The Mystery of Swordfish Reef b-7

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Recognizing the forces arrayed against him, Bony understood that working incognito on this case would be a decided disadvantage, and he temporized with himself by deciding to admit several of the launchmen to his confidence and so seek their aid. It was arranged that those launchmen who were at sea when theDo-me vanished should meet at Telfer’s house late the following evening. Bony decided to take Wilton and Joe along, also.

  At seven o’clock next morning he sat down to breakfast with Mr Emery, who was in great cheer because the barometer he had brought from his own house indicated rising pressure and fair weather. Previous to this meeting at the table both men had stood in their dressing-gowns on the hotel balcony from which they could observe the lazy water of the great bay which appeared as flat as the proverbial mill-pond. Later, they parted on the jetty to go to their respective launches after wishing each other the best of good fortune.

  “Well, Jack, what is it going to be today?” Bony asked when he stepped down into theMarlin ’s cockpit where Wilton was securing the butt end of the heavy rod to the seat of the angler’s chair.

  “The day’s going to be good. Glass is as steady as a rock at 30.1. The wind’s coming from the south-east-what there is of it. Here, Joe, stow Mr. Bonaparte’s lunch and thermos. We’ll get away and show ’em how to catch swordies.”

  “Right-oh, Jack! And you keep your eyes on them blinded teasers, Mr Bonaparte. If you see shadders or anything, you bawl and scream and we’ll havethem teasers inboard in two ups.”

  The breakers on the bar this morning would not have upset a row-boat, and having thrust past them theMarlin crossed the low ground swells of the bay as a car might the land waves of a road. Even beyond the headland the swells were bare of the suds of the lesser waves riding them.

  In company with four other launches, those on theMarlin trolled off the headland for bait-fish, securing half a dozen two-pounders in ten minutes. Joe grumbled because they were too big: he liked them one and half pounds in weight, and he liked bonito in preference to salmon.

  “Not much shoal fish about this morning,” he observed as though he had been insulted. “The place is going to the devil. Looks like the shoal fish have cleared out again.”

  “If they have they’ll be back tomorrow, Joe.”

  “Tomorrer’s not today, is it? Any’ow, we’ve got enough salmon for now, and there’s yesterday’s bonito in the box.”

  Bony, who was standing with his back resting against the stern rail, overheard this conversation and wondered what the small fishing hereabout would be like when the fish were plentiful, as in ten minutes he and Joe had caught ten pounds’ weight of fish for bait. The early wind had died and the short chop waves above the ground swells seemed painted witha green shellac.

  “EdithandVida going to try up around Montague,” observed Wilton, thoughtfully. “Gladiousdoesn’t seem to know what to do. Alf Remmings is artful. He’s got some place in his mind to go to, but wants us to clear out first so’s we shan’t follow him. What about trying down at Bunga Head?”

  Joe regarded the sea with a scowling face, and the sky with squinting eyes.

  “It’ll be quiet out along Swordfish Reef,” he said slowly.“Likely day to pick up a striped marlin out of there. Seems to me the shoal fish have all gone to sea… Yes, out to sea. Might run acrost ’em on Swordfish Reef, or a bit farther out.”

  “Right-oh! Take her out sou’-east and then when we hit the reef we can follow it up to Montague. Wind might get up a bit and blow from the nor’ard or nor’-east’ard.”

  The engine revolutions increased and the speed of the launch was raised to five knots. To Bony, Wilton remarked, softly:

  “When Joe makes up his mind there’s no fish inshore then, according to him, there is none. We’re just as likely to pick up a swordie here as anywhere. I’ll knock her back when we’ve got everything set.”

  Proceeding to rail the two teasers and prepare the angler’s bait-fish, he went on:

  “Me, I like a rough sea for fishing. When the spindrift is being whipped off the white horses, the swordies seem to be more active. But you never know. They’re a blinking gamble. We might raise the record swordie any minute, no matter where the place and the weather. I wouldn’t mind seeing you land a hefty mako shark today. They give a feller plenty of sport.”

  “Hope we catch something big, anyway,” Bony said, smilingly. “I’m just itching to feel a big fish. I suppose they are, though, generally where the shoal fish are?”

