Thomas Hudson wondered why the fish had stopped when he had gone so deep the last time. Did the fish reach his maximum possible depth the way a plane reached its ceiling? Or had the pulling against the bend of the rod, the heavy drag on the line, and the resistance of its friction in the water discouraged him so that now he swam quietly in the direction he wished to go? Was he only rising a little, steadily, as David lifted on him; rising docilely to ease the unpleasant tension that held him? Thomas Hudson thought that was probably the way it was and that David might have great trouble with him yet if the fish was still strong.
Young Tom had brought Eddy’s own bottle to him and Eddy had taken a long pull out of it and then asked Tom to put it in the bait box to keep it cool. “And handy,” he added. “If I see Davy fight this fish much longer it will make a damned rummy out of me.”
“I’ll bring it any time you want it,” Andrew said.
“Don’t bring it when I want it,” Eddy told him. “Bring it when I ask for it.”
The oldest boy had come up with Thomas Hudson and together they watched Eddy bend over David and look carefully into his eyes. Roger was holding the chair and watching the line.
“Now listen, Davy,” Eddy told the boy, looking close into his face. “Your hands and your feet don’t mean a damn thing. They hurt and they look bad but they are all right. That’s the way a fisherman’s hands and feet are supposed to get and next time they’ll be tougher. But is your bloody head all right?”
“Fine,” David said.
“Then God bless you and stay with the son of a bitch because we are going to have him up here soon.”
“Davy,” Roger spoke to the boy. “Do you want me to take him?”
David shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be quitting now,” Roger said. “It would just make sense. I could take him or your father could take him.”
“Am I doing anything wrong?” David asked bitterly.
“No. You’re doing perfectly.”
“Then why should I quit on him?”
“He’s giving you an awful beating, Davy,” Roger said. “I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“He’s the one has the hook in his goddam mouth,” David’s voice was unsteady. “He isn’t giving me a beating. I’m giving him a beating. The son of a bitch.”
“Say anything you want, Dave,” Roger told him.
“The damn son of a bitch. The big son of a bitch.”
“He’s crying,” Andrew, who had come up topside and was standing with young Tom and his father, said. “He’s talking that way to get rid of it.”
“Shut up, horseman,” young Tom said.
“I don’t care if he kills me, the big son of a bitch,” David said. “Oh hell. I don’t hate him. I love him.”
“You shut up now,” Eddy said to David. “You save your wind.”
He looked at Roger and Roger lifted his shoulders to show he did not know.
“If I see you getting excited like that I’ll take him away from you,” Eddy said.
“I’m always excited,” David said. “Just because I never say it nobody knows. I’m no worse now. It’s only the talking.”
“Well you shut up now and take it easy,” Eddy said. “You stay calm and quiet and we’ll go with him forever.”
“I’ll stay with him,” David said. “I’m sorry I called him the names. I don’t want to say anything against him. I think he’s the finest thing in the world.”
“Andy, get me that bottle of pure alcohol,” Eddy said. I’m going to loosen up his arms and shoulders and his legs,” he said to Roger. “I don’t want to use any more of that ice water for fear I’d cramp him up.”
He looked into the cabin and said, “Five and a half even, Roger.” He turned to David, “You don’t feel too heated up now, do you, Davy?”
The boy shook his head.
“That straight-up-and-down sun in the middle of the day was what I was afraid of,” Eddy said. “Nothing going to happen to you now, Davy. Just take it easy and whip this old fish. We want to whip him before dark.”
David nodded.
“Papa, did you ever see a fish fight like this one?” young Tom asked.
“Yes,” Thomas Hudson told him.
“Very many?”
“I don’t know, Tommy. There are some terrible fish in this Gulf. Then there are huge big fish that are easy to catch.”
“Why are some easier?”
“I think because they get old and fat. Some I think are almost old enough to die. Then, of course, some of the biggest jump themselves to death.”
There had been no boats in sight for a long time and it was getting late in the afternoon and they were a long way out between the island and the great Isaacs light.
“Try him once more, Davy,” Roger said.
The boy bent his back, pulled back against his braced feet, and the rod, instead of staying solid, lifted slowly.
“You’ve got him coming,” Roger said. “Get that line on and try him again.”
The boy lifted and again recovered line.
“He’s coming up,” Roger told David. “Keep on him steady and good.”
David went to work like a machine, or like a very tired boy performing as a machine.
“This is the time,” Roger said. “He’s really coming up. Put her ahead just a touch, Tom. We want to take him on the port side if we can.”
“Ahead just a touch,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Use your own judgment on it,” Roger said. “We want to bring him up easy where Eddy can gaff him and we can get a noose over him. I’ll handle the leader. Tommy, you come down here to handle the chair and see the line doesn’t foul on the rod when I take the leader. Keep the line clear all the time in case I have to turn him loose. Andy, you help Eddy with anything he asks for and give him the noose and the club when he asks for them.”
The fish was coming up steadily now and David was not breaking the rhythm of his pumping.
“Tom, you better come down and take the wheel below,” Roger called up.
“I was just coming down,” Thomas Hudson told him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Davy, remember if he runs and I have to turn him loose keep your rod up and everything clear. Slack off your drag as soon as I take hold of the leader.”
“Keep her spooled even,” Eddy said. “Don’t let her jam up now, Davy.”
Thomas Hudson swung down from the flying bridge into the cockpit and took the wheel and the controls there. It was not as easy to see into the water as it was on the flying bridge but it was handier in case of any emergency and communication was easier. It was strange to be on the same level as the action after having looked down on it for so many hours, he thought. It was like moving down from a box seat onto the stage or to the ringside or close against the railing of the track. Everyone looked bigger and closer and they were all taller and not foreshortened.
He could see David’s bloody hands and lacquered-looking oozing feet and he saw the welts the harness had made across his back and the almost hopeless expression on his face as he turned his head at the last finish of a pull. He looked in the cabin and the brass clock showed that it was ten minutes to six. The sea looked different to him now that he was so close to it, and looking at it from the shade and from David’s bent rod, the white line slanted into the dark water and the rod lowered and rose steadily. Eddy knelt on the stern with the gaff in his sun-spotted freckled hands and looked down into the almost purple water trying to see the fish. Thomas Hudson noticed the rope hitches around the haft of the gaff and the rope made fast to the Samson post in the stern and then he looked again at David’s back, his outstretched legs, and his long arms holding the rod.
“Can you see him, Eddy?” Roger asked from where he was holding the chair.
“Not yet. Stay on him, Davy, steady and good.”
David kept on his same raising, lowering, and reeling; the reel heavy with line now; bringing in a sweep of line each time he swung it around.
Once the fish held steady for a moment and the rod doubled toward the water and line started to go out.
“No. He can’t be,” David said.
“He might,” Eddy said. “You can’t ever know.”
But then David lifted slowly, suffering against the weight and, after the first slow lift, the line started to come again as easily and steadily as before.
“He just held for a minute,” Eddy said. His old felt hat on the back of his head, he was peering down into the clear, dark purple water.
“There he is,” he said.
Thomas Hudson slipped back quickly from the wheel to look over the stern. The fish showed, deep astern, looking tiny and foreshortened in the depth but in the small time Thomas Hudson looked at him he grew steadily in size. It was not as rapidly as a plane grows as it comes in toward you but it was as steady.
Thomas Hudson put his arm on David’s shoulder and went back to the wheel. Then he heard Andrew say, “Oh look at him,” and this time he could
