Scotch and Water

By Adrian L. Lonsdale

Scotch and Water is a story about the sea phase of rum-running on Puget Sound from British Columbia, Canada, to Seattle, Washington, during the years 1920 to 1926. The only effective barrier was one small antiquated Coast Guard cutter, the Sentinel. It was described as a donkey chasing gazelles. However, due to the honesty and cunning of the cutters captain, Karl Hirsch, the Sentinel compiled a record of captures matched by no other seagoing unit in the Northwest. This is a story of characters violating an unjust lawthe intrigue, pursuits, the loves and the lives of the participants, and the disastrous results for nearly all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479753604

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Adrian L. Lonsdale.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012921927

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4797-5359-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4797-5358-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-5360-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

PREFACE

I   SHIPPING FOR SIX

II   TROUBLED WATERS

III   DANGEROUS BUSINESS

IV   PARTY TIME

V   LAUNCH DEAD AHEAD

VI   CANADIAN CONNECTION

VII   BEAVER TRAP

VIII   SCRAP-IRON’S SECRET

IX   ON THE BARREL HEAD

X   AN HONEST LIVING

XI   KEY TO THE CABIN

XII   FUNNY CLICKS

XIII   THE BIG SWEDE

XIV   TOO SLOW TO CATCH COLD

XV   UNINTELLIGIBLE GROUPS

XVI   RESIGNATION DEMANDED

XVII   THE CODE

XVIII   A GOOD MAN

XIX   THE WITNESS

XX   EPILOGUE

SCOTCH AND WATER

by

Captain Adrian L. Lonsdale, USCG (Ret.)

A fictional account based on real people and events that occurred in the Puget Sound area of the Northwest United States during the sea phase of the enforcement of the National Prohibition Act that went into effect on January 1920

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather Chief Warrant Officer Lorenz A. Lonsdale, USCG (portrayed as Captain Karl Hirsch or Grandad in this book)

© 2012 by Capt. Adrian L. Lonsdale, USCG (Ret.).

All rights reserved, except those granted in writing by the author or, in the event of his death or incapacitation, his wife or heirs. Except for brief quotations in a review of the book, all inquiries should be addressed to Capt. Adrian L. Lonsdale at 52 County Road, Unit 13, Mattapoisett, MA 02739—1654.

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Illustrations, Sources and Acknowledgments

Page

Research Sources

U.S. National Archives

U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, Public Information Division, Washington DC

L. A. Lonsdale (author’s grandfather) and cast as Captain Hirsch in the book

Rum War at Sea by Malcolm P. Willoughby, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964

Responses from former crew members of USCGC Arcata (cutter Sentinel in book)

The Seattle Times’ archives

Author’s personal experiences as a boy and owner of a dory outboard (1941-45) operated on Puget Sound and later (1950-53) as a junior officer on board the Coast Guard cutter Winona, based in Port Angeles, Washington

The author’s imagination

Acknowledgment

My editor in chief, Jane, my dear wife of more than sixty years—without her knowledge of grammar and sentence structure and her suggestions, my success as a writer would be severely limited.

Dedicated

to the officers and men

of the

United States Coast Guard

who enforced the

National Prohibition Act of 1920

and the otherwise-honest

bootleggers in the Puget Sound region of the U.S.,

who truly believed that they were resisting an unjust law.

PREFACE

Scotch and Water is a book about the sea phase of rum-running on Puget Sound from British Columbia and the Strait of San Juan de Fuca to Seattle, Washington, from 1921 to 1925.

The book is based on the career of my grandfather Lorenz A. Lonsdale, chief warrant officer, U.S. Coast Guard. Some of my research was gleaned from a crude very short description by him and some newspaper clippings he collected.

Through correspondence, the late LCDR Lance Kirstine, USCG (Ret.) and other former members of the CGC Arcata (CGC Sentinel in the book) cautiously, for me, described on board the cutter during Prohibition.

All characters in the book are fictitious. Many of them may resemble people who did exist and were in some way connected with Prohibition. However, the portrayal of characters and their participation in the described events are as imagined by the author based on sketchy information at his disposal.

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I   SHIPPING FOR SIX

Christian Lance scrutinized the white shield he had just sewn on the left sleeve of his navy blues. He was pleased. The stitches did not show. It would pass inspection. He struggled to pull the form-fitting jumper down over his upper torso. The Coast Guard wasn’t so strict about uniforms. Now he might get his money’s worth out of the $25 tailor-mades.

One… two… three… four… The interval was lengthening between the telegraph poles flashing by the soot-streaked window of the Great Northern Transcontinental Express. The commander said it was the safest way to go to Port Hannon. Walking through the streets there in a Coast Guard uniform was not safe.

