Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 183 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

Mr Krest sat back, well pleased with himself. ‘Well, what d’you say to that, fellers? Twenty-four hours in the island and I’ve already knocked off three-quarters of my list. Pretty smart, eh, Jim?’

Bond said: ‘You’ll probably get a medal when you get home. What about this fish?’

Mr Krest got up from the table and rummaged in a drawer of his desk. He brought back a typewritten sheet. ‘Here you are.’ He read out: ‘ “Hildebrand Rarity. Caught by Professor Hildebrand of the University of the Witwatersrand in a net off Chagrin Island in the Seychelles group, April 1925” . ’ Mr Krest looked up. ‘And then there’s a lot of scientific crap. I got them to put it into plain English, and here’s the translation.’ He turned back to the paper. ‘ “This appears to be a unique member of the squirrel-fish family. The only specimen known, named the ‘Hildebrand Rarity’ after its discoverer, is six inches long. The colour is a bright pink with black transverse stripes. The anal, ventral and dorsal fins are pink. The tail fin is black. Eyes, large and dark blue. If found, care should be taken in handling this fish because all fins are even more sharply spiked than is usual with the rest of this family. Professor Hildebrand records that he found the specimen in three feet of water on the edge of the south-western reef” . ’ Mr Krest threw the paper down on the table. ‘Well, there you are, fellers. We’re travelling about a thousand miles at a cost of several thousand dollars to try and find a goddam six-inch fish. And two years ago the Revenue people had the gall to suggest that my Foundation was a phoney!’

Liz Krest broke in eagerly: ‘But that’s just it, Milt, isn’t it? It’s really rather important to bring back plenty of specimens and things this time. Weren’t those horrible tax people talking about disallowing the yacht and the expenses and so on for the last five years if we didn’t show an outstanding scientific achievement? Wasn’t that the way they put it?’

‘Treasure,’ Mr Krest’s voice was soft as velvet. ‘Just supposin’ you keep that flippin’ trap shut about my personal affairs. Yes?’ The voice was amiable, nonchalant. ‘You know what you just done, treas? You just earned yourself a little meeting with the Corrector this evening. That’s what you’ve gone and done.’

The girl’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes were wide. She said in a whisper: ‘Oh no, Milt. Oh no, please.’On the second day out, at dawn, they came up with Chagrin Island. It was first picked up by the radar – a small bump in the dead level line on the scanner – and then a minute blur on the great curved horizon grew with infinite slowness into half a mile of green fringed with white. It was extraordinary to come upon land after two days in which the yacht had seemed to be the only moving, the only living thing in an empty world. Bond had never seen or even clearly imagined the doldrums before. Now he realized what a terrible hazard they must have been in the days of sail – the sea of glass under a brazen sun, the foul, heavy air, the trail of small clouds along the rim of the world that never came closer, never brought wind or blessed rain. How must centuries of mariners have blessed this tiny dot in the Indian Ocean as they bent to the oars that moved the heavy ship perhaps a mile a day! Bond stood in the bows and watched the flying-fish squirt from beneath the hull as the blue-black of the sea slowly mottled into the brown and white and green of deep shoal. How wonderful that he would soon be walking and swimming again instead of just sitting and lying down. How wonderful to have a few hours’ solitude – a few hours away from Mr Milton Krest!

They anchored outside the reef in ten fathoms and Fidele Barbey took them through the opening in the speed-boat. In every detail Chagrin was the prototype coral island. It was about twenty acres of sand and dead coral and low scrub surrounded, after fifty yards of shallow lagoon, by a necklace of reef on which the quiet, long swell broke with a soft hiss. Clouds of birds rose when they landed – terns, boobies, men-of-war, frigates – but quickly settled again. There was a strong ammoniac smell of guano, and the scrub was white with it. The only other living things were the land-crabs that scuttled and scraped among the liane sans fin and the fiddler-crabs that lived in the sand.

The glare from the white sand was dazzling and there was no shade. Mr Krest ordered a tent to be erected and sat in it smoking a cigar while gear of various kinds was ferried ashore. Mrs Krest swam and picked up sea-shells while Bond and Fidele Barbey put on masks and, swimming in opposite directions, began systematically to comb the reef all the way round the island.

When you are looking for one particular species underwater – shell or fish or seaweed or coral formation – you have to keep your brain and your eyes focused for that one individual pattern. The riot of colour and movement and the endless variety of light and shadow fight your concentration all the time. Bond trudged slowly along through the wonderland with only one picture in his mind – a six-inch pink fish with black stripes and big eyes – the second such fish man had ever seen. ‘If you see it,’ Mr Krest had enjoined, ‘just you let out a yell and stay with it. I’ll do the rest. I got a little something in the tent that’s just the dandiest thing for catching fish you ever saw.’

Bond paused to rest his eyes. The water was so buoyant that he could lie face downwards on the surface without moving. Idly he broke up a sea-egg with the tip of his spear and watched the horde of glittering reef-fish darting for the shreds of yellow flesh among the needle-sharp black spine. How infernal that if he did find the Rarity it would benefit only Mr Krest! Should he say nothing if he found it? Rather childish, and anyway he was under contract, so to speak. Bond moved slowly on, his eyes automatically taking up the search again while his mind turned to considering the girl. She had spent the previous day in bed. Mr Krest had said it was a headache. Would she one day turn on him? Would she get herself a knife or a gun and one night, when he reached for that damnable whip, would she kill him? No. She was too soft, too malleable. Mr Krest had chosen well. She was the stuff of slaves. And the trappings of her ‘fairy-tale’ were too precious. Didn’t she realize that a jury would certainly acquit her if the sting-ray whip was produced in court? She could have the trappings without this dreadful, damnable man. Should Bond tell her that? Don’t be ridiculous! How could he put it? ‘Oh Liz, if you want to murder your husband, it’ll be quite all right.’ Bond smiled inside his mask. To hell with it! Don’t interfere with other people’s lives. She probably likes it – masochist. But Bond knew that that was too easy an answer. This was a girl who lived in fear. Perhaps she also lived in loathing. One couldn’t read much in those soft blue eyes, but the windows had opened once or twice and a flash of something like a childish hate had shown through. Had it been hate? It had probably been indigestion. Bond put the Krests out of his mind and looked up to see how far round the island he had got. Fidele Barbey’s schnorkel was only a hundred yards away. They had nearly completed the circuit.

They came up with each other and swam to the shore and lay on the hot sand. Fidele Barbey said: ‘Nothing on my side of the property except every fish in the world bar one. But I’ve had a stroke of luck. Ran into a big colony of green snail. That’s the pearl shell as big as a small football. Worth quite a lot of money. I’ll send one of my boats after them one of these days. Saw a blue parrot-fish that must have been a good thirty pounds. Tame as a dog, like all the fish round here. Hadn’t got the heart to kill it. And if I had, there might have been trouble. Saw two or three leopard sharks cruising around over the reef. Blood in the water might have brought them through. Now I’m ready for a drink and something to eat. After that we can swap sides and have another go.’

They got up and walked along the beach to the tent. Mr Krest heard their voices and came out to meet them. ‘No dice, eh?’ He scratched angrily at an armpit. ‘Goddam sandfly bit me. This is one hell of a godawful island. Liz couldn’t stand the smell. Gone back to the ship. Guess we’d better give it one more going-over and then get the hell out of here. Help yourselves to some chow and you’ll find cold beer in the icepack. Here, gimme one of those masks. How do you use the dam’ things? I guess I might as well take a peek at the sea’s bottom while I’m about it.’

They sat in the hot tent and ate the chicken salad and drank beer, and moodily watched Mr Krest poking and peering about in the shallows. Fidele Barbey said: ‘He’s right, of course. These little islands are bloody awful places. Nothing but crabs and bird dung surrounded by too dam’ much sea. It’s only the poor bloody frozen Europeans that dream of coral islands. East of Suez, you won’t find any sane man who gives a damn for them. My family owns about ten of them – decent-sized ones too, with small villages on them and a good income from copra and turtle. Well, you can have the whole bloody lot in exchange for a flat in Paris or London.’

Bond laughed. He began: ‘Put an advertisement in The Times and you’d get sackloads…’ when, fifty yards away, Mr Krest began to make frantic signals. Bond said: ‘Either the bastard’s found it or he’s trodden on a guitar-fish,’ and picked up his mask and ran down to the sea.

Mr Krest was standing up to his waist among the shallow beginnings of the reef. He jabbed his finger excitedly at the surface. Bond swam softly forward. A carpet of sea-grass ended in broken coral and an occasional niggerhead. A dozen varieties of butterfly and other reef-fish flirted among the rocks, and a small langouste quested towards Bond with its feelers. The head of a large green moray protruded from a hole, its half-open jaws showing the rows of needle teeth. Its golden eyes watched Bond carefully. Bond was amused to note that Mr Krest’s hairy legs, magnified into pale tree-trunks by the glass, were not more than a foot away from the moray’s jaws. He gave an encouraging poke at the moray with his spear, but the eel only snapped at the metal points and slid back out of sight. Bond stopped and floated, his eyes scanning the brilliant jungle. A red blur materialized through the far mist and came towards him. It circled closely beneath him as if showing itself off. The dark blue eyes examined him without fear. The small fish busied itself rather self-consciously with some algae on the underside of a niggerhead, made a dart at a speck of something suspended in the water, and then, as if leaving the stage after showing its paces, swam languidly off back into the mist.

Bond backed away from the moray’s hole and put his feet to the ground. He took off his mask. He said to Mr Krest, who was standing gazing impatiently at him through his goggles: ‘Yes, that’s it all right. Better move quietly away from here. He won’t go away unless he’s frightened. These reef-fish stick pretty well to the same pastures.’

Mr Krest pulled off his mask. ‘Goddam, I found it!’ he said reverently. ‘Well, goddam I did.’ He slowly followed Bond to the shore.

Fidele Barbey was waiting for them. Mr Krest said boisterously: ‘Fido, I found that goddam fish. Me – Milton Krest. Whadya know about that? After you two goddam experts had been at it all morning. I just took that mask of yours – first time I ever put one on, mark you – and I walked out and found the goddam fish in fifteen minutes flat. Whadya say to that eh, Fido?’

‘That’s good, Mr Krest. That’s fine. Now how do we catch it?’

‘Aha.’ Mr Krest winked slowly. ‘I got just the ticket for that. Got it from a chemist friend of mine. Stuff called Rotenone. Made from derris root. What the natives fish with in Brazil. Just pour it in the water, where it’ll float over what you’re after, and it’ll get him as sure as eggs is eggs. Sort of poison. Constricts the blood vessels in their gills. Suffocates them. No effect on humans because no gills, see?’ Mr Krest turned to Bond. ‘Here, Jim. You go on out and keep watch. See the darned fish don’t vamoose. Fido and I’ll bring the stuff out there’ – he pointed up-current from the vital area. ‘I’ll let go the Rotenone when you say the word. It’ll drift down towards you. Right? But for lands sakes get the timing right. I’ve only got a five-gallon tin of this stuff. ’Kay?’

Bond said ‘All right,’ and walked slowly down and into the water. He swam lazily out to where he had stood before. Yes, everyone was still there, going about his business. The moray’s pointed head was back again at the edge of its hole, the langouste again queried him. In a minute, as if it had a rendezvous with Bond, the Hildebrand Rarity appeared. This time it swam up quite close to his face. It looked through the glass at his eyes and then, as if disturbed by what it had seen there, darted out of range. It played around among the rocks for a while and then went off into a mist.

