Jack London



   Yah! Yah! Yah!

    From South Sea Tales


    He was a whiskey-guzzling  Scotchman,  and  he  downed  his  whiskey  neat, 
beginning with his first tot punctually at six in the morning,  and  thereafter 
repeating it at regular intervals throughout the day till  bedtime,  which  was 
usually midnight. He slept but five hours out of the twenty-four, and  for  the
remaining nineteen hours he was quietly and decently drunk.  During  the  eight
weeks I spent with him on Oolong Atoll, I never saw him draw a sober breath. In 
fact, his sleep was so short that he never had time to sober  up.  It  was  the 
most beautiful and orderly perennial drunk I have ever observed.
    McAllister was his name. He was an old man, and very shaky on his pins. His
hand trembled as with  a  palsy,  especially  noticeable  when  he  poured  his 
whiskey, though I never knew him to spill a  drop.  He  had  been  twenty-eight
years in Melanesia, ranging from German New Guinea to the German Solomons,  and
so thoroughly had he become identified with that portion of the world, that  he
habitually spoke in  that  bastard  lingo  called  "bêche  de  mer."  Thus,  in 
conversation with me, sun he come up meant sunrise; kai-kai he stop meant  that
dinner was served; and belly belong me walk about meant that he was sick at his 
stomach. He was a small man, and a withered one, burned inside and  outside  by 
ardent spirits and ardent sun. He was a cinder, a bit of a clinker  of  a  man, 
a little animated clinker, not yet quite cold, that moved stiffly and by starts 
and jerks like an automaton. A gust of wind  would  have  blown  him  away.  He 
weighed ninety pounds.
    But the immense thing about him was the power with which he  ruled.  Oolong
Atoll was one hundred and forty miles in circumference. One steered by  compass
course in its lagoon. It  was  populated  by  five  thousand  Polynesians,  all
strapping men and women, many of them standing six feet in height and  weighing
a couple of hundred pounds. Oolong was two hundred and  fifty  miles  from  the
nearest land. Twice a year a little schooner called to collect copra.  The  one
white man on Oolong was McAllister, petty trader  and  unintermittent  guzzler;
and he ruled Oolong and its six thousand savages with an  iron  hand.  He  said
come, and they came, go, and they went. They  never  questioned  his  will  nor
judgment. He was cantankerous as only an aged Scotchman can be, and  interfered
continually in their personal affairs. When Nugu, the king's  daughter,  wanted
to marry Haunau from the other end of the  atoll,  her  father  said  yes;  but 
McAllister said no, and the marriage never came off. When the  king  wanted  to
buy a certain islet in the lagoon from the chief priest,  McAllister  said  no.
The king was in debt to the Company to the tune of 180,000 cocoanuts, and until 
that was paid he was not to spend a single cocoanut on anything else.
    And yet the king and his people did not love  McAllister.  In  truth,  they 
hated him horribly, and, to  my  knowledge,  the  whole  population,  with  the 
priests at the head, tried vainly for three months to pray him  to  death.  The 
devil-devils they sent after him were awe-inspiring, but since  McAllister  did 
not believe in devil-devils, they were without power  over  him.  With  drunken 
Scotchmen all signs fail. They gathered up scraps of food which had touched his 
lips, an empty whiskey bottle, a cocoanut from which he had drunk, and even his
spittle, and performed all kinds of deviltries over them. But McAllister  lived
on. His health was superb.  He  never  caught  fever;  nor  coughs  nor  colds; 
dysentery passed him by; and the malignant ulcers and vile skin  diseases  that
attack blacks and whites alike in that climate never fastened upon him. He must 
have been so saturated with alcohol as to defy the lodgment of germs. I used to 
imagine them falling to the ground in showers of microscopic cinders as fast as 
they entered his whiskey-sodden aura. No one loved him, not even  germs,  while 
he loved only whiskey, and still he lived.