  “Yes, when the shoal fish are about the big ’uns are about, too, You haven’t seen a shoal yet. Wait till you do. The shoal fish lives mostly on a very small crab-like fish no bigger than a flea, and no one seems to know what controls these small fish. They come along in countless billions, spreading over miles and miles of water. Then in a night they will all disappear; where to, not even Joe can tell us. We get days sometimes when we won’t see a fin, or a shoal fish, or a single one of those tiny chaps. Then one morning, or one afternoon, the mutton birds are flying thick, the sea’s alive with the small fellers and being lashed to foam by the shoal fish that’s after them. Often, you can see a swordie at work among the shoal fish, leaping after them above the surface and smashing down at them with his sword. Now everything’s right, I’ll go for’ard and keep a lookout. Shout ‘fish-oh’ if you see a fin or a shadow.”

  He left Bony to stop for a second beside Joe, and the speed of the launch was reduced to three knots. A little sternly Bony looked away over the glittering sea, for a sentence from the Book of Sea had been translated for him and he was conscious of his inability to reada writing foreign to him.

  They were heading for Swordfish Reef, and now and then Bony gazed eagerly ahead expecting to see water suds surging over semi-submerged rocks. There was nothing between him and the sharply defined line of the horizon. He could just make out the “pimple” of land and the white pencil of the lighthouse on Montague Island. A light haze already masked the receding shore, but above this haze stood clearly the summits of the distant hills and the upper slopes of Dromedary Mountain dominating the great bay. TheVida andEdith were low upon the water, while theGladious, making to the south, was barely discernible. Beyond her, Bunga Head stood out, stained by the haze, and beyond Bunga Head would be other headlands between it and Twofold Bay of historic interest.

  Standing beside the mast, Wilton stamped a foot on the decking and pointed away to the port bow. The watchful Joe immediately altered course in obedience to the order, and Bony heard Wilton shout:

  “A fin! Can’t make it out yet. Might be shark.”

  Two minutes passed before Bony saw the fin, and at that instant Wilton cried:

  “Sun-fish! Go ’way out, Joe!”

  The fin slowly wagged. It was triangular and would mean shark to anyone unable to read the Book of the Sea. A huge skate-like fish of enormous weight and no pugnaciousness; fishermen and angler ignore them.

  Thirty minutes later Wilton again stamped a foot on the deck, and the drowsing angler sprang to his feet to look forward, glad of the distraction to banish the almost mastering desire to sleep. The relaxing sea air was like a narcotic.

  He saw the object towards which the launch was now being steered, a blackish thing thatraised what appeared to be long and hairy arms. It was not a fish, and it was not a castaway clinging to a piece of flotsam. Steadily the launch neared it, and then quite abruptly the grotesque object resolved into a thing of slim-curved beauty and disappeared. Four seconds later it reappeared to lift itself half-way out of the water like a man “treading water”, to gaze at the oncoming craft with curious placidity. Almost contemptuously the seal dived again, and when next it came to the surface it was well astern of theMarlin.

  “He was enjoying a bit of sun-bask,” Joe announced to the angler, pride of showmanship in his voice.

  An albatross arrived from nowhere to maintain its splendid poise above Bony at less than fifty feet. Never did it flap its great wings: it moved their angles to the air currents: an
d for an instant or two it inquiringly examined the launch and its occupants before “floating” away without effort, supremely master of its element.

  “We want to see mutton birds, not ’im,” called Joe.“Ain’t seen a mutton bird all morning. Theykeeps with the shoal fish.”

  Another hour passed during which Bony often was compelled to close his eyes against the sea-glare for a moment’s relief. He was pressing his hands against his eyes when Wilton came aft and entered the cabin.

  “Try these dark glasses,” he said, on joining Bony. “The light is extra bad today, and they will save your eyes. You’ll feel like sleeping for a month after the first few days’ fishing. Like to come for’ard to see Swordfish Reef?”

  So Bony clambered forward to stand with Wilton against the mast.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “There, beyond that white line drawn on the water.”