The entire U.S. for more than two years—according to legislation—was dry. Lance, a drinking navy man, had just joined the dry forces as a member of the Hooligan Navy.

The train coaches, now moving at slow speed, lurched from side to side as they rattled through a series of switches. Through the window on the opposite side, Lance saw a roundhouse. Tracks radiated from it. On one of them, trainmen appeared to be oiling the wheels of a steaming locomotive—a big Malley—like the ones that Lance had watched hauling eighty-car trains through the hills of Montana.

A six-year contract, Lance thought—a long time. Maybe he ought to just stay on the train and keep going, back to his home near Helena. The navy was all right during the war, but the Great White Fleet was dull, dull during peacetime.

The roundhouse disappeared. The train accelerated into a shallow man-made ravine. Slime-covered water stood stagnant in ditches alongside the track bed. Soot-covered bushes and smaller plants bloomed on the embankments.

Lance’s ship, the Albany, was in the Bremerton Naval Shipyard when Lance’s enlistment contract was about to expire. Shipmates said that with Prohibition, the Coast Guard was where all the action—and the booze—was. They said the Coast Guard also paid a bonus for serving in the Northwest.

In Seattle, on liberty, Lance stopped at the Coast Guard office. It was the first time he ever talked to a commander. The skipper of the Albany was a commander, but the only time you ever talked to him was at a captain’s mast, where punishment for a minor infraction was meted out.

The Coast Guard commander told Lance that because of the National Prohibition Law, they needed experienced men. The commander offered to enlist Lance at his navy rate, third-class quartermaster. His pay would be $52.50 a month, $10 more than the navy paid. After Lance’s navy enlistment expired, the Coast Guard commander swore him in, gave him a Coast Guard shield, a train ticket, and some secret papers to give to the skipper of Lance’s new ship, the Sentinel.

On the train, from his passenger side window, Lance looked down into the faces of two boys. They watched the train from the other side of a ditch that paralleled the tracks. Behind them, a trail led up a hill to houses above.

The steep banks of the ravine fell away. The train again slowed. It clattered across a railway bridge. Below stretched the broad expense of the estuary leading into Port Hannon. On the shore, a sawmill chip burner spewed a cloud of white smoke skyward. To seaward, a small steam tug, apparently heading for the mill, towed a monstrous raft of logs against an ebbing current. The tug’s movement was barely perceptible.

Port Hannon, next stop, the conductor announced.

The train slowed and jerked to a stop. Lance put on his peacoat, made sure that the documents the Coast Guard commander gave him were in his pocket, and headed for the door. He landed on the platform in a shower of soot. And I just washed my white hat last night, he thought. I should try to brush off the damn cinders. No, they’d only smear and make it worse.

Now to find the Coast Guard base. Lance saw two fishermen sitting on a bench. Where’s the Coast Guard base? he asked.

They stared contemptuously at him. He repeated the question.

One of the fishermen jerked his thumb in the direction of a small No Dogs Allowed sign on the train station waiting room door. Can’t you read? he sneered.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Ankle-deep sailors ain’t welcome here.

Even though he had been warned and the greeting was not unexpected, Lance had not counted on trouble so soon. Should have known better than expect an intelligent answer from a couple of yokels, he muttered.

What did you say, shithead?

I said—a couple of dumb yokels.

The first fisherman jumped up and hoisted the sagging folds of his boots. We don’t take that kind of crap from any tin badge—totin’ sailor.

Lance began to feel the pulse in his neck. He put down his seabag, removed his peacoat, folded it neatly, and laid it on his seabag. As he did, he noticed the envelope with the secret papers sticking out of the inside pocket. The first fisherman began removing his oilskin jacket. The train whistle blew, and behind Lance the cars began moving. Lance looked around and saw faces in the car windows staring down at him. With difficulty, he unbuttoned and rolled back his cuffs, exposing colorful dragons and mermaids that had been stitched inside each one. Which one of you is going to be first? he challenged.

The first fisherman stepped forward and assumed a fighting stance. Behind Lance, the clack, clack of the last car began to fade. Again, Lance looked around. Across the street on the other side of the tracks was a large red-trimmed house covered with peeling white paint. It was surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence with a gate at its center. Alongside the gate was a faded sign that read, U.S. Lifesaving Station-Port Hannon. Nailed to the bottom of the sign was an unpainted board on which were scrawled the words, Coast Guard.

Lance clenched his fists and held them tightly to his side to hide his trembling. Damn papers, he thought.

