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
The ferry crept slowly and soundlessly over the Hudson like a giant turtle with a high arching shell. Frank Braun sat on top looking back at the quarrels and prongs of the Manhattan skyline that glowed feebly in the November sun.
The second sat next to him.
“You still want to go?” He asked the second.
The second only nodded, looked contemptuously at him.
“I’m going,” he said.
Frank Braun picked up a newspaper off the table, “Read this! The Bergensfjord has brought five hundred and sixty German prisoners to Kirkenwall. That is the latest catch.”
The second shrugged his shoulders, “I’m still going”.
“Listen,” Frank Braun continued, “The Potsdam delivered over three thousand to the English, the Helig Olav delivered eight hundred, the Nieuw Amsterdam brought almost two thousand to the French at Brest. The Frederick VIII brought-”
The sailor interrupted him. “-and the Konig Haakon brought almost a thousand to Dover. The United States has delivered almost twice that many to Falmouth. I know, know all the numbers, the ones the Italians brought to Gibraltar. Over twenty thousand all together. I’m still going.”
He was quiet for a moment, gazing dreamily into the wake, “Maybe I’ll get lucky. The Noordam could still get through.”
“It could,” Frank Braun snapped with his tongue. “And tomorrow the world will joyfully announce that it is in Hull, England or Cherbourg, France!”
The other didn’t answer. They crossed over the mighty river in silence, watching all the steamers, tugs and ferryboats running here and there like giant water beetles. As they crossed into Hoboken, New Jersey, the sailor spoke again.
“When I’m here it almost feels like I’m back home. They are all German and they speak German.”
They went past the wide pier of Bremer Lloyd and Hopag. There lay the mighty ships, the largest in the world, still, idle, unmoving. They were bound for Germany. A flag extended itself over the side of the warehouse. The second stood at attention, raised his arm in salute.
“The Fatherland! There they are,” he cried. “Our ships!”
Frank Braun said, “Wait until they leave!”
But the second shook his head, “Try it on someone else doctor! There are more than enough Germans boarding the Ryndam. Tell them about it!
“That I will,” nodded Frank Braun and bit his lip. “That I will- depend on it! I’m done talking with you about it!”
They came to the pier of the Dutch ship. Thick throngs of people stood in the large warehouse, mostly blonde men, women and children. They cried, but they laughed and sang too. The two of them shoved through the crowd up to the gangway that led onto the deck of the ship. The paymaster of the ship stood there. Frank Braun recognized him by his cap.
“How many passengers?” He asked.
“Don’t really know,” growled the Dutchman. “Two and a half thousand or more. Over crowded again! In cabins and between decks!”
“German?”
The Dutchman laughed, “Is there anything else? Austrians and Hungarians too! Maybe a half dozen neutral. Are you coming too?”
Frank Braun declined. “Do you believe that you can bring them across safely?”
The Dutchman nodded, “Everyone gets across safely, have no fear of that. We guarantee it, all the way to Falmouth! The English will be happy. We are bringing them new manpower and free labor!”
He didn’t stop to think for a moment. He clapped his hands as loud as he could, cried out,”Attention! Attention! Pay Attention!”
He swung his newspaper around high in the air. The people noticed.
“Quiet! One of them cried.
And another, “Listen up, he has news! Let him read!”
They called back over the crowds, “Quiet, Listen up! Let him read the telegram.”
They gathered around the steps below in the warehouse and above on deck by the railing. He began quickly, stuttering at first, uncertain.
A couple in back cried, “Louder!”
A portly man on board cried, “Is it something about General Kluck?”
“People, you shouldn’t leave,” screamed Frank Braun. “You shouldn’t leave with this damned Dutchman! None of you will get to Germany, no, not a single one of you! They will deliver you like herrings, twelve to the dozen, a hundred dozen to the ton! As soon as you leave Sandy Hook you will be prisoners, and will have paid good money for it! As soon as you are at sea you will be taken across to concentration camps! Do you know what they are? Concentration camps?”
Right in front of him someone laughed, a broad, bearded sailor.
“What’s the difference,” he cried. “Anything is better than staying here without work, without food! You Sir, can perhaps afford to stay here and wait, but I can’t, and the rest of us? Beggars if we stay here in the best case, or even thieves and criminals in the worst! I would rather be an honorable fellow and prisoner of war in an English concentration camp!”
