The Iron Heel Page 21

  CHAPTER XX

  A LOST OLIGARCH

  But in remembering the old life I have run ahead of my story into thenew life. The wholesale jail delivery did not occur until well alonginto 1915. Complicated as it was, it was carried through without ahitch, and as a very creditable achievement it cheered us on in ourwork. From Cuba to California, out of scores of jails, military prisons,and fortresses, in a single night, we delivered fifty-one of ourfifty-two Congressmen, and in addition over three hundred other leaders.There was not a single instance of miscarriage. Not only did theyescape, but every one of them won to the refuges as planned. The onecomrade Congressman we did not get was Arthur Simpson, and he hadalready died in Cabanas after cruel tortures.

  The eighteen months that followed was perhaps the happiest of my lifewith Ernest. During that time we were never apart. Later, when we wentback into the world, we were separated much. Not more impatiently do Iawait the flame of to-morrow's revolt than did I that night await thecoming of Ernest. I had not seen him for so long, and the thought of apossible hitch or error in our plans that would keep him still in hisisland prison almost drove me mad. The hours passed like ages. I wasall alone. Biedenbach, and three young men who had been living in therefuge, were out and over the mountain, heavily armed and prepared foranything. The refuges all over the land were quite empty, I imagine, ofcomrades that night.

  Just as the sky paled with the first warning of dawn, I heard thesignal from above and gave the answer. In the darkness I almost embracedBiedenbach, who came down first; but the next moment I was in Ernest'sarms. And in that moment, so complete had been my transformation, Idiscovered it was only by an effort of will that I could be the old AvisEverhard, with the old mannerisms and smiles, phrases and intonations ofvoice. It was by strong effort only that I was able to maintain myold identity; I could not allow myself to forget for an instant, soautomatically imperative had become the new personality I had created.

  Once inside the little cabin, I saw Ernest's face in the light. With theexception of the prison pallor, there was no change in him--at least,not much. He was my same lover-husband and hero. And yet there was acertain ascetic lengthening of the lines of his face. But he could wellstand it, for it seemed to add a certain nobility of refinement to theriotous excess of life that had always marked his features. He mighthave been a trifle graver than of yore, but the glint of laughter stillwas in his eyes. He was twenty pounds lighter, but in splendidphysical condition. He had kept up exercise during the whole period ofconfinement, and his muscles were like iron. In truth, he was in bettercondition than when he had entered prison. Hours passed before his headtouched pillow and I had soothed him off to sleep. But there was nosleep for me. I was too happy, and the fatigue of jail-breaking andriding horseback had not been mine.

  While Ernest slept, I changed my dress, arranged my hair differently,and came back to my new automatic self. Then, when Biedenbach and theother comrades awoke, with their aid I concocted a little conspiracy.All was ready, and we were in the cave-room that served for kitchenand dining room when Ernest opened the door and entered. At that momentBiedenbach addressed me as Mary, and I turned and answered him. Then Iglanced at Ernest with curious interest, such as any young comrade mightbetray on seeing for the first time so noted a hero of the Revolution.But Ernest's glance took me in and questioned impatiently past andaround the room. The next moment I was being introduced to him as MaryHolmes.

  To complete the deception, an extra plate was laid, and when we sat downto table one chair was not occupied. I could have cried with joy as Inoted Ernest's increasing uneasiness and impatience. Finally he couldstand it no longer.

  "Where's my wife?" he demanded bluntly.

  "She is still asleep," I answered.

  It was the crucial moment. But my voice was a strange voice, and in ithe recognized nothing familiar. The meal went on. I talked a greatdeal, and enthusiastically, as a hero-worshipper might talk, and itwas obvious that he was my hero. I rose to a climax of enthusiasm andworship, and, before he could guess my intention, threw my arms aroundhis neck and kissed him on the lips. He held me from him at arm's lengthand stared about in annoyance and perplexity. The four men greeted himwith roars of laughter, and explanations were made. At first he wassceptical. He scrutinized me keenly and was half convinced, then shookhis head and would not believe. It was not until I became the old AvisEverhard and whispered secrets in his ear that none knew but he and AvisEverhard, that he accepted me as his really, truly wife.

