The Death Ship (15 page)

She scratched off hard against the quay. I had to draw up my legs or she would have taken them along. I had no intention of shipping my legs to Morocco while the rest of me remained in Spain.

She kicked at her stern like an old hussy trying to dance the rhumba. A whirlpool of muddy foam was stirred up by her propeller From her side she spat and filled and pished and sissed like an old farm-mule with bladder trouble. Then she began swaying like a drunken society lion trying to avoid the lamp-posts, and never able to do so.

The skipper tried his hand again and succeeded in steering her clear of the wharf. Seeing her now only about two feet away, and noticing that her hull looked pock-scarred, I said to myself that even if I had a chance to escape the hangman by signing on for this bucket, I would prefer the hanging. For I could not remember ever having seen anything in the world, ship or no ship, that looked so dreadful and hopeless, and so utterly lost, as did the
Yorikke
. I shivered. It was better to be a stranded sailor and hungry than to be a deck-hand on this ship.

21

While the bucket was still struggling asthmatically to come clear, I glanced up to the fore-deck, where a dozen men were standing — obviously part of the crew off duty.

I have seen in my time ragged men, filthy men, wretched, lousy, stinking, dirty, broken, drunken, besmeared, sticky, unwashed, uncombed, unshaven, pishy and pashy, slimy, dreggy, and smutty men, but, so help me God, never before in all my life, not anywhere in the world, not even excluded Asiatic and South American ports, had I seen men like that crew hanging on the railing of that ship and staring down at the pier. A crew shipwrecked and marooned on a god-forsaken island for two years might look — but probably not — like that. How was it possible for a crew on an outgoing ship to be so? It was inconceivable that a ship could sail with such a crew.

I certainly did not look elegant. Far from it. Oh, very far! A Scotchman seeing me might have thrown me a penny. Yet compared with these men I looked like the sheik of the most sumptuous chorus baby on Broadway.

This was no death ship. May the Lord forgive me for the sin of mistaking the
Yorikke
for a death ship! They were pirates hunted for a year by all the battle-ships of all nations, buccaneers sunk so low that they had come to the point of looting Chinese vegetable junks.

One of them wore neither cap nor hat; no, he had wrapped around his head, turban-like, a rag from a woman’s petticoat. Another — well, sir, you may not believe me, but may I be signed on as a stoker on an outrigger-canoe if I lie — well, he wore a high black silk hat. Figure that out, a sailor with a top-hat aboard an outgoing freighter. Perhaps there was a special regulation on the
Yorikke
that the funnel-sweeper had to wear a top-hat. There was another guy there who had on full evening dress, and very elegant too. Since he was only half the size of the clothes he wore, and since the man with the top-hat looked more like the former owner of the evening dress, I knew the whole story. The man with the top-hat had been to a ball at the French embassy, where he had picked up — let’s presume “picked” up — a pearl necklace belonging to the wife of a Chicago packer, and he had had to make his get-away quickly when the woman yelled. Or perhaps he had been to his own wedding, and when he saw, for the first time, his mother-in-law, he ran like hell and reached the
Yorikke
just in time to be signed on as a coal-drag. Others were clothed, or, better, bedecked, with ragged pieces of sacks. One wore instead of a man’s shirt a kind of woman’s blouse which was probably missing somewhere in the upper room of a tavern in a North African port. I would not have been surprised to see one of them wearing a mantilla. But maybe that one was right now in the stoke-hold firing the boilers.

Had I been sure that they were pirates I would have begged them to take me along to fame and riches. But piracy, nowadays, doesn’t pay if you haven’t got at least one submarine.

Somehow, I felt they weren’t pirates. Therefore I preferred the hangman to sailing on the
Yorikke
. The ship that can take me away from sunny Spain has to be a hell of a lot more elegant than the
Tuscaloosa
. And I don’t want to say anything against the
Tuscaloosa
. She was fine. Yes, siree.

