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current. Then something pulled hard. In an instant the line was pulled tight, humming like a guitar string. I had it wrapped around my finger, and it sliced through the flesh. Luckily I managed to free my hand. The branch was quivering, shaking, and then suddenly the line snapped and went slack. The fish got away with the bait and the hook.

I was stunned. I had done a lot of fishing in my time, but I had never felt that kind of pull on the end of a line. The fish must have weighed at least seventy pounds.

Marcus, too, was awed. ‘God, what a fish that must have been!’ he cried out.

I showed him my injured finger, and he hobbled over to the first-aid kit and carefully bandaged it.

Karl laughed when we told him about the big one that got away. ‘Just wait,’ he reassured us, ‘you’ll catch one of those yet.’

‘Yeah, and how will we go about that, Karl?’ I asked, ‘with twenty yards of line and two hooks? How could you have given and traded away all our fishing gear without leaving enough for us?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll have enough,’ Karl waved me off.

I cleaned the fish I’d caught, and when it was ready, Karl skewered it on a green stalk of bamboo and tied it in place. He arranged two forked branches over the fire and hung the stalk between them. We slowly turned the fish, its fat dripping down and crackling in the flames. The flesh was