by Robert Reed
each for himself .”
IV
I went away hastily, down a cross-street, and at the first corner
I saw another tragedy . Two men of the working class had caught
a man and a woman with two children, and were robbing them . I
knew the man by sight, though I had never been introduced to him .
He was a poet whose verses I had long admired . Yet I did not go to
his help, for at the moment I came upon the scene there was a pistol
shot, and I saw him sinking to the ground . The woman screamed,
and she was felled with a fist-blow by one of the brutes. I cried out
threateningly, whereupon they discharged their pistols at me and I
ran away around the corner . Here I was blocked by an advancing
conflagration. The buildings on both sides were burning, and the
street was filled with smoke and flame. From somewhere in that
murk came a woman’s voice calling shrilly for help . But I did not go
to her . A man’s heart turned to iron amid such scenes, and one heard
all too many appeals for help .
“Returning to the corner, I found the two robbers were gone .
The poet and his wife lay dead on the pavement . It was a shock-
ing sight . The two children had vanished—whither I could not tell .
And I knew, now, why it was that the fleeing persons I encountered
slipped along so furtively and with such white faces . In the midst of
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 770
our civilization, down in our slums and labor-ghettos, we had bred a
race of barbarians, of savages; and now, in the time of our calamity,
they turned upon us like the wild beasts they were and destroyed us .
And they destroyed themselves as well .
“They inflamed themselves with strong drink and committed a
thousand atrocities, quarreling and killing one another in the general
madness . One group of workingmen I saw, of the better sort, who
had banded together, and, with their women and children in their
midst, the sick and aged in litters and being carried, and with a num-
ber of horses pulling a truck-load of provisions, they were fighting
their way out of the city. They made a fine spectacle as they came
down the street through the drifting smoke, though they nearly shot
me when I first appeared in their path. As they went by, one of their
leaders shouted out to me in apologetic explanation . He said they
were killing the robbers and looters on sight, and that they had thus
banded together as the only-means by which to escape the prowlers .
“It was here that I saw for the first time what I was soon to see so
often . One of the marching men had suddenly shown the unmistak-
able mark of the plague . Immediately those about him drew away,
and he, without a remonstrance, stepped out of his place to let them
pass on . A woman, most probably his wife, attempted to follow him .
She was leading a little boy by the hand . But the husband com-
manded her sternly to go on, while others laid hands on her and
restrained her from following him . This I saw, and I saw the man
also, with his scarlet blaze of face, step into a doorway on the op-
posite side of the street . I heard the report of his pistol, and saw him
sink lifeless to the ground .
“After being turned aside twice again by advancing fires, I suc-
ceeded in getting through to the university . On the edge of the cam-
pus I came upon a party of university folk who were going in the
direction of the Chemistry Building . They were all family men, and
their families were with them, including the nurses and the servants .
Professor Badminton greeted me, I had difficulty in recognizing
him. Somewhere he had gone through flames, and his beard was
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 771
singed off . About his head was a bloody bandage, and his clothes
were filthy.
“He told me he had prowlers, and that his brother had been killed
the previous night, in the defence of their dwelling .
“Midway across the campus, he pointed suddenly to Mrs . Swin-
ton’s face . The unmistakable scarlet was there . Immediately all the
other women set up a screaming and began to run away from her .
Her two children were with a nurse, and these also ran with the
women . But her husband, Doctor Swinton, remained with her .
“‘Go on, Smith,’ he told me . ‘Keep an eye on the children . As for
me, I shall stay with my wife . I know she is as already dead, but I
can’t leave her . Afterwards, if I escape, I shall come to the Chemis-
try Building, and do you watch for me and let me in .’
“I left him bending over his wife and soothing her last moments,
while I ran to overtake the party . We were the last to be admitted
to the Chemistry Building. After that, with our automatic rifles we
maintained our isolation . By our plans, we had arranged for a com-
pany of sixty to be in this refuge . Instead, every one of the num-
ber originally planned had added relatives and friends and whole
families until there were over four hundred souls . But the Chemistry
Building was large, and, standing by itself, was in no danger of be-
ing burned by the great fires that raged everywhere in the city.
