Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo [21]
Aside from the report on infantile paralysis, which, to his relief, had not reached the southern Jersey shore, the doctor was keenly interested in the War Department's recent analysis of the new class of German U-boats, said to be the most devastating marine weapons ever invented. They were capable of crossing the Atlantic entirely underwater, and according to the Ledger, mid-Atlantic seaports such as Baltimore, Atlantic City, Wilmington, and Cape May were the most likely targets of attack, for much of the nation's coal, iron, oil, and munitions was produced within an eighty-mile radius of Philadelphia.
The family had been disappointed when the doctor announced that they were not going to their summer home in Cape May, with its Baltimore and Philadelphia society, Queen Anne mansions, and familiar rhythms. Charles was especially dejected; he cherished his hours sailing in his own boat. Louisa, however, was relieved, for she fretted about her son's safety in the sailboat, far at sea. Given the headlines in the Ledger, Dr. Vansant thought Beach Haven, a remote, little-known family resort, was a prudent choice—the safest possible place.
An editorial in another newspaper that summer left the doctor pondering the new century. Noting an unusual occurrence of wars and revolutions, strange crimes, divorces, heat waves, and unforeseen hurricanes, the editorial writer pondered the possibility that technology had destroyed a natural equilibrium, setting something amiss in this “erratic era”:
Mariners tell of strange storms arising, seemingly, from convulsions beneath the deep rather than in the heavens above. Can it be that the forces of destruction let loose by man have been mighty enough to throw the terrestrial adjustment off its balance and put the universe out of whack? Is it possible that our submarine prowlings and torpedoings have disturbed the Atlantic currents, or displaced the Spanish mainspring? Something certainly is wrong somewhere, and it would seem to be up to the geodetic gentlemen to solve the matter 'ere we monkey further with forces that may turn upon us to our complete annihilation.
The Most Frightening Animal on Earth
Fortunately for everything else that swam, the great white grew slowly. Its body stiffened along three parallel muscles that ran from snout to tail. With the new bulk came a decline in speed, and the shark's narrow teeth, once ideal for snaring fish, broadened out so that catching small fish grew almost impossible. Adaptation was not difficult. The shark's size and strength were enormous advantages now, and its speed still remarkable for its size.
Like an infant child, the shark's head had rapidly achieved adult size, expanding massively. Twenty-six teeth bristled along its top jaw, twenty-four along the bottom jaw. Behind these functional teeth, under the gum, lay successive rows of additional teeth, baby teeth that were softer but quickly grew and calcified. Every two weeks or so, the entire double row of fifty functional teeth simply rolled over the jaw and fell out, and a completely new set of fifty rose in its place. White and new, strong and serrated. Broken or worn teeth were not an issue for the apex predator.
Little is known about the shark's appetite, except it was enormous, and like a man who didn't know where his next meal was coming from, the fish gorged itself. The waters of the subtropics, off southern Florida, had lured the shark that winter, emerald shallows crowded with prey. As the shark grew, its appetite shifted from small, cold-blooded fish to large, warm-blooded creatures, luscious with blubber and fat, rich with the oil that it would store in its liver for long periods to prevent starvation. It was a lesson in survival, and the shark was survival's star pupil.
With quick thrusts of its dorsal fin, the shark plunged to the bottom of the ocean, huge eyes widening to absorb light from