Chapter XVII

by Jack London

　　North we raced from the Bonin Islands to pick up the seal-herd,and north we hunted it for a hundred days into frosty, mittenweather and into and through vast fogs which hid the sun from usfor a week at a time. It was wild and heavy work, without a drinkor thought of drink. Then we sailed south to Yokohama, with a bigcatch of skins in our salt and a heavy pay-day coming.

　　I was eager to be ashore and see Japan, but the first day wasdevoted to ship's work, and not until evening did we sailors land.And here, by the very system of things, by the way life wasorganised and men transacted affairs, John Barleycorn reached outand tucked my arm in his. The captain had given money for us tothe hunters, and the hunters were waiting in a certain Japanesepublic house for us to come and get it. We rode to the place inrickshaws. Our own crowd had taken possession of it. Drink wasflowing. Everybody had money, and everybody was treating. Afterthe hundred days of hard toil and absolute abstinence, in the pinkof physical condition, bulging with health, over-spilling withspirits that had long been pent by discipline and circumstance, ofcourse we would have a drink or two. And after that we would seethe town.

　　It was the old story. There were so many drinks to be drunk, andas the warm magic poured through our veins and mellowed our voicesand affections we knew it was no time to make invidiousdistinctions--to drink with this shipmate and to decline to drinkwith that shipmate. We were all shipmates who had been throughstress and storm together, who had pulled and hauled on the samesheets and tackles, relieved one another's wheels, laid out sideby side on the same jib-boom when she was plunging into it andlooked to see who was missing when she cleared and lifted. So wedrank with all, and all treated, and our voices rose, and weremembered a myriad kindly acts of comradeship, and forgot ourfights and wordy squabbles, and knew one another for the bestfellows in the world.

　　Well, the night was young when we arrived in that public house,and for all of that first night that public house was what I sawof Japan--a drinking-place which was very like a drinking-place athome or anywhere else over the world.

　　We lay in Yokohama harbour for two weeks, and about all we saw ofJapan was its drinking-places where sailors congregated.Occasionally, some one of us varied the monotony with a moreexciting drunk. In such fashion I managed a real exploit byswimming off to the schooner one dark midnight and going soundlyto sleep while the water-police searched the harbour for my bodyand brought my clothes out for identification.

　　Perhaps it was for things like that, I imagined, that men gotdrunk. In our little round of living what I had done was anoteworthy event. All the harbour talked about it. I enjoyedseveral days of fame among the Japanese boatmen and ashore in thepubs. It was a red-letter event. It was an event to beremembered and narrated with pride. I remember it to-day, twentyyears afterward, with a secret glow of pride. It was a purplepassage, just as Victor's wrecking of the tea-house in the BoninIslands and my being looted by the runaway apprentices were purplepassages.

　　The point is that the charm of John Barleycorn was still a mysteryto me. I was so organically a non-alcoholic that alcohol itselfmade no appeal; the chemical reactions it produced in me were notsatisfying because I possessed no need for such chemicalsatisfaction. I drank because the men I was with drank, andbecause my nature was such that I could not permit myself to beless of a man than other men at their favourite pastime. And Istill had a sweet tooth, and on privy occasions when there was noman to see, bought candy and blissfully devoured it.

　　We hove up anchor to a jolly chanty, and sailed out of Yokohamaharbour for San Francisco. We took the northern passage, and withthe stout west wind at our back made the run across the Pacific inthirty-seven days of brave sailing. We still had a big pay-daycoming to us, and for thirty-seven days, without a drink to addleour mental processes, we incessantly planned the spending of ourmoney.

　　The first statement of each man--ever an ancient one in homeward-bound forecastles--was: "No boarding-house sharks in mine." Next,in parentheses, was regret at having spent so much money inYokohama. And after that, each man proceeded to paint hisfavourite phantom. Victor, for instance, said that immediately helanded in San Francisco he would pass right through the water-front and the Barbary Coast, and put an advertisement in thepapers. His advertisement would be for board and room in somesimple working-class family. "Then," said Victor, "I shall go tosome dancing-school for a week or two, just to meet and getacquainted with the girls and fellows. Then I'll get the run ofthe different dancing crowds, and be invited to their homes, andto parties, and all that, and with the money I've got I can lastout till next January, when I'll go sealing again."

　　No; he wasn't going to drink. He knew the way of it, particularlyhis way of it, wine in, wit out, and his money would be gone in notime. He had his choice, based on bitter experience, betweenthree days' debauch among the sharks and harpies of the BarbaryCoast and a whole winter of wholesome enjoyment and sociability,and there wasn't any doubt of the way he was going to choose.

　　Said Axel Gunderson, who didn't care for dancing and socialfunctions: "I've got a good pay-day. Now I can go home. It isfifteen years since I've seen my mother and all the family. WhenI pay off, I shall send my money home to wait for me. Then I'llpick a good ship bound for Europe, and arrive there with anotherpay-day. Put them together, and I'll have more money than ever inmy life before. I'll be a prince at home. You haven't any ideahow cheap everything is in Norway. I can make presents toeverybody, and spend my money like what would seem to them amillionaire, and live a whole year there before I'd have to goback to sea."

