by R. B. Baxter
fish as he tried to figure out a way to grab hold of it without going anywhere near those deadly teeth.
“If I can just get a good grip on him I can grab the shaft of the hook with the pliers,” he said. “A good yank and a sharp twist might pull it clear.”
But Dad never got the chance. The line suddenly parted and with a savage flick of its thick sleek body the barracuda shot away into the depths and disappeared from view. Strong though it was, the fishing line Arthur used for catching flathead could not cope long with those hideous teeth.
“Oh bugger!” said Arthur. “I’ll have to re-rig that bloody line now.”
Terry sneered as he fished another cigarette from the crumpled packet he took from his breast pocket. “Is that all you’re worried about you heartless old mongrel? Think about that poor old ‘cuda with your bloody great hunk of metal stuck in his gob.” He lit the cigarette and blew a fat plume of grey-blue smoke into the air above his head which was whittled away by the light, morning breeze. “He’s not gunna be able to feed himself while that’s there. Poor old bastard – won’t last a week.”
I felt dreadful when I heard this and Dad flashed Terry a dirty look but before he could say anything Arthur spoke up.
“Don’t go worryin’ yer’self about it Jake. Ya’ get this sort of thing if ya’ live long enough.”
I watched as Arthur cut away the ruined line and re-rigged it with two hooks and a heavy sinker. I baited the hooks myself this time and dropped the lot over the side enjoying the sensation as the nylon line flicked through my loosely tensed fingers. Then as the morning grew even hotter we settled down in silence and concentrated on the fishing.
An hour later the whales came.
They did not appear as dark humps broaching the surface of the water a couple of hundred metres off. Instead they came up right where we were, the first one surfacing less than twenty metres in front of Arthur and coming straight towards him. He was sitting there whistling tunelessly through his clenched teeth when the ocean suddenly bulged, then split, and an enormous black mound rolled up out of the depths and blasted us with a spray of mist and stale air. It continued its roll forward and down dragging its huge back hard up against the hull as it went beneath the boat.
Its sudden appearance in front of him, along with the ear-splitting phooshh of its expiration, startled Arthur. He knifed up and back cannoning into me as I stood, turning to see what the noise was. His elbow caught me hard on the side of the head, stunning me, and the force of our collision coupled with the boat’s sudden list to port as the whale bumped it meant that I tumbled over the side and into the water with no problem at all.
I heard all three men react at the same time. Arthur swore savagely. Dad yelled “Jake . . .” but this was cut off as a glassy liquid ceiling closed over me. The only thing I heard from Terry as I fell into that cold dark water was a scream of rage and frustration.
I did not fall far. As the water closed about me I shut my eyes. Then my shoulder hit something firm moving beneath me. Its inertia rolled me until I ended up lying face down on a large surface that was warm to the touch. I didn’t hold on but the huge shape carried me down nonetheless. I knew it was the whale but I was not frightened. I could feel the animal’s strength, its energy, flowing back along its body, flowing back into me, and it felt wonderful.
I became aware of a symphony of sound. It was clean and pristine and it flowed through the water and through me with a crisp, sharp-edged clarity. It was everywhere; a cavalcade of soft clicks and whirrs, of loud whistles and whines.
I opened my eyes and looked around. The ocean was dark and there were many shapes, darker still, moving all around me. Large shapes, huge but gentle. I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. And then my whale sang and the sound was gloriously loud. It filled me. I heard it through every inch of me, through every bone, every fibre and every cell.
But then my whale turned and gave a convulsive flick. Its action was quick, too quick for me to counter. Suddenly we were separated and I saw its enormous bulk fall away beneath me. I began to follow; to swim after it but another whale moved across the front of me, its enormous beautiful eye only a metre from mine. It paused and seemed to look into me, and then it moved on and as it rolled away becoming just another shadow in the darkness I was enveloped by a strange sadness that made me feel like crying.
Then there was a rough grab on my shoulder and I began to rise. I looked up to see a silhouette of a different kind dragging me up towards the light.
As Dad and I broke the surface we gulped at the sweet air. My head was pounding and I felt weaker than I ever thought possible. It was all I could do just to keep my face clear of the water and keep breathing.
Arthur was leaning, ashen-faced, out over the side of the boat. He was silent as he hauled first me, then Dad over the gunwale. We landed in the bottom of the boat where we flopped around just like the fish we had caught only minutes before. Gradually I came to my senses and as my head cleared I became aware of someone screaming. I raised my head and looked towards the stern.
Terry was standing on the transom alongside the outboard. He had the three-metre boat hook and was striking at the dark humps that were still broaching the surface around the boat as the pod moved through. He was screaming fit to kill.
It took almost an hour to settle Terry down to the point where we could start the outboard and head back to the shore. The southerly had come up by then and the going was tough. The ocean that had been mirror-flat on the outward leg was now a madly undulating surface; flexing and heaving, tossing our small boat about as we ploughed resolutely into the large swells that ran with the weather.
Terry lay moaning in the back of the boat with his arms wrapped about his head while I lay wrapped in my father’s arms all the way back to the inlet.
Because the southerly was so fierce and the going so slow, we entered the inlet on the last of the fuel in the primary tank. As he was hauling the boat up onto the trailer Arthur confided that he’d been getting a bit worried on the way back since he had forgotten to fill up the spare fuel tank. This meant that we had gone out without a backup of any sort. In light of all that had happened that morning I thought maybe Arthur should have kept that bit of information to himself. Dad didn’t hit him although I reckon it was a close-run thing for a while.
It was mid-afternoon when Arthur dropped me and Dad off in front of our house. Mum was standing on the porch waiting for us which told me that she’d been worrying. Dad talked the morning’s events down as much as he could but even so, he copped a roasting when Mum found out what had happened. It didn’t matter what either of us had to say about it, as far as Mum was concerned Dad was the epitome of neglect and I was just “plain bloody careless.”
You can’t win sometimes.
The following day was Sunday and judging by what we heard later on, it was a tough day for Terry. Apparently he got drunk and led the police on a merry chase down through old man Robinson’s orchard in a beaten up old Defender he had pinched from his employer’s driveway earlier that afternoon. He gave the coppers the slip by driving straight along the dry river bed until it took him far enough out of town. Then he just turned off into the bush and disappeared. He and the Defender were never seen again. He just shot through and no-one ever found out for sure where he went. Rumour has it that he was working as a stockman on a station up in North Queensland somewhere. But I also heard he was working on a tuna boat out of Port Lincoln, so who knows?
Arthur hired a new offsider to help on the building site and he bought a brand-new Discovery with the bit of insurance he got for the theft of the old Defender so I suppose he wasn’t hurting.
Dad and I still go out fishing with Arthur occasionally. It took a long time for Mum to come around but eventually she did. Dad always makes sure Arthur has plenty of fuel and enough lifejackets onboard. We sit out there and we fish and talk about all sorts of things as we watch the sun rise. But we never speak about whales or about Terry. Somehow they just never seem to come
up.
The End