 Chapter 21 of The Iron Heel by Jack London During the long period of our stay in the refuge, we were kept closely in touch with what was happening in the world without, and we were learning thoroughly the strength of the oligarchy with which we were at war. Out of the flux of transition, the new institutions were forming more definitely and taking on the appearance and attributes of permanence. The oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmental machine as intricate as it was vast that worked, and this despite all our efforts to clog and hamper. This was a surprise to many of the revolutionists. They had not conceived it possible. Nevertheless, the work of the country went on. The men toiled in the mines and fields, beforece they were no more than slaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The members of the great labour castes were contented and worked on merrily. For the first time in their lives, they knew industrial peace. No more were they worried by slack times, strike and lockout and the union label. They lived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of their own, delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they had formally dwelt. They had better food to eat, less hours of labour, more holidays, and a greater amount and variety of interests and pleasures. And for their less fortunate brothers and sisters, the unfavoured labourers, the driven people of the abyss, they cared nothing. An age of selfishness was dawning upon mankind. And yet this is not altogether true. The labour castes were honeycombed by our agents, men whose eyes saw beyond the belly-need the radiant figure of liberty and brotherhood. Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothly was the mercenaries. This body of soldiers had been evolved out of the old regular army and was now a million strong to say nothing of the colonial forces. The mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt in sitters of their own which were practically self-governed and they were granted many privileges. By them a large portion of the perplexing surplus was consumed. They were losing all touch and sympathy with the rest of the people. And, in fact, were developing their own class morality and consciousness. And yet we had thousands of our agents among them. Note, the mercenaries, in the last days of the Iron Heel, played an important role. They constituted the balance of power in the struggles between the labour castes and the oligarchs, and now to one side and now to the other, through their strength according to the play of intrigue and conspiracy. The oligarchs themselves were going through a remarkable and it must be confessed unexpected development. As a class they disciplined themselves. Every member had his work to do in the world and this work he was compelled to do. There were no more idle rich young men. Their strength was used to give united strength to the oligarchy. They served as leaders of troops and as lieutenants and captains of industry. They found careers in applied science and many of them became great engineers. They went into the multitudinous divisions of the government, took service in the colonial possessions, and by tens of thousands went into the various secret services. They were, I may say, apprenticed to education, to art, to the church, to science, to literature. And in those fields they served the important function of moulding the thought processes of the nation in the direction of the perpetuity of the oligarchy. They were taught and later they in turn taught that what they were doing was right. They assimilated the aristocratic idea from the moment they began as children to receive impressions of the world. The aristocratic idea was woven into the making of them until it became bone of them and flesh of them. They looked upon themselves as wild animal trainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet rose always the subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in their midst. Bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangs of the roaring abysmal beast dominate if humanity were to persist. They were the saviours of humanity and they regarded themselves as heroic and sacrificing labourers for the highest good. They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilisation. It was their belief that if ever they weakened the great beast would engulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-driven war. Without them Anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged. The horrid picture of Anarchy was held always before their child's eyes until they, in turn, obsessed by this cultivated fear, held the picture of Anarchy before the eyes of the children that followed them. This was the beast to be stamped upon and the highest duty of the aristocrat was to stamp upon it. In short, they alone, by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood between weak humanity and the all-devouring beast and they believed it, firmly believed it. I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness of the whole oligarch class. This has been the strength of the iron heel and too many of the comrades have been slow or loathed to realise it. Many of them have ascribed the strength of the iron heel to its system of reward and punishment. This is a mistake. Heaven and Hell may be the prime factors of zeal in the religion of a fanatic, but for the great majority of the religious, Heaven and Hell are incidental to right and wrong. Love of the right, desire for the right, unhappiness with anything less than the right, in short, right conduct is the prime factor of religion. And so with the oligarchy, prisons, banishment and degradation, honours and palaces and wonder-cities are all incidental. The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. Never mind the exceptions and never mind the oppression and injustice in which the iron heel was conceived. All is granted. The point is that the strength of the oligarchy today lies in its satisfied conception of its own righteousness. Note, out of the ethical incoherency and inconsistency of capitalism, the oligarchs emerged with a new ethics, coherent and indefinite, sharp and severe as steel, the most absurd and unscientific, and at the same time the most potent ever possessed by any tyrant class. The oligarchs believed their ethics in spite of the fact that biology and evolution gave them the lie, and because of their faith, for three centuries they were able to hold back the mighty tide of human progress, a spectacle, profound, tremendous puzzling to the metaphysical moralist, and one that to the materialist is the cause of many doubts and reconsiderations. For that matter, the strength of the revolution during these frightful twenty years has resided in nothing else than the sense of righteousness. In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolf Mendenhall flame out his soul for the cause and sing his wild swan song that last night of life. For no other reason did Hilbert die under torture, refusing to the last to betray his comrades. For no other reason has Anna Roilston refused to blessed motherhood. For no other reason has John Carlson been the faithful and unrewarded custodian of the Glen Ellen Refuge. It does not matter. Young or old, man or woman, high or low, genius or clod, go where one will among the comrades of the revolution, the motor force will be found to be a great and abiding desire. For the right. But I have run away from my narrative. Ernest and I well understood before we left the Refuge how the strength of the iron heel was developing. The labour casts, the mercenaries, and the great hordes of secret agents and police of various sorts were all pledged to the oligarchy. In the main, and ignoring the loss of liberty, they were better off than they had been. On the other hand, the great helpless mass of the population, the people of the Abyss, was sinking into a brutish apathy of content with misery. Whenever strong proletarians asserted their strength in the midst of the mass, they were drawn away from the mass by the oligarchs and given better conditions by being made members of the labour casts or of the mercenaries. Thus discontent was lulled and the proletariat robbed of its natural leaders. The condition of the people of the Abyss was pitiable. Common school education, so far as they were concerned, had ceased. They lived like beasts in great squalid labour ghettos, festering in misery and degradation. All their old liberties were gone. They were labour slaves. Choice of work was denied them. Likewise was denied them the right to move from place to place or the right to bear or possess arms. They were not land serfs like the farmers. They were machine serfs and labour serfs. When unusual needs arose for them, such as the building of the great highways and airlines of canals, tunnels, subways and fortifications, levers were made on the labour ghettos and tens of thousands of serfs willy-nilly were transported to the scene of operations. Great armours of them are toiling now at the building of Ardis, housed in wretched barracks where family life cannot exist and where decency is displaced by dull bestiality. In all truth there in the labour ghettos is the roaring abysmal beast the oligarchs fear so dreadfully, but it is the beast of their own making. In it they will not let the ape and tiger die. And just now the word has gone forth that new