Brothers of the Sea

by D R Sherman

He saw the shark sweeping in towards him. The shape of it was vague and blurred. He steadied his reeling senses with a great effort of will. He felt a sudden calmness then, and the dreadful knot in the pit of his stomach untied itself. He knew it was the end, and because he understood it so perfectly he no longer felt afraid. The fingers of his left hand clamped lovingly round the slim shaft of the harpoon.

  I will hurt you also, requin, his mind screamed at the shark.

  He tensed himself to strike, but he realized without any consternation that he would not hurt it at all.

  Under the water his face twisted in a silent grimace. The shark was almost upon him when he saw the dark shape of another great fish. It swept in furiously from the murky water which stretched away to his right in deepening shades of blue. He thought it was a shark, and though he had never heard of such a thing before, for one wild moment he wondered whether it might have come to attack the hammerhead. If they fought over the right to eat him, he might be able to slip away while they tore each other to pieces.

  He felt a spurt of hope which was so intense it sickened him. It entered him so suddenly and violently that he felt its entry as a physical assault on his body. He sagged limply in the water for a moment, and then a fresh current of fear shot through his nerves and electrified him.

  The great fish closed the distance between them at an astonishing speed. He saw with another wild surge of hope that it was heading directly for the shark in front of him: The pointed snout of the great fish slammed into the gill-slits of the shark. The battering impact rocked the shark in the water. It turned over on its side and then righted itself slowly, and then in a state of shock and fright the big hammerhead voided a cloud of excrement and darted away. It vanished into the dark blue shadows on the other side of the reef.

  The boy felt the return of a terrible despair. In the still silence of his mind he cursed the cowardly hammerhead with monotonous repetition. He used up all the terrible words he had ever heard, and they went through his mind and passed without leaving a trace of meaning or understanding. If only the hammerhead had stayed to fight, he thought.

  He forced his arms and legs to start moving. He kicked himself wearily to the surface. He drew a sobbing breath and went under again, and he wondered what kind of a shark it was that could frighten a hammerhead off with a single blow from its pointed snout. He searched for it, twisting and turning frantically as he scanned the water. He did not see it anywhere, and he began to wonder if it might not have followed the hammerhead out to sea in pursuit. He began to hope again. Just then the great fish swam up from below him.

  He recoiled in terror, but in that instant he saw clearly for the first time the protruding beak with the undershot jaw which seemed to set the mouth in a fixed smile of smug and secret satisfaction.

  Marsouin, he thought, and his heart gave a great shout of exultation.

  He had seen porpoises before, far out to sea, and once when he had been fishing with his father he had seen a great school of them which looked a mile long and a mile wide in the blue sea. And as he watched the black shapes coming up out of the water to breathe and then sliding back into the sea together in a slow smooth roll he was glad for once that the school was far away, because it did not seem right to him that any of them should die. In all the times they had caught the black-backed fishes he had never really appreciated their swift grace and beauty till then, and it saddened him a little to think that such a beautiful fish should lose its freedom and then die with a harpoon in its heart.

  The big fish swam past the boy just below the surface of the water and then it turned and swam back towards him. He had never heard any fisherman tell of a porpoise harming a man, but he eyed it warily just the same. It was a big fish, and the fear of the shark was still in him, and he feared it because of its great size which was equal to that of the shark.

  He went up for a breath of air, and the fish went up with him. He saw a fine spray of water shoot from the crescent-shaped blowhole at the top of its head. The instant it stopped spouting he heard a noise which was like the sound of a quickly drawn breath and then the blowhole shut off with a soft plop.

  The big fish swam in closer to the boy, and he was astonished to hear the faint whistles and squeaks which came from its blowhole as it swam past him in the water with its head held high and its swept-back dorsal fin sticking up in the air and looking like a piece of slippery wet rubber.

  The black-colored back, which had a purplish tint, slipped past him two feet away. The boy paddled himself round so that he could keep an eye on it, because he was still unsure of the great fish. He saw it turn and start back towards him, and he saw the startling whiteness of its belly as it rolled over onto its side just before it turned.

  It swam past him again, and he realized then that the big fish was not a marsouin. It did resemble the porpoises he had seen, but he saw that it was only a superficial resemblance. It had a definite beak, and the undershot jaw sticking out like a chin turned the mouth upwards and fixed it in a smile, whereas the mouth of the porpoise was simply an opening in a blunt-shaped head which no amount of imagination could transform into a beak. He thought the big fish must be a kind of porpoise, but he was not certain.

  He knew it was not a fish in the true sense of the word. He had listened in the past to the man explain that a porpoise was a mammal and not a fish. But it came from the sea and it lived in the sea, and that was why he preferred to think of it as a fish.

  He studied the big fish. It was longer and heavier than any porpoise he had ever seen. He knew then without a doubt that the fish swimming in the water beside him was certainly not a porpoise as he knew it.

  It was a bottle-nosed dolphin, a close relative of the porpoise, but even if he had known this it would not have allayed his mounting apprehension: to him it was a fish he had never seen before, an unknown quantity, and because he was without any knowledge of it he felt afraid. He knew only that it had driven off a hammerhead shark with one blow from its powerful-looking beak.

