About the only amusement I could find in Fremantle was listening to
the Salvation Army band. They had a hall where they had preaching
and where bums and sailors stood up and told lurid tales of their
experiences. Then they all sang songs. It was the songs I liked. I
couldn't tell much about the words, but the tunes were lively and the
big drum fascinated me. This music was altogether different from the
music back home in our churches at Dresden. But what interested me
most of all was that this Salvation Army post had a gramophone. I
had never seen one before. I had come to Australia expecting to find
a wilderness of kangaroos and savages, and here was this marvellous
product of civilization.
"By Joe, Felix," I said to myself, "everything in the world is
different from what you thought."
I couldn't shake off the notion that this gramophone was a hoax. I
thought somebody hidden must be talking into that horn. I could not
get near enough to investigate. The place was always crowded, and
only those who "got religion" were allowed up front. So I persuaded
a friend of mine from a German boat to keep me company, and we went
up at a big meeting and offered ourselves for salvation. We gave
testimony of our past sins and told what bad sailor lads we had been,
and then we signed a pledge never to touch strong drink.
The gramophone was O.K., I found, and that made the Salvation Army
O.K. with me. I became enthusiastic, somehow, or other, with the
songs and excitement. I actually "got religion." I joined up, and
they gave me a job putting moth balls in clothing donated by
charitable people. At any rate, I no longer had to wash dishes, and
here was an army in which I might become a lieutenant. I remembered
how my father had wanted me to become a lieutenant in the German
Army. Why not become a lieutenant in the Salvation Army instead? I
used to daydream and build castles in the air like this while placing
those moth balls in the piles of old clothes.
Since I was converted and saved and stood on holy ground, I felt I
should tell the whole truth. So, one night at a meeting, I got up
and testified and told my fellow soldiers of the Salvation Army that
my right name was Count Felix von Luckner. That made a sensation.
They immediately used me for advertisement. 'Halleluiah! We have
saved a German count from perdition," they announced. "Before he
came here he drank whisky like a fish. Now he is a teetotaller."
Well, by Joe, people came from all over town to see the reformed
count.
They put me in a uniform and sent me out to sell the _War Cry_. I
sold a lot. People didn't mind buying the _War Cry_ from a count. I
thought I could become a captain. It was no trouble to leave whisky
alone, _because I had never tasted it in my life_. But I did like
lemonade and ginger ale, especially ginger ale, which I thought
contained alcohol because they offered it to me in the bars where I
sold the _War Cry_ and because it tasted so delicious. I thought I
was putting something over. They got on to it in the saloons and had
their joke with me.
"Count, have a ginger ale," they would call whenever they saw me, and
I would wink and drink it down. I thought they were laughing because
I had put one over, and I laughed too.
I got tired of it. I got tired of everything except the sea. I was
a sailor, I reasoned, and the only lieutenant I could ever be was a
naval lieutenant and the only kind of captain a ship captain. The
Salvation Army people were very good to me. They said I was too
young to be a sailor, but that they would get me a job somewhere near
the sea. So they found me a job in a lighthouse. It was almost like
being at sea, they told me. All day I could look out and see fair
weather or storms with ships sailing at peace or rolling and heaving.
I became assistant to the lighthouse keeper of the Cape Leeuwin
Beacon, which is south of Fremantle and the biggest light on the
southwest Australian coast. "Assistant"--what a fine title! And
"beacon," a word that meant everything to the ships driven by the
fury of the storm. Wasn't I a sailor who knew all about that from
experience? Well, they put me to cleaning the "windows"--that is,
the lenses. The thousands of prisms of the reflector astonished me
not a little. Each day I wound up the weights for the revolving
apparatus. The rest of the time, when I was not sleeping, I kept
watch. There were three other lighthouse keepers, who lived in
little houses on the cliff. They passed the days playing cards and
fishing. They had pushed all of their duties on to me. For doing
their work I got ninepence a day!
The daughter of one of the lighthouse keepers was named Eva. She was
pretty and very charming. One day I kissed her. It was an innocent
kiss, but we were in a bad place, a room with a locked door, but
which was open on the side of the sea and looked down on the beach.
One of the men was fishing there and saw us. He hurried to Eva's
father. Soon there was a cursing and knocking at the locked door.
We were terrified. The threats and banging grew more violent. I
threw the door open, dashed out and away, frightened half out of my
wits.
I left behind me all my belongings. That was how I lost the sea
chest that old Peter had given me. It was too bad. Late that night
I sneaked back and made off with one of the horses. It was worth
about thirty shillings, which I figured was about the value of the
luggage I had to abandon.
I rode to Port Augusta, and for a time worked in a sawmill. The work
was frightfully hard. The pay seemed good, thirty shillings a day,
but the cost of living was so high--one had even to pay for
water--that it left only a few shillings out of a day's pay. The
work was lucrative only for Chinese coolies, with their low standards
of living. I was able to save sixty shillings and then couldn't
stand it any longer.
One day I met a Norwegian hunter who had been shooting kangaroos and
wallabies and selling their skins. I gave him my money, and my watch
that I had brought from Germany, and he gave me his rifle. Then I
went into the forest and became a hunter, or at least tried to.
After a month, the solitude got on my nerves, and I left the
kangaroos in full possession of their native bush.
In Port Augusta I watched a steamer discharge its passengers.
"Oh," I said, "what kind of a crowd is that?"
They were a troupe of Hindu fakirs. Unable to withhold my curiosity,
I went up and talked to them. When they learned that I was a sailor,
they said I was exactly the man they needed for pitching their large
tents, currying the horses, and distributing advertisements, and the
like. They explained that their trade was similar to mine, since
they were always on the move, only they travelled on land.
They had with them several dark-eyed Hindu girls who looked
bewitching. I joined the fakirs.
We travelled from one end of Australia to the other. I pitched their
tents and booths in public places. Handling the canvas did remind me
a little of my work as a sailor. In Fremantle, when I went around
passing out handbills, I heard on all sides:
"Hello, Count. No more Salvation Army, eh? Have a ginger ale."