David tried but he could not raise him at all.
“He’ll come up,” Eddy said. “You’ll see. All of a sudden there won’t be anything to it, Davy. Want to rinse your mouth out?”
David nodded his head. He had reached the breath-saving stage.
“Spit it out,” Eddy said. “Swallow just a little.” He turned to Roger. “One hour even,” he said. “Is your head all right, Davy?”
The boy nodded.
“What do you think, papa?” young Tom said to his father. “Truly?”
“He looks pretty good to me,” his father said. “Eddy wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”
“No, I guess not,” Tom agreed. “I wish I could do something useful. I’m going to get Eddy a drink.”
“Get me one, too, please.”
“Oh good. I’ll make one for Mr. Davis, too.”
“I don’t think he wants one.”
“Well I’ll ask him.”
“Try him once more, Davy,” Roger said very quietly, and the boy lifted with all his strength, holding the sides of the spool of the reel with his hands.
“You got an inch,” Roger said. “Take it in and see if you can get some more.”
Now the real fight began. Before David had only been holding him while the fish moved out to sea and the boat moved with him. But now he had to lift, let the rod straighten with the line he had gained, and then lower the rod slowly while he took the line in by reeling.
“Don’t try to do it too fast,” Roger told him. “Don’t rush yourself. Just keep it steady.”
The boy was bending forward and pulling up from the soles of his feet, using all the leverage of his body and all of what weight he had on each lift; then reeling fast with his right hand as he lowered.
“David fishes awfully pretty,” young Tom said. “He’s fished since he was a little boy but I didn’t know he could fish this well. He always makes fun of himself because he can’t play games. But look at him now.”
“The hell with games,” Thomas Hudson said. “What did you say, Roger?”
“Go ahead on him just a touch,” Roger called up.
“Ahead on him just a touch,” Thomas Hudson repeated and on the next lift, as they nudged slowly forward, David recovered more line.
“Don’t you like games either, papa?” Tom asked.
“I used to. Very much. But not anymore.”
“I like tennis and fencing,” Tom said. “The throw-and-catch ball games are the ones I don’t like. That’s from being brought up in Europe I guess. I’ll bet David could be a fine fencer if he wanted to learn because he has so much brains. But he doesn’t want to learn. All he wants to do is read and fish and shoot and tie flies. He shoots better than Andy does in the field. He can tie beautiful flies too. Am I bothering you, papa, talking so much?”
“Of course not, Tom.”
He was holding to the rail of the flying bridge and looking aft as his father was and his father put one hand on his shoulder. It was salty from the buckets of sea water the boys had thrown over each other on the stern before the fish struck. The salt was very fine and felt faintly sandy under his hand.
“You see I get so nervous watching David I talk to take my mind off it. I’d rather have David catch that fish than anything on earth.”
“He’s a hell of a fish. Wait till we see him.”
“I saw one one time when I was fishing with you years ago. He hit a big mackerel bait with his sword and he jumped and threw the hook. He was enormous and I used to dream about him. I’ll go down and make the drinks.”
“There’s no hurry,” his father told him.
Down in the backless fighting chair, set in its swivel base, David braced his feet against the stern and lifted with his arms, back, withers, and thighs; then lowered and reeled and lifted again. Steadily, an inch, two inches, three inches at a time he was getting more and more line on the reel.
“Is your head all right?” Eddy, who was holding the arms of the chair to steady it, asked him.
David nodded. Eddy put his hand on the top of the boy’s head and felt his cap.
“Cap’s still wet,” he said. “You’re giving him hell, Davy. Just like a machine.”
“It’s easier now than holding him,” David said, his voice still dry.
“Sure,” Eddy told him. “Something gives now. Other way it was just pulling your back out by the roots.”
“Don’t work him any faster than you can,” Roger said. “You’re doing wonderfully, Dave.”
“Will we gaff him when he comes up this time?” Andrew asked.
“Oh keep your mouth off of him, please,” David said.
“I wasn’t trying to mouth him.”
