«Fish,» he said, «I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.»
Let us hope so, he thought.
A small bird came toward the skiff from the north. He was a warbler and flying very low over the water. The old man could see that he was very tired.
The bird made the stern of the boat and rested there. Then he flew around the old man’s head and rested on the line where he was more comfortable.
«How old are you?» the old man asked the bird. «Is this your first trip?»
The bird looked at him when he spoke. He was too tired even to examine the line and he teetered on it as his delicate feet gripped it fast.
«It’s steady,» the old man told him. «It’s too steady. You shouldn’t be that tired after a windless night. What are birds coming to?»
The hawks, he thought, that come out to sea to meet them. But he said nothing of this to the bird who could not understand him anyway and who would learn about the hawks soon enough.
«Take a good rest, small bird,» he said. «Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.»
It encouraged him to talk because his back had stiffened in the night and it hurt truly now.
«Stay at my house if you like, bird,» he said. «I am sorry I cannot hoist the sail and take you in with the small breeze that is rising. But I am with a friend.»
Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line.
The bird had flown up when the line jerked and the old man had not even seen him go. He felt the line carefully with his right hand and noticed his hand was bleeding.
«Something hurt him then,» he said aloud and pulled back on the line to see if he could turn the fish. But when he was touching the breaking point he held steady and settled back against the strain of the line.
«You’re feeling it now, fish,» he said. «And so, God knows, am I.»
He looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company. The bird was gone.
You did not stay long, the man thought. But it is rougher where you are going until you make the shore. How did I let the fish cut me with that one quick pull he made? I must be getting very stupid. Or perhaps I was looking at the small bird and thinking of him. Now I will pay attention to my work and then I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a failure of strength.
«I wish the boy were here and that I had some salt,» he said aloud.
Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved.
«He has slowed much,» he said.
The old man would have liked to keep his hand in the salt water longer but he was afraid of another sudden lurch by the fish and he stood up and braced himself and held his hand up against the sun. It was only a line burn that had cut his flesh. But it was in the working part of his hand. He knew he would need his hands before this was over and he did not like to be cut before it started.
«Now,» he said, when his hand had dried, «I must eat the small tuna. I can reach him with the gaff and eat him here in comfort.»
He knelt down and found the tuna under the stern with the gaff and drew it toward him keeping it clear of the coiled lines. Holding the line with his left shoulder again, and bracing on his left hand and arm, he took the tuna off the gaff hook and put the gaff back in place. He put one knee on the fish and cut strips of dark red meat longitudinally from the back of the head to the tail. They were wedge-shaped strips and he cut them from next to the back bone down to the edge of the belly. When he had cut six strips he spread them out on the wood of the bow, wiped his knife on his trousers, and lifted the carcass of the bonito by the tail and dropped it overboard.
«I don’t think I can eat an entire one,» he said and drew his knife across one of the strips. He could feel the steady hard pull of the line and his left hand was cramped. It drew up tight on the heavy cord and he looked at it in disgust.
«What kind of a hand is that,» he said. «Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good.»
Come on, he thought and looked down into the dark water at the slant of the line. Eat it now and it will strengthen the hand. It is not the hand’s fault and you have been many hours with the fish. But you can stay with him forever. Eat the bonito now.
He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth and chewed it slowly. It was not unpleasant.
Chew it well, he thought, and get all the juices. It would not be bad to eat with a little lime or with lemon or with salt.
«How do you feel, hand?» he asked the cramped hand that was almost as stiff as rigor mortis. «I’ll eat some more for you.»
He ate the other part of the piece that he had cut in two. He chewed it carefully and then spat out the skin.
«How does it go, hand? Or is it too early to know?»
He took another full piece and chewed it.
«It is a strong full-blooded fish,» he thought. «I was lucky to get him instead of dolphin. Dolphin is too sweet. This is hardly sweet at all and all the strength is still in it.»
There is no sense in being anything but practical though, he thought. I wish I had some salt. And I do not know whether the sun will rot or dry what is left, so I had better eat it all although I am not hungry. The fish is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I will be ready.
«Be patient, hand,» he said. «I do this for you.»
I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it. Slowly and conscientiously he ate all of the wedge-shaped strips of fish.
He straightened up, wiping his hand on his trousers.
«Now,» he said. «You can let the cord go, hand, and I will handle him with the right arm alone until you stop that nonsense.» He put his left foot on the heavy line that the left hand had held and lay back against the pull against his back.
«God help me to have the cramp go,» he said. «Because I do not know what the fish is going to do.»
But he seems calm, he thought, and following his plan. But what is his plan, he thought. And what is mine? Mine I must improvise to his because of his great size. If he will jump I can kill him. But he stays down forever. Then I will stay down with him forever.
He rubbed the cramped hand against his trousers and tried to gentle the fingers. But it would not open. Maybe it will open with the sun, he thought. Maybe it will open when the strong raw tuna is digested. If I have to have it, I will open it, cost whatever it costs. But I do not want to open it now by force. Let it open by itself and come back of its own accord. After all I abused it much in the night when it was necessary to free and unite the various lines.
He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.
He thought of how some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boat and knew they were right in the months of sudden bad weather. But now they were in hurricane months and, when there are no hurricanes, the weather of hurricane months is the best of all the year.
If there is a hurricane you always see the signs of it in the sky for days ahead, if you are at sea. They do not see it ashore because they do not know what to look for, he thought. The land must make a difference too, in the shape of the clouds. But we have no hurricane coming now.
He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and
