10 Shark Against Man 



down-creek, where it would be trapped by the chicken-wire barrier. But 

 the hastily strung fence only partially blocked the creek. 



When this futile fence was completed, Fisher dived into the creek. 

 Several men were in the water, diving to the bottom, feeling in the mud 

 for Lester's body. Fisher swam alone to the deep spot. Arthur Smith, 51, 

 a carpenter by trade and a hunter by avocation, was diving, too. On 

 shore, his daughter was screaming to him: "Come back. Pa! Come back!" 

 The task was for younger men. But Smith kept diving, defying the 

 death that swam by him and, finally, touched him. (A day would come 

 when Arthur Smith, half blind and almost deaf at 95, would sit hunched 

 and feeble in an old house on the bank of Matawan Creek. Suddenly, at 

 shouted mention of that awful day, he would spring forward in his 

 chair and vividly recreate that moment when he felt the shark scrape 

 his leg. At 95, he would still carry the scars and show them to one of the 

 authors.) 



Smith saw Fisher make two "overhangs"— powerful overhand strokes 

 —and dive down, down . . . 



Arthur S. Van Buskirk, a local deputy of the Monmouth County 

 Detectives' Office, had just arrived at the creek. He was sitting on the 

 forward deck of a small boat when he saw a thrashing in the water at 

 the farther shore. Even as he looked, the water calmed and a rapidly 

 widening red stain spread on the surface. Van Buskirk yelled at the 

 other man in the boat to start the engine and, while it sputtered to life. 

 Van Buskirk sculled toward the red stain, in the midst of which Stanley 

 Fisher had suddenly appeared. 



Fisher was facing the farther bank. The silent crowd at Wyckoff Dock 

 could see only his broad back and shoulders. He was drawn up, half 

 crouching in waist-deep water and he seemed to be tottering on one leg. 

 The boat pulled up directly behind Fisher. Van Buskirk could see that 

 Fisher was holding the bloody remnants of his right leg in both hands. 

 Just as Fisher was about to pitch forward face first into the water. Van 

 Buskirk reached out and pulled him into his arms. He could get Fisher 

 only halfway out of the water. The boat backed out of the shoal water 

 and, as it turned to head toward the dock, a gasp rippled through the 

 crowd. Now they could see Fisher, breasting the water like a macabre 

 figurehead on the prow of the boat. Enough of him was out of the water 

 so that his terrible wound could be seen. From groin to kneecap the flesh 

 was gone from his right leg. Several women fainted. Little Alfreda Matz, 

 one of the many children on the dock, tried to look. But her father threw 

 the tail of his suit coat across her eyes and hugged her face to his side. 

 She thought, A crocodile bit Mr. Fisher. 



A sound like a moan went up as the boat neared the dock, for Fisher 

 almost slipped from Van Buskirk's grasp. Staring down at Fisher's leg— it 



