Cormorant

The Cormorant called David is Kissy Suzuki’s rescued companion and fishing partner off Kuro. At sea, its trained work is woven into the divers’ routine: it dives for fish, returns them to the boat, and keeps Kissy company in the dark water. When James Bond joins her, David’s purposeful independence and familiar bond with Kissy give the day a second center of attention beyond Bond’s own initiation into diving.

Rescue and Partnership

Kissy found David as a baby three years earlier, its wings fouled with oil. She cleaned and cared for it, then had a ring fitted around its neck. As the bird grew, the ring had to be made larger. The detail records care as an ongoing adjustment to a changing animal, not a one-time rescue. By the time Bond meets David, the ring is also part of a working arrangement: it can swallow small fish, while larger ones are brought to the surface in its beak and handed over, sometimes earning it a piece of the catch.

For Kissy, the partnership answers a human need as well as serving a practical purpose. She says that David swims beside her and keeps her company, especially when the sea is dark and the work can feel lonely. Its role therefore exceeds that of a fishing aid. The bond is shown through shared routine and attention: Kissy calls with a low whistle, winds in the line, strokes the bird’s head and neck, and brings it along to the boat. David, in turn, follows her to the water and takes its place aboard.

Work at Sea

On the day Bond joins Kissy, David has not been out for three days because her father could not row the boat. Kissy has gone out with friends instead, so David is hungry when they set off. The boat is a simple, locally made craft, kept in a small cove beneath dried reeds. Kissy and Bond row north from the village, carrying the rope and wooden tub needed for the dive; David settles at the bow, its long neck coiled and its gaze directed out to sea.

The routine depends on several lines being managed at once. Bond rows under Kissy’s direction, then ties David’s short line to the tub and keeps hold of Kissy’s diving rope, paying it out and hauling it in response to her signal. Once Kissy enters the water, David dives without a ripple. It soon reappears carrying a half-pound silvery fish crosswise in its beak, drops the fish into the floating tub, and vanishes again. Bond is preoccupied with the sharp beak and the demands of the work, but the bird carries out its task without waiting for him to understand the rhythm of the expedition.

As Bond takes his turn diving, David continues its own work. After Bond has been hauled up from his first clumsy descent, the bird passes below him with another fish. When Bond later surfaces with his fifth shell, David pecks gently at his hair, a small gesture the narration presents as approval. Kissy then cuts one fish in half and feeds the pieces to David, which swallows them in two gulps before preening. The exchange makes visible the terms of the partnership: David brings in fish; Kissy provides a share of the catch and care aboard the boat.

Character and Narrative Function

David is not portrayed as a passive ornament or as an animal that merely reflects a human mood. Its hissing arrival, abrupt dives, fish deliveries, and established place on the boat give it a distinct pattern of action. Its dependence on Kissy’s line and the food she provides exists alongside its own practiced activity: it locates fish, surfaces with them, and returns to the boat. The episode keeps both sides of that relationship in view without suggesting that the bird’s work is identical to Kissy’s abalone diving.

The Cormorant also changes the texture of Bond’s first day at sea. While Kissy descends to gather Abalone, David repeatedly breaks the water’s surface with fish, making the boat a place of coordinated but different kinds of labor. Bond must learn to handle the rope and later discovers how demanding diving is for his untrained lungs; David, by contrast, already knows the routine. The bird’s ease establishes a measure of competence that Bond has yet to acquire.

Return to the Cove

When the day’s work ends at four o’clock and a chill breeze rises, Kissy draws David back with several soft tugs on its line. The bird surfaces some distance away, circles above the water, then dives low and skims toward the boat on its webbed feet. It flaps aboard and stands on its perch with its wings spread to dry, waiting to be taken back to its cove. The departure from the sea is as practiced as the fishing: a signal, a return, and a place aboard reserved for David.

Kissy’s haul is sixty-five Abalone, of which Bond has gathered ten. David’s contribution is recorded separately through the fish it has brought up and the meal it receives. The close of the excursion thus preserves the distinction between their work while showing how the day depends on their cooperation. For Bond, the expedition is a trial of physical endurance; for Kissy and David, it is an established routine whose gestures of calling, hauling, diving, feeding, and returning reveal a partnership already shaped by years of care.