نبرد نهایی

CHAPTER SIX

The Final Battle

He had been sailing for two hours when he saw the first of the two sharks.

“Galanos,” he said aloud.

He took up the oar with the knife lashed to it. He lifted it as lightly as he could because his hands rebelled at the pain, and he watched the sharks come.

They 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 boat.

“Ay,” the old man said. “Galanos. Come on, galanos.”

They came. One 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 fish. The other watched the old man with his yellow eyes and then came in fast to hit the fish where he had already been bitten. A 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 brain, withdrew it, and drove it in again into the shark’s yellow cat-like eyes. The shark let go of the fish and slid down, swallowing what he had taken as he died.

When he saw the other shark he leaned over the side and punched him. The blow hurt his hands and his shoulder. But the shark came up fast with his head out and the old man hit him squarely in the center of his flat-topped head. The old man withdrew the blade and punched the shark exactly in the same spot again. The old man stabbed him in his left eye but the shark still hung there.

“No?” the old man said and he drove the blade between the vertebrae and the brain and he felt the cartilage break.

“Go on, galano. Slide down a mile deep. Go and see your friend, or maybe it’s your mother.”

The old man wiped the blade of his knife and laid down the oar. Then 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 him. I’m sorry about it, fish. It makes everything wrong.” He stopped and he did not want to look at the fish now.

“I shouldn’t have gone out so far, fish,” he said. “Neither for you nor for me. I’m sorry, fish. God knows how much that last one took,” he continued. “But she’s much lighter now.” He did not want to think of the mutilated under-side of the fish.

He was a fish to keep a man all winter, he thought. Don’t think of that. Just rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of him.

The next shark that came was a single shovel-nose.

He came like a pig to the trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in it. The old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar down into his brain. But tire shark jerked backwards as he rolled and the knife blade snapped.

The old man did not even watch the big shark sinking slowly in the water.

“I have the gaff now” he said. “But it will do no good. I have the two oars and the tiller and the short dub.”

Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.

It was getting late in the afternoon and he saw nothing but the sea and the sky.

“You’re tired, old man,” he said. “You’re tired inside.” The sharks did not hit him again until just before sunset.

He blocked the tiller and reached under the stern for the club. It was an oar handle from a broken oar.

The two sharks closed together and as he saw the one nearest him open his jaws and sink them into the silver side of the fish, he raised the club high and brought it down heavy on the top of the shark’s broad head. He struck the shark once more hard across the point of the nose as he slid down from the fish.

The other shark now came in again with his jaws wide. The old man could see pieces of the meat of the fish spilling white from the corner of his jaws. He swung at him and hit only the head and the shark looked at him and tore the meat loose. The old man swung the club down on him again.

“Come on, galano,” the old man said. “Come in again.”

The shark came in and the old man hit him as he shut his jaws. He hit him solidly and front as high up as he could raise the club. This time he felt the bone at the base of the brain and he hit him again in the same place. The old man watched but neither shark returned.

He did not want to look at the fish. He knew that half of him had been destroyed. The sun had gone down while he had been fighting the sharks.

“It will be dark soon” he said. “Then I should see the glow of Havana. If I am too far to the east I will see the lights of one of the new beaches.”

He could not talk to the fish anymore because the fish had been ruined too badly. Then something came into his head.

“Half-fish,” he said. “Fish that you were. I am sorry that went too far out. I ruined us both. But we have killed many sharks, you and I, and ruined many others. How many did you ever kill, old fish? You do not have that spear on your head for nothing.”

I have half of him he thought. Maybe I’ll have the luck to bring the forward half in. I should have some luck. ‘‘No,” he said. “You violated your luck when you went too far outside.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said aloud. “You may have much luck yet. I’d like to buy some if there were any place they sell it,” he said.

What could I buy it with? he asked himself. Could I buy it with a lost harpoon and a broken knife and two bad hands?

“You might,” he said. “You tried to buy it with eighty-four days at sea. They nearly sold it to you too.” He saw the reflected glare of the lights of the city at what must have been around ten o’clock at night. He steered inside of the glow and he thought that now, soon, he must hit the edge of the stream.

