The Iron Heel

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XXIII

  THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS

  Suddenly a change came over the face of things. A tingle of excitementran along the air. Automobiles fled past, two, three, a dozen, and fromthem warnings were shouted to us. One of the machines swerved wildlyat high speed half a block down, and the next moment, already left wellbehind it, the pavement was torn into a great hole by a bursting bomb.We saw the police disappearing down the cross-streets on the run, andknew that something terrible was coming. We could hear the rising roarof it.

  "Our brave comrades are coming," Hartman said.

  We could see the front of their column filling the street from gutter togutter, as the last war-automobile fled past. The machine stopped for amoment just abreast of us. A soldier leaped from it, carrying somethingcarefully in his hands. This, with the same care, he deposited in thegutter. Then he leaped back to his seat and the machine dashed on, tookthe turn at the corner, and was gone from sight. Hartman ran to thegutter and stooped over the object.

  "Keep back," he warned me.

  I could see he was working rapidly with his hands. When he returned tome the sweat was heavy on his forehead.

  "I disconnected it," he said, "and just in the nick of time. The soldierwas clumsy. He intended it for our comrades, but he didn't give itenough time. It would have exploded prematurely. Now it won't explode atall."

  Everything was happening rapidly now. Across the street and half a blockdown, high up in a building, I could see heads peering out. I had justpointed them out to Hartman, when a sheet of flame and smoke ran alongthat portion of the face of the building where the heads had appeared,and the air was shaken by the explosion. In places the stone facing ofthe building was torn away, exposing the iron construction beneath. Thenext moment similar sheets of flame and smoke smote the front of thebuilding across the street opposite it. Between the explosions we couldhear the rattle of the automatic pistols and rifles. For several minutesthis mid-air battle continued, then died out. It was patent that ourcomrades were in one building, that Mercenaries were in the other, andthat they were fighting across the street. But we could not tellwhich was which--which building contained our comrades and which theMercenaries.

  By this time the column on the street was almost on us. As the front ofit passed under the warring buildings, both went into action again--onebuilding dropping bombs into the street, being attacked from across thestreet, and in return replying to that attack. Thus we learned whichbuilding was held by our comrades, and they did good work, saving thosein the street from the bombs of the enemy.

  Hartman gripped my arm and dragged me into a wide entrance.

  "They're not our comrades," he shouted in my ear.

  The inner doors to the entrance were locked and bolted. We could notescape. The next moment the front of the column went by. It was not acolumn, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the peopleof the abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for theblood of their masters. I had seen the people of the abyss before, gonethrough its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was nowlooking on it for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was nowdynamic--a fascinating spectacle of dread. It surged past my vision inconcrete waves of wrath, snarling and growling, carnivorous, drunk withwhiskey from pillaged warehouses, drunk with hatred, drunk with lustfor blood--men, women, and children, in rags and tatters, dim ferociousintelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and allthe fiendlike stamped in, apes and tigers, anaemic consumptives andgreat hairy beasts of burden, wan faces from which vampire society hadsucked the juice of life, bloated forms swollen with physical grossnessand corruption, withered hags and death's-heads bearded like patriarchs,festering youth and festering age, faces of fiends, crooked, twisted,misshapen monsters blasted with the ravages of disease and all thehorrors of chronic innutrition--the refuse and the scum of life, araging, screaming, screeching, demoniacal horde.

  And why not? The people of the abyss had nothing to lose but the miseryand pain of living. And to gain?--nothing, save one final, awful glut ofvengeance. And as I looked the thought came to me that in that rushingstream of human lava were men, comrades and heroes, whose mission hadbeen to rouse the abysmal beast and to keep the enemy occupied in copingwith it.

  And now a strange thing happened to me. A transformation came over me.The fear of death, for myself and for others, left me. I was strangelyexalted, another being in another life. Nothing mattered. The Cause forthis one time was lost, but the Cause would be here to-morrow, thesame Cause, ever fresh and ever burning. And thereafter, in the orgyof horror that raged through the succeeding hours, I was able to takea calm interest. Death meant nothing, life meant nothing. I was aninterested spectator of events, and, sometimes swept on by the rush,was myself a curious participant. For my mind had leaped to a star-coolaltitude and grasped a passionless transvaluation of values. Had it notdone this, I know that I should have died.

