‘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 forwards 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 halfway 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?’