by Jack London
The steward’s eyes glistened with enthusiasm as he said he had got nine the day before and expected fully a dozen to-day.
“The poor things,” said Miss West—to me. “You’ve no idea how bad weather reduces their laying.” She turned back upon the steward. “Mind now, you watch and find out which hens don’t lay, and kill them first. And you ask me each time before you kill one.”
I found myself neglected, out there on top the draughty house, while Miss West talked chickens with the Chinese ex-smuggler. But it gave me opportunity to observe her. It is the length of her eyes that accentuates their steadiness of gaze—helped, of course, by the dark brows and lashes. I noted again the warm gray of her eyes. And I began to identify her, to locate her. She is a physical type of the best of the womanhood of old New England . Nothing spare nor meagre, nor bred out, but generously strong, and yet not quite what one would call robust. When I said she was strapping-bodied I erred. I must fall back on my other word, which will have to be the last: Miss West is vital-bodied. That is the key-word.
When we had regained the poop, and Miss West had gone below, I ventured my customary pleasantry with Mr. Mellaire of:
“And has O’Sullivan bought Andy Fay’s sea-boots yet?”
“Not yet, Mr. Pathurst,” was the reply, “though he nearly got them early this morning. Come on along, sir, and I’ll show you.”
Vouchsafing no further information, the second mate led the way along the bridge, across the ’midship-house and the for’ard-house. From the edge of the latter, looking down on Number One hatch, I saw two Japanese, with sail-needles and twine, sewing up a canvas-swathed bundle that unmistakably contained a human body.
“O’Sullivan used a razor,” said Mr. Mellaire.
“And that is Andy Fay?” I cried.
“No, sir, not Andy. That’s a Dutchman. Christian Jespersen was his name on the articles. He got in O’Sullivan’s way when O’Sullivan went after the boots. That’s what saved Andy. Andy was more active. Jespersen couldn’t get out of his own way, much less out of O’Sullivan’s. There’s Andy sitting over there.”
I followed Mr. Mellaire’s gaze, and saw the burnt-out, aged little Scotchman squatted on a spare spar and sucking a pipe. One arm was in a sling and his head was bandaged. Beside him squatted Mulligan Jacobs. They were a pair. Both were blue-eyed, and both were malevolent-eyed. And they were equally emaciated. It was easy to see that they had discovered early in the voyage their kinship of bitterness. Andy Fay, I knew, was sixty-three years old, although he looked a hundred; and Mulligan Jacobs, who was only about fifty, made up for the difference by the furnace-heat of hatred that burned in his face and eyes. I wondered if he sat beside the injured bitter one in some sense of sympathy, or if he were there in order to gloat.
Around the corner of the house strolled Shorty, flinging up to me his inevitable clown-grin. One hand was swathed in bandages.
“Must have kept Mr. Pike busy,” was my comment to Mr. Mellaire.
“He was sewing up cripples about all his watch from four till eight.”
“What?” I asked. “Are there any more?”
“One more, sir, a sheeny. I didn’t know his name before, but Mr. Pike got it—Isaac B. Chantz. I never saw in all my life at sea as many sheenies as are on board the Elsinore right now. Sheenies don’t take to the sea as a rule. We’ve certainly got more than our share of them. Chantz isn’t badly hurt, but you ought to hear him whimper.”
“Where’s O’Sullivan?” I inquired.
“In the ’midship-house with Davis , and without a mark. Mr. Pike got into the rumpus and put him to sleep with one on the jaw. And now he’s lashed down and talking in a trance. He’s thrown the fear of God into Davis . Davis is sitting up in his bunk with a marlin-spike, threatening to brain O’Sullivan if he starts to break loose, and complaining that it’s no way to run a hospital. He’d have padded cells, straitjackets, night and day nurses, and violent wards, I suppose—and a convalescents’ home in a Queen Anne cottage on the poop.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. “This is the funniest voyage and the funniest crew I’ve ever tackled. It’s not going to come to a good end. Anybody can see that with half an eye. It’ll be dead of winter off the Horn, and a fo’c’s’le full of lunatics and cripples to do the work.—Just take a look at that one. Crazy as a bedbug. He’s likely to go overboard any time.”
