Chapter XVI

by Jack London

　　There was nothing to drink on the Sophie Sutherland, and we hadfifty-one days of glorious sailing, taking the southern passage inthe north-east trades to Bonin Islands. This isolated group,belonging to Japan, had been selected as the rendezvous of theCanadian and American sealing fleets. Here they filled theirwater-barrels and made repairs before starting on the hundreddays' harrying of the seal-herd along the northern coasts of Japanto Behring Sea.

　　Those fifty-one days of fine sailing and intense sobriety had putme in splendid fettle. The alcohol had been worked out of mysystem, and from the moment the voyage began I had not known thedesire for a drink. I doubt if I even thought once about a drink.Often, of course, the talk in the forecastle turned on drink, andthe men told of their more exciting or humorous drunks,remembering such passages more keenly, with greater delight, thanall the other passages of their adventurous lives.

　　In the forecastle, the oldest man, fat and fifty, was Louis. Hewas a broken skipper. John Barleycorn had thrown him, and he waswinding up his career where he had begun it, in the forecastle.His case made quite an impression on me. John Barleycorn didother things beside kill a man. He hadn't killed Louis. He haddone much worse. He had robbed him of power and place andcomfort, crucified his pride, and condemned him to the hardship ofthe common sailor that would last as long as his healthy breathlasted, which promised to be for a long time.

　　We completed our run across the Pacific, lifted the volcanicpeaks, jungle-clad, of the Bonin Islands, sailed in among thereefs to the land-locked harbour, and let our anchor rumble downwhere lay a score or more of sea-gypsies like ourselves. Thescents of strange vegetation blew off the tropic land.Aborigines, in queer outrigger canoes, and Japanese, in queerersampans, paddled about the bay and came aboard. It was my firstforeign land; I had won to the other side of the world, and Iwould see all I had read in the books come true. I was wild toget ashore.

　　Victor and Axel, a Swede and a Norwegian, and I planned to keeptogether. (And so well did we, that for the rest of the cruise wewere known as the "Three Sports.") Victor pointed out a pathwaythat disappeared up a wild canyon, emerged on a steep bare lavaslope, and thereafter appeared and disappeared, ever climbing,among the palms and flowers. We would go over that path, he said,and we agreed, and we would see beautiful scenery, and strangenative villages, and find, Heaven alone knew, what adventure atthe end. And Axel was keen to go fishing. The three of us agreedto that, too. We would get a sampan, and a couple of Japanesefishermen who knew the fishing grounds, and we would have greatsport. As for me, I was keen for anything.

　　And then, our plans made, we rowed ashore over the banks of livingcoral and pulled our boat up the white beach of coral sand. Wewalked across the fringe of beach under the cocoanut-palms andinto the little town, and found several hundred riotous seamenfrom all the world, drinking prodigiously, singing prodigiously,dancing prodigiously--and all on the main street to the scandal ofa helpless handful of Japanese police.

　　Victor and Axel said that we'd have a drink before we started onour long walk. Could I decline to drink with these two chestyshipmates? Drinking together, glass in hand, put the seal oncomradeship. It was the way of life. Our teetotaler owner-captain was laughed at, and sneered at, by all of us because ofhis teetotalism. I didn't in the least want a drink, but I didwant to be a good fellow and a good comrade. Nor did Louis' casedeter me, as I poured the biting, scorching stuff down my throat.John Barleycorn had thrown Louis to a nasty fall, but I was young.My blood ran full and red; I had a constitution of iron; and--well, youth ever grins scornfully at the wreckage of age.

　　Queer, fierce, alcoholic stuff it was that we drank. There was notelling where or how it had been manufactured--some nativeconcoction most likely. But it was hot as fire, pale as water,and quick as death with its kick. It had been filled into empty"square-face" bottles which had once contained Holland gin, andwhich still bore the fitting legend "Anchor Brand." It certainlyanchored us. We never got out of the town. We never went fishingin the sampan. And though we were there ten days, we never trodthat wild path along the lava cliffs and among the flowers.