  It was later in the day that he took me in his arms, manifesting greatembarrassment and claiming polygamous emotions.

  "You are my Avis," he said, "and you are also some one else. You are twowomen, and therefore you are my harem. At any rate, we are safe now.If the United States becomes too hot for us, why I have qualified forcitizenship in Turkey."*

  * At that time polygamy was still practised in Turkey.

  Life became for me very happy in the refuge. It is true, we workedhard and for long hours; but we worked together. We had each other foreighteen precious months, and we were not lonely, for there was alwaysa coming and going of leaders and comrades--strange voices from theunder-world of intrigue and revolution, bringing stranger tales ofstrife and war from all our battle-line. And there was much fun anddelight. We were not mere gloomy conspirators. We toiled hard andsuffered greatly, filled the gaps in our ranks and went on, and throughall the labour and the play and interplay of life and death we foundtime to laugh and love. There were artists, scientists, scholars,musicians, and poets among us; and in that hole in the ground culturewas higher and finer than in the palaces of wonder-cities of theoligarchs. In truth, many of our comrades toiled at making beautifulthose same palaces and wonder-cities.*

  * This is not braggadocio on the part of Avis Everhard. The flower of the artistic and intellectual world were revolutionists. With the exception of a few of the musicians and singers, and of a few of the oligarchs, all the great creators of the period whose names have come down to us, were revolutionists.

  Nor were we confined to the refuge itself. Often at night we rode overthe mountains for exercise, and we rode on Wickson's horses. If only heknew how many revolutionists his horses have carried! We even went onpicnics to isolated spots we knew, where we remained all day, goingbefore daylight and returning after dark. Also, we used Wickson's creamand butter,* and Ernest was not above shooting Wickson's quail andrabbits, and, on occasion, his young bucks.

  * Even as late as that period, cream and butter were still crudely extracted from cow's milk. The laboratory preparation of foods had not yet begun.

  Indeed, it was a safe refuge. I have said that it was discovered onlyonce, and this brings me to the clearing up of the mystery of thedisappearance of young Wickson. Now that he is dead, I am free to speak.There was a nook on the bottom of the great hole where the sun shone forseveral hours and which was hidden from above. Here we had carriedmany loads of gravel from the creek-bed, so that it was dry and warm,a pleasant basking place; and here, one afternoon, I was drowsing, halfasleep, over a volume of Mendenhall.* I was so comfortable and securethat even his flaming lyrics failed to stir me.

  * In all the extant literature and documents of that period, continual reference is made to the poems of Rudolph Mendenhall. By his comrades he was called "The Flame." He was undoubtedly a great genius; yet, beyond weird and haunting fragments of his verse, quoted in the writings of others, nothing of his has come down to us. He was executed by the Iron Heel in 1928 A.D.

  I was aroused by a clod of earth striking at my feet. Then from above,I heard a sound of scrambling. The next moment a young man, with afinal slide down the crumbling wall, alighted at my feet. It was PhilipWickson, though I did not know him at the time. He looked at me coollyand uttered a low whistle of surprise.

  "Well," he said; and the next moment, cap in hand, he was saying, "I begyour pardon. I did not expect to find any one here."
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  I was not so cool. I was still a tyro so far as concerned knowing how tobehave in desperate circumstances. Later on, when I was an internationalspy, I should have been less clumsy, I am sure. As it was, I scrambledto my feet and cried out the danger call.

  "Why did you do that?" he asked, looking at me searchingly.

  It was evident that he had no suspicion of our presence when making thedescent. I recognized this with relief.

  "For what purpose do you think I did it?" I countered. I was indeedclumsy in those days.

  "I don't know," he answered, shaking his head. "Unless you've gotfriends about. Anyway, you've got some explanations to make. I don'tlike the look of it. You are trespassing. This is my father's land,and--"

  But at that moment, Biedenbach, every polite and gentle, said frombehind him in a low voice, "Hands up, my young sir."

  Young Wickson put his hands up first, then turned to confrontBiedenbach, who held a thirty-thirty automatic rifle on him. Wickson wasimperturbable.

