The Boy Who Talked with Animals Roald Dahl

The Boy Who Talked with Animals

Not so long ago, I decided to spend a few days in the West Indies. I was to go there for a short

holiday. Friends had told me it was marvelous. I would laze around all day, they said, sunning myself on

the silver beaches and swimming in the warm green sea.

I chose Jamaica and flew direct from London to Kingston. The drive from Kingston airport to my

hotel on the north shore took two hours. The island was full of mountains and the mountains were covered

all over with dark tangled forests. The big Jamaican who drove the taxi told me that up in those forests

lived whole communities of diabolical people who still practiced voodoo and witch-doctory and other

magic rites. "Don't ever go up into those mountain forests," he said, rolling his eyes. "There's things

happening up there that'd make your hair turn white in a minute!"

"What sort of things?" I asked him.

"It's better you don't ask," he said. "It doesn't pay even to talk about it." And that was all he would

say on the subject.

My hotel lay upon the edge of a pearly beach, and the setting was even more beautiful than I had

imagined. But the moment I walked in through those big open front doors, I began to feel uneasy. There

was no reason for this. I couldn't see anything wrong. But the feeling was there and I couldn't shake it off.

There was something weird and sinister about the place. Despite all the loveliness and the luxury, there

was a whiff of danger that hung and drifted in the air like poisonous gas.

And I wasn't sure it was just the hotel. The whole island, the mountains and the forests, the black

rocks along the coastline and the trees cascading with brilliant scarlet flowers, all these and many other

things made me feel uncomfortable in my skin. There was something malignant crouching underneath the

surface of this island. I could sense it in my bones.

My room in the hotel had a little balcony, and from there I could step straight down on to the

beach. There were tall coconut palms growing all around, and every so often an enormous green nut the

size of a football would fall out of the sky and drop with a thud on the sand. It was considered foolish to

linger underneath a coconut palm because if one of those things landed on your head, it would smash your

skull.

The Jamaican girl who came into tidy my room told me that a wealthy American called Mr

Wasserman had met his end in precisely this manner only two months before.

"You're joking," I said to her.

"Not joking!" she cried. "No suh! I sees it happening with my very own eyes!"

"But wasn't there a terrific fuss about it?" I asked.

"They hush it up," she answered darkly. "The hotel folks hush it up and so do the newspaper folks

because things like that are very bad for the tourist business."

"And you say you actually saw it happen?"

"I actually saw it happen," she said. "Mr. Wasserman, he's standing right under that very tree over

there on the beach. He's got his camera out and he's pointing it at the sunset. It's a red sunset that evening,

and very pretty. Then all at once, down comes a big green nut right smack on to the top of his bald head.

Wham! And that," she added with a touch of relish, "is the very last sunset Mr. Wasserman ever did see."

"You mean it killed him instantly?"

"I don't know about instantly," she said. "I remember the next thing that happens is the camera

falls out of his hands on to the sand. Then his arms drop down to his sides and hang there. Then he starts

swaying. He sways backward and forwards several times ever so gentle, and I'm standing there watching

him, and I say to myself the poor man's gone all dizzy and maybe he's going to faint any moment. Then

very very slowly he keels right over and down he goes."

"Was he dead?"

"Dead as a doornail," she said.

"Good heavens."

"That's right," she said. "It never pays to be standing under a coconut palm when there's a breeze

blowing."

"Thank you," I said. "I'll remember that."

On the evening of my second day, I was sitting on my little balcony with a book on my lap and a

tall glass of rum punch in my hand. I wasn't reading the book. I was watching a small green lizard stalking

another small green lizard on the balcony floor about six feet away. The stalking lizard was coming up on

the other one from behind, moving forward very slowly and very cautiously, and when he came within

reach, he flicked out a long tongue and touched the other one's tail. The other one jumped around, and the

two of them faced each other, motionless, glued to the floor, crouching, staring and very tense. Then

suddenly, they started to do ing a funny little hopping dance together. They hopped up in the air. They

hopped backward. They hopped forwards. They hopped sideways. They circled one another like two

boxers, hopping and prancing and dancing all the time. It was a queer thing to watch, and I guessed it was

some sort of a courtship ritual they were going through. I kept very still, waiting to see what was going to

happen next.

