“Not like this, no. I’ve had ’em attack the boat, like I told you. But most times, once you get an iron in ’em, they stop fighting you and fight against that thing stickin’ in ’em.”

Brody looked astern. The boat was moving at moderate speed, turning this way and that in response to Quint’s random turning of the wheel. Always the barrels kept up with them.

“Fuck it,” said Quint. “If it’s a fight he wants, it’s a fight he’ll get.” He throttled down to idling speed, jumped down from the flying bridge and up onto the transom. He picked up the harpoon. Excitement had returned to his face. “Okay, shit-eater!” he called. “Come and get it!”

The barrels kept coming, plowing through the water—thirty yards away, then twenty-five, then twenty. Brody saw the flat plain of gray pass along the starboard side of the boat, six feet beneath the surface. “He’s here!” he cried. “Heading forward.”

“Shit!” said Quint, cursing his misjudgment of the length of the ropes. He detached the harpoon dart from the shaft, snapped the twine that held the shaft to a cleat, hopped down from the transom, and ran forward. When he reached the bow, he bent down and tied the twine to a forward cleat, unlashed a barrel, and slipped its dart onto the shaft. He stood at the end of the pulpit, harpoon raised.

The fish had already passed out of range. The tail surfaced twenty feet in front of the boat. The two barrels bumped into the stern almost simultaneously. They bounced once, then rolled off the stern, one on each side, and slid down the sides of the boat.

Thirty yards in front of the boat, the fish turned. The head raised out of the water, then dipped back in. The tail, standing like a sail, began to thrash back and forth. “Here he comes!” said Quint.

Brody raced up the ladder to the flying bridge. Just as he got there, he saw Quint draw his right arm back and rise up on tiptoes.

The fish hit the bow head on, with a noise like a muffled explosion. Quint cast his iron. It struck the fish atop the head, over the right eye, and it held fast. The rope fed slowly overboard as the fish backed off.

“Perfect!” said Quint. “Got him in the head that time.”

There were three barrels in the water now, and they skated across the surface. Then they disappeared.

“God damn!” said Quint. “That’s no normal fish that can sound with three irons in him and three barrels to hold him up.”

The boat trembled, seeming to rise up, then dropped back. The barrels popped up, two on one side of the boat, one on the other. Then they submerged again. A few seconds later, they reappeared twenty yards from the boat.

“Go below,” said Quint, as he readied another harpoon. “See if that prick done us any dirt up forward.”

Brody swung down into the cabin. It was dry. He pulled back the threadbare carpet, saw a hatch, and opened it. A stream of water was flowing aft beneath the floor of the cabin. We’re sinking, he told himself, and the memories of his childhood nightmares leaped into his mind. He went topside and said to Quint, “It doesn’t look good. There’s a lot of water under the cabin floor.”