A Tender Embrace

by Rex Sumner

when Mot barked like crazy and jumped over the side, swimming strongly towards a mass of bubbles roiling to the surface. Silmatea burst out of the bubbles and pulled Pat's head up. It lolled weakly to the side and Mot was beside them, trying to grab his shoulder and lift him up in the water, unsuccessfully. Rat aimed the canoe awkwardly in their direction, while Silmatea left Pat with Mot, took a couple of quick strokes and eeled into the canoe, relieving Rat of the paddle and telling him to pull Pat aboard.

  Quickly she manoeuvred the boat alongside Pat, and Rat pulled him aboard as the blood sluiced out of him. Mot barked wetly through a wave as he forgot her, so he had to pull her in as well. As soon as Pat was aboard, Silmatea stopped paddling, rushed forward and pushed on Pat's chest, causing him to vomit water. She turned him on his side and he coughed weakly, while she worked his chest till he was breathing to her satisfaction. Through this he continued to bleed.

  This took moments, and as soon as she was satisfied she simply leapt over the side with a rope in one hand. Rat hesitated, not sure whether to take the paddle or help Pat. Mot was beside Pat, licking his wound, so he went to get the paddle, but had no idea where to go.

  "RAT! Throw me spear, quick!" It was Hinatea, her head just out of the water not far away. He saw her fish spear and threw it to her, cursing as he saw it was going to hit her, but she ducked under water. He wasn't sure if he hit her, and then blood welled up on the surface, followed by thrashing in the water that moved away from the canoe. A fin appeared in the thrashing, and he wondered what was going on.

  An arm came over the edge of the canoe and Silmatea was aboard, the rope between her teeth. She started hauling and shouted at him to help. It was heavy, and he strained, nearly dropping the rope as he saw the octopus was attached to it. Silmatea cursed him, leaned over the side and with difficulty hauled it up into the canoe, with Rat’s fairly ineffectual help. It flopped into the bottom. Rat could see that a couple of tentacles were missing, and he wondered if they were old wounds.

  Silmatea was back at the side, banging on the side of the canoe, splashing the water loudly, then Hinatea was sliding into the canoe, blood dripping down the side of her leg where a large patch was rubbed raw. She was panting for breath. She lay gasping in the bottom, while Silmatea checked her leg and quickly looked for other injuries.

  Hinatea hauled herself upright, grabbed a paddle and staggered to the front, while Silmatea went to the rear and slowly the girls paddled the canoe back though the gap in the reef into the lagoon. Rat stepped gingerly over the octopus, using the sides of the canoe and went to Pat, helping him to sit up. Mot stopped licking him and growled at the dead octopus.

  "Give him coconut water," Hinatea said over her shoulder, her voice hoarse and strained.

  Rat wasn't adept at opening a coconut, but managed to slash the top open with an old short sword carried for the purpose. He held it to Pat's lips, who swallowed greedily. Rat looked Pat over. He had really been in the wars. Both hands were ripped to shreds by the coral, the feet not much better. There were round marks all over his body where the suckers had gripped him, some of them surrounded with deep slash wounds where the claws had bitten deep. And there was a deep gash in his groin, where the beak had gone in, still seeping blood, but despite the flapping skin, superficial.

  The canoe rode a small wave back into the limpid calm waters of the lagoon and the girls rested, Hinatea turning and taking the coconut from Pat.

  He fixed her with a look. "Have you actually hunted those things before?"

  She squirmed and shrugged. "Not that big."

  "How big?"

  Hinatea looked down, then at the horizon, hoping for a quick squall to come in to change the subject.

  "I bet you've never even seen one before, never mind caught one," said Pat tiredly.

  "We have old stories," said Hinatea in a small voice. "Our men used to catch them this way."

  "I think they were smaller," said Silmatea in an apologetic voice. "Our people always used to kill them before they got big, as they were too dangerous when they got big."

  "How big is it?" asked Pat. "All I could see was its bloody eyes, glaring at me as it started to eat me."

  Hinatea pulled out the longest tentacle, one of the feelers with the pad at the end. It slurped out from under the body sac, the noise making Mot and Rat retreat, both clearly worried it was still alive.

  "You sure it's dead?" asked Rat nervously.

  Hinatea ignored him. She was looking in astonishment at the length, more than two tall people, almost three.

  "Not even the hero Tafa'i took a grandfather so big," she whispered. "I never think I see one this big."

