One big shark was cutting close to the boat. I straightened my legs painfully and leaned over the side, watching him. He looked as though he was up to some devilment, and I didn’t like it at all.
The other sharks had moved some distance away, probably scouting for easier prey than us, but this one huge beast, speckled like a leopard, evidently still saw possibilities and hung around.
Finally he drifted off a few yards, turned sinuously on the surface and with one powerful thrust of his heavy tail shot himself straight back like a torpedo. He twisted to stop perhaps a foot away and seemed to look me right in the eye, his wicked teeth showing.
I hauled off and banged him square on the nose with my good right fist. Well, that was one surprised leopard shark. He whirled and whipped away like a scared monkey. I guess he didn’t come back.
Tony had seen the whole show. He reached over and raised my right hand high. “The winnah an’ still champeen!” he croaked. My hand was tingling, and the knuckles hurt. I felt them tenderly. I hadn’t injured my hand, but I had hurt it, and the knuckles ached for a few minutes. The shark’s nose had no more give than a block of wood. That’s exactly what it was like – as if I had taken a good hard punch at a telephone pole. But I chased him away.
The Raft: The Courageous Struggle of Three Naval Airmen against the Sea by Robert Trumbull. 1942. United States Naval Institute. p. 143
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