  As the dolphin slid past him in the water that was the thought which was uppermost in his mind, and he wondered whether it was going to attack him on its next pass. The great head of the fish half turned to keep him in view as it glided past: it actually turned, and to his astonishment he found himself looking straight into one enormous eye. In that instant all his fear vanished, because the eye that regarded him was like the eye of a man. It did not stare at him with a cold glassy malevolence as the eye of the shark had done. The eyeball itself was almost two inches in diameter, and in the huge black pupil he saw an expression of friendly curiosity that was almost human.

  Ten feet away from him the dolphin made a wide sweeping turn and then it plunged its beak into the water and its glistening back seemed to roll forward slowly like a wheel as it followed the head below the surface of the sea in a continuation of the same fluid movement. The last thing he saw was the black tip of the raked-back dorsal fin and then that too slid smoothly under the water.

  He saw the big fish come curving in towards him at a depth of five feet. It looked black and sinister, but he felt no fear because the memory of the big friendly eye was still fresh in his mind. He stopped treading water and allowed himself to sink till the faceplate of his mask was just below the refractive surface film which blurred his vision.

  He did not see the fish. He was wondering whether it had already gone past him when he felt a sudden gentle jolt. His heart skipped a beat and he felt a moment of breathtaking terror. He felt the body of the great fish come pressing up between his legs and then he felt himself being lifted up on its back till his head and shoulders were right out of the water. The fish started to swim off with him, heading towards the open sea. He was facing backwards as they moved off, and it was a terrifying sensation.

  He kicked out wildly, trying to get free of the fish. But he did not get free, and the fish only increased its speed. In desperation the boy threw his whole body to the right. He toppled off the back of the fish, with
the harpoon and the speargun flailing wildly. He felt the smooth rubbery skin on the flank of the fish sliding and rubbing against the inside of his thigh and then finally all contact between them was broken as it swam on past him.

  He came up to the surface choking and gasping. He transferred the harpoon to his right hand, holding it together with the speargun. He struck out for the pirogue. The hot panic left him and he felt a great bursting relief. But it lasted only a moment, because he had not taken three strokes when he felt the fish coming up beneath him once more.

  It came up from behind him, and it lifted him up so quickly that he had no time to struggle and escape it. He felt himself come surging up through the water and then he slid along the wet back of the fish till the dorsal fin brought him up short. The fish accelerated suddenly, and he saw that they were heading directly towards the distant pirogue.

  He threw his arms round the neck of the big fish to keep himself from falling off, at the same time gripping its body with his knees and his thighs. He bent his right wrist backwards, so that the harpoon and speargun did not touch the fish: he acted not out of consideration, but because he was still a little bit afraid of the fish and he did not like to think of what might happen if he prodded it accidentally with the sharp point of the harpoon.

  He lay crouched forward over the back of the fish as they sped through the water and he felt the drag of the sea against his body as it tugged at him and tried to tear him from the slippery back of the fish. The water sprayed round his shoulders and face. In a moment of sudden wild exubera-tion he started to laugh and shout and cheer.

  The fish began to rise even higher, and the top of its head broke the surface of the water. The boy fell quiet, and in the abrupt silence which followed he heard the startlingly loud whoosh as the fish spouted, and his nostrils twitched at the warm fishy smell of its breath which came straight up into his face. He heard the soft moan of air be-big drawn into the blowhole. It snapped shut with a wet plop an instant later and he felt the back of the great fish arching smoothly beneath him.

  The boy began to cheer wildly again. His elated cries were cut short a second later as the dolphin dived. He barely had the time to snatch a hurried breath before the water closed over his head. Panic shot through him. What if the fish dived right to the bottom of the sea and stayed down there with him for longer than he could hold his breath? He felt a little foolish when he realized that all he had to do was let go and make his own way up to the surface whenever he wanted.

  The dolphin leveled out at three fathoms. The boy felt his breath running out. He wondered whether he should abandon the fish and strike out for the surface or hang on in the hope that it would go up itself within the next few seconds. He decided to stay with the fish for as long as he could. If he jumped off now he knew he might never see it again, and for some reason or the other the thought of being parted from the great fish filled him with a deep sense of loss.

  He stayed with it a while longer. He lay almost fiat along its back and he rode it like a racehorse as it slipped noiselessly through the silent blue water. He glanced at the seabed which sped by two and a half fathoms below him. The coral pattern looked familiar. He was not quite sure about it though, but then he recognized the spreading antlers of a large elkhorn coral and he knew that they were not far from the deep channel which ran between the mainland and Ile aux Cerf.

  His head began to hurt and his chest felt on fire. He knew he did not have a moment to spare, but at the same time he could not bring himself to part company with the great fish that was carrying him through the water with effortless ease.

  He hung on a little longer, punishing his body heedlessly. With each second of suffocating agony that passed he prayed for the miracle that would start the fish swimming up towards the surface so that he would not have to leave it. But his prayer was not answered, and the miracle never came.

