The boat shuddered again, and there was a dull, hollow thump.
“What’s he doing?” said Brody.
Quint leaned over the side and shouted, “Come out from under there, you cocksucker! Where are your guts? You’ll not sink me before I get to you!”
“What do you mean, sink us?” said Brody. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s trying to chew a hole in the bottom of the fucking boat, that’s what! Look in the bilge. Come out, you Godforsaken sonofabitch!” Quint raised high his harpoon.
Brody knelt and raised the hatch cover over the engine room. He peered into the dark, oily hole. There was water in the bilges, but there always was, and he saw no new hole through which water could pour. “Looks okay to me,” he said. “Thank God.”
The dorsal fin and tail surfaced ten yards to the right of the stern and began to move again toward the boat.
“There you come,” said Quint, cooing. “There you come.” He stood, legs spread, left hand on his hip, right hand extended to the sky, grasping the harpoon. When the fish was a few feet from the boat and heading straight on, Quint cast his iron.
The harpoon struck the fish in front of the dorsal fin. And then the fish hit the boat, knocking the stern sideways and sending Quint tumbling backward. His head struck the footrest of the fighting chair, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck. He jumped to his feet and cried, “I got you! I got you, you miserable prick!”
The rope attached to the iron dart snaked overboard as the fish sounded, and when it reached the end, the barrel popped off the transom, fell into the water, and vanished.
“He took it down with him!” said Brody.
“Not for long,” said Quint. “He’ll be back, and we’ll throw another into him, and another, and another, until he quits. And then he’s ours!” Quint leaned on the transom, watching the water.
Quint’s confidence was contagious, and Brody now felt ebullient, gleeful, relieved. It was a kind of freedom, a freedom from the mist of death. He yelled, “Hot shit!” Then he noticed the blood running down Quint’s neck, and he said, “Your head’s bleeding.”
“Get another barrel,” said Quint. “Bring it back here. And don’t fuck up the coil. I want it to go over smooth as cream.”
Brody ran forward, unlashed a barrel, slipped the coiled rope over his arm, and carried the gear to Quint.
“There he comes,” said Quint, pointing to the left. The barrel came to the surface and bobbed in the water. Quint pulled the string attached to the wooden shaft and brought it aboard. He fixed the shaft to the new dart and raised the harpoon above his head. “He’s coming up!”
The fish broke water a few yards from the boat. Like a rocket lifting off, snout, jaw, and pectoral fins rose straight from the water. Then the smoke-white belly, pelvic fin, and huge, salami-like claspers.
“I see your cock, you bastard!” cried Quint, and he threw a second iron, leaning his shoulder and back into the throw. The iron hit the fish in the belly, just as the great body began to fall forward. The belly smacked the water with a thunderous boom, sending a blinding fall of spray over the boat. “He’s done!” said Quint as the second rope uncoiled and tumbled overboard.
The boat lurched once, and again, and there was the distant sound of crunching.
“Attack me, will you?” said Quint. “You’ll take no man with you, uppity fuck!” Quint ran forward and started the engine. He pushed the throttle forward, and the boat moved away from the bobbing barrels.
“Has he done any damage?” said Brody.
“Some. We’re riding a little heavy aft. He probably poked a hole in us. It’s nothing to worry about. We’ll pump her out.”
“That’s it, then,” Brody said happily.
“What’s what?”
“The fish is as good as dead.”
“Not quite. Look.”
Following the boat, keeping pace, were the two red wooden barrels. They did not bob. Dragged by the great force of the fish, each cut through the water, pushing a wave before it and leaving a wake behind.
“He’s chasing us?” said Brody.
Quint nodded.
“Why? He can’t still think we’re food.”
“No. He means to make a fight of it.”
For the first time, Brody saw a frown of disquiet on Quint’s face. It was not fear, nor true alarm, but rather a look of uneasy concern — as if, in a game, the rules had been changed without warning, or the stakes raised. Seeing the change in Quint’s mood, Brody was afraid.
“Have you ever had a fish do this before?” he asked.
“Not like this, no. I’ve had ’em attack the boat, like I told you. But most times, once you get an iron in ’em, they stop fighting you and fight against that thing stickin’ in ’em.”
Brody looked astern. The boat was moving at moderate speed, turning this way and that in response to Quint’s random turning of the wheel. Always the barrels kept up with them.
“Fuck it,” said Quint. “If it’s a fight he wants, it’s a fight he’ll get.” He throttled down to idling speed, jumped down from the flying bridge and up onto the transom. He picked up the harpoon. Excitement had returned to his face. “Okay, shit-eater!” he called. “Come and get it!”
The barrels kept coming, plowing through the water — thirty yards away, then twenty-five, then twenty. Brody saw the flat plain of gray pass along the star-board side of the boat, six feet beneath the surface. “He’s here!” he cried. “Heading forward.”
“Shit!” said Quint, cursing his misjudgment of the length of the ropes. He detached the harpoon dart from the shaft, snapped the twine that held the shaft to a cleat, hopped down from the transom, and ran forward. When he reached the bow, he bent down and tied the twine to a forward cleat, unlashed a barrel, and slipped its dart onto the shaft. He stood at the end of the pulpit, harpoon raised.
The fish had already passed out of range. The tail surfaced twenty feet in front of the boat. The two barrels bumped into the stern almost simultaneously. They bounced once, then rolled off the stern, one on each side, and slid down the sides of the boat.
Thirty yards in front of the boat, the fish turned. The head raised out of the water, then dipped back in. The tail, standing like a sail, began to thrash back and forth. “Here he comes!” said Quint.
Brody raced up the ladder to the flying bridge. Just as he got there, he saw Quint draw his right arm back and rise up on tiptoes.
The fish hit the bow head on, with a noise like a muffled explosion. Quint cast his iron. It struck the fish atop the head, over the right eye, and it held fast. The rope fed slowly overboard as the fish backed off.
“Perfect!” said Quint. “Got him in the head that time.”
There were three barrels in the water now, and they skated across the surface. Then they disappeared.
“God damn!” said Quint. “That’s no normal fish that can sound with three irons in him and three barrels to hold him up.”
The boat trembled, seeming to rise up, then dropped back. The barrels popped up, two on one side of the boat, one on the other. Then they submerged again. A few seconds later, they reappeared twenty yards from the boat.
“Go below,” said Quint, as he readied another harpoon. “See if that prick done us any dirt up forward.”
Brody swung down into the cabin. It was dry. He pulled back the threadbare carpet, saw a hatch, and opened it. A stream of water was flowing aft beneath the floor of the cabin. We’re sinking, he told himself, and the memories of his childhood nightmares leaped into his mind. He went topside and said to Quint, “It doesn’t look good. There’s a lot of water under the cabin floor.”