  Silmatea came forward, stepping over Rat and Mot along the gunwale of the canoe and squatted there looking down at it. Then she prodded Hinatea's leg, just missing the wound.

  "Mao?" she asked. "How many?"

  "I think three sharks," said Hinatea. "Two get tentacles, I get one."

  "One come very close," said Silmatea, inspecting the leg. "From head or tail?"

  "What does she mean?" asked Rat, looking more closely at Hinatea's leg. It looked as if something had shaved the skin off a large patch.

  "Shark come close," Hinatea said dismissively. "Their skin very rough. This from head, hit leg." She prodded Pat's side, finding a patch without a wound. "Hey, hero, fun, hey? Tomorrow we catch another?"

  Pat grinned at her. "Sure. If we can find this baby's daddy!" They laughed together and Rat shook his head.

  "How did you kill the thing? Last thing I saw was you being pulled into a hole!"

  "I didn't fit," said Pat. "While it was trying to get at me through the hole, it half let go and I kicked off the rock just as the girls got to me and pulled. It followed us out of the hole and grabbed me, started to eat me." He indicated his groin. "Hin came up behind it, pulled its head back and bit it."

  Hinatea smacked him half-heartedly. "My name is Hinatea, not Hin. Very rude Padraigh."

  "Sorry," said Pat automatically. "So what happened next?"

  "He tough," said Hinatea absently, rubbing her arm where they now saw some bruising and gashes on her back. "Hard, very hard to bite his brain. He spin when I do it. Hit me against rock. Then he dead. Shark come to eat him, have to chase off. Cannot come up or lose grandfather to shark, but no air. Silmatea bring me rope. Kiss me to give air. I stay down while you pull up grandfather, keep shark off."

  The boys looked at her, letting this stark account sink in. Pat, who had been feeling very brave and heroic, suddenly felt a lot less so. Silmatea smiled and went back to the stern, where she started to paddle them back to the village.

  "What do you mean, kissed you?" asked Rat.

  "Bad boy," said Hinatea tiredly, without looking at him. "Not sex. She blow air into me so I don't need go up."

  "Wow," said Rat. "I would never have thought of that."

  "When we go into the village, Padraigh must go first with Hinatea, Rat and I follow with grandfather," said Silmatea. "Important we look good. Very special to take a big grandfather. They make a big feast in our honour tonight." She rubbed her hands together gleefully.

  "How are we going to carry it?" asked Rat in alarm. "I'm not letting that thing touch me!"

  "Is not thing," said Hinatea indignantly. "Is grandfather, show respect like to Captain."

  "I still don't want to touch it," muttered Rat with a worried look.

  "Don't worry about it," said Silmatea. "We will carry it on our fish spears. We put them across our shoulders, and Hinatea will arrange grandfather over them so they can see how big he is."

  The canoe grounded gently into the white sand, with Mot leaping for the beach and barking at the children who came running and screaming to welcome them, all shouting out asking what they had caught. Pat eased over the side and limped ashore, causing the children to redouble their questions, all shouting at once. In Vituan so he couldn't understand a word.

&n
bsp; They fell silent all at once.

  Hinatea had proudly lifted the grandfather up so they could see it.

  None of the children said a word as Hinatea arranged the grandfather artistically on the spears, being careful to ensure it didn't touch Rat. Silmatea carried more of their catch in her net, while Rat had the fish in Hinatea's net. Mot took up her accustomed station in the lead, tail held proudly high as if she alone were responsible for the catch. As they started forward, the kids silently split apart and followed. A couple of fishermen mending nets at the edge of the town stood up, looking at them.

  Pat was in a lot of pain, especially from the bite in his groin, but the wounds in his feet from kicking the coral were very bad on the walk. Hinatea helped a little, but she was also hampered by her thigh which she was careful to keep on the other side of Pat. It was very slow progress. They could see the Great Ratu, the leader of Vitua, sitting under the palm trees by the council rock, one arm around Lieutenant Suzanne Delarosa and talking earnestly to the Princess Asmara. Captain Larroche had seen them, for he stood up.

  Pat looked back at the octopus, seeing the two staggering under the awkward weight. He could feel the quiet falling around the village, and people were appearing from everywhere to watch silently as they made their grand entrance. He tried to stand straighter. It wasn’t every day you limped into town a hero, having battled a monster from legend.

  They staggered proudly up towards the Great