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. He tore it out, got it between his two hands and wrenched the doubled wire almost straight.īond had not time to worry about them. 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.īond thrust his knife between his teeth and his hand dived for the crook of the wire spear. Should he chance it? He must Get movingīelow, 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. It was black, impenetrable, as deep as the rest. He gazed vaguely at the softly heaving sheen of water. Slowly he let himself down to the bottom rung of wire. From out of the mouth of the sock, in a solid downward jet, the scrambled-egg-coloured guano dust was pouring into the hold of the tanker at a rate of tons a minute.īond got to the-rock face. The purpose of the crane was to lift the wireframed mouth of the sock so that it hung directly over the hold of the tanker and to move it to right or left to give even distribution. Its mouth ended in a huge canvas sock, perhaps six feet in diameter. It was carried on high stanchions above the jetty and stopped just short of the hold of the tanker.
From just to the right of the crane, an overhead conveyor-belt in a corrugated-iron housing ran out from the cliff-face. The rest of the crew would be below, battