第8章 The Sharks Attack
he did not need a pass to tell him where southwest was he only needed the feel of the trade wind and the drawing of the saili better put a small line out with a spoon on it and try and get something to eat and drink for the moisture but he could not find a spoon and his sardines were rottenso he hooked a patch of yellow gulf weed with the gaff as they passed and shook it so that the small shrimps that were in it fell onto the planking of the skiffthere were more than a dozen of them and they jumped and kicked like sand fleasthe old man pinched their heads off with his thumb and forefinger and ate them chewing up the shells and the tails they were very tiny but he knew they were nourishing and they tasted good
the old man still had two drinks of water in the bottle and he used half of one after he had eaten the shrimpsthe skiff was sailing well considering the handicaps and he steered with the tiller under his armhe could see the fish and he had only to look at his hands and feel his back against the stern to know that this had truly happened and was not a dream at one time when he was feeling so badly toward the end,he had thought perhaps it was a dreamthen when he had seen the fish e out of the water and hang motionless in the sky before he fell,he was sure there was some great strangeness and he could not believe it then he could not see well, although now he saw as well as ever
now he knew there was the fish and his hands and back were no dreamthe hands cure quickly,he thoughti bled them clean and the salt water will heal themthe dark water of the true gulf is the greatest healer that there isall i must do is keep the head clearthe hands have done their work and we sail wellwith his mouth shut and his tail straight up and down we sail like brothersthen his head started to bee a little unclear and he thought,is he bringing me in or am i bringing him inif i were towing him behind there would be no questionnor if the fish were in the skiff,with all dignity gone,there would be no question eitherbut they were sailing together lashed side by side and the old man thought,let him bring me in if it pleases himi am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm
they sailed well and the old man soaked his hands in the salt water and tried to keep his head clearthere were high cumulus clouds and enough cirrus above them so that the old man knew the breeze would last all nightthe old man looked at the fish constantly to make sure it was trueit was an hour before the first shark hit him
the shark was not an accident he had e up from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep seahe had e up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke the surface of the blue water and was in the sunthen he fell back into the sea and picked up the scent and started swimming on the course the skiff and the fish had taken
sometimes he lost the scentbut he would pick it up again,or have just a trace of it and he swam fast and hard on the coursehe was a very big mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws
his back was as blue as a sword fish"s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsomehe was built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws which were tight shut now as he swam fast,just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through the water without waveringinside the closed double lip of his jaws all of his eight rows of teeth were slanted inwardsthey were not the ordinary pyramid-shaped teeth of most sharksthey were shaped like a man"s fingers when they are crisped like clawsthey were nearly as long as the fingers of the old man and they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sidesthis was a fish built to feed on all the fishes in the sea,that were so fast and strong and well armed that they had no other enemynow he speeded up as he smelled the fresher scent and his blue dorsal fin cut the water
when the old man saw him ing he knew that this was a shark that had no fear at all and would do exactly what he wishedhe prepared the harpoon and made the rope fast while he watched the shark e onthe rope was short as it lacked what he had cut away to lash the fish
the old man"s head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but he had little hopeit was too good to last, he thought he took one look at the great fish as he watched the shark close init might as well have been a dream,he thoughti cannot keep him from hitting me but maybe i can get himdentuso,he thoughtbad luck to your mother
the shark closed fast astern and when he hit the fish the old man saw his mouth open and his strange eyes and the clicking chop of the teeth as he drove forward in the meat just above the tailthe shark"s head was out of water and his back was ing out and the old man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down onto the shark"s head at a spot where the line between his eyes intersected with the line that ran straight back from his nosethere were no such linesthere was only the heavy sharp blue head and the big eyes and the clicking, thrusting all-swallowing jawsbut that was the location of the brain and the old man hit ithe hit it with his blood mushed hands driving a good harpoon with all his strengthhe hit it without hope but with resolution and plete malignancy
the shark swung over and the old man saw his eye was not alive and then he swung over once again,wrapping himself in two loops of the ropethe old man knew that he was dead but the shark would not accept itthen,on his back,with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking,the shark plowed over the water as a speed-boat doesthe water was white where his tail beat it and three-quarters of his body was clear above the water when the rope came taut ,shivered, and then snappedthe shark lay quietly for a little while on the surface and the old man watched him then he went down very slowly
“he took about forty pounds,”the old man said aloud he took my harpoon too and all the rope,he thought,and now my fish bleeds again and there will be others
he did not like to look at the fish anymore since he had been mutilatedwhen the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit
but i killed the shark that hit my fish,he thoughtand he was the biggest dentuso that i have ever seenand god knows that i have seen big ones
it was too good to last,he thoughti wish it had been a dream now and that i had never hooked the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers
“but man is not made for defeat,”he said“a man can be destroyed but not defeated”i am sorry that i killed the fish though,he thoughtnow the bad time is ing and i do not even have the harpoonthe dentuso is cruel and able and strong and intelligentbut i was more intelligent than he was perhaps not,he thoughtperhaps i was only better armed
“don"t think,old man,”he said aloud“sail on this course and take it when it es”
but i must think,he thoughtbecause it is all i have left that and baseballi wonder how the great dimaggio would have liked the way i hit him in the brainit was no great thing, he thoughtany man could do itbut do you think my hands were as great a handicap as the bone spursi cannot know i never had anything wrong with my heel except the time the sting ray stung it when i stepped on him when swimming and paralyzed the lower leg and made the unbearable pain
“think about something cheerful,old man,”he said“every minute now you are closer to homeyou sail lighter for the loss of forty pounds”
he knew quite well the pattern of what could happen when he reached the inner part of the currentbut there was nothing to be done now
“yes there is,”he said aloud“ i can lash my knife to the butt of one of the oars”
so he did that with the tiller under his arm and the sheet of the sail under his foot
“now,”he said“i am still an old manbut i am not unarmed”
the breeze was fresh now and he sailed on well he watched only the forward part of the fish and some of his hope returned
it is silly not to hope,he thoughtbesides i believe it is a sin do not think about sin,he thoughtthere are enough problems now without sinalso i have no understanding of it
i have no understanding of it and i am not sure that i believe in itperhaps it was a sin to kill the fishi suppose it was even though i did it to keep me alive and feed many people but then everything is a sin do not think about sinit is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do itlet them think about ityou were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fishsan pedro was a fisherman as was the father of the great dimaggio
but he liked to think about all things that he was involved in and since there was nothing to read and he did not have a radio,he thought much and he kept on thinking about sinyou did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food,he thoughtyou killed him for pride and because you are a fishermanyou loved him when he was alive and you loved him afterif you love him,it is not a sin to kill himor is it more
“you think too much,old man,”he said aloud
but you enjoyed killing the dentuso,he thoughthe lives on the live fish as you dohe is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some sharks arehe is beautiful and noble and knows no fear of anything
“i killed him in self-defense,”the old man said aloud“and i killed him well”
besides,he thought,everything kills everything else in some wayfishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alivethe boy keeps me alive,he thoughti must not deceive myself too much
he leaned over the side and pulled loose a piece of the meat of the fish where the shark had cut himhe chewed it and noted its quality and its good tasteit was firm and juicy ,like meat,but it was not redthere was no springiness in it and he knew that it would bring the highest price in the marketbut there was no way to keep its scent out of the water and the old man knew that a very bad time was ing
the breeze was steadyit had backed a little further into the northeast and he knew that meant that it would not fall offthe old man looked ahead of him but he could see no sails nor could he see the hull nor the smoke of any ship there were only the flying fish that went up from his bow sailing away to either side and the yellow patches of gulf-weedhe could not even see a bird
he had ailed for two hours, resting in the stern and sometimes chewing a bit of the meat from the marlin,trying to rest and to be strong,when he saw the first of the two sharks
“ay,”he said aloud there is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily,feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood
“galanos”he said aloudhe had seen the second fin now ing up behind the first and had identified them as shovel-nosed sharks by the brown, triangular fin and the sweeping movements of the tailthey had the scent and were excited and in the stupidity of their great hunger they were losing and finding the scent in their excitementbut they were closing all the time
