Jonathan Carr
Click here to read my biography
But at that moment, there was a loud clanging sound, metal on metal. And, to my horror, I saw men jumping like fiends out of the mangrove swamps at each end of the beach with such a rude dissonance of yelling and raucous laughter that only a certain breed of English Gent can make when it smells easy blood. The sands soon seemed to be heaving and pitching. Steel blades flashed and blood spurted as limbs were crudely lopped. Some of the turtles tried too late to change direction, while others faltered in confusion as their assailants neared. How many Gents were down there? So intense was the commotion and chaos, it was hard to tell. Ten, fifteen, twenty? They were all waving something, a rapier or stick or knotted whip, while one group in particular bawled like madmen as they plunged iron goads direct into the vulnerable underbelly of the nearest turtle, where her shell was softer and could be pierced, thereby foiling that poor creature’s flight for safety in the sea.
Four, five, six goads sticking in her yet still she staggered on, her bill snapping as she tried to bite at her tormentors while her upper shell warded off the next blow. And all the time, she continued to seek the water’s edge, her dignity in tatters as she moved ever more leaden and haphazard, with no more grace – finally - than a weary, beleaguered fustilugs.
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to vomit over those Gents. I wanted to vomit not just all the sparrow strips and palmettoe slices I had swallowed but vomit also all the filthiest words that had ever been spoken in our language since it was first invented. I wanted to shove dead fish heads down their throats and watch them spew. There were many things I wanted to do.
But what would make a difference? Even if I could find a path down to those mangrove swamps and arrive in time to confront them, what would I say? I had no defence, except my voice and fist, and who was I compared to a dozen Gents armed with every kind of weapon needed for mayhem?
And what argument would I present? I had already eaten turtle and found its flesh pleasantly tasteful.
Pish! It was not the act of killing itself that so disgusted me. We must live off what we kill. No, what made me forget everything, what gave me the courage to stand there on that cliff-top and shout at the top of my voice that they were murderers and the worst of varmints who should be drawn and quartered, was not the act of killing but the nature of it. Turtle flesh does not keep, either fresh or salted. A single turtle would go further than three hogs and feast a dozen messes, there being six men to a mess. The Gents were not killing for their stomachs. They were slaughtering for sport.
I slumped back down on the rock.
The sea was heaving with those bewildered creatures as, navigation skills fuddled, they bumped into each other in their search for deep water. Close to shore, the sea was stirred up and tossing where it had lain somnolent all day, streaked now with streams of fresh blood. If the turtles were screaming I could not hear them because the Gents were laughing so loud as they compared strikes and bragged about their kills.
One lone fin, hacked off at the joint, floated on the surface of the water like a lump of waste sod. Other fins were abandoned where they lay on the beach, quivering in a final act of defiance, before falling still. And one turtle had lost its head. The shell still lurched towards the sea like a blind man, as the executioners stood back and watched and grinned.
I sat on my haunches, furious at myself for being such an ineffectual onlooker, for doing nothing.
And yet despite my failure to help them, most of the turtles managed to escape. Many of them, though, would now be maimed for life. I watched them slip beneath the surface, dark shapes that faded the deeper they went, the further they left