he walked as much of the shore as he could before he ran into a set of outcroppings that pushed him back into the water and he tied his shoes together and hung them around his neck and went for another swim and envisioned his father 's bones somewhere on this same ocean floor and envisioned sharks and their fins and their great snapping tails and barracuda with rows of white teeth and he knew he was getting through this because he had to and the water had numbed him and he had no choice now but to do this and he might have to do it again in a couple of days when the betsy ross dropped its booty off the island 's southern tip , and he knew that the only way to conquer fear was to face it , he 'd learned that in the war enough , but even so , if he could manage it , he would never , ever , get in the ocean again .