“I can’t put any more drag on or it will break,” David said. “What will he do, Mr. Davis?”
“He’ll just keep on going down until you stop him,” Roger said. “Or until he stops. Then you’ve got to try to get him up.”
The line kept going out and down, out and down, out and down. The rod was bent so far it looked as though it must break and the line was taut as a tuned cello string and there was not much more of it on the reel.
“What can I do, papa?”
“Nothing. You’re doing what there is to do.”
“Won’t he hit the bottom?” Andrew asked.
“There isn’t any bottom,” Roger told him.
“You hold him, Davy,” Eddy said. “He’ll get sick of it and come up.”
“These damned straps are killing me,” David said. “They cut my shoulders off.”
“Do you want me to take him?” Andrew asked. “No, you fool,” David said. “I just said what they were doing to me. I don’t care about it.”
“See if you can rig him the kidney harness,” Thomas Hudson called down to Eddy. “You can tie it on with line if the straps are too long.”
Eddy wrapped the broad, quilted pad across the small of the boy’s back and fastened the rings on the web straps that ran across it to the reel with heavy line.
“That’s much better,” David said. “Thank you very much, Eddy.”
“Now you can hold him with your back as well as your shoulders,” Eddy told him.
“But there isn’t going to be any line.” David said. “Oh Goddam him, why does he have to keep on sounding?”
“Tom,” Eddy called up. “Ease her a little northwest. I think he’s moving.”
Thomas Hudson turned the wheel and moved her softly, slowly, softly out to sea. There was a big patch of yellow gulf weed ahead with a bird on it and the water was calm and so blue and clear that, as you looked down into it, there were lights in it like the reflections from a prism.
“You see?” Eddy told David. “You’re not losing any now.”
The boy could not raise the rod; but the line was no longer jerking down into the water. It was as taut as ever and there weren’t fifty yards left on the reel. But it was not going out. David was holding him and the boat was on his course. Thomas Hudson could see the just perceptible slant of the white line deep down in the blue water as the boat barely moved, its engines turning so quietly he could not hear them.
“You see, Davy, he went down to where he liked it and now he’s moving out to where he wants to go. Pretty soon you’ll get some line on him.”
The boy’s brown back was arched, the rod bent, the line moved slowly through the water, and the boat moved slowly on the surface, and a quarter of a mile below the great fish was swimming. The gull left the patch of weed and flew toward the boat. He flew around Thomas Hudson’s head while he steered, then headed off toward another patch of yellow weed on the water.
“Try to get some on him now,” Roger told the boy. “If you can hold him you can get some.”
“Put her ahead just a touch more,” Eddy called to the bridge and Thomas Hudson eased her ahead as softly as he could.
David lifted and lifted, but the rod only bent and the line only tightened. It was as though he were hooked to a moving anchor.
“Never mind,” Roger told him. “You’ll get it later. How are you, Davy?”
“I’m fine,” David said. “With that harness across my back I’m fine.”
“Do you think you can stay with him?” Andrew asked.
“Oh shut up,” David said. “Eddy, can I have a drink of water?”
“Where’d I put it?” Eddy asked. “I guess I spilled it.”
“I’ll get one,” Andrew went below.
“Can I do anything, Dave?” young Tom asked. “I’m going up so I won’t be in the way.”
“No, Tom. Goddam it, why can’t I lift on him?”
“He’s an awfully big fish, Dave,” Roger told him. “You can’t bull him around. You’ve got to lead him and try to convince him where he has to come.”
“You tell me what to do and I’ll do it until I die,” David said. “I trust you.”
“Don’t talk about dying,” Roger said. “That’s no way to talk.”
“I mean it,” David said. “I mean it really.”
Young Tom came back up on the flying bridge with his father. They were looking down at David, bent and harnessed to his fish, with Roger standing by him and Eddy holding the chair. Andrew was putting the glass of water to Dave’s mouth. He took some in and spat it out.