Slowly the little underwater world within Bond’s vision began to take him for granted. A small octopus that had been camouflaged as a piece of coral revealed its presence and groped carefully down towards the sand. The blue and yellow langouste came a few steps out from under the rock, wondering about him. Some very small fish like minnows nibbled at his legs and toes, tickling. Bond broke a sea-egg for them and they darted to the better meal. Bond lifted his head. Mr Krest, holding the flat can, was twenty yards away to Bond’s right. He would soon begin pouring, when Bond gave the sign, so that the liquid would get a good wide spread over the surface.

‘Okay?’ called Mr Krest.

Bond shook his head. ‘I’ll raise my thumb when he’s back here. Then you’ll have to pour fast.’

‘Okay, Jim. You’re at the bomb-sight.’

Bond put his head down. There was the little community, everyone busied with his affairs. Soon, to get one fish that someone vaguely wanted in a museum five thousand miles away, a hundred, perhaps a thousand small people were going to die. When Bond gave the signal, the shadow of death would come down on the stream. How long would the poison last? How far would it travel on down the reef? Perhaps it would not be thousands but tens of thousands that would die.

A small trunk-fish appeared, its tiny fins whirring like propellers. A rock beauty, gorgeous in gold and red and black, pecked at the sand, and a pair of the inevitable black and yellow striped sergeant-majors materialized from nowhere, attracted by the scent of the broken sea-egg.

Inside the reef, who was the predator in the world of small fishes? Who did they fear? Small barracuda? An occasional bill-fish? Now, a big, a fully grown predator, a man called Krest, was standing in the wings, waiting. And this one wasn’t even hungry. He was just going to kill – almost for fun.

Two brown legs appeared in Bond’s vision. He looked up. It was Fidele Barbey with a big creel strapped to his chest, and a long-handled landing-net.

Bond lifted his mask. ‘I feel like the bomb-aimer at Nagasaki.’

‘Fish are cold-blooded. They don’t feel anything.’

‘How do you know? I’ve heard them scream when they’re hurt.’

Barbey said indifferently: ‘They won’t be able to scream with this stuff. It strangles them. What’s eating you? They’re only fish.’

‘I know, I know.’ Fidele Barbey had spent his life killing animals and fish. While he, Bond, had sometimes not hesitated to kill men. What was he fussing about? He hadn’t minded killing the sting-ray. Yes, but that was an enemy fish. These down here were friendly people. People? The pathetic fallacy!

‘Hey!’ came the voice of Mr Krest. ‘What’s goin’ on over there? This ain’t no time for chewing the fat. Get that head down, Jim.’

Bond pulled down his mask and lay again on the surface. At once he saw the beautiful red shadow coming out of the far mists. The fish swam fast up to him as if it now took him for granted. It lay below him, looking up. Bond said into his mask: ‘Get away from here, damn you.’ He gave a sharp jab at the fish with his harpoon. The fish fled back into the mist. Bond lifted his head and angrily raised his thumb. It was a ridiculous and petty act of sabotage of which he was already ashamed. The dark brown oily liquid was pouring out on to the surface of the lagoon. There was time to stop Mr Krest before it was all gone – time to give him another chance at the Hildebrand Rarity. Bond stood and watched until the last drop was tilted out. To hell with Mr Krest!

Now the stuff was creeping slowly down on the current – a shiny, spreading stain which reflected the blue sky with a metallic glint. Mr Krest, the giant reaper, was wading down with it. ‘Get set, fellers,’ he called cheerfully. ‘It’s right up with you now.’

