Islands in the Stream

  David was on his knees on the low stern now, the rod bent so that its tip was underwater, its butt in the leather socket of the butt rest that was strapped around his waist. Andrew was holding onto David’s feet and Roger knelt beside him watching the line in the water and the little there was on the reel. He shook his head at Thomas Hudson.

  There was not twenty yards more on the reel and David was pulled down with half the rod underwater now. Then there was barely fifteen yards on the reel. Now there was not ten yards. Then the line stopped going out. The boy was still bent far over the stern and most of the rod was in the water. But no line was going out.

  “Get him back into the chair, Eddy. Easy. Easy,” Roger said. “When you can, I mean. He’s stopped him.”

  Eddy helped David back into the fighting chair, holding him around the waist so that a sudden lurch by the fish would not pull the boy overboard. Eddy eased him into the chair and David got the rod butt into the gimbel socket and braced with his feet and pulled back on the rod. The fish lifted a little.

  “Only pull when you are going to get some line,” Roger told David. “Let him pull the rest of the time. Try and rest inside the action except when you are working on him.”

  “You’ve got him, Davy,” Eddy said. “You’re getting it on him all the time. Just take it slow and easy and you’ll kill him.

  Thomas Hudson eased the boat a little forward to put the fish further astern. There was good shadow now over all the stern. The boat was working steadily further out to sea and no wind troubled the surface.

  “Papa,” young Tom said to his father. “I was looking at his feet when I made the drinks. They’re bleeding.”

  “He’s chafed them pulling against the wood.”

  “Do you think I could put a pillow there? A cushion for him to pull against?”

  “Go down and ask Eddy,” Thomas Hudson said. “But don’t interrupt Dave.”

  It was well into the fourth hour of the fight now. The boat was still working out to sea and David, with Roger holding the back of his chair now, was raising the fish steadily. David looked stronger now than he had an hour before but Thomas Hudson could see where his heels showed the blood that had run down from the soles of his feet. It looked varnished in the sun.

  “How’s your feet, Davy?” Eddy asked.

  “They don’t hurt,” David said. “What hurts is my hands and arms and my back.”

  “I could put a cushion under them.”

  David shook his head.

  “I think they’d stick,” he said. “They’re sticky. They don’t hurt. Really.”

  Young Tom came up to the top side and said, “He’s wearing the bottoms of his feet right off. He’s getting his hands bad too. He’s had blisters and now they’re all open. Gee, papa. I don’t know.”

  “It’s the same as if he had to paddle against a stiff current, Tommy. Or if he had to keep going up a mountain or stick with a horse after he was awfully tired.”

  “I know it. But just watching it and not doing it seems so sort of awful when it’s your brother.”

  “I know it, Tommy. But there is a time boys have to do things if they are ever going to be men. That’s where Dave is now.”

  “I know it. But when I see his feet and his hands I don’t know, papa.”

  “If you had the fish would you want Roger or me to take him away from you?”

  “No. I’d want to stay with him till I died. But to see it with Davy is different.”

  “We have to think about how he feels,” his father told him. “And what’s important to him.”

  “I know,” young Tom said hopelessly. “But to me it’s just Davy. I wish the world wasn’t the way it is and that things didn’t have to happen to brothers.”

  “I do too,” Thomas Hudson said. “You’re an awfully good boy, Tommy. But please know I would have stopped this long ago except that I know that if David catches this fish he’ll have something inside him for all his life and it will make everything else easier.”

  Just then Eddy spoke. He had been looking behind him into the cabin again.

  “Four hours even, Roger,” he said. “You better take some water, Davy. How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” David said.

  “I know what I’ll do that is practical,” young Tom said. “I’ll make a drink for Eddy. Do you want one, papa?”

  “No. I’ll skip this one,” Thomas Hudson said.

  Young Tom went below and Thomas Hudson watched David working slowly, tiredly but steadily; Roger bending over him and speaking to him in a low voice; Eddy out on the stern watching the slant of the line in the water. Thomas Hudson tried to picture how it would be down where the swordfish was swimming. It was dark of course but probably the fish could see as a horse can see. It would be very cold.