　　"The very thing I'm going to do," declared Red John. "It's threeyears since I've received a line from home and ten years since Iwas there. Things are just as cheap in Sweden, Axel, as inNorway, and my folks are real country folk and farmers. I'll sendmy pay-day home and ship on the same ship with you for around theHorn. We'll pick a good one."

　　And as Axel Gunderson and Red John painted the pastoral delightsand festive customs of their respective countries, each fell inlove with the other's home place, and they solemnly pledged tomake the journey together, and to spend, together, six months inthe one's Swedish home and six months in the other's Norwegianhome. And for the rest of the voyage they could hardly be priedapart, so infatuated did they become with discussing their plans.

　　Long John was not a home-body. But he was tired of theforecastle. No boarding-house sharks in his. He, too, would geta room in a quiet family, and he would go to a navigation schooland study to be a captain. And so it went. Each man swore thatfor once he would be sensible and not squander his money. Noboarding-house sharks, no sailor-town, no drink, was the slogan ofour forecastle.

　　The men became stingy. Never was there such economy. Theyrefused to buy anything more from the slopchest. Old rags had tolast, and they sewed patch upon patch, turning out what are called"homeward-bound patches " of the most amazing proportions. Theysaved on matches, even, waiting till two or three were ready tolight their pipes from the same match.

　　As we sailed up the San Francisco water-front, the moment the portdoctors passed us, the boarding-house runners were alongside inwhitehall boats. They swarmed on board, each drumming for his ownboarding-house, and each with a bottle of free whisky inside hisshirt. But we waved them grandly and blasphemously away. Wewanted none of their boarding-houses and none of their whisky. Wewere sober, thrifty sailormen, with better use for our money.

　　Came the paying off before the shipping commissioner. We emergedupon the sidewalk, each with a pocketful of money. About us, likebuzzards, clustered the sharks and harpies. And we looked at eachother. We had been seven months together, and our paths wereseparating. One last farewell rite of comradeship remained. (Oh,it was the way, the custom.) "Come on, boys," said our sailingmaster. There stood the inevitable adjacent saloon. There were adozen saloons all around. And when we had followed the sailingmaster into the one of his choice, the sharks were thick on thesidewalk outside. Some of them even ventured inside, but we wouldhave nothing to do with them.

　　There we stood at the long bar--the sailing master, the mate, thesix hunters, the six boat-steerers, and the five boat-pullers.There were only five of the last, for one of our number had beendropped overboard, with a sack of coal at his feet, between twosnow squalls in a driving gale off Cape Jerimo. There werenineteen of us, and it was to be our last drink together. Withseven months of men's work in the world, blow high, blow low,behind us, we were looking on each other for the last time. Weknew it, for sailors' ways go wide. And the nineteen of us, drankthe sailing master's treat. Then the mate looked at us witheloquent eyes and called another round. We liked the mate just aswell as the sailing master, and we liked them both. Could wedrink with one, and not the other?

　　And Pete Holt, my own hunter (lost next year in the Mary Thomas,with all hands), called a round. The time passed, the drinkscontinued to come on the bar, our voices rose, and the maggotsbegan to crawl. There were six hunters, and each insisted, in thesacred name of comradeship, that all hands drink with him justonce. There were six boat-steerers and five boat-pullers and thesame logic held with them. There was money in all our pockets,and our money was as good as any man's, and our hearts were asfree and generous.

　　Nineteen rounds of drinks. What more would John Barleycorn ask inorder to have his will with men? They were ripe to forget theirdearly cherished plans. They rolled out of the saloon and intothe arms of the sharks and harpies. They didn't last long. Fromtwo days to a week saw the end of their money and saw them beingcarted by the boarding-house masters on board outward-bound ships.Victor was a fine body of a man, and through a lucky friendshipmanaged to get into the life-saving service. He never saw thedancing-school nor placed his advertisement for a room in aworking-class family. Nor did Long John win to navigation school.By the end of the week he was a transient lumper on a riversteamboat. Red John and Axel did not send their pay-days home tothe old country. Instead, and along with the rest, they werescattered on board sailing ships bound for the four quarters ofthe globe, where they had been placed by the boarding-housemasters, and where they were working out advance money which theyhad neither seen nor spent.

　　What saved me was that I had a home and people to go to. Icrossed the bay to Oakland, and, among other things, took a lookat the death-road. Nelson was gone--shot to death while drunk andresisting the officers. His partner in that affair was lying inprison. Whisky Bob was gone. Old Cole, Old Smoudge, and BobSmith were gone. Another Smith, he of the belted guns and theAnnie, was drowned. French Frank, they said, was lurking upriver, afraid to come down because of something he had done.Others were wearing the stripes in San Quentin or Folsom. BigAlec, the King of the Greeks, whom I had known well in the oldBenicia days, and with whom I had drunk whole nights through, hadkilled two men and fled to foreign parts. Fitzsimmons, with whomI had sailed on the Fish Patrol, had been stabbed in the lungthrough the back and had died a lingering death complicated withtuberculosis. And so it went, a very lively and well-patronisedroad, and, from what I knew of all of them, John Barleycorn wasresponsible, with the sole exception of Smith of the Annie.