The Death Ship (6 page)

“Leave me in peace, damn it all. Yes, I paid for my bed last night when I went upstairs. Yes, I paid for it all right, so let me sleep. I am tired.”

The knocking and banging against my door, however, does not cease.

“Goldfish in shit, leave me alone. I want to sleep. You heard me. Get out of here. Get away from that door or I’ll sock you.” I wish that bum would only open the door so that I could fire my shoe into his face. So they call the Dutch a quiet people!

“Open that door”; again the voice at my door. “Open! Police. We want to speak to you for a minute.”

“All right, all right. Coming.” I begin to doubt that there are some people still left on this earth who are not policemen or who have no connection with the force. The police are supposed to maintain quiet and order, yet nobody in the whole world causes more trouble and is a greater nuisance than the police. Chasing criminals, and thereby killing innocent women. Keeping order, and throwing a whole town in the middle of the night into an uproar. Nobody drives more people crazy than the police. And just think, soldiers are also a police force, only with another name. Ask me where all the trouble in the world comes from.

“Hey you, what do you want of me? I’m not wanted anywhere.”

“We only wish to ask you a few questions.”

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“You’d better open that door. We want to see you.”

“Nothing interesting about my face. I’ve never been on the screen.”

“Come, come, or we shall have to break in the door.”

Break in the door. And these are the mugs paid by the taxpayer to protect him against burglars. Break in the door. All right. No getting away. So I open the door. Immediately one of the guys sticks his foot in so the door can’t be closed again. The old trick of the master. It seems to be the first trick a cop has to learn on joining the force.

Two men. Plain-clothes men.

I am sitting on the edge of my bed and start to get dressed. “Are you American?”

“Yip. Any objection in Holland?”

“May we see your sailor’s card?”

It seems to me the sailor’s card, and not the sun, is the center of the universe. I am positive the great war was fought, not for democracy or justice, but for no other reason than that a cop, or an immigration officer, may have the legal right to ask you, and be well paid for asking you, to show him your sailor’s card, or what have you. Before the war nobody asked you for a passport. And were the people happy? Wars for liberty and independence are to be suspected most of all, ever since the Prussians fought their war for liberty against Napoleon. All peoples lost their freedom when that war was won, because all liberty went to that war and has been there ever since. Yes, sir.

“I haven’t got a sailor’s card.”

“Wha-a-a-t? You ha-a-a-ave no sailor’s card?”

The tune of this long-drawn-out question reminded me of the question with which I had been bothered not long before, and exactly at the same time when I wanted to sleep.

“No, I ha-a-a-ave no sailor’s card.”

“Then you have a passport.”

“No service, gentlemen. Gas-pump out of commission.”

“No passport?”

“No passport.”

They looked at each other, nodded, and felt well satisfied with the work they had done so far.

“I suppose you have no identification card from our police authorities either?”

“You hit it, gentlemen. I have not.”

“Do you not know, mister, that no alien is permitted to live in Holland without proper identification papers viséd by our authorities?”

“How should I know?”

“Do you mean to say that you have been living on a mountain on the moon?”

Both cops consider this so good a joke that they laugh and laugh until they cough.

“Get dressed and come along with us. The chief wants to see you.”

I wonder if the Dutch hang a guy without papers or just kick him in the buttocks and take him to the chain-gang. “Has any of you gentlemen a cigarette?”

“You may have a cigar if you like. We don’t smoke cigarettes around here. We are men, and mean to stay men. But if you wish, we’ll buy you a package of cigarettes on our way to the station.”

“All right with me. Shoot the cigar.”

I smoke the cigar, which is rather good, while I wash and dress. The two cops sit close by the door and follow everything I do like dogs.

I am in no hurry. Anyway, regardless of how much time I take to get ready, there is finally nothing else to do but shove off.

Upon coming to the police-station I was searched. This was done with all the cunning they had. Tearing open even seams. Still thinking of spies, I thought. But later it dawned upon me that they were looking, whenever they caught a sailor, for Bolshevik ideas rather than for photographs of fortresses or warships.

