This time Ros took no chances; instead of trusting it to the fringe of grubby surf it had funked already, she threw it high into the air, a great arc-like throw which made sure that sink or swim the sea was where it had to stay. And this time the fish responded. We could even see the channel it made, like a torpedo’s, as it sped towards it future.

At the moment of effecting the throw, however, her hand had been cut open by the sharp edge of the fish’s fin, and now it bled onto the beach. And also at that very moment, even before the fish had hit the water, she had heard the sharp, infuriated cry of a bird. It was a sea eagle, fanning the air above us, and looking to see what had become of its catch. Now we knew what the fish had been doing where we found it. It was the eagle’s. The eagle had dropped it and was coming back for it just as we happened along. Now he would have to start all over again. He looked bitterly put out, only marginally avenged in Ros’s bleeding hand. He glided low over us, giving us a glimpse of the lovely reddish brown of his wing tips, and an idea of how nice it would have been to have had him for a friend. I thought of the albatross. And we had done an hellish thing and it would work us woe. Or rather, Ros had. She might have saved a life instead of taking one; but she had still interfered in the ways of Nature. She had severed a link in the Great Chain of Being, and there was no saying who might suffer as a consequence of that. Was blood to be just the start of it?

It wasn’t a drastic wound. There’s a limit to how much damage a half-dead angel fish can inflict. And in normal circumstances Ros would have thought no more about it. But we had been warned countless times about the possibility of a coral-associated cut turning septic, and recommended always to go along with any injury to the Dive Shop, where supplies of iodine were kept.