In mute horror he watched as the shark fin turned and moved in on the man at the far edge of the raft. Before he could cry a warning, the man’s head vanished under the water, as if he had been grabbed by a giant hand and pulled under.
A moment later he popped back to the surface, his eyes wide in surprise, not quite sure what had happened. Then he started to gasp, and a low cry came from his throat, rising in pitch to a terrified scream.
“Sharks!” shouted one of the paddlers, pointing to the right of the raft, where more fins were cutting through the water. Tal counted, and three more were coming in from that side, as another joined the one that had struck the first swimmer.
Men started shouting. Tal shouted back, “Don’t try to climb up! We’ll all be swamped.”
He glanced around and saw that the men were verging on mindless panic, so he screamed, “Kick! Kick as hard as you can!”
Suddenly the water was foaming as men thrashed, trying to propel the raft toward the beach as quickly as possible. The man whom the shark had attacked made eye contact with Tal for moment, his mouth working, although no sound emerged. Then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he went under. When his body bobbed back to the surface, he upended, and both legs were missing.
Then Tal saw the blunt nose of the shark as it rose up from the depths and struck the corpse, seizing it in its mouth and pulling it under.
“Kick, damn you!” shouted Will.
The men who were sitting between the paddlers put their outside hand down in the water and paddled desperately, as if that little bit of effort would somehow help speed them. Tal scanned the waves in all directions, looking for another fin, and saw one coming in from the right. He shouted, “Shark!” and pointed. Then he told the paddler nearest to the monster, “Hit it!”
The man looked at the shark heading almost straight at him and reflexively tried to stand up. Shouting in panic, he lost his balance and fell over, right into the path of the shark.
“Get out!” Tal cried.
Another shark came in fast behind the first, and the man was abruptly yanked downward, only to come up for a moment, trying to scream but making only gurgling noises as he choked on water, the sea around him churning white water and blood.
Tal leapt into the waves and with one stroke of his arm reached the paddle. He turned and kicked to bring himself back toward the raft. Holding his breath, he kicked twice more and felt hands pulling him out of the water.
“Are you mad?” Baron Visniya cried.
“We need the paddle!” Tal said, spitting out water.
He held it out, and Visniya took it, replacing the man who had fallen. “If they come close,” shouted Tal to those on the raft, “hit them with the paddles!” To the men frantically pushing the raft he yelled, “If they get near you, kick them, hit them, gouge their eyes, do anything to make them leave you alone!”
Tal glanced toward the coast and saw they had moved slightly closer, but their progress was still torturously slow. Clinging helplessly to the mast, he stood up and watched the sharks circle. Two or three of them darted in where the last two had pulled the paddler over, drawn by the blood.
Suddenly a third man was pulled under, and the men on either side of him shouted and one tried to climb back on the raft. Captain Quint shoved him back in, shouting, “Kick, damn you!” then he jumped in next to him and replaced the man who had just been killed.
Will whispered, “Three men, Tal!”
A man sitting to the fore on the left side of the raft threw himself into the water and started swimming to the shore. Tal had seen enough good swimmers in his lifetime to recognize that this man was unpracticed. His strokes were frantic and uncoordinated, wasteful of energy, so he did not have much forward momentum and would tire rapidly. Tal said to Will, “He should have taken his boots off.”
No shark came near the man, seeming content for the moment to feed on the ones already taken, but halfway between the raft and the breakers the swimmer’s head went under and didn’t reappear.
Tal again judged their progress and saw they were now drawing closer to the breakers. The rise and fall of the raft was increasing as the combers rolled in to the shoreline. “Kick harder!” he shouted. “We’re almost there!”
Then the raft jerked as if it had hit a rock, and two men fell over on the right side. A second hard bump came from below, and Tal shouted, “There’s one underneath us!” Both men were desperately trying to get back on the raft when one disappeared under the water before Tal’s eyes. The other made it to the raft and climbed aboard, his paddle lost. The first man never reappeared, but the water turned dark with blood.
Tal shouted, “Everyone, into the water!”
He leapt in next to the men propelling the raft from behind, put his one good hand on the raft, and started kicking.