A thousand deaths by Jack London

all? I saw the beach, so I left a couple of constables behind to

keep an eye on it. That’s all.”

THE SIEGE OF THE “LANCASHIRE QUEEN”

Possibly our most exasperating experience on the fish patrol was

when Charley Le Grant and I laid a two weeks’ siege to a big four-

masted English ship. Before we had finished with the affair, it

became a pretty mathematical problem, and it was by the merest

chance that we came into possession of the instrument that brought

it to a successful termination.

After our raid on the oyster pirates we had returned to Oakland,

where two more weeks passed before Neil Partington’s wife was out

of danger and on the highroad to recovery. So it was after an

absence of a month, all told, that we turned the Reindeer’s nose

toward Benicia. When the cat’s away the mice will play, and in

these four weeks the fishermen had become very bold in violating

the law. When we passed Point Pedro we noticed many signs of

activity among the shrimp-catchers, and, well into San Pablo Bay,

we observed a widely scattered fleet of Upper Bay fishing-boats

hastily pulling in their nets and getting up sail.

This was suspicious enough to warrant investigation, and the first

and only boat we succeeded in boarding proved to have an illegal

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

33

net. The law permitted no smaller mesh for catching shad than one

that measured seven and one-half inches inside the knots, while the

mesh of this particular net measured only three inches. It was a

flagrant breach of the rules, and the two fishermen were forthwith

put under arrest. Neil Partington took one of them with him to

help manage the Reindeer, while Charley and I went on ahead with

the other in the captured boat.

But the shad fleet had headed over toward the Petaluma shore in

wild flight, and for the rest of the run through San Pablo Bay we

saw no more fishermen at all. Our prisoner, a bronzed and bearded

Greek, sat sullenly on his net while we sailed his craft. It was a

new Columbia River salmon boat, evidently on its first trip, and it

handled splendidly. Even when Charley praised it, our prisoner

refused to speak or to notice us, and we soon gave him up as a most

unsociable fellow.

We ran up the Carquinez Straits and edged into the bight at

Turner’s Shipyard for smoother water. Here were lying several

English steel sailing ships, waiting for the wheat harvest; and

here, most unexpectedly, in the precise place where we had captured

Big Alec, we came upon two Italians in a skiff that was loaded with

a complete “Chinese” sturgeon line. The surprise was mutual, and

we were on top of them before either they or we were aware.

Charley had barely time to luff into the wind and run up to them.

I ran forward and tossed them a line with orders to make it fast.

One of the Italians took a turn with it over a cleat, while I

hastened to lower our big spritsail. This accomplished, the salmon

boat dropped astern, dragging heavily on the skiff.

Charley came forward to board the prize, but when I proceeded to

haul alongside by means of the line, the Italians cast it off. We

at once began drifting to leeward, while they got out two pairs of

oars and rowed their light craft directly into the wind. This

manoeuvre for the moment disconcerted us, for in our large and

heavily loaded boat we could not hope to catch them with the oars.

But our prisoner came unexpectedly to our aid. His black eyes were

flashing eagerly, and his face was flushed with suppressed

excitement, as he dropped the centre-board, sprang forward with a

single leap, and put up the sail.

“I’ve always heard that Greeks don’t like Italians,” Charley

laughed, as he ran aft to the tiller.

And never in my experience have I seen a man so anxious for the

capture of another as was our prisoner in the chase that followed.

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

34

His eyes fairly snapped, and his nostrils quivered and dilated in a

most extraordinary way. Charley steered while he tended the sheet;

and though Charley was as quick and alert as a cat, the Greek could

hardly control his impatience.

The Italians were cut off from the shore, which was fully a mile

away at its nearest point. Did they attempt to make it, we could

haul after them with the wind abeam, and overtake them before they

had covered an eighth of the distance. But they were too wise to

attempt it, contenting themselves with rowing lustily to windward

along the starboard side of a big ship, the Lancashire Queen. But

beyond the ship lay an open stretch of fully two miles to the shore

in that direction. This, also, they dared not attempt, for we were

bound to catch them before they could cover it. So, when they

reached the bow of the Lancashire Queen, nothing remained but to

pass around and row down her port side toward the stern, which

meant rowing to leeward and giving us the advantage.

We in the salmon boat, sailing close on the wind, tacked about and

crossed the ship’s bow. Then Charley put up the tiller and headed

down the port side of the ship, the Greek letting out the sheet and

grinning with delight. The Italians were already half-way down the

ship’s length; but the stiff breeze at our back drove us after them

far faster than they could row. Closer and closer we came, and I,

lying down forward, was just reaching out to grasp the skiff, when

it ducked under the great stern of the Lancashire Queen.

The chase was virtually where it had begun. The Italians were

rowing up the starboard side of the ship, and we were hauled close

on the wind and slowly edging out from the ship as we worked to

windward. Then they darted around her bow and began the row down

her port side, and we tacked about, crossed her bow, and went

plunging down the wind hot after them. And again, just as I was

reaching for the skiff, it ducked under the ship’s stern and out of

danger. And so it went, around and around, the skiff each time

just barely ducking into safety.

By this time the ship’s crew had become aware of what was taking

place, and we could see their heads in a long row as they looked at

us over the bulwarks. Each time we missed the skiff at the stern,

they set up a wild cheer and dashed across to the other side of the

Lancashire Queen to see the chase to wind-ward. They showered us

and the Italians with jokes and advice, and made our Greek so angry

that at least once on each circuit he raised his fist and shook it

at them in a rage. They came to look for this, and at each display

greeted it with uproarious mirth.

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

35

“Wot a circus!” cried one.

“Tork about yer marine hippodromes, – if this ain’t one, I’d like

to know!” affirmed another.

“Six-days-go-as-yer-please,” announced a third. “Who says the

dagoes won’t win?”

On the next tack to windward the Greek offered to change places

with Charley.

“Let-a me sail-a de boat,” he demanded. “I fix-a them, I catch-a

them, sure.”

This was a stroke at Charley’s professional pride, for pride

himself he did upon his boat-sailing abilities; but he yielded the

tiller to the prisoner and took his place at the sheet. Three

times again we made the circuit, and the Greek found that he could

get no more speed out of the salmon boat than Charley had.

“Better give it up,” one of the sailors advised from above.

The Greek scowled ferociously and shook his fist in his customary

fashion. In the meanwhile my mind had not been idle, and I had

finally evolved an idea.

“Keep going, Charley, one time more,” I said.

And as we laid out on the next tack to wind-ward, I bent a piece of

line to a small grappling hook I had seen lying in the bail-hole.

The end of the line I made fast to the ring-bolt in the bow, and

with the hook out of sight I waited for the next opportunity to use

it. Once more they made their leeward pull down the port side of

the Lancashire Queen, and once more we churned down after them

before the wind. Nearer and nearer we drew, and I was making

believe to reach for them as before. The stern of the skiff was

not six feet away, and they were laughing at me derisively as they

ducked under the ship’s stern. At that instant I suddenly arose

and threw the grappling iron. It caught fairly and squarely on the