levers are being imposed for the building of Asgard, the projected wonder-city that will far exceed Ardis when the latter is completed. Note, Ardis was completed in 1942 AD. Asgard was not completed until 1984 AD. It was fifty-two years in the building during which time a permanent army of half a million serfs was employed. At times these numbers swelled to over a million, without any account being taken of the hundreds of thousands of the labour-castes and the artists. We of the revolution will go on with that great work, but it will not be done by the miserable serfs. The walls and towers and shafts of that fair city will arise to the sound of singing and into its beauty and wonder will be woven, not size and groans, but music and laughter. Ernest was madly impatient to be out in the world and doing, for our ill-fated first revolt that had miscarried in the Chicago Commune was ripening fast. Yet he possessed his soul with patience, and during this time of his torment, when Hadley, who had been brought for the purpose from Illinois, made him over into another man. He revolved great plans in his head for the organization of the learned proletariat and for the maintenance of at least the rudiments and education among the people of the Abyss, all this, of course, in the event of the first revolt being a failure. Note, among the revolutionists were many surgeons, and in vivisection they attained marvellous proficiency. In Avis Everhard's words they could literally make a man over. To them the elimination of scars and disfigurements was a trivial detail. They changed the features with such microscopic care that no traces were left of their handiwork. The nose was a favourite organ to work upon. Skin grafting and hair transplanting were among their commonest devices. The changes in expression they accomplished were wizard-like. Eyes and eyebrows, lips, mouths and ears were radically altered. By cunning operations on tongue, throat, larynx and nasal cavities, a man's whole enunciation and manner of speech could be changed. Desperate times give need for desperate remedies, and the surgeons of the revolution rose to the need. Among other things they could increase an adult stature by as much as four or five inches and decrease it by one or two inches. What they did is today a lost art. We have no need for it. It was not until January 1917 that we left the refuge. All had been arranged. We took our place at once as asian provocateur in the scheme of the iron heel. I was supposed to be Ernest's sister. By oligarchs and comrades on the inside who were high in authority, place had been made for us. And we were in possession of all necessary documents and our pasts were accounted for. With help on the inside this was not difficult, for in that shadow world of secret service identity was nebulous. Like ghosts the agents came and went, obeying commands, fulfilling duties, following clues, making their reports often to officers they never saw or cooperating with other agents they had never seen before and would never see again. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. As asian provocateur, not alone will we be able to travel a great deal but our very work through is in contact with the proletariat and with our comrades, the revolutionists. Thus we were in both camps at the same time, ostensibly serving the iron heel and secretly working with all our might for the cause. There were many of us in the various services of the oligarchy and despite the shakings up and reorganisations the secret services have undergone they have never been able to weed all of us out. Ernest had largely planned the first revolt and the date set had been somewhere early in the spring of 1918. In the fall of 1917 we were not ready. Much remained to be done and when the revolt was precipitated of course it was doomed to failure. The plot of necessity was frightfully intricate and anything premature was sure to destroy it. This the iron heel foresaw and laid its schemes accordingly. We had planned to strike our first blow at the nervous system of the oligarchy. The latter had remembered the general strike and had guarded against the defection of the telegraphers by installing wireless stations in the control of the mercenaries. We in turn had counted this move. When the signal was given from every refuge all over the land and from the cities and towns and barracks devoted comrades were to go forth and blow up the wireless stations. Thus at the first shock would the iron heel be brought to earth and lie practically dismembered. At the same moment other comrades were to blow up the bridges and tunnels and disrupt the whole network of railroads. Still further other groups of comrades at the signal were to seize the offices of the mercenaries and the police as well as all oligarchs of unusual ability or who held executive positions. Thus would the leaders of the enemy be removed from the field of the local battles that would inevitably be fought all over the land. Many things were to occur simultaneously when the signal went forth. The Canadian and Mexican patriots who were far stronger than the iron heel dreamed were to duplicate our tactics. Then there were comrades, these were the women, for the men would be busy elsewhere who were to post the proclamations from our secret presses. Those of us in the higher employ of the iron heel were to proceed immediately to make confusion and anarchy in all our departments. Inside the mercenaries were thousands of our comrades. It was to blow up the magazines and to destroy the delicate mechanism of all the war machinery. In the cities of the mercenaries and of the labour castes similar programs of disruption were to be carried out. In short a sudden colossal stunning blow was to be struck before the paralysed oligarchy could recover itself, its end would have come. It would have meant terrible times and great loss of life but no revolutionist hesitates at such things. Why we even depended much in our plan on the unorganized people of the abyss. They were to be loosed on the palaces and cities of the masters, never mind the destruction of life and property. Let the abysmal brute roar and the police and mercenaries slay. The abysmal brute would roar anyway and the police and mercenaries would slay anyway. It would merely mean that various dangers to us were harmlessly destroying one another. In the meantime we would be doing our own work largely unhampered and gaining control of all the machinery of society. Such was our plan every detail of which had to be worked out in secret and as the day drew near communicated to more and more comrades. This was the danger point the stretching of the conspiracy but that danger point was never reached. Through its spy system the iron heel got wind of the revolt and prepared to teach us another of its bloody lessons. Chicago was the devoted city selected for the instruction and well were we instructed. Note. Chicago was the industrial inferno of the 19th century AD. A curious anecdote has come down to us of John Burns, a great English Labour leader and one-time member of the British Cabinet. In Chicago, while on a visit to the United States, he was asked by a newspaper reporter for his opinion of that city. Chicago, he answered, is a pocket edition of hell. Sometime later, as he was going aboard his steamer to Selta, England, he was who wanted to know if he had changed his opinion of Chicago. Yes, I have, was his reply. My present opinion is that hell is a pocket edition of Chicago. Chicago was the rightest of all. Chicago, which of all time was the city of blood and which was to earn a new its name. There the revolutionary spirit was strong. Too many better strikes had been curbed there in the days of capitalism for the workers to forget and forgive. Even the labour casts of the city were alive with revolt. Chicago had been broken in the early strikes. Despite their changed and favourable conditions, their hatred for the master class had not died. The spirit had infected the mercenaries of which three regiments in particular were ready to come over to us en masse. Chicago had always been the storm centre of the conflict between labour and capital, a city of street battles and violent death, with a class-conscious capitalist organisation and a class-conscious workman organisation where in the old days the very teachers were formed into labour unions and affiliated with the hot carriers and bricklayers in the American Federation of Labour, and Chicago became the storm centre of the premature first revolt. The trouble was precipitated by the iron heel and was cleverly done. The whole population, including the favoured labour casts, was given a course of outrageous treatment. Promises and agreements were broken and most drastic punishments visited upon even petty offenders. They were tormented out of their apathy. In fact, the iron heel was preparing to make the abysmal beast roar and hand in hand with this. In all precautionary measures in Chicago the iron heel was inconceivably careless. Discipline was relaxed among the mercenaries that remained while many regiments had been withdrawn and sent to various parts of the country. It did not take long to carry out this programme, only several weeks. We of the Revolution caught vague rumours of the state of affairs for an understanding. In fact, we thought it was a spontaneous spirit of revolt that would require careful curbing on our