    I was puzzled. I could not understand six thousand natives putting up  with
that withered shrimp of a tyrant. It  was  a  miracle  that  he  had  not  died 
suddenly long since. Unlike the cowardly Melanesians,  the  people  were  high-
stomached and warlike. In the big graveyard, at head and feet  of  the  graves, 
were relics of past sanguinary history - blubber-spades, rusty old bayonets and 
cutlasses, copper bolts, rudder-irons, harpoons, bomb guns, bricks  that  could 
have come from nowhere but a whaler's trying-out furnace, and old brass  pieces 
of the sixteenth century that verified the  traditions  of  the  early  Spanish 
navigators. Ship after ship had come to  grief  on  Oolong.  Not  thirty  years 
before, the whaler Blennerdale, running into the lagoon for  repair,  had  been 
cut off with all hands.  In  similar  fashion  had  the  crew  of  the  Gasket, 
a sandalwood trader, perished.  There  was  a  big  French  bark,  the  Toulon, 
becalmed off the atoll, which the islanders boarded after a  sharp  tussle  and 
wrecked in the Lipau Passage, the captain and a handful of sailors escaping  in 
the longboat. Then there were the Spanish pieces, which told of the loss of one 
of the early explorers. All this, of the vessels named, is a matter of history, 
and is to be found in the South Pacific Sailing Directory. But that  there  was 
other history, unwritten, I was yet to learn. In the meantime I puzzled why six 
thousand primitive savages let one degenerate Scotch despot live.
    One hot afternoon McAllister and I sat on the veranda looking out over  the
lagoon, with all its wonder of jeweled colors. At our backs, across the hundred 
yards of palm-studded  sand,  the  outer  surf  roared  on  the  reef.  It  was 
dreadfully warm. We were in four degree south latitude and the sun was directly 
overhead, having crossed the Line a few days before on its journey south. There 
was no wind - not even a catspaw. The season of the southeast trade was drawing 
to an early close, and the northwest monsoon had not yet begun to blow.
    "They can't dance worth a damn," said McAllister.
    I had happened to mention that the Polynesian dances were superior  to  the
Papuan,  and  this  McAllister  had  denied,  for  no  other  reason  than  his 
cantankerousness. But it was too not to argue, and  I  said  nothing.  Besides, 
I had never seen the Oolong people dance.
    "I'll prove it to you," he announced, beckoning to the  black  New  Hanover 
boy, a labor recruit, who served as cook and general house servant. "Hey,  you, 
boy, you tell 'm one fella king come along me."
    The boy departed, and back came the prime minister, perturbed, ill at ease,
and garrulous with apologetic explanation. In short, the king  slept,  and  was
not to be disturbed.
    "King he plenty strong fella sleep," was his final sentence.
    McAllister was in such a rage that the prime minister  incontinently  fled, 
to return with the king  himself.  They  were  a  magnificent  pair,  the  king 
especially, who must have been all of six feet  three  inches  in  height.  His
features had the eagle-like quality that is so frequently found in those of the 
North American Indian. He had been molded and born to rule. His eyes flashed as 
he listened, but right meekly he obeyed McAllister's command to fetch a  couple 
of hundred of the best dancers, male and female, in the village. And dance they 
did, for two mortal hours, under that broiling sun. They did not love  him  for 
it, and little he cared, in the end dismissing them with abuse and sneers.
    The abject servility of those magnificent savages was terrifying. How could 
it be? What was the secret of his rule? More and more I  puzzled  as  the  days 
went  by,  and  though  I  observed  perpetual  examples  of   his   undisputed 
sovereignty, never a clew was there as to how it was.
    One day I happened to speak of my disappointment in failing  to  trade  for 
a beautiful pair of orange cowries. The pair was worth five pounds in Sydney if
it was worth a cent. I had offered two hundred sticks of tobacco to the  owner,
who had held out for three hundred. When I casually  mentioned  the  situation,
McAllister immediately sent for the man, took the shells from him,  and  turned
them over to me. Fifty sticks were all he permitted me to pay for them. The man 
accepted the tobacco and seemed overjoyed at getting off so easily. As for  me, 
I resolved to keep a bridle on my tongue in the future. And still I mulled over 
the secret of McAllister's power. I even went  to  the  extent  of  asking  him
directly, but all he did was to cock one  eye,  look  wise,  and  take  another 
drink.
    One night I was out fishing in the lagoon with Oti, the man  who  had  been
mulcted of the cowries. Privily, I had made up to him an additional hundred and 
fifty sticks, and he had come to regard me  with  a  respect  that  was  almost
veneration, which was curious, seeing that he was an old man, twice my  age  at
least.
