Chapter XV

by Jack London

　　It was during the early winter of 1892 that I resolved to go tosea. My Hancock Fire Brigade experience was very littleresponsible for this. I still drank and frequented saloons--practically lived in saloons. Whisky was dangerous, in myopinion, but not wrong. Whisky was dangerous like other dangerousthings in the natural world. Men died of whisky; but then, too,fishermen were capsized and drowned, hoboes fell under trains andwere cut to pieces. To cope with winds and waves, railroadtrains, and bar-rooms, one must use judgment. To get drunk afterthe manner of men was all right, but one must do it withdiscretion. No more quarts of whisky for me.

　　What really decided me to go to sea was that I had caught my firstvision of the death-road which John Barleycorn maintains for hisdevotees. It was not a clear vision, however, and there were twophases of it, somewhat jumbled at the time. It struck me, fromwatching those with whom I associated, that the life we wereliving was more destructive than that lived by the average man.

　　John Barleycorn, by inhibiting morality, incited to crime.Everywhere I saw men doing, drunk, what they would never dream ofdoing sober. And this wasn't the worst of it. It was the penaltythat must be paid. Crime was destructive. Saloon-mates I drankwith, who were good fellows and harmless, sober, did most violentand lunatic things when they were drunk. And then the policegathered them in and they vanished from our ken. Sometimes Ivisited them behind the bars and said good-bye ere they journeyedacross the bay to put on the felon's stripes. And time and againI heard the one explanation "If I hadn't been drunk i wouldn't a-done it." And sometimes, under the spell of John Barleycorn, themost frightful things were done--things that shocked even my case-hardened soul.

　　The other phase of the death-road was that of the habitualdrunkards, who had a way of turning up their toes without apparentprovocation. When they took sick, even with trifling afflictionsthat any ordinary man could pull through, they just pegged out.Sometimes they were found unattended and dead in their beds; onoccasion their bodies were dragged out of the water; and sometimesit was just plain accident, as when Bill Kelley, unloading cargowhile drunk, had a finger jerked off, which, under thecircumstances, might just as easily have been his head.

　　So I considered my situation and knew that I was getting into abad way of living. It made toward death too quickly to suit myyouth and vitality. And there was only one way out of thishazardous manner of living, and that was to get out. The sealingfleet was wintering in San Francisco Bay, and in the saloons I metskippers, mates, hunters, boat-steerers, and boat-pullers. I metthe seal-hunter, Pete Holt, and agreed to be his boat-puller andto sign on any schooner he signed on. And I had to have half adozen drinks with Pete Holt there and then to seal our agreement.

　　And at once awoke all my old unrest that John Barleycorn had putto sleep. I found myself actually bored with the saloon life ofthe Oakland water-front, and wondered what I had ever foundfascinating in it. Also, with this death-road concept in mybrain, I began to grow afraid that something would happen to mebefore sailing day, which was set for some time in January. Ilived more circumspectly, drank less deeply, and went home morefrequently. When drinking grew too wild, I got out. When Nelsonwas in his maniacal cups, I managed to get separated from him.

　　On the 12th of January, 1893, I was seventeen, and the 20th ofJanuary I signed before the shipping commissioner the articles ofthe Sophie Sutherland, a three topmast sealing schooner bound on avoyage to the coast of Japan. And of course we had to drink onit. Joe Vigy cashed my advance note, and Pete Holt treated, and Itreated, and Joe Vigy treated, and other hunters treated. Well,it was the way of men, and who was I, just turned seventeen, thatI should decline the way of life of these fine, chesty, man-grownmen?