  "Oh, ho," he said, "a nest of revolutionists--and quite a hornet's nestit would seem. Well, you won't abide here long, I can tell you."

  "Maybe you'll abide here long enough to reconsider that statement,"Biedenbach said quietly. "And in the meanwhile I must ask you to comeinside with me."

  "Inside?" The young man was genuinely astonished. "Have you a catacombhere? I have heard of such things."

  "Come and see," Biedenbach answered with his adorable accent.

  "But it is unlawful," was the protest.

  "Yes, by your law," the terrorist replied significantly. "But by ourlaw, believe me, it is quite lawful. You must accustom yourself tothe fact that you are in another world than the one of oppression andbrutality in which you have lived."

  "There is room for argument there," Wickson muttered.

  "Then stay with us and discuss it."

  The young fellow laughed and followed his captor into the house. Hewas led into the inner cave-room, and one of the young comrades left toguard him, while we discussed the situation in the kitchen.

  Biedenbach, with tears in his eyes, held that Wickson must die, and wasquite relieved when we outvoted him and his horrible proposition. On theother hand, we could not dream of allowing the young oligarch to depart.

  "I'll tell you what to do," Ernest said. "We'll keep him and give him aneducation."

  "I bespeak the privilege, then, of enlightening him in jurisprudence,"Biedenbach cried.

  And so a decision was laughingly reached. We would keep Philip Wicksona prisoner and educate him in our ethics and sociology. But in themeantime there was work to be done. All trace of the young oligarch mustbe obliterated. There were the marks he had left when descending thecrumbling wall of the hole. This task fell to Biedenbach, and, slung ona rope from above, he toiled cunningly for the rest of the day till nosign remained. Back up the canyon from the lip of the hole all markswere likewise removed. Then, at twilight, came John Carlson, whodemanded Wickson's shoes.

  The young man did not want to give up his shoes, and even offered tofight for them, till he felt the horseshoer's strength in Ernest'shands. Carlson afterward reported several blisters and much grievousloss of skin due to the smallness of the shoes, but he succeeded indoing gallant work with them. Back from the lip of the hole, where endedthe young man's obliterated trial, Carlson put on the shoes and walkedaway to the left. He walked for miles, around knolls, over ridges andthrough canyons, and finally covered the trail in the running water ofa creek-bed. Here he removed the shoes, and, still hiding trail for adistance, at last put on his own shoes. A week later Wickson got backhis shoes.

  That night the hounds were out, and there was little sleep in therefuge. Next day, time and again, the baying hounds came down thecanyon, plunged off to the left on the trail Carlson had made for them,and were lost to ear in the farther canyons high up the mountain. Andall the time our men waited in the refuge, weapons in hand--automaticrevolvers and rifles, to say nothing of half a dozen infernal machinesof Biedenbach's manufacture. A more surprised party of rescuers couldnot be imagined, had they ventured down into our hiding-place.

  I have now given the true disappearance of Philip Wickson, one-timeoligarch, and, later, comrade in the Revolution. For we converted himin the end. His mind was fresh and plastic, and by nature he was veryethical. Several months later we rode him, on one of his father'shorses, over Sonoma Mountains to Petaluma Creek and embarked him ina small fishing-launch. By easy stages we smuggled him along ourunderground railway to the Carmel refuge.

  There he remained eight months, at the end of which time, for tworeasons, he was loath to leave us. One reason was that he had fallen inlove with Anna Roylston, and the other was that he had become one ofus. It was not until he became convinced of the hopelessness of hislove affair that he acceded to our wishes and went back to his father.Ostensibly an oligarch until his death, he was in reality one of themost valuable of our agents. Often and often has the Iron Heel beendumbfounded by the miscarriage of its plans and operations against us.If it but knew the number of its own members who are our agents, itwould understand. Young Wickson never wavered in his loyalty to theCause. In truth, his very death was incurred by his devotion to duty.In the great storm of 1927, while attending a meeting of our leaders, hecontracted the pneumonia of which he died.*

  * The case of this young man was not unusual. Many young men of the Oligarchy, impelled by sense of right conduct, or their imaginations captured by the glory of the Revolution, ethically or romantically devoted their lives to it. In similar way, many sons of the Russian nobility played their parts in the earlier and protracted revolution in that country.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE ROARING ABYSMAL BEAST

  During the long period of our stay in the refuge, we were kept closelyin touch with what was happening in the world without, and we werelearning thoroughly the strength of the Oligarchy with which we wereat war. Out of the flux of transition the new institutions wereforming more definitely and taking on the appearance and attributesof permanence. The oligarchs had succeeded in devising a governmentalmachine, as intricate as it was vast, that worked--and this despite allour efforts to clog and hamper.

