When he came up David was lying, naked, face-down on the bunk and Roger was rubbing him down with alcohol.
“It hurts across the shoulders and my tail,” David said. “Watch out, Mr. Davis, please.”
“It’s where it’s chafed,” Eddy told him. “Your father’s going to fix your hands and feet with Mercurochrome. That won’t hurt.”
“Get this shirt on, Davy,” Thomas Hudson said. “So you won’t get cold. Go get one of the lightest blankets for him, Tom.”
Thomas Hudson touched the places where the harness had chafed the boy’s back with Mercurochrome and helped him into the shirt.
“I’m all right,” David said in a toneless voice. “Can I have a Coke, papa?”
“Sure,” Thomas Hudson told him. “Eddy will get you some soup in a little while.”
“I’m not hungry,” David said. “I couldn’t eat yet.”
“We’ll wait a while,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I know how you feel, Dave,” Andrew said when he brought the Coke.
“Nobody knows how I feel,” David said.
Thomas Hudson gave his oldest boy a compass course to steer back to the island.
“Synchronize your motors at three hundred, Tommy,” he said. “We’ll be in sight of the light by dark and then I’ll give you a correction.”
“You check me every once in a while will you please, papa. Do you feel as awful as I do?”
“There’s nothing to do about it.”
“Eddy certainly tried,” young Tom said. “Not everybody would jump in this ocean after a fish.”
“Eddy nearly made it,” his father told him. “It could have been a hell of a thing with him in the water with a gaff in that fish.”
“Eddy would have got out all right,” young Tom said. “Are they synchronized all right?”
“Listen for it,” his father told him. “Don’t just watch the tachometers.”
Thomas Hudson went over to the bunk and sat down by David. He was rolled up in the light blanket and Eddy was fixing his hands and Roger his feet.
“Hi, papa,” he said and looked at Thomas Hudson and then looked away.
“I’m awfully sorry, Davy,” his father said. “You made the best fight on him I ever saw anyone make. Roger or any man ever.”
“Thank you very much, papa. Please don’t talk about it.”
“Can I get you anything, Davy?”
“I’d like another Coke, please,” David said.
Thomas Hudson found a cold bottle of Coca-Cola in the ice of the bait box and opened it. He sat by David and the boy drank the Coke with the hand Eddy had fixed.
“I’ll have some soup ready right away. It’s heating now,” Eddy said. “Should I heat some chile, Tom? We’ve got some conch salad.”
“Let’s heat some chile,” Thomas Hudson said. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast. Roger hasn’t had a drink all day.”
“I had a bottle of beer just now,” Roger said.
“Eddy,” David said. “What would he really weigh?”
“Over a thousand,” Eddy told him.
“Thank you very much for going overboard,” David said. “Thank you very much, Eddy.”
“Hell,” Eddy said. “What else was there to do?”
“Would he really have weighed a thousand, papa?” David asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Thomas Hudson answered. “I’ve never seen a bigger fish, either broadbill or marlin, ever.”
The sun had gone down and the boat was driving through the calm sea, the boat alive with the engines, pushing fast through the same water they had moved so slowly through for all those hours.
Andrew was sitting on the edge of the wide bunk now, too.
“Hello, horseman,” David said to him.
“If you’d have caught him,” Andrew said, “you’d have been probably the most famous young boy in the world.”
“I don’t want to be famous,” David said. “You can be famous.”
“We’d have been famous as your brothers,” Andrew said. “I mean really.”
“I’d have been famous as your friend,” Roger told him.
“I’d have been famous because I steered,” Thomas Hudson said. “And Eddy because he gaffed him.”
“Eddy ought to be famous anyway,” Andrew said. “Tommy would be famous because he brought so many drinks. All through the terrific battle Tommy kept them supplied.”
“What about the fish? Wouldn’t he be famous?” David asked. He was all right, now. Or, at least, he was talking all right.