They had more luck than their brethren in Antwerp. They found some twenty-eight cents in Dutch money, with which I wanted to buy a hurried breakfast.

“Is that all the money you have?”

“As you haven’t found any more in my pockets, it must be all.”

“What money did you live on while here in Rotterdam?”

“On the money I no longer have.”

“Then you did have money when you came here?”

“Yep.”

“How much?”

“I don’t remember right now how much, but it must have been in the neighborhood of a couple of thousand dollars or so.”

“Where did you spend it?”

“With the dames. Where else could I?”

“Where did you get the money you had when you came here?”

“I had taken it out of my savings-account.”

The whole outfit roared with laughter. Somehow, they took good care to watch the high priest before they started to laugh. When they saw that he was laughing, they also laughed. As soon as he became serious again, they did exactly the same. It couldn’t have been any better done if it had been commanded by a movie-director in Hollywood.

“How did you come into Holland? I mean without a passport? How did you pass the immigration and so?”

“Oh, that? Oh, well, I just came in, that’s all there is to it.”

“Exactly. That is what we want to know. How did you come in?”

“How can a fellow come in? I came on a ship.”

“What ship?”

“Oh, you mean the ship? Well, she was it was — sure, it was the — the — yes, it was the ,
George Washington
.”

“So? On the
George Washington
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sure? You are sure of that?”

“Bless my grandmother’s soul.”

“When?”

“Oh, you mean when? Well, I don’t quite remember the exact day. Musta been six or nine weeks ago or so.”

“And you came on the
George Washington
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A rather mysterious ship, your
George Washington
. As far as I know, the
George Washington
has never yet come to Rotterdam.”

“That’s not my fault, officer. I am not responsible for the ship.”

“That’s all right. And so you have no passport? No sailor’s card? No sort of paper to show who you are? Nothing to identify you? Absolutely and definitely nothing? Nothing at all to show that you are an American?”

“Evidently not, sir. What can I do about it? Certainly, my consul —”

“As you have no papers and no proof, what do you expect your consul to do?”

“I don’t know. That’s his business, not mine. I have never been a consul, to know what a consul’s duty is in a case like mine. Sure, he will furnish me with papers.”

“Your consul? The American consul? An American consul? To a sailor? To, maybe, a communist? Not in this century, my boy. And most likely not during the next either. Not without papers. Not unless you are, let us say, a member of the New York stock-exchange or the first president of the Missouri Railroad. Never to a bum like you.”

If I had a million dollars, I would give half of it well, one tenth of it to know where this chief of police got such a fine understanding of God’s great country. He cannot have collected his wisdom in Rotterdam.

“But I am American.”

“Why not? Fine. You see, it’s like this. Suppose we take you to your consul. As you have no papers he will not recognize you. So he will, officially, hand you over to us. Then we have no way ever to get rid of you. I hope you understand? Do you?”

“I think so, sir.”

“So what could we do with you? The law is that anybody picked up without papers must be imprisoned for six months. When he comes out, he is deported to his native country. Your native country cannot be determined, since your consul does not accept you as a citizen. Then we have to keep you here with us, whether we like it or not. We cannot shoot you like a dog with a disease, or drown you in the sea, although I am not so sure but that sooner or later such a law will be passed in every country, above all in every civilized country. Why should we, having two hundred thousand unemployed, feed an alien who has no money? Now, listen, do you want to go to Germany?”

“I do not like the Germans.”

“Neither do I. All right, then, Germany is out. Well, my man, this will be all for the morning.”

What a man! He was a thinker. I wonder where the Dutch get people like that for their cops. Back home he would have the capacity of solving problems of national economy, or be dean of Princeton. That’s the difference between those European countries and ours.

He called a cop to his desk and said: “Take him to his cell. Fetch him breakfast. Buy him a few English magazines and newspapers and get him cigarettes. Make him feel at home.”

Feel at home with this sort of curtain at the window! All right, let’s have breakfast first and do the thinking later.

