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