The Mystery of Swordfish Reef Page 12

  “Got ’im! By hell, we’ve got ’im! Good for you, Bony.”

  Wilton slapped Bony’s back till Bony began to cough.

  “Five hundred and fifty pounds at least,” he shouted. To Joe, and still shouting: “We’ll never get him on board in this sea. We’ll have to tow him.”

  “Sharks!” yelled Joe.

  “Have to chance ’em taking a few pounds of him,” Wilton yelled back. “He’s fixed now. Make for Wapengo, and speed her up.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “A Bit Of A Sea!”

  THEY STOOD, Bony and his launchmen, under the cabin roof projecting aft to give shelter to the helmsman and the cabin entrance. They were able to look through glass along the foredeck of the Marlin and see the whitish blur of land towards which engine and sea and wind combined to drive her at abnormal speed. Wilton was at the wheel, and Joe stood on Bony’s other side munching a meat sandwich at least three inches thick.

  Now and then Joe chuckled as though at an unshared joke. Not for several minutes did Bony grasp the reason. When he did he was surprised: on Wilton’s youthful face glowed intense happiness. He was seeing their reactions—not to the storm of wind and the wave-crests fast becoming a menace to so small a craft, but to the triumph of success.

  He never had observed a prospector at the moment of unearthing a Welcome Nugget, but a prospector finding such a nugget would look precisely as these two now did. On their weather-touched faces was written plain a vast satisfaction in achievement. The tautness of their nerves was betrayed by the deliberateness of their actions.

  Old hand that he was in the study of human reactions, he was astonished at his own. His skin was clammy with sweat, although his clothes were drenched by the rain that had fallen sudden and swift before passing on to leave the sky partially clear of cloud. No successful culmination of a man-hunt ever had given him such exquisite satisfaction as he now felt: his mind refused to be subdued; refused to cease its thrilling at vivid memory. It felt warm within his head. It was exhilarated to the point of intoxication: it gloried in its freedom at last to savour every moment of that epic fight with the fish now being towed astern.

  The squall clouds were skidding across the tops of the hills, followed by individual clouds racing ahead of the Marlin. The sun was shining as though bravely defiant of a long belt of cloud lying above the eastern horizon, threatening, blue-black. The wind was roaring about every projection of the launch, and the sea was hissing and crashing like breaking glass. Coming from astern, the wind pressed their bodies into the shelter, forcing them to resist it with their hands against the ledge below the thick windows.

  “Look at that ole wallerin’ cow,” urged Joe, jerking his head to the port window.

  A steamer of some five thousand tons, painted white to her bridge with spray, was labouring northward to Sydney. Her stubby masts and squat funnel swayed west and then eastward as every gigantic roller passed under her. Her blunt bow was clotted with white water. Her black-painted sides were ribbed with it.

  “Sooner be ’ere than on ’er,” Joe said. “I’d be sick aboard ’er, I reckon.”

  Bony felt violent opposition to this idea until he realized that he agreed. That distant ship was indeed a “wallower” while the Marlin was a wave-skimming bird. The land and the steamer were too distant to provide a basis for judging their own speed, but they could feel this speed alternately slackening and increasing. Each successive roller followed hard upon the Marlin; appeared to rear itself almost to the sky above her; remained like that for several seconds, as though gathering its maximum strength before springing forward to engulf a craft no larger in comparison than a mussel shell. The Marlin would appear to falter, to be paralysed, to be drawn back and under the towering wall of white-laced water; but always she managed to keep just ahead of the smashing weight. Then the foaming crest would boil under her and about her, embrace her with snowy arms, lift her high and with the assistance of the following wind carry her forward towards the land at the speed of a race-horse. Then slowly speed would diminish, the Marlin would be left behind by the eager wave rushing landward, left to sink in the steep water valley and to be threatened by yet another fearsome roller.

  “How far d’you think we’re off the Inlet, Joe?” Wilton asked, as one might ask the distance to a tram stop.

  “’Bout three miles. What d’you say?”

  “’Bout that. Think we’ll get in over the bar?’’

  “The Dolfin’s made it. We’ll soon know. If we’re gonna go in, we want to make it afore this comin’ squall strikes. Looks like we’ll beat it. Hope so, any’ow. I’d sooner be eatin’ old Rockaway’s tucker in comfort than bitin’ me finger-nails punching all the way down to Eden.”

