Chapter 13

by Jack London

　　Chapter XIII

　　For three days I did my own work and Thomas Mugridge's too; and Iflatter myself that I did his work well. I know that it won WolfLarsen's approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfactionduring the brief time my regime lasted.

　　"The first clean bite since I come aboard," Harrison said to me atthe galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans from theforecastle. "Somehow Tommy's grub always tastes of grease, stalegrease, and I reckon he ain't changed his shirt since he left'Frisco."

　　"I know he hasn't," I answered.

　　"And I'll bet he sleeps in it," Harrison added.

　　"And you won't lose," I agreed. "The same shirt, and he hasn't hadit off once in all this time."

　　But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recoverfrom the effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore,scarcely able to see, so closed were his eyes, he was haled fromhis bunk by the nape of the neck and set to his duty. He sniffledand wept, but Wolf Larsen was pitiless.

　　"And see that you serve no more slops," was his parting injunction."No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, oryou'll get a tow over the side. Understand?"

　　Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a shortlurch of the Ghost sent him staggering. In attempting to recoverhimself, he reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stoveand kept the pots from sliding off; but he missed the railing, andhis hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hotsurface. There was a sizzle and odour of burning flesh, and asharp cry of pain.

　　"Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot 'ave I done?" he wailed; sitting down in thecoal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. "W'y'as all this come on me? It mykes me fair sick, it does, an' I tryso 'ard to go through life 'armless an' 'urtin' nobody."

　　The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, andhis face was drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted acrossit.

　　"Oh, 'ow I 'ate 'im! 'Ow I 'ate 'im!" he gritted out.

　　"Whom?" I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again over hismisfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated thanwhom he did not hate. For I had come to see a malignant devil inhim which impelled him to hate all the world. I sometimes thoughtthat he hated even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him,and so monstrously. At such moments a great sympathy welled upwithin me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed in hisdiscomfiture or pain. Life had been unfair to him. It had playedhim a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the thing he was, andit had played him scurvy tricks ever since. What chance had he tobe anything else than he was? And as though answering my unspokenthought, he wailed:

　　"I never 'ad no chance, not 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to sendme to school, or put tommy in my 'ungry belly, or wipe my bloodynose for me, w'en I was a kiddy? 'Oo ever did anything for me,heh? 'Oo, I s'y?"

　　"Never mind, Tommy," I said, placing a soothing hand on hisshoulder. "Cheer up. It'll all come right in the end. You'velong years before you, and you can make anything you please ofyourself."

　　"It's a lie! a bloody lie!" he shouted in my face, flinging off thehand. "It's a lie, and you know it. I'm already myde, an' mydeout of leavin's an' scraps. It's all right for you, 'Ump. You wasborn a gentleman. You never knew wot it was to go 'ungry, to cryyerself asleep with yer little belly gnawin' an' gnawin', like arat inside yer. It carn't come right. If I was President of theUnited Stytes to-morrer, 'ow would it fill my belly for one timew'en I was a kiddy and it went empty?

　　"'Ow could it, I s'y? I was born to sufferin' and sorrer. I'vehad more cruel sufferin' than any ten men, I 'ave. I've been inorspital arf my bleedin' life. I've 'ad the fever in Aspinwall, in'Avana, in New Orleans. I near died of the scurvy and was rottenwith it six months in Barbadoes. Smallpox in 'Onolulu, two brokenlegs in Shanghai, pnuemonia in Unalaska, three busted ribs an' myinsides all twisted in 'Frisco. An' 'ere I am now. Look at me!Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from my back again. I'll becoughin' blood before eyght bells. 'Ow can it be myde up to me, Iarsk? 'Oo's goin' to do it? Gawd? 'Ow Gawd must 'ave 'ated mew'en 'e signed me on for a voyage in this bloomin' world of 'is!"

　　This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and thenhe buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes agreat hatred for all created things. His diagnosis was correct,however, for he was seized with occasional sicknesses, during whichhe vomited blood and suffered great pain. And as he said, itseemed God hated him too much to let him die, for he ultimatelygrew better and waxed more malignant than ever.

　　Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and wentabout his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, andI more than once observed him creeping painfully aloft to atopsail, or drooping wearily as he stood at the wheel. But, stillworse, it seemed that his spirit was broken. He was abject beforeWolf Larsen and almost grovelled to Johansen. Not so was theconduct of Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger cub, glaringhis hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen.

　　"I'll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede," I heard him say toJohansen one night on deck.

　　The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment somemissile struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, anda mocking laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found aheavy knife imbedded over an inch in the solid wood. A few minuteslater the mate came fumbling about in search of it, but I returnedit privily to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over,yet it was a grin that contained more sincere thanks than amultitude of the verbosities of speech common to the members of myown class.

　　Unlike any one else in the ship's company, I now found myself withno quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunterspossibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them dislikedme; while Smoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning andswinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I wasbetter than any hospital nurse, and that they would not forget meat the end of the voyage when they were paid off. (As though Istood in need of their money! I, who could have bought them out,bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score oftimes over!) But upon me had devolved the task of tending theirwounds, and pulling them through, and I did my best by them.

　　Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lastedtwo days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in andobeyed my commands like a sick child. But nothing I could doseemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, however, he gave upsmoking and drinking; though why such a magnificent animal as heshould have headaches at all puzzles me.

　　"'Tis the hand of God, I'm tellin' you," is the way Louis sees it."'Tis a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, and there's morebehind and comin', or else - "

　　"Or else," I prompted.

　　"God is noddin' and not doin' his duty, though it's me as shouldn'tsay it."

　　I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all.Not only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he hasdiscovered a new reason for hating me. It took me no little whileto puzzle it out, but I finally discovered that it was because Iwas more luckily born than he - "gentleman born," he put it.

　　"And still no more dead men," I twitted Louis, when Smoke andHenderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their firstexercise on deck.

　　Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his headportentously. "She's a-comin', I tell you, and it'll be sheets andhalyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I've hadthe feel iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly asI feel the rigging iv a dark night. She's close, she's close."

　　"Who goes first?" I queried.

　　"Not fat old Louis, I promise you," he laughed. "For 'tis in thebones iv me I know that come this time next year I'll be gazin' inthe old mother's eyes, weary with watchin' iv the sea for the fivesons she gave to it."

　　"Wot's 'e been s'yin' to yer?" Thomas Mugridge demanded a momentlater.

　　"That he's going home some day to see his mother," I answereddiplomatically.

　　"I never 'ad none," was the Cockney's comment, as he gazed withlustreless, hopeless eyes into mine.