I followed his glance and saw Tony the Greek, the one who had sprung overboard the first day. He had just come around the corner of the house, and, beyond one arm in a sling, seemed in good condition. He walked easily and with strength, a testimonial to the virtues of Mr. Pike’s rough surgery.
My eyes kept returning to the canvas-covered body of Christian Jespersen, and to the Japanese who sewed with sail-twine his sailor’s shroud. One of them had his right hand in a huge wrapping of cotton and bandage.
“Did he get hurt, too?” I asked.
“No, sir. He’s the sail-maker. They’re both sail-makers. He’s a good one, too. Yatsuda is his name. But he’s just had blood-poisoning and lain in hospital in New York for eighteen months. He flatly refused to let them amputate. He’s all right now, but the hand is dead, all except the thumb and fore-finger, and he’s teaching himself to sew with his left hand. He’s as clever a sail-maker as you’ll find at sea.”
“A lunatic and a razor make a cruel combination,” I remarked.
“It’s put five men out of commission,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. “There’s O’Sullivan himself, and Christian Jespersen gone, and Andy Fay, and Shorty, and the sheeny. And the voyage not started yet. And there’s Lars with the broken leg, and Davis laid off for keeps—why, sir, we’ll soon be that weak it’ll take both watches to set a staysail.”
Nevertheless, while I talked in a matter-of-fact way with Mr. Mellaire, I was shocked—no; not because death was aboard with us. I have stood by my philosophic guns too long to be shocked by death, or by murder. What affected me was the utter, stupid bestiality of the affair. Even murder—murder for cause—I can understand. It is comprehensible that men should kill one another in the passion of love, of hatred, of patriotism, of religion. But this was different. Here was killing without cause, an orgy of blind-brutishness, a thing monstrously irrational.
Later on, strolling with Possum on the main deck, as I passed the open door of the hospital I heard the muttering chant of O’Sullivan, and peeped in. There he lay, lashed fast on his back in the lower bunk, rolling his eyes and raving. In the top bunk, directly above, lay Charles Davis, calmly smoking a pipe. I looked for the marlin-spike. There it was, ready to hand, on the bedding beside him.
“It’s hell, ain’t it, sir?” was his greeting. “And how am I goin’ to get any sleep with that baboon chattering away there. He never lets up—keeps his chin-music goin’ right along when he’s asleep, only worse. The way he grits his teeth is something awful. Now I leave it to you, sir, is it right to put a crazy like that in with a sick man? And I am a sick man.”
While he talked the massive form of Mr. Pike loomed beside me and halted just out of sight of the man in the bunk. And the man talked on.
“By rights, I oughta have that lower bunk. It hurts me to crawl up here. It’s inhumanity, that’s what it is, and sailors at sea are better protected by the law than they used to be. And I’ll have you for a witness to this before the court when we get to Seattle .”
Mr. Pike stepped into the doorway.
“Shut up, you damned sea-lawyer, you,” he snarled. “Haven’t you played a dirty trick enough comin’ on board this ship in your condition? And if I have anything more out of you . . . ”
Mr. Pike was so angry that he could not complete the threat. After spluttering for a moment he made a fresh attempt.
“You . . . you . . . well, you annoy me, that’s what you do.”
“I know the law, sir,” Davis answered promptly. “I worked full able seaman on this here ship. All hands can testify to that. I was aloft from the start. Yes, sir, and u
p to my neck in salt water day and night. And you had me below trimmin’ coal. I did full duty and more, until this sickness got me—”
“You were petrified and rotten before you ever saw this ship,” Mr. Pike broke in.
“The court’ll decide that, sir,” replied the imperturbable Davis .
“And if you go to shoutin’ off your sea-lawyer mouth,” Mr. Pike continued, “I’ll jerk you out of that and show you what real work is.”
“An’ lay the owners open for lovely damages when we get in,” Davis sneered.
