No Comebacks

The rollers were coming from the east, shoulder to shoulder, like serried ranks of great green guardsmen marching upon the island, only to die in the artillery of the reef. He was surprised that he was not feeling queasy for he had once felt ill on a ferry crossing from Dover to Boulogne. But that had been a bigger vessel, hammering and butting its way through the waves, its passengers breathing in the odours of oil, cooking fat, fast-food, bar fumes and each other. The smaller Avant did not contest the sea; she rode with it, yielding to rise again.

Murgatroyd stared at the water and felt the awe that dwells on the edge of fear, so much companion to men in small boats. A craft may be proud, majestic, expensive and strong in the calm water of a fashionable port, admired by the passing socialite throng, the showpiece of its rich possessor. Out on the ocean it is sister to the reeking trawler, the rusted tramp, a poor thing of welded seams and bolted joints, a frail cocoon pitting its puny strength against unimaginable power, a fragile toy on a giant's palm. Even with four others around him, Murgatroyd sensed the insignificance of himself and the impertinent smallness of the boat, the loneliness that the sea can inspire. Those alone who have journeyed on the sea and in the sky, or across the great snows or over desert sands, know the feeling. All are vast, merciless, but most awesome of all is the sea, because it moves.

Just after nine o'clock Monsieur Patient muttered something to no one in particular. ‘Ya quelque chose,' he said. 'Nous suit.'

'What did he say?' asked Higgins.

'He said there was something out there,' said Kilian. 'Something following us.'

Higgins stared around him at the tumbling water. There was nothing but water. 'How on earth can he know that?' he asked.

Kilian shrugged. 'Same way you know there is something wrong with a column of figures. Instinct.'

The old man reduced power by a touch and the Avant slowed until she seemed hardly to be making way. The pitching and tossing seemed to increase with the drop of engine power. Higgins swallowed several times as his mouth filled with spittle. At a quarter past the hour one of the rods bucked sharply and the line began to run out, not fast but briskly, the clicking of the reel like a football rattle.

'Yours,' said Kilian to Murgatroyd and jerked the rod out of its socket in the transom to place it in the fishing seat. Murgatroyd came out from the shade and sat in the chair. He tagged the rod butt to the dogclip and gripped the cork handle firmly in the left hand. The reel, a big Penn Senator like a beer firkin, was still turning briskly. He began to close the control of the slipping clutch.

The strain on his arm grew and the rod arched. But the line went on running.

'Tighten up,' said Kilian, 'or he'll take all your line.'

The bank manager locked the muscles of his biceps and tightened the clutch still further. The tip of the rod went down and down until it was level with his eyes. The running line slowed, recovered, and went on running. Kilian bent to look at the clutch. The marks on the inner and outer ring were almost opposite each other.

'That bugger's pulling eighty pounds,' he said. 'You'll have to tighten up some more.'

Murgatroyd's arm was beginning to ache and his fingers were stiffening round the cork grip. He turned the clutch control until the twin marks were exactly opposite each other.

'No more,' said Kilian. 'That's a hundred pounds. The limit. Use both hands on the rod and hang on.'

With relief Murgatroyd brought his other hand to the rod, gripped hard with both, placed the soles of his plimsoles against the transom, braced his thighs and calves and leaned back. Nothing happened. The butt of the rod was vertical between his thighs, the tip pointing straight at the wake. And the line kept on running out, slowly, steadily. The reserve on the drum was diminishing before his eyes.

'Christ,' said Kilian, 'he's big. He's pulling a hundred plus, like tissues from a box. Hang on, man.'

His South African accent was becoming more pronounced in his excitement. Murgatroyd braced his legs again, locked his fingers, wrists, forearms and biceps, hunched his shoulders, bent his head and hung on. No one had ever asked him to hold a 100-pound pull before. After three minutes the reel finally stopped turning. Whatever it was down there, it had taken 600 yards of line.

'We'd better get you in the harness,' said Kilian. One arm after the other he slipped the webbing over Murgatroyd's shoulders. Two more straps went round the waist and another broader one up from between the thighs. All five locked into a central socket on the belly. Kilian pulled the harness tight. It gave some relief to the legs, but the webbing bit through the cotton tennis shirt in front of the shoulders. For the first time Murgatroyd realized how hot the sun was out here. The tops of his bare thighs began to prick.

Old Patient had turned round, steering one-handed. He had watched the line running out from the start. Without warning he just said, 'Marlin.'

'You're lucky,' said Kilian. 'It seems you've hooked into a marlin.'

'Is that good?' asked Higgins, who had gone pale.

'It's the king of all the game fish,' said Kilian. 'Rich men come down here year after year and spend thousands on the sport, and never get a marlin. But he'll fight you, like you've never seen anything fight in your life.'

Although th

e line had stopped running out and the fish was swimming with the boat, he had not stopped pulling. The rod tip still arched down to the wake. The fish was still pulling between 70 and 90 pounds.

The four men watched in silence as Murgatroyd hung on. For five minutes he clung to the rod as the sweat burst from forehead and cheeks, running down in drops to his chin. Slowly the rod tip rose as the fish increased speed to ease the pull at his mouth. Kilian crouched beside Murgatroyd and began to coach him like a flying instructor to a pupil before his first solo flight.

'Reel in now,' he said, 'slowly and surely. Reduce the clutch strain to eighty pounds, for your sake not his. When he makes a break, and he will, let him go and tighten the clutch back to a hundred. Never try to reel in while he's fighting; he'll break your line like cotton. And if he runs towards the boat, reel in like mad. Never give him slack line; he '11 try to spit out the hook.'

Murgatroyd did as he was bid. He managed to reel in 50 yards before the fish made a break. When it did the force nearly tore the rod from the man's grasp. Murgatroyd just had time to swing his other hand to the grip and hold on with both arms. The fish took another 100 yards of line before he stopped his run and began to follow the boat again.

'He's taken six-fifty yards so far,' said Kilian. 'You've only got eight hundred.'

'So what do I do?' asked Murgatroyd between his teeth. The rod slackened and he began winding again.