By Hanns Heinz Ewers 1921
Translated by Joe E. Bandel 2008
Copyright 2008 by Joe E. Bandel
Protected under United States Copyright Law as a derivative work of a foreign Author originally published prior to 1923
Someone died every day and every night. The second equestrian died, three stable hands and the last of the clowns. Then the second engineer, a steward, a Chinese and two other members of the crew died and more were always getting sick. They tried four Mexican ports and were chased out of them all.
One morning the lion tamer sent for the Captain. He told the Captain that he was going to die and asked him to take care of his animals.
“Don’t let them starve!” He implored. “Give them their food and when that runs out shoot them!”
The Captain promised he would but the mighty Fleming was not satisfied.
“Swear it Captain,” he urged. “Swear it to me.”
“Isn’t it enough that I give you my word of honor?” The Captain said. “As an officer of the German merchant marine?”
“Ok, Ok,” whined the other. “Yes, certainly! But please captain, swear it to me anyway!”
The Captain raised his right hand, “How would you like me to swear?”
“By God!” The diseased man whispered.
The Captain spoke, “I swear to you by God that I will care for your lions.”
“And for the tiger,” cried the Fleming.
“Certainly,” confirmed the Captain. “For the tiger and all the other animals on board. I swear it to you! Are you satisfied?”
The lion tamer sobbed, grabbed the right hand of the Captain and kissed it with fevered lips. The Captain started, then let him have his hand. He went back up the steps, looked thoughtfully at his hand.
“Get my bath ready,” he cried out to the steward. “And throw some of that antiseptic stuff into it.”
He took a few steps and then turned around. “Now’s as good a time as any,” he muttered. He stepped into a tent. There sitting cross-legged on the floor was the beautiful dancer. She had both arms around the blonde child that was sleeping in her lap, pale, miserable thin and convulsed with fever.
“How is she?” He asked. “Any better since this morning?”
The Spanish dancer shook her head.
“So she’s not any better Madam!” The Captain said. “Still, you are healthy. You must think about yourself. I would like to give you a cabin, tonight.”
The maiden stared at him. “Yes Captain,” she said slowly. “If I can take the little one with me.”
The Captain growled. He tried putting a real hard ring in his voice but it didn’t work.
“The little one is sick! You are healthy. You must leave her or you will get sick yourself. You can’t keep holding her in your arms. You must look after yourself.”
The dancer laughed, “Are you looking after yourself Captain? Why are you are the only one on this ship that comes to see us?
The Captain shouted, “Don’t be so stupid Madam! It is something entirely different. I have obligations. Now stand up and come with me!”
But the maiden didn’t move. “You are married Captain. You have a wife back home and five children. I know because Louison told me about them, four boys and a blonde girl just as old, as slender, as blue eyed as Louison is. But I have no one else in the world and I have obligations too.”
“Nonsense,” cursed the Captain. “Silly, nonsense! Your-”
But he didn’t speak anymore because Louison woke up. She recognized him and reached out to him with both arms.
“Captain,” she babbled. “Dear Captain.”
The Captain bent down, took the little one’s arm, felt her pulse and patted her lightly on the cheeks.
“Brave little one!”
He stepped to the tent entrance, ripped open the flap and shouted.
“Steward,” he cried. “Steward!”
When the steward appeared he continued. “The Damsel will go with you! Have the head steward give her a cabin, twelve or fourteen. Before you take her there make sure she takes a bath in my cabin, the one you prepared for me. Understand?”
“Yes Sir, Captain,” cried the steward.
The Captain put the tent flap back; laid the little girl to rest on the mattress kneeled in front of her. He turned to get a glass of water, saw that the dancer was still standing there.
“What are you waiting for?” He hissed. “You can see that I am staying.”
“Oh, Captain,” she said. “You are so good-”
“Nonsense!” The Skipper bellowed. “Just go Madam.”
She took her towel and went.
* *
*
That evening Frank Braun met her. She stood in front of her cabin looking over at her tent. He thought, her eyes are sapphire. She spoke to him.
“Doctor, Please go over there and look inside. The Captain is in there with Louison. Tell me how she is doing.”
