I was lucky to get him instead of dolphin

“It is a strong full-blooded fish,” he thought. “I was lucky to get him instead of
dolphin. Dolphin is too sweet. This is hardly sweet at all and all the strength is still in it.”
There is no sense in being anything but practical though, he thought. I wish I had
some salt. And I do not know whether the sun will rot or dry what is left, so I had better
eat it all although I am not hungry. The fish is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I
will be ready.
“Be patient, hand,” he said. “I do this for you.”
I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and
keep strong to do it. Slowly and conscientiously he ate all of the wedge-shaped strips of
fish.
He straightened up, wiping his hand on his trousers. “Now,” he said. “You can let the
cord go, hand, and I will handle him with the right arm alone until you [59] stop that
nonsense.” He put his left foot on the heavy line that the left hand had held and lay back
against the pull against his back.
“God help me to have the cramp go,” he said. “Because I do not know what the fish is
going to do.”
But he seems calm, he thought, and following his plan. But what is his plan, he
thought. And what is mine? Mine I must improvise to his because of his great size. If he
will jump I can kill him. But he stays down forever. Then I will stay down with him
forever.
He rubbed the cramped hand against his trousers and tried to gentle the fingers. But
it would not open. Maybe it will open with the sun, he thought. Maybe it will open when
the strong raw tuna is digested. If I have to have it, I will open it, cost whatever it costs.
But I do not want to open it now by force. Let it open by itself and come back of its own
accord. After all I abused it much in the night when it was necessary to free and untie the
various lines.
He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the
prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation
of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and
saw a [60] flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then
blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.
He thought of how some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boar and
knew they were right in the months of sudden bad weather. But now they were in
hurricane months and, when there are no hurricanes, the weather of hurricane months is
the best of all the year.
If there is a hurricane you always see the signs of it in the sky for days ahead, if you
are at sea. They do not see it ashore because they do not know what to look for, he
thought. The land must make a difference too, in the shape of the clouds. But we have no
hurricane coming now.
He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream

and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.
“Light brisa,” he said. “Better weather for me than for you, fish.”
His left hand was still cramped, but he was unknotting it slowly.
I hate a cramp, he thought. It is a treachery of one’s [61] own body. It is humiliating
before others to have a diarrhoea from ptomaine poisoning or to vomit from it. But a
cramp, he thought of it as a calambre, humiliates oneself especially when one is alone.
If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he
thought. But it will loosen up.
Then, with his right hand he felt the difference in the pull of the line before he saw
the slant change in the water. Then, as he leaned against the line and slapped his left
hand hard and fast against his thigh he saw the line slanting slowly upward.
“He’s coming up,” he said. “Come on hand. Please come on.”
The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of
the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides.
He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the
stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball
bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then
re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old [62] man saw the great scythe-blade of
his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.
“He is two feet longer than the skiff,” the old man said. The line was going out fast
but steadily and the fish was not panicked. The old man was trying with both hands to
keep the line just inside of breaking strength. He knew that if he could not slow the fish
with a steady pressure the fish could take out all the line and break it.
He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him learn his
strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything
now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who
kill them; although they are more noble and more able.
The old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more than a
thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone. Now
alone, and out of sight of land, he was fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and
bigger than he had ever heard of, and his left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws
of an eagle.
[63] It will uncramp though, he thought. Surely it will uncramp to help my right
hand. There are three things that are brothers: the fish and my two hands. It must
uncramp. It is unworthy of it to be cramped. The fish had slowed again and was going at
his usual pace.
I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though to show
me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I could show him what sort
of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man