memories of nightmare. I remember those trees especially, and my
desperate running along under them, and how, every time I fell,
roars of laughter went up from the other drunks. They thought I
was merely antic drunk. They did not dream that John Barleycorn
had me by the throat in a death-clutch. But I knew it. And I
remember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised that
I was in a struggle with death, and that these others did not
know. It was as if I were drowning before a crowd of spectators
who thought I was cutting up tricks for their entertainment.

And running there under the trees, I fell and lost consciousness.
What happened afterward, with one glimmering exception, I had to
be told. Nelson, with his enormous strength, picked me up and
dragged me on and aboard the train. When he had got me into a
seat, I fought and panted so terribly for air that even with his
obtuseness he knew I was in a bad way. And right there, at any
moment, I know now, I might have died. I often think it is the
nearest to death I have ever been. I have only Nelson's
description of my behaviour to go by.

I was scorching up, burning alive internally, in an agony of fire
and suffocation, and I wanted air. I madly wanted air. My
efforts to raise a window were vain, for all the windows in the
car were screwed down. Nelson had seen drink-crazed men, and
thought I wanted to throw myself out. He tried to restrain me,
but I fought on. I seized some man's torch and smashed the glass.

Now there were pro-Nelson and anti-Nelson factions on the Oakland
water-front, and men of both factions, with more drink in them
than was good, filled the car. My smashing of the window was the