part and never dreamed that it was deliberately manufactured, and it had been manufactured so secretly from the very innermost circle of the iron heel that we had got no inkling. The counter-plot was an able achievement and ably carried out. I was in New York when I received the order to proceed immediately to Chicago. The man who gave me the order I could tell that by his speech, though I did not know his name nor see his face. His instructions were too clear for me to make a mistake. Plainly I read between the lines that our plot had been discovered, that we had been counter-mined. The explosion was ready for the flash of powder and countless agents of the iron heel, including me, either on the ground or being sent there were to supply that flash. I flatter myself that I maintained my composure under the keen eye of the oligarch but my heart was beating madly. I could almost have shrieked and flown at his throat with my naked hands before his final cold-blooded instructions were given. Once out of his presence I calculated the time. I had just the moments to spare if I were lucky to get in touch with some local leader before catching my train. Guarding against being trailed I made a rush of it for the emergency hospital. Luck was with me and I gained access at once to Comrade Calvin, the surgeon in chief. I started to gasp out my information but he stopped me. I already know, he said quietly, though his Irish eyes were flashing. I knew what you had come for. I got the word fifteen minutes ago and I have already passed it along. Everything shall be done here to keep the Comrades quiet. Chicago is to be sacrificed but it shall be Chicago alone. Have you tried to get word to Chicago? I asked. He shook his head. No telegraphic communication. Chicago is shut off. He paused a moment and I saw his white hands clinch. Then he burst out. My God! I wish I were going to be there. There is yet a chance to stop it, I said, if nothing happens to the train and I can get there in time or if some of the other secret service Comrades who have learned the truth can get there in time. You on the inside were caught napping this time, he said. I nodded my head humbly. It was very secret, I answered. Only the inner chiefs could have known up to today. We haven't yet penetrated that far so we couldn't escape being kept in the dark. If only Ernest were here. Maybe he is in Chicago now and all is well. Dr. Galvin shook his head. The last news I heard of him was that he had been sent to Boston on New Haven. This secret service for the enemy must hamper him a lot but it's better than lying in a refuge. I started to go and Galvin wrung my hand. Keep a stout heart. What if the first revolt is lost? There will be a second and we will be wiser then. Goodbye and good luck. I don't know whether I'll ever see you again. It's going to be hell there but I'd give ten years of my life for your chance to be in it. The 20th century left New York at six in the evening and was supposed to arrive at Chicago at seven next morning but it lost time that night. Note this was reputed to be the fastest train in the world then. It was quite a famous train. We were running behind another train. Among the travelers in my Pullman was Comrade Hartman, like myself in the secret service of the Iron Heel. He it was who told me of the train that immediately preceded us. It was an exact duplicate of our train though it contained no passengers. The idea was that the empty train should receive the disaster were an attempt made to blow up the 20th century. For that matter there were very few people in our car. There must be some big men on board. Hartman concluded. I noticed a private car in the rear. Night had fallen when we made our first change of engine and I walked down the platform for a breath of fresh air and to see what I could see. Through the windows of the private car I caught a glimpse of three men whom I recognized. Hartman was right. One of the men was General Altendoff and the other two were Mason and Vanderbilt the brains of the inner circle of the oligarch's secret service. It was a quiet moonlit night but I tossed restlessly and could not sleep. At five in the morning I dressed and abandoned my bed. I asked the maid in the dressing room how late the train was and she told me two hours. She was a mulatto woman and I noticed that her face was haggard with great circles under the eyes while the eyes themselves were wide with some haunting fear. What is the matter? I asked. Nothing miss. I looked at her closely and tried her with one of our signals. She responded and I made sure of her. Something terrible is going to happen in Chicago. She said, there's that fake train in front of us. That and the troop trains have made us late. Note, fake. False. Troop trains? I queried. She nodded her head. The line is thick with them. We've been passing them all night all heading for Chicago and bringing them over the airline. That means business. I have a lover in Chicago. She added apologetically. He's one of us and he's in the mercenaries and I'm afraid for him. Poor girl. Her lover was in one of the three disloyal regiments. Hartman and I had breakfast together in the dining-car and I forced myself to eat. The sky had clouded and the train rushed on like a sullen thunderbolt on an advancing day. The very negroes that waited on us knew that something terrible was impending. Oppressions had heavily upon them. The lightness of their natures had ebbed out of them. They were slack and absent-minded in their service and they whispered gloomily to one another in the far end of the car next to the kitchen. Hartman was hopeless over the situation. What can we do? He demanded for the twentieth time with a helpless shrug of the shoulders. He pointed out of the window. See, all is ready. Hartman pointed out that they're holding them like this thirty or forty miles outside the city on every road. He had reference to troop trains on the side track. The soldiers were cooking their breakfasts over fires built on the ground beside the track and they looked up curiously at us as we thundered past without slackening our terrific speed. All was quiet as we entered Chicago. It was evident nothing had happened yet. In the suburbs the morning papers came on board the train. There was nothing in them and yet there was much in them for those skilled in reading between the lines than it was intended the ordinary reader should read into the text. The fine hand of the iron heel was apparent in every column. Glimmerings of weakness and the armour of the oligarchy were given. Of course, there was nothing definite. It was intended that the reader should feel his way to these glimmerings. It was cleverly done. As fiction, those morning papers of October the twenty seventh were masterpieces. The local news was missing. This in itself was a masterstroke. It shrouded Chicago in mystery and it suggested to the average Chicago reader that the oligarchy did not dare give the local news. Hints that were untrue, of course, were given of insubordination all over the land crudely disguised with complacent references to punitive measures to be taken. There were reports of numerous wireless stations that had been blown up with heavy rewards offered for the detection of the perpetrators. Of course, no wireless stations had been blown up. Many similar outrages that dovetailed with the plot of the revolutionists were given. The impression to be made on the minds of the Chicago comrades was that the general revolt was beginning, albeit with a confusing miscarriage in many details. It was impossible for one uninformed to escape the vague yet certain feeling that all the land was ripe for the revolt that had already begun to break out. It was reported that the defection of the mercenaries in California had become so serious that half a dozen regiments had been disbanded and broken, and that their members with their families had been driven from their own city and on into the labor ghettos. And the California mercenaries were in reality the most faithful of all to their salt. But how was Chicago shut off from the rest of the world to know? Then there was a ragged telegram describing an outbreak of the populace in New York City in which the labor casts were joining, concluding with the statement intended to be accepted as a bluff that the troops had the situation in hand. Note, bluff a lie. And as the oligarchs had done with the morning papers, so had they done in a thousand other ways. These we learned afterward, as for example the secret messages of the oligarchs sent with the express purpose of leaking to the ears of the revolutionists that had come over the wires now and again during the first part of the night. I guess the iron heel won't need our services. Hartman remarked, putting down the paper he had been reading when the train pulled into the central depot. They wasted their time sending us here. Their plans have evidently prospered better than they expected. Hell will break loose any second now. He turned and looked down the train as we alighted. I thought so. He muttered. They dropped their private car when the papers came aboard. Hartman was hopelessly depressed. I tried to cheer him up, but he ignored my effort and suddenly began talking very hurriedly in a low voice as we passed through the station. At first I could not understand. I have not been sure, he was saying, and I have told no one. I have been working