The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (3 page)

"Thank you," the father said.

"Oh.
thank
you!" the mother cried.
"Thank you so very much!"

"Willy," the manager said, beckoning to the fisherman.

The fisherman came forward. He looked thoroughly confused. "I never seen
anything like this before in my whole life," he said. "This old
turtle was the fiercest I ever caught! He fought like a devil when we brought
him in! It took all six of us to land him! That boy's crazy!"

"Yes, I know," the manager said. "But now I want you to let him
go."

"Let him go!" the fisherman cried, aghast. "You mustn't ever let
this one go,
Mr
Edwards! He's broke the record! He's
the biggest turtle ever been caught on this island! Easy the biggest!
And what about our money?"

"You'll get your money."

"I got the other five to pay off as well," the fisherman said,
pointing down the beach.

About a hundred yards down, on the water's edge, five black-skinned almost
naked men were standing beside a second boat. "All six of us are in on
this, equal shares," the fisherman went on. "I can't let him go till
we got the money."

"I guarantee you'll get it," the manager said. "Isn't that good
enough for you?"

"I'll underwrite that guarantee," the father of the boy said,
stepping forward. "And there'll be an extra bonus for all six of the
fishermen just as long as you let him go at once. I mean immediately, this
instant."

The fisherman looked at the father. Then he looked at the manager.
"Okay," he said. "If that's the way you want it."

"There's one condition," the father said. "Before you get your
money, you must promise you won't go straight out and try to catch him again.
Not this evening, anyway. Is that understood?"

"Sure," the fisherman said. "That's a deal." He turned and
ran down the beach, calling to the other five fishermen. He shouted something
to them that we couldn't hear, and in a minute or two, all six of them came
back together. Five of them were carrying long thick wooden poles.

The boy was still kneeling beside the turtle's head. "David," the
father said to him gently. "It's all right now, David. They're going to
let him go."

The boy looked round, but he didn't take his arms from around the turtle's
neck, and he didn't get up.
"When?" he asked.

"Now," the father said.
"Right now.
So
you'd better come away."

"You promise?" the boy said,

"Yes, David, I promise."

The boy withdrew his arms. He got to his feet. He stepped back a few paces.

"Stand back everyone!" shouted the fisherman called Willy.
"Stand right back everybody, please!"

The crowd moved a few yards up the beach. The tug-of-war men let go the rope
and moved back with the others.

Willy got down on his hands and knees and crept very cautiously up to one side
of the turtle. Then he began untying the knot in the rope. He kept well out of
the range of the big flippers as he did this.

When the knot was untied, Willy crawled back. Then the five other fishermen
stepped forward with their poles. The poles were about seven feet long and
immensely thick. They wedged them underneath the shell of the turtle and began
to rock the great creature from side to side on its shell. The shell had a high
dome and was well shaped for rocking.

"Up and down!" sang the fishermen as they rocked away.
"Up and down!
Up and down!
Up and
down!"
The old turtle became thoroughly upset, and who could blame
it? The big flippers lashed the air frantically, and the head kept shooting in
and out of the shell.

"Roll him over!" sang the fishermen.
"Up and
over!
Roll him over! One more time and over he goes!"

The turtle tilted high up on to its side and crashed down in the sand the right
way up.

But it didn't walk away at once. The huge brown head came out and peered
cautiously around.

"Go, turtle, go!" the small boy called out. "Go back to the
sea!"

The two hooded black eyes of the turtle peered up at the boy. The eyes were
bright and lively, full of the wisdom of great age. The boy looked back at the
turtle, and this time when he spoke, his voice was soft and intimate.
"Good-bye, old man," he said. "Go far away this time." The
black eyes remained resting on the boy for a few seconds more. Nobody moved.
Then, with great dignity, the massive beast turned away and began waddling
towards the edge of the ocean. He didn't hurry. He moved sedately over the
sandy beach, the big shell rocking gently from side to side as he went.

The crowd watched in silence.

He entered the water.

He kept going.

Soon he was swimming. He was in his element now. He swam gracefully and very
fast, with the head held high. The sea was calm, and he made little waves that
fanned out behind him on both sides, like the waves of a boat. It was several
minutes before we lost sight of him, and by then he was half-way to the
horizon.

The guests began wandering back towards the hotel. They were curiously subdued.
There was no joking or bantering now, no laughing. Something had happened.
Something strange had come fluttering across the beach.

I walked back to my small balcony and sat down with a cigarette. I had an
uneasy feeling that this was not the end of the affair.

The next morning at eight o'clock, the Jamaican girl, the one who had told me
about
Mr
Wasserman and the coconut, brought a glass
of orange juice to my room.

"Big
big
fuss in the hotel this morning,"
she said as she placed the glass on the table and drew back the curtains.
"Everyone flying about all over the place like they was crazy."

"Why? What's happened?"

"That little boy in number twelve, he's vanished. He disappeared in the
night."

"You mean the turtle boy?"

"That's him," she said. "His
parents is
raising the roof and the manager's going mad."

"How
long's
he been missing?"

"About two hours ago his father found his bed empty. But he could've gone
any time in the night I reckon."

"Yes," I said. "He could."

"Everybody in the hotel searching high and low," she said. "And
a police car just arrived."

"Maybe he just got up early and went for a climb on the rocks," I
said.

Her large dark haunted-looking eyes rested a moment on my face,
then
travelled
away. "I do
not think so," she said, and out she went.