  This was a surprise to many of the revolutionists. They had notconceived it possible. Nevertheless the work of the country went on.The men toiled in the mines and fields--perforce they were no more thanslaves. As for the vital industries, everything prospered. The membersof the great labor castes were contented and worked on merrily. For thefirst time in their lives they knew industrial peace. No more were theyworried by slack times, strike and lockout, and the union label. Theylived in more comfortable homes and in delightful cities of theirown--delightful compared with the slums and ghettos in which they hadformerly dwelt. They had better food to eat, less hours of labor, moreholidays, and a greater amount and variety of interests and pleasures.And for their less fortunate brothers and sisters, the unfavoredlaborers, the driven people of the abyss, they cared nothing. An ageof selfishness was dawning upon mankind. And yet this is not altogethertrue. The labor castes were honeycombed by our agents--men whoseeyes saw, beyond the belly-need, the radiant figure of liberty andbrotherhood.

  Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothlywas the Mercenaries. This body of soldiers had been evolved out of theold regular army and was now a million strong, to say nothing of thecolonial forces. The Mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt incities of their own which were practically self-governed, and theywere granted many privileges. By them a large portion of the perplexingsurplus was consumed. They were losing all touch and sympathy withthe rest of the people, and, in fact, were developing their own classmorality and consciousness. And yet we had thousands of our agents amongthem.*

  * 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 labor castes and the oligarchs, and now to one side and now
to the other, threw their strength according to the play of intrigue and conspiracy.

  The oligarchs themselves were going through a remarkable and, it mustbe confessed, unexpected development. As a class, they disciplinedthemselves. Every member had his work to do in the world, and this workhe was compelled to do. There were no more idle-rich young men. Theirstrength was used to give united strength to the Oligarchy. They servedas leaders of troops and as lieutenants and captains of industry.They found careers in applied science, and many of them became greatengineers. They went into the multitudinous divisions of the government,took service in the colonial possessions, and by tens of thousands wentinto the various secret services. They were, I may say, apprenticedto education, to art, to the church, to science, to literature; andin those fields they served the important function of moulding thethought-processes of the nation in the direction of the perpetuity ofthe Oligarchy.

  They were taught, and later they in turn taught, that what they weredoing was right. They assimilated the aristocratic idea from the momentthey began, as children, to receive impressions of the world. Thearistocratic idea was woven into the making of them until it became boneof them and flesh of them. They looked upon themselves as wild-animaltrainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet rose always thesubterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in theirmidst; bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangsof the roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity wereto persist. They were the saviours of humanity, and they regardedthemselves as heroic and sacrificing laborers for the highest good.

  They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization.It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast wouldingulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in itscavernous and slime-dripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign andhumanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which ithad so painfully emerged. The horrid picture of anarchy was heldalways before their child's eyes until they, in turn, obsessed by thiscultivated fear, held the picture of anarchy before the eyes of thechildren that followed them. This was the beast to be stamped upon, andthe highest duty of the aristocrat was to stamp upon it. In short,they alone, by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood betweenweak humanity and the all-devouring beast; and they believed it, firmlybelieved it.