    "What name you fella kanaka all the same pickaninny?" I began on him. "This
fella trader he one fella. You fella kanaka plenty fella too  much.  You  fella
kanaka just like 'm dog - plenty fright along that fella trader. He no eat you,
fella. He no get 'm teeth along him. What name you too much fright?"
    "S'pose plenty fella kanaka kill m?" he asked.
    "He die," I retorted. "You fella kanaka kill 'm plenty fella white man long
time before. What name you fright this fella white man?"
    "Yes, we kill 'm plenty," was his answer. "My word! Any amount!  Long  time
before. One time, me young fella too much, one big fella ship he stop  outside.
Wind he no blow. Plenty fella kanaka we get 'm canoe, plenty fella canoe, we go 
catch 'm that fella ship. My word - we catch 'm big  fella  fight.  Two,  three
white men shoot like hell. We no fright. We come  alongside,  we  go  up  side, 
plenty fella, maybe I think fifty-ten. One fella white Mary belong  that  fella 
ship. Never before I see 'm white Mary. Bime by plenty white  man  finish.  One 
fella skipper he no die. Five fella, six fella white man  no  die.  Skipper  he 
sing out. Some fella white man he fight. Some fella white  man  he  lower  away 
boat. After that, all together over the side they go. Skipper  he  sling  white 
Mary down. After that they washee strong fella plenty too much.  Father  belong 
me, that time he strong fella. He throw 'm one fella spear. That fella spear he 
go in one side that white Mary. He no stop. My word, he go out other side  that 
fella Mary. She finish. Me no fright. Plenty kanaka too much no fright."
    Old Oti's pride had been touched, for he suddenly stripped down  his  lava-
lava and showed me the unmistakable scar of a bullet. Before I could speak, his
line ran out suddenly. He checked it and attempted to haul in, but  found  that
the fish had run around a coral branch. Casting a look of reproach  at  me  for
having beguiled him from his watchfulness, he went over the side,  feet  first,
turning over after he got under and following his  line  down  to  bottom.  The
water was ten fathoms. I leaned over and watched the play of his feet,  growing
dim and dimmer, as they stirred the wan phosphorescence into ghostly fires. Ten 
fathoms - sixty feet - it was nothing to him, an old  man,  compared  with  the 
value of a hook and line. After what seemed five minutes, though it  could  not
have been more than a minute, I  saw  him  flaming  whitely  upward.  He  broke 
surface and dropped a ten pound rock cod into the  canoe,  the  line  and  hook
intact, the latter still fast in the fish's mouth.
    "It may be," I said remorselessly. "You no  fright  long  ago.  You  plenty 
fright now along that fella trader."
    "Yes, plenty fright," he confessed, with an air of dismissing the  subject. 
For half an hour we pulled up our lines and flung them  out  in  silence.  Then 
small fish-sharks began to bite, and after losing a hook apiece, we  hauled  in 
and waited for the sharks to go their way.
    "I speak you true," Oti broke into speech, "then you savve we fright now."
    I lighted up my pipe and  waited,  and  the  story  that  Oti  told  me  in 
atrocious bêche de mer I here turn into proper English.  Otherwise,  in  spirit 
and order of narrative, the tale is as it fell from Oti's lips.
    "It was after that that we were very proud. We had fought many  times  with 
the strange white men who live upon the sea, and always  we  had  beaten  them. 
A few of us were killed, but what was that compared with the stores  of  wealth 
of a thousand thousand kinds that we found on the  ships?  And  then  one  day, 
maybe twenty years ago, or twenty-five, there came a schooner right through the
passage and into the lagoon. It was a large schooner with three masts. She  had
five white men and maybe forty boat's crew, black fellows from New  Guinea  and
New Britain; and she had come to fish bêche de mer. She lay  at  anchor  across
the lagoon from here, at Pauloo, and her boats scattered out everywhere, making 
camps on the beaches where they cured the bêche de mer. This made them weak  by 
dividing them, for those who fished here and those on the  schooner  at  Pauloo 
were fifty miles apart, and there were others farther away still.
