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Home -> Jack London -> That Dead Men Rise Up Never

That Dead Men Rise Up Never

Short Stories

A Curious Fragment

A Day's lodging

A Nose for the king

A Piece of Steak

A Wicked Woman

All Gold Canyon

Brown Wolf

Created He Them

Four Horses and a Sailor

Just Meat

Love of life

Make Westing

Nam-Bok the Unveracious

Negore, the coward

Nothing That Ever Came to Anything

Semper Idem

Small-Boat Sailing

That Dead Men Rise Up Never

That spot

The "Francis Spaight"

The Apostate

The Chinago

The Heathen

The Hobo and the Fairy

The Human Drift

The story of Keesh

The Sun-Dog Trail

The Unexpected

The white man's way

Trust

When God Laughs

Yellow Handkerchief







The month in which my seventeenth birthday arrived I signed on
before the mast on the Sophie Sutherland, a three-topmast schooner
bound on a seven-months' seal-hunting cruise to the coast of
Japan. We sailed from San Francisco, and immediately I found
confronting me a problem of no inconsiderable proportions. There
were twelve men of us in the forecastle, ten of whom were
hardened, tarry-thumbed sailors. Not alone was I a youth and on
my first voyage, but I had for shipmates men who had come through
the hard school of the merchant service of Europe. As boys, they
had had to perform their ship's duty, and, in addition, by
immemorial sea custom, they had had to be the slaves of the
ordinary and able-bodied seamen. When they became ordinary seamen
they were still the slaves of the able-bodied. Thus, in the
forecastle, with the watch below, an able seaman, lying in his
bunk, will order an ordinary seaman to fetch him his shoes or
bring him a drink of water. Now the ordinary seaman may be lying
in HIS bunk. He is just as tired as the able seaman. Yet he must
get out of his bunk and fetch and carry. If he refuses, he will
be beaten. If, perchance, he is so strong that he can whip the
able seaman, then all the able seamen, or as many as may be
necessary, pitch upon the luckless devil and administer the
beating.

My problem now becomes apparent. These hard-bit Scandinavian
sailors had come through a hard school. As boys they had served
their mates, and as able seamen they looked to be served by other
boys. I was a boy--withal with a man's body. I had never been to
sea before--withal I was a good sailor and knew my business. It
was either a case of holding my own with them or of going under.
I had signed on as an equal, and an equal I must maintain myself,
or else endure seven months of hell at their hands. And it was
this very equality they resented. By what right was I an equal?
I had not earned that high privilege. I had not endured the
miseries they had endured as maltreated boys or bullied
ordinaries. Worse than that, I was a land-lubber making his first
voyage. And yet, by the injustice of fate, on the ship's articles
I was their equal.

My method was deliberate, and simple, and drastic. In the first
place, I resolved to do my work, no matter how hard or dangerous
it might be, so well that no man would be called upon to do it for
me. Further, I put ginger in my muscles. I never malingered when
pulling on a rope, for I knew the eagle eyes of my forecastle
mates were squinting for just such evidences of my inferiority. I
made it a point to be among the first of the watch going on deck,
among the last going below, never leaving a sheet or tackle for
some one else to coil over a pin. I was always eager for the run
aloft for the shifting of topsail sheets and tacks, or for the
setting or taking in of topsails; and in these matters I did more
than my share.

Furthermore, I was on a hair-trigger of resentment myself. I knew
better than to accept any abuse or the slightest patronizing. At
the first hint of such, I went off-- I exploded. I might be
beaten in the subsequent fight, but I left the impression that I
was a wild-cat and that I would just as willingly fight again. My
intention was to demonstrate that I would tolerate no imposition.
I proved that the man who imposed on me must have a fight on his
hands. And doing my work well, the innate justice of the men,
assisted by their wholesome dislike for a clawing and rending
wild-cat ruction, soon led them to give over their hectoring.
After a bit of strife, my attitude was accepted, and it was my
pride that I was taken in as an equal in spirit as well as in
fact. From then on, everything was beautiful, and the voyage
promised to be a happy one.

But there was one other man in the forecastle. Counting the
Scandinavians as ten, and myself as the eleventh, this man was the
twelfth and last. We never knew his name, contenting ourselves
with calling him the "Bricklayer." He was from Missouri--at least
he so informed us in the one meagre confidence he was guilty of in
the early days of the voyage. Also, at that time, we learned
several other things. He was a brick-layer by trade. He had
never even seen salt water until the week before he joined us, at
which time he had arrived in San Francisco and looked upon San
Francisco Bay. Why he, of all men, at forty years of age, should
have felt the prod to go to sea, was beyond all of us; for it was
our unanimous conviction that no man less fitted for the sea had
ever embarked on it. But to sea he had come. After a week's stay
in a sailors' boarding-house, he had been shoved aboard of us as
an able seaman.

