The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Read online

  "There's nothing we can do, David," the father said gently. "Let's go on back."

  "No!" the boy cried out. and at that moment he suddenly gave a twist and wrenched his wrist free from the father's grip. He was away like a streak, running across the sand towards the giant upturned turtle.

  "David!" the father yelled, starting after him. "Stop! Come back!"

  The boy dodged and swerved through the crowd like a player running with the ball, and the only person who sprang forward to intercept him was the fisherman. "Don't you go near that turtle, boy!" he shouted as he made a lunge for the swiftly running figure. But the boy dodged round him and kept going. "He'll bite you to pieces!" yelled the fisherman. "Stop, boy! Stop!"

  But it was too late to stop him now, and as he came running straight at the turtle's head, the turtle saw him, and the huge upside-down head turned quickly to face him.

  The voice of the boy's mother, the stricken, agonized wail of the mother's voice rose up into the evening sky. "David!" it cried "Oh, David!" And a moment later, the boy was throwing himself on to his knees in the sand and flinging his arms around the wrinkled old neck and hugging the creature to his chest. The boy's cheek was pressing against the turtle's head, and his lips were moving, whispering soft words that nobody else could hear. The turtle became absolutely still. Even the giant flippers stopped waving in the air.

  A great sigh, a long soft sigh of relief, went up from the crowd. Many people took a pace or two backward, as though trying perhaps to get a little further away from something that was beyond their understanding. But the father and mother came forward together and stood about ten feet away from their son.

  "Daddy!" the boy cried out, still caressing the old brown head. "Please do something, Daddy! Please make them let him go!"

  "Can I be of any help here?" said a man in a white suit who had just come down from the hotel. This, as everyone knew, was Mr Edwards, the manager. He was a tall, beak-nosed Englishman with a long pink face. "What an extraordinary thing!" he said, looking at the boy and the turtle. "He's lucky he hasn't had his head bitten off." And to the boy he said, "You'd better come away from there now, sonny. That thing's dangerous."

  "I want them to let him go!" cried the boy, still cradling the head in his arms. "Tell them to let him go!"

  "You realize he could be killed any moment," the manager said to the boy's father.

  "Leave him alone," the father said.

  "Rubbish," the manager said. "Go in and grab him. But be quick. And be careful."

  "No," the father said.

  "What do you mean, no?" said the manager. "These things are lethal! Don't you understand that?"

  "Yes," the father said.

  "Then for heaven's sake, man, get him away!" cried the manager. "There's going to be a very nasty accident if you don't."

  "Who owns it?" the father said. "Who owns the turtle?"

  "We do," the manager said. "The hotel has bought it."

  "Then do me a favour," the father said. "Let me buy it from you."

  The manager looked at the father, but said nothing.

  "You don't know my son," the father said, speaking quietly. "He'll go crazy if it's taken up to the hotel and slaughtered. He'll become hysterical."

  "Just pull him away," the manager said. "And be quick about it."

  "He loves animals," the father said. "He really loves them. He communicates with them."

  The crowd was silent, trying to hear what was being said. Nobody moved away. They stood as though hypnotized.

  "If we let it go," the manager said, "they'll only catch it again."

  "Perhaps they will," the father said. "But those things can swim."

  "I know they can swim," the manager said. "They'll catch him all the same. This is a valuable item, you must realize that. The shell alone is worth a lot of money."

  "I don't care about the cost," the father said. "Don't worry about that. I want to buy it."

  The boy was still kneeling in the sand beside the turtle, caressing its head.

  The manager took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and started wiping his fingers. He was not keen to let the turtle go. He probably had the dinner menu already planned. On the other hand, he didn't want another gruesome accident on his private beach this season. Mr Wasserman and the coconut, he told himself, had been quite enough for one year, thank you very much.

  The father said, "I would deem it a great personal favour, Mr Edwards, if you would let me buy it. And I promise you won't regret it. I'll make quite sure of that."

  The manager's eyebrows went up just a fraction of an inch. He had got the point. He was being offered a bribe. That was a different matter. For a few seconds he went on wiping his hands with the handkerchief. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well. I suppose if it will make your boy feel any better. . ."

  "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. Th
e 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 aboar
d. '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!"

  The manager's normally pink face had turned white as paper. "Which way were they heading?" he asked sharply.

  "North," Willy answered. "Almost due north."

  "Right!" the manager said. "We'll take the speed-boat. I want you with us, Willy. And you, Tom."

  The manager, the two policemen and the two fishermen ran down to where the boat that was used for water-skiing lay beached on the sand. They pushed the boat out, and even the manager lent a hand, wading up to his knees in his well-pressed white trousers. Then they all climbed in.

  I watched them go zooming off.

  Two hours later, I watched them coming back. They had seen nothing.

  All through that day, speed-boats and yachts from other hotels along the coast searched the ocean. In the afternoon, the boy's father hired a helicopter. He rode in it himself and they were up there three hours. They found no trace of the turtle or the boy.

  For a week, the search went on, but with no result.

  And now, nearly a year has gone by since it happened. In that time, there has been only one significant bit of news. A party of Americans, out from Nassau in the Bahamas, were deep-sea fishing off a large island called Eleuthera. There are literally thousands of coral reefs and small uninhabited islands in this area, and upon one of these tiny islands, the captain of the yacht saw through his binoculars the figure of a small person. There was a sandy beach on the island, and the small person was walking on the beach. The binoculars were passed around, and everyone who looked through them agreed that it was a child of some sort. There was, of course, a lot of excitement on board and the fishing lines were quickly reeled in. The captain steered the yacht straight for the island. When they were half a mile off, they were able, through the binoculars, to see clearly that the figure on the beach was a boy, and although sunburnt, he was almost certainly white-skinned, not a native. At that point, the watchers on the yacht also spotted what looked like a giant turtle on the sand near the boy. What happened next happened very quickly. The boy, who had probably caught sight of the approaching yacht, jumped on the turtle's back and the huge creature entered the water and swam at great speed around the island and out of sight. The yacht searched for two hours, but nothing more was seen either of the boy or the turtle.