chapter 1 



The Shadows Attack 



Down the beach he ran, an impatient 

 young man drawn to the cool and beck- 

 oning sea. He had arrived at the resort in Beach Haven, New Jersey, 

 scarcely minutes before. And now— Saturday, July 1, 1916— Charles Van 

 Sant was plunging into the surf. 



He was 23 years old, and his life stretched before him as did the sea— 

 invitingly, excitingly, seemingly without end. On his own horizon, and 

 on the horizon of millions of other young men, there hung a cloud of 

 war. On the horizon of the sea around him, there was not a cloud. 



Behind him, on the beach, a holiday crowd was gathering. Soon his 

 father and two sisters would be there. He had left them still in their 

 shore-front suite, unpacking and settling themselves. They had been too 

 slow for him. Time had been too slow for him. He had spent ages on 

 the hot, jammed train that carried him across the breadth of New Jersey 

 from the Van Sant home in Philadelphia to Long Beach Island, a narrow 

 strip of land dotted with resorts like Beach Haven. Finally, the trip had 

 ended. Charles rushed into the suite, hastily donned his bathing suit, 

 threw on a robe, and rushed to the beach. As he dived in, he might have 

 heard someone singing, "By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea . . ." 

 The sea was beautiful in Beach Haven that day. 



Charles was a strong swimmer. With powerful strokes he pulled away 

 from shore. He swam out about a hundred yards— far enough, he de- 

 cided, for a first swim. Leisurely, reluctantly, he turned back toward 

 shore, trying to prolong this serene and solitary communion with the 

 sea. But he was not alone. 



Directly behind him, knifing toward him straight and sure, was a 

 gray shadow beneath a black fin that crested the water. They saw it 

 from the beach. Bathers screamed, but the man did not hear their cries. 

 Then, suddenly, they stood silent and motionless, frozen by the sight of 

 the narrowing gap between Van Sant and the pursuing fin. He was still 

 swimming excruciatingly slowly, unaware that he was the hunted in a 

 deadly chase. 



He was close to shore when the water churned and red foam billowed 

 around him. At that moment Alexander Ott, a former U.S. Olympic team 

 swimmer, dived into the sea and began to swim faster than he had ever 



1 



