The Young Man and the Sea: Chapters 16–25

Once when I filched a cookie from the jar, Mom called me the Blushing Bandit, on account of my red face.

Once when I filched a cookie from the jar, Mom called me the Blushing Bandit, on account of my red face.

Then she grabbed me up and said something that made me feel better. I don’t remember what exactly because I was only four, but knowing Mom, it was funny and sweet and sassy.

First thing I notice outside the shed is a swarm of lightning bugs shining like little stars in the tall grass.

I scurry down the bank to where my skiff is waiting.

That’s when Mom chimed in to say the main advantage of being human is the brain, so use it or lose it, young man.

Flat east for thirty miles. Couldn’t be simpler. Just head into the sunrise, that’s where the fish are waiting. Piece of cake. Any fool can find the Ledge.

Trust your compass because you can’t trust your instincts in the dark or the fog.

No matter how much we fret and worry the night won’t end, the sun comes up.

When fish make a commotion feeding on the surface, birds will circle over and dive.

I flick a little chopped herring on the water and watch it settle. Watch the skittish fish watching me, watching the chum, trying to decide what to do, eat it or run away.

Fish scoots in, inhales the speck of chum. Fish scoots back into the school. Back behind the boat. Getting farther from the boat because I’m running out of chum. Trying to stretch it out, give the tinker just enough to stay in the vicinity and not a speck more.

Maybe I imagined that big splash out there behind the fog. Maybe I wanted to hear it so bad, my brain obliged.

Big fish that can leap clean over a boat. Giant fish that think they can fly. Fish in such a frenzy to feed, they don’t notice a man with a harpoon.

I wolf down two sandwiches and the shaking stops.

“How long did you sleep, you reckon?”
That’s me talking out loud to myself.

Look at me, you puny human. Look at my big bad self, you never seen nothing so awesome as me.

So I wrap both hands around the shaft of the harpoon and plunge it straight down at the biggest part of the fish.

So I wrap both hands around the shaft of the harpoon and plunge it straight down at the biggest part of the fish.

KLANG!
Back of my head whacks into something hollow. Turn around, flailing my arms, find the keg bobbing next to me. Grab hold.

Tension on the line locks the keg under the front seat and then the skiff jerks out from under my feet. I land hard on the rear seat.

Give the fish an inch and it’ll get its tail under the water and then there will be no stopping it. I been there and I don’t want to go back. So I hang on as it thrashes around.

So if the tide is going out—and I think it is—we’re not making much headway at all.

Every now and then the giant tail makes a feeble slap, but the strength is fading and pretty soon that tail will stop moving forever.

The great head lolls around and looks at me as it rises on a swell.

In the old days they fished from schooners, big wooden ships with white canvas sails that took the fishermen far offshore to the Grand Banks fishing grounds.

Each schooner carried a bunch of wooden dories stacked on deck, and when they got to the fishing grounds the men got into the dories and rowed away, looking for cod and haddock.

He knows his hands will soon get frostbite and then he won’t be able to grip the oars.

Mr. Croft reports that the boy was badly dehydrated by the time he was discovered, and that he had apparently been rowing without pause for more than twelve hours.

The other good thing, besides fixing the Mary Rose, is that Dad is going to meetings to help him stay sober.