Friday, May 10, 1907.
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The next day found us in a fierce sea. We were all soaked with water. Indeed, it was impossible to step on deck without getting wet. Great waves, many times higher than the Snark, kept sweeping down as if to swamp us, but always we slid along the top of them, seeing for miles around; then would come the dive p070 down into the slough, where everything was blotted from view but a wild swirl of waters. It was next to impossible to cook. Dishes defied all laws of gravitation, and skimmed like birds through the air; and the stove was a sight, what of the things that slopped over it. We were covered with bruises from being thrown up against the vessel. Mrs. London made another aerial descent of the companionway that night, but was only slightly bruised. Captain Eames scraped the skin off his head in the course of one tumble. I got my punishment in burns from the stove. Far above, in the tropic sky, the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. Lightning had an awful significance to the crew of the Snark. We were far out at sea; the copper and other metals would tend to draw the current, and had a spark ever reached us, and ignited the eleven hundred gallons of gasolene on board, there wouldn't have been a splinter left to tell the tale.
Like all sailors, we did not love the sea. It was the eternal menace. Looking upon its placid surface in moments of calm, we could almost forget that it was forever yawning, and that into its maw had gone many a brave ship, of greater tonnage than ours. But in raging storms, with the lightning shooting in fiery lines across the sky, and the artillery of heaven rumbling and banging overhead and echoing on the storm-lashed waves, we came to appreciate the true meaning of things, and to assign to earth and sky and sea the proper values. At such moments, I repeat, p071 we did not love the sea; but we did love the Snark. Its ten tons of wood and metal stood between us and destruction. It made life possible to us. It was in such reflections as these, miles and miles from any land, that the words of Jack London rang again in my ears: "Life that lives is life successful. The achievement of a difficult feat is successful adjustment to a sternly exacting environment." Well, we strove to accomplish, and our environment was savage. Supreme courage and unwavering vigilance alone could enable us to adjust ourselves, and come alive out of the welter of foam and frothing waves that assailed the little Snark the greater part of her perilous voyage to Hawaii.
Even out in the ocean, several kinds of birds follow in the wake of ships to pick up the leavings. With a piece of meat tied on a string, we succeeded in catching a guny. These gunys are a species of albatross, and they live, sleep, and find their food entirely on the face of the great deep. When these birds are swimming on the surface of the water and wish to rise into the air, they cannot make the ascent as most birds do, simply by flapping their wings. They must start swimming rapidly, with wings extended, until their speed becomes sufficient to enable them gradually to rise into the air. Before they start to fly, they are literally walking on the water. The meat of the guny is not palatable, and looks something like the meat of an ordinary crow. p072
Every day, Jack wrote two hours. Just two hours, no more, no less. He would get up in the morning and take his trick at the wheel, have breakfast, and then shut himself in his stateroom for just two hours and write. He always laughed at what he called the tomfoolery of waiting for inspiration to come. He doesn't believe there is any such thing as inspiration—he himself can write just as well at one time as at another. It is plain work, he says, and the only way he can do it is to go ahead and do it. Incidentally, I may mention that Jack London never rewrites a story. He writes it just once, and never goes over it to change it. He writes with a fountain pen, and nobody can read his writing but Mrs. London. He turns his manuscript over to her, and she types it and gets it ready for the publishers.
In addition to their writing and typing, both the Londons did their trick at the wheel, and even helped Bert at the sailorising. When the weather was calm and we had gotten over our sickness, we would all gather on deck and talk, and tell each other of our experiences before chance grouped us together on the Snark. Of course, Jack had lived more of life than any of us. He spent hours recounting to us tales of the Klondike, and other faraway places he had visited. One of the most interesting things he told us was of how he came to write. Since his days in the grade schools of Oakland, he had nursed the secret wish to become a writer. He spent long hours poring over p073 books of history, travel, and fiction. But everything seemed against him. His father, a veteran of the Civil War, was slowly dying, and it became necessary for Jack to turn to and help support the family. He worked at everything and anything. Now he was a sailor, now a San Francisco Bay oyster-pirate, now a member of the Bay Fish Patrol. He mowed lawns and washed windows, and cleaned carpets, and worked in canneries and other factories. Through all this experience, his Socialistic tendencies were strengthened, and he ardently espoused the cause of revolution, and clings to it still. He wrote evenings after he came home from work, but all his manuscripts were returned to him. At last, however, came the day. He had been to the Klondike, and had returned penniless and stricken with scurvy. He could do little work. Between odd jobs, he wrote. One night, coming home, he conceived the idea of turning some of his Arctic experiences into stories. That evening he sat down and produced the great story that made him famous, and that has been read round the world, "The White Silence." It was written from things he knew. It was a bit of life, "cut from the raw, and woven round with words." A big western magazine promptly published it, paying him the scanty sum of five dollars. But his next story, published in an eastern short-story magazine, brought him better monetary return, so that he was enabled to go ahead and write. And we all know that he succeeded. p074
Another rather amusing thing Jack told us was of an experience in Manchuria, during the Russo-Japanese War. He had been sent as war correspondent by a big American newspaper syndicate, and besides his scratch-pad, he was provided with a camera. One day he started to take some pictures, and was promptly arrested and haled before the military authorities. A fat and rather deaf old Jap officer began to question him.
"Why do you take pictures?"
"Because I wish to."
"And why do you wish to?"
"Because I desire to."
And so it went for half an hour, question and answer, attack and rebuff. Other correspondents who had been rounded up with cameras in their possession followed the same plan. At last, the Jap officer gave up in disgust, and allowed them all to depart, though warning them of what might happen to them in time of war.
During this period, there was strict censorship of all letters and telegrams, both coming and going. The war correspondents were in a quandary. They desired to keep their papers posted on the latest developments, but were unable to get a line of information beyond the frontier. They tried cipher-codes and various freak methods of writing, but without avail. These messages were destroyed as being of a suspicious character. At last, however, one of the enterprising p075 correspondents hit upon a plan. He wrote plain English to his paper. Just at the time, an important military manœuvre was in progress. By building a bridge over a certain river, the Japs would be enabled to transport their supplies, and to gain control of an important position. So the war correspondent wrote to his paper a rather rambling personal letter, of no consequence whatever, but at the end casually mentioned that the Japanese troops were on the bank of the river, with timber and big wooden beams and posts. "I'm not allowed to tell you what they're doing, but you can bet they're not digging a well." Fortunately, the editor was a man of acumen; out of all the chaff he sifted the grain of wheat, and his paper had an enviable beat, that great delight of the editorial heart.
When we all got to navigating in good shape, we found that we were able to produce a widely different set of figures. Of course, each could prove the correctness of his points. I well remember the day that my figures showed we were in the Atlantic Ocean instead of the Pacific. As I think back, I wonder more and more that we ever got anywhere, what of our brilliant navigation. But luck was with us. We did eventually get to port, though not without stress and storm.