“A large quantity of provisions had been gathered, and a food
committee took charge of it, issuing rations daily to the various fam-
ilies and groups that arranged themselves into messes . A number of
committees were appointed, and we developed a very efficient orga-
nization. I was on the committee of defence, though for the first day
no prowlers came near . We could see them in the distance, however,
and by the smoke of their fires knew that several camps of them
were occupying the far edge of the campus . Drunkenness was rife,
and often we heard them singing ribald songs or insanely shouting .
While the world crashed to ruin about them and all the air was filled
with the smoke of its burning, these low creatures gave rein to their
bestiality and fought and drank and died . And after all, what did it
matter? Everybody died anyway, the good and the bad, the efficients
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 772
and the weaklings, those that loved to live and those that scorned to
live . They passed . Everything passed .
“When twenty-four hours had gone by and no signs of the plague
were apparent, we congratulated ourselves and set about digging a
well . You have seen the great iron pipes which in those days carried
water to all the city-dwellers. We feared that the fires in the city
would burst the pipes and empty the reservoirs . So we tore up the
cement floor of the central court of the Chemistry Building and dug
a well . There were many young men, undergraduates, with us, and
we worked night and day on the well. And our fears were confirmed.
Three hours before we reached water, the pipes went dry .
“A second twenty-four hours passed, and still the plague did not
appear among us . We thought we were saved . But we did not know
what I afterwards decided to be true, namely, that the period of the
incubation of the plague germs in a human
’s body was a matter of
a number of days . It slew so swiftly when once it manifested itself,
that we were led to believe that the period of incubation was equally
swift . So, when two days had left us unscathed, we were elated with
the idea that we were free of the contagion .
“But the third day disillusioned us . I can never forget the night
preceding it . I had charge of the night guards from eight to twelve,
and from the roof of the building I watched the passing of all man’s
glorious works. So terrible were the local conflagrations that all the
sky was lighted up. One could read the finest print in the red glare.
All the world seemed wrapped in flames. San Francisco spouted
smoke and fire from a score of vast conflagrations that were like
so many active volcanoes . Oakland, San Leandro, Haywards—all
were burning; and to the northward, clear to Point Richmond, other
fires were at work. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle. Civilization,
my grandsons, civilization was passing in a sheet of flame and a
breath of death . At ten o’clock that night, the great powder maga-
zines at Point Pinole exploded in rapid succession. So terrific were
the concussions that the strong building rocked as in an earthquake,
while every pane of glass was broken . It was then that I left the roof
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 773
and went down the long corridors, from room to room, quieting the
alarmed women and telling them what had happened .
“An hour later, at a window on the ground floor, I heard pande-
monium break out in the camps of the prowlers . There were cries
and screams, and shots from many pistols . As we afterward conjec-
tured, this fight had been precipitated by an attempt on the part of
those that were well to drive out those that were sick . At any rate,
a number of the plague-stricken prowlers escaped across the cam-
pus and drifted against our doors . We warned them back, but they
cursed us and discharged a fusillade from their pistols . Professor
Merryweather, at one of the windows, was instantly killed, the bullet
striking him squarely between the eyes. We opened fire in turn, and
all the prowlers fled away with the exception of three. One was a
woman . The plague was on them and they were reckless . Like foul
fiends, there in the red glare from the skies, with faces blazing, they
continued to curse us and fire at us. One of the men I shot with my
own hand . After that the other man and the woman, still cursing us,
lay down under our windows, where we were compelled to watch
them die of the plague .
“The situation was critical . The explosions of the powder maga-
zines had broken all the windows of the Chemistry Building, so that
we were exposed to the germs from the corpses . The sanitary com-
mittee was called upon to act, and it responded nobly . Two men
were required to go out and remove the corpses, and this meant
the probable sacrifice of their own lives, for, having performed the
task, they were not to be permitted to reenter the building . One of
the professors, who was a bachelor, and one of the undergraduates
volunteered . They bade good-bye to us and went forth . They were
heroes . They gave up their lives that four hundred others might live .
After they had performed their work, they stood for a moment, at
a distance, looking at us wistfully . Then they waved their hands in
farewell and went away slowly across the campus toward the burn-
ing city .
“And yet it was all useless. The next morning the first one of
us was smitten with the plague—a little nurse-girl in the family of
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 774
Professor Stout . It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental poli-
cies . On the chance that she might be the only one, we thrust her
forth from the building and commanded her to be gone .
“She went away slowly across the campus, wringing her hands
and crying pitifully . We felt like brutes, but what were we to do?