    "Our king and headmen held council, and I was one in the canoe that paddled
all afternoon and all night across the lagoon, bringing word to the  people  of
Pauloo that in the morning we would attack the fishing camps at  the  one  time
and that it was for them to take the schooner. We who  brought  the  word  were
tired with the paddling, but we took part in the attack. On the  schooner  were
two white men, the skipper and the second mate, with half a dozen  black  boys.
The skipper with three boys we caught on shore and killed, but first  eight  of
us the skipper killed with his two revolvers. We  fought  close  together,  you 
see, at hand grapples.
    "The noise of our fighting told the mate what was  happening,  and  he  put 
food and water and a sail in the small dingy, which was so small that it was no
more than twelve feet long. We came down upon the  schooner,  a  thousand  men,
covering the lagoon with our  canoes.  Also,  we  were  blowing  conch  shells, 
singing war songs, and striking the sides of the canoes with our paddles.  What
chance had one white man and three black boys against us? No chance at all, and 
the mate knew it.
    "White men are hell. I have watched them much, and I am an old man now, and 
I understand at last why the white men have taken to themselves all the islands
in the sea. It is because they are hell. Here are you in the canoe with me. You 
are hardly more than a boy. You are not wise, for each  day  I  tell  you  many 
things you do not know. When I was a little pickaninny, I knew more about  fish
and the ways of fish than you know now. I am an old man, but I swim down to the 
bottom of the lagoon, and you cannot follow me. What are you good for,  anyway? 
I do not know, except to fight. I have never seen you fight, yet  I  know  that 
you are like your brothers and that you will fight like  hell.  Also,  you  are 
a fool, like your brothers. You do not know when you are beaten. You will fight 
until you die, and then it will be too late to know that you are beaten.
    "Now behold what this mate did. As we came down upon him, covering the  sea 
and blowing our conches, he put off from the schooner in the small boat,  along
with the three black boys, and rowed  for  the  passage.  There  again  he  was 
a fool, for no wise man would put out to sea in so small a boat. The  sides  of 
it were not four inches above the water. Twenty canoes went after  him,  filled
with two hundred young men. We paddled five fathoms while his black  boys  were
rowing one fathom. He had no chance, but he was a fool. He stood up in the boat 
with a rifle, and he shot many times. He was not a good shot, but  as  we  drew 
close many of us were wounded and killed. But still he had no chance.
    "I remember that all the time he was smoking a cigar. When  we  were  forty 
feet away and coming fast, he dropped the rifle, lighted a  stick  of  dynamite 
with the cigar, and threw it at us. He lighted another and another,  and  threw 
them at us very rapidly, many of them. I know now that he must have  split  the 
ends of the fuses and stuck in match heads, because they  lighted  so  quickly. 
Also, the fuses were very short. Sometimes the dynamite sticks went off in  the 
air, but most of them went off in the canoes. And each time they  went  off  in 
a canoe, that canoe was finished. Of the twenty canoes, the half  were  smashed 
to pieces. The canoe I was in was so smashed, and likewise the two men who  sat
next to me. The dynamite fell between them. The other  canoes  turned  and  ran 
away. Then that mate yelled, Yah! Yah! Yah!' at us. Also he went  at  us  again
with his rifle, so that many were killed through the back as  they  fled  away.
And all the time the black boys in the boat went on rowing. You see, I told you 
true, that mate was hell.
    "Nor was that all. Before he left the schooner, he set  her  on  fire,  and 
fixed up all the powder and dynamite so that it would go off at one time. There 
were hundreds of us on board, trying to put out the fire, heaving up water from
overside, when the schooner blew up. So that all we had fought for was lost  to
us, besides many more of us being killed. Sometimes, even now, in my old age, I 
have bad dreams in which I hear that mate yell, Yah! Yah! Yah!' In a  voice  of 
thunder he yells, Yah! Yah! Yah!' But all  those  in  the  fishing  camps  were 
killed.
    "The mate went out of the passage in his little boat, and that was the  end 
of him we made sure, for how could so small a boat, with four men in  it,  live 
on the ocean? A month went by, and then, one morning, between two rain squalls, 
a schooner sailed in through our passage and dropped anchor before the village.
