A thousand deaths by Jack London

busied ourselves driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee.

Also we had to devote ourselves to the miserable task of bailing,

for in some incomprehensible way the Reindeer had sprung a generous

leak. Half the night had been spent in overhauling the ballast and

exploring the seams, but the labor had been without avail. The

water still poured in, and perforce we doubled up in the cockpit

and tossed it out again.

After coffee, three of the men withdrew to the other boat, a

Columbia River salmon boat, leaving three of us in the Reindeer.

Then the two craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over

the eastern sky-line. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging

vapors, and there, before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp

fleet, spread out in a great half-moon, the tips of the crescent

fully three miles apart, and each junk moored fast to the buoy of a

shrimp-net. But there was no stir, no sign of life.

The situation dawned upon us. While waiting for slack water, in

which to lift their heavy nets from the bed of the bay, the Chinese

had all gone to sleep below. We were elated, and our plan of

battle was swiftly formed.

“Throw each of your two men on to a junk,” whispered Le Grant to me

from the salmon boat. “And you make fast to a third yourself.

We’ll do the same, and there’s no reason in the world why we

shouldn’t capture six junks at the least.”

Then we separated. I put the Reindeer about on the other tack, ran

up under the lee of a junk, shivered the mainsail into the wind and

lost headway, and forged past the stern of the junk so slowly and

so near that one of the patrolmen stepped lightly aboard. Then I

kept off, filled the mainsail, and bore away for a second junk.

Up to this time there had been no noise, but from the first junk

captured by the salmon boat an uproar now broke forth. There was

shrill Oriental yelling, a pistol shot, and more yelling.

“It’s all up. They’re warning the others,” said George, the

remaining patrolman, as he stood beside me in the cockpit.

By this time we were in the thick of the fleet, and the alarm was

spreading with incredible swiftness. The decks were beginning to

swarm with half-awakened and half-naked Chinese. Cries and yells

of warning and anger were flying over the quiet water, and

somewhere a conch shell was being blown with great success. To the

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

4

right of us I saw the captain of a junk chop away his mooring line

with an axe and spring to help his crew at the hoisting of the

huge, outlandish lug-sail. But to the left the first heads were

popping up from below on another junk, and I rounded up the

Reindeer alongside long enough for George to spring aboard.

The whole fleet was now under way. In addition to the sails they

had gotten out long sweeps, and the bay was being ploughed in every

direction by the fleeing junks. I was now alone in the Reindeer,

seeking feverishly to capture a third prize. The first junk I took

after was a clean miss, for it trimmed its sheets and shot away

surprisingly into the wind. By fully half a point it outpointed

the Reindeer, and I began to feel respect for the clumsy craft.

Realizing the hopelessness of the pursuit, I filled away, threw out

the main-sheet, and drove down before the wind upon the junks to

leeward, where I had them at a disadvantage.

The one I had selected wavered indecisively before me, and, as I

swung wide to make the boarding gentle, filled suddenly and darted

away, the smart Mongols shouting a wild rhythm as they bent to the

sweeps. But I had been ready for this. I luffed suddenly.

Putting the tiller hard down, and holding it down with my body, I

brought the main-sheet in, hand over hand, on the run, so as to

retain all possible striking force. The two starboard sweeps of

the junk were crumpled up, and then the two boats came together

with a crash. The Reindeer’s bowsprit, like a monstrous hand,

reached over and ripped out the junk’s chunky mast and towering

sail.

This was met by a curdling yell of rage. A big Chinaman,

remarkably evil-looking, with his head swathed in a yellow silk

handkerchief and face badly pock-marked, planted a pike-pole on the

Reindeer’s bow and began to shove the entangled boats apart.

Pausing long enough to let go the jib halyards, and just as the

Reindeer cleared and began to drift astern, I leaped aboard the

junk with a line and made fast. He of the yellow handkerchief and

pock-marked face came toward me threateningly, but I put my hand

into my hip pocket, and he hesitated. I was unarmed, but the

Chinese have learned to be fastidiously careful of American hip

pockets, and it was upon this that I depended to keep him and his

savage crew at a distance.

I ordered him to drop the anchor at the junk’s bow, to which he

replied, “No sabbe.” The crew responded in like fashion, and

though I made my meaning plain by signs, they refused to

understand. Realizing the inexpediency of discussing the matter, I

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

5

went forward myself, overran the line, and let the anchor go.

“Now get aboard, four of you,” I said in a loud voice, indicating

with my fingers that four of them were to go with me and the fifth

was to remain by the junk. The Yellow Handkerchief hesitated; but

I repeated the order fiercely (much more fiercely than I felt), at

the same time sending my hand to my hip. Again the Yellow

Handkerchief was overawed, and with surly looks he led three of his

men aboard the Reindeer. I cast off at once, and, leaving the jib

down, steered a course for George’s junk. Here it was easier, for

there were two of us, and George had a pistol to fall back on if it

came to the worst. And here, as with my junk, four Chinese were

transferred to the sloop and one left behind to take care of

things.

Four more were added to our passenger list from the third junk. By

this time the salmon boat had collected its twelve prisoners and

came alongside, badly overloaded. To make matters worse, as it was

a small boat, the patrolmen were so jammed in with their prisoners

that they would have little chance in case of trouble.

“You’ll have to help us out,” said Le Grant.

I looked over my prisoners, who had crowded into the cabin and on

top of it. “I can take three,” I answered.

“Make it four,” he suggested, “and I’ll take Bill with me.” (Bill

was the third patrolman.) “We haven’t elbow room here, and in case

of a scuffle one white to every two of them will be just about the

right proportion.”

The exchange was made, and the salmon boat got up its spritsail and

headed down the bay toward the marshes off San Rafael. I ran up

the jib and followed with the Reindeer. San Rafael, where we were

to turn our catch over to the authorities, communicated with the

bay by way of a long and tortuous slough, or marshland creek, which

could be navigated only when the tide was in. Slack water had

come, and, as the ebb was commencing, there was need for hurry if

we cared to escape waiting half a day for the next tide.

But the land breeze had begun to die away with the rising sun, and

now came only in failing puffs. The salmon boat got out its oars

and soon left us far astern. Some of the Chinese stood in the

forward part of the cockpit, near the cabin doors, and once, as I

leaned over the cockpit rail to flatten down the jib-sheet a bit, I

felt some one brush against my hip pocket. I made no sign, but out

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

6

of the corner of my eye I saw that the Yellow Handkerchief had

discovered the emptiness of the pocket which had hitherto overawed

him.

To make matters serious, during all the excitement of boarding the

junks the Reindeer had not been bailed, and the water was beginning

to slush over the cockpit floor. The shrimp-catchers pointed at it

and looked to me questioningly.

“Yes,” I said. “Bime by, allee same dlown, velly quick, you no

bail now. Sabbe?”

No, they did not “sabbe,” or at least they shook their heads to

that effect, though they chattered most comprehendingly to one

another in their own lingo. I pulled up three or four of the

bottom boards, got a couple of buckets from a locker, and by