  He wondered if the fish was alone or if there could be another fish swimming with him. They had seen no other fish but that did not prove this fish was alone. There might be another with him in the dark and the cold.

  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 see him from the wheel deep in the water and well astern, showing brown now and grown greatly in length and bulk.

  “Keep her just as she is,” Roger said without looking back and Thomas Hudson answered, “Just as she is.”

  “Oh God look at him,” young Tom said.

  Now he was really huge, bigger than any swordfish Thomas Hudson had ever seen. All the great length of him was purple blue now instead of brown and he was swimming slowly and steadily in the same direction the boat was going; astern of the boat and on David’s right.

  “Keep him coming all the time, Davy,” Roger said. “He’s coming in just right.”

  “Go ahead just a touch,” Roger said, watching the fish.

  “Ahead just a touch,” Thomas Hudson answered.

  “Keep it spooled,” Eddy told David. Thomas Hudson could see the swivel of the leader now out of water.

  “Ahead just a little more,” Roger said.

  “Going ahead just a little more,” Thomas Hudson repeated. He was watching the fish and easing the stern onto the course that he was swimming. He could see the whole great purple length of him now, the great broad sword forward, the slicing dorsal fin set in his wide shoulders, and his huge tail that drove him almost without a motion.

  “Just a touch more ahead,” Roger said.

  “Going ahead a touch more.”

  David had the leader within reach now.

  “Are you ready for him, Eddy?” Roger asked.

  “Sure,” Eddy said.

  “Watch him, Tom,” Roger said and leaned over and took hold of the cable leader.

  “Slack off on your drag,” he said to David and began slowly raising the fish, holding and lifting on the heavy cable to bring him within reach of the gaff.

  The fish was coming up looking as long and as broad as a big log in the water. David was watching him and glancing up at his rod tip to make sure it was not fouled. For the first time in six hours he had no strain on his back and his arms and legs and Thomas Hudson saw the muscl
es in his legs twitching and quivering. Eddy was bending over the side with the gaff and Roger was lifting slowly and steadily.

  “He’d go over a thousand,” Eddy said. Then he said, very quietly, “Roger, hook’s only holding by a thread.”

  “Can you reach him?” Roger asked.

  “Not yet,” Eddy said. “Keep him coming easy, easy.”

  Roger kept lifting on the wire cable and the great fish rose steadily toward the boat.

  “It’s been cutting,” Eddy said. “It’s just holding by nothing.”

  “Can you reach him now?” Roger asked. His tone had not changed.

  “Not quite yet,” Eddy said as quietly. Roger was lifting as gently and as softly as he could. Then, from lifting, he straightened, all strain gone, holding the slack leader in his two hands.

  “No. No. No. Please God, no,” young Tom said.

  Eddy lunged down into the water with the gaff and then went overboard to try to get the gaff into the fish if he could reach him.

  It was no good. The great fish hung there in the depth of water where he was like a huge dark purple bird and then settled slowly. They all watched him go down, getting smaller and smaller until he was out of sight.

  Eddy’s hat was floating on the calm sea and he was holding onto the gaff handle. The gaff was on the line that was fast to the Samson post in the stern. Roger put his arms around David and Thomas Hudson could see David’s shoulders shaking. But he left David to Roger. “Get the ladder out for Eddy to come aboard,” he said to young Tom. “Take Davy’s rod, Andy. Unhook it.”

  Roger lifted the boy out of the chair and carried him over to the bunk at the starboard side of the cockpit and laid him down in it. Roger’s arms were around David and the boy lay flat on his face on the bunk.

  Eddy came on board soaked and dripping, and started to undress. Andrew fished out his hat with the gaff and Thomas Hudson went below to get Eddy a shirt and a pair of dungarees and a shirt and shorts for David. He was surprised that he had no feeling at all except pity and love for David. All other feeling had been drained out of him in the fight.

  When he came up David was lying, naked, face-down on the bunk and Roger was rubbing him down with alcohol.