Bond put his head back under the surface. Everything was as before in the little community. And then, with stupefying suddenness, everyone went mad. It was as if they had all been seized with St Vitus’s dance. Several fish looped the loop crazily and then fell like heavy leaves to the sand. The moray eel came slowly out of the hole in the coral, its jaws wide. It stood carefully upright on its tail and gently toppled sideways. The small langouste gave three kicks of its tail and turned over on its back, and the octopus let go its hold of the coral and drifted to the bottom upside-down. And then into the arena drifted the corpses from up-stream – white-bellied fish, shrimps, worms, hermit crabs, spotted and green morays, langoustes of all sizes. As if blown by some light breeze of death the clumsy bodies, their colours already fading, swept slowly past. A five-pound bill-fish struggled by with snapping beak, fighting death. Down-reef there were splashes on the surface as still bigger fish tried to make for safety. One by one, before Bond’s eyes, the sea-urchins dropped off the rocks to make black ink-blots on the sand.

Bond felt a touch on his shoulder. Mr Krest’s eyes were bloodshot with the sun and glare. He had put white sunburn paste on his lips. He shouted impatiently at Bond’s mask, ‘Where in hell’s our goddam fish?’

Bond lifted his mask. ‘Looks as if it managed to get away just before the stuff came down. I’m still watching for it.’

He didn’t wait to hear Mr Krest’s reply but got his head quickly under water again. Still more carnage, still more dead bodies. But surely the stuff had passed by now. Surely the area was safe just in case the fish, his fish because he had saved it, came back again! He stiffened. In the far mists there was a pink flash. It had gone. Now it was back again. Idly the Hildebrand Rarity swam towards him through the maze of channels between the broken outposts of the reef.

Not caring about Mr Krest, Bond raised his free hand out of the water and brought it down with a sharp slap. Still the fish came. Bond shifted the safe on his harpoon-gun and fired it in the direction of the fish. No effect. Bond put his feet down and began to walk towards the fish through the scattering of corpses. The beautiful red and black fish seemed to pause and quiver. Then it shot straight through the water towards Bond and dived down to the sand at his feet and lay still. Bond only had to bend to pick it up. There was not even a last flap from the tail. It just filled Bond’s hand, lightly pricking the palm with the spiny black dorsal fin. Bond carried it back under-water so as to preserve its colours. When he got to Mr Krest he said ‘Here,’ and handed him the small fish. Then he swam away towards the shore.That evening, with the Wavekrest heading for home down the path of a huge yellow moon, Mr Krest gave orders for what he called a ‘wingding’. ‘Gotta celebrate, Liz. This is terrific, a terrific day. Cleaned up the last target and we can get the hell out of these goddam Seychelles and get on back to civilization. What say we make it to Mombasa when we’ve taken on board the tortoise and that goddam parrot? Fly to Nairobi and pick up a big plane for Rome, Venice, Paris – anywheres you care for. What say, treasure?’ He squeezed her chin and cheeks in his big hand and made the pale lips pout. He kissed them drily. Bond watched the girl’s eyes. They had shut tight. Mr Krest let go. The girl massaged her face. It was still white with his finger-marks.

‘Gee, Milt,’ she said half laughing, ‘you nearly squashed me. You don’t know your strength. But do let’s celebrate. I think that would be lots of fun. And that Paris idea sounds grand. Let’s do that, shall we? What shall I order for dinner?’

‘Hell – caviare of course.’ Mr Krest held his hands apart. ‘One of those two-pound tins from Hammacher Schlemmer – the grade ten shot size, and all the trimmings. And that pink champagne.’ He turned to Bond. ‘That suit you, feller?’

‘Sounds like a square meal.’ Bond changed the subject. ‘What have you done with the prize?’

‘Formalin. Up on the boat-deck with some other jars of stuff we’ve picked up here and there – fish, shells. All safe in our home morgue. That’s how we were told to keep the specimens. We’ll airmail that damned fish when we get back to civilization. Give a Press conference first. Should make a big play in the papers back home. I’ve already radioed the Smithsonian and the news agencies. My accountants’ll sure be glad of some Press cuttings to show those darned revenue boys.’