  “That’s Tathra down there, isn’t it?” asked Bony. “What’s wrong with going in there?”

  “No shelter. No jetty for small craft. The place’s no good in this kind of weather,” answered Joe. “We’ll make over the Wapengo bar—with a bit of luck.”

  “And if we have no luck?”

  “I’m gonna take a look-see in a minute, and if our luck’s out, well, it’ll mean kicking down to Eden. I’d better see how the old bloke’s coming on astern.”

  As light of foot as a young girl going to meet her lover, but with the inelegant movements of a wallower, Joe made his way aft between the two angler’s chairs to assure himself that the fish’s towing-rope was secure. Wilton, observing Bony watching his partner, smiled broadly. The picture presented by the rear middle portion of Joe’s anatomy was one never to be forgotten by Angler Bonaparte. It looked enormous within the confining limits of the after end of the launch, but against the momentary background of an appallingly rearing precipice of water it appeared correctly proportionate.

  The oncoming wave raised the dead swordfish higher than the crouching Joe Peace. It was being towed tail first, and its tail fin came cutting through the white water as though it were the blade of a sword blackened by fire. When the Marlin was riding the roller’s broad back Bony again looked at the wallowing steamer, and Wilton shouted to him:

  “It makes a man feel seasick looking at her.”

  Turning to him Bony laughed. He was feeling peculiarly happy, almost light-headed.

  “I ought to be seasick, but I’m not,” he told Wilton. “The Marlin is like a bird, and I feel as though I were standing on a bird’s back. I feel, Jack, like a man ought to feel always.”

  On Joe returning, Wilton gave up his stand at the wheel and passed down into the cabin to tend his engine. Joe winked and jerked his head back towards the towing fish.

  “The old bloke’s comin’ along good-oh,” he said, as a man might refer to someone on whom his pride is centred. “’E might go six ’undred pounds, but I ain’t sayin’ he will. A nice fish, Bony. The people of Bermee will be glad to see ’im ’anging on the town triangle.”

  Absently he selected one of the two pipes thrust through his belt, and with remarkable dexterity applied the flame of a match to the dottle within its bowl. Never before had Bony smelled such tobacco, and hastily he rolled a cigarette and with much difficulty managed to light it. Pleasurably he inhaled, and moved as far from Joe as was possible. Wilton came to stand between them. And Joe said:

  “’Minds me of that time we ’ad Mr and Mrs Mack out fishing in the Marlin. We was away out about six miles off Montague Island when the mercury, or whatever’s in them barometers, leaked from under it, and an easterly comes roaring in without any kind of notice. Funniest easterly I ever seed. Any’ow, we advises ’ome and comfort at the toot sweet. Mr Mack he says shoot ’er in. I yanks in the teasers, and then I goes aft to bring in the bait-fish and unship the rod. Mrs Mack she says, ‘Don’t do that, Joe, we might happen to get a fish on the way in.’ And sure enough we do. It takes Mr Mack thirty-five minutes to bring him to the gaff and by that time there’s no hope of getting over the bar, and the sea wants to get up and kick us in the face.

  “We punches away up to Montague Island, getting
there near dark, and we ain’t got no tucker and no bedding, and the wind gets kind of coldish. Did the lady go crook? No. She says she’s enjoying every minute of it. Can’t say I was. I kind of gets run down when I misses me tucker.

  “Any’ow, we parks Mrs Mack with the lighthouse women, and I tries to get tucker off the head keeper, but he gets nasty and wants to know what the hell we’re doing on Montague, and don’t we damn well know we ain’t got no right to land? Couldn’t blame him, ’cos their tucker supply is limited, and there ain’t never no knowing when gales will stop a fresh supply being landed.

  “The next day she blows harder than ever, and I managed to get a handful of tea and a loaf of bread and tin of dog. I seen Mrs Mack and tells ’er it’s no go attempting the Bermee bar that day, and I asks her how she’s enjoying of herself. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘first rate, Joe. It’s just too lovely for words and the people here are so kind.’