I slipped on some clothes and hurried down to the beach. On the beach itself,
two native policemen in khaki uniforms were standing with
Mr
Edwards, the manager.
Mr
Edwards was doing the
talking. The policemen were listening patiently. In the distance, at both ends
of the beach, I could see small groups of people, hotel servants as well as
hotel guests, spreading out and heading for the rocks. The morning was
beautiful. The sky was smoke blue, faintly glazed with yellow. The sun was up
and making diamonds all over the smooth sea. And
Mr
Edwards was talking loudly to the two native policemen, and waving his arms.

I wanted to help. What should I do? Which way should I go? It would be
pointless simply to follow the others. So I just kept walking towards
Mr
Edwards.

About then, I saw the fishing-boat. The long wooden canoe with a single mast
and a flapping brown sail was still some way out to sea, but it was heading for
the beach. The two natives aboard, one at either end, were paddling hard. They
were paddling very hard. The paddles rose and fell at such a terrific speed
they might have been in a race. I stopped and watched them. Why the great rush
to reach the shore? Quite obviously they had something to tell. I kept my eyes
on the boat. Over to my left, I could hear
Mr
Edwards
saying to the two policemen, "It is perfectly ridiculous. I can't have
people disappearing just like that from the hotel. You'd better find him fast,
you understand me? He's
either wandered off somewhere and
got lost or he's been kidnapped. Either way, it's the responsibility of the
police. . ."

The fishing-boat skimmed over the sea and
came
gliding
up on to the sand at the water's edge. Both men dropped their paddles and
jumped out. They started running up the beach. I recognized the one in front as
Willy. When he caught sight of the manager and the two policemen, he made
straight for them.

"Hey,
Mr
Edwards!"
Willy called out. "We
just seen
a crazy
thing!"

The manager stiffened and jerked back his neck. The two policemen remained
impassive. They were used to excitable people. They met them every day.

Willy stopped in front of the group, his chest heaving in and out with heavy
breathing. The other fisherman was close behind him. They were both naked
except for a tiny loincloth, their black skins shining with sweat.

"We been paddling full speed for a long way," Willy said, excusing
his out-of-
breathness
. "We thought we ought to
come back and tell it as quick as we can."

"Tell what?" the manager said. "What did you see?"

"It was crazy, man!
Absolutely crazy!"

"Get on with it, Willy, for heaven's sake."

"You won't believe it," Willy said. "There
ain't
nobody
going to believe it. Isn't that right,
Tom?"

"That's right," the other fisherman said, nodding vigorously.
"If Willy here hadn't been with me to prove it, I wouldn't have believed
it myself!"

"Believed what?"
Mr
Edwards said.
"Just tell us what you saw."

"We'd gone off early," Willy said, "about four o'clock this
morning, and we must've been a couple of miles out before it got light enough
to see anything properly. Suddenly, as the sun comes up, we see right ahead of
us, not
more'n
fifty yards away, we see something we
couldn't believe not even with our eyes. . ."

"What?" snapped
Mr
Edwards.
"For heaven's sake get on!"

"We sees that old monster turtle swimming away out there, the one on the
beach yesterday, and we sees the boy sitting high up on the turtle's back and
riding him over the sea like a horse!"

"You
gotta
believe it!" the other fisherman
cried. "I
sees
it too, so you
gotta
believe it!"

Mr
Edwards looked at the two policemen. The two
policemen looked at the fishermen. "You wouldn't be having us on, would
you?" one of the policemen said.

"I swear it!" cried Willy. "It's the gospel truth! There's this
little boy riding high up on the old turtle's back and his
feet
isn't
even touching the water! He's dry as a bone and sitting there
comfy and easy as could be! So we go after them. Of course we go after them. At
first we try creeping up on them very quietly, like we always do when we're
catching a turtle, but the boy sees us. We aren't very far away at this time,
you understand. No more than from here to the edge of the water. And when the boy
sees us, he sort of leans forward as if he's saying something to that old
turtle, and the turtle's head comes up and he starts swimming like the clappers
of hell! Man, could that turtle go! Tom and
me
can
paddle pretty quick when we want to, but we've no chance against that monster!
No chance at all! He's going at least twice as fast as we are! Easy twice as
fast, what you say, Tom?"

"I'd say he's going
three times
as
fast," Tom said. "And I'll tell you why. In about ten or fifteen
minutes, they're a mile ahead of us."

"Why on earth didn't you call out to the boy?" the manager asked.
"Why didn't you speak to him earlier on, when you were closer?"

"We never stop calling out, man!" Willy cried. "As soon as the
boy sees us and we're not trying to creep up on them any longer, then we start
yelling. We yell everything under the sun at that boy to try and get him
aboard.
'Hey, boy!'
I yell at him. 'You come on back
with us! We'll give you a lift home! That
ain't
no
good what you're doing there, boy! Jump off and swim while you got the chance
and we'll pick you up! Go on boy, jump! Your mammy must be waiting for you at
home, boy, so why don't you come on in with us?' And once I shouted at him,
'Listen, boy! We're
gonna
make you a promise! We
promise not to catch that old turtle if you come with us!'"

"Did he answer you at all?" the manager asked.

"He never even looks round!" Willy said. "He sits high up on
that shell and he's sort of rocking backwards and forwards with his body just
like he's urging the old turtle to go faster and faster! You're
gonna
lose that little boy,
Mr
Edwards, unless someone gets out there real quick and grabs him away!"