The Death Ship Read Online Free PDF Page B

the American consul at all.
    “You are American?”
    “Yesser.”
    “Where is your sailor’s identification card?”
    “I have lost it, sir.”
    “Passport?”
    “Nosser.”
    “Citizenship papers?”
    “Never had any. Born in the country. Native state —”
    “Never mind. Well, what do you want here?”
    “I thought maybe, sir, I mean I was thinking, since you are my consul, that maybe you might what I was going to say, you perhaps might do something to get me out, because, you see, sir, I am stranded, to make it short.”
    He grinned at me. Rather nasty. Strange that bureaucrats always grin at you in a nasty way when they want to thumb you down.
    Still grinning, he said: “Your consul? My good man, let me tell you something: if you wish to address me as your consul, you will first of all have to prove that I am really your consul.”
    “I am American, sir. And you are the American consul.”
    “Right-o. I am the American consul. But who are you to tell me that you are American? Have you got any papers? Birth-certificate? Or passport? Or authorized sailor’s identification?”
    “I told you already that I lost it.”
    “Lost. Lost. Lost. What do you mean by lost? In times like these one does not lose such important papers. Ought to know that, my good man. You cannot even prove that you have been on the Tuscaloosa .”
    He pronounced “have” like hauve and “know” like knouw, trying to make us poor Middle West guys believe that he came from Oxford or Cambridge or I don’t know what.
    “Cawn you prove thawt you hauve been on the Tuscaloosa ?”
    “No”
    “Then what do you want here? I might cable the Tuscaloosa , provided she has wireless. But who pays for the cable?”
    “I thought you could do it.”
    “Sorry. I am not provided by the government with funds out of which I could pay for such cables. Did you sign on in New Orleans in the shipping offices of the company?”
    “No, I did not. There was no time to do so, because the ship was already up and down when I came aboard, because two men had made up their minds to stay off.”
    The consul meditated for a few seconds. Then he said: “Suppose you could prove that you really shipped on the Tuscaloosa ; that is no proof that you are an American citizen. Any Hindu or even Hottentot may work on board an American merchant vessel if the mawster of the ship needs men and he is not in a position to get American sailors.”
    “But, sir, Mr. Consul, I am American, sure.”
    “That’s what you say, my good man. That’s what you’ve told me several times. But you have to prove it. With papers. That’s a rule. I cawn’t accept your declaration as sufficient evidence. By the way, how did you come from Antwerp to Rotterdam? And without papers? How did you cross the international lines without papers?”
    “But, Mr. Consul, haven’t I told you, the Belgian police —”
    “Nuts. Don’t try to pull my leg or I am through with you right here and now. The Belgian police! Who ever heard of such a thing that officials, state authorities, would send a man without papers, without his consent, across the international border in the middle of the night? To whom do you think you are selling that yarn? Authorities committing unlawful smuggling of aliens into foreign countries? Pshaw! Tsey, tsey, tsey. Nonsense. Where did you pick up that story? Out of a magazine? Come clean, come, come.”
    While he was making this fine speech, he played with his pencil. When he had finished, he began to hum “My Old Kentucky Home,” beating time with his pencil upon his elegant desk.
    So I knew that no matter what he had said, his thoughts were somewhere else. Perhaps at a supper for two with a dame from Louisville.
    I was extremely polite. Nevertheless, something inside me told me to take the inkstand and fire it right into the middle of his grinning plaster sponge. Yet I knew how an American has to behave in an American consul’s office in a foreign country. Never