“Feesh! Feesh!” his mate called and Henry asked, “May I take him, Tom?”
“Sure. Send Gil up.”
Henry went down and in a little while the fish jumped and showed he was a barracuda. Then, a little later, he heard Antonio grunt as he hit him with the gaff and then he heard the thunking knocks of the club on its head. He waited for the splash of the fish being thrown back and looked at the wake to see his size. There was no splash and he remembered that barracuda were good to eat on this stretch of the coast and Antonio was saving him to take in to the light. Just then he heard the double shout of “Feesh!” and this time there was no jumping and the line was singing out. He turned out further into the blue water and slowed down both engines. Then as the line kept going out he threw out one motor and made a half-turn toward the fish.
“Wahoo,” his mate called up. “Big one.”
Henry brought the fish in and they looked down over the stern and saw him long and oddly pointed, his stripes showing clearly in the blueness of the deep water. When he was nearly within reach of the gaff he turned his head and made another fast deep run that took him out of sight in the clear water in less time than a man could snap his fingers.
“They always have that one run,” Ara said. “It goes like a bullet.”
Henry brought him in fast and they watched over the stern as he was gaffed and brought aboard rigid and trembling. His stripes showed a bright blue and his jaws, that could cut like razors, opened and closed with spasmodic uselessness. Antonio laid him in the stern and his tail beat against the deck.
“¡Qué peto más hermoso!” Ara said.
“He’s a beautiful wahoo,” Thomas Hudson agreed. “But we’ll be out here all morning if this keeps up. Leave out the lines but take the leaders off,” he said to his mate. He steered for just outside the light on its high point of rock and tried to make up the time they had lost and still act as though they were fishing. The friction of the lines in the water bent the rods.
Henry came up and said, “He was a beautiful fish, wasn’t he? I’d love to have had him on light tackle. Don’t they have an extraordinarily shaped head?”
“What will he weigh?” Willie asked.
“Antonio said he’d weigh about sixty, Willie. I was sorry I didn’t have time to call you. He really should have been yours.”
“That’s all right,” Willie said. “You caught him faster than I could and we have to get the hell along. I bet we could catch plenty good fish all along here.”
“We’ll come sometime after the war.”
“I’ll bet,” said Willie. “After the war I’m going to be in Hollywood and be a technical adviser on how to be a horse’s ass at sea.”
“You’ll be good at it.”
“I ought to be. I’ve been studying it now for over a year to train me for my career.”
“What the hell have you got so much black ass about today, Willie?” Thomas Hudson asked.
“I don’t know. I woke up with it.”
“Well, go down to the galley and see if that bottle of tea is cold and bring it up. Antonio’s butchering the fish. So make a sandwich will you, please?”
“Sure. What kind of sandwich?”
“Peanut butter and onion if there’s plenty of onion.”
“Peanut butter and onion it is, sir.”
“And try to get rid of your black ass.”
“Yes sir. Black ass gone, sir.”
When he was gone Thomas Hudson said, “You take it easy with him, Henry. I need the son of a bitch and he’s good at his stuff. He’s just got black ass.”
“I try to be good with him. But he’s difficult.”
“Well try a little harder. You were needling hurt about the twenty cents.”
Thomas Hudson looked ahead at the smooth sea and the innocent-looking deadliness of the reef off his port bow. He loved to run just off a bad reef with the light behind him. It made up for the times when he had to steer into the sun and it made up for several other things.