But I never saw what happened next because at that moment I became aware of a great commotion

on the beach below. I glanced over and saw a crowd of people clustering around something at the water's

edge. There was a narrow canoe-type fisherman's boat pulled up on the sand nearby, and all I could think

of was that the fisherman had come in with a lot of fish and that the crowd was looking at it.

A haul of fish is something that has always fascinated me. I put my book aside and stood up. More

people were trooping down from the hotel veranda and hurrying over the beach to join the crowd on the

edge of the water. The men were wearing those frightful Bermuda shorts that came down to the knees, and

their shirts were bilious with pinks and oranges and every other clashing color you could think of. The

women had better taste and were dressed for the most part in pretty cotton dresses. Nearly everyone

carried a drink in one hand.

I picked up my own drink and stepped down from the balcony on to the beach. I made a little

detour around the coconut palm under which Mr. Wasserman had supposedly met his end, and strode

across the beautiful silvery sand to join the crowd.

But it wasn't a haul of fish they were staring at. It was a turtle, an upside-down turtle lying on its

back in the sand. But what a turtle it was! It was a giant, a mammoth. I had not thought it possible for a

turtle to be as enormous as this. How can I describe its size? Had it been the right way up, I think a tall

man could have sat on its back without his feet touching the ground. It was perhaps five feet long and four

feet across, with a high domed shell of great beauty.

The fisherman who had caught it had tipped it on to its back to stop it from getting away. There

was also a thick rope tied around the middle of its shell, and once-proud fisherman, slim and black and

naked except for a small loincloth, stood a short way off holding the end of the rope with both hands.

Upside down it lay, this magnificent creature, with its four thick flippers waving frantically in the

air, and its long wrinkled neck stretching far out of its shell. The flippers had large sharp claws on them.

"Stand back, ladies and gentlemen, please!" cried the fisherman. "Stand well back! The claws is

dangerous, man! They'll rip your arm clear away from your body!"

The crowd of hotel guests was thrilled and delighted by this spectacle. A dozen cameras were out

and click ing away. Many of the women were squealing with pleasure clutching on to the arms of their

men, and the men were demonstrating their lack of fear and their masculinity by making foolish remarks in

loud voices.

"Make yourself a nice pair of horn-rimmed spectacles out of that shell, hey Al?"

"Darn thing must weigh over a ton!"

"You mean to say it can actually float?"

"Sure it floats. Powerful swimmer, too. Pull a boat easy."

"He's a snapper, is he?"

"That's no snapper. Snapper turtles don't grow as big as that. But I'll tell you what. He'll snap your

hand off quick enough if you get too close to him."

"Is that true?" one of the women asked the fisherman. "Would he snap off a person's hand?"

"He would right now," the fisherman said, smiling with brilliant white teeth. "He won't ever hurt

you when he's in the ocean, but you catch him and pull him ashore and tip him up like this, then man alive,

you'd better watch out! He'll snap at anything that comes in reach!"

"I guess I'd get a bit snappish myself," the woman said, "if I was in his situation."

One idiotic man had found a plank of driftwood on the sand, and he was carrying it towards the

turtle. It was a fair-sized plank, about five feet long and maybe an inch thick. He started poking one end of

it at the turtle's head.

"I wouldn't do that," the fisherman said. "You'll only make him madder than ever."

When the end of the plank touched the turtle's neck, the great head whipped around and the mouth

opened wide and snap, it took the plank in its mouth and bit through it as if it were made of cheese.

"Wow!" they shouted. "Did you see that! I'm glad it wasn't my arm!"

"Leave him alone," the fisherman said. "It doesn't help to get him all stirred up."