  Half a mile of the mob had swept by when we were discovered. A womanin fantastic rags, with cheeks cavernously hollow and with narrow blackeyes like burning gimlets, caught a glimpse of Hartman and me. Shelet out a shrill shriek and bore in upon us. A section of the mob toreitself loose and surged in after her. I can see her now, as I writethese lines, a leap in advance, her gray hair flying in thin tangledstrings, the blood dripping down her forehead from some wound in thescalp, in her right hand a hatchet, her left hand, lean and wrinkled, ayellow talon, gripping the air convulsively. Hartman sprang in front ofme. This was no time for explanations. We were well dressed, and thatwas enough. His fist shot out, striking the woman between her burningeyes. The impact of the blow drove her backward, but she struck the wallof her on-coming fellows and bounced forward again, dazed and helpless,the brandished hatchet falling feebly on Hartman's shoulder.

  The next moment I knew not what was happening. I was overborne by thecrowd. The confined space was filled with shrieks and yells and curses.Blows were falling on me. Hands were ripping and tearing at my fleshand garments. I felt that I was being torn to pieces. I was being bornedown, suffocated. Some strong hand gripped my shoulder in the thick ofthe press and was dragging fiercely at me. Between pain and pressure Ifainted. Hartman never came out of that entrance. He had shielded me andreceived the first brunt of the attack. This had saved me, for the jamhad quickly become too dense for anything more than the mad gripping andtearing of hands.

  I came to in the midst of wild movement. All about me was the samemovement. I had been caught up in a monstrous flood that was sweeping meI knew not whither. Fresh air was on my cheek and biting sweetly in mylungs. Faint and dizzy, I was vaguely aware of a strong arm around mybody under the arms, and half-lifting me and dragging me along. Feeblymy own limbs were helping me. In front of me I could see the moving backof a man's coat. It had been slit from top to bottom along the centreseam, and it pulsed rhythmically, the slit opening and closing regularlywith every leap of the wearer. This phenomenon fascinated me for a time,while my senses were coming back to me. Next I became aware of stingingcheeks and nose, and could feel blood dripping on my face. My hat wasgone. My hair was down and flying, and from the stinging of the scalp Imanaged to recollect a hand in the press of the entrance that had tornat my hair. My chest and arms were bruised and aching in a score ofplaces.

  My brain grew clearer, and I turned as I ran and looked at the man whowas holding me up. He it was who had dragged me out and saved me. Henoticed my movement.

  "It's all right!" he shouted hoarsely. "I knew you on the instant."

  I failed to recognize him, but before I could speak I trod uponsomething that was alive and that squirmed under my foot. I was swept onby those behind and could not look down and see, and yet I knew that itwas a woman who had fallen and who was being trampled into the pavementby thousands of successive feet.

  "It's all right," he repeated. "I'm Garthwaite."

  He was bearded and gaunt and dirty, but I succeeded in remembering himas the stalwart youth that had
spent several months in our Glen Ellenrefuge three years before. He passed me the signals of the Iron Heel'ssecret service, in token that he, too, was in its employ.

  "I'll get you out of this as soon as I can get a chance," he assured me."But watch your footing. On your life don't stumble and go down."

  All things happened abruptly on that day, and with an abruptness thatwas sickening the mob checked itself. I came in violent collision witha large woman in front of me (the man with the split coat had vanished),while those behind collided against me. A devilish pandemoniumreigned,--shrieks, curses, and cries of death, while above all rose thechurning rattle of machine-guns and the put-a-put, put-a-put of rifles.At first I could make out nothing. People were falling about me rightand left. The woman in front doubled up and went down, her hands on herabdomen in a frenzied clutch. A man was quivering against my legs in adeath-struggle.

  It came to me that we were at the head of the column. Half a mile of ithad disappeared--where or how I never learned. To this day I do not knowwhat became of that half-mile of humanity--whether it was blotted outby some frightful bolt of war, whether it was scattered and destroyedpiecemeal, or whether it escaped. But there we were, at the head of thecolumn instead of in its middle, and we were being swept out of life bya torrent of shrieking lead.

  As soon as death had thinned the jam, Garthwaite, still grasping my arm,led a rush of survivors into the wide entrance of an office building.Here, at the rear, against the doors, we were pressed by a panting,gasping mass of creatures. For some time we remained in this positionwithout a change in the situation.

