Then, too, there were the times, lying at the city wharf or across the estuary6 on the sand-spit, when the Queen, and her sister, and her brother Pat, and Mrs. Hadley came aboard. It was my boat, I was host, and I could only dispense7 hospitality in the terms of their understanding of it. So I would rush Spider, or Irish, or Scotty, or whoever was my crew, with the can for beer and the demijohn for red wine. And again, lying at the wharf disposing of my oysters8, there were dusky twilights when big policemen and plain-clothes men stole on board. And because we lived in the shadow of the police, we opened oysters and fed them to them with squirts of pepper sauce, and rushed the growler or got stronger stuff in bottles.
Drink as I would, I couldn't come to like John Barleycorn. I valued him extremely well for his associations, but not for the taste of him. All the time I was striving to be a man amongst men, and all the time I nursed secret and shameful10 desires for candy. But I would have died before I'd let anybody guess it. I used to indulge in lonely debauches, on nights when I knew my crew was going to sleep ashore. I would go up to the Free Library, exchange my books, buy a quarter's worth of all sorts of candy that chewed and lasted, sneak11 aboard the Razzle Dazzle, lock myself in the cabin, go to bed, and lie there long hours of bliss12, reading and chewing candy. And those were the only times I felt that I got my real money's worth. Dollars and dollars, across the bar, couldn't buy the satisfaction that twenty-five cents did in a candy store.
As my drinking grew heavier, I began to note more and more that it was in the drinking bouts13 the purple passages occurred. Drunks were always memorable14. At such times things happened. Men like Joe Goose dated existence from drunk to drunk. The longshoremen all looked forward to their Saturday night drunk. We of the oyster9 boats waited until we had disposed of our cargoes15 before we got really started, though a scattering16 of drinks and a meeting of a chance friend sometimes precipitated17 an accidental drunk.
In ways, the accidental drunks were the best. Stranger and more exciting things happened at such times. As, for instance, the Sunday when Nelson and French Frank and Captain Spink stole the stolen salmon19 boat from Whisky Bob and Nicky the Greek. Changes had taken place in the personnel of the oyster boats. Nelson had got into a fight with Bill Kelley on the Annie and was carrying a bullet-hole through his left hand. Also, having quarrelled with Clam20 and broken partnership21, Nelson had sailed the Reindeer22, his arm in a sling23, with a crew of two deep-water sailors, and he had sailed so madly as to frighten them ashore. Such was the tale of his recklessness they spread, that no one on the water-front would go out with Nelson. So the Reindeer, crewless, lay across the estuary at the sandspit. Beside her lay the Razzle Dazzle with a burned mainsail and Scotty and me on board. Whisky Bob had fallen out with French Frank and gone on a raid "up river" with Nicky the Greek.
The result of this raid was a brand-new Columbia River salmon boat, stolen from an Italian fisherman. We oyster pirates were all visited by the searching Italian, and we were convinced, from what we knew of their movements, that Whisky Bob and Nicky the Greek were the guilty parties. But where was the salmon boat? Hundreds of Greek and Italian fishermen, up river and down bay, had searched every slough25 and tule patch for it. When the owner despairingly offered a reward of fifty dollars, our interest increased and the mystery deepened.
One Sunday morning old Captain Spink paid me a visit. The conversation was confidential26. He had just been fishing in his skiff in the old Alameda ferry slip. As the tide went down, he had noticed a rope tied to a pile under water and leading downward. In vain he had tried to heave up what was fast on the other end. Farther along, to another pile, was a similar rope, leading downward and unheavable. Without doubt, it was the missing salmon boat. If we restored it to its rightful owner there was fifty dollars in it for us. But I had queer ethical27 notions about honour amongst thieves, and declined to have anything to do with the affair.
But French Frank had quarrelled with Whisky Bob, and Nelson was also an enemy. (Poor Whisky Bob!—without viciousness, good-natured, generous, born weak, raised poorly, with an irresistible28 chemical demand for alcohol, still prosecuting29 his vocation30 of bay pirate, his body was picked up, not long afterward31, beside a dock where it had sunk full of gunshot wounds.) Within an hour after I had rejected Captain Spink's proposal, I saw him sail down the estuary on board the Reindeer with Nelson. Also, French Frank went by on his schooner32.
It was not long ere they sailed back up the estuary, curiously33 side by side. As they headed in for the sandspit, the submerged salmon boat could be seen, gunwales awash and held up from sinking by ropes fast to the schooner and the sloop34. The tide was half out, and they sailed squarely in on the sand, grounding in a row, with the salmon boat in the middle.
Immediately Hans, one of French Frank's sailors, was into a skiff and pulling rapidly for the north shore. The big demijohn in the stern-sheets told his errand. They couldn't wait a moment to celebrate the fifty dollars they had so easily earned. It is the way of the devotees of John Barleycorn. When good fortune comes, they drink. When they have no fortune, they drink to the hope of good fortune. If fortune be ill, they drink to forget it. If they meet a friend, they drink. If they quarrel with a friend and lose him, they drink. If their love-making be crowned with success, they are so happy they needs must drink. If they be jilted, they drink for the contrary reason. And if they haven't anything to do at all, why, they take a drink, secure in the knowledge that when they have taken a sufficient number of drinks the maggots will start crawling in their brains and they will have their hands full with things to do. When they are sober they want to drink; and when they have drunk they want to drink more.
Of course, as fellow comrades, Scotty and I were called in for the drinking. We helped to make a hole in that fifty dollars not yet received. The afternoon, from just an ordinary common summer Sunday afternoon, became a gorgeous, purple afternoon. We all talked and sang and ranted35 and bragged36, and ever French Frank and Nelson sent more drinks around. We lay in full sight of the Oakland water-front, and the noise of our revels37 attracted friends. Skiff after skiff crossed the estuary and hauled up on the sandspit, while Hans' work was cut out for him—ever to row back and forth38 for more supplies of booze.
