Fight with the sharks in The Old Man and the Sea
When Santiago was happily sailing home with the marlin, a Mako shark was in pursuit of the big marlin. It came following the blood of marlin. It "was built as a sword fish". Its teeth "were shaped like a man's fingers" with "razor-sharp cutting edges". Santiago soon observed the shark and got ready. When the shark hit the marlin, Santiago "rammed the harpoon down onto the shark's head". The shark died but it "took about forty pounds" of meat and the harpoon too.
Santiago knows that "bad time is coming" and soon more sharks would come. He encourages himself: "But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated." He prepares himself for an unwinnable fight: "It is silly not to hope".
After two hours a couple of "shovel-nosed sharks" attacked marlin. Santiago tied the knife to the oar. He hit one of the sharks into "yellow cat-like eyes" and it sank. Santiago hit the other shark a couple of times but it did not move and then he hit it in the eye. He regrets:
"I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish. Neither for you nor for me. I'm sorry, fish."
A shovelnose shark came like a pig. Santiago dealt with it. He says: "I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller". Then fighting a pack of sharks, he loses all his possible weapons. Santiago sees a number of fins but can he do nothing.