The king and the headmen made big talk, and it was agreed that  we  would  take
the schooner in two or three days. In the meantime, as it was our custom always 
to appear friendly,  we  went  off  to  her  in  canoes,  bringing  strings  of 
cocoanuts, fowls, and pigs, to trade. But when we were alongside,  many  canoes
of us, the men on board began to shoot us with rifles, and as we  paddled  away
I saw the mate who had gone to sea in the little boat spring upon the rail  and
dance and yell, Yah! Yah! Yah!'
    "That afternoon they landed from the schooner in three small  boats  filled 
with white men. They went right through the village, shooting  every  man  they 
saw. Also they shot the fowls and pigs. We who were  not  killed  got  away  in 
canoes and paddled out into the lagoon. Looking back,  we  could  see  all  the 
houses on fire. Late in the afternoon we saw  many  canoes  coming  from  Nihi, 
which is the village near the Nihi Passage in the northeast. They were all that 
were left, and like us their village had been burned by a second schooner  that 
had come through Nihi Passage.
    "We stood on in the darkness to the westward for Pauloo, but in the  middle 
of the night we heard women wailing and then we ran into a big fleet of canoes.
They were all that were left of  Pauloo,  which  likewise  was  in  ashes,  for 
a third schooner had come in through the Pauloo Passage. You  see,  that  mate,
with his black boys, had not been drowned. He had made the Solomon Islands, and 
there told his brothers of what we had done in Oolong. And all his brothers had 
said they would come and punish us, and there they were in the three schooners, 
and our three villages were wiped out.
    "And what was there for us to do? In the morning  the  two  schooners  from
windward sailed down upon us in the middle of the lagoon. The  trade  wind  was
blowing fresh, and by scores of canoes they ran us down. And the  rifles  never
ceased talking. We scattered like flying fish before the bonita, and there were 
so many of us that we escaped by thousands, this way and that, to  the  islands 
on the rim of the atoll.
    "And thereafter the schooners hunted us up and  down  the  lagoon.  In  the
nighttime we slipped past them. But the next day, or in two days or three days, 
the schooners would be coming back, hunting us toward  the  other  end  of  the 
lagoon. And so it went. We no longer counted nor remembered our dead. True,  we 
were many and they were few. But what could we do? I was in one of  the  twenty 
canoes filled with men who were not afraid to die.  We  attacked  the  smallest 
schooner. They shot us down in heaps. They threw dynamite into the canoes,  and 
when the dynamite gave out, they threw hot water down upon us. And  the  rifles 
never ceased talking. And those whose canoes were smashed  were  shot  as  they 
swam away. And the mate danced up and down upon the cabin top and yelled, "Yah! 
Yah! Yah!'
    "Every house on every smallest island was burned. Not a pig nor a fowl  was
left alive. Our wells were defiled with the bodies of the slain, or else heaped 
high with coral rock. We were twenty-five thousand on Oolong before  the  three 
schooners came. Today we are five thousand. After the schooners left,  we  were 
but three thousand, as you shall see.
    "At last the three schooners grew tired of chasing us back  and  forth.  So 
they went, the three of them, to Nihi, in the northeast. And then they drove us
steadily to the west. Their nine boats were in the water as well. They beat  up
every island as they moved along. They drove us, drove us, drove us day by day. 
And every night the three  schooners  and  the  nine  boats  made  a  chain  of 
watchfulness that stretched across the lagoon from rim to rim, so that we could 
not escape back.
    "They could not drive us forever that way,  for  the  lagoon  was  only  so 
large, and at last all of us that yet lived were driven upon the last sand bank 
to the west. Beyond lay the open sea. There were ten thousand  of  us,  and  we
covered the sand bank from the lagoon edge to the pounding surf  on  the  other
side. No one could lie down. There was  no  room.  We  stood  hip  to  hip  and 
shoulder to shoulder. Two days they kept us there, and the mate would climb  up
in the rigging to mock us and yell, Yah! Yah! Yah!' till  we  were  well  sorry 
that we had ever harmed him or his schooner a month before. We had no food, and 
we stood on our feet two days and nights. The little babies died, and  the  old 
and weak died, and the wounded died. And worst of  all,  we  had  no  water  to 
quench our thirst, and for two days the sun beat down on us, and there  was  no
shade. Many men and women waded out into the ocean and were drowned,  the  surf
casting their bodies back on the beach. And there came a pest  of  flies.  Some
men swam to the sides of the schooners, but they were shot to the last one. And 
we that lived were very sorry that in our pride we tried to take  the  schooner 
with the three masts that came to fish for bêche de mer.
