When a German sailor came back from a cruise with a bit of money
burning holes in his pockets, Hamburg and the bright lights of Sankt
Pauli were his goal. When I left the _Pinmore_, I had a thousand
marks in my jeans. This was a new thrill, and I had it all changed
into silver, so that I could feast my eyes on it. Proudly I strutted
down Sankt Pauli water front, a full-fledged sailor, back from his
first cruise around the world. I swaggered like a veteran old salt.
But my thoughts were not of the gay amusement parlours of Sankt
Pauli. There was another mission that had brought me to Hamburg.
I went to the old house at the Brauerknechtergraben and climbed the
creaking stairs. The name Peter Breumer was still on the door. A
broken old woman answered my knock and ushered me in. From the roof
hung the flying fish. On the wall was the painting of the ship. The
ragged parrot was in its cage.
"Peter? He is dead. I live here now. I am his sister."
"Peter dead?"
"Yes, three years ago. And that's you, his boy, whom he helped to go
to sea. How often he said: 'Where may the boy be now?' But Peter is
gone."
I went to his grave at Ohlsdorf. It was shabby. I got a big iron
anchor and had a brass plate fixed on it with the engraving: "I did
not forget you.--Your boy." Then I placed it on Peter's grave, a
fitting monument for a sailor.
Since the raids of the _Seeadler_ the grave of old Peter has become a
kind of shrine where people visit, especially German children.
It was in December, and the festival called the Hamburg Dom was being
held. In Sankt Pauli were many diversions and shows. In one show,
Lipstulian the wrestler held forth. Fifty marks were offered to
anyone who could throw him. My pals said: "Go up there, Phelax. You
can beat him."
I said no. I had no desire to make myself conspicuous. On the
platform the wrestler drew himself up in his tights and taunted me.
"My lad, you had better bring along a bag in which to carry home your
bones."
I considered this an insult, and climbed on to the stand. The barker
outside shouted.
"Step inside, ladies and gentlemen. We have found a sucker who is
going to get his bones crushed."
Lipstulian paced the platform like a prize steer. I gave my purse to
our sailmaker to hold. Attendants escorted me to a little booth,
where they dressed me in a red and white shirt and pants and a belt.
When I stepped on to the platform Lipstulian looked at my bare arms
and became pensive.
It was not real wrestling, but merely a test of raw strength.
Lipstulian tried to jerk me to him and tip me over before the signal
had been given. That made me angry. I seized him, but could not
lift him. The sailors howled encouragement to me. One of my
shipmates offered me an additional fifty marks if I downed him. On
the third attempt I lifted him. He tried to support his foot against
a tent pole, but slipped. I threw him to the floor.
The barker howled that I had not put the champion on his back. That
found little favour with the audience. There was a tremendous din.
The sailors were ready for trouble. The manager paid me in silver.
He gave me, however, twenty instead of the promised fifty marks. I
did not protest. I felt good-natured. My shipmates were hoisting me
on their shoulders. They carried me to the nearest saloon, where, as
the victor, I treated the crowd again and again.
My shipmates took me to a photographer, where they had a picture made
of me in wrestling togs with the inscription on it--the Champion
Wrestler of Sankt Pauli. By Joe, but I was proud of that picture.
It was a visible indication that I had been somebody.
That night I sat looking at it. I had often wanted to write to my
parents. They must think me dead by now. I was ashamed to have them
hear from me as a nobody. But now ... I looked at the picture again.
On the back of that formidable representation of the Champion
Wrestler of Sankt Pauli I wrote: "To my dear father for remembrance,
from his faithful son Felix, 1902." I addressed an envelope.
Then my courage left me. The difference between that photograph and
our life at home, between the "Champion Wrestler of Sankt Pauli" and
the stately, severe Count Heinrich von Luckner, my father, came
vividly upon me and made my heart sink. I put the picture back in my
sea chest.
The remembrance came back to me how my father expected me to become
an officer in the Imperial Service, and how I had vowed that I would
never go back until I was a naval officer in the Imperial Service.
Let them think me dead until I was able to go home clad in the
Imperial naval uniform.
When I did return home as a naval officer, I jokingly showed my
father the photograph of the Champion Wrestler of Sankt Pauli. He
took it from me and for years carried it proudly in his wallet.