Tales of the Fish Patrol

by Jack London

  “Where’d you swipe the old tub?” asked a squat and hairy man, with cruel eyes and Mexican features.

  “Didn’t swipe it,” Nicholas answered, meeting them on their own ground and encouraging the idea that we had stolen the Coal Tar Maggie . “And if we did, what of it?”

  “Well, I don’t admire your taste, that’s all,” sneered he of the Mexican features. “I’d rot on the beach first before I’d take a tub that couldn’t get out of its own way.”

  “How were we to know till we tried her?” Nicholas asked, so innocently as to cause a laugh. “And how do you get the oysters?” he hurried on. “We want a load of them; that’s what we came for, a load of oysters.”

  “What d’ye want ‘em for?” demanded the Porpoise.

  “Oh, to give away to our friends, of course,” Nicholas retorted. “That’s what you do with yours, I suppose.”

  This started another laugh, and as our visitors grew more genial we could see that they had not the slightest suspicion of our identity or purpose.

  “Didn’t I see you on the dock in Oakland the other day?” the Centipede asked suddenly of me.

  “Yep,” I answered boldly, taking the bull by the horns. “I was watching you fellows and figuring out whether we’d go oystering or not. It’s a pretty good business, I calculate, and so we’re going in for it. That is,” I hastened to add, “if you fellows don’t mind.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, which ain’t two things,” he replied, “and that is you’ll have to hump yerself an’ get a better boat. We won’t stand to be disgraced by any such box as this. Understand?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Soon as we sell some oysters we’ll outfit in style.”

  “And if you show yerself square an’ the right sort,” he went on, “why, you kin run with us. But if you don’t” (here his voice became stern and menacing), “why, it’ll be the sickest day of yer life. Understand?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  After that and more warning and advice of similar nature, the conversation became general, and we learned that the beds were to be raided that very night. As they got into their boats, after an hour’s stay, we were invited to join them in the raid with the assurance of “the more the merrier.”

  “Did you notice that short, Mexican-looking chap?” Nicholas asked, when they had departed to their various sloops. “He’s Barchi, of the Sporting Life Gang, and the fellow that came with him is Skilling. They’re both out now on five thousand dollars’ bail.”

  I had heard of the Sporting Life Gang before, a crowd of hoodlums and criminals that terrorized the lower quarters of Oakland , and two-thirds of which were usually to be found in state’s prison for crimes that ranged from perjury and ballot-box stuffing to murder.

  “They are not regular oyster pirates,” Nicholas continued. “They’ve just come down for the lark and to make a few dollars. But we’ll have to watch out for them.”

  We sat in the cockpit and discussed the details of our plan till eleven o’clock had passed, when we heard the rattle of an oar in a boat from the direction of the Ghost . We hauled up our own skiff, tossed in a few sacks, and rowed over. There we found all the skiffs assembling, it being the intention to raid the beds in a body.

  To my surprise, I found barely a foot of water where we had dropped anchor in ten feet. It was the big June run-out of the full moon, and as the ebb had yet an hour and a half to run, I knew that our anchorage would be dry ground before slack water.

  Mr. Taft’s beds were three miles away, and for a long time we rowed silently in the wake of the other boats, once in a while grounding and our oar blades constantly striking bottom. At last we came upon soft mud covered with not more than two inches of water���not enough to float the boats. But the pirates at once were over the side, and by pushing and pulling on the flat-bottomed skiffs, we moved steadily along.

  The full moon was partly obscured by high-flying clouds, but the pirates went their way with the familiarity born of long practice. After half a mile of the mud, we came upon a deep channel, up which we rowed, with dead oyster shoals looming high and dry on either side. At last we reached the picking grounds. Two men, on one of the shoals, hailed us and warned us off. But the Centipede, the Porpoise, Barchi, and Skilling took the lead, and followed by the rest of us, at least thirty men in half as many boats, rowed right up to the watchmen.

  “You’d better slide outa this here,” Barchi said threateningly, “or we’ll fill you so full of holes you wouldn’t float in molasses.”

  The watchmen wisely retreated before so overwhelming a force, and rowed their boat along the channel toward where the shore should be. Besides, it was in the plan for them to retreat.

  We hauled the noses of the boats up on the shore side of a big shoal, and all hands, with sacks, spread out and began picking. Every now and again the clouds thinned before the face of the moon, and we could see the big oysters quite distinctly. In almost no time sacks were filled and carried back to the boats, where fresh ones were obtained. Nicholas and I returned often and anxiously to the boats with our little loads, but always found some one of the pirates coming or going.

  “Never mind,” he said; “no hurry. As they pick farther and farther away, it will take too long to carry to the boats. Then they’ll stand the full sacks on end and pick them up when the tide comes in and the skiffs will float to them.”

