Tales of the Fish Patrol
by Jack London
WHITE AND YELLOW
San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more
disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its
violent moments. The waters of the bay
contain all manner of fish,
wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of
fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen. To protect the
fish from this motley floating population many wise laws have been
passed, and there is a fish
patrol to see that these laws are
enforced. Exciting times are the lot of the fish
patrol: in its
history more than one dead
patrolman has marked defeat, and more
often dead fishermen across their
illegal nets have marked success.
Wildest among the fisher-folk may be accounted the Chinese shrimp-
catchers. It is the habit of the shrimp to crawl along the bottom
in vast armies till it reaches fresh water, when it turns about and
crawls back again to the salt. And where the tide ebbs and flows,
the Chinese sink great bag-nets to the bottom, with gaping mouths,
into which the shrimp crawls and from which it is transferred to
the boiling-pot. This in itself would not be bad, were it not for
the small mesh of the nets, so small that the tiniest fishes,
little new-hatched things not a quarter of an inch long, cannot
pass through. The beautiful beaches of Points Pedro and Pablo,
where are the shrimp-catchers' villages, are made
fearful by the
stench from myriads of decaying fish, and against this wasteful
destruction it has ever been the duty of the fish
patrol to act.
When I was a
youngster of sixteen, a good sloop-sailor and all-
round bay-waterman, my sloop, the Reindeer, was chartered by the
Fish Commission, and I became for the time being a deputy
patrolman. After a deal of work among the Greek fishermen of the
Upper Bay and rivers, where
knives flashed at the
beginning of
trouble and men permitted themselves to be made prisoners only
after a
revolver was
thrust in their faces, we hailed with delight
an
expedition to the Lower Bay against the Chinese shrimp-catchers.
There were six of us, in two boats, and to avoid
suspicion we ran
down after dark and dropped
anchor under a projecting bluff of land
known as Point Pinole. As the east paled with the first light of
dawn we got under way again, and hauled close on the land
breeze as
we slanted across the bay toward Point Pedro. The morning mists
curled and clung to the water so that we could see nothing, but we
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
lightlyaboard. 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
incredibleswiftness. 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
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 out
pointedthe 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
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
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
beginningto 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
unmistakable sign-language invited them to fall to. But they
laughed, and some
crowded into the cabin and some climbed up on
top.
Their
laughter was not good
laughter. There was a hint of menace
in it, a maliciousness which their black looks verified. The
Yellow Handkerchief, since his discovery of my empty pocket, had
become most
insolent in his
bearing, and he wormed about among the
other prisoners, talking to them with great earnestness.
Swallowing my
chagrin, I stepped down into the cockpit and began
throwing out the water. But hardly had I begun, when the boom
swung
overhead, the mainsail filled with a jerk, and the Reindeer
heeled over. The day wind was springing up. George was the
veriest of landlubbers, so I was forced to give over bailing and
take the tiller. The wind was blowing directly off Point Pedro and
the high mountains behind, and because of this was squally and
uncertain, half the time bellying the
canvas out and the other half
flapping it idly.
George was about the most all-round
helpless man I had ever met.
Among his other disabilities, he was a consumptive, and I knew that
if he attempted to bail, it might bring on a hemorrhage. Yet the
rising water warned me that something must be done. Again I
ordered the shrimp-catchers to lend a hand with the buckets. They
laughed defiantly, and those inside the cabin, the water up to
their ankles, shouted back and forth with those on top.
"You'd better get out your gun and make them bail," I said to
George.
But he shook his head and showed all too
plainly that he was
afraid. The Chinese could see the funk he was in as well as I
could, and their
insolence became insufferable. Those in the cabin