Chic. At least I didn’t. I am sure Wil’em worked so hard, not because he liked to work hard, but because he preferred to stay with these peasants rather than work on Algerian roads, as tens of thousands of other German prisoners did. No matter how hard I worked, no matter how early I rose in the morning and how late at night I turned in, Wil’em had done better. But the peasant I was working for will never get a farm-hand as cheap as he got me. Other peasants in the same village had to pay their hands as much as twenty, twenty-five, and even thirty francs. I received eight. Of course, I was that poor Boche who had been found and picked up on the roadside half starved and nearly dying. They had saved my life, they told everybody. It was only fair that I worked for them for eight francs.

  When finally Wil’em appeared in my dreams, I thought it time to leave. I explained I had to see relatives in Spain whom I had not seen since the Goths had left Germany for Spain.

  “They sure will be pleased to see you looking so fine,” Antoine said.

  Instead of eight francs a week, they made it eight francs for six weeks of work. Mother said: “It’s easier to count a round number, so we’ll make it even.”

  I said: “It’s all right with me, mother.”

  “Of course, you understand,” Antoine said, “we cannot pay you your wages now. You will have to wait until after the New Year. Then we get our money for the crop. But the good food you got here has done wonders for you. You haven’t overworked yourself. See, that Wil’em, he —”

  “Yes,” I interrupted him, “Wil’em came from Westphalia. I am from Southphalia. We don’t work so hard. Everything grows there of its own accord. We only have to pray once in a while. We are not used to working hard. Everything is thrown into our laps.”

  “You certainly are clever people. I must say that much of you,” the peasant said. “We won the war, of course, as was expected. But we take it like good sports. The war is over now, so why should we be angry at each other? We all must live, mustn’t we? Well, here, take a franc. The rest, after New Year. I hope you have a good time in Spain.”

  14

  The longer I wandered on, the more mountainous became the country, until I found myself in surroundings so desolate and dreary that I longed to see a human face. I would have been contented even with a bandit or a smuggler, in whom, I had been told the day before, this region was richer than in goats. And I saw plenty of goats.

  “The border is not far off now,” the shepherd with whom I had stayed last night told me in the morning when I left. This shepherd, poor as he was, had shared with me his bread, onions, goat-cheese, and watery red wine.

  Walking along a winding path, I saw something near by that looked partly like walls covered with mud, partly like the ruins of an ancient castle. I thought I might find a treasure left hidden there by the old Romans, so I went closer.

  Suddenly two soldiers sprang up right in front of me, pointed their rifles at my stomach, and said: “Vollevoo, where are you going?”

  “To Spain,” I answered. “It must be right over there, right behind this mountain.”

  “It is,” they said. “There is Spain. But first you will have to come to our officer in command. Don’t you know where you are?”

  “How should I know, messieurs, I am here for the first time in my life, and I wish I were in Spain.”

  “You are within the French fortifications,” one of the soldiers said, “and I might just as well tell you that if your story is not good, or if the old man has got a letter that he does not like from his lady, then there is a good chance of your being shot at sunrise, whether you like it or not.”

  They gave me cigarettes and brought me to a gate that was so well hidden in the mud wall that I almost got a shock when it appeared before us as if it had risen out of the ground at the word of Ala
ddin.

  I was led in, searched, and ordered to wait until called for. Two hours passed. Then I was taken across a big yard where I saw a dozen heavy guns and soldiers lined up for drill. Again I had to wait in a small room, always with the two soldiers at my side, with bayonets fixed.

  A door opened and an orderly told my soldiers to bring me in.

  Behind a desk sat an officer. Rather young.

  My soldiers made some report that I only partly understood, because they spoke in military language which in all countries is different from the language of the people who pay taxes so that soldiers may live.

  “You are Dutch?” the .officer asked.

  “No, I am Boche.”

  “You look more like a Dutchman.”

  I am sure he wanted only to know whether I was lying or not, because the soldiers certainly had told him that I said I was a Boche.

  “What are you doing in a French fortress?” the officer asked.

  “I did not know that this is a French fortress. It does not look like one.”

  “What did you think it was?” he asked.

  “To me it looked like ruins left by the old Romans.”

  “Can you sketch?” he wanted to know.

  “No, sir, I cannot.”

  “Know how to make photographs?”

  “I never spent any money buying a camera. Really, I am not much interested in photography. I think it rather silly, because you can get photographs made anywhere for little money.”

  “Did you find anything on him?” the officer asked the soldiers.

  “No,” they said.

  Then he said: “Shershey!” which is French, and which means: “Search him again.”

  One really gets sick of so much searching.

  “So during the war you were a German officer, weren’t you?” he asked when the searching was done and nothing was found save a comb and a piece of soap, which they cut open to see whether I had hidden a machine-gun or something inside of it.

  “No, sir. I wasn’t even a common soldier.”

  “Why not?”

  “I am a C.O. I mean I was one of those birds who had to remain in prison while the war was on.”

  “For spying?”

  “No, sir. Only, the Germans thought that I would not allow them to make war if they let me go free, so they put me in jail, and then they felt safe to do as they pleased.”

  “You mean to tell me that you and a dozen more who were also in jail would have been able to prevent the war?”

  “That’s what the Germans believed. Before they put me away I never knew how important a person I was.”

  “Which prison were you in?”

  “In — yes — in — in Southphalen.”

  “What town?”

  “In Deutschenburg.”

  “Never heard of such a place.”

  “Nor have I. I mean not before I was in prison there. It is a very secret place, about which even the Germans themselves don’t know anything.”

  The officer took a book, opened it, looked for certain chapters, read them, and said, when he was through: “You will be shot at sunrise. Sorry. On account of being in a fortification near the Spanish border. Since the Spaniards and we ourselves are still at war with the African colonies, the war regulations have not been canceled. Nothing else for me to do but shoot you.”