The first fisherman, who was still in a boxer’s stance, growled, Come on chicken shit, let’s have at it.

The commander said they were to be delivered today, no matter what. If I didn’t have them, Lance reasoned, I’d show these guys what it means messing with a navy man. He reached down, picked up his seabag and peacoat, and began to back away. Sorry, some other time, he said.

The first fisherman began to follow but was restrained by the second one. See, I told ya, Lou, they was all yeller.

While the fishermen stared, Lance stopped, put on his peacoat, pulled down the collar, squared his hat, turned, and crossed the tracks.

At the gate, Lance was met by a gaunt-looking, gray-haired guard. Damnedest-looking uniform, Lance thought. Chief petty officer’s coat and pants, but only a third-class petty officer’s chevron on the arm. Hanging forward from above the bill of the guard’s garrison cap was a gold emblem of a life ring and crossed oars. You in the Coast Guard? Lance asked.

Lifesaving service, he answered. He scuffed the ground with the heel of his shoe. At least that was what we was before they stuck us in your outfit.

My outfit! I just got out of the navy.

You know what I mean—the Revenue Cutter Service.

What are you talking about… I signed up for the Coast Guard.

Well, that’s what you used to be, the guard replied.

I just told you I was in the navy. Never heard of the revenue whachamacallit.

Wish I never had. Saving lives is doing something. Chasin’ boozers ain’t my line. Shoulda left us like we was.

"Where’s the Sentinel?"

Worse thing they ever did—marrying us.

I’m supposed to report to her.

That’s what the dumb law says. We’re all part of the same outfit.

"I was told the Sentinel was here."

What’s your business?

Reporting on board.

She’s over there. The lifesaving service man flipped a finger toward the top of a pilothouse and two masts showing above the dock.

Thanks. Lance walked to the edge of the dock and peered down. The Sentinel was just a little tug—about the size of the tugs the navy used to help moor the Albany. Lance was glad none of his former shipmates could see this—his new assignment. In the pilothouse door, a seaman balanced precariously on two legs of a stool. I’m reporting on board, Lance said.

The startled seaman looked up from his dime novel, rubbed his eyes, and blinked. Got some orders? Need them for the log.

In my bag. Lance put down his seabag and dug through it. He handed the orders across the gap between the dock and the tug.

I’ll get the XO, the seaman said. Have him meet you on the fantail. The seaman pivoted the cover off the top of a brass voice tube and began whistling into it. Hey, mess deck, he shouted. That you Lew Yen… You hear me all right… Get Sylvia off his fat ass… No! I said Sylvia, the friggin’ XO… That’s right. Tell him a new man’s comin’ aboard. The seaman flipped the cover back over the voice tube. Damn dumb chinks, he mumbled as he motioned Lance toward the stern.

Lance considered the possibility of jumping from the dock to the top of the deckhouse. His seabag was too heavy to try it. He slung it over his shoulder and backed down a ladder that was leaning against the dock. There was no one on the deck when he alit. Out of habit, he saluted the U.S. ensign fluttering from the stern.

Lance’s nostrils twitched from the sulfuric smell emanating from a pulp mill and the stench of rotting marine life uncovered by the low tide. At a pier next to the base, yellow-slickered men swung baskets of salmon and halibut up from boats far below. Seagulls, perched on dock pilings and wheeling effortlessly overhead, waited patiently for unwanted fish to be thrown away. Upstream, small sound freighters loaded and discharged cargo at a commercial pier. On the other side of the base, workers in a small boatyard were building a sleek-looking open speedboat.

The Sentinel certainly was a comedown from the Albany, Lance thought. It was less than a hundred feet long. The deckhouse ran almost its entire length. With a pilothouse on the forward end of the deckhouse, it sure looked top-heavy.

Lance’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a deckhouse door opening. A chunky man, about five feet, eight inches, stepped out. A beach ball belly hung over his bell-bottom trousers. He ran his fingers back through dark wavy hair. He wiped his bulbous nose with the back of his hand and drew his wrist across his yellowed undershirt. He came toward Lance. What do you want? he asked. He seemed annoyed.

Reporting on board. Just came out of the navy.

The man rolled his eyes in disgust. You left the navy for this, he said.

You guys get paid more.

The man wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered. They ought to pay us double for serving on this mother.

The watch told me to wait here for the XO.

How long did you ship for?

Six years.

Poor bastard. Stupidest thing I ever done—shipping for six. Don’t know what got into me.

Mr. Sylvia is supposed to meet me here.

Mr. Sylvia! the man sputtered. That’s a laugh. I’m Sylvia.

"Thought you’d be an officer.