The Galanos Attack
The Galanos Attack is the second shark assault Santiago endures after the Mako shark has already taken forty pounds of the marlin and his harpoon. It is a sustained, two-shark engagement that strips a quarter of the best meat from the fish and forces the old man to improvise a weapon, revealing the deepening hopelessness of his struggle to bring any part of the marlin home intact.
The Sharks and Their Nature
The two sharks that arrive are galanos, shovel-nosed sharks that Santiago identifies by their brown, triangular fins and the sweeping movements of their tails. Unlike the Mako, which he had respected as beautiful and noble, these are hateful sharks, bad-smelling scavengers as well as killers. When hungry, they will bite at an oar or the rudder of a boat, and they are known to cut the legs and flippers off sleeping turtles on the surface. They will even hit a man in the water if hungry, even if the man carries no fish-blood smell. The old man watches them come with their wide, flattened, shovel-pointed heads and white-tipped pectoral fins, and he greets them with the word "Galanos," a name that carries no admiration.
The Course of the Attack
The two sharks do not attack as the Mako did. One turns and goes out of sight under the skiff, and Santiago feels the boat shake as the shark jerks and pulls on the fish. The other watches the old man with its slitted yellow eyes, then comes in fast with its half-circle of jaws wide to hit the marlin where it has already been bitten. Santiago drives the knife he has lashed to an oar into the juncture where the brain joins the spinal cord on the shark's brown head, withdraws it, and drives it in again into the shark's yellow cat-like eyes. That shark lets go and slides down, swallowing what it has taken as it dies. The skiff is still shaking from the destruction the other shark is doing to the fish, and Santiago lets go the sheet so the skiff swings broadside, bringing the shark out from under. He leans over the side and punches at it, but the hide is set hard and he barely gets the knife in. The blow hurts not only his hands but his shoulder. The shark comes up fast with its head out, and Santiago hits it squarely in the center of its flat-topped head as its nose lies against the fish. He withdraws the blade and punches the shark in the same spot again, but the shark still hangs to the fish with its jaws hooked. Santiago stabs it in its left eye, then drives the blade between the vertebrae and the brain, feeling the cartilage sever. He reverses the oar, puts the blade between the shark's jaws to open them, twists, and the shark slides loose. He tells it to go down a mile deep and see its friend, or maybe its mother.
Consequences and Aftermath
After the two galanos are dead, Santiago estimates they must have taken a quarter of the marlin, and of the best meat. He wishes it were a dream and that he had never hooked the fish. He apologizes to the fish, saying it makes everything wrong. He regrets having gone out so far, for neither the fish's sake nor his own. The marlin, drained of blood and awash, looks the color of the silver backing of a mirror, its stripes still showing. Santiago checks the lashing on the knife and finds it has been cut. He wishes he had a stone for the knife, then tells himself to think of what he can do with what there is. He holds the tiller under his arm and soaks both his hands in the water as the skiff drives forward. He knows the fish now makes a trail for all sharks as wide as a highway through the sea. The attack leaves Santiago with a broken knife, two bad hands, and the knowledge that the marlin's destruction has only begun.
