A sudden dip in one of the green sticks heralds the start of the novella’s central battle. Holding the line gently between thumb and forefinger, Santiago somehow knows that a hundred fathoms down a great marlin is eating the sardines covering the hook that projects from the head of the small tuna. Santiago unleashes the line from the stick and lets the line run through his fingers, careful not to put any tension on it.
Santiago thinks about how big this fish must be, this far out and in this month, and desperately tries to coax or will the fish to eat the bait. He also asks God to help the fish to take the bait, and when the nibbling stops a couple of times, he desperately searches his experience for explanations that indicate the fish is still working on the bait. Then Santiago feels something hard and heavy and allows the line to play out, going deeper and deeper. He assumes the fish will turn and swallow the bait but is afraid to say so, out of a belief that “if you said a good thing it might not happen.”
When he feels the fish eat the bait, he prepares the reserve coils of line, allows the fish to eat a bit more, and then sets the hook. He takes the weight of the taut line against his back, bracing himself against the boat and leaning back against the fish’s pull on the line. For the first of many times during his great struggle, Santiago says fervently, “I wish I had the boy.”
As the fish tows the boat, Santiago wonders what he’ll do if the fish suddenly dives down deep and then dies. But he immediately assures himself that there are plenty of things he can do. He thinks about how he hooked the fish at noon and has been holding onto the line for four hours but hasn’t yet had a first glimpse of the fish. Santiago drinks a bit of water from a bottle he has tucked away in the bow and tries not to think, but simply endure. When he realizes he can no longer see anything of the land, he reminds himself that he can always sail back by following the glow coming from Havana at night. Then he ponders various times when the fish might come up so he can see it.
After the sun goes down, Santiago ties the dried sack that had covered the bait box around his neck, so the sack hangs down his back and serves as a cushion under the fish line. In the dark, the line looks like a phosphorescent streak in the water. Then he checks the boat’s course. Although the fish had been pulling the boat to the northwest, Santiago realizes that the current must be carrying them eastward now. He considers that if he loses the glare of Havana, then they must be going more eastward. Santiago briefly wonders about the results of the baseball game today and wishes he had a radio but then snaps himself up, scolding himself to keep his mind on what he’s doing: “You must do nothing stupid.” Again, Santiago says aloud, “I wish I had the boy. To help me and to see this.” He thinks that, although no one should be alone in old age, it’s unavoidable. Then he reminds himself to eat the tuna he caught earlier before it spoils, to keep himself strong.
When two porpoises come playing around the boat, Santiago speaks of them as “our brothers like the flying fish.” Then he begins to pity the marlin, which is stronger and stranger than any fish he has ever hooked. Santiago considers whether the marlin has been hooked before, how the marlin cannot know that its adversary is only one old man, what price it may bring in the market, how it pulls like a male and without panic, and whether it has plans or is simply as desperate as he is.
Santiago remembers the time he hooked the female of a pair of marlins and the male stayed nearby until after Santiago had her in the boat. As Santiago was preparing the harpoon, the male jumped to see where the female was and then dove deep and was gone. Santiago still recalls the male marlin’s beauty and how the whole incident was the saddest thing he ever saw. Both he and the boy felt sad afterwards, so they begged the female marlin’s pardon and quickly butchered her.
Santiago thinks about the fact that both he and the marlin he has hooked have made a choice: the marlin’s “to stay in the deep, dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries” and Santiago’s “to go there to find him beyond all people.” So now both are joined together, with no one to help either of them. At that moment, Santiago wonders whether he should not have been a fishermen, but then he reminds himself, “that was the thing that I was born for.” Immediately, he snaps back to matters at hand, reminding himself to eat the tuna in the morning to keep up his strength.