    "On the morning of the third day came the skippers of the  three  schooners 
and that mate in a small boat. They carried rifles, all of them, and revolvers,
and they made talk. It was only that they were weary of killing  us  that  they
had stopped, they told us. And we told them that  we  were  sorry,  that  never
again would we harm a white man, and in token of our submission we poured  sand
upon our heads. And all the women and children  set  up  a  great  wailing  for 
water, so that for some time no man could make himself heard. Then we were told 
our punishment. We must fill the three schooners with copra and bêche  de  mer. 
And we agreed, for we wanted water, and our hearts were  broken,  and  we  knew 
that we were children at fighting when we fought with white men who fight  like 
hell. And when all the talk was finished, the mate stood up and mocked us,  and 
yelled, Yah! Yah! Yah!' After that we paddled away in  our  canoes  and  sought 
water.
    "And for weeks we toiled at  catching  bêche  de  mer  and  curing  it,  in 
gathering the cocoanuts and turning them into copra. By day and night the smoke 
rose in clouds from all the beaches of all the islands of Oolong as we paid the
penalty of our wrongdoing. For in those days of death it was burned clearly  on
all our brains that it was very wrong to harm a white man.
    "By and by, the schooners full of copra and bêche  de  mer  and  our  trees 
empty of cocoanuts, the three skippers and that mate called us all together for 
a big talk. And they said they were very glad that we had learned  our  lesson,
and we said for the ten-thousandth time that we were sorry and  that  we  would
not do it again. Also, we poured sand upon our heads. Then  the  skippers  said
that it was all very well, but just to show us that they  did  not  forget  us,
they would send a devil-devil that we would never  forget  and  that  we  would
always remember any time we might feel like harming a white man. After that the 
mate mocked us one more time and yelled, Yah! Yah! Yah!' Then six of  our  men, 
whom we thought long dead, were put ashore from one of the schooners,  and  the 
schooners hoisted their sails and ran out through the passage for the Solomons.
    "The six men who were put ashore were the first to  catch  the  devil-devil 
the skippers sent back after us."
    "A great sickness came," I interrupted, for I  recognized  the  trick.  The
schooner had had measles on board, and the six prisoners had been  deliberately
exposed to it.
    "Yes, a great sickness," Oti went on. "It was a powerful  devil-devil.  The
oldest man had never heard of the like. Those of our priests that yet lived  we
killed because they could not overcome the devil-devil.  The  sickness  spread. 
I have said that there were ten thousand of  us  that  stood  hip  to  hip  and
shoulder to shoulder on the sandbank. When the sickness  left  us,  there  were
three thousand yet alive. Also, having made all our cocoanuts into copra, there 
was a famine.
    "That fella trader," Oti concluded, "he like 'm that much dirt.  He like 'm
clam he die kai-kai he stop, stink 'm any amount. He like 'm one fella dog, one 
sick fella dog plenty fleas stop along him.  We  no  fright  along  that  fella 
trader. We fright because he white man. We savve plenty too much no  good  kill 
white man. That one fella sick dog trader he plenty  brother  stop  along  him, 
white men like 'm you fight like hell. We no fright that damn trader. Some time 
he made kanaka plenty cross along him and kanaka want  'm  kill  m,  kanaka  he 
think devil-devil and kanaka he hear that fella mate sing out, Yah! Yah!  Yah!' 
and kanaka no kill m."
    Oti baited his hook with a piece of squid, which he  tore  with  his  teeth 
from the live and squirming monster, and hook and bait sank in white flames  to 
the bottom.
    "Shark walk about he finish," he said. "I think we catch  'm  plenty  fella
fish."
    His line jerked savagely. He pulled it in rapidly,  hand  under  hand,  and 
landed a big gasping rock cod in the bottom of the canoe.
    "Sun he come up, I make 'm that dam fella  trader  one  present  big  fella 
fish," said Oti.

    1910

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