"Smith, Wilbur - The Eye of the Tiger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

Chuck into the big fighting chair, clinching the heavy harness and
gloving him up, but he looked up and caught my eye.

Chubby scowled heavily and spat over the side, in complete contrast to
the excitement that gripped the rest of us. Chubby is a huge man, as
tall as I am but a lot heavier in the shoulder and gut.

He is also one of the most staunch and consistent pessimists in the
business.

"Shy fish!" grunted Chubby, and spat again. I grinned at him.

"Don't mind him, Chuck," I called, "old Harry is going to set you into
that fish." "I've got a thousand bucks that says you don't," Chuck
shouted back, his face screwed up against the dazzle of the sun-flecked
sea, but his eyes twinkling with excitement.

"You're on!" I accepted a bet I couldn't afford and turned my attention
to the fish.

Chubby was right, of course. After me, he is the best billfish man in
the entire world. The fish was big and shy and scary. Five times I had
the baits to him, working him with all the skill and cunning I could
muster. Each time he turned away and sounded as I brought Wave Dancer in
on a converging course to cross his beak.

"Chubby, there is a fresh dolphin bait. in the ice box: haul in the
teasers, and we'll run him with a single bait," I shouted despairingly.

I put the dolphin to him. I had rigged the bait myself and it swam with
a fine natural action in the water. I recognized the instant in which
the marlin accepted the bait. He seemed to hunch his great shoulders and
I caught the flash of his belly, like a mirror below the surface, as he
turned.

"Follow!"screamed Angelo. "He follows!"

I set Chuck into the fish at a little after ten o'clock in the morning,
and I fought him close. Superfluous line in the water would place
additional strain on the man at the rod. My job required infinitely more
skill than gritting the teeth and hanging on to the heavy fibreglass
rod. I kept Wave Dancer running hard on the fish through the first
frenzied charges and frantic flashing leaps until Chuck could settle
down in the fighting chair and lean on the marlin, using those fine
fighting legs of his.

A few minutes after noon, Chuck had the fish beaten. He was on the
surface, in the first of the wide circles which Chuck would narrow with
each turn until we had him at the gaff.