Part 14

The problem was now to get on land. What should I say if they caught me? I thought that if I were caught now I should simply say I wanted to get to Holland as a stowaway in order to reach Germany. In that case, I thought, they would quickly enough put me back on land. With firm resolve I climbed on deck which was full of workmen.

I noticed a stair-way leading to the warehouse. Gathering all my strength I loitered up to it in a careless way and--two minutes later I had landed. I found myself in the street outside the warehouse.

Up to that time I had kept on my legs. But now my strength left me, and I dropped on the nearest steps.

It was only then that I became aware of the fact that I was not in New York, but in Philadelphia. It was 5 o'clock in the afternoon of April 5th, 1916. I had reckoned on twelve days and the voyage had taken eighteen.

Physically a wreck, I became acquainted with native Americans in the evening. They afforded me every assistance that one human being can give to another. One of those most noble-minded humanitarians took me to New York. I could not leave my room for a week on account of the hardships I had undergone; I recovered only slowly.

But to-day I have recovered sufficiently to take up again in the ranks of the American Socialists the fight against capitalism the extirpation of which must be the aim of every class-conscious worker. A relentless struggle to the bitter end is necessary to show the ruling war provoking capitalist caste who is the stronger, so that it no longer may be in the power of that class to provoke such a murderous war as that in which the working-class of Europe is now bleeding to death.

End of Project Gutenberg's A German deserter's war experience, by Anonymous