Mr Krest got very drunk that night. It did not show greatly. The soft Bogart voice became softer and slower. The round, hard head turned more deliberately on the shoulders. The lighter’s flame took increasingly long to relight the cigar, and one glass was swept off the table. But it showed in the things Mr Krest said. There was a violent cruelty, a pathological desire to wound, quite near the surface in the man. That night, after dinner, the first target was James Bond. He was treated to a soft-spoken explanation as to why Europe, with England and France in the van, was a rapidly diminishing asset to the world. Nowadays, said Mr Krest, there were only three powers – America, Russia and China. That was the big poker game and no other country had either the chips or the cards to come into it. Occasionally some pleasant little country – and he admitted they’d been pretty big league in the past – like England would be lent some money so that they could take a hand with the grown-ups. But that was just being polite like one sometimes had to be – to a chum in one’s club who’d gone broke. No. England – nice people, mind you, good sports – was a place to see the old buildings and the Queen and so on. France? They only counted for good food and easy women. Italy? Sunshine and spaghetti. Sanatorium, sort of. Germany? Well, they still had some spunk, but two lost wars had knocked the heart out of them. Mr Krest dismissed the rest of the world with a few similar tags and then asked Bond for his comments.

Bond was thoroughly tired of Mr Krest. He said he found Mr Krest’s point of view oversimplified – he might even say naive. He said: ‘Your argument reminds me of a rather sharp aphorism I once heard about America. Care to hear it?’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘It’s to the effect that America has progressed from infancy to senility without having passed through a period of maturity.’

Mr Krest looked thoughtfully at Bond. Finally he said: ‘Why, say, Jim, that’s pretty neat.’ His eyes hooded slightly as they turned towards his wife. ‘Guess you’d kinda go along with that remark of Jim’s, eh, treasure? I recall you saying once you reckoned there was something pretty childish about the Americans. Remember?’

‘Oh Milt.’ Liz Krest’s eyes were anxious. She had read the signs. ‘How can you bring that up? You know it was only something casual I said about the comic sections of the papers. Of course I don’t agree with what James says. Anyway, it was only a joke, wasn’t it, James?’

‘That’s right,’ said Bond. ‘Like when Mr Krest said England had nothing but ruins and a queen.’

Mr Krest’s eyes were still on the girl. He said softly: ‘Shucks, treasure. Why are you looking so nervous? ’Course it was a joke.’ He paused. ‘And one I’ll remember, treasure. One I’ll sure remember.’

Bond estimated that by now Mr Krest had just about one whole bottle of various alcohols, mostly whisky, inside him. It looked to Bond as if, unless Mr Krest passed out, the time was not far off when Bond would have to hit Mr Krest just once very hard on the jaw.

Fidele Barbey was now being given the treatment. ‘These islands of yours, Fido. When I first looked them up on the map I thought it was just some specks of fly-dirt on the page.’ Mr Krest chuckled. ‘Even tried to brush them off with the back of my hand. Then I read a bit about them and it seemed to me my first thoughts had just about hit the nail on the head. Not much good for anything, are they, Fido? I wonder an intelligent guy like you doesn’t get the hell out of there. Beachcombing ain’t any kind of a life. Though I did hear one of your family had logged over a hundred illegitimate children. Mebbe that’s the attraction, eh, feller?’ Mr Krest grinned knowingly.

Fidele Barbey said equably: ‘That’s my uncle, Gaston. The rest of the family doesn’t approve. It’s made quite a hole in the family fortune.’

‘Family fortune, eh?’ Mr Krest winked at Bond. ‘What’s it in? Cowrie-shells?’

‘Not exactly.’ Fidele Barbey was not used to Mr Krest’s brand of rudeness. He looked mildly embarrassed. ‘Though we made quite a lot out of tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl about a hundred years ago when there was a rage for these things. Copra’s always been our main business.’