“Pour some on my wrists, will you, Andy?” he asked.
“Papa, do you think he can really stay with this fish?” Tom said to his father very softly.
“It’s an awful lot of fish for him.”
“It scares me,” Tom said. “I love David and I don’t want any damned fish to kill him.”
“Neither do I and neither does Roger and neither does Eddy.”
“Well we’ve got to look after him. If he gets in really bad shape, Mr. Davis ought to take the fish or you take him.”
“He’s a long way from bad shape yet.”
“But you don’t know him like we do. He would kill himself to get the fish.”
“Don’t worry, Tom.”
“I can’t help it,” young Tom said. “I’m the one in the family that always worries. I hope I’ll get over it.”
“I wouldn’t worry about this now,” Thomas Hudson said.
“But papa, how is a boy like David going to catch a fish like that? He’s never caught anything bigger than sailfish and amberjack.”
“This fish will get tired. It’s the fish that has the hook in his mouth.”
“But he’s monstrous,” Tom said. “And Dave’s fastened to him just as much as he is to Dave. It’s so wonderful I can’t believe it if Dave catches him, but I wish you or Mr. Davis had him.
“Dave’s doing all right.”
They were getting further out to sea all the time but it was still a flat calm. There were many patches of Gulf weed now, sunburned so that they were yellow on the purple water, and sometimes the slow-moving taut white line ran through a patch of weed and Eddy reached down and cleared any weed that clung to the line. As he leaned over the coaming and pulled the yellow weed off the line and tossed it away, Thomas Hudson saw his wrinkled red brown neck and old felt hat and heard him say to Dave, “He’s practically towing the boat, Davy. He’s way down there tiring himself and tiring himself all the time.”
“He’s tiring me, too,” David said.
“You got a headache?” Eddy asked.
“No.”
“Get a cap for him,” Roger said.
“I don’t want it, Mr. Davis. I’d rather have some water on my head.”
Eddy dipped a bucket of sea water and wet the boy’s head carefully with his cupped hand, soaking his head and pushing the hair back out of his eyes.
“You say if you get a headache,” he told him.
“I’m fine,” David said. “You tell me what to do, Mr. Davis.”
“See if you can get any line on him,” Roger said.
David tried and tried and tried again but he could not raise the fish an inch.
“All right. Save your strength,” Roger told him. Then to Eddy, “Soak a cap and put it on him. This is a hell of a hot day with the calm.”
Eddy dipped a long-visored cap in the bucket of salt water and put it on Dave’s head.
“The salt water gets in my eyes, Mr. Davis. Really. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll wipe it out with some fresh,” Eddy said. “Give me a handkerchief, Roger. You go get some ice water, Andy.”
While the boy hung there, his legs braced, his body arched against the strain, the boat kept moving slowly out to sea. To the westward a school of either bonito or alba-core were troubling the calm of the surface and terns commenced to come flying, calling to each other as they flew.
But the school of fish went down and the terns lit on the calm water to wait for the fish to come up again. Eddy had wiped the boy’s face and now was dipping the handkerchief in the glass of ice water and laying it across David’s neck. Then he cooled his wrists with it and then, with the handkerchief soaked in ice water again, wrung it out while he pressed it against the back of David’s neck.
“You say if you have a headache,” Eddy told him. “That ain’t quitting. That’s just sense. This is a hell of a goddam hot sun when it’s a calm.”
“I’m all right,” David told him. “I hurt bad in the shoulders and the arms is all.”
“That’s natural,” Eddy said. “That’ll make a man out of you. What we don’t want is for you to get no sunstroke nor bust any gut.”
“What will he do now, Mr. Davis?” David asked. His voice sounded dry.
“Maybe just what he’s doing. Or he might start to circle. Or he may come up.”
“It’s a damn shame he sounded so deep at the start so we haven’t any line to maneuver him with,” Thomas Hudson said to Roger.
“Dave stopped him is the main thing,” Roger said. “Pretty