  "I did it beautifully," Garthwaite was lamenting to me. "Ran you rightinto a trap. We had a gambler's chance in the street, but in herethere is no chance at all. It's all over but the shouting. Vive laRevolution!"

  Then, what he expected, began. The Mercenaries were killing withoutquarter. At first, the surge back upon us was crushing, but as thekilling continued the pressure was eased. The dead and dying went downand made room. Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted, but inthe frightful din I could not catch what he said. He did not wait. Heseized me and threw me down. Next he dragged a dying woman over on topof me, and, with much squeezing and shoving, crawled in beside me andpartly over me. A mound of dead and dying began to pile up over us, andover this mound, pawing and moaning, crept those that still survived.But these, too, soon ceased, and a semi-silence settled down, broken bygroans and sobs and sounds of strangulation.

  I should have been crushed had it not been for Garthwaite. As it was,it seemed inconceivable that I could bear the weight I did and live. Andyet, outside of pain, the only feeling I possessed was one of curiosity.How was it going to end? What would death be like? Thus did I receivemy red baptism in that Chicago shambles. Prior to that, death to me hadbeen a theory; but ever afterward death has been a simple fact that doesnot matter, it is so easy.

  But the Mercenaries were not content with what they had done. Theyinvaded the entrance, killing the wounded and searching out the unhurtthat, like ourselves, were playing dead. I remember one man they draggedout of a heap, who pleaded abjectly until a revolver shot cut him short.Then there was a woman who charged from a heap, snarling and shooting.She fired six shots before they got her, though what damage she did wecould not know. We could follow these tragedies only by the sound. Everylittle while flurries like this occurred, each flurry culminating in therevolver shot that put an end to it. In the intervals we could hearthe soldiers talking and swearing as they rummaged among the carcasses,urged on by their officers to hurry up.

  At last they went to work on our heap, and we could feel the pressurediminish as they dragged away the dead and wounded. Garthwaite beganuttering aloud the signals. At first he was not heard. Then he raisedhis voice.

  "Listen to that," we heard a soldier say. And next the sharp voice of anofficer. "Hold on there! Careful as you go!"

  Oh, that first breath of air as we were dragged out! Garthwaite did thetalking at first, but I was compelled to undergo a brief examination toprove service with the Iron Heel.

  "Agents-provocateurs all right," was the officer's conclusion. He wasa beardless young fellow, a cadet, evidently, of some great oligarchfamily.

  "It's a hell of a job," Garthwaite grumbled. "I'm going to try andresign and get into the army. You fellows have a snap."

  "You've earned it," was the young officer's answer. "I've got some pull,and I'll see if it can be managed. I can tell them how I found you."

  He took Garthwaite's name and number, then turned to me.

  "And you?"

  "Oh, I'm going to be married," I answered lightly, "and then I'll be outof it all."

  And so we talked, while the killing of the wounded went on. It is alla dream, now, as I look back on it; but at the time it was the mostnatural thing in the world. Garthwaite and the young officer fell intoan animated conversation over the difference between so-called modernwarfare and the present street-fighting and sky-scraper fighting thatwas taking place all over the city. I followed them intently, fixing upmy hair at the same time and pinning together my torn skirts. And allthe time the killing of the wounded went on. Sometimes the revolvershots drowned the voices of Garthwaite and the officer, and they werecompelled to repeat what they had been saying.

  I lived through three days of the Chicago Commune, and the vastness ofit and of the slaughter may be imagined when I say that in all that timeI saw practically nothing outside the killing of the people of the abyssand the mid-air fighting between sky-scrapers. I really saw nothing ofthe heroic work done by the comrades. I could hear the explosions oftheir mines and bombs, and see the smoke of their conflagrations, andthat was all. The mid-air part of one great deed I saw, however, andthat was the balloon attacks made by our comrades on the fortresses.That was on the second day. The three disloyal regiments had beendestroyed in the fortresses to the last man. The fortresses were crowdedwith Mercenaries, the wind blew in the right direction, and up went ourballoons from one of the office buildings in the city.

  Now Biedenbach, after he left Glen Ellen, had invented a most powerfulexplosive--"expedite" he called it. This was the weapon the balloonsused. They were only hot-air balloons, clumsily and hastily made, butthey did the work. I saw it all from the top of an office building. Thefirst balloon missed the fortresses completely and disappeared into thecountry; but we learned about it afterward. Burton and O'Sullivan werein it. As they were descending they swept across a railroad directlyover a troop-train that was heading at full speed for Chicago. Theydropped their whole supply of expedite upon the locomotive. Theresulting wreck tied the line up for days. And the best of it was that,released from the weight of expedite, the balloon shot up into theair and did not come down for half a dozen miles, both heroes escapingunharmed.

