The People of the Abyss Page #11

"The People of the Abyss" by Jack London, published in 1903, is a work of investigative journalism in which London documents the extreme poverty and harsh living conditions in the East End of London during the early 20th century.

• Journals
• Non-Fiction

								


“I’ve been out two nights now,” he went on; “wet to the skin night
before last, an’ I can’t stand it much longer. I’m gettin’ old, an’
some mornin’ they’ll pick me up dead.”

He whirled with fierce passion on me: “Don’t you ever let yourself grow
old, lad. Die when you’re young, or you’ll come to this. I’m tellin’
you sure. Seven an’ eighty years am I, an’ served my country like a
man. Three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross, an’ this is
what I get for it. I wish I was dead, I wish I was dead. Can’t come any
too quick for me, I tell you.”

The moisture rushed into his eyes, but, before the other man could
comfort him, he began to hum a lilting sea song as though there was no
such thing as heartbreak in the world.

Given encouragement, this is the story he told while waiting in line at
the workhouse after two nights of exposure in the streets.

As a boy he had enlisted in the British navy, and for two score years
and more served faithfully and well. Names, dates, commanders, ports,
ships, engagements, and battles, rolled from his lips in a steady
stream, but it is beyond me to remember them all, for it is not quite
in keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through the
“First War in China,” as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India
Company and served ten years in India; was back in India again, in the
English navy, at the time of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War
and in the Crimea; and all this in addition to having fought and toiled
for the English flag pretty well over the rest of the globe.

Then the thing happened. A little thing, it could only be traced back
to first causes: perhaps the lieutenant’s breakfast had not agreed with
him; or he had been up late the night before; or his debts were
pressing; or the commander had spoken brusquely to him. The point is,
that on this particular day the lieutenant was irritable. The sailor,
with others, was “setting up” the fore rigging.

Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had
three good-conduct stripes, and possessed the Victoria Cross for
distinguished service in battle; so he could not have been such an
altogether bad sort of a sailorman. The lieutenant was irritable; the
lieutenant called him a name—well, not a nice sort of name. It referred
to his mother. When I was a boy it was our boys’ code to fight like
little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and many men
have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.

However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name. At that moment it
chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his hands. He promptly
struck the lieutenant over the head with it, knocking him out of the
rigging and overboard.

And then, in the man’s own words: “I saw what I had done. I knew the
Regulations, and I said to myself, ‘It’s all up with you, Jack, my boy;
so here goes.’ An’ I jumped over after him, my mind made up to drown us
both. An’ I’d ha’ done it, too, only the pinnace from the flagship was
just comin’ alongside. Up we came to the top, me a hold of him an’
punchin’ him. This was what settled for me. If I hadn’t ben strikin’
him, I could have claimed that, seein’ what I had done, I jumped over
to save him.”

Then came the court-martial, or whatever name a sea trial goes by. He
recited his sentence, word for word, as though memorised and gone over
in bitterness many times. And here it is, for the sake of discipline
and respect to officers not always gentlemen, the punishment of a man
who was guilty of manhood. To be reduced to the rank of ordinary
seaman; to be debarred all prize-money due him; to forfeit all rights
to pension; to resign the Victoria Cross; to be discharged from the
navy with a good character (this being his first offence); to receive
fifty lashes; and to serve two years in prison.

“I wish I had drowned that day, I wish to God I had,” he concluded, as
the line moved up and we passed around the corner.

At last the door came in sight, through which the paupers were being
admitted in bunches. And here I learned a surprising thing: this being
Wednesday, none of us would be released till Friday morning.
Furthermore, and oh, you tobacco users, take heed: we would not be
permitted to take in any tobacco. This we would have to surrender as
we entered. Sometimes, I was told, it was returned on leaving and
sometimes it was destroyed.

The old man-of-war’s man gave me a lesson. Opening his pouch, he
emptied the tobacco (a pitiful quantity) into a piece of paper. This,
snugly and flatly wrapped, went down his sock inside his shoe. Down
went my piece of tobacco inside my sock, for forty hours without
tobacco is a hardship all tobacco users will understand.

Again and again the line moved up, and we were slowly but surely
approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be standing on an
iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor called
down to him,—

“How many more do they want?”

“Twenty-four,” came the answer.

We looked ahead anxiously and counted. Thirty-four were ahead of us.
Disappointment and consternation dawned upon the faces about me. It is
not a nice thing, hungry and penniless, to face a sleepless night in
the streets. But we hoped against hope, till, when ten stood outside
the wicket, the porter turned us away.

“Full up,” was what he said, as he banged the door.

Like a flash, for all his eighty-seven years, the old sailor was
speeding away on the desperate chance of finding shelter elsewhere. I
stood and debated with two other men, wise in the knowledge of casual
wards, as to where we should go. They decided on the Poplar Workhouse,
three miles away, and we started off.

As we rounded the corner, one of them said, “I could a’ got in ’ere
to-day. I come by at one o’clock, an’ the line was beginnin’ to form
then—pets, that’s what they are. They let ’m in, the same ones, night
upon night.”




CHAPTER VIII.
THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER


The Carter, with his clean-cut face, chin beard, and shaved upper lip,
I should have taken in the United States for anything from a master
workman to a well-to-do farmer. The Carpenter—well, I should have taken
him for a carpenter. He looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd,
observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of
tools through forty-seven years’ work at the trade. The chief
difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that their
children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had died. Their
years had told on them, and they had been forced out of the whirl of
industry by the younger and stronger competitors who had taken their
places.

These two men, turned away from the casual ward of Whitechapel
Workhouse, were bound with me for Poplar Workhouse. Not much of a show,
they thought, but to chance it was all that remained to us. It was

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