on it for weeks and I cannot make sure. Watch out for Nolten. I suspect him. He knows the secrets of a score of our refuges. He carries the lives of hundreds of us in his hands and I think he is a traitor. It's more a feeling on my part than anything else, but I thought I marked a change in him a short while back. There is the danger that he has sold us out or is going to sell us out. I am almost sure of it. I wouldn't whisper my suspicions to a soul, but somehow I don't think I'll leave Chicago alive. Keep your eye on Nolten. Trap him. Find out. I don't know anything more. It is only an intuition and so far I have failed to find the slightest clue. We were just stepping out upon the sidewalk. Remember, Hartman concluded earnestly, keep your eyes upon Nolten. And Hartman was right. Before a month went by, Nolten paid for his treason with his life. He was formally executed by the comrade in Milwaukee. All was quiet on the streets. Too quiet. Chicago lay dead. There was no roar and rumble of traffic. There were not even camps on the streets. The surface cars and the elevated were not running. Only occasionally on the sidewalks were there stray pedestrians and these pedestrians did not loiter. They went their ways with great haste and definiteness. With all there was a curious indecision in their movements as though they expected the buildings to topple over on them or the sidewalks to sink under their feet or fly up in the air. A few gamins however were around in their eyes suppressed eagerness in anticipation of wonderful and exciting things to happen. From somewhere far to the south the dull sound of an explosion came to our ears. That was all. Then quiet again. Though the gamins had startled and listened like young deer at the sound. The doorways to all the buildings were closed. The shutters to the shops were up but there were many police and watchmen in evidence and now and again automobile patrols of the mercenaries slept swiftly past. Hartman and I agreed that it was useless to report ourselves to the local chiefs of the Secret Service. Our failure so to report would be excused we knew in the light of subsequent events so we headed for the great labor ghetto on the south side in the hope of getting in contact with some of the comrades. Too late. We knew it but we could not stand still and do nothing in those ghastly silent streets. Where was earnest I was wondering what was happening in the cities of labor castes and mercenaries in the fortresses as if in answer a great screaming roar went up dim with distance punctuated with detonation after detonation. It's the fortresses. Hartman said. God pity those three measurements. At a crossing we noticed in the direction of the stockyards a gigantic pillar of smoke. At the next crossing several similar smoke pillars were rising skyward in the direction of the west side. Over the city of the mercenaries we saw a great captive war balloon that burst even as we looked at it and fell in flaming wreckage toward the earth. There was no clue to that tragedy of the air. We could not determine whether the balloon had been manned by comrades or enemies. A vague sound came to our ears like the bubbling of a gigantic cauldron a long way off and Hartman said it was machine guns and automatic rifles and still we walked in immediate quietude. Nothing was happening where we were. The police and the automobile patrols went by and only half a dozen fire engines returning evidently from some conflagration. A question was called to the firemen by an officer in an automobile and we heard one shout in reply no water they've blown up the mains we've smashed the water supply our uncried excitedly to me if we can do all this in a premature, isolated, abortive attempt what can't we do in a concerted, ripened effort all over the land? The automobile containing the officer who had asked the question darted on suddenly there was a deafening roar the machine with its human freight lifted in an upburst of smoke and sank down a mass of wreckage and death Hartman was jubilant oh well done well done he was repeating over and over in a whisper the proletariat gets its lesson today but it gives one too police were running for the spot also another patrol machine had halted as for myself I was in a daze the suddenness of it was stunning how had it happened? and I had been looking directly at it so dazed was I for the moment that I was scarcely aware of the fact that we were being held up by the police I abruptly saw that a policeman was in the act of shooting Hartman but Hartman was cool and was giving the proper passwords I saw the levelled revolver hesitate then sink down and heard the disgusted grunt of the policeman he was very angry and was cursing the whole secret service it was always in the way he was averring while Hartman was talking back to him he was fitting secret service pride explaining to him the clumsiness of the police the next moment I knew how it had happened there was quite a group about the wreck and two men were just lifting up the wounded officer to carry him to the other machine a panic seized all of them and they scattered in every direction running in blind terror the wounded officer roughly dropped being left behind the cursing policeman alongside of me also ran and Hartman and I ran too we knew not why there was a terror to get away from that particular spot nothing really happened then but everything was explained the flying men were sheepishly coming back but all the while their eyes were raised apprehensively to the many windowed lofty buildings that towered like the sheer walls of a canyon on each side of the street from one of those countless windows the bomb had been thrown but which window? there had been no second bomb only a fear of one comprehension of the windows any of them contained possible death each building was a possible ambuscade this was warfare in that modern jungle a great city every street was a canyon every building a mountain we had not changed much from primitive man despite the war automobiles that were sliding by turning a corner we came upon a woman she was lying on the pavement in a pool of blood Hartman bent over and examined her as for myself she said deathly sick I was to see many dead that day but the total carnage was not to affect me as did this first full-on body lying there at my feet abandoned on the pavement shot in the breast was Hartman's report clasped in the hollow of her arm as a child might be clasped was a bundle of printed matter even in death she seemed loathed apart with that which had caused her death for when Hartman had succeeded in withdrawing the bundle we found that it consisted of large printed sheets the proclamations of the revolutionists a comrade I said but Hartman only cursed the iron heel and we passed on often we were halted by the police and patrols but our passwords enabled us to proceed no more bombs fell from the windows the last pedestrians seemed to have vanished from the streets and our immediate quietude grew more profound though the gigantic cauldron continued to bubble in the distance dull roars of explosions came to us from all directions and the smoker pillars were towering more ominously in the heavens end of Chapter 22 recording by Matt Saw Montreal Matt Saw.org Chapter 23 of the Iron Heel by Jack London this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Matt Saw the people of the abyss suddenly a change came over the face of things a tingle of excitement ran along the air automobiles fled past two, three, a dozen and from them warnings were shouted to us one of the machines swerved wildly at high speed half a block down and the next moment already left well behind it the pavement was torn into a great hole by a bursting bomb we saw the police disappearing down the cross streets on the run and knew that something terrible was coming we could hear the rising roar of it our brief comrades are coming Hartman said we could see the front of their column filling the street from gutter to gutter as the last war automobile fled past the machine stopped for a moment just a breast of us a soldier leapt from it carrying something carefully in his hands this with the same care he deposited in the gutter then he leapt back to his seat and the machine dashed on took the turn at the corner and was gone from sight Hartman ran to the gutter and stooped over the object keep back, he warned me I could see he was working rapidly with his hands when he returned to me the sweat was heavy on his forehead I disconnected it, he said and just in the nick of time the soldier was clumsy he intended it for our comrades but he didn't give it enough time it would have exploded prematurely now it won't explode at all everything was happening rapidly now across the street and half a block down high up in a building I could see heads peering out the flame and smoke ran along that portion of the face of the building where the head had appeared and the air was shaken by the explosion in places the stone facing of the building was torn away exposing the iron construction beneath the next moment similar sheets of flame and smoke smote the front of the building across the street opposite it between the explosions we could hear the rattle of the automatic pistols and rifles for several minutes this mid-air battle continued then died out it was patent that our comrades were in one building that mercenaries were in the other and that