All hands had to do his work for him. Not only did he know
nothing, but he proved himself unable to learn anything. Try as
they would, they could never teach him to steer. To him the
compass must have been a profound and awful whirligig. He never
mastered its cardinal points, much less the checking and steadying
of the ship on her course. He never did come to know whether
ropes should be coiled from left to right or from right to left.
It was mentally impossible for him to learn the easy muscular
trick of throwing his weight on a rope in pulling and hauling.
The simplest knots and turns were beyond his comprehension, while
he was mortally afraid of going aloft. Bullied by captain and
mate, he was one day forced aloft. He managed to get underneath
the crosstrees, and there he froze to the ratlines. Two sailors
had to go after him to help him down.

All of which was bad enough had there been no worse. But he was
vicious, malignant, dirty, and without common decency. He was a
tall, powerful man, and he fought with everybody. And there was
no fairness in his fighting. His first fight on board, the first
day out, was with me, when he, desiring to cut a plug of chewing
tobacco, took my personal table-knife for the purpose, and
whereupon, I, on a hair-trigger, promptly exploded. After that he
fought with nearly every member of the crew. When his clothing
became too filthy to be bearable by the rest of us, we put it to
soak and stood over him while he washed it. In short, the
Bricklayer was one of those horrible and monstrous things that one
must see in order to be convinced that they exist.

I will only say that he was a beast, and that we treated him like
a beast. It is only by looking back through the years that I
realise how heartless we were to him. He was without sin. He
could not, by the very nature of things, have been anything else
than he was. He had not made himself, and for his making he was
not responsible. Yet we treated him as a free agent and held him
personally responsible for all that he was and that he should not
have been. As a result, our treatment of him was as terrible as
he was himself terrible. Finally we gave him the silent
treatment, and for weeks before he died we neither spoke to him
nor did he speak to us. And for weeks he moved among us, or lay
in his bunk in our crowded house, grinning at us his hatred and
malignancy. He was a dying man, and he knew it, and we knew it.
And furthermore, he knew that we wanted him to die. He cumbered
our life with his presence, and ours was a rough life that made
rough men of us. And so he died, in a small space crowded by
twelve men and as much alone as if he had died on some desolate
mountain peak. No kindly word, no last word, was passed between.
He died as he had lived, a beast, and he died hating us and hated
by us.

And now I come to the most startling moment of my life. No sooner
was he dead than he was flung overboard. He died in a night of
wind, drawing his last breath as the men tumbled into their
oilskins to the cry of "All hands!" And he was flung overboard,
several hours later, on a day of wind. Not even a canvas wrapping
graced his mortal remains; nor was he deemed worthy of bars of
iron at his feet. We sewed him up in the blankets in which he
died and laid him on a hatch-cover for'ard of the main-hatch on
the port side. A gunnysack, half full of galley coal, was
fastened to his feet.

It was bitter cold. The weather-side of every rope, spar, and
stay was coated with ice, while all the rigging was a harp,
singing and shouting under the fierce hand of the wind. The
schooner, hove to, lurched and floundered through the sea, rolling
her scuppers under and perpetually flooding the deck with icy salt
water. We of the forecastle stood in sea-boots and oilskins. Our
hands were mittened, but our heads were bared in the presence of
the death we did not respect. Our ears stung and numbed and
whitened, and we yearned for the body to be gone. But the
interminable reading of the burial service went on. The captain
had mistaken his place, and while he read on without purpose we
froze our ears and resented this final hardship thrust upon us by
the helpless cadaver. As from the beginning, so to the end,
everything had gone wrong with the Bricklayer. Finally, the
captain's son, irritated beyond measure, jerked the book from the
palsied fingers of the old man and found the place. Again the
quavering voice of the captain arose. Then came the cue: "And
the body shall be cast into the sea." We elevated one end of the
hatch-cover, and the Bricklayer plunged outboard and was gone.

Back into the forecastle we cleaned house, washing out the dead
man's bunk and removing every vestige of him. By sea law and sea
custom, we should have gathered his effects together and turned
them over to the captain, who, later, would have held an auction
in which we should have bid for the various articles. But no man
wanted them, so we tossed them up on deck and overboard in the
wake of the departed body--the last ill-treatment we could devise
to wreak upon the one we had hated so. Oh, it was raw, believe
me; but the life we lived was raw, and we were as raw as the life.