‘Using the family bastards as labour, I guess. Good idea. Wish I could fix something like that in my home circle.’ He looked across at his wife. The rubbery lips turned still further down. Before the next gibe could be uttered, Bond had pushed his chair back and had gone out into the well-deck and pulled the door shut behind him.

Ten minutes later, Bond heard feet coming softly down the ladder from the boat-deck. He turned. It was Liz Krest. She came over to where he was standing in the stern. She said in a strained voice: ‘I said I’d go to bed. But then I thought I’d come back here and see if you’d got everything you want. I’m not a very good hostess, I’m afraid. Are you sure you don’t mind sleeping out here?’

‘I like it. I like this kind of air better than the canned stuff inside. And it’s rather wonderful to have all those stars to look at. I’ve never seen so many before.’

She said eagerly, grasping at a friendly topic: ‘I like Orion’s Belt and the Southern Cross the best. You know, when I was young, I used to think the stars were really holes in the sky. I thought the world was surrounded by a great big black sort of envelope, and that outside it the universe was full of bright light. The stars were just holes in the envelope that let little sparks of light through. One gets terribly silly ideas when one’s young.’ She looked up at him, wanting him not to snub her.

Bond said: ‘You’re probably quite right. One shouldn’t believe all the scientists say. They want to make everything dull. Where did you live then?’

‘At Ringwood in the New Forest. It was a good place to be brought up. A good place for children. I’d like to go there again one day.’

Bond said: ‘You’ve certainly come a long way since then. You’d probably find it pretty dull.’

She reached out and touched his sleeve. ‘Please don’t say that. You don’t understand – ’ there was an edge of desperation in the soft voice – ‘I can’t bear to go on missing what other people have – ordinary people. I mean,’ she laughed nervously, ‘you won’t believe me, but just to talk like this for a few minutes, to have someone like you to talk to, is something I’d almost forgotten.’ She suddenly reached for his hand and held it hard. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to do that. Now I’ll go to bed.’

The soft voice came from behind them. The speech had slurred, but each word was carefully separated from the next. ‘Well, well. Whadya know? Necking with the underwater help!’

Mr Krest stood framed in the hatch to the saloon. He stood with his legs apart and his arms upstretched to the lintel above his head. With the light behind him he had the silhouette of a baboon. The cold, imprisoned breath of the saloon rushed out past him and for a moment chilled the warm night air in the well-deck. Mr Krest stepped out and softly pulled the door to behind him.

Bond took a step towards him, his hands held loosely at his sides. He measured the distance to Mr Krest’s solar plexus. He said: ‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Mr Krest. And watch your tongue. You’re lucky not to have got hurt so far tonight. Don’t press your luck. You’re drunk. Go to bed.’

‘Oho! Listen to the cheeky feller.’ Mr Krest’s moon-burned face turned slowly from Bond to his wife. He made a contemptuous, Hapsburg-lip grimace. He took a silver whistle out of his pocket and whirled it round on its string. ‘He sure don’t get the picture, does he, treasure? You ain’t told him that those Heinies up front ain’t just for ornament?’ He turned back to Bond. ‘Feller, you move any closer and I blow this – just once. And you know what? It’ll be the old heave-ho for Mr goddam Bond’ – he made a gesture towards the sea – ‘over the side. Man overboard. Too bad. We back up to make a search and you know what, feller? Just by chance we back up into you with those twin screws. Would you believe it! What lousy bad luck for that nice feller Jim we were all getting so fond of!’ Mr Krest swayed on his feet. ‘Dya get the photo, Jim? Okay, so let’s all be friends again and get some shut-eye.’ He reached for the lintel of the hatch and turned to his wife. He lifted his free hand and slowly crooked a finger. ‘Move, treasure. Time for bed.’

‘Yes, Milt.’ The wide, frightened eyes turned sideways. ‘Goodnight, James.’ Without waiting for an answer, she ducked under Mr Krest’s arm and almost ran through the saloon.