they were fighting across the street but we could not tell which was which which building contained our comrades and which the mercenaries by this time the column on the street was almost honest as the front of it passed under the warring buildings both went into action again one building dropping bombs into the street being attacked from across the street and in return replying to that attack thus we learned which building was held by our comrades and they did good work saving those in the street from the bombs of the enemy they were a wide entrance they're not our comrades he shouted in my ear the inner doors to the entrance were locked and bolted we could not escape the next moment the front of the column went by it was not a column but a mob an awful river that filled the street the people of the abyss mad with drink and wrong up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters I had seen the people of the abyss before gone through its ghettos and thought I knew it for the first time dumb apathy had vanished it was now dynamic a fascinating spectacle of dread it surged past my vision in concrete waves of wrath, snarling and growling carnivorous, drunk with whiskey from pillaged warehouses drunk with hatred, drunk with lust for blood men, women and children in rags and tatters dim ferocious intelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and all the fiendlike stamped in apes and tigers, anemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden one faces from which vampire society had sucked the juice of life bloated forms swollen with physical grossness and corruption withered hags and death's heads bearded like patriarchs festering youth and festering age faces of fiends, crooked, twisted misshapen monsters blasted with the ravages of disease and all the horrors of chronic in nutrition the refuse and the scum of life a raging, screaming, screeching demoniacal horde and why not the people of the abyss had nothing to lose but the misery and pain of living and to gain nothing save one final awful glut of vengeance and as I looked the thought came to me that in that rushing stream of human lava were men, comrades and heroes whose mission had been to rouse the abysmal beast and to keep the enemy occupied in coping with it and now a strange thing happened to me a transformation came over me the fear of death for myself and for others left me I was strangely exalted another being in another life nothing mattered the cause for this one time was lost but the cause would be here tomorrow the same cause ever fresh and ever burning and thereafter in the orgy of horror that raged through the succeeding hours I was able to take a calm interest death meant nothing life meant nothing I was an interested spectator of events and sometimes swept on by the rush was myself a curious participant for my mind had leapt to a star-cool altitude and grasped a passionless transvaluation of values had it not done this I know that I should have died half a mile of the mob had swept by when we were discovered a woman in fantastic rags with cheeks cavernously hollow and with narrow black eyes like burning gimlets caught a glimpse of Hartman and me she let out a shrill shriek and bore in upon us a section of the mob tore itself loose and surged in after her I can see her now as I write these lines a leap in advance her grey hair flying in thin tangled strings on her forehead from some wound in the scalp in her right hand a hatchet her left hand lean and wrinkled a yellow talon gripping the air convulsively Hartman sprang in front of me this was no time for explanations we were well-dressed and that was enough his fist shot out striking the woman between her burning eyes the impact of the blow drove her backward but she struck the wall of her oncoming fellows and bounced forward again dazed and helpless the brandished hatchet falling feebly on Hartman's shoulder the next moment I knew not what was happening I was over-born by the crowd the confined space was filled with shrieks and yells and curses blows were falling on me hands were ripping and tearing at my flesh and garments I felt that I was being torn to pieces I was being born down suffocated some strong hand gripped my shoulder in the thick of the press and was dragging fiercely at me between pain and pressure I fainted Hartman never came out of that entrance he had shielded me and received the first brunt of the attack this had saved me for the jam had quickly become too dense for anything more than the mad gripping and tearing of hands I came to in the midst of wild movement all about me was the same movement I had been caught up in a monstrous flood that was sweeping me I knew not wither fresh air was on my cheek and biting sweetly in my lungs faint and dizzy I was vaguely aware of a strong arm around my body under the arms and half lifting me and dragging me along my arms were helping me in front of me I could see the moving back of a man's coat it had been slit from top to bottom along the centre seam and it pulsed rhythmically the slit opening and closing regularly with every leap of the wearer this phenomenon fascinated me for a time while my sensors were coming back to me next I became aware of stinging cheeks and nose and could feel blood dripping on my face my hat was gone my hair was down and flying and from the stinging of the scalp I could see the difference that had torn at my hair my chest and arms were bruised and aching in a score of places my brain grew clearer and I turned as I ran and looked at the man who was holding me up he it was who had dragged me out and saved me he noticed my movement it's all right! he shouted hoarsely I knew you on the instant I failed to recognise him but before I could speak I trod upon something that was alive and that squirmed under my foot and yet I knew that it was a woman who had fallen and who was being trampled into the pavement by thousands of successive feet it's all right! he repeated I'm Garthwaite! he was bearded and gaunt and dirty but I succeeded in remembering him as the stalwart youth that had spent several months in our Glen Ellen Refuge three years before he passed me the signals of the Ironheel Secret Service in token that he too was in its employ I'll get you out of this as soon as I can get a chance but watch your footing on your life don't stumble and go down all things happened abruptly on that day and with an abruptness that was sickening the mob checked itself it came in violent collision with a large woman in front of me the man with the splitcoat had vanished while those behind collided against me a devilish pandemonium reigned shrieks, curses and cries of death while above all rose the churning rattle of machine guns and the putter-putter-putter of rifles but nothing, people were falling about me right and left the woman in front doubled up and went down her hands on her abdomen in a frenzied clutch a man was quivering against my legs in a death-struggle it came to me that we were at the head of the column half a mile of it had disappeared where or how I never learned to this day I do not know what became of that half mile of humanity whether it was blotted out by some frightful bolt of war whether it was scattered and destroyed piecemeal or whether it escaped at the head of the column instead of in its middle and we were being swept out of life by a torrent of shrieking lead as soon as death had thinned the jam Garthwaite, still grasping my arm led a rush of survivors into the wide entrance of an office building here at the rear against the doors we were pressed by a panting, gasping mass of creatures for some time we remained in this position without a change in the situation I did it beautifully Garthwaite was lamenting to me we were trapped we had a gambler's chance in the street but in here there is no chance at all it's all over but the shouting viva revolution then what he expected began the mercenaries were killing without quarter at first the surge back upon us was crushing but as the killing continued the pressure was eased the dead and dying went down and made room Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted but in the frightful din I could not catch what he said he seized me and threw me down next he dragged a dying woman over on top of me and with much squeezing and shoving crawled in beside me and partly over me a mound of dead and dying began to pile up over us and over this mound pouring and moaning crept those that still survived but these too soon ceased and a semi-silent settled down broken by groans and sobs and sounds of strangulation I should have been crushed had it not been for Garthwaite as it was it seemed inconceivable that I could bear the weight I did and live and yet outside of pain the only feeling I possessed was one of curiosity how was it going to end what would death be like thus did I receive my red baptism in that Chicago shambles prior to that death to me had been a theory but ever afterward death had been a simple fact that does not matter it is so easy but the mercenaries were not content with what they had done they invaded the entrance killing the wounded and searching out the unhurt that like ourselves were playing dead I remember one man they tracked out of a heap who pleaded abjectly until a revolver shot cut him short then there was a woman who charged from a heap snarling and shooting she fired six shots before they got her though what