  The second balloon was a failure. Its flight was lame. It floated toolow and was shot full of holes before it could reach the fortresses.Herford and Guinness were in it, and they were blown to pieces alongwith the field into which they fell. Biedenbach was in despair--we heardall about it afterward--and he went up alone in the third balloon. He,too, made a low flight, but he was in luck, for they failed seriously topuncture his balloon. I can see it now as I did then, from the lofty topof the building--that inflated bag drifting along the air, and that tinyspeck of a man clinging on beneath. I could not see the fortress, butthose on the roof with me said he was directly over it. I did notsee the expedite fall when he cut it loose. But I did see the balloonsuddenly leap up into the sky. An appreciable time after that the greatcolumn of the explosion towered in the air, and after that, in turn, Iheard the roar of it. Biedenbach the gentle had destroyed a fortress.Two other balloons followed at the same time. One was blown to piecesin the air, the expedite exploding, and the shock of it disrupted thesecond balloon, which fell prettily into the remaining fortress.It couldn't have been better planned, though the two comrades in itsacrificed their lives.

  But to return to the people of the abyss. My experiences were confin
edto them. They raged and slaughtered and destroyed all over the cityproper, and were in turn destroyed; but never once did they succeed inreaching the city of the oligarchs over on the west side. The oligarchshad protected themselves well. No matter what destruction was wreaked inthe heart of the city, they, and their womenkind and children, were toescape hurt. I am told that their children played in the parks duringthose terrible days and that their favorite game was an imitation oftheir elders stamping upon the proletariat.

  But the Mercenaries found it no easy task to cope with the people of theabyss and at the same time fight with the comrades. Chicago was true toher traditions, and though a generation of revolutionists was wiped out,it took along with it pretty close to a generation of its enemies.Of course, the Iron Heel kept the figures secret, but, at a veryconservative estimate, at least one hundred and thirty thousandMercenaries were slain. But the comrades had no chance. Instead of thewhole country being hand in hand in revolt, they were all alone, and thetotal strength of the Oligarchy could have been directed against themif necessary. As it was, hour after hour, day after day, in endlesstrain-loads, by hundreds of thousands, the Mercenaries were hurled intoChicago.

  And there were so many of the people of the abyss! Tiring of theslaughter, a great herding movement was begun by the soldiers, theintent of which was to drive the street mobs, like cattle, into LakeMichigan. It was at the beginning of this movement that Garthwaite and Ihad encountered the young officer. This herding movement was practicallya failure, thanks to the splendid work of the comrades. Instead of thegreat host the Mercenaries had hoped to gather together, they succeededin driving no more than forty thousand of the wretches into the lake.Time and again, when a mob of them was well in hand and being drivenalong the streets to the water, the comrades would create a diversion,and the mob would escape through the consequent hole torn in theencircling net.

  Garthwaite and I saw an example of this shortly after meeting with theyoung officer. The mob of which we had been a part, and which had beenput in retreat, was prevented from escaping to the south and east bystrong bodies of troops. The troops we had fallen in with had held itback on the west. The only outlet was north, and north it went towardthe lake, driven on from east and west and south by machine-gun fire andautomatics. Whether it divined that it was being driven toward the lake,or whether it was merely a blind squirm of the monster, I do not know;but at any rate the mob took a cross street to the west, turned downthe next street, and came back upon its track, heading south toward thegreat ghetto.

  Garthwaite and I at that time were trying to make our way westward toget out of the territory of street-fighting, and we were caught right inthe thick of it again. As we came to the corner we saw the howling mobbearing down upon us. Garthwaite seized my arm and we were just startingto run, when he dragged me back from in front of the wheels of half adozen war automobiles, equipped with machine-guns, that were rushing forthe spot. Behind them came the soldiers with their automatic rifles.By the time they took position, the mob was upon them, and it looked asthough they would be overwhelmed before they could get into action.