“Sir, you don’t know what you are saying,” Frank Braun continued. “Here, everyone has a chance, over there, none! Here, at least everyone can try to find work, for themselves and for the Fatherland! In England he must work for the English! You don’t know what goes on in prison camps. You don’t, and not one of you others do! I know! I know very well from the Boer wars!
The men, women and children are all packed together like flies, mutually spreading plague and diseases! Many are healthy when they arrive but only a very few are healthy when they leave! People, don’t go on board. Stay where you are!”
A large man with a mustache leaned over the rail.
“Comrades,” he cried. “Comrades! What the gentleman said might all be true! But I am an officer, there are others here and reservists too, next of kin, all part of our glorious army! Over there our brothers, our fathers, our friends, living or dead have been fighting, spilling their blood for their children, their wives and for the honor of the Fatherland! Do you want to be cowards and stay back here?
This morning I met with the General Consul, spoke with him about this very thing the Gentleman has explained to you. I asked him what could be done. The General Consul, the representative of our Country, told me that it was the duty of every German to get back home the quickest and best way they could so they could bless the Fatherland with their service! Each and every one of you knows this already.
Is there any other way for us to get back to Germany? This is what the Consul wants! ‘Will we get through?’ I asked the Consul and he answered:
‘That is in the hands of God! Follow your conscience and do your duty!’
Comrades! Isn’t that what we all want to do? Isn’t that why we are all here? Whatever happens, we will have done our duty, our proud duty as German men!”
They cried, they shouted with joy and yelled, “We love Germany! We love the Kaiser!”
Frank Braun drummed his fingers on the railing of the gangway. He waited impatiently and nervously for the crowd to become a little quieter. Then he started anew.
“People,” he cried, “People, people-”
But he couldn’t get through until the officer above him provided quiet for him to talk.
“Comrades! Let him speak in peace! He means well-most certainly! Only he doesn’t understand that there is something that stands above personal freedom and survival- Love of the Fatherland and of Honor! Let him speak in peace comrades!
They cried out again in light enthusiasm but quieted at a signal from their commander. Frank Braun called out to them shaking in rage.
“People, the General Consul is a stuffed sausage! He is a word twister and a fool that doesn’t know where God lives! Worse yet, he is a bureaucratic criminal-”
“Enough,” they cried. “Enough! Shut up!”
They bellowed, “Seize him, get that fellow!”
But he wouldn’t give up, his voice grew higher, screaming clearly above the noise of the crowd, skipping, galloping ever further, springing and clattering over any trenches and hurdles that tried to stop it.
“The Consul is a criminal! A scoundrel of stupidity! He alone has delivered on a plate more prisoners to England and France than the French general Joffre and his entire French army put together!
Our brothers must capture as many English in return just to get you back and that will cost streams of German blood! The Allies are not that dumb, they won’t send you back to Germany on neutral ships!
No calf, no sheep, is that stupid, that it runs willingly up to the butcher, “Here I am, please butcher me!”
“People, don’t go! Don’t follow your thick mutton headed General Consul! Stay where-”
“Comrades! Comrades!” The Commander’s voice roared like marching music through the wide warehouse.
“Don’t you think that is enough! The Gentleman called the Kaiser’s representative a muttonhead, a stuffed sausage, a scoundrel and a criminal! He called you cattle and stupid sheep! I, myself, let him speak, but our German patience has its limits!
If God is willing we will all get home safely, comrades, and that is why I for one, am going!”
“I’m going too,” they screamed. I’m going too! We will all go!”
A voice intoned: “Germany, Germany over all!”
And they sang, a thousand voices strong.
Frank Braun gnawed his lip. Slowly he went back down the gangway. The Dutch paymaster grabbed his arm and pulled him back a few steps under the gangway.
“It’s safer here,” he said belly laughing. “Most certainly!”
Frank Braun stood there quietly near the Dutchman and the second as the crowd sang:
“Hail to the Conqueror” and “God Receive us”.
They were still singing when the last bell sounded for boarding. That’s when they began singing in rapture, “The Watch on the Rhine”.
Long lines filed over the gangway, waving back at the women and children.
“Were you ever in Chicago?” The Dutchman asked. “At Armours?”
Frank Braun nodded.
“That’s exactly how the sheep press over the bridge as they go to the slaughterhouse,” the other continued. “-and the cattle and the swine. Exactly like that.
I tell you Sir, all the men there, every single one of them, asked when they purchased their ticket in our office:
‘Are you sure you can get us to Rotterdam?’
And the red haired girl, Levinne, answered every single one of them, ‘Am I a prophet?’
But they still paid and they still came anyway! Exactly like last time when we brought almost three thousand to the English at Falmouth.”