  “So I goes back with me tin of dog and loaf of bread and handful of tea, and me and Mr Mack and Jack, here, does a perish. The next day she’s still blowing hard, and we runs out of terbacca. Orf I goes up to the lighthouse to borrow a shred or two. The head man ’e don’t smoke, and the other two’s a bit short. Still, one saves the sinking ship by comin’ to light with a plug what he says he’s been keeping as a standby in case of a drought.

  “I takes this down to the Marlin, and Mr Mack he cuts that plug into a fair three parts. ’Im and Jack, here, smokes fags and they chipped off the doings from their bits and I fills me pipe with the bit I got. An’ stonker the crows if inside two minutes we wasn’t all seasick, and the Marlin layin’ in shelter as steady as anything.

  “Terbacca! By cripes, it was terbacca. The next day she’s as calm as tea in a cup, and off we goes to fetch Mrs Mack down to the Marlin and away for home. There’s me and Mr Mack and Jack, here, doing a fast cure, and there’s Mrs Mack telling us what a lovely time she ’ad up at the lighthouse, and ’ow everything was lovely at sea, but she wisht she ’adn’t run outer powder ’cos the air was makin’ her nose red.”

  A series of chuckles emanated from Joe after this anecdote, and Bony was thankful that in the telling of it Joe had let his pipe go out. He thought that a remnant of that Montague Island tobacco must still linger in its bowl.

  They could now see the rock-feet of the cliffs looming higher before the bow of the Marlin, see the foam leaping about them, shooting high up the agate-hard facets of iron escarpments. The short sand beaches were ribbed with swirling surf, and the lower slopes of the highlands behind them were stained with the white smoke of fine spindrift. Astern of them the deepening mass of blue-black cloud was racing to the zenith.

  “I wish I had that swordie across the stern instead of dragging in tow,” Wilton said, having flashed a glance round the compass quarters.

  “Better not muck about with ’im now,” was Joe’s advice. “We’ll have to get over that flamin’ bar afore this weather strikes and raises a bit of a sea, or we’re gonna be at sea all night and no tucker. I’ll go for’ard and take a bird’s eye view of the bar.”

  Wilton took the wheel and Joe clambered forward to stand holding to a mast stay and the mast. The wind tore at his well-washed dungaree trousers and blue pullover, and whipped outward from his round head the sparse greying hair. Bony would have liked much to join him, and said so; but Wilton said Joe would be back with his report in a second or two. They would attempt the bar if he advised it: otherwise they would have to fight the long night through making down to Eden. And that would be no pleasure trip with the seas coming abeam.

  “Can you see the mouth of the Inlet?” Bony asked.

  “Too right. Watch the bow: I’ll point it straight at the bar. Wait! There ... now!”

  The position of the bar made Bony gasp. Between two low headlands the water leaped and seemingly burst upward in fountains of foam. The fury was worse there than along the short sand beaches. He saw the land extending westward between the headlands, but could see no welcoming reaches of placid water.

  Joe came aft to drop down to them.

  “In she goes,” he said.

  “All right. You take her in,” Wilton replied.

  Stepping back, Joe planted himself squarely in front of the wheel, and Wilton slipped down to the engine to give it a final inspection, for engine failure at one of the several critical moments ahead would spell certain disaster. The rollers now were becoming even more menacing, for the water was shallowing. Wilton reappeared and sat on the decking the better to control both the engine’s speed and gear clutch. Bony saw, in the stern expression of his face, the mastery of mind over matter. The lips of the firm clean mouth were pressed tightly together. His gaze was centred on Joe’s feet.

  Joe was standing on his toes; his eyes almost closed. The pipe was still gripped by his teeth, but the bowl was raised to the level of his fringe of hair. At that angle it remained. He appeared to give as much attention to the sea astern as to the maelstrom ahead.

  Joe stamped his left foot.

  Wilton instantly put the Marlin hard astern. She began to wallow, sickeningly, lifelessly, as though she were foundering. The towed swordfish sank from sight. Out of the blue-black east reared a mighty roller. It seemed to Bony that it stopped in that terrifying attitude. He looked at Joe. Joe was watching it, waiting—and ahead waited the tossing chaos of water bordered by black rocks reaching to the sky.

  All about the Marlin the water was white. The sun went out. There was no waning of its light. It just went out—flick. The summit of the following wave began to curve inward, its crest to topple forward over the Marlin. And Joe stamped his right foot and swung back to look ahead.

