CHAPTER TEN
Fight to the Finish
The next morning it rains. Brody meets Quint at the boat.
"Is it only me and you this time?" says Brody.
“Yes," says Quint. “You know this fish as well as any man. Nobody can help us now."
Quint turns the boat out to sea. After ten minutes he slows it down. Brody looks back towards the shore. "We're not out as far today," he says. "We can't be more than three kilometers from the shore."
“That's right."
“So why are you stopping?"
Quint points to the shore. "I don't think he'll go out far today," he says. "I think he'll be somewhere between here and Amity."
Quint stops the boat and Brody begins dropping meat into the sea. Quint throws a line overboard. Then he puts a barrel on a harpoon line.
“OK," says Quint. “Now we wait."
An hour goes by. Nothing happens. Brody stands up and looks overboard. Suddenly he sees the head of the shark, with its black eyes and open jaws. It is less than two meters away! “Oh no!” Brody cries. “He's here!”
Quint jumps up. The shark's head drops back into the water. A minute later, it hits the boat. The boat moves up and down. Then the shark goes under again and the boat stops moving.
“He waited for us!” cries Brody. “How did he...?"
"I don't know," says Quint. "We've got him now."
"We've got him? Did you see what he did to the boat? He's got us, I say!”
The line moves, and there are noises from under the boat.
Quint stands and picks up a harpoon gun. “He'll be back soon."
The boat moves again.
Quint puts his head overboard, and cries, “Come out from under there!”
"What's he doing?" Brody asks.
“He's making a hole in the boat. Look, the water's coming in... Come out and I'll kill you!”
The shark comes to the surface, and begins to move towards the boat.
“Come to me," says Quint. “Come to me." He stands and watches the shark. When it is a meter from the boat, he fires the gun.
The harpoon hits the shark. And then the shark hits the boat, hard. Quint falls back and his head hits a chair. He jumps to his feet again and cries, "I got you!"
The harpoon line goes overboard. It pulls the barrel into the water with it.
“He took it down with him!” says Brody.
“Not for long," says Quint. “He'll be back! When he comes, we'll throw harpoons at him again and again and again. And then we'll have him!”
Quint watches the water. “Get another barrel," he says. “Bring it back here."
Brody runs to the front of the boat and gets a barrel. He carries it over to Quint.
“Here he comes!” says Quint. He points down to the left. The barrel comes to the surface and moves in the water. Quint picks up a harpoon. “He's coming up!”
The shark jumps out of the water. It is less than three meters from the boat.
"I'll get you!” cries Quint, and he throws the second harpoon. The harpoon hits the shark and it falls back into the sea. Water comes over the boat.
The second line goes overboard. "We've got him!” says Quint.
The boat moves once and then again. They hear the sound of something breaking.
“Do you want to attack again?" Quint asks the shark. “You won't take any man with you!”
Quint starts the boat, and they begin moving away.
"Is the boat OK?" says Brody.
“He made a hole under us," says Quint. “But we'll be OK."
“That's it then," Brody says happily. “The fish is dead."
“No," says Quint. “Look."
Brody looks back and sees the two yellow barrels in the sea behind them.
"Why is he coming after us? Does he think we're food?"
“No. He wants to fight us."
For the first time, Quint is afraid.
“Do sharks usually do this?"
“No," says Quint. “They sometimes attack the boat. But they stop after you hit them with a harpoon. But this one wants to fight. So we'll fight him!”
Quint drives the boat faster. The barrels follow them. He slows the boat and picks up a third harpoon. “OK!” he calls. “Come and get it!”
The barrels move through the water. They are forty meters away, then thirty, then twenty. Brody sees the shark swim past the boat below the water. It is two meters from the surface. “He's here!” he cries.
The shark swims past the boat. After forty meters it turns. Its head comes out of the water, and then drops back in. “Here he comes!” says Quint.
The shark hits the boat and Quint throws his harpoon. It hits the shark in the head, over the right eye. The line goes slowly overboard.
"I got him in the head!” says Quint.
But the barrels move on across the surface of the water. Then they go under.
"What's he doing?" says Quint. “No fish can attack with three harpoons in him! But he can't live for much longer. And we can wait!”
For three hours they wait. They watch the barrels move slowly across the surface of the sea.
At eleven o'clock the rain stops. Then for nearly an hour the barrels do not move.
"What do you think?" says Brody. "Is he dead?"
"I don't think so. But perhaps we can pull him in with a strong line."
They begin to pull him in. The shark is very heavy. The barrels do not move.
Then suddenly the line starts coming at them fast.
“Did the line break?" says Brody.
“No!” says Quint. Brody sees he is afraid. “He's coming up."
Quint starts the boat. But it is too late.
The shark comes up above the surface. Brody watches it jump, and cries out.
The shark drops down onto the back of the boat, and pushes it below the surface. The water comes up their legs.
The shark is now only a meter from Brody's head. He looks into its big black eye and thinks, "I'm going to die..."
“Look what you did to my boat!” cries Quint as he falls onto his back. The boat starts going down with the weight of the shark on it.
With one final effort, Quint throws the last harpoon towards the shark. It hits the shark in the face above its black eye.
Quint begins to slip down towards the shark’s open mouth. Its jaws open and close in a terrible rhythm.
Quint screams and kicks the shark in the head, but it is too late. The shark moves its head and closes its jaws over Quint’s legs. Quint screams a terrible scream!
Brody tries to help him, but he can't do anything for him. The shark begins to fall back into the water with the harpoons in its body and Quint in its mouth. The big fisherman goes slowly down, under the dark water.
For a short time there is no sound. The water is up to Brody's shoulders now. Twenty meters away the shark comes back up above the surface. “Go away!” cries Brody.
The big fish comes nearer and nearer. Brody cries out. Then he closes his eyes and waits.
Nothing happens. When Brody opens his eyes he sees the shark there next to him. For a short time it does not move. Then it slowly falls back below the surface of the water, down and down, out of the light. Quint’s lifeless body is still in its mouth.
Brody watches the dead shark fall down and down into the sea. The barrels prevent the monster from sinking to the bottom.
Brody takes out a small knife he keeps on his belt and cuts the lines. He ties the lines together and uses the barrels as a raft. Then he begins to swim towards the shore.
