privacyrest.blogg.se

Now the eyes and the great triangular beak were right out of the water and the beak was reaching up for his feet.

He could even feel his spine being stretched. Bond was being pulled down, inch by inch. The eyes were glaring up at him, redly, venomously, and the forest of feeding arms was at his feet and legs, tearing the cotton fabric away and flailing back. Now the head of the squid had broken the surface and the sea was being thrashed into foam by the great heaving mantle round it. On the bridge, the watch was lighting a cigarette.īond had not time to worry about them. Twenty yards away, Doctor No, also with his back to Bond, stood sentry over the thick rich cataract of whity-yellow dust. The neck above the open khaki shirt was naked, offered, waiting. His guess at the distances had been right. Ten minutes later, Bond, his wet rags clinging to his scrubbed, stinging body and his hair slicked back out of his eyes, climbed over the top of the headland.īond stepped up to the rock and inched an eye round. The wounded squid had emptied its ink sac at him.īond flattened himself against the rock and warily inched his head round the corner.īelow, on the jetty, to the left and to leeward of the drifting smoke of the guano dust, stood the tall, watchful figure of Doctor No.īond let his whole body slip down the ladder of wire and lunged through and down with all his force. It was covered with black slime, and blackness stained the sea for twenty yards around. He got a hold and reached up his other hand and slowly, agonizingly, pulled himself up so that he was sitting in the fence. So he must be alive Dazedly Bond let go the spear from his trailing hand and reached up and felt for the nearest strand of wire. But he could feel the wire cutting into the tendons behind his knees. His eyes were stinging and there was a horrible fish taste in his mouth. What had happened? Had he gone blind? He could see nothing. There were iron ship-noises and the sound of water splashing into the sea from a bilge pump. He could hear the changing beat of its engine. He tore it out, got it between his two hands and wrenched the doubled wire almost straight.įrom close by came various sounds and echoes. If he missed, he would be torn to shreds on the fence.īond thrust his knife between his teeth and his hand dived for the crook of the wire spear. He would have to let go with one arm to stoop and get within range. All he needed was an ounce of hope, an ounce of reassurance that it was still worth while trying to stay alive. Only, with Bond, the two halves were not yet dead. Bond was like a cut worm, the two halves of which continue to jerk forward although life has gone and been replaced by the mock life of nervous impulses. It moved alongside his body, or floated above it, keeping enough contact to pull the strings that made the puppet work. The thinking, feeling apparatus of Bond was no longer part of his body. The stinking, bleeding, black scarecrow moved its arms and legs quite automatically. He caught a glimpse of the tip of his spear lancing into the centre of a black eyeball and then the whole sea erupted up at him in a fountain of blackness and he fell and hung upside down by the knees, his head an inch from the surface of the water. But softly, gently, slowly The prize was almost intolerably sweet. Slowly, a thin, hard smile broke across the haggard, sunburned face. Then Bond sat down and meticulously went over the photograph that was in his brain.īond sat and thought, measuring distances, guessing at angles, remembering exactly where the crane driver's hands and feet were on the levers and the pedals. Apart from aiming the canvas mouth of the conveyor, there was nothing else for anyone to do. On the other side of the mountain men would be working, feeding the guano to the conveyor-belt that rumbled away through the bowels of the rock, but on this side no one was allowed and no one was necessary. There was no other sound, no other movement, no other life apart from the watch at the ship's wheel, the trusty working at the crane, and Doctor No, seeing that all went well. The morning breeze feathered the deep-water anchorage, still half in shadow beneath the towering cliffs, the' conveyor-belt thudded quietly on its rollers, the crane's engine chuffed rhythmically.