the old man made the sheet fast and jammed the tiller then he took up the oar with the knife lashed to ithe lifted it as lightly as he could because his hands rebelled at the pain then he opened and closed them on it lightly to loosen themhe closed them firmly so they would take the pain now and would not flinch and watched the sharks ehe could see their wide,flattened,shovel-pointed heads now and their white-tipped wide pectoral finsthey were hateful sharks, bad smelling,scavengers as well as killers,and when they were hungry they would bite at an oar or the rudder of a boatit was these sharks that would cut the turtles"legs and flippers off when the turtles were asleep on the surface, and they would hit a man in the water,if they were hungry,even if the man had no smell of fish blood nor of fish slime on him
“ay,”the old man said“ galanose on galanos”
they came but they did not e as the mako had eone turned and went out of sight under the skiff and the old man could feel the skiff shake as he jerked and pulled on the fishthe other watched the old man with his slitted yellow eyes and then came in fast with his half circle of jaws wide to hit the fish where he had already been bittenthe line showed clearly on the top of his brown head and back where the brain joined the spinal cord and the old man drove the knife on the oar into the juncture,withdrew it,and drove it in again into the shark"s yellow cat-like eyesthe shark let go of the fish and slid down,swallowing what he had taken as he died
the skiff was still shaking with the destruction the other shark was doing to the fish and the old man let go the sheet so that the skiff would swing broadside and bring the shark out from underwhen he saw the shark he leaned over the side and punched at himhe hit only meat and the hide was set hard and he barely got the knife inthe blow hurt not only his hands but his shoulder toobut the shark came up fast and his head out and the old man hit him squarely in the center of his flat-topped head as his nose came out of water and lay against the fishthe old man withdrew the blade and punched the shark exactly in the same spot againhe still hung to the fish with his jaws hooked and the old man stabbed him in his left eyethe shark still hung there
“no”the old man said and he drove the blade between the vertebrae and the brainit was an easy shot now and he felt the cartilage severthe old man reversed the oar and put the blade between the shark"s jaws to open themhe twisted the blade and as the shark slid loose he said,“go on,galano slide down a mile deepgo see your friend,or maybe it"s your mother”
the old man wiped the blade of his knife and laid down the oarthen he found the sheet and the sail filled and he brought the skiff onto her course
“they must have taken a quarter of him and of the best meat,”he said aloud“i wish it were a dream and that i had never hooked himi"m sorry about it,fishit makes everything wrong”he stopped and he did not want to look at the fish nowdrained of blood and awash he looked the color of the silver backing of a mirror and his stripes still showed
“i shouldn"t have gone out so far,fish,”he said“ neither for you nor for mei"m sorry,fish”
now, he said to himself look to the lashing on the knife and see if it has been cutthen get your hand in order because there still is more to e
“i wish i had a stone for the knife,”the old man said after he had checked the lashing on the oar butt“i should have brought a stone”you should have brought many things,he thoughtbut you did not bring them,old man now is no time to think of what you do not havethink of what you can do with what there is
“you give me much good counsel ,”he said aloud“ i"m tired of it”
he held the tiller under his arm and soaked both his hands in the water as the skiff drove forward
“god knows how much that last one took,”he said“but she"s much lighter now”he did not want to think of the mutilated under-side of the fishhe knew that each of the jerking bumps of the shark had been meat torn away and that the fish now made a trail for all sharks as wide as a highway through the sea
he was a fish to keep a man all winter,he thoughtdon"t think of thatjust rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of himthe blood smell from my hands means nothing now with all that scent in the waterbesides they do not bleed muchthere is nothing cut that means anythingthe bleeding may keep the left from cramping
what can i think of nowhe thoughtnothingi must think of nothing and wait for the next onesi wish it had really been a dream,he thoughtbut who knowsit might have turned out well
the next shark that came was a single shovel-nosehe came like a pig to the trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in itthe old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar down into his brain but the shark jerked backwards as he rolled and the knife blade snapped
the old man settled himself to steerhe did not even watch the big shark sinking slowly in the water,showing first life-size,then small,then tinythat always fascinated the old manbut he did not even watch it now
“i have the gaff now,”he said“ but it will do no goodi have the two oars and the tiller and the short club”
now they have beaten me,he thoughti am too old to club sharks to deathbut i will try it as long as i have the oars and the short club and the tiller