  “Thank you, officer.”

  He stared. Then he asked: “What are you thanking me for?”

  “For the good meal you have to give me before you shoot me. Y’see, officer, I am hungry, very hungry; in fact, I am nearly dying. What do I care about being shot so long as I am sure of getting a good farewell dinner?”

  At this the officer roared with laughter. He gave an order to one of the soldiers, and I was taken out and given coffee and cigarettes.

  About six in the evening I was taken to still another room and ordered to sit at a table. I was hardly seated when two soldiers started bringing in plates, glasses, knives, spoons, forks. As soon as the table was laid, the two soldiers began to bring in the eats.

  The officer who had sentenced me to be shot came in. He said: “Don’t ever think that we French are stingy, not even to a Boche. For your farewell dinner you will get the officers’ Sunday dinner, in double portions. We don’t want you to go — All right, I don’t know where you will go, and I don’t care either. What I mean to say is, we do not send anybody away, no matter where to, without giving him a good meal.”

  I think the French are far more polite to the fellows they want to execute than the Belgians, who gave me only a bite of potato-salad and three slices of liver-wurst.

  The French are really poets when it comes to cooking dinners. “Mon dieu, officer, sir, for a dinner like that I wouldn’t mind being shot twice every day in the year. I am sorry that I have only one life to be shot; I wish I had a thousand.”

  “I like to hear that, my boy,” he said; “I take it as praise of my nation. Have two cigars and make yourself comfortable until sunrise. Good night.”

  Funny, I couldn’t feel like a condemned man who has only seven or eight hours to live. The dinner had been too good to let me have any foolish sentiments. I think the horror one has of being shot, hanged, electrocuted, strangled, beheaded, drowned, or killed by whatever other means people use to kill the condemned — I think that horror is not of the execution in itself, but of the stingy last dinner that one gets the night before. In China they get nothing; just kneel down, and off goes the head. Everything looks different when your belly is full of an elegant dinner. Of course, a hamburger and a cup of coffee won’t do the trick. Nor hash.

  15

  Reveille awakened me. The sun was already out. I thought they had forgotten me and had shot somebody else instead. Or maybe the French have another notion as to what sunrise is than we have. But they’ll let me know on time. Why worry?

  A soldier opened the door.

  “Breakfast,” he said. “Washed up already? Fine. The officer wants to see you right after you have your coffee. Come along.”

  After breakfast, which was a short affair, I was taken to the officer.

  Said he: “Still alive? How do you like it? We have delayed execution because I got a telephone call from headquarters concerning you. I shall have to ask you some more questions. All you have to do is just tell the truth regardless of the consequences.”

  “All right, shoot, sir.”

  “Suppose we let you go. Where would you go?”

  “To Spain, and if I cannot go to Spain, I want to be shot of course, with the understanding that I get another last dinner.”

  He broke out into a terrific gale of laughter. Still giggling, he said: “If I were not convinced that you are a Boche, I would think you an American. Only Boches and Yankees think of nothing but: When do we eat? So you are going to Spain?”

  “Yes, colonel.”

  “Captain to you.”

  “Yes, captain colonel.”

  “We would rather that you go back to Germany. Free railroad fare.”

  “Not even in an aeroplane, colonel,” I said. “Germany is entirely out. Not for the kisses of two French girls. Note me.”

  “But then you would be at home.”

  “Who wants to be home, colonel? I am happy that I am so far away from home.”

  “What do you want to go to Spain for? There is no job waiting for you.”

  “I don’t mind the job, captain. You see, colonel, it’s like this. Winter is coming on. I have not stored away any fuel. I thought it might be a swell idea to go to Spain, where there is always sunshine. And no worry about where the food will come from either. It’s warm there all the time. One just sits in the sun and eats grapes and oranges and chestnuts and such things. Fruits grow wild there. You just pick them up wherever you see them.”

  “I think,” the officer said after some meditation, “we cannot let you go to Spain. Will you promise to go back to Germany if we let you go free?”

  “I won’t promise, and I won’
t do it either. Spain or death. I hate to help the Germans pay the reparations. And I don’t want to go there. You are really nice people, you French people. But I shouldn’t like to stay here in France either. You also have to pay too many debts. I don’t feel like paying those debts, because I did not make them. I never like to pay the debts of other people. I am going to Spain. And if I cannot go to Spain, you may shoot me; it’s okay with me.”

  Another young officer, who was sitting in a corner of the room and had listened to our conversation, stood up and came over to the desk.

  The two officers talked in the French soldier’s lingo, which I could not understand.

  When they had talked for a while, laughing most of the time, the officer in charge said: “Now listen here, fellow, we shall do as you wish. We are not barbarians, and I think I can take the responsibility for what I am about to do. You are going to Spain. We shall bring you under guard to the border, and if the Spaniards have no objection to letting you into their country, you will be handed over to them. The Spaniards are fine people. They won’t hurt you a bit. They are better off than we are. They like the Boches. Of course, if you were an American, you couldn’t live in Spain for twenty-four hours. But a Boche — that’s different. Dismissed, until we call you.”

  I did not heed his order. I shifted from one foot to the other. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Yes, colonel, captain.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “May I — I mean, can I — or rather, would I get another Sunday officers’ dinner, double portions, before I leave? What I mean is, since this is the last dinner I’ll get on French soil, may I have the Sunday officers’ dinner, double portions, colonel, captain?”

  Did the officers and the soldiers in the room laugh? I should say they did.

  I could not see why they were laughing. What is there to laugh about if a guy is hungry and tries to get as much out of the army kitchen as he can? I stood amazed, and so they laughed all the harder.