The Death Ship by B. Traven

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