“Did you see the water he threw when he jumped, papa?” young Tom asked his father. “It was like the whole sea bursting open.”
“Did you see the way he seemed to climb up and up, Tom? Did you ever see such a blue and that wonderful silver on him?”
“His sword is blue too,” young Tom said. “The whole back of it is blue. Will he really weigh a thousand pounds, Eddy?” he called down.
“I think he will. Nobody can say. But he’ll weigh something awful.”
“Get all the line you can, Davy, now while it’s cheap,” Roger told him. “You’re getting it fine.”
The boy was working like a machine again, recovering line from the great bulge of line in the water and the boat was backing so slowly that the movement was barely perceptible.
“What will he do now, papa?” Tom asked his father. Thomas Hudson was watching the slant of the line in the water and thinking it would be safer to go ahead just a little but he knew how Roger had suffered with so much line out. The fish had only needed to make one steady rush to strip all the line from the reel and break off and now Roger was taking chances to get a reserve of line. As Thomas Hudson watched the line, he saw that David had the reel nearly half full and that he was still gaining.
“What did you say?” Thomas Hudson asked his boy Tom.
“What do you think he’ll do now?”
“Wait a minute, Tom,” his father said and called down to Roger. “I’m afraid we’re going to get over him, kid.”
“Then put her ahead easy,” Roger said.
“Ahead easy,” Thomas Hudson repeated. David stopped getting in so much line but the fish was in a safer position.
Then the line started to go out again and Roger called up, “Throw her out,” and Thomas Hudson threw out the clutches and let the motors idle.
“She’s out,” he said. Roger was bending over David and the boy was braced and holding back on the rod and the line was slipping steadily away.
“Tighten on him a little bit, Davy,” Roger said. “We’ll make him work for it.”
“I don’t want him to break,” David said. But he tightened the drag.
“He won’t break,” Roger told him. “Not with that drag.”
The line kept going out but the rod was bent heavier and the boy was braced back holding against the pressure with his bare feet against the wood of the stern. Then the line stopped going out.
“Now you can get some,” Roger told the boy. “He’s circling and this is the in-turn. Get back all you can.”
The boy lowered and reeled, then lifted; let the rod straighten; lowered and reeled. He was getting line beautifully again.
“Am I doing all right?” he asked.
“You’re doing wonderful,” Eddy told him. “He’s hooked deep, Davy. I could see when he jumped.”
Then, while the boy was lifting, the line started to go out again.
“Hell,” David said.
“That’s OK,” Roger told him. “That’s what’s supposed to happen. He’s on the out-turn now. He circled in toward you and you got line. Now he’s taking it back.”
Steadily, slowly, with David holding him with all the strain the line would take, the fish took out all the line the boy had just recovered and a little more. Then the boy held him.
“All right. Get to work on him,” Roger said quietly. “He widened his circle a little bit but he’s on the in-swing now.”
Thomas Hudson was using the engines only occasionally now to keep the fish astern. He was trying to do everything for the boy that the boat could do and he was trusting the boy and the fight to Roger. As he saw it there was no other thing to do.
On the next circle the fish gained a little line again. On the circle after that he gained too. But the boy still had almost half the line on the reel. He was still working the fish exactly as he should and delivering each time Roger asked him to do something. But he was getting very tired and the sweat and salt water had made salty blotches on his brown back and shoulders.