　　We met old acquaintances from other schooners, fellows we had metin the saloons of San Francisco before we sailed. And eachmeeting meant a drink; and there was much to talk about; and moredrinks; and songs to be sung; and pranks and antics to beperformed, until the maggots of imagination began to crawl, and itall seemed great and wonderful to me, these lusty hard-bitten sea-rovers, of whom I made one, gathered in wassail on a coral strand.Old lines about knights at table in the great banquet halls, andof those above the salt and below the salt, and of Vikingsfeasting fresh from sea and ripe for battle, came to me; and Iknew that the old times were not dead and that we belonged to thatselfsame ancient breed.

　　By mid-afternoon Victor went mad with drink, and wanted to fighteverybody and everything. I have since seen lunatics in theviolent wards of asylums that seemed to behave in no wisedifferent from Victor's way, save that perhaps he was moreviolent. Axel and I interfered as peacemakers, were roughed andjostled in the mix-ups, and finally, with infinite precaution andintoxicated cunning, succeeded in inveigling our chum down to theboat and in rowing him aboard our schooner.

　　But no sooner did Victor's feet touch the deck than he began toclean up the ship. He had the strength of several men, and he ranamuck with it. I remember especially one man whom he got into thechain-boxes but failed to damage through inability to hit him.The man dodged and ducked, and Victor broke all the knuckles ofboth his fists against the huge links of the anchor chain. By thetime we dragged him out of that, his madness had shifted to thebelief that he was a great swimmer, and the next moment he wasoverboard and demonstrating his ability by floundering like a sickporpoise and swallowing much salt water.

　　We rescued him, and by the time we got him below, undressed, andinto his bunk, we were wrecks ourselves. But Axel and I wanted tosee more of shore, and away we went, leaving Victor snoring. Itwas curious, the judgment passed on Victor by his shipmates,drinkers themselves. They shook their heads disapprovingly andmuttered: "A man like that oughtn't to drink." Now Victor was thesmartest sailor and best-tempered shipmate in the forecastle. Hewas an all-round splendid type of seaman; his mates recognised hisworth, and respected him and liked him. Yet John Barleycornmetamorphosed him into a violent lunatic. And that was the verypoint these drinkers made. They knew that drink--and drink with asailor is always excessive--made them mad, but only mildly mad.Violent madness was objectionable because it spoiled the fun ofothers and often culminated in tragedy. From their standpoint,mild madness was all right. But from the standpoint of the wholehuman race, is not all madness objectionable? And is there agreater maker of madness of all sorts than John Barleycorn?

　　But to return. Ashore, snugly ensconced in a Japanese house ofentertainment, Axel and I compared bruises, and over a comfortabledrink talked of the afternoon's happenings. We liked thequietness of that drink and took another. A shipmate dropped in,several shipmates dropped in, and we had more quiet drinks.Finally, just as we had engaged a Japanese orchestra, and as thefirst strains of the samisens and taikos were rising, through thepaper-walls came a wild howl from the street. We recognised it.Still howling, disdaining doorways, with blood-shot eyes andwildly waving muscular arms, Victor burst upon us through thefragile walls. The old amuck rage was on him, and he wantedblood, anybody's blood. The orchestra fled; so did we. We wentthrough doorways, and we went through paper-walls--anything to getaway.

　　And after the place was half wrecked, and we had agreed to pay thedamage, leaving Victor partly subdued and showing symptoms oflapsing into a comatose state, Axel and I wandered away in questof a quieter drinking-place. The main street was a madness.Hundreds of sailors rollicked up and down. Because the chief ofpolice with his small force was helpless, the governor of thecolony had issued orders to the captains to have all their men onboard by sunset.

　　What! To be treated in such fashion! As the news spread among theschooners, they were emptied. Everybody came ashore. Men who hadhad no intention of coming ashore climbed into the boats. Theunfortunate governor's ukase had precipitated a general debauchfor all hands. It was hours after sunset, and the men wanted tosee anybody try to put them on board. They went around invitingthe authorities to try to put them on board. In front of thegovernor's house they were gathered thickest, bawling sea-songs,circulating square faces, and dancing uproarious Virginia reelsand old-country dances. The police, including the reserves, stoodin little forlorn groups, waiting for the command the governor wastoo wise to issue. And I thought this saturnalia was great. Itwas like the old days of the Spanish Main come back. It waslicense; it was adventure. And I was part of it, a chesty sea-rover along with all these other chesty sea-rovers among the paperhouses of Japan.