The second looked at him, broke his silence. “You are right, you are most certainly right. But you are a Dutchman, would never understand what goes on today in the German breast.”
He turned halfway around, stuck out his right hand.
“Live well doctor. I’m going on board.”
Frank Braun shook his hand without a word. Above him on the gangway someone cried,
“There he is! The fellow’s been hiding!”
He looked up at the same moment that someone swung a walking stick hitting him on the head.
“Take that,” the man cried. “As a souvenir, and another.”
But the second grabbed the stick, rescuing him and breaking it in the blink of an eye.
The man above on the gangway screamed, “Shame on you! You must be drunk! Bring him up here!”
Everything happened so fast that Frank Braun had no time to see who had really hit him. The Dutchman took his hat off and felt through his hair.
“Nothing serious,” he laughed. “Just a little bump! For the Fatherland!”
Frank Braun went up, stood right next to the gangway, big and tall, right where everyone could see him! Let someone else come at him with a walking stick. He looked out at the people, almost challenging them. But no one paid any attention to him.
Now dusk sank through the warehouse, the few arc lamps were already throwing their scanty light. And more came, still more, always more. He stared into the mass of humanity, saw one after the other, heard their last words. He forgot about the blow. He dearly wanted to go out to every single one of them.
“Don’t go! I beg of you, don’t go!”
His lips whispered incessantly. But no one stayed, not a single one.
One, a large man, took his sleeping child out of the arms of his wife, kissed it lightly.
“I will bring it back for you,” he said. “I swear to you, son, I will bring the Iron Cross back for you! I have inherited two already, one from my father and one from my grandfather! You shall have three of them, son!”
But his wife sobbed, “Just come back to us!”
Another, a youth, kissed his New York girl.
“Live well, Fay,” he laughed. “Be true to me if you can, but just in case, promise me, never take an Englishman!”
“Farewell,” she wept. “Farewell, my love!”
Another, a strong bull necked man, staggered drunk over the gangway, entirely alone. His hand clenched the rail as he babbled.
“Two brothers, two of my brothers have been shot dead already! Two of them! Four are still over there. I am the seventh. Just wait France! Two brothers-”
No one heard him.
Then another, and another, and still another.
Ten men filed past in tight formation, their canes shouldered like weapons. Their brothers in song stood down below singing the farewell song:
“In the homeland, in the homeland, we will meet again in-”
A portly grey bearded man pushed past, hit him with his elbow, excused himself. Frank Braun recognized him. It was the German professor at Columbia University. A black, red and gold ribbon shone over his mighty belly.
“Are you going too?” He asked the professor.
“No,” said the elder. “Good God, if only I could go! But at sixty-three there’s not a recruiter that would take me! There, I’m sending my two boys and my daughter too. She’s joining the Red Cross!”
“Professor,” he urged. “Professor, listen-”
But the elder didn’t listen. He slugged his two sons in the arm, kissed his daughter.
“Children,” he said. “As your father I want to tell you something. I swear this on these colors you gave me. At this moment I am so very proud of you, and even more, I will be even prouder every day! God bless you!”
You could scarcely understand him. Everywhere there was shouting and noise, crying and sobbing between the shrill screams of the steam whistle. Over everything hung the sounds of singing that would not stop, over and over, one verse after another, one song after another:
“Beloved Fatherland” and “May there be peace”.
The cable fell and the anchor creaked up out of the water. They pushed away from the gangway, closed the railing. Slowly the Ryndam moved away. In a moment he was standing alone. All the ones left behind hurried to the end of the Pier. As the steamer passed by they could get one final glimpse, could wave their shawls, sing, and cry out “Good Bye”.
Already the band, like always, was playing the departure song, “Must I then, must I then go out from the city-out from the city.”
He looked over at the Hudson, saw the Ryndam there.
His lips murmured, There they go, there they go.”
And he was ashamed that he was not on board as well. Then suddenly an old song from Bewerland came to him.
Down the Rhine dressed in Bridal finery
When he finally arrived at Rotterdam
He spoke: Young Lady, may I court you?”
He laughed bitterly. God knows, that was how it was now! They were all dressed in their finery like the song of the mouse prince and they were all traveling to their beloved bride, that they call the Fatherland! They want to go to Rotterdam like the mouse prince only he was lucky. In spite of his many strange journeys he did arrive at the city.
But these, these two thousand rats. They would never arrive, their piss pot, their damned Dutch pot was really just a giant rattrap!