damage she did we could not know we could follow these tragedies only by the sound every little while flurries like this occurred in the revolver shot that put an end to it in the intervals we could hear the soldiers talking and swearing as they rummaged among the carcasses urged on by their officers to hurry up at last they went to work on our heap and we could feel the pressure diminish as they dragged away the dead and wounded Garthaway began uttering aloud the signals at first he was not heard then he raised his voice listen to that we heard a soldier say and next the sharp voice of an officer hold on there, careful as you go oh that first breath of air as we were dragged out Garthaway did the talking at first but I was compelled to undergo a brief examination to prove service with the iron heel the ashram provocateur all right was the officer's conclusion he was a beardless young fellow a cadet evidently of some great oligarch family it's a hell of a job Garthaway crumbled I'm going to try and resign and get into the army new fellows have a snap the young officer's answer I've got some pull and I'll see if it can be managed I can tell them how I found you he took Garthaway's name and number and then turned to me and you? oh I'm going to be married and then I'll be out of it all and so we talked while the killing of the wounded went on it is all a dream now as I look back on it but at the time it was the most natural thing in the world Garthaway and the young officer made a conversation over the difference between so-called modern warfare and the present street fighting and skyscraper fighting that was taking place all over the city I followed them intently fixing up my hair at the same time and pinning together my torn skirts and all the time the killing of the wounded went on sometimes the revolver shots drowned the voices of Garthway and the officer and they were compelled to repeat what they had been saying I lived through three days of the Chicago Commune and the vastness of it and of the slaughter may be imagined when I say that in all that time I saw practically nothing outside the killing of the people of the Abyss and the mid-air fighting between skyscrapers I really saw nothing of the heroic work done by the comrades I could hear the explosions of their minds and bombs and see the smoke of their conflagrations and that was all the mid-air part of one great deed I saw however and that was the balloon attacks made by our comrades on the fortresses that was on the second day the disloyal regiments had been destroyed in the fortresses to the last man the fortresses were crowded with mercenaries the wind blew in the right direction and up went our balloons from one of the office buildings in the city now beaten back after he left Glen Ellen had invented a most powerful explosive expedite he called it this was the weapon the balloons used they were only hot air balloons clumsily and hastily made but they did the work I saw it all from the top of an office building I missed the fortresses completely and disappeared into the country but we learned about it afterward Burton and O'Sullivan were in it as they were descending they swept across a railroad directly over a troop train that was heading at full speed for Chicago they dropped their whole supply of expedite upon the locomotive the resulting wreck tied the line up for days and the best of it was that released from the weight of expedite the balloon shot up into the air and did not come down for half a dozen miles both heroes escaping unharmed the second balloon was a failure its flight was lame it floated too low and was shot full of holes before it could reach the fortresses Herford and Guinness were in it and they were blown to pieces along with the field into which they fell beaten back was in despair we heard all about it afterward and he went up alone in the third balloon he too made a low flight but he was in luck for they failed seriously to puncture his balloon I can see it now as I did then a slated bag drifting along the air and that tiny speck of a man clinging on beneath I could not see the fortress but those on the roof with me said he was directly over it I did not see the expedite fall when he cut it loose but I did see the balloon suddenly leap up into the sky an appreciable time after that the great column of the explosion towered in the air and after that in turn I heard the roar of it beaten back the gentle had destroyed a fortress at the same time one was blown to pieces in the air the expedite exploding and the shock of it disrupted the second balloon which fell prettily into the remaining fortress it could not have been better planned though the two comrades in it sacrificed their lives but to return to the people of the abyss my experiences were confined to them they raged and slaughtered and destroyed all over the city proper and were in turn destroyed but never once did they succeed in reaching the city of the oligarchs over on the west side the oligarchs had protected themselves well no matter what destruction was wreaked in the heart of the city they and their womankind and children were to escape hurt I am told that their children played in the parks during those terrible days and that their favourite game was an imitation of their elders stamping upon the proletariat but the mercenaries found it no easy task to cope with the people of the abyss and at the same time fight with the comrades Chicago was true to her traditions and though a generation of revolutionists was wiped out it took along with it pretty close to a generation of its enemies of course the iron heel kept the figures secret but at a very conservative estimate at least 130,000 mercenaries were slain but the comrades had no chance instead of the whole country being hand in hand in revolt they were all alone and the total strength of the oligarchy could have been directed against them if necessary as it was hour after hour, day after day in endless train loads by hundreds of thousands the mercenaries were hurled into Chicago and there were so many of the people of the abyss tiring of the slaughter a great herding movement was begun by the soldiers the intent of which was to drive the street mobs like cattle into Lake Michigan it was at the beginning of this movement that Garthwaite and I had encountered the young officer this herding movement was practically a failure thanks to the splendid work of the comrades instead of the great host the mercenaries had hoped to gather together they succeeded in driving no more than 40,000 of the wretches into the lake time and again when a mob of them was well in hand and being driven along the streets to the water the comrades would create a diversion and the mob would escape through the consequent whole torn in the encircling net Garthwaite and I saw an example of this shortly after meeting with the young officer the mob of which we had been apart and which had been put in retreat was prevented from escaping to the south and east by strong bodies of troops the troops we had fallen in with had held it back on the west the only outlet was north and north it went toward the lake driven on from east and west and south by machine gun fire and automatics whether it divine that it was being driven toward the lake or whether it was merely a blind squirm of the monster I do not know but at any rate the mob took a cross street to the west turned down the next street and came back upon its track heading south toward the great ghetto Garthwaite and I at that time were trying to make our way westward to get out of the territory of street fighting and we were caught right in the thick of it again as we came to the corner we saw the howling mob bearing down upon us Garthwaite seized my arm and we were just starting to run when he dragged me back from in front of the wheels of half a dozen war automobiles equipped with machine guns that were rushing for the spot behind them came the soldiers with their automatic rifles by the time they took position the mob was upon them and it looked as though they would be overwhelmed before they could get into action here and there a soldier was discharging his rifle but this scattered fire had no effect in checking the mob on it came bellowing with brute rage it seemed the machine guns could not get started the automobiles on which they were mounted blocked the street compelling the soldiers to find positions in between and on the sidewalks more and more soldiers were arriving and in the jam we were unable to get away Garthwaite held me by the arm and we pressed close against the front of a building the mob was no more than 25 feet away when the machine guns opened up but before that flaming sheet of death nothing could live the mob came on but it could not advance it piled up in a heap amount a huge and growing wave of dead and dying those behind urged on and the column from gutter to gutter telescoped upon itself wounded creatures men and women were vomited over the top of that awful wave and fell squirming down the face of it out under the automobiles and against the legs of the soldiers the latter bayoneted the struggling wretches the one I saw who gained his feet and flew at a soldier's throat with his teeth together they went down soldier and slave into the welter the firing ceased the work was done the mob had been stopped in its wild attempt to break through orders were being given to clear the