I felt the brush of the big animals in the sea and the movement of the water as they circled beneath me, around me. My son had left me here to drown or be eaten by sharks. I wondered if he had been the man to strike me, or if he had merely watched. I could not understand why they had not killed me—they must have had guns. Even a spear gun would have done the job. Maybe they had argued about it, maybe my son had begged for me, and while they were shouting at each other, I had floated away on this current. Maybe they looked around at the expanse of the sea and shrugged—I was an old man, I was injured, and the water was full of sharks. Maybe they did not have the stomach for an execution. Maybe they just wanted to resume their hunt for the dolphins.
I felt the high sun beat on my neck. It was not feeding time for sharks unless they were very hungry. My head throbbed. The waves made me seasick. It seemed pointless to keep breathing but I found I could not simply stop. Water trickled into one ear and I started to turn my head to the other side.
Then I heard a soft wet exhalation beside me and then another and I knew at once the dolphins had come. I uncurled from the ball and lifted my head and they were all around me, some at the surface, others beneath me, some close, some far. I reached out to touch them but they instantly moved out of reach. I tried to swim along with them, my legs and arms flailing, the life jacket making me awkward in the sea. I saw the dolphins were moving in the direction of a sharp black rock, and I heard the flap of a tarpaulin or a sail, and there were many birds in the sky and then the dolphins dived and were gone.
There is not much left to tell. I pulled myself onto the rock—the sharp edges of the honeycomb rock were covered with the white droppings of seabirds. Everywhere I touched, I cut my skin—my fingers, my shins, my feet. On that first day and for a few days afterward, I could stand although I was dizzy and my legs were weak. I saw the signs of humans and I knew fishers used this place. They would come back. All I had to do was breathe and wait.
I found the flapping tarpaulin, which made a small patch of shade in a hollow and I stripped off the life jacket and lay on it. There was a bottle of water tied to a rock and I sipped from it. It was fresh, warm, and tasted of plastic but it would buy me some time, perhaps a week, more, if it rained. I closed my eyes then and I slept and I did not wake through that first night spent alone on Portland Rock on the Pedro Bank.
34
“See it there,” Speedy said, and pointed.
They looked. Lloyd could just make out a long, low rock in the sea with two small craggy peaks. The waves seemed to surge over it completely and he could not see how anyone could survive there. Jules took out her binoculars and stared through them, balancing as the boat climbed the wave crests and fell into the troughs. “Think I see a tarpaulin. Maybe we can land on the lee side?” she said to Speedy and he nodded.
“Can I see?” Lloyd said.
Jules handed him the binoculars but everything was blurry. “Use this to focus,” she said, turning a knob. The rock sprang into focus and it was bigger than he had imagined. He could see seabirds and sea spray but there was no sign of human life. “Go faster,” he said to Speedy, who did not reply. Jules reached for the binoculars, but he held on to them, looking for any sign of Gramps on Portland Rock.
The dark blue of the deep sea gave way to turquoise and Lloyd lowered the binoculars. The rock was much larger than it had appeared at a distance. The water was full of large sharks and the coral reef rose out of the deep and teemed with reef fish. He had never seen a sea like this, never in his life, a sea full of fish of every size and shape and color, a sea with water so clear it was hard to tell exactly where surface or seafloor was, a sea that seemed to merge with the air into one breathing world. A green turtle moved beneath Skylark, its flippers sweeping through the water in slow time.
Portland Rock loomed close now—low in the middle, higher at both ends, one end towering, and behind the highest peaks spray flew. They went around the rock to the leeward side and the sea calmed, but there was still the strong sea surge to contend with. And then Lloyd saw a canoe tied to a rock and his father’s friend, Selvin, sitting on the rock. He stood as they approached. There was no mooring space for Skylark. Selvin seemed to be shouting at someone else behind him, but his words were torn away by the wind. He turned and started to climb away from them.
“Do you know that man, Lloyd?” asked Jules, looking through the binoculars.
“Him is my father friend. Them come to kill Gramps! Please, Miss, we have to hurry.”
“Tie up the boat, Speedy!” Jules cried. “Lloyd, help me put down the fenders!”
Speedy maneuvered Skylark up to the canoe. “Look sharp, yout’!” he shouted. “Earn you keep. Take this line. When I tell you, jump and tie it to the canoe.”
“Wait!” Jules said. “Come round again. Lloyd, put on your shoes. Rocks going cut up your