“Not if I bury you before we get in,” was the mate’s quick, grim retort. “And let me tell you, Davis, you ain’t the first sea-lawyer I’ve dropped over the side with a sack of coal to his feet.”
Mr. Pike turned, with a final “Damned sea-lawyer!” and started along the deck. I was walking behind him when he stopped abruptly.
“Mr. Pathurst.”
Not as an officer to a passenger did he thus address me. His tone was imperative, and I gave heed.
“Mr. Pathurst. From now on the less you see aboard this ship the better. That is all.”
And again he turned on his heel and went his way.
CHAPTER XVI
No, the sea is not a gentle place. It must be the very hardness of the life that makes all sea-people hard. Of course, Captain West is unaware that his crew exists, and Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire never address the men save to give commands. But Miss West, who is more like myself, a passenger, ignores the men. She does not even say good-morning to the man at the wheel when she first comes on deck. Nevertheless I shall, at least to the man at the wheel. Am I not a passenger?
Which reminds me. Technically I am not a passenger. The Elsinore has no licence to carry passengers, and I am down on the articles as third mate and am supposed to receive thirty-five dollars a month. Wada is down as cabin boy, although I paid a good price for his passage and he is my servant.
Not much time is lost at sea in getting rid of the dead. Within an hour after I had watched the sail-makers at work Christian Jespersen was slid overboard, feet first, a sack of coal to his feet to sink him. It was a mild, calm day, and the Elsinore , logging a lazy two knots, was not hove to for the occasion. At the last moment Captain West came for’ard, prayer-book in hand, read the brief service for burial at sea, and returned immediately aft. It was the first time I had seen him for’ard.
I shall not bother to describe the burial. All I shall say of it is that it was as sordid as Christian Jespersen’s life had been and as his death had been.
As for Miss West, she sat in a deck-chair on the poop busily engaged with some sort of fancy work. When Christian Jespersen and his coal splashed into the sea the crew immediately dispersed, the watch below going to its bunks, the watch on deck to its work. Not a minute elapsed ere Mr. Mellaire was giving orders and the men were pulling and hauling. So I returned to the poop to be unpleasantly impressed by Miss West’s smiling unconcern.
“Well, he’s buried,” I observed.
“Oh,” she said, with all the tonelessness of disinterest, and went on with her stitching.
She must have sensed my frame of mind, for, after a moment, she paused from her sewing and looked at me.
Your first sea funeral, Mr. Pathurst?
“Death at sea does not seem to affect you,” I said bluntly.
“Not any more than on the land.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So many people die, you know. And when they are strangers to you . . . well, what do you do on the land when you learn that some workers have been killed in a factory you pass every day coming to town? It is the same on the sea.”
“It’s too bad we are a hand short,” I said deliberately.
It did not miss her. Just as deliberately she replied:
“Yes, isn’t it? And so early in the voyage, too.” She looked at me, and when I could not forbear a smile of appreciation she smiled back.
“Oh, I know very well, Mr. Pathurst, that you think me a heartless wretch. But it isn’t that it’s . . . it’s the sea, I suppose. And yet, I didn’t know this man. I don’t remember ever having seen him. At this stage of the voyage I doubt if I could pick out half-a-dozen of the sailors as men I had ever laid eyes on. So why vex myself with even thinking of this stupid stranger who was killed by another stupid stranger? As well might one die of grief with reading the murder columns of the daily papers.”
“And yet, it seems somehow different,” I contended.
“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she assured me cheerfully, and returned to her sewing.
I asked her if she had read Moody’s Ship of Souls , but she had not. I searched her out further. She liked Browning, and was especially fond of The Ring and the Book . This was the key to her. She cared only for healthful literature—for the literature that exposits the vital lies of life.
For instance, the mention of Schopenhauer produced smiles and laughter. To her all the philosophers of pessimism were laughable. The red blood of her would not permit her to take them seriously. I tried her out with a conversation I had had with De Casseres shortly before leaving New York . De Casseres, after tracing Jules de Gaultier’s philosophic genealogy back to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, had concluded with the proposition that out of their two formulas de Gaultier had constructed an even profounder formula. The “Will-to-Live” of the one and the “Will-to-Power” of the other were, after all, only parts of de Gaultier’s supreme generalization, the “Will-to-Illusion.”
