Second Galanos Attack

The Second Galanos Attack occurs just before sunset on the third day of Santiago's ordeal, and it is the moment when the old man's hard-won triumph over the marlin is decisively broken. After having already lost his harpoon to the Mako shark and lashed a knife to an oar butt to defend himself, Santiago now faces two shovel-nosed sharks, or galanos, that arrive together, swimming side by side and heading straight for the skiff along the wide scent trail the bleeding marlin leaves in the water. These are the scavengers he has always despised—hateful sharks, bad-smelling, killers that will bite at an oar or a boat's rudder when hungry, and that will cut the legs and flippers off sleeping turtles. The old man jams the tiller, makes the sheet fast, and reaches under the stern for the club: an oar handle from a broken oar, sawed off to about two and a half feet in length, which he can use effectively only with one hand because of the grip of the handle. He takes good hold of it with his right hand, flexing his hand on it as he watches the sharks come.

The Attack and the Club Fight

The two galanos close together, and as Santiago sees the one nearest him open its jaws and sink them into the silver side of the fish, he raises the club high and brings it down heavy and slamming onto the top of the shark's broad head. He feels the rubbery solidity as the club comes down, but also the rigidity of bone, and he strikes the shark once more hard across the point of the nose as it slides down from the fish. The other shark has been in and out and now comes in again with its jaws wide; Santiago can see pieces of the meat of the fish spilling white from the corner of its jaws as it bumps the fish and closes its jaws. He swings at it and hits only the head, and the shark looks at him and wrenches the meat loose. The old man swings the club down on it again as it slips away to swallow, and hits only the heavy solid rubberiness. He calls out, "Come on, galano. Come in again." The shark comes in a rush, and Santiago hits it as it shuts its jaws, hitting it solidly and from as high up as he can raise the club. This time he feels the bone at the base of the brain, and he hits it again in the same place while the shark tears the meat loose sluggishly and slides down from the fish. The old man watches for it to come again, but neither shark shows. Then he sees one on the surface swimming in circles; he does not see the fin of the other.

The Aftermath and the Scale of Loss

Santiago knows he could not expect to kill them—"I could have in my time," he thinks—but he has hurt them both badly. He reflects that if he could have used a bat with two hands he could have killed the first one surely. He does not want to look at the fish now, because he knows that half of him has been destroyed. The sun has gone down while he was in the fight with the sharks. The old man cannot talk to the fish anymore because the fish has been ruined too badly. He addresses the ruined carcass: "Half fish," he says. "Fish that you were. I am sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both. But we have killed many sharks, you and I, and ruined many others." He thinks of what the fish could do to a shark if it were swimming free, and wishes he had chopped off the bill to fight them with, but there was no hatchet and then there was no knife. He resolves, "Fight them. I'll fight them until I die." The attack leaves Santiago with only the gaff, the two oars, the tiller, and the short club as weapons, and the marlin is reduced to little more than a skeleton. The Second Galanos Attack is the turning point where Santiago's epic struggle shifts from a contest of skill and endurance against a noble adversary into a grim, losing battle against scavengers, and the old man's acceptance of his defeat begins to take shape.