One very grey stormy evening on Nonsuch Island, off the coast of Bermuda (on that same island as William Beebe lived while doing his epic deep-sea descent in the bathysphere, built by his engineering colleague, Otis Barton), I witnessed one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen. I strolled down to South Beach – sounds grand, but it is only about 120 feet long – and stood looking out to sea, watching the wind whip the tops off the incoming waves, while following the vain progress of numerous men-o-war, trying not to get themselves stranded on the beach.
Men-o-war have no guard against this disaster other than to withdraw tentacles, deflate their floats and reduce their surface area to wind and wave. One-by-one they succumbed – slewed up the sloping sand, like inky smudges emanating from stranded bottles. One beached itself close to where I was standing, but from somewhere, came a curious slapping sound. Men-o-war do not have the ability to so much as twitch, let alone slap. I was sure that my ears were not playing tricks. Once again it happened, and this time the sound definitely came from exactly where a man-o-war lay, just as the water receded from around it, leaving it high and dry.
I began then to watch men-o-war more closely, as they approached the shore. One came in, became stranded, and was accompanied by no sound at all. Another came towards me, and suddenly I knew what it was. This one had, beneath its tentacles, a very agitated Nomeid Man- o-war Fish – its startling silver and navy blue stripes unquestionably identifying it. As the Physalia swirled in on the next wave, the nomeid came with it. Now the pair were in only two inches of water and this was rapidly dwindling to two millimetres. Both creatures bottomed on the streaming wet sand. The Physalia lay limp and defeated, but not its faithful friend. The man-o-war fish fought furiously to swim, but no water! Suddenly its swimming activity translated into that mechanical rattling. It slapped the sand with its tail, making a sound like a football rattle. For fully twenty seconds it struggled. On the next but one wave it was afforded just enough depth of water, and it reluctantly allowed itself to be floated seawards, yet still faced back up the beach towards its now dying companion.
What friendship, what faith, what pathos.