I flatter myself that even De Casseres would have been pleased with the way I repeated his argument. And when I had concluded it, Miss West promptly demanded if the realists might not be fooled by their own phrases as often and as completely as were the poor common mortals with the vital lies they never questioned.
And there we were. An ordinary young woman, who had never vexed her brains with ultimate problems, hears such things stated for the first time, and immediately, and with a laugh, sweeps them all away. I doubt not that De Casseres would have agreed with her.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked rather abruptly. She dropped her sewing into her lap, looked at me meditatively, then gazed on and away across the flashing sea and up into the azure dome of sky. And finally, with true feminine evasion, she replied:
“My father does.”
“But you?” I insisted.
“I really don’t know. I don’t bother my head about such things. I used to when I was a little girl. And yet . . . yes, surely I believe in God. At times, when I am not thinking about it at all, I am very sure, and my faith that all is well is just as strong as the faith of your Jewish friend in the phrases of the philosophers. That’s all it comes to, I suppose, in every case—faith. But, as I say, why bother?”
“Ah, I have you now, Miss West!” I cried. “You are a true daughter of Herodias.”
“It doesn’t sound nice,” she said with a moue .
“And it isn’t,” I exulted. “Nevertheless, it is what you are. It is Arthur Symon’s poem, The Daughters of Herodias . Some day I shall read it to you, and you will answer. I know you will answer that you, too, have looked often upon the stars.”
We had just got upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and his school held no particular charm for her, when Possum set up a wild yelping.
The puppy had strayed for’ard along the bridge to the ’midship-house, and had evidently been investigating the chickens when his disaster came upon him. So shrill was his terror that we both stood up. He was dashing along the bridge toward us at full speed, yelping at every jump and continually turning his head back in the direction whence he came.
I spoke to him and held out my hand, and was rewarded with a snap and clash of teeth as he scuttled past. Still with head turned back, he went on along the poop. Before I could apprehend his danger, Mr. Pike and Miss West were after him. The mate was the nearer, and with a magnificent leap gained the rail just in time to intercept Possum, who was blindl
y going overboard under the slender railing. With a sort of scooping kick Mr. Pike sent the animal rolling half across the poop. Howling and snapping more violently, Possum regained his feet and staggered on toward the opposite railing.
“Don’t touch him!” Mr. Pike cried, as Miss West showed her intention of catching the crazed little animal with her hands. “Don’t touch’m! He’s got a fit.”
But it did not deter her. He was half-way under the railing when she caught him up and held him at arm’s length while he howled and barked and slavered.
“It’s a fit,” said Mr. Pike, as the terrier collapsed and lay on the deck jerking convulsively.
“Perhaps a chicken pecked him,” said Miss West. “At any rate, get a bucket of water.”
“Better let me take him,” I volunteered helplessly, for I was unfamiliar with fits.
“No; it’s all right,” she answered. “I’ll take charge of him. The cold water is what he needs. He got too close to the coop, and a peck on the nose frightened him into the fit.”
“First time I ever heard of a fit coming that way,” Mr. Pike remarked, as he poured water over the puppy under Miss West’s direction. “It’s just a plain puppy fit. They all get them at sea.”
“I think it was the sails that caused it,” I argued. “I’ve noticed that he is very afraid of them. When they flap, he crouches down in terror and starts to run. You noticed how he ran with his head turned back?”
“I’ve seen dogs with fits do that when there was nothing to frighten them,” Mr. Pike contended.
“It was a fit, no matter what caused it,” Miss West stated conclusively. “Which means that he has not been fed properly. From now on I shall feed him. You tell your boy that, Mr. Pathurst. Nobody is to feed Possum anything without my permission.”
At this juncture Wada arrived with Possum’s little sleeping box, and they prepared to take him below.
“It was splendid of you, Miss West,” I said, “and rash, as well, and I won’t attempt to thank you. But I tell you what-you take him. He’s your dog now.”
