remarkably fit and I could tell he was strong for his size. The way he hauled around the heavy boxes of gear left me in no doubt of that. His dusky skin had a matte look to it that evened out the moonlight as it played across its surface. It caused him to look cool and dry in the sticky heat already present in the pre dawn air.
Arthur turned to me before we made it all the way across the inlet. “Are yer’ right there Jake? Everything set?”
I nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Well, righty-o then,” and with a grin he opened up the throttle.
The note of the big outboard changed from a gentle warble to a full throated roar and the boat reared up. It leapt forward and raced for the opening in the headland at a speed that both exhilarated and terrified me.
We burst out onto the open ocean, the boat skimming across the glassy surface with barely a bump. As Arthur had promised, the ocean was “as flat as an old maid’s tit” but he assured us this would all change around lunchtime when the southerly came in. Then cranking the wheel hard to the left, he headed us northward.
It seemed to take a surprisingly short amount of time to be suddenly a very long way from land. Less than ten minutes after leaving the inlet Arthur shut off the outboard and left us to drift up and down the swells that passed beneath us as they made their way into the surf beach a few kilometres off on our port side. A small slice of hot, red sun was just broaching the horizon and the day was threatening to be a scorcher.
As well as two bucket seats at the front and a padded bench seat across its stern, the boat had two unpadded, fibreglass benches running across its belly which cut its interior into three sections. Arthur and I shared the foremost bench with me fishing over the port side and looking in towards the land. Dad and Terry had the rear bench with Dad fishing to starboard alongside Arthur. That put Terry beside me and before the boat had ceased its forward movement he was already busy fossicking around in the gear box, hauling out handlines and getting things ready.
Arthur stood up and scanned the horizon starting from the north. Turning seaward and rotating slowly to his right he studied a hundred and eighty degrees of ocean surface before he noticed me looking up at him. He seemed surprised to find me watching him and started guiltily before suddenly grinning. “It’s a bloody perfect day for driftin' in the bay for flatties, don't ya' reckon Jake.”
I had no idea but I gave him the expected grin and grunt of agreement.
Terry shoved a large, circular, plastic hand-spool towards me. “There you go mate. Your dad’ll help you bait that up.” Then he turned away and began stripping metre upon metre of thick fishing line from his hand-spool letting it coil in large loops around his feet in the bottom of the boat.
“All right you blokes,” said Arthur. He took the top off a plastic container and began handing out strips of fish flesh. “Here, bait up. There's flatties down there and ya' can't catch 'em unless ya’ get stuck in.”
Dad took my handline from me and as he turned away to bait the hooks on both of our lines – two on each – I watched Terry drop his rig over the side. He lit a cigarette as the line fed out from the loose mass of coils around his feet. The amount of nylon he had there slowed and petered to a stop at exactly the length he had peeled off the spool. I was wondering how he knew just how much he’d need when he spoke to me.
“I heard you and your Dad talking as we were driving down here.”
His voice was barely audible above the sound of the ocean and the slapping of wavelets against the fibreglass hull but even so, I heard him clear enough. I looked at him but he was staring back towards the land. I didn’t know what to say to him so I stayed silent.
“Old Arthur’s full of shit you know,” said Terry quietly. He coughed and spat over the side of the boat. “The old bugger goes on and on about this whale bullshit and it’s all so bloody ridiculous. I mean, who in their right mind would ever believe that a bunch of whales in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would somehow know that I was floating in a small boat just off the east coast of Australia.”
“But the whales did come, didn’t they?” I said, genuinely wanting to know.
Terry wheeled on me his eyes blazing. “It’s all rubbish, okay? Don’t listen to any of it, especially when it comes from superstitious old bastards who think that just because I’m a blackfella, something all strange and mysterious is gonna happen.” His voice was a harsh whisper and he leant closer pointing a long thin finger into my face. “Do you know why those whales turned up? Because it was the middle of their migration season, that’s why. Don’t go thinking it was anything bloody special. It was nothing more than that, alright?”