He nodded and went out between decks. By the cages he heard a voice, stepped closer. He saw the Fleming standing by his lions. He was rubbing their manes through the bars. He had shoved huge pieces of meat in for them and was now lovingly stroking their mighty heads.
Lightly, clearly, the whispered words rang out in a singsong over and over!
“Live well Allah! Live well Mahmud! The Captain will take care of you. He has promised, he has sworn. Live well Abdullah!”
Frank Braun stepped up to the tent, put his ear to the opening by the tent flap and listened. He didn’t hear anything. He quickly pushed the tent flap back and stepped inside.
The little Louison lay on her covers breathing lightly, her little hand clamped fast around the big finger of the Captain. He sat on the floor quietly without moving, cooling the fevered brow of the child with his right hand. He looked around and saw the intruder. He was about to fly into a rage but Frank Braun backed quickly out.
“Sorry Captain, Sir,” he said. “Sorry Sir.”
He went out of the tent and back to the dancer.
“Louison is still alive,” he said.
But in the morning she was dead.
* *
*
The lion tamer died two days later together with the last of the stable hands. Then Death took a break for awhile but woke back up with a vengeance as they neared San Francisco. At that point no one took them in, they were not brought to a quarantine station. They were told to drop anchor two and a half miles out from shore. They needed to stay there for three weeks after the last death. A doctor did come every day to care for them as much as possible.
It was as if the yellow fiend wanted to prove what it could do. On the very first night it gripped four Chinese and three German sailors. Two of the sailors had taken out the last corpses and the other slept in the bunk next to them. For the first time the crew was seized with a great fear. They got together in groups and whispered.
The carpenter spoke for them. The crew wasn’t refusing to take out the corpses, oh no! They wanted to show themselves and the Captain that they were with him all the way and would see this thing through to the end. But they requested they draw lots to see who would carry them out.
The Captain shook his head. “Whoever I order to get the corpses will get them!” He replied. “I am the Captain on board. I alone decide, not chance!”
That was the reply he gave to the carpenter.
“What if they don’t do what you order?” Frank Braun asked. “What if they refuse, now more than ever! Will that finally get through your hard skull? That’s all we need! Rebellion on board! It’s the only thing that hasn’t happened to us yet!”
The Captain laughed. “You really think that would happen? I will show you how to handle these lads at sea.”
He sent the steward after his two officers and the head engineer. He went with them below deck and the four men carried the corpses up onto the deck one after the other. Then he took some sail cloth, pieces of iron, huge needles and heavy thread. He sat cross-legged by one of the corpses with the second officer like a tailor.
The engineer and the first got the next corpse ready. They rolled the canvas around the cadaver, put pieces of iron inside and sewed expertly, stitch by stitch, without a word.
One by one the rest of the crew came up, pressed around them, watched, turning their caps in their hands. Frank Braun stood there with them.
Not wanting to, he stepped forward, sat down next to the Captain in front of the repulsive corpse of a Chinese, picked up a needle. –This is idiotic, he thought. Why am I doing it? He wasn’t doing a very good job either. In a moment the carpenter sat by him, grabbed the canvas and in three quick movements had the corpse wrapped in it.
“Get away!” The Captain cried. “No one touches the corpses without an order! The four of us are doing it. No one else!”
The carpenter stood up, moved to the side. But Frank Braun said, “You command your crew Captain, but not me. I will do what I think is right.”
At the same time he was thinking, this is not right at all! What I am doing is unbelievably stupid! Why was he doing it then? He should have done the proper thing and moved away!
“It makes no difference to me,” nodded the Captain. “Sew away Doctor, but pull the cord tight.”
It rang like a judgement.
He sewed away laboriously, awkwardly with an aversion to what he was doing. He took his handkerchief, clamped it between his teeth to cover his nose. His Chinese stank!
The others were done much sooner than he was. The second officer came over to help him. Then they carried the corpses over to a lifeboat and lowered it into the water. They rowed a couple hundred meters out from the ship and sank the dead there.
They took their hats off; the Captain said something that was supposed to be a prayer. It was not very solemn, it was too familiar.
* *
*