A paunchy man with wide hips and very short legs came up to the fisherman and said, "Listen

feller. I want that shell. I'll buy it from you." And to his plump wife, he said, "You know what I'm going to

do, Mildred? I'm going to take that shell home and have it polished up by an expert. Then I'm going to

place it smack in the center of our living-room! Won't that be something?"

"Fantastic," the plump wife said. "Go ahead and buy it, baby."

"Don't worry," he said. "It's mine already." And to the fisherman, he said, "How much for the

shell?"

"I already sold him," the fisherman said. "I sold him shell and all."

"Not so fast, feller," the paunchy man said. "I'll bid you higher. Come on. What'd he offer you?"

"No can do," the fisherman said. "I already sold him."

"Who to?" the paunchy man said.

"To the manager."

"What manager?"

"The manager of the hotel."

"Did you hear that?" shouted another man. "He's sold it to the manager of our hotel! And you know

what that means? It means turtle soup, that's what it means!"

"Right you are! And turtle steak! You ever have a turtle steak, Bill?"

"I never have, Jack. But I can't wait."

"A turtle steak's better than a beefsteak if you cook it lightly. It's more tender and it's got one heck of

a flavor."

"Listen," the paunchy man said to the fisherman. "I'm not trying to buy the meat. The manager can

have meat. He can have everything that's inside including the teeth and toenails. All I want is the

shell."

"And if I know you, baby," his wife, said, beaming at him, "you're going to get the shell."

I stood there listening to the conversation of these human beings. They were discussing the

destruction, the consumption and the flavor of a creature who seemed, even when upside down, to be

extraordinarily dignified. One thing was certain. He was senior to any of them in age. For probably one

hundred and fifty years he had been cruising in the green waters of the West Indies. He was there when

George Washington was President of the United States and Napoleon was being clobbered at Waterloo.

He would have been a small turtle then, but he was most certainly there.

And now he was here, upside down on the beach, waiting to be sacrificed for soup and steak. He

was clearly alarmed by all the noise and the shouting around him. His old wrinkled neck was straining out

of its shell, and the great head was twisting this way and that as though searching for someone who would

explain the reason for all this ill-treatment.

"How are you going to get him up to the hotel?" the paunchy man asked.

"Drag him up the beach with the rope," the fisherman answered. "The staff be coming along soon

to take him. It's going to need ten men, all pulling at once."

"Hey, listen!" cried a muscular young man, "Why don't we drag him up?" The muscular young man

was wearing magenta and pea-green Bermuda shorts and no shirt. He had an exceptionally hairy chest,

and the absence of a shirt was obviously a calculated touch. "What say we do a little work for our

supper?" he cried, rippling his muscles. "Come on, fellers! Who's for some exercise?"

"Great idea!" they shouted. "Splendid scheme!"

The men handed their drinks to the women and rushed to catch hold of the rope. They ranged

themselves along with it as though for a tug of war and the hairy-chested man appointed himself anchor-man

and captain of the team.

"Come on, now, fellers!" he shouted. "When I say heave, then all heave at once, you understand?"

The fisherman didn't like this much. "It's better you leave this job for the hotel," he said.

"Rubbish!" shouted hairy-chest. "Heave, boys, heave!"

They all heaved. The gigantic turtle wobbled on its back and nearly toppled over.

"Don't tip him!" yelled the fisherman. "You're going to tip him over if you do that! And if once he

gets back on to his legs again, he'll escape for sure!"

"Cool it, laddie," said hairy-chest in a patronizing voice. "How can he escape? We've got a rope

round him, haven't we?"

"The old turtle will drag the whole lot of you away with him if you give him a chance!" cried the

fisherman. "He'll drag you out into the ocean, every one of you!"

"Heave!" shouted hairy-chest, ignoring the fisherman. "Heave, boys, heave!"