  I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness ofthe whole oligarch class. This has been the strength of the Iron Heel,and too many of the comrades have been slow or loath to realize it. Manyof them have ascribed the strength of the Iron Heel to its system ofreward and punishment. This is a mistake. Heaven and hell may be theprime factors of zeal in the religion of a fanatic; but for the greatmajority of the religious, heaven and hell are incidental to rightand wrong. Love of the right, desire for the right, unhappiness withanything less than the right--in short, right conduct, is the primefactor of religion. And so with the Oligarchy. Prisons, banishment anddegradation, honors and palaces and wonder-cities, are all incidental.The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they aredoing right. Never mind the exceptions, and never mind the oppressionand injustice in which the Iron Heel was conceived. All is granted. Thepoint is that the strength of the Oligarchy today lies in its satisfiedconception of its own righteousness.*

  * Out of the ethical incoherency and inconsistency of capitalism, the oligarchs emerged with a new ethics, coherent and definite, 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 thesefrightful twenty years, has resided in nothing else than the senseof righteousness. In no other way can be explained our sacrifices andmartyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out hissoul for the Cause and sing his wild swan-song that last night of life.For no other reason did Hurlbert die under torture, refusing to the lastto betray his comrades. For no other reason has Anna Roylston refusedblessed motherhood. For no other reason has John Carlson been thefaithful and unrewarded custodian of the Glen Ellen Refuge. It doesnot 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-forcewill 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 wasdeveloping. The labor castes, the Mercenaries, and the great hordesof secret agents and police of various sorts were all pledged to theOligarchy. In the main, and ignoring the loss of liberty, they werebetter off than they had been. On the other hand, the great helplessmass of the population, the people of the abyss, was sinking into abrutish apathy of content with misery. Whenever strong proletariansasserted their strength in the midst of the mass, they were drawn awayfrom the mass by the oligarchs and given better conditions by being mademembers of the labor castes or of the Mercenaries. Thus discontent waslulled and the proletariat robbed of its natural leaders.

  The condition of the people of the abyss was pitiable. Common schooleducation, so far as they were concerned, had ceased. They livedlike beasts in great squalid labor-ghettos, festering in misery anddegradation. All their old liberties were gone. They were labor-slaves.Choice of work was denied them. Likewise was denied them the right tomove from place to place, or the right to bear or possess arms. Theywere not land serfs like the farmers. They were machine-serfs andlabor-serfs. When unusual needs arose for them, such as the buildingof the great highways and air-lines, of canals, tunnels, subways, andfortifications, levies were made on the labor-ghettos, and tens ofthousands of serfs, willy-nilly, were transported to the scene ofoperations. Great armies of them are toiling now at the building ofArdis, housed in wretched barracks where family life cannot exist, andwhere decency is displaced by dull bestiality. In all truth, there inthe labor-ghettos is the roaring abysmal beast the oligarchs fear sodreadfully--but it is the beast of their own making. In it they will notlet the ape and tiger die.

  And just now the word has gone forth that new levies are being imposedfor the building of Asgard, the projected wonder-city that will farexceed Ardis when the latter is completed.* We of the Revolution will goon 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 thesound of singing, and into its beauty and wonder will be woven, notsighs and groans, but music and laughter.

  * Ardis was completed in 1942 A.D., Asgard was not completed until 1984 A.D. 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 labor castes and the artists.

  Ernest was madly impatient to be out in the world and doing, for ourill-fated First Revolt, that had miscarried in the Chicago Commune, wasripening fast. Yet he possessed his soul with patience, and during thistime of his torment, when Hadly, who had been brought for the purposefrom Illinois, made him over into another man* he revolved great plansin his head for the organization of the learned proletariat, and for themaintenance of at least the rudiments of education amongst the people ofthe abyss--all this of course in the event of the First Revolt being afailure.

  * 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 c
are that no traces were left of their handiwork. The nose was a favorite 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's stature by as much as four or five inches and decrease it by one or two inches. What they did is to-day a lost art. We have no need for it.

  It was not until January, 1917, that we left the refuge. All had beenarranged. We took our place at once as agents-provocateurs in the schemeof the Iron Heel. I was supposed to be Ernest's sister. By oligarchs andcomrades on the inside who were high in authority, place had been madefor us, we were in possession of all necessary documents, and our pastswere accounted for. With help on the inside, this was not difficult,for in that shadow-world of secret service identity was nebulous. Likeghosts the agents came and went, obeying commands, fulfilling duties,following clews, making their reports often to officers they never sawor cooperating with other agents they had never seen before and wouldnever see again.