8

Early in the evening I was taken in again to the chief of police. He ordered me to go with two plain-clothes men, who would take care of me.

We went to the depot, boarded a train, and left for the country. We came to a small town where I was taken to the police-station.

It was about ten o’clock when the two men in charge of my future said: “It’s time now. Let’s get going.”

Across plowed fields and swampy meadows we went, or, rather, staggered. I was not sure that this was not another road to execution. I should have inquired, while I was still a free man, if in Holland the noose is in vogue, or the hatchet, or the guillotine, or the chair, or just choking a man to death with bare hands. Now it worried me not to know how the Dutch would do it. Then again I thought that maybe the Dutch have the same system of doing away with sailors without passports that the Belgians have.

They have.

We came suddenly to a halt and one of the two cops said in a low voice: “You go right on in that direction there. You won’t meet anybody now. It’s not their time. If, however, you see somebody coming, get out of the way or lie down until he has passed. After a mile or less of walking you will come to a railroad track. Follow this track in that direction, the one I am indicating here, look. You will come to the depot. Wait until morning. Be careful you’re not seen by anybody, or it will be too bad for you. As soon as you see a train ready to leave, you step up to the window where they sell tickets, and you say: ‘Line troisième à Anvers.’ You can remember those words, can’t you?”

“Easy as pie. I know it’s Spanish.”

“It isn’t Spanish at all. But never mind. It’s good French.”

“Doesn’t sound like the language we have in New Orleans.”

“Quiet, now. You will do what I tell you or land in jail for six months. Don’t answer any questions anybody might ask you. Just play deaf. You will get your ticket all right, and after a certain time you will come to Antwerp. Antwerp is a great port. Hundreds of ships there all the time. They are always badly in need of sailors. You will get a ship before you even have time to ask for it. Here is a mouthful to eat, and also cigarettes. Do not buy anything before you are safe in Antwerp. Understand. Here, take thirty Belgian francs. It will do for all you need.”

He handed me three packages of cigarettes, a few sandwiches wrapped up, and a box of matches.

“Don’t you ever dare return to Holland. You surely will get six months of hard labor, and then afterwards the workhouse for vagrancy. I will see to it that you won’t miss it. Well, shove off, and good luck.”

Good luck! There I was in the middle of the night, left alone in a foreign country. The two cops disappeared.

I strolled along. After a while I stopped to think it over.

Belgium? In Belgium, I had been told by their police, I would get life if they caught me again. On the other hand, in Holland the worst that awaited me was six months, and after that the workhouse for sailors without identification cards. It may be that the workhouse in Holland would be for life. There is no reason why Holland should make it cheaper than her neighbor Belgium does.

After long thinking I made up my mind that, all circumstances considered, Holland was cheaper. Besides, the food was better. Above all, the Dutch speak a human language, most of which I can understand almost as well as the lingo on the road in Pennsylvania. So I went, first, off the direction, and then I turned back into clean Holland. Everything went fine.

So I was on my way to Rotterdam again. I couldn’t go to the depot to take a train. The two cops who had brought me to the border might take the same train back.

I tried hitch-hiking. I don’t know if any American stranded in Europe ever tried the game there. It is different from what it is on the Golden Highway or the Lincoln Highway.

The first idea I got about how it is done was when I met a milk-wagon going to town. It was drawn by two mighty horses of the kind the breweries of St. Louis used to have in the good old days.

“Hop on,” the driver said. “So, you are a sailor? I have an uncle over in America: If you meet him, just tell him that four years ago we lost a cow; she fell in the canal and was drowned. He will remember the cow; she was sort of checkered. Welcome. I hope you have a pleasant trip home.”

Then I met another peasant who had hogs on his wagon.

He gave me a lift and was friendly. It took me all day long to reach Rotterdam, but I saw quite a bit of the country. I told everybody who gave me a ride all about myself and all that had happened. None of them minded. No one said: “What are you doing here in our country? Why haven’t you got any papers? Out with all aliens.”