Tales of the Fish Patrol (Annotated) E-Book

Jack London

• Herausgeber: ePembaBooks
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

• This edition includes the following editor's introduction: Jack London, an infinite passion for adventure that drove all his work

First published in 1905, “Tales of the Fish Patrol” is a classic collection of stories drawn from Jack London's own experiences in his teenage days aboard San Francisco Bay fishing boats.
In the early 1900s, men of all stripes descended on these waters to plunder its rich oyster beds. To stop the run on the waters, a patrol was established. London began his youthful adventures on the wrong side of the law, as an oyster pirate. But conscience and common sense got the better of him, and at the age of 16 he became a member of the Fish Patrol. Dedicated to enforcing the many laws that were passed to protect the fish, the Fish Patrol had many death-defying encounters with the pirates.

These 7 short stories, based both on Jack's experiences and those of his fellow deputies, describe these incredible encounters when brawls, guns, knives and piracy wasn't uncommon. The collection includes: “ White and Yellow,” “ The King of the Greeks,” “ A Raid on the Oyster Pirates,” “ The Siege of the Lancashire Queen,” “ Charley's Coup,” “ Demetrios Contos” and “ Yellow Handkerchief.”

Leseprobe

Jack London

Table of contents

Jack London, an infinite passion for adventure that drove all his work

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

White and Yellow

The King of the Greeks

A Raid on the Oyster Pirates

The Siege of the 'Lancashire Queen'

Charley's Coup

Demetrios Contos

Yellow Handkerchief

Jack London, an infinite passion for adventure that drove all his work

Jack London was the master of the adventure genre. He wrote the same way he lived, with passion, curiosity and exploring the wild side of nature. London represented that literary essence in which the wild became physical and inspiring. Never the adventure genre and books like "White Fang" or "The Sea Wolf" marked so many generations with a unique and unmistakable style. This journalist, activist and adventurer wrote as he lived: always on the edge, with tenacity, united to nature and challenge. It is possible that many do not know the reason why Jack London started writing: for money, to get out of poverty. Thus, with hardly any training, he put all his efforts into two basic tasks while still a teenager: reading and writing. However, it was clear to him that in order to succeed in literature he had to be able to offer something new, something unseen until then. He got an old typewriter that only worked with capital letters and began to travel. He wanted to follow those winds that tasted like adventure, that whispered stories unknown to most people. He wandered through the Orient, went to Alaska, met smugglers and even went to jail. Jack London not only gave us those most classic novels of the adventure genre. This committed writer also spoke to us about social issues of great relevance such as sexual exploitation, alcoholism or mental illness. It was said that inside him, there always lived a wolf hungry for adventure and stories to tell. Unfortunately, that too hasty, passionate and dangerous lifestyle took him out of this world early: he passed away at the age of 40.

His adventures and his books In 1892, Jack London joined the California Fish Patrol department of the California Natural Resources Agency. This allowed him to travel by schooner to Japan, see the land and experience the effects of a typhoon first hand. That first experience left him wanting more. His hunger for adventure would never be satisfied again. Only a year later, he became a member of Kelly's Army, fighting for the social rights of the country's unemployed. He was imprisoned for it, but those months served him to write his first novel: The Road. That little work allowed him to win a literary contest and made him think that it would be good to enrol in the University of California to have a more academic formation. However, economic problems and the "call" of the wild once again prompted him to flee far away, to embark on new adventures. He would travel to Canada, specifically to the Klondike, where the gold rush began. This experience did not bring him any material benefit, he did not find any gold. However, it was the best experience he had, the one that inspired many of his books. Jack London returned home in 1898. From then on, he would have only one goal in mind: to have his stories published. He achieved it with "To the Man On Trail". Later would come "The Overland Monthly," but for both he was offered little more than $10. For "A Thousand Deaths" he got $40. However, his literary breakthrough came when magazines began to publish his travel stories, his experiences and adventures. In 1900, he earned almost 2500 dollars and thanks to this, he could already support his parents and enjoy a good life. His name began to be known worldwide when he turned 26 thanks to “Children of the Frost” (1902) , but his great success would come a year later with "The Call of the Wild" (1903). In it he told the story of a dog who finds his place in the world pulling a sled in the Yukon. Later came "The Sea Wolf" (1904), the autobiographical collection of stories “ Tales of the Fish Patrol” (1905), “The Game” (1905), "White Fang" (1906), “The Abysmal Brute” (1911), “A Son of the Sun” (1912), “The Valley of the Moon” (1913), “The Mutiny of the Elsinore” (1914), the collections of incredible stories "The Night-Born" (1913) and “The Strength of the Strong” (1914), "John Barleycorn" (1913), a reflective book detailing his battle with alcohol, and the incredible dog story “Jerry of the Islands” (1917). In 1915, he would write another essential work, "Hearts of Three", which could be considered his last great adventure book and which would see the light 4 years after his death in 1920. Finally, London cannot be understood without highlighting his work as a social journalist, covering events such as the Russian-Japanese war, the life of the Hawaiian population, social exploitation in the world or the struggle of workers to obtain social rights.

In fact, another essential work of London's that he wrote in the last years of his life and that would see the light posthumously in 1918 is "The Red One," a collection of wonderful stories in which London enters the realm of science fiction. Jack London was married twice and had two daughters. He left an inheritance of 50 books and 200 stories, he gave lectures talking about capitalism, nature, animals... Unfortunately, he could not expand his work because his health did not allow it. He died at the age of 40, because of his problems with alcoholism and kidney problems.

Many historians think that he may have taken his own life, as did many of his literary characters. His remains are in the Jack London Historical Park, in California.

The Editor, P.C. 2022

TALES OF THE FISH PATROL

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 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 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.