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 muscles 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.
“It hurts across the shoulders and my tail,” David said. “Watch out, Mr. Davis, please.”