North we raced from the Bonin Islands to pick up the seal-herd, and north we hunted it for a hundred days into frosty, weather and into and through vast fogs which hid the sun from us for a week at a time. It was wild and heavy work, without a drink or thought of drink. Then we sailed south to Yokohama, with a big catch of skins in our salt and a heavy pay-day coming.
I was eager to be and see Japan, but the first day was to ship's work, and not until evening did we sailors land. And here, by the very system of things, by the way life was organised and men affairs, John Barleycorn reached out and tucked my arm in his. The captain had given money for us to the hunters, and the hunters were waiting in a certain Japanese public house for us to come and get it. We rode to the place in rickshaws. Our own crowd had taken possession of it. Drink was flowing. Everybody had money, and everybody was treating. After the hundred days of hard and absolute abstinence, in the pink of physical condition, with health, over-spilling with spirits that had long been pent by discipline and circumstance, of course we would have a drink or two. And after that we would see the town.
It was the old story. There were so many drinks to be drunk, and as the warm magic poured through our and our voices and affections we knew it was no time to make invidious distinctions—to drink with this shipmate and to decline to drink with that shipmate. We were all shipmates who had been through stress and storm together, who had pulled and hauled on the same sheets and tackles, relieved one another's wheels, laid out side by side on the same jib-boom when she was into it and looked to see who was missing when she cleared and lifted. So we drank with all, and all treated, and our voices rose, and we remembered a acts of comradeship, and forgot our fights and wordy squabbles, and knew one another for the best fellows 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 saw of Japan—a drinking-place which was very like a drinking-place at home or anywhere else over the world.
We lay in Yokohama harbour for two weeks, and about all we saw of Japan was its drinking-places where sailors . Occasionally, some one of us the monotony with a more exciting drunk. In such fashion I managed a real exploit by swimming off to the one dark midnight and going soundly to sleep while the water-police searched the harbour for my body and brought my clothes out for identification.
Perhaps it was for things like that, I imagined, that men got drunk. In our little round of living what I had done was a noteworthy event. All the harbour talked about it. I enjoyed several days of fame among the Japanese boatmen and ashore in the pubs. It was a red-letter event. It was an event to be remembered and with pride. I remember it to-day, twenty years , with a secret glow of pride. It was a purple passage, just as Victor's of the tea-house in the Bonin Islands and my being looted by the were purple passages.
The point is that the charm of John Barleycorn was still a mystery to me. I was so organically a non-alcoholic that alcohol itself made no appeal; the chemical reactions it produced in me were not satisfying because I no need for such chemical satisfaction. I drank because the men I was with drank, and because my nature was such that I could not permit myself to be less of a man than other men at their favourite pastime. And I still had a sweet tooth, and on occasions when there was no man to see, bought candy and blissfully it.
We hove up anchor to a jolly chanty, and sailed out of Yokohama harbour for San Francisco. We took the northern passage, and with the west wind at our back made the run across the Pacific in thirty-seven days of brave sailing. We still had a big pay-day coming to us, and for thirty-seven days, without a drink to our mental processes, we planned the spending of our money.
The first statement of each man—ever an ancient one in homeward-bound forecastles—was: "No boarding-house sharks in mine." Next, in , was regret at having spent so much money in Yokohama. And after that, each man proceeded to paint his favourite . Victor, for instance, said that immediately he landed in San Francisco he would pass right through the water-front and the Barbary Coast, and put an advertisement in the papers. His advertisement would be for board and room in some simple working-class family. "Then," said Victor, "I shall go to some dancing-school for a week or two, just to meet and get acquainted with the girls and fellows. Then I'll get the run of the different dancing crowds, and be invited to their homes, and to parties, and all that, and with the money I've got I can last out till next January, when I'll go sealing again."
No; he wasn't going to drink. He knew the way of it, particularly his way of it, wine in, wit out, and his money would be gone in no time. He had his choice, based on bitter experience, between three days' among the sharks and harpies of the Barbary Coast and a whole winter of and , and there wasn't any doubt of the way he was going to choose.
Said Axel Gunderson, who didn't care for dancing and social functions: "I've got a good pay-day. Now I can go home. It is fifteen years since I've seen my mother and all the family. When I pay off, I shall send my money home to wait for me. Then I'll pick a good ship bound for Europe, and arrive there with another pay-day. Put them together, and I'll have more money than ever in my life before. I'll be a prince at home. You haven't any idea how cheap everything is in Norway. I can make presents to everybody, and spend my money like wha............