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
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. 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.