I wonder where the
Tuscaloosa
is now? Panama? Or home again to New Orleans? New Orleans. Jackson Square. Levee. Honey. Oh, shit. Well, let’s put on another piece of black sausage. Maybe we’ll yet get fried fish for supper tonight. Just one moment, until that old rusty bathtub has gone. If it isn’t fried fish, maybe we’ll get some paste soup in a restaurant or a good Hollandish supper on the Dutch yonder.

The
Yorikke
passed along like a snail that had overeaten.

When the faces of the crew on the fore-deck were right above me, one of them yelled down: “Hey, you, ain’t ye a sailor?”

“Yessir.”

“Want a dshop?” Not bad English he used.

Do I want what?

Chips and dancing grizzly bears, I hope he doesn’t mean it! A job. If he should be serious! Gods and heathen in dark Africa, save my soul.

A job. Exactly the question I have been afraid of for months and months. The trumpets of the archangel Mike on Judgment Day wouldn’t have put as much fear of God into me as that question. It is the eternal law that a jobless man has to chase around for a job. When since the days of Cain was it ever heard of that a job is offered to you without your asking for it?

I am superstitious, like all sailors. On the seas and on ships, dependent always on good luck, and on the weather, and on fair sailing ways between hidden rocks, cliffs, sand-banks, and oncoming ships in thick fog, one cannot help getting superstitious. Without some superstition to rely on in time of trouble, one would go mad, because praying doesn’t do a sailor any good. Ask the skipper when he orders the life-boats down. He just shouts: “Don’t waste time, hurry up or the tub’ll kick over.”

It is this superstitious character that makes me answer yes when I am asked if I want a job. Suppose I should say no — all my luck, for the rest of my life, would be lost. I might never again get a ship to sail on back home to New Orleans.

Besides, a day might come when I really needed cash. It may be that the girl says: “Well, the doc figgers it will be about the middle of next week, if it’s late.” Then you need a job and need it badly. And then you feel sorry that once in your life you refused to take a job that was offered to you.

This damned superstition of mine has already played me plenty of tricks and put me in conditions that were not at all pleasant or interesting. It was pure superstition and nothing else that led me once to become a grave-digger’s assistant in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was superstition that led me to help sell splinters from the cross of Our Savior at country fairs in Ireland, splinters from the very cross on which Our Lord breathed his last sigh. Each splinter was sold for a half-crown, and the magnifying glass with which to see the splinter set the believer back another half-crown. Since I played the Irish that nasty trick I have given up all hope of ever being saved and getting a chance to learn how to play the harp.

22

So, on account of my superstition, it was only natural for me to answer yes when asked if I wanted a job. I couldn’t see my face, but I was sure that I was pale, pale from the horrible thought that I might have to sail on that bucket.

“A.B.?” the man asked.

Now, here was my chance. They were short an A.B. and I was not an A.B. I was careful not to say “Plain.” In cases of emergency even a “plain” can take the wheel, if it’s a quiet watch.

Joyfully I answered: “No, mister. No A.B. Black gang.”

“Splendid!” the man cried out. “Splendid! Exactly what we need. Make it snappy. Hop on. We’re off.”

Everything was clear now. They would take on anything and anybody they could get. I was sure they were short half the crew. I might as well have said cook, or carpenter, or bos’n, or chief, or even captain; they would have answered: “Just what we need. Hop on.”

I had still a few cards to play. “Where ye bound?” I asked. A sailor has the right to refuse to sign on if he doesn’t like the trip or if he knows he is wanted by the police or by a deserted Jane with a child in the country the ship is bound for.

“Where ye want to go?” they shot back.

Smart folk. No getting away from them. Whether I say the South Pole or Mount Everest, the answer will be: “That’s exactly where we’re going. Hop on.”

I knew one country where that bucket wouldn’t dare to go. So I said: “England.”

“Man, you’re lucky,” yelled the guy. “We have cargo for Liverpool. Small goods. You can be paid off there if you want.”

Here I had them. I knew that the one country in the world where a sailor could not be paid off if he wasn’t English was England at that time. He had to be sick, or the ship had to lay off for repairs. But how could I prove they were lying?

It seemed utterly ridiculous. No one in the whole world could force me to sign on with that ship, and yet — Guess it is always like that. If you are happy and contented, you want to be still happier. You want a change. I am convinced that ever since old man Adam was bored in Paradise and, by the way, it was the only human virtue he ever showed it has been man’s curse never to feel perfectly satisfied.

