No Comebacks

'Pray,' said Kilian. 'You can't hold him over a hundred-pound pull. So if he reaches the end of the line on the drum, he'll just break it.'

'It's getting very hot,' said Murgatroyd.

Kilian looked at his shorts and shirt. 'You'll fry out here,' he said. 'Wait a minute.'

He took off the trousers of his own track suit and slipped them over Murgatroyd's legs, one at a time. Then he pulled them up as far as he could. The webbing harness prevented them reaching Murgatroyd's waist, but at least the thighs and shins were covered. The relief from the sun was immediate. Kilian took a spare long-sleeved sweater from the cabin. It smelt of sweat and fish.

'I'm going to slip this over your head,' he told Murgatroyd, 'but the only way to get it farther is to undo the harness for a few seconds. Just hope the marlin doesn't break in those seconds.'

They were lucky. Kilian slipped off the two shoulder straps and pulled the sweater down to Murgatroyd's waist, then reclipped the shoulder straps. The fish just ran with the boat, the line taut but without much strain. With the sweater on, Murgatroyd's arms ceased to hurt so much. Kilian turned round. From his seat old man Patient was holding out his broad-brimmed chip hat. Kilian placed it on Murgatroyd's head. The band of shadow shielded his eyes and gave more relief, but the skin of his face was already red and scorched. The sun's reflection from the sea can burn worse than the sun itself.

Murgatroyd took advantage of the marlin's passivity to reel in some more line. He had taken 100 yards, each yard making his fingers ache on the reel handle, for there was still a 40-pound strain on the line, when the fish broke again. He took his 100 yards back in thirty seconds, pulling a full 100 pounds against the slipping clutch. Murgatroyd just hunched himself and held on. The webbing bit into him wherever it touched. It was ten o'clock.

In the next hour he began to learn the meaning of pain. His fingers were stiff and throbbed. His wrists hurt and his forearms sent spasms up to his shoulders. The biceps were locked and shoulders screamed. Even beneath the track suit and pullover the merciless sun was beginning to scorch his skin again. Three times in that hour he won back 100 yards from the fish; three times the fish broke and clawed back his line.

'I don't think I can take much more,' he said between gritted teeth.

Kilian stood beside him, an open can of iced beer in his hand. His own legs were bare, but darkened by years in the sun. He seemed not to burn.

'Hang on, man. That's what the battle's about. He has the strength, you have the tackle and the cunning. After that it's all stamina, yours against his.'

Just after eleven the marlin tail-walked for the first time. Murgatroyd had brought him in to 500 yards. The boat was for a second on the crest of a roller. Down the wake the fish came surging out of the side of a wall of green water and Murgatroyd's mouth fell open. The sharp needle beak of the upper jaw lunged for the sky; below it the shorter lower mandible was hanging open. Above and behind the eye the crested dorsal fin, like a cock's comb, was extended and erect. The glittering bulk of his body followed and as the wave from which he had come ebbed from him, the marlin seemed to stand on his crescent tail. His great body shuddered as if he were walking on his tail. For one second he was there, staring at them across the waste of whitecaps. Then he crashed back into another moving wall and was gone, deep down to his own cold dark world. Old man Patient spoke first to break the silence.

'C'est l’Empereur,' he said.

Kilian spun round on him. 'Vous étes sûr?' he asked.

The old man just nodded.

'What did he say?' asked Higgins.

Murgatroyd stared at the spot where the fish had gone. Then, slowly and steadily, he began to reel in again.

'They know this fish around here,' said Kilian. 'If it's the same one, and I've never known the old man be wrong, he's a blue marlin, estimated to be bigger than the world record of eleven hundred pounds, which means he must be old and cunning. They call him the Emperor. He's a legend to the fishermen.'

'But how could they know one particular fish?' said Higgins. 'They all look alike.'

'This one's been hooked twice,' said Kilian. 'He broke the line twice. But the second time he was close to the boat, off Riviere Noire. They saw the first hook hanging from his mouth. Then he broke line at the last minute and took another hook with him. Each time he was hooked he tail-walked several times and they all got a good look at him. Someone took a photograph of him in mid-air, so he's well known. I couldn't identify him at five hundred yards, but Patient for all his years has eyes like a gannet.'

By midday Murgatroyd was looking old and sick. He sat hunched over his rod, in a world of his own, alone with his pain and some inner determination that he had never felt before. The palms of both hands were running water from the burst blisters, the sweat-damp webbing cut cruelly into sunflayed shoulders. He bowed his head and reeled in line.

Sometimes it came easy as if the fish too were taking a rest. When the strain came off the line the relief was a pleasure so exquisite that he could never later describe it. When the rod was bent and all his aching muscles locked again against the fish the pain was like nothing he could have imagined.

Just after noon Kilian crouched down beside him and offered him another beer. 'Look, man, you're pretty crook. It's been three hours, and really you're not fit enough. There's no need to kill yourself. If you need any help, a short rest, just say.'

Murgatroyd shook his head. His lips were split from sun and salt-spray.

'My fish,' he said, 'leave me alone.'

The battle went on as the sun hammered down onto the deck. Old Patient perched like a wise brown cormorant on his high stool, one hand on the wheel, the engines set just above the idle, his head turned to scan the wake for a sign of the Emperor. Jean-Paul was crouched in the shade of the awning, having long since reeled in and stowed the other three rods. No one was after bonito now, and extra lines would only tangle. Higgins had finally succumbed to the swell and sat miserably head down over a bucket into which he had deposited the sandwiches he had taken for brunch and two bottles of beer. Kilian sat facing him and sucked at his fifth cold lager. Occasionally they looked at the hunched, scarecrow figure under his native hat in the swivel chair and listened to the tickety-tickety-tick of the incoming reel or the despairing ziiiiiiing as the line went back out again.

The marlin had come to 300 yards when he walked again. This time the boat was in a trough and the Emperor burst the surface pointing straight towards them. He came in a climbing leap, shaking spray from his back. The arc of his leap was down the wake and the line suddenly went completely slack. Kilian was on his feet.

'Take line,' he screamed. 'He'll spit the hook.'

Murgatroyd's tired fingers worked in a blur on the handle of the drum to take up the slack. He managed just in time. The line went tight as the marlin dived back into the sea and he had gained 50 yards. Then the fish took it all back. Down in the still dark depths, fathoms beneath the waves and the sun, the great pelagic hunter with instincts honed by a million years of evolution turned against his enemy's pull, took the strain at the corner of his bony mouth and dived.

In his chair the small bank manager hunched himself again, squeezed aching fingers around the wet cork grip, felt the webbing sear into his shoulders like thin wires, and held on. He watched the still-wet nylon line running out, fathom after fathom, before his eyes. Fifty yards were gone and the fish was still diving.