　　The governor never issued the order to clear the streets, and Axeland I wandered on from drink to drink. After a time, in some ofthe antics, getting hazy myself, I lost him. I drifted along,making new acquaintances, downing more drinks, getting hazier andhazier. I remember, somewhere, sitting in a circle with Japanesefishermen, Kanaka boat-steerers from our own vessels, and a youngDanish sailor fresh from cowboying in the Argentine and with apenchant for native customs and ceremonials. And with due andproper and most intricate Japanese ceremonial we of the circledrank saki, pale, mild, and lukewarm, from tiny porcelain bowls.

　　And, later, I remember the runaway apprentices--boys of eighteenand twenty, of middle class English families, who had jumped theirships and apprenticeships in various ports of the world anddrifted into the forecastles of the sealing schooners. They werehealthy, smooth-skinned, clear-eyed, and they were young--youthslike me, learning the way of their feet in the world of men. Andthey were men. No mild saki for them, but square faces illicitlyrefilled with corrosive fire that flamed through their veins andburst into conflagrations in their heads. I remember a meltingsong they sang, the refrain of which was:

　　"'Tis but a little golden ring, I give it to thee with pride, Wear it for your mother's sake When you are on the tide."They wept over it as they sang it, the graceless young scamps whohad all broken their mothers' prides, and I sang with them, andwept with them, and luxuriated in the pathos and the tragedy ofit, and struggled to make glimmering inebriated generalisations onlife and romance. And one last picture I have, standing out veryclear and bright in the midst of vagueness before and blacknessafterward. We--the apprentices and I--are swaying and clinging toone another under the stars. We are singing a rollicking seasong, all save one who sits on the ground and weeps; and we aremarking the rhythm with waving square faces. From up and down thestreet come far choruses of sea-voices similarly singing, and lifeis great, and beautiful and romantic, and magnificently mad.

　　And next, after the blackness, I open my eyes in the early dawn tosee a Japanese woman, solicitously anxious, bending over me. Sheis the port pilot's wife and I am lying in her doorway. I amchilled and shivering, sick with the after-sickness of debauch.And I feel lightly clad. Those rascals of runaway apprentices!They have acquired the habit of running away. They have run awaywith my possessions. My watch is gone. My few dollars are gone.My coat is gone. So is my belt. And yes, my shoes.

　　And the foregoing is a sample of the ten days I spent in the BoninIslands. Victor got over his lunacy, rejoined Axel and me, andafter that we caroused somewhat more discreetly. And we neverclimbed that lava path among the flowers. The town and the squarefaces were all we saw.

　　One who has been burned by fire must preach about the fire. Imight have seen and healthily enjoyed a whole lot more of theBonin Islands, if I had done what I ought to have done. But, as Isee it, it is not a matter of what one ought to do, or ought notto do. It is what one does do. That is the everlasting,irrefragable fact. I did just what I did. I did what all thosemen did in the Bonin Islands. I did what millions of men over theworld were doing at that particular point in time. I did itbecause the way led to it, because I was only a human boy, acreature of my environment, and neither an anaemic nor a god. Iwas just human, and I was taking the path in the world that mentook--men whom I admired, if you please; full-blooded men, lusty,breedy, chesty men, free spirits and anything but niggards in theway they foamed life away.

　　And the way was open. It was like an uncovered well in a yardwhere children play. It is small use to tell the brave littleboys toddling their way along into knowledge of life that theymustn't play near the uncovered well. They'll play near it. Anyparent knows that. And we know that a certain percentage of them,the livest and most daring, will fall into the well. The thing todo--we all know it--is to cover up the well. The case is the samewith John Barleycorn. All the no-saying and no-preaching in theworld will fail to keep men, and youths growing into manhood, awayfrom John Barleycorn when John Barleycorn is everywhereaccessible, and where John Barleycorn is everywhere theconnotation of manliness, and daring, and great-spiritedness.

　　The only rational thing for the twentieth-century folk to do is tocover up the well; to make the twentieth century in truth thetwentieth century, and to relegate to the nineteenth century andall the preceding centuries the things of those centuries, thewitch-burnings, the intolerances, the fetiches, and, not leastamong such barbarisms. John Barleycorn.