wheels of the war machines they could not advance over that wave of dead and the idea was to run them down the cross street the soldiers were dragging the bodies away from the wheels when it happened we learned afterward how it happened a block distant, a hundred of our comrades had been holding a building across roofs and through buildings they made their way till they found themselves looking down upon the close packed soldiers then it was a counter massacre without warning a shower of bombs fell from the top of the building the automobiles were blown to fragments along with many soldiers we with the survivors swept back in mad retreat half a block down another building opened fire upon us as the soldiers had carpeted the street with dead slaves so in turn did they themselves become carpet Garthwaite and I bought charmed lives as we had done before so again we sought shelter in an entrance but he was not to be caught napping this time as the roar of the bombs died away he began peering out the mob's coming back we've got to get out of this we fled hand in hand there was no movement slipping and sliding and making for the corner down the cross street we could see a few soldiers still running nothing was happening to them the way was clear so we paused a moment and looked back the mob came on slowly it was busy arming itself with the rifles of the slain and killing the wounded we saw the end of the young officer who had rescued us he painfully lifted himself on his elbow and turned loose with his automatic pistol there goes my chance at promotion brandishing a butch's cleaver come on it's the wrong direction but we'll get out somehow and we fled eastward through the quiet streets prepared at every cross street for anything to happen to the south a monster conflagration was filling the sky and we knew that the great ghetto was burning at last I sank down on the sidewalk I was exhausted and could go no further I was bruised and sore and aching in every limb yet I could not escape smiling at Garthwaite who was rolling a cigarette and saying I know I'm making a mess of rescuing you but I can't get head nor tail of the situation it's all a mess every time we try to break out something happens and we turn back we're only a couple of blocks now from where I got you out of that entrance friend and foe are all mixed up it's chaos you can't tell who is in those darn buildings try to find out and you get a bomb on your head try to go peaceably on your way and you run into a mob and are killed by machine guns or you run into the mercenaries and are killed by your own comrades from a roof and on the top of it all the mob comes along and kills you too he shook his head doltfully lighted his cigarette and sat down beside me and I'm that hungry he added I could eat cobblestones the next moment he was on his feet again and out in the street prying up a cobblestone he came back with it and assaulted the window of a store behind us its ground floor and no good he explained as he helped me through the hole he had made but it's the best we can do you get a nap and I'll reconnoitre I'll finish this rescue all right but I want time, time, lots of it and something to eat it was a harness store we found ourselves in and he fixed me up a couch of horse blankets in the private office well to the rear to add to my wretchedness a splitting headache was coming on and I was only too glad to close my eyes and try to sleep I'll be back where his parting words I don't hope to get an auto but I'll surely bring some grub anyway note, grub food and that was the last I saw of Garthwaite for three years instead of coming back he was carried away to a hospital with a bullet through his lungs and another through the fleshy part of his neck End of Chapter 23 Recording by Matt Saw Montreal Matt Saw.org Chapter 24 of The Eye and Heal by Jack London This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Matt Saw nightmare I had not closed my eyes the night before on the 20th century and what of that end of my exhaustion I slept soundly when I first awoke it was night Garthwaite had not returned I had lost my watch and had no idea of the time as I lay with my eyes closed I heard the same dull sound of distant explosions the inferno was still raging I crept through the store to the front the reflection from the sky of vast conflagrations made the street almost as light as day one could have read the finest print with ease from several blocks away came the crackle of small hand bombs and the churning of machine guns and from a long way off came a long series of heavy explosions I crept back to my horse blankets and slept again when next I awoke a sickly yellow light was filtering in on me it was dawn of the second day I crept to the front of the store a smoke-pull shot through with lurid gleams filled the sky down the opposite side of the street tottered a wretched slave one hand he held tightly against his side and behind him he left a bloody trail his eyes roved everywhere and they were filled with apprehension and dread once he looked straight across at me and in his face was all the dumb pathos of the wounded and hunted animal he saw me, but there was no kinship between us and with him at least no sympathy of understanding for he cowered perceptibly and dragged himself on he could expect no aid in all God's world he was a heelet in the great hunt of heelets that the masters were making all he could hope for, all he sought was some hole to crawl away in and hide like any animal a sharp clang of a passing ambulance at the corner gave him a start ambulances were not for such as he with the groan of pain he threw himself into a doorway a minute later he was out again and desperately hobbling on I went back to my horse-blankets and waited an hour for Garthwaite my headache had not gone away on the contrary it was increasing it was by an effort of will only that I was able to open my eyes and look at objects and with the opening of my eyes and the looking came in terrible torment also a great pulse was beating in my brain weak and reeling I went out through the broken window and down the street seeking to escape instinctively and gropingly from the awful shambles and thereafter I lived nightmare my memory of what happened in the succeeding hours is the memory one would have of nightmare many events are focused sharply on my brain but between these indelible pictures I retain are intervals of unconsciousness what occurred in those intervals I know not and never shall know I remember stumbling at the corner over the legs of a man it was the poor hunted wretch that had dragged himself past my hiding place how distinctly do I remember his poor pitiful gnarled hands as he lay there on the pavement hands that were more hoof and claw than hands all twisted and distorted by the toil of all his days with on the palms a horny growth of callous a half inch thick and as I picked myself up and started on I looked into the face of the thing and saw that it still lived for the eyes dimly intelligent were looking at me and seeing me after that came a kindly blank I knew nothing saw nothing merely totted on in my quest for safety my next nightmare vision was a quiet street of the dead I came upon it abruptly as a wanderer in the country would come upon a flowing stream only this stream I gazed upon did not flow it was congealed in death from pavement to pavement and covering the sidewalks it lay there spread out quite evenly with only here and there a lump or mound of bodies to break the surface poor driven people of the abyss hunted helots they lay there as the rabbits in California after a drive note in those days so sparsely populated was the land that wild animals often became pests in California the custom of rabbit driving obtained on a given day all the farmers in the locality would assemble and sweep across the country in converging lines driving the rabbits by scores of thousands into a prepared enclosure where they were clubbed to death by men and boys up the street and down I looked there was no movement no sound the quiet buildings looked down upon the scene from their many windows and once only I saw an arm that moved in that dead stream I swear I saw it move with a strange writhing gesture of agony and with it lifted ahead gory with nameless horror that gibbered at me and then lay down again and moved no more I remember another street with quiet buildings on either side and the panic that smote me into consciousness as again I saw the people of the abyss but this time in a stream that flowed and came on and then I saw there was nothing to fear the stream moved slowly while from it arose groans and lamentations cursings, babblings of senility hysteria and insanity for these were the very young and the very old the feeble and the sick, the helpless and the hopeless all the rackage of the ghetto the burning of the great ghetto on the south side had driven them forth into the inferno of the street fighting and wither they wended and whatever became of them I did not know and never learned note, it was long a question of debate whether the burning of the south side ghetto was accidental or whether it was done by the mercenaries but it is definitely settled now that the ghetto was fired by the mercenaries under orders from their chiefs I have faint memories of breaking a window and hiding in some shop to escape a street mob that was pursued by soldiers also a bomb burst near me