The Man behind the Legend: Memoirs, Autobiographical Novels & Essays of Jack London. Jack London
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yet, Mr. Pathurst,” was the reply, “though he nearly got them early this morning. Come on along, sir, and I’ll show you.”
Vouchsafing no further information, the second mate led the way along the bridge, across the ’midship-house and the for’ard-house. From the edge of the latter, looking down on Number One hatch, I saw two Japanese, with sail-needles and twine, sewing up a canvas-swathed bundle that unmistakably contained a human body.
“O’Sullivan used a razor,” said Mr. Mellaire.
“And that is Andy Fay?” I cried.
“No, sir, not Andy. That’s a Dutchman. Christian Jespersen was his name on the articles. He got in O’Sullivan’s way when O’Sullivan went after the boots. That’s what saved Andy. Andy was more active. Jespersen couldn’t get out of his own way, much less out of O’Sullivan’s. There’s Andy sitting over there.”
I followed Mr. Mellaire’s gaze, and saw the burnt-out, aged little Scotchman squatted on a spare spar and sucking a pipe. One arm was in a sling and his head was bandaged. Beside him squatted Mulligan Jacobs. They were a pair. Both were blue-eyed, and both were malevolent-eyed. And they were equally emaciated. It was easy to see that they had discovered early in the voyage their kinship of bitterness. Andy Fay, I knew, was sixty-three years old, although he looked a hundred; and Mulligan Jacobs, who was only about fifty, made up for the difference by the furnace-heat of hatred that burned in his face and eyes. I wondered if he sat beside the injured bitter one in some sense of sympathy, or if he were there in order to gloat.
Around the corner of the house strolled Shorty, flinging up to me his inevitable clown-grin. One hand was swathed in bandages.
“Must have kept Mr. Pike busy,” was my comment to Mr. Mellaire.
“He was sewing up cripples about all his watch from four till eight.”
“What?” I asked. “Are there any more?”
“One more, sir, a sheeny. I didn’t know his name before, but Mr. Pike got it—Isaac B. Chantz. I never saw in all my life at sea as many sheenies as are on board the Elsinore right now. Sheenies don’t take to the sea as a rule. We’ve certainly got more than our share of them. Chantz isn’t badly hurt, but you ought to hear him whimper.”
“Where’s O’Sullivan?” I inquired.
“In the ’midship-house with Davis, and without a mark. Mr. Pike got into the rumpus and put him to sleep with one on the jaw. And now he’s lashed down and talking in a trance. He’s thrown the fear of God into Davis. Davis is sitting up in his bunk with a marlin-spike, threatening to brain O’Sullivan if he starts to break loose, and complaining that it’s no way to run a hospital. He’d have padded cells, straitjackets, night and day nurses, and violent wards, I suppose—and a convalescents’ home in a Queen Anne cottage on the poop.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. “This is the funniest voyage and the funniest crew I’ve ever tackled. It’s not going to come to a good end. Anybody can see that with half an eye. It’ll be dead of winter off the Horn, and a fo’c’s’le full of lunatics and cripples to do the work.—Just take a look at that one. Crazy as a bedbug. He’s likely to go overboard any time.”
I followed his glance and saw Tony the Greek, the one who had sprung overboard the first day. He had just come around the corner of the house, and, beyond one arm in a sling, seemed in good condition. He walked easily and with strength, a testimonial to the virtues of Mr. Pike’s rough surgery.
My eyes kept returning to the canvas-covered body of Christian Jespersen, and to the Japanese who sewed with sail-twine his sailor’s shroud. One of them had his right hand in a huge wrapping of cotton and bandage.
“Did he get hurt, too?” I asked.
“No, sir. He’s the sail-maker. They’re both sail-makers. He’s a good one, too. Yatsuda is his name. But he’s just had blood-poisoning and lain in hospital in New York for eighteen months. He flatly refused to let them amputate. He’s all right now, but the hand is dead, all except the thumb and fore-finger, and he’s teaching himself to sew with his left hand. He’s as clever a sail-maker as you’ll find at sea.”
“A lunatic and a razor make a cruel combination,” I remarked.
“It’s put five men out of commission,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. “There’s O’Sullivan himself, and Christian Jespersen gone, and Andy Fay, and Shorty, and the sheeny. And the voyage not started yet. And there’s Lars with the broken leg, and Davis laid off for keeps—why, sir, we’ll soon be that weak it’ll take both watches to set a staysail.”
Nevertheless, while I talked in a matter-of-fact way with Mr. Mellaire, I was shocked—no; not because death was aboard with us. I have stood by my philosophic guns too long to be shocked by death, or by murder. What affected me was the utter, stupid bestiality of the affair. Even murder—murder for cause—I can understand. It is comprehensible that men should kill one another in the passion of love, of hatred, of patriotism, of religion. But this was different. Here was killing without cause, an orgy of blind-brutishness, a thing monstrously irrational.
Later on, strolling with Possum on the main deck, as I passed the open door of the hospital I heard the muttering chant of O’Sullivan, and peeped in. There he lay, lashed fast on his back in the lower bunk, rolling his eyes and raving. In the top bunk, directly above, lay Charles Davis, calmly smoking a pipe. I looked for the marlin-spike. There it was, ready to hand, on the bedding beside him.
“It’s hell, ain’t it, sir?” was his greeting. “And how am I goin’ to get any sleep with that baboon chattering away there. He never lets up—keeps his chin-music goin’ right along when he’s asleep, only worse. The way he grits his teeth is something awful. Now I leave it to you, sir, is it right to put a crazy like that in with a sick man? And I am a sick man.”
While he talked the massive form of Mr. Pike loomed beside me and halted just out of sight of the man in the bunk. And the man talked on.
“By rights, I oughta have that lower bunk. It hurts me to crawl up here. It’s inhumanity, that’s what it is, and sailors at sea are better protected by the law than they used to be. And I’ll have you for a witness to this before the court when we get to Seattle.”
Mr. Pike stepped into the doorway.
“Shut up, you damned sea-lawyer, you,” he snarled. “Haven’t you played a dirty trick enough comin’ on board this ship in your condition? And if I have anything more out of you . . . ”
Mr. Pike was so angry that he could not complete the threat. After spluttering for a moment he made a fresh attempt.
“You . . . you . . . well, you annoy me, that’s what you do.”
“I know the law, sir,” Davis answered promptly. “I worked full able seaman on this here ship. All hands can testify to that. I was aloft from the start. Yes, sir, and up to my neck in salt water day and night. And you had me below trimmin’ coal. I did full duty and more, until this sickness got me—”
“You were petrified and rotten before you ever saw this ship,” Mr. Pike broke in.
“The court’ll decide that, sir,” replied the imperturbable Davis.
“And if you go to shoutin’ off your sea-lawyer mouth,” Mr. Pike continued, “I’ll jerk you out of that and show you what real work is.”
“An’ lay the owners open for lovely damages when we get in,” Davis sneered.
“Not if I bury you before we get in,” was the mate’s quick, grim retort. “And let me tell you, Davis, you ain’t the first sea-lawyer I’ve dropped over the side with a sack of coal to his feet.”
Mr. Pike turned, with a final “Damned sea-lawyer!” and started along the deck. I was walking behind him when he stopped abruptly.
“Mr. Pathurst.”
Not as an officer to a passenger