He turned back and picking up his trailing fishing line, pulled it about a quarter of the way back in and then released it again. “You’ll see,” he said, his voice even lower than before. “There’s no migration on now. No sir! That’s all over and done with for this year.” He turned and looked at me. “I checked you know. I rang up them whale-watch blokes. They told me. Wealth of information they were.” He chuckled and turned to look back towards the land. “No, we won’t be seeing any bloody whales this trip that’s for certain and then maybe that silly old bastard over there will just shut up.”
Dad leant across and handed me my handline. It was all ready to go and after showing me how best to get it into the water he returned to his seat and we all settled down to fish.
Less than a minute later Terry shouted. I looked across and saw him hauling his line back into the boat as fast as he could. Seconds later a large wedge shaped, sandy brown fish dropped into the bottom of the boat where it thrashed and flopped about with alarming ferocity.
“Ha-ha. First one to me,” said Terry grinning at Dad and Arthur. “You buggers owe me a beer.”
“Yeah—yeah—yeah. Stop showin’ off,” said Arthur. But the words were barely out of his mouth when he suddenly grunted and began hauling in his own line. Then it was Dad’s turn and then Terry again. Another peculiar barking grunt from Arthur signalled that he was onto another one as well and the whole time the three men hauled their lines back up depositing squirming, writhing fish into the bottom of the boat, I sat there with not one bite. Not even a nibble.
Since the sun was all the way up now and there was enough light Arthur began a series of regular checks, standing up to scan the horizon out to sea. When queried by Terry he assured him that he was only checking to see that we didn’t lose our marker.
“I’ve got us lined up with the old wharf just off to the left of the beach,” he said pointing back into the bay.
“That’s funny,” said Terry. “I thought you must have lined us up with some point on the North Island of New Zealand since you keep looking out in that bloody direction.”
Dad and I smiled at each other as Arthur sat down again without saying a word. I was looking at Terry when a sudden jerk on my line took me by surprise. I reacted instinctively. With an extravagant yank I sent home the hook and was satisfied to feel a heavy weight pulling the line through my fingers in response. I had caught something at last.
I started hauling in line hand over hand as I’d seen the others do but I was making hardly any headway. The weight was enormous. Was this what the other blokes had put up with? But they had made it look so easy. I began to worry. I’d caught flathead in the estuary before, admittedly half the size we were catching here, but surely the flatties out here were not normally as heavy as this. Were they?
I shot Dad a quick look. He’d been watching me and as soon as he saw me flick a glance his way he tied off his line and came over to me.
“I don’t know what you’ve got there Sport but it’s not a flathead.”
He took the line from me and held its weight for a few seconds. “Christ, it’s big.”
Arthur coughed. “Might be a shark?”
“Doubt it,” said Terry without looking our way. “More likely a ‘cuda.”
“Oh, bloody hell, I hope not,” said Arthur. “They’re bastards to get off once they’re on.??
?
Dad began hauling in the line. I noticed he had to work much harder than when he had hauled in the fish he’d caught himself. I got some satisfaction from that although I felt a little sheepish as well. After all, I was the one who caught this fish; it should be me landing it.
I changed my mind about that though as soon as I saw it.
A long thin sliver of silver flashed out from under the boat and with a heave that had him standing and then sitting again, Dad hauled the fish to the surface. It was indeed a barracuda as Terry had predicted; a big one. The biggest Arthur reckoned he had ever seen.
At about two metres in length and approaching sixty kilos, it was a prime example of its kind and while it came up to the side of the boat with a kind of languid air of resignation about it, it went into a frenzy of surging writhing activity as soon as Arthur touched its side with the gaff.
As it flashed by the side of the boat I glimpsed a bullet-shaped head as big as a Rottweiler’s the bottom half of which was a hideous gaping mouth crammed with long, needle-like teeth. Right in the middle of those lethal shards of bone I could see the shank of my hook, the barb of which was protruding through the top of the fish’s upper jaw.
“Oh bloody hell,” yelled Arthur. “Did ya’ see that. The mongrel’s well and truly hooked.”
Dad was surging around as much as the