  Fully half an hour went by, and the tide had begun to flood, when this came to pass. Leaving the pirates at their work, we stole back to the boats. One by one, and noiselessly, we shoved them off and made them fast in an awkward flotilla. Just as we were shoving off the last skiff, our own, one of the men came upon us. It was Barchi. His quick eye took in the situation at a glance, and he sprang for us; but we went clear with a mighty shove, and he was left floundering in the water over his head. As soon as he got back to the shoal he raised his voice and gave the alarm.

  We rowed with all our strength, but it was slow going with so many boats in tow. A pistol cracked from the shoal, a second, and a third; then a regular fusillade began. The bullets spat and spat all about us; but thick clouds had covered the moon, and in the dim darkness it was no more than random firing. It was only by chance that we could be hit.

  “Wish we had a little steam launch,” I panted.

  “I’d just as soon the moon stayed hidden,” Nicholas panted back.

  It was slow work, but every stroke carried us farther away from the shoal and nearer the shore, till at last the shooting died down, and when the moon did come out we were too far away to be in danger. Not long afterward we answered a shoreward hail, and two Whitehall boats, each pulled by three pairs of oars, darted up to us. Charley’s welcome face bent over to us, and he gripped us by the hands while he cried, “Oh, you joys! You joys! Both of you!”

  When the flotilla had been landed, Nicholas and I and a watchman rowed out in one of the Whitehalls , with Charley in the stern-sheets. Two other Whitehalls followed us, and as the moon now shone brightly, we easily made out the oyster pirates on their lonely shoal. As we drew closer, they fired a rattling volley from their revolvers, and we promptly retreated beyond range.

  ” Lot of time,” Charley said. “The flood is setting in fast, and by the time it’s up to their necks there won’t be any fight left in them.”

  So we lay on our oars and waited for the tide to do its work. This was the predicament of the pirates: because of the big run-out, the tide was now rushing back like a mill-race, and it was impossible for the strongest swimmer in the world to make against it the three miles to the sloops. Between the pirates and the shore were we, precluding escape in that direction. On the other hand, the water was rising rapidly over the shoals, and it was only a question of a few hours when it would be over their heads.

  It was beautifully calm, and in the brilliant white moonlight we watched them through our night glasses and told Charley of the voyage of the Coal Tar Maggie . One o’clock came, and two o’clock, and the pirates were clust
ering on the highest shoal, waist-deep in water.

  “Now this illustrates the value of imagination,” Charley was saying. “Taft has been trying for years to get them, but he went at it with bull strength and failed. Now we used our heads���.”

  Just then I heard a scarcely audible gurgle of water, and holding up my hand for silence, I turned and pointed to a ripple slowly widening out in a growing circle. It was not more than fifty feet from us. We kept perfectly quiet and waited. After a minute the water broke six feet away, and a black head and white shoulder showed in the moonlight. With a snort of surprise and of suddenly expelled breath, the head and shoulder went down.

  We pulled ahead several strokes and drifted with the current. Four pairs of eyes searched the surface of the water, but never another ripple showed, and never another glimpse did we catch of the black head and white shoulder.

  “It’s the Porpoise,” Nicholas said. “It would take broad daylight for us to catch him.”

  At a quarter to three the pirates gave their first sign of weakening. We heard cries for help, in the unmistakable voice of the Centipede, and this time, on rowing closer, we were not fired upon. The Centipede was in a truly perilous plight. Only the heads and shoulders of his fellow-marauders showed above the water as they braced themselves against the current, while his feet were off the bottom and they were supporting him.

  “Now, lads,” Charley said briskly, “we have got you, and you can’t get away. If you cut up rough, we’ll have to leave you alone and the water will finish you. But if you’re good, we’ll take you aboard, one man at a time, and you’ll all be saved. What do you say?”

  “Ay,” they chorused hoarsely between their chattering teeth.

  “Then one man at a time, and the short men first.”

  The Centipede was the first to be pulled aboard, and he came willingly, though he objected when the constable put the handcuffs on him. Barchi was next hauled in, quite meek and resigned from his soaking. When we had ten in our boat we drew back, and the second Whitehall was loaded. The third Whitehall received nine prisoners only���a catch of twenty-nine in all.

  “You didn’t get the Porpoise,” the Centipede said exultantly, as though his escape materially diminished our success.

  Charley laughed. “But we saw him just the same, a-snorting for shore like a puffing pig.”

  It was a mild and shivering band of pirates that we marched up the beach to the oyster house. In answer to Charley’s knock, the door was flung open, and a pleasant wave of warm air rushed out upon us.

  “You can dry your clothes here, lads, and get some hot coffee,” Charley announced, as they filed in.

  And there, sitting ruefully by the fire, with a steaming mug in his hand, was the Porpoise. With one accord Nicholas and I looked at Charley. He laughed gleefully.

  “That comes of imagination,” he said. “When you see a thing, you’ve got to see it all around, or what’s the good of seeing it at all? I saw the beach, so I left a couple of constables behind to keep an eye on it. That’s all.”

  IV

  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 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 man�����uvre 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 centreboard, 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. 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 rowin
g 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 windward. 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.

  “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.