Then Whisky Bob and Nicky the Greek arrived, sober, indignant, outraged39 in that their fellow pirates had raised their plant. French Frank, aided by John Barleycorn, orated hypocritically about virtue40 and honesty, and, despite his fifty years, got Whisky Bob out on the sand and proceeded to lick him. When Nicky the Greek jumped in with a short-handled shovel41 to Whisky Bob's assistance, short work was made of him by Hans. And of course, when the bleeding remnants of Bob and Nicky were sent packing in their skiff, the event must needs be celebrated42 in further carousal43.
By this time, our visitors being numerous, we were a large crowd compounded of many nationalities and diverse temperaments44, all aroused by John Barleycorn, all restraints cast off. Old quarrels revived, ancient hates flared45 up. Fight was in the air. And whenever a longshoreman remembered something against a scow-schooner sailor, or vice46 versa, or an oyster pirate remembered or was remembered, a fist shot out and another fight was on. And every fight was made up in more rounds of drinks, wherein the combatants, aided and abetted47 by the rest of us, embraced each other and pledged undying friendship.
And, of all times, Soup Kennedy selected this time to come and retrieve48 an old shirt of his, left aboard the Reindeer from the trip he sailed with Clam. He had espoused49 Clam's side of the quarrel with Nelson. Also, he had been drinking in the St. Louis House, so that it was John Barleycorn who led him to the sandspit in quest of his old shirt. Few words started the fray50. He locked with Nelson in the cockpit of the Reindeer, and in the mix-up barely escaped being brained by an iron bar wielded51 by irate24 French Frank—irate because a two-handed man had attacked a one-handed man. (If the Reindeer still floats, the dent18 of the iron bar remains52 in the hard-wood rail of her cockpit.)
But Nelson pulled his bandaged hand, bullet-perforated, out of its sling, and, held by us, wept and roared his Berserker belief that he could lick Soup Kennedy one-handed. And we let them loose on the sand. Once, when it looked as if Nelson were getting the worst of it, French Frank and John Barleycorn sprang unfairly into the fight. Scotty protested and reached for French Frank, who whirled upon him and fell on top of him in a pummelling clinch53 after a sprawl54 of twenty feet across the sand. In the course of separating these two, half a dozen fights started amongst the rest of us. These fights were finished, one way or the other, or we separated them with drinks, while all the time Nelson and Soup Kennedy fought on. Occasionally we returned to them and gave advice, such as, when they lay exhausted55 in the sand, unable to strike a blow, "Throw sand in his eyes." And they threw sand in each other's eyes, recuperated56, and fought on to successive exhaustions.
And now, of all this that is squalid, and ridiculous, and bestial57, try to think what it meant to me, a youth not yet sixteen, burning with the spirit of adventure, fancy-filled with tales of buccaneers and sea-rovers, sacks of cities and conflicts of armed men, and imagination-maddened by the stuff I had drunk. It was life raw and naked, wild and free—the only life of that sort which my birth in time and space permitted me to attain58. And more than that. It carried a promise. It was the beginning. From the sandspit the way led out through the Golden Gate to the vastness of adventure of all the world, where battles would be fought, not for old shirts and over stolen salmon boats, but for high purposes and romantic ends.
And because I told Scotty what I thought of his letting an old man like French Frank get away with him, we, too, brawled59 and added to the festivity of the sandspit. And Scotty threw up his job as crew, and departed in the night with a pair of blankets belonging to me. During the night, while the oyster pirates lay stupefied in their bunks60, the schooner and the Reindeer floated on the high water and swung about to their anchors. The salmon boat, still filled with rocks and water, rested on the bottom.
In the morning, early, I heard wild cries from the Reindeer, and tumbled out in the chill grey to see a spectacle that made the water-front laugh for days. The beautiful salmon boat lay on the hard sand, squashed flat as a pancake, while on it were perched French Frank's schooner and the Reindeer. Unfortunately two of the Reindeer's planks62 had been crushed in by the stout63 oak stem of the salmon boat. The rising tide had flowed through the hole, and just awakened64 Nelson by getting into his bunk61 with him. I lent a hand, and we pumped the Reindeer out and repaired the damage.
Then Nelson cooked breakfast, and while we ate we considered the situation. He was broke. So was I. The fifty dollars reward would never be paid for that pitiful mess of splinters on the sand beneath us. He had a wounded hand and no crew. I had a burned main sail and no crew.
"What d'ye say, you and me?" Nelson queried65. "I'll go you," was my answer. And thus I became partners with "Young Scratch" Nelson, the wildest, maddest of them all. We borrowed the money for an outfit66 of grub from Johnny Heinhold, filled our water-barrels, and sailed away that day for the oyster-beds.
The Iron Heel 铁蹄
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1
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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congregating
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的现在分词 ) | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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bouts
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| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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17
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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dent
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| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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clam
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| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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reindeer
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| n.驯鹿 | |
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sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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irate
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| adj.发怒的，生气 | |
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slough
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| v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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prosecuting
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| 检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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sloop
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| n.单桅帆船 | |
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ranted
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| v.夸夸其谈( rant的过去式和过去分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨 | |
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bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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carousal
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| n.喧闹的酒会 | |
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temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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abetted
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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48
retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fray
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| v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗 | |
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51
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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52
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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sprawl
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| vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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recuperated
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| v.恢复（健康、体力等），复原( recuperate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bestial
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| adj.残忍的；野蛮的 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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brawled
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| 打架，争吵( brawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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