The Bricklayer's bunk was better than mine. Less sea water leaked
down through the deck into it, and the light was better for lying
in bed and reading. Partly for this reason I proceeded to move
into his bunk. My other reason was pride. I saw the sailors were
superstitious, and by this act I determined to show that I was
braver than they. I would cap my proved equality by a deed that
would compel their recognition of my superiority. Oh, the
arrogance of youth! But let that pass. The sailors were appalled
by my intention. One and all, they warned me that in the history
of the sea no man had taken a dead man's bunk and lived to the end
of the voyage. They instanced case after case in their personal
experience. I was obdurate. Then they begged and pleaded with
me, and my pride was tickled in that they showed they really liked
me and were concerned about me. This but served to confirm me in
my madness. I moved in, and, lying in the dead man's bunk, all
afternoon and evening listened to dire prophecies of my future.
Also were told stories of awful deaths and gruesome ghosts that
secretly shivered the hearts of all of us. Saturated with this,
yet scoffing at it, I rolled over at the end of the second dog-
watch and went to sleep.

At ten minutes to twelve I was called, and at twelve I was dressed
and on deck, relieving the man who had called me. On the sealing
grounds, when hove to, a watch of only a single man is kept
through the night, each man holding the deck for an hour. It was
a dark night, though not a black one. The gale was breaking up,
and the clouds were thinning. There should have been a moon, and,
though invisible, in some way a dim, suffused radiance came from
it. I paced back and forth across the deck amidships. My mind
was filled with the event of the day and with the horrible tales
my shipmates had told, and yet I dare to say, here and now, that I
was not afraid. I was a healthy animal, and furthermore,
intellectually, I agreed with Swinburne that dead men rise up
never. The Bricklayer was dead, and that was the end of it. He
would rise up never--at least, never on the deck of the Sophie
Sutherland. Even then he was in the ocean depths miles to
windward of our leeward drift, and the likelihood was that he was
already portioned out in the maws of many sharks. Still, my mind
pondered on the tales of the ghosts of dead men I had heard, and I
speculated on the spirit world. My conclusion was that if the
spirits of the dead still roamed the world they carried the
goodness or the malignancy of the earth-life with them.
Therefore, granting the hypothesis (which I didn't grant at all),
the ghost of the Bricklayer was bound to be as hateful and
malignant as he in life had been. But there wasn't any
Bricklayer's ghost--that I insisted upon.

A few minutes, thinking thus, I paced up and down. Then, glancing
casually for'ard, along the port side, I leaped like a startled
deer and in a blind madness of terror rushed aft along the poop,
heading for the cabin. Gone was all my arrogance of youth and my
intellectual calm. I had seen a ghost. There, in the dim light,
where we had flung the dead man overboard, I had seen a faint and
wavering form. Six-feet in length it was, slender, and of
substance so attenuated that I had distinctly seen through it the
tracery of the fore-rigging.

As for me, I was as panic-stricken as a frightened horse. I, as
I, had ceased to exist. Through me were vibrating the fibre-
instincts of ten thousand generations of superstitious forebears
who had been afraid of the dark and the things of the dark. I was
not I. I was, in truth, those ten thousand forebears. I was the
race, the whole human race, in its superstitious infancy. Not
until part way down the cabin-companionway did my identity return
to me. I checked my flight and clung to the steep ladder,
suffocating, trembling, and dizzy. Never, before nor since, have
I had such a shock. I clung to the ladder and considered. I
could not doubt my senses. That I had seen something there was no
discussion. But what was it? Either a ghost or a joke. There
could be nothing else. If a ghost, the question was: would it
appear again? If it did not, and I aroused the ship's officers, I
would make myself the laughing stock of all on board. And by the
same token, if it were a joke, my position would be still more
ridiculous. If I were to retain my hard-won place of equality, it
would never do to arouse any one until I ascertained the nature of
the thing.

I am a brave man. I dare to say so; for in fear and trembling I
crept up the companion-way and went back to the spot from which I
had first seen the thing. It had vanished. My bravery was
qualified, however. Though I could see nothing, I was afraid to
go for'ard to the spot where I had seen the thing. I resumed my
pacing up and down, and though I cast many an anxious glance
toward the dread spot, nothing manifested itself. As my
equanimity returned to me, I concluded that the whole affair had
been a trick of the imagination and that I had got what I deserved
for allowing my mind to dwell on such matters.