  A thin white line of suds, or what appeared to be foam but which may have been composed of the dead bodies of minute creatures, extended as far as could be seen to the north and to the south. The launch was passing over tiny choppy wavelets most certainly not created by the wind, steadily advanced to the white line which itself appeared immovable. Beyond the line was a water lane where the sea gently boiled in expanding discs, and beyond the lane, some hundred yards wide, the same choppy wavelets were barred back as though by a cement and stone breakwater.

  Over the white line theMarlin passed and quarter-circled to the north until it was treading along the pavement of the sea. It was almost as steady as though it were moored to the jetty seven miles distant. The low swells seemed not to touch this lane, and Bony imagined that royalty, driving along a road made empty by authority crowding the people to the sidewalks, would be used to such an experience as now was his. The progress of the launch was deliberate and steady: the sun-kissed wavelets on either side of the “road” could have been the hands and handkerchiefs of a cheering populace.

  “It’s not often we see the reef like this,” Wilton was saying, in his voice the evidence of a man entranced by his own environment. “She’s pretty rough here even in moderate weather, for the surface of the reef is only a few dozen fathoms down under. It’s like a lake, isn’t it? And the reef lies for several miles to the south and all the way up to Montague Island.”

  Swordfish Reef! Seven full miles from land, away out in the TasmanSea, and the launch he was on as steady as though it were moored to the jetty. Bony had not the need to hold anything for support. The sound of the engine was low and indistinct. He gazed around in a circle. He saw not one launch or ship: only the plume of oily smoke rising from the southern horizon betraying a steamer’s position. A sensation of vast loneliness possessed him, and this was replaced by a twinge of fear. If anything happened to theMarlin! What chance was there of survival? No more than if on a twenty-thousand tonner.

  “Didn’t theDo-me vanish somewhere out here?” he asked Wilton.

  “So we reckon,” came the reply. “She was last seen heading this way. A bit farther north and west is where the trawler brought up the head. Funny about that. Sharks must have fought over the body, and during the scrimmage the head must have been torn off and then sunk unnoticed by the brutes. Inside the reef that was. Two miles farther out, shallow water ends at the Continental Shelf. Beyond that the bottom is miles down.”

  “The weather was calm, too, that day theDo-me disappeared?”

  “It was as calm as this, in fact calmer. I wasn’t out that day. We were working on theMarlin that we’d hauled up the beach, but the other fellers said it was the flattest sea they ever saw.”

  “Would theDo-me have had a compass on board?”

  “Oh, yes. All the launches have compasses and barometers. But theDo-me wouldn’t want her compass that day, although it was a bit hazy. At only four miles out the haze hid the coast, but sticking up above the haze was the summit of Dromedary Mountain which is our best landmark. We can see her when thirty miles at sea.”

  “Why do you go out that far?”

  “After swordies, striped marlin chiefly. I don’t believe in going out there, you know, but some anglers like to.”

  “And observing the sea over Swordfish Reef like it is today is a rare phenomenon?”

  “Eh?”

  “Sight.”

  “Yes. Too right it is. When she blows an easterly this place isn’t worth a visit, I can assure you. Just take a squint at the water. You don’t see waterso blue as that, and so clear, every month of the year. You don’t-Cripes! There’s a fin. A swordie! He’s coming to meet us. Jump for your rod, quick!”

  There was no mistaking the fish whose fin cut the water so cleanly and swiftly. It was following the sea-lane southward and so would meet theMarlin, the tip of its fin a bare nine inches above the pale-blue pavement.

  Rushing aft, Wilton and Bony swung themselves down by the cabin roof into the cockpit. Wilton’s voice became brittle.

  “Swordie, Joe! Coming south. Keep her dead ahead and be ready to inboard the port teaser.”

  Now Bony was in his seat, slipping the canvas gloves on to his hands. Wilton snatched up the leather harness and assisted his angler to strap it about his body and fasten the clips to the rod reel.

  “He went below,” Wilton said, the excitement under which he had spoken to Joe now replaced by cool deliberation. “He saw the launch and dived. He’s watching us now, the teasers and the bait-fish. Look out for him.”