  Instantly Wilton pulled back the propeller clutch and accelerated the engine to its greatest energy. The Marlin bucked her way forward, lifted her stern to the oncoming wave. On the wave’s front floated high the dead swordfish, high above the launch. It appeared that the roller was about to toss the fish into the cockpit. When it failed to do this it came on and after the Marlin as though infuriated at being cheated.

  The timbre of the wind rose to a high scream. Joe again stamped with his right foot, hard and often, but Wilton could get nothing more out of his engine. The crest of the wave began to fall forward—it crashed on to the towed fish, buried it deep, just missed the cockpit of the launch, boiled up under her and surrounded her with foam which the wind tore away and sent in huge splathers directly into the shelter where the three men were plastered with it.

  Now the wave took charge of the launch, lifted her high, propelled her forward with amazing speed. Bony now could see through rents in a white curtain of spray the narrow entrance of Wapengo Inlet, barely wider than a road. Before the launch, bordering that roadway black rocks appeared to be floating in bubbling quick-lime. To starboard a vast fountain of foam shot skyward. The headland on either side sprang to greet them, seemingly anxious to fall together and devour them in a huge black maw.

  The air above and about the Marlin was filled with streaks of foam being carried past her by the wind. It was impossible to face astern. The curtain ahead thinned magically, and down in a valley, down far below the launch lay the comparatively calm water of the Inlet. They were being rushed towards it on the heart of this roller that had caught them away out beyond the bar.

  The foam outboard lapped over the gunwale into the cockpit, but this they could not see, because they couldn’t face astern. The Marlin appeared to plane down to the still water of the Inlet, until finally she shot on to its table flatness and was moving into its widening lower reach.

  Wilton eased the racing engine down to normal trolling speed. The bowl of Joe’s pipe came down to its normal position. Bony looking back, was amazed that they had passed over and through such a roaring tumult. Even as he looked a white sheet sprang upward to hide it, sprang upward to meet a deluge descending from the blue-black clouds.

  “Hi! There’s a shark after our fish!” Joe yelled.

  “Too right, he is,” agreed Wilton
. “Come on! Get that swordie aboard pronto. Never mind a drop of rain.”

  He pushed the gear stick into neutral and leaped after Joe, who had jumped for the towing-rope. Joe’s language would not have disgraced a hell-ship’s mate as he hauled on the towing-rope and dragged to the launch the great grey body of the swordfish, the fin of the shark coming after it. Bony engaged himself on the rope behind Joe, shouting with rage and energized by a spurious strength. Up came the tail of the swordfish, up and over the port edge of the stern. This edge dented deeply into the great rounded base of the tail which Wilton fought to manage so that either one of its diagonal fins would not jam against the stern rail.

  The Marlin rocked in the flat water of the Inlet beneath the weight of the struggling men, and the fin of the shark zigzagged and came closer and closer to the forepart of the swordfish still submerged. It was like dragging a bullock up a flight of stairs without the aid of a hoist. At last inboard came the capture, and Joe yelled:

  “’Old ’im!”

  Bony and Wilton “’eld ’im”. Joe came back to them with a Winchester repeating rifle, and he fired two shots at the base of the fin. The second shot evidently took effect, for the tail of the shark came right out of water to smash downward, sending outward sheets of spray before it disappeared.

  “That’ll lower ’is dignity a bit,” Joe remarked, and came to accomplish the lashing of the swordfish to the stern bollards.

  The wind had taken the Marlin near to a sand-bar. Wilton jumped to her wheel and thrust in the gear shaft.

  Joe scratched his head.

  “Five ’undred and seventy-five pounds,” he estimated, shouting with his mouth close to Bony’s left ear. The “bit of a sea” and the crossing of that bar were not worth thought at this moment.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Rockaways

  THE Marlin was moving steadily ahead. Bony was aware of it in a detached way. He noticed the white wake streaming away astern. He was partially conscious of steeply rising land near to one side, and of a wide stretch of tortured water on the other. The movement of the launch, its lengthening wake that defied the onslaught of wind and rain, and the proximity of land, were of no import whatsoever. He was conscious of the rain penetrating his clothes and chilling his skin, and of the thin fall of water cascading from the down-turned rim of his old felt hat. Even this contained no importance.