  The big, fish swam on tirelessly at the same depth. The boy felt a sudden dizziness sweep over him. He shook his head to clear it and hung on grimly. Black spots began to dance in front of his eyes. He knew it would be madness to stay down any longer. He threw himself sideways and off the back of the great fish.

  He turned end over end through the water. When he got his bearings he struck out for the surface. The air inside his bursting lungs began to bubble from his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the big fish swimming away on its side with the bow-shaped flukes of its tail pointing straight up and down in the water.

  The boy surfaced with a last frantic kick. He turned over onto his back and lay gasping and blowing. He barely managed to summon the strength to keep his legs moving and stay afloat. After a while his breathing returned to normal.

  He flipped over onto his belly suddenly, remembering the big fish. He pushed his face down under the water and searched for it anxiously. He did not see it anywhere. He lifted his head and began to tread water. He felt a moment of utter desolation as he stared round the empty sea.

  He started swimming towards the pirogue. His arms and legs felt heavy and tired as he splashed through the water, and his heart was full of despair.

  When he got back to the pirogue he reached up over the gunwale and dropped the speargun and the harpoon into the boat. The striped porgy was still on the end of the harpoon. It was quite dead now, and its cold fish eyes looked like pebbles of colored glass.

  He swam round to the stern of the boat and dragged himself aboard. The effort took the last of his remaining strength. He sat down on the planking and peeled the mask off his head. He stared out across the sea, but it was quite empty. He felt a hurting disappointment.

  If only he would show himself to me again, he thought.

  He did not know what he would do if he saw the big fish again, but he knew that it would make him very happy. He felt an aching emptiness as he thought about the dolphin.

  It was a fine fish, he told himself reverently, and I think that it truly saved my life from that pig of a shark with his ugly flat face.

  He searched the sea again, but there was nothing to be seen. He scuffed despondently at the planking of the boat with his bare toes. The porgy on the harpoon caught his attention. He stared at it. It was dead, and it looked dead, and the brilliant fires which had flamed in yellow and black beneath its scales had all gone out. He reached out listlessly for the harpoon, and just then the surface of the sea burst open fifteen feet away to his right. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, and he was so startled and surprised for an instant that he was unable to move.

  It seemed to him that there was a big black hole in the water with a tunnel going down into the sea, and then as he straightened up and swung to face it he realized that it was not a tunnel or a hole but the body of some great fish coming up through the water.

  He saw the blunt domed head of the dolphin break through the surface and then the rest of its body followed dripping and black and wet from the hole in the water. For a second it appeared to be standing on its tail, and then with a final lazy wriggle of its flukes it cleared the water completely. It went up with an agonizing slowness, but then suddenly it gained momentum and it lifted higher and higher till finally it seemed that it was hanging in the air ten feet above him. He saw the great white expanse of its belly, and then a second later it turned its head and he saw the friendliness in the big brown eye which watched him. It seemed to hang in the air a moment longer and then it rolled gracefully and plummeted down. It entered the sea with a splash that sent a burst of spray all over him and the boiling water which shot back to the surface made the pirogue rock and heave.

  The boy stared at the place where it had disappeared. He was still staring at it when the dolphin surfaced quietly five feet away from the side of the boat. He sprang to his feet. He began to dance up and down with excitement. He did not want the fish to go away, but he could think of nothing which might hold its attention and so delay its inevitable departure.

  He sat down suddenly in the pirogue and leaned far out over the side. He stre
tched his right arm out and snapped his fingers together coaxingly. The wallowing dolphin veered away and swam off with a flick of its tail.

  The boy snatched his hand back as if he had been burned, but then his heart leaped with joy as he saw the big fish turn in the water and swim back towards him. Once again he stretched his arm out. He did it slowly, and he did not reach quite as far as he had done the last time. He forced himself to move without haste, lest any sudden movement on his part frighten the fish away.

  The dolphin lifted its head right out of the water and examined the boy. He snapped his thumb against his fingers softly in what he thought was an enticing gesture. The dolphin watched all his movements warily, but it did not come any closer. It dropped back into the water suddenly, where it lay wallowing comfortably on the surface.

  The boy made strange clucking noises with his mouth and continued to snap his fingers together. He wanted to touch the dolphin, but it was too far away. He saw the big fish eyeing him, but it remained exactly where it was, floating in the water a few feet beyond his reach.

  “Ici, marsouin,” he crooned softly. ”Viens ici, man garcon.”

  It never occurred to him that the fish might be a female. It had saved his life, and that made it a friend, and therefore it could only be a boy like himself. He clucked and crooned and called softly to it but the big fish did not move. He wanted desperately to have it come closer, because he wanted to reach out and touch it and stroke it with his fingers and thank it for having saved his life.

  The dolphin stayed where it was. He called out again, pleading with it to come closer. It had suddenly become very important to him that he touch it: he could think of no other way of expressing the gratitude and admiration he felt for the big fish.

  In desperation he reached for it, leaning far out over the side of the pirogue as he tried to touch it.

  The dolphin moved its right flipper against its body and then with an almost imperceptible flick of its tail it swung away from him. The boy drew back quickly, but the damage had been done already. The dolphin continued to move away from the boat.