Now it is over, he thought. They will probably hit me again. But what can a man do against them in the dark without a weapon? I hope I do not have to fight again, he thought.

But by midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They came in a pack. He dubbed desperately at what he could only feel and hear and he felt something seize the dub and it was gone. He jerked the tiller free from the rudder and beat and chopped with it holding it in both hands and driving it down again and again.

One came, finally, against the head itself and he knew that it was over. He swung the tiller across the shark’s head. He swung it once and twice and again. The shark let go and rolled away. That was the last shark of the pack that came. There was nothing more for them to eat.

The old man could hardly breathe now and he felt a strange taste in his mouth. It was coppery and sweet and he was afraid of it for a moment. He spat into the ocean and said, “Eat that, galanos.”

He knew he was beaten now finally and without remedy. He put the sack around his shoulders and put the skiff on her course. He had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind. He only noticed how lightly and how well the skiff sailed now that there was no great weight beside her.

He could feel he was inside the current now and he could see the lights of the beach along the shore.

When he sailed into the little harbor the lights of the Terrace were out and he knew everyone was in bed. He pulled the boat up and then he stepped out and tied her to a rock. He took the mast out of its step and furled the sail and tied it. Then he put the mast on his shoulder and started to climb, it was then that he knew the depth of his tiredness. He stopped and looked back and saw the white naked line of the fish’s backbone and the dark mass of the head with the bill and all the nakedness in between.

He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder.

Finally he put the mast down and stood up. He picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.

Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall. In the dark he found a water bottle and took a drink. Then he lay down on the bed. He pulled the blanket over his body and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.

He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning. The boy saw the old man’s hands and he started to cry. He went out very quietly to get some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.

Many fishermen were around the skiff looking at what was lashed beside it and one was in the water, his trousers rolled up, measuring the skeleton.

The boy did not go down. He had been there before and one of the fishermen was looking after the skiff for him.

“How is he?” one of the fishermen shouted.

“Sleeping,” the boy called. He did not care that they saw him crying. “Let no one disturb him.”

“He was eighteen feet from nose to tail,” the fisherman who was measuring him called.

“I believe it” the boy said.

He went into the Terrace and asked for a can of coffee.

“Hot and with plenty of milk and sugar in it.”

“Anything more?”

“No. Afterwards I will see what he can eat.”

“What a fish it was,” the proprietor said. “There has never been such a fish. Tell him how sorry l am.”

“Thanks,” the boy said.

The boy carried the hot can of coffee up to the old man’s shack and sat by him until he woke.

Finally the old man woke.

“Don’t sit up,” the boy said. “Drink this.” He poured some of the coffee in a glass.

The old man took it and drank it.

“They beat me, Manolin,” he said. “They truly beat me.”

“He didn’t beat you. Not the fish.”

“No. Truly. It was afterwards.”

“Pedrico is looking after the skiff and the gear. What do you want done with the head?”

“Let Pedrico chop it up to use in fish traps.”

“And the spear?”

“You keep it if you want it.”

“I want it,” the boy said. “Now we must make our plans about the other things.”

“Did they search for me?”

“Of course. With coast guard and with planes.”

“The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,” the old man said. He noticed how pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only to himself and to the sea.

“I missed you,” he said. “What did you catch?”

“One the first day. One the second and two the third.”

“Very good.”

“Now we can fish together again.”

“No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore.”

“The hell with luck,” the boy said. “I’ll bring the luck with me.”

“What will your family say?”

“I do not care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn. You get your hands well, old man.”

“I know how to care for them. In the night I spat something strange and felt something in my chest was broken.”

“Get that well too,” the boy said. “Lie down, old man. I will bring you your clean shirt. And something to eat.”

“Bring any of the papers of the time that I was gone,” the old man said.

“You must get well fast for there is much that I can learn and you can teach me everything. How much did you suffer?”

“Plenty,” the old man said.

“I’ll bring the food and the papers,” the boy said. “Rest well, old man. I will bring something from the drugstore for your hands.”

As the boy went out the door and down the road he was crying again.

That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide.

“What’s that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.

“Tiburon,” the waiter said, “Eshark.” He wanted to explain what had happened.

“I didn’t know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails.”

“I didn’t either” her male companion said.

Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.