“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.
“He’d be the most famous of all,” Andrew said. “He’d be immortal.”
“I hope nothing happened to him,” David said. “I hope he’s all right.”
“I know he’s all right,” Roger told him. “The way he was hooked and the way he fought I know he was all right.”
“I’ll tell you sometime how it was,” David said.
“Tell now,” Andy urged him.
“I’m tired now and besides it sounds crazy.”
“Tell now. Tell a little bit,” Andrew said.
“I don’t know whether I better. Should I, papa?”
“Go ahead,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Well,” David said with his eyes tight shut. “In the worst parts, when I was the tiredest I couldn’t tell which was him and which was me.”
“I understand,” Roger said.
“Then I began to love him more than anything on earth.”
“You mean really love him?” Andrew asked.
“Yeah. Really love him.”
“Gee,” said Andrew. “I can’t understand that.”
“I loved him so much when I saw him coming up that I couldn’t stand it,” David said, his eyes still shut. “All I wanted was to see him closer.”
“I know,” Roger said.
“Now I don’t give a shit I lost him,” David said. “I don’t care about records. I just thought I did. I’m glad that he’s all right and that I’m all right. We aren’t enemies.”
“I’m glad you told us,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Davis, for what you said when I first lost him,” David said with his eyes still shut.
Thomas Hudson never knew what it was that Roger had said to him.
X
That night in the heavy calm before the wind rose Thomas Hudson sat in his chair and tried to read. The others were all in bed but he knew he could not sleep and he wanted to read until he was sleepy. He could not read and he thought about the day. He thought about it from the beginning until the end and it seemed as though all of his children except Tom had gone a long way away from him or he had gone away from them.
David had gone with Roger. He wanted David to get everything he could from Roger, who was as beautiful and sound in action as he was unbeautiful and unsound in his life and in his work. David was always a mystery to Thomas Hudson. He was a well-loved mystery. But Roger understood him better than his own father did. He was happy they did understand each other so well but tonight he felt lonely in some way about it.
Then he had not liked the way Andrew had behaved, although he knew Andrew was Andrew and a little boy and that it was unfair to judge him. He had done nothing bad and he had really behaved very well. But there was something about him that you could not trust.
What a miserable, selfish way to be thinking about people that you love, he thought. Why don’t you remember the day and not analyze it and tear it to pieces? Go to bed now, he told himself, and make yourself sleep. The hell with anything else. And pick up the rhythm of your life in the morning. You don’t have the boys for much longer. See how happy a time you can make for them. I’ve tried, he said to himself. I’ve tried truly and for Roger, too. And you have been very happy yourself, he told himself. Yes, of course. But something about today frightened me. Then he told himself: truly, there is something about every day to frighten you. Go on to bed and maybe you’ll sleep well. Remember you want them to be happy tomorrow.