“Oh just shut up, Andy, please. I’m sorry.”
Andrew came climbing up topside. He had on one of the long-peaked caps but under it his father could see his eyes were wet and the boy turned his head away because his lips trembled.
“You didn’t say anything bad,” Thomas Hudson told him.
Andrew spoke with his head turned away. “Now if he loses him he’ll think I mouthed him,” he said bitterly. “All I wanted to do was help get everything ready.”
“It’s natural for Dave to be nervous,” his father told him. “He’s trying to be polite.”
“I know it,” Andrew said. “He’s fighting him just as good as Mr. Davis could. I just felt bad he could think that.”
“Lots of people are irritable with a big fish. This is the first one Dave’s ever had.”
“You’re always polite and Mr. Davis is always polite.”
“We didn’t use to be. When we were learning to fish big fish together we used to be excited and rude and sarcastic. We both used to be terrible.”
“Truly?”
“Sure. Truly. We used to suffer and act as though everybody was against us. That’s the natural way to be. The other’s discipline or good sense when you learn. We started to be polite because we found we couldn’t catch big fish being rude and excited. And if we did, it wasn’t any fun. We were both really awful though; excited and sore and misunderstood and it wasn’t any fun. So now we always fight them politely. We talked it over and decided we’d be polite no matter what.”
“I’ll be polite,” Andrew said. “But it’s hard sometimes with Dave. Papa, do you think he can really get him? That it isn’t just like a dream or something?”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“Have I said something wrong again?”
“No. Only it always seems bad luck to talk that way. We got it from the old fishermen. I don’t know what started it.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Here’s your drink, papa,” Tom said, handing it up from below. The glass was wrapped in a triple thickness of paper towel with a rubber band around to hold the paper tight against the glass and keep the ice from melting. “I put lime, bitters, and no sugar in it. Is that how you want it? Or can I change it?”
“That’s fine. Did you make it with coconut water?”
“Yes, and I made Eddy a whisky. Mr. Davis didn’t want anything. Are you staying up there, Andy?”
“No. I’m coming down.”
Tom climbed up and Andrew went down.
Looking back over the stern, Thomas Hudson noticed the line starting to slant up in the water.
“Watch it, Roger,” he called. “It looks like he’s coming up.”
“He’s coming up!” Eddy yelled. He had seen the slant in the line too. “Watch your wheel.”
Thomas Hudson looked down at the spool of the reel to see how much line there was to maneuver with. It was not yet a quarter full and as he watched it started to whiz off and Thomas Hudson started backing, turning sharp toward the slant of the line, well under way as Eddy yelled, “Back on him, Tom. The son of a bitch is coming up. We ain’t got no line to turn.”
“Keep your rod up,” Roger said to David. “Don’t let him get it down.” Then to Thomas Hudson, “Back on him all you can, Tom. You’re going right. Give her all she’ll take.”
Then, astern of the boat and off to starboard, the calm of the ocean broke open and the great fish rose out of it, rising, shining dark blue and silver, seeming to come endlessly out of the water, unbelievable as his length and bulk rose out of the sea into the air and seemed to hang there until he fell with a splash that drove the water up high and white.
“Oh, God,” David said. “Did you see him?”
“His sword’s as long as I am,” Andrew said in awe.
“He’s so beautiful,” Tom said. “He’s much better than the one I had in the dream.”
“Keep backing on him,” Roger said to Thomas Hudson. Then to David, “Try and get some line out of that belly. He came up from way down and there’s a big belly of line and you can get some of it.”
Thomas Hudson, backing fast onto the fish, had stopped the line going out and now David was lifting, lowering, and reeling, and the line was coming onto the reel in sweeps as fast as he could turn the reel handle.
“Slow her down,” Roger said. “We don’t want to get over him.
“Son of a bitch’ll weigh a thousand pounds,” Eddy said. “Get that easy line in, Davy boy.”
The ocean was flat and empty where he had jumped but the circle made where the water had been broken was still widening.
“Did you see the water he threw when
