It was the gaffs that finally proved to be my most valuablefishing equipment. They came in three screw-in pieces: twotubular sections that formed the shaft1 – one with a mouldedplastic handle at its end and a ring for securing the gaff with arope – and a head that consisted of a hook measuring abouttwo inches across its curve and ending in a needle-sharp,barbed point. Assembled, each gaff was about five feet longand felt as light and sturdy as a sword.
At first I fished in open water. I would sink the gaff to adepth of four feet or so, sometimes with a fish speared on thehook as bait, and I would wait. I would wait for hours, mybody tense till it ached. When a fish was in just the right spot,I jerked the gaff up with all the might and speed I couldmuster. It was a split-second decision. Experience taught methat it was better to strike when I felt I had a good chance ofsuccess than to strike wildly, for a fish learns from experiencetoo, and rarely falls for the same trap twice.
When I was lucky, a fish was properly snagged on thehook, impaled2, and I could confidently bring it aboard. But if Igaffed a large fish in the stomach or tail, it would often getaway with a twist and a forward spurt3 of speed. Injured, itwould be easy prey4 for another predator5, a gift I had notmeant to make. So with large fish I aimed for the ventral areabeneath their gills and their lateral6 fins7, for a fish's instinctivereaction when struck there was to swim up, away from thehook, in the very direction I was pulling. Thus it wouldhappen: sometimes more pricked8 than actually gaffed, a fishwould burst out of the water in my face. I quickly lost myrevulsion at touching9 sea life. None of this prissy fish blanketbusiness any more. A fish jumping out of water wasconfronted by a famished10 boy with a hands-on, no-holds-barredapproach to capturing it. If I felt the gaff's hold was uncertain,I would let go of it – I had not forgotten to secure it with arope to the raft – and I would clutch at the fish with myhands. Fingers, though blunt, were far more nimble than ahook. The struggle would be fast and furious. Those fish wereslippery and desperate, and I was just plain desperate. If only Ihad had as many arms as the goddess Durga – two to holdthe gaffs, four to grasp the fish and two to wield11 the hatchets12.
But I had to make do with two. I stuck fingers into eyes,jammed hands into gills,crushed soft stomachs with knees, bit tails with my teeth – Idid whatever was necessary to hold a fish down until I couldreach for the hatchet13 and chop its head off.
With time and experience I became a better hunter. I grewbolder and more agile14. I developed an instinct, a feel, for whatto do.
My success improved greatly when I started using part ofthe cargo15 net. As a fishing net it was useless – too stiff andheavy and with a weave that wasn't tight enough. But it wasperfect as a lure16. Trailing freely in the water, it provedirresistibly attractive to fish, and even more so when seaweedstarted growing on it. Fish that were local in their ambit madethe net their neighbourhood, and the quick ones, the ones thattended to streak17 by, the dorados, slowed down to visit the newdevelopment. Neither the residents nor the travellers eversuspected that a hook was hidden in the weave. There weresome days – too few unfortunately – when I could have allthe fish I cared to gaff. At such times I hunted far beyond theneeds of my hunger or my capacity to cure; there simplywasn't enough space on the lifeboat, or lines on the raft, todry so many strips of dorado, flying fish, jacks18, groupers andmackerels, let alone space in my stomach to eat them. I keptwhat I could and gave the rest to Richard Parker. Duringthose days of plenty, I laid hands on so many fish that mybody began to glitter from all the fish scales that became stuckto it. I wore these spots of shine and silver like tilaks, themarks of colour that we Hindus wear on our foreheads assymbols of the divine. If sailors had come upon me then, I'msure they would have thought I was a fish god standing19 atophis kingdom and they wouldn't have stopped. Those were thegood days. They were rare.
Turtles were an easy catch indeed, as the survival manualsaid they were. Under the "hunting and gathering20" heading,,they would go under "gathering". Solid in build though theywere, like tanks, they were neither, fast nor powerful swimmers;with just one hand gripped around a back flipper21, it waspossible to hold on to a turtle. But the survival manual failedto mention that a turtle caught was not a turtle had. It stillneeded to be brought aboard. And hauling a struggling130-pound turtle aboard a lifeboat was anything but easy. Itwas a labour that demanded feats22 of strength worthy23 ofHanuman. I did it by bringing the victim alongside the bow ofthe boat, carapace24 against hull25, and tying a rope to its neck, afront flipper and a back flipper. Then I pulled until I thoughtmy arms would come apart and my head would explode. I ranthe ropes around the tarpaulin26 hooks on the opposite side ofthe bow; every time a rope yielded a little, I secured my gainbefore the rope slipped back. Inch by inch, a turtle was heavedout of the water. It took time. I remember one green seaturtle that hung from the side of the lifeboat for two days, thewhole whilethrashing about madly, free flippers beating in the air.
Luckily, at the last stage, on the lip of the gunnel, it wouldoften happen that a turtle would help me without meaning to.
In an attempt to free its painfully twisted flippers, it would pullon them; if I pulled at the same moment, our conflicting effortssometimes came together and suddenly it would happen, easily:
in the most dramatic fashion imaginable, a turtle would surgeover the gunnel and slide onto the tarpaulin. I would fall back,exhausted but jubilant.
Green sea turtles gave more meat than hawks-bills, and theirbelly shells were thinner. But they tended to be bigger thanhawksbills, often too big to lift out of the water for theweakened castaway that I became.
Lord, to think that I'm a strict vegetarian27. To think thatwhen I was a child I always shuddered28 when I snapped opena banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of ananimal's neck. I descended29 to a level of savagery30 I neverimagined possible.
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1
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spurt
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| v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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predator
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| n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者 | |
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lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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fins
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| [医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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hatchets
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| n.短柄小斧( hatchet的名词复数 )；恶毒攻击；诽谤；休战 | |
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hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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18
jacks
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| n.抓子游戏；千斤顶( jack的名词复数 )；（电）插孔；[电子学]插座；放弃 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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flipper
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| n. 鳍状肢，潜水用橡皮制鳍状肢 | |
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feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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carapace
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| n.（蟹或龟的）甲壳 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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tarpaulin
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| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
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vegetarian
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| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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