OCTOPUS!
But that very quality of the octopus that most horrifies the imagination, its relentless tenacity, becomes its undoing when hungry man steps into the picture. The Gilbertese happen to value certain parts of it as food, and their method of fighting it is coolly based upon the one fact that its arms never change their grip. They hunt for it in pairs. One man acts as the bait, his partner as the killer. First, they swim eyes-under at low tide just off the reef, and search the crannies of the submarine cliff for sight of any tentacle that may flicker out for a catch. When they have placed their quarry, they land on the reef for the next stage.
The human bait starts the real game. He dives and tempts the lurking brute by swimming a few strokes in front of its cranny, at first a little beyond striking range. Then he turns and makes straight for the cranny, to give himself into the embrace of those waiting arms. Sometimes nothing happens. The beast will not always respond to the lure. But usually it strikes.
The partner on the reef above stares down through the pellucid water, waiting for his moment. His teeth are his only weapon. His killing efficiency depends on his avoiding every one of those strangling arms. When the moment of impact comes, he drops feet first into the sea. Down, down he goes, straight for the central horror of the entanglement. His arrival must be nicely timed. He must land on the octopus's head before the brute has had time to get more than a couple of its arms around the victim. A quick landing enables the killer to get a safe hold of his own on its bulbous head. The next instant, his teeth are buried in the nerve-centre behind the eyes. A convulsive shudder runs through the victim-embracing arms; their hold relaxes; the man-bait is free. The battle is over.
When the pair rose to the surface, the boys on the reef shouted with joy. I swam to meet them. The live man was laughing, the dead octopus was draped around his neck. It looked like a gigantic, slimy necklace. He told me between gasps that the brute had been a little bigger than average, a full seven-footer. He laid the corpse on the reef. The boys clustered round to admire, and my friend stood among them, panting and beaming, the hero of the hour.
And I, who had been his decoy! I felt a little sick as I looked at the obscene thing lying there. One of the boys, who had a knife, began to cut the arms into sections. They were still writhing. Every now and then a piece would detach itself from the slimy mess and crawl away on its suckers. Another boy would pounce on it, laughing, and bring it back. They were all very happy. But my budding self-esteem had been pricked. My friend, the hero, had told them I was not by any stretch of fancy a giant, but just plain average. That took the bulge out of my budding self-esteem. I left hurriedly for the cover of the jetty, and was sick.
- from A Pattern of Islands by ARTHUR GRIMBLE