The Death Ship (48 page)

“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.

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.)

Traven’s other major work is his series of six novels collectively known as ‘The Jungle Novels’. These brilliantly illustrate the development of the social forces that eventually lead to the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Mexico was still a young post-revolutionary state when Traven began this work in the 30s, only 25 or so years after the Revolution. He was obviously commenting also on the Mexico of his time and the failures of the Revolution to alter the continued poverty of its peasants and workers.

The Jungle Novels are all complete stories in themselves but progress through describing the pre-revolutionary social structures and miserable conditions of exploitation existing in the country. The books describe the horrific slave conditions suffered by plantation workers and loggers in particular; Traven takes the reader through the process of exploitation as it transforms into rebellion and finally explodes in revolution.

This steady stream of books and the mystery of the author’s identity inevitably attracted some media attention. Now settled in Mexico City (he married in 1957), after WWII his global book sales expanded greatly in many translations. Curiosity also increased and Traven was tracked down by a couple of journalists. He denied everything and fled from their cameras and questions. But they discovered little more than that there was a man who appeared to be the author living in Mexico City.

It was not until after ‘B. Traven’ died in 1969 that the rest of the world even began to get close to the true identity of the man. He had instructed his wife to admit to the world after his death that he was indeed the same anarchist Ret Marut who had escaped from his captors and fled the defeat of the Bavarian Council Republic in 1919. In the late 1970s Will Wyatt, a BBC producer, made a TV documentary about Traven and wrote a book based on his research. He presented what seemed to many convincing evidence that Traven/Marut was in fact one Otto Feige, born into a working class family in the small town of Schweibus. The town was originally in Germany but as a result of WWI became part of Poland, renamed Swiebodzin.