Once more my glances for'ard were casual, and not anxious; and
then, suddenly, I was a madman, rushing wildly aft. I had seen
the thing again, the long, wavering attenuated substance through
which could be seen the fore-rigging. This time I had reached
only the break of the poop when I checked myself. Again I
reasoned over the situation, and it was pride that counselled
strongest. I could not afford to make myself a laughing-stock.
This thing, whatever it was, I must face alone. I must work it
out myself. I looked back to the spot where we had tilted the
Bricklayer. It was vacant. Nothing moved. And for a third time
I resumed my amid-ships pacing.

In the absence of the thing my fear died away and my intellectual
poise returned. Of course it was not a ghost. Dead men did not
rise up. It was a joke, a cruel joke. My mates of the
forecastle, by some unknown means, were frightening me. Twice
already must they have seen me run aft. My cheeks burned with
shame. In fancy I could hear the smothered chuckling and laughter
even then going on in the forecastle. I began to grow angry.
Jokes were all very well, but this was carrying the thing too far.
I was the youngest on board, only a youth, and they had no right
to play tricks on me of the order that I well knew in the past had
made raving maniacs of men and women. I grew angrier and angrier,
and resolved to show them that I was made of sterner stuff and at
the same time to wreak my resentment upon them. If the thing
appeared again, I made my mind up that I would go up to it--
furthermore, that I would go up to it knife in hand. When within
striking distance, I would strike. If a man, he would get the
knife-thrust he deserved. If a ghost, well, it wouldn't hurt the
ghost any, while I would have learned that dead men did rise up.

Now I was very angry, and I was quite sure the thing was a trick;
but when the thing appeared a third time, in the same spot, long,
attenuated, and wavering, fear surged up in me and drove most of
my anger away. But I did not run. Nor did I take my eyes from
the thing. Both times before, it had vanished while I was running
away, so I had not seen the manner of its going. I drew my
sheath-knife from my belt and began my advance. Step by step,
nearer and nearer, the effort to control myself grew more severe.
The struggle was between my will, my identity, my very self, on
the one hand, and on the other, the ten thousand ancestors who
were twisted into the fibres of me and whose ghostly voices were
whispering of the dark and the fear of the dark that had been
theirs in the time when the world was dark and full of terror.

I advanced more slowly, and still the thing wavered and flitted
with strange eerie lurches. And then, right before my eyes, it
vanished. I saw it vanish. Neither to the right nor left did it
go, nor backward. Right there, while I gazed upon it, it faded
away, ceased to be. I didn't die, but I swear, from what I
experienced in those few succeeding moments, that I know full well
that men can die of fright. I stood there, knife in hand, swaying
automatically to the roll of the ship, paralysed with fear. Had
the Bricklayer suddenly seized my throat with corporeal fingers
and proceeded to throttle me, it would have been no more than I
expected. Dead men did rise up, and that would be the most likely
thing the malignant Bricklayer would do.

But he didn't seize my throat. Nothing happened. And, since
nature abhors a status, I could not remain there in the one place
forever paralysed. I turned and started aft. I did not run.
What was the use? What chance had I against the malevolent world
of ghosts? Flight, with me, was the swiftness of my legs. The
pursuit, with a ghost, was the swiftness of thought. And there
were ghosts. I had seen one.

And so, stumbling slowly aft, I discovered the explanation of the
seeming. I saw the mizzen topmast lurching across a faint
radiance of cloud behind which was the moon. The idea leaped in
my brain. I extended the line between the cloudy radiance and the
mizzen-topmast and found that it must strike somewhere near the
fore-rigging on the port side. Even as I did this, the radiance
vanished. The driving clouds of the breaking gale were
alternately thickening and thinning before the face of the moon,
but never exposing the face of the moon. And when the clouds were
at their thinnest, it was a very dim radiance that the moon was
able to make. I watched and waited. The next time the clouds
thinned I looked for'ard, and there was the shadow of the topmast,
long and attenuated, wavering and lurching on the deck and against
the rigging.

This was my first ghost. Once again have I seen a ghost. It
proved to be a Newfoundland dog, and I don't know which of us was
the more frightened, for I hit that Newfoundland a full right-arm
swing to the jaw. Regarding the Bricklayer's ghost, I will say
that I never mentioned it to a soul on board. Also, I will say
that in all my life I never went through more torment and mental
suffering than on that lonely night-watch on the Sophie
Sutherland.

(TO THE EDITOR.--This is not a fiction. It is a true page out of
my life.)




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