once in some still street where look as I would up and down I could see no human being but my next sharp recollection begins with the crack of a rifle and an abrupt becoming aware that I was being fired at by a soldier in an automobile the shot missed and the next moment I was screaming and motioning the signals my memory of riding in the automobile is very hazy though this ride in turn is broken by one vivid picture the crack of the rifle of the soldier sitting beside me made me open my eyes and I saw George Milford whom I had known in the Pell Street days sinking slowly down to the sidewalk even as he sank the soldier fired again and Milford doubled in then flung his body out and felt sprawling the soldier chuckled and the automobile sped on the next I knew after that I was awakened out of a sound sleep by a man who walked up and down close beside me his face was drawn and strained and the sweat rolled down his nose from his forehead one hand was clutched tightly against his chest by the other hand and blood dripped down upon the floor as he walked he wore the uniform of the mercenaries from without as through thick walls came the muffled roar of bursting bombs I was in some building that was locked in combat with some other building a surgeon came in to dress the wounded soldier and I learned that it was two in the afternoon my headache was no better and the surgeon paused from his work long enough to give me a powerful drug that would depress the heart and bring relief I slept again and the next I knew I was on top of the building the immediate fighting had ceased the balloon attack on the fortresses someone had an arm around me and I was leaning close against him it came to me quite as a matter of course that this was Ernest and I found myself wondering how he had got his hair and eyebrows so badly singed it was by the merest chance that we had found each other in that terrible city he had had no idea that I had left New York and coming through the room where I lay asleep could not at first believe that it was I little more I saw of the Chicago commun after watching the balloon attack Ernest took me down into the heart of the building where I slept the afternoon out and the night the third day we spent in the building and on the fourth Ernest having got permission and an automobile from the authorities we left Chicago my headache was gone but body and soul I was very tired I lay back against Ernest in the automobile and with apathetic eyes watched the soldiers trying to get the machine out of the city fighting was still going on but only in isolated localities here and there whole districts were still in possession of the comrades but such districts were surrounded and guarded by heavy bodies of troops in a hundred segregated traps where the comrades thus held while the work of subjugating them went on subjugation meant death for no quarter was given and they fought heroically to the last man note numbers of the buildings held out over a week while one held out eleven days each building had to be stormed like a fort and the mercenaries fought their way upward floor by floor it was deadly fighting quarter was neither given nor taken and in the fighting the revolutionists had the advantage of being above while the revolutionists were wiped out the loss was not one sided the proud Chicago proletariat lived up to its ancient boast for as many of itself as were killed it killed that many of the enemy whenever we approached such localities the guards turned us back and sent us around once the only way past two strong positions of the comrades was through a burnt section that lay between from either side we could hear the rattle and roar of war while the automobile picked its way through smoking ruins and tottering walls often the streets were blocked by mountains of debris that compelled us to go around we were in a labyrinth of ruin and our progress was slow the stockyards, ghetto, plant and everything were smouldering ruins far off to the right a wide smoke haze dimmed to the sky the town of Pullman the lord of chauffeur told us or what had been the town of Pullman for it was utterly destroyed he had driven the machine out there with dispatchers on the afternoon of the third day some of the heaviest fighting had occurred there he said many of the streets being rendered impassable by the heaps of the dead swinging around the shattered walls of a building in the stockyards district the automobile was stopped by a wave of dead it was for all the world like a wave tossed up by the sea it was patent to us what had happened in the corner it had been swept at right angles and point bank range by the machine guns drawn up on the cross street but disaster had come to the soldiers a chance bomb must have exploded among them for the mob, checked until it's dead and dying formed the wave had white capped and flung forward it's foam of living fighting slaves soldiers and slaves lay together torn and mangled around and over the wreckage of the automobiles and guns earnest, sprang out a familiar pair of shoulders in a cotton shirt the fringe of white hair had caught his eye I did not watch him and it was not until he was back beside me and we were speeding on that he said it was Bishop Moiles soon we were in the green country and I took one last glance back at the smug filled sky faint and far came the low thud of an explosion and I turned to my face against earnest breast and wept softly for the cause that was lost earnest psalm about me was eloquent with love for this time lost, dear heart he said, but not forever we have learned tomorrow the cause will rise again strong with wisdom and discipline the automobile drew up at a railroad station here we would catch a train to New York as we waited on the platform three trains thundered past bound west to Chicago they were crowded with ragged, unskilled laborers people of the abyss slave levers for the rebuilding of Chicago Ernest said you see the Chicago slaves are all killed End of Chapter 24 Recording by Matt Saw Montreal Matt Saw.org Chapter 25 of The Iron Heel by Jack London This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Matt Saw The Terrorists It was not until Ernest and I were back in New York and after weeks had elapsed that we were able to comprehend thoroughly the full sweep of the disaster that had befallen the cause the situation was bitter and bloody in many places scattered over the country slave revolts and massacres had occurred the role of the martyrs increased mightily countless executions took place everywhere the mountains and waste regions were filled with outlaws and refugees who were being hunted down mercilessly our own refuges were packed with comrades who had prices on their heads through information furnished by its spies scores of our refuges were raided by the soldiers of the Iron Heel many of the comrades were disarmed and they retaliated with terroristic tactics the setback to their hopes made them despairing and desperate many terrorist organizations were affiliated with us sprang into existence and caused as much trouble note the annals of this short-lived era of despair make bloody reading revenge was the ruling motive and the members of the terroristic organizations were careless of their own lives and hopeless about the future the daynights taking their name from the avenging angels of the Mormon mythology sprang up in the mountains of the great west and spread over the pacific coast from Panama to Alaska the valkyries were women all of all no woman was eligible for membership who had not lost near relatives at the hands of the oligarchy they were guilty of torturing their prisoners to death another famous organization of women was the widows of war a companion organization to the valkyries was the berserkers these men placed no value whatever upon their own lives and it was they who totally destroyed the great mercenary city of Bologna along with its population of over 100,000 souls the bedlamites and the heldamites were twin-slave organizations the religious sect that did not flourish long was called the wrath of God among others to show the whimsicality of their deadly seriousness maybe mentioned the following the bleeding hearts sons of the morning the morning stars the flamingos the triple triangles the three bars the rubonics the vindicators the comanches and the arabicites our own plans go astray and retarded our organization and through it all moved the iron heel impassive and deliberate shaking up the whole fabric of the social structure in its search for the comrades combing out the mercenaries the labor casts and all its secret services punishing without mercy and without malice suffering in silence all retaliations that were made upon it and filling the gaps in its fighting line as fast as they appeared and in hand with this Ernest and the other leaders were hard at work reorganizing the forces of the revolution the magnitude of the task may be understood when it is taken into note this is the end of the ever hard manuscript it breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence she must have received warning of the coming of the mercenaries for she had time safely to hide the manuscript before she fled or was captured it is to be regretted that she did not live to complete her narrative for then undoubtedly would have been cleared away the mystery that has shrouded for seven centuries the execution of Ernest ever hard