Fate was again playing one of her many dirty tricks. I had said yes. Kings may break their word, but a good sailor cannot. This ship I had laughed at so heartily and so loudly now took her revenge. Didn’t I say that the
Yorikke
had personality?

The trouble was that I had gone to look at outgoing ships. A sailor who feels satisfied at being stranded should keep his nose away from ships with the blue flag up. A ship putting out should concern a sailor only if it’s his own ship.

Another thing: a sailor shouldn’t dream of fish or fishing. It’s a bad dream for a sailor. It’s unlucky for a sailor. A sailor shouldn’t even think about fish. Even when he’s eating fish, he should eat it in the belief it is something else. I had neglected to obey that good old rule that has come down to us from seafaring people much wiser than we are.

I tried my last resort: “What is the pay?”

“English money,” the guy yelled.

“How is the grub?”

“Rich and plenty. And listen, you sailor, hop on and get busy, or you won’t make it. We’re off.”

They threw me a rope. I caught it. With outstretched legs I swung over, bumping against the hull. They quickly hauled me up, and I mounted steadily until at last I swung over the bulwarks.

And there I was on the
Yorikke
.

And that very moment, as if the
Yorikke
had been waiting for me, the engine took a deep breath, and the ship got up full speed. With caressing eyes I looked back upon wonderful Spain, now vanishing from my sight, disappearing in a mist with such rapidity that I had a feeling she was punishing me for having betrayed her. Well, Spain, I am sorry, but a sailor has to play fair, and he has to keep his word better than a king.

When the last glimpse of Spain had been veiled from my eyes, I felt that I had entered that big gate over which are written the solemn words:

He who enters here will no longer have existence!

THE SECOND BOOK

Inscription
over the crew’s quarters
of the death ship

He
Who enters here
Will no longer have existence;
His name and soul have vanished
And are gone for ever.
Of him there is not left a breath
In all the vast world.
He can never return,
Nor can he ever go onward;
For where he stands there he must stay,
No God knows him;
And unknown will he be in hell.
He is not day; he is not night.
He is Nothing and Never.
He is too great for infinity,
Too small for a grain of sand,
Which, however small,
Has its place in the universe.
He is what has never been
And never thought.

23

Now I could look closer at the shark-hunters. The impression I had got when I was still sitting on the quay was not bettered. Nor did it become worse. It simply became smashing and absolutely destructive. I had thought some of them Arabians or Nubians or a new kind of Negro. But now I realized that they were whites and looked like Swahili men only on account of the coal-dust and filth that covered them.

Nowhere on earth except in Bolshevik Russia are deck-hands considered members of the same social class as the skipper. Should that ever happen somewhere else, it would lead to complications; yes, sir. One fine day somebody might mistake the deck-hand for the skipper and thereby find out that a deck-hand can be just as intelligent as most skippers are. Which, by the way, would be no evidence that the deck-hand in question is intelligent at all.

Here, on the
Yorikke
, there were, obviously, several ranks of deck-hands. I got the impression there were deck-hands of the first grade, of the second grade, and more. I noticed two men who, doubtless, belonged to the class of deck-hands of the sixth grade, which may be considered the lowest class of deck-hands. I don’t think these sixth-graders would have enough intelligence to help the savages of New Guinea break open coconuts with a stone ax.

“Good day!” the gang-leader of the pickpockets said to me. “I aim de shecond enjuneer. Dat man here wat is mine nabor, now dat ish our donkey-man.” Some English, I thought; henceforth I shall have to translate their lingo if I want to understand what they mean. He wanted to inform me solemnly that he was the second engineer and that the horse-thief at his side was the donkey-man, or, as we used to call him, the Bonk. He gets his name, not from an ass, but from the donkey-engines which are used on ships to drive the windlasses, the winches, the cranes, and such machinery.

“Thank you, gentlemen, and I,” I introduced myself, “I am the first president of the company that runs this tub here, and I have come aboard to hustle you guys stiff.”