And now the gigantic turtle began very slowly to slide up the beach towards the hotel, towards the

kitchen, towards the place where the big knives were kept. The womenfolk and the older, fatter, less

athletic men followed alongside, shouting encouragement.

"Heave!" shouted the hairy-chested anchor-man. "Put your backs into it, fellers! You can pull

harder than that!"

Suddenly, I heard screams. Everyone heard them. They were screams so high-pitched, so shrill

and so urgent they cut right through everything. "No-o-o-o-o!" screamed the scream. "No! No! No! No!

No!"

The crowd froze. The tug-of-war men stopped tugging and the onlookers stopped shouting and

every single person present turned towards the place where the screams were coming from.

Half walking, half running down the beach from the hotel I saw three people, a man, a woman, and

a small boy. They were half running because the boy was pull ing the man along. The man had the boy by

the wrist, trying to slow him down, but the boy kept pulling. At the same time, he was jumping and

twisting and wriggling and trying to free himself from the father's grip. It was the boy who was screaming.

"Don't!" he screamed. "Don't do it! Let him go! Please let him go!"

The woman, his mother, was trying to catch hold of the boy's other arm to help restrain him, but

the boy was jumping about so much, she didn't succeed.

"Let him go!" screamed the boy. "It's horrible what you're doing! Please let him go!"

"Stop that, David!" the mother said, still trying to catch his other arm. "Don't be so childish!

You're making a perfect fool of yourself."

"Daddy!" the boy screamed. "Daddy! Tell them to let him go!"

"I can't do that, David," the father said. "It isn't any of our business."

The tug-of-war pullers remained motionless, still hold ing the rope with the gigantic turtle on the

end of it. Everyone stood silent and surprised, staring at the boy. They were all a bit off-balance now.

They had the slightly hangdog air of people who had been caught doing something that was not entirely

honorable.

"Come on now, David," the father said, pulling against the boy. "Let's go back to the hotel and

leave these people alone."

"I'm not going back!" the boy shouted. "I don't want to go back! I want them to let it go!"

"Now, David," the mother said.

"Beat it, kid," the hairy-chested man told the boy.

"You're horrible and cruel!" the boy shouted. "All of you are horrible and cruel!" He threw the

words high and shrill at the forty or fifty adults standing there on the beach, and nobody, not even the

hairy-chested man, answered him this time. "Why don't you put him back in the sea?" the boy shouted. "He

hasn't done anything to you! Let him go!"

The father was embarrassed by his son, but he was not ashamed of him. "He's crazy about

animals," he said, addressing the crowd. "Back home he's got every kind of animal under the sun. He talks

with them."

"He loves them," the mother said.

Several people began shuffling their feet around in the sand. Here and there in the crowd, it was

possible to sense a slight change of mood, a feeling of uneasiness, a touch even of shame. The boy, who

could have been no more than eight or nine years old, had stopped struggling with his father now. The

father still held him by the wrist, but he was no longer restraining him.

"Go on!" the boy called out. "Let him go! Undo the rope and let him go!" He stood very small and

erect, facing the crowd, his eyes shining like two stars and the wind blowing in his hair. He was

magnificent.

"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 around 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 favor," 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 favor, 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 saw 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

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 around, 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 of 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. 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 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 were 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 are 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 traveled 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 glid ing 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 saw 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-breathless. "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 see 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 see 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 I 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 aboard. '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

backward 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. At 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 onboard 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.

There is no reason to disbelieve this report. There were five people on the yacht. Four of them

were Americans and the captain was a Bahamian from Nassau. All of them, in turn, saw the boy and the

turtle through the binoculars.

To reach Eleuthera Island from Jamaica by sea, one must first travel north-east for two hundred

and fifty miles and pass through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Then one must go north-north-west for a further three hundred miles at least. This is a total distance of five hundred and fifty

miles, which is a very long journey for a small boy to make on the shell of a giant turtle.

Who knows what to think of all this?

One day, perhaps, he will come back, though I personally doubt it. I have a feeling he's quite

happy where he is.