  Here and there a soldier was discharging his rifle, but this scatteredfire had no effect in checking the mob. On it came, bellowing with bruterage. It seemed the machine-guns could not get started. The automobileson which they were mounted blocked the street, compelling the soldiersto find positions in, between, and on the sidewalks. More and moresoldiers were arriving, and in the jam we were unable to get away.Garthwaite held me by the arm, and we pressed close against the front ofa building.

  The mob was no more than twenty-five feet away when the machine-gunsopened up; but before that flaming sheet of death nothing could live.The mob came on, but it could not advance. It piled up in a heap, amound, a huge and growing wave of dead and dying. Those behind urged on,and the column, from gutter to gutter, telescoped upon itself. Woundedcreatures, men and women, were vomited over the top of that awful waveand fell squirming down the face of it till they threshed about underthe automobiles and against the legs of the soldiers. The latterbayoneted the struggling wretches, though one I saw who gained his feetand flew at a soldier's throat with his teeth. Together they went down,soldier and slave, into the welter.

  The firing ceased. The work was done. The mob had been stopped in itswild attempt to break through. Orders were being given to clear thewheels of the war-machines. They could not advance over that wave ofdead, and the idea was to run them down the cross street. The soldierswere dragging the bodies away from the wheels when it happened. Welearned afterward how it happened. A block distant a hundred of ourcomrades had been holding a building. Across roofs and through buildingsthey made their way, till they found themselves looking down upon theclose-packed soldiers. Then it was counter-massacre.

  Without warning, a shower of bombs fell from the top of the building.The automobiles were blown to fragments, along with many soldiers. We,with the survivors, swept back in mad retreat. Half a block down anotherbuilding opened fire on us. As the soldiers had carpeted the street withdead slaves, so, in turn, did they themselves become carpet. Garthwaiteand I bore charmed lives. As we had done before, so again we soughtshelter in an entrance. But he was not to be caught napping this time.As the roar of the bombs died away, he began peering out.

  "The mob's coming back!" he called to me. "We've got to get out ofthis!"

  We fled, hand in hand, down the bloody pavement, slipping and sliding,and making for the corner. Down the cross street we could see a fewsoldiers still running. Nothing was happening to them. The way wasclear. So we paused a moment and looked back. The mob came on slowly.It was busy arming itself with the rifles of the slain and killing thewounded. We saw the end of the young officer who had rescued us.He painfully lifted himself on his elbow and turned loose with hisautomatic pistol.

  "There goes my chance of promotion," Garthwaite laughed, as a woman boredown on the wounded man, brandishing a butcher's cleaver. "Come on. It'sthe wrong direction, but we'll get out somehow."

  And we fled eastward through the quiet streets, prepared at every crossstreet for anything to happen. To the south a monster conflagration wasfilling the sky, and we knew that the great ghetto was burning. At lastI sank down on the sidewalk. I was exhausted and could go no farther.I was bruised and sore and aching in every limb; yet I could not escapesmiling at Garthwaite, who was rolling a cigarette and saying:

  "I know I'm making a mess of rescuing you, but I can't get head nortail of the situation. It's all a mess. Every time we try to break out,something happens and we're turned back. We're only a couple of blocksnow from where I got you out of that entrance. Friend and foe are allmixed up. It's chaos. You can't tell who is in those darned buildings.Try to find out, and you get a bomb on your head. Try to go peaceably onyour way, and you run into a mob and are killed by machine-guns, oryou run into the Mercenaries and are killed by your own comrades from aroof. And on the top of it all the mob comes along and kills you, too."

  He shook his head dolefully, lighted his cigarette, and sat down besideme.

  "And I'm that hungry," he added, "I could eat cobblestones."

  The next moment he was on his feet again and out in the street prying upa cobblestone. He came back with it and assaulted the window of a storebehind us.

  "It's ground floor and no good," he explained as he helped me throughthe hole he had made; "but it's the best we can do. You get a nap andI'll reconnoitre. I'll finish this rescue all right, but I want time,time, lots of it--and something to eat."

  It was a harness store we found ourselves in, and he fixed me up a couchof horse blankets in the private office well to the rear. To add to mywretchedness a splitting headache was coming on, and I was only too gladto close my eyes and try to sleep.

  "I'll be back," were his parting words. "I don't hope to get an auto,but I'll surely bring some grub,* anyway."

  * Food.

  And that was the last I saw of Garthwaite for three years. Instead ofcoming back, he was carried aw
ay to a hospital with a bullet through hislungs and another through the fleshy part of his neck.