  Now perforce crouched over his rod which he did not raise from the stern rail, Bony’s left hand caressed the wide band of cord on the reel drum, whilst the fingers of the right hand maintained light contact with the spokes of the brake wheel, ready instantly to relieve the slight strain keeping the bait-fish from being taken away by the water. His pulses were throbbing, but his brain felt cold and his eyes were like points of blue ice.

  “There he is to starboard!” Wilton cried. “He’s coming round to follow us.”

  Again Bony saw the triangular fin, now cutting the surface in a wide arc to come in behind the launch a hundred odd yards away. The sun glinted on the stiffly-erect, greyish-green triangle now keeping even pace with the launch, watched by three men to whom the world and all it contained for them was nothing. Thirty seconds passed before the distance between fin and launch was decreased. The fish came on the better to examine this shoal of wounded “fish”, following a moving rock for protection. Power was epitomised by that fin: now it epitomised velocity as though it was passing through a vacuum, not water.

  “He’s coming! Ah-a nice fish, too. Might go three hundred pounds,” whispered Wilton, and Bony sub-consciously wondered how the devil he knew how much the fish might weigh on observing only the fin. Velocity became mere speed when the fin gained position a few yards behind the bait-fish, a position it maintained.

  “He’s taking a bird’s-eye view of the bait-fish,” Joe said. “What about them teasers, Jack?”

  “Right! Bring ’em in, Joe. This feller isn’t extra hungry, and we don’t want him to play the fool with ’em.”

  The brightly-coloured cylinders of wood jerked forward and disappeared from Bony’s range of view. He saw them go, dragged forward by Joe, although the focal point of his gaze had become a fixture to the fin. Then with terrific acceleration the fin came on after the bait-fish.

  For a split second Bony experienced pity for the fish which had been dead for hours and now was impaled on a hook. There was no swerving of the giant fin now, no hesitation. It came to within a yard of the bait-fish over which rose a grey-brown “sword”. Bony saw an elephantine mouth take the bait-fish. There was a gentle swirl of water, but no sight of body or tail. The bait-fish vanished, and the rod reel began to scream its high-pitched note.

  The launch had been proceeding on a northerly course, but immediately the swordfish took the bait Joe swung theMarlin hard to port and slipped out the engine clutch, bringing the stern round to the north-east. A swordfish invariably runs with its capture to the north-east
, and Joe’s manoeuvre brought the angler to face that direction.

  Bony had swiftly removed brakage on the line which now was being torn away from the reel at yards per second. He became aware that the launch was stopping, that the engine-beat was different, that Wilton stood just behind him, and that Wilton’s mouth was close to his neck. It seemed that it was only one part of his mind that registered all this: the other part was like a gun barrel through which he was looking to see the line running away and down into the sea.

  The fingers of his left hand protected by the glove were pressing gently on the revolving reel drum, keeping the line just sufficiently taut to prevent the whizzing reel giving up line faster than the fish took it. His right hand caressed the spokes of the brake, ready to apply pressure immediately the fish stopped-if ever it would stop.

  “Let him go,” Wilton breathed on Bony’s neck. “He thinks he’s got a win, and he’s highly delighted. He’ll stop soon. He’s taken three hundred yards of line. He won’t want much more. There! Careful.”

  The music of the reel abruptly ceased. Abruptly it began again, to continue for three seconds before again ceasing its high note. The ensuing silence was remarkable. The pulsations of the running engine seemed to come from a great distance, far beyond the silence pressing hard upon Bony’s ears. The line was falling slackly. There was no movement on it. It entered the sea through the suds line, on one side of which the tiny chop lapped it, and on the other side of which began the flat water pavement.

  “What next?” he asked, feeling that this waiting was intolerable.

  “Wind in a little of the slack,” came the suggestion, and Bony put on brakage sufficient to master the freedom of the drum. “He’s all right, down there. If you strike now you’ll lose him, pull the bait-fish out of his mouth. He’s down fathoms and rolling on his back like a playful kitten, just munching the bait-fish, turning it round so’s it will go down his gullet head first. He’ll go to market in a second when he feels the hook or the wire trace, and then he’ll come up to throw it. Give him time. Get in that bit of slack. That’s right. Keep it there. Now look at the line!”