There were four hundred of us, and individuals had to be sacrificed.
“In one of the laboratories three families had domiciled them-
selves, and that afternoon we found among them no less than four
corpses and seven cases of the plague in all its different stages .
“Then it was that the horror began . Leaving the dead lie, we
forced the living ones to segregate themselves in another room . The
plague began to break out among the rest of us, and as fast as the
symptoms appeared, we sent the stricken ones to these segregated
rooms . We compelled them to walk there by themselves, so as to
avoid laying hands on them . It was heartrending . But still the plague
raged among us, and room after room was filled with the dead and
dying. And so we who were yet clean retreated to the next floor and
to the next, before this sea of the dead, that, room by room and floor
by floor, inundated the building.
“The place became a charnel house, and in the middle of the
night the survivors fled forth, taking nothing with them except arms
and ammunition and a heavy store of tinned foods . We camped on
the opposite side of the campus from the prowlers, and, while some
stood guard, others of us volunteered to scout into the city in quest
of horses, motor cars, carts, and wagons, or anything that would
carry our provisions and enable us to emulate the banded working-
men I had seen fighting their way out to the open country.
“I was one of these scouts; and Doctor Hoyle, remembering that
his motor car had been left behind in his home garage, told me to
look for it . We scouted in pairs, and Dombey, a young undergradu-
ate, accompanied me . We had to cross half a mile of the residence
portion of the city to get to Doctor Hoyle’s home . Here the buildings
stood apart, in the midst of trees and grassy lawns, and here the fires
had played freaks, burning whole blocks, skipping blocks and often
skipping a single house in a block . And here, too, the prowlers were
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 775
still at their work . We carried our automatic pistols openly in our
hands, and looked desperate enough, forsooth, to keep them from
attacking us . But at Doctor Hoyle’s house the thing happened . Un-
touched by fire, even as we came to it the smoke of flames burst
forth .
“The miscreant who had set fire to it staggered down the steps
and out along the driveway . Sticking out of his coat pockets were
bottles of whiskey, and he was very drunk. My first impulse was to
shoot him, and I have never ceased regretting that I did not . Stag-
gering and maundering to himself, with bloodshot eyes, and a raw
and bleeding slash down one side of his bewhiskered face, he was
altogether the most nauseating specimen of degradation and filth I
had ever encountered . I did not shoot him, and he leaned against a
tree on the lawn to let us go by . It was the most absolute, wanton act .
Just as we were opposite him, he suddenly drew a pistol and shot
Dombey through the head . The next instant I
shot him . But it was
too late . Dombey expired without a groan, immediately . I doubt if he
even knew what had happened to him .
“Leaving the two corpses, I hurried on past the burning house
to the garage, and there found Doctor Hoyle’s motor car . The tanks
were filled with gasoline, and it was ready for use. And it was in this
car that I threaded the streets of the ruined city and came back to the
survivors on the campus . The other scouts returned, but none had
been so fortunate . Professor Fairmead had found a Shetland pony,
but the poor creature, tied in a stable and abandoned for days, was
so weak from want of food and water that it could carry no burden
at all . Some of the men were for turning it loose, but I insisted that
we should lead it along with us, so that, if we got out of food, we
would have it to eat .
“There were forty-seven of us when we started, many being
women and children . The President of the Faculty, an old man to
begin with, and now hopelessly broken by the awful happenings of
the past week, rode in the motor car with several young children and
the aged mother of Professor Fairmead . Wathope, a young professor
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 776
of English, who had a grievous bullet-wound in his leg, drove the
car . The rest of us walked, Professor Fairmead leading the pony .
“It was what should have been a bright summer day, but the
smoke from the burning world filled the sky, through which the sun
shone murkily, a dull and lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous . But
we had grown accustomed to that blood-red sun . With the smoke
it was different . It bit into our nostrils and eyes, and there was not
one of us whose eyes were not bloodshot . We directed our course
to the southeast through the endless miles of suburban residences,
travelling along where the first swells of low hills rose from the flat
of the central city . It was by this way, only, that we could expect to
gain the country .
“Our progress was painfully slow . The women and children could
not walk fast . They did not dream of walking, my grandsons, in the
way all people walk to-day . In truth, none of us knew how to walk .
It was not until after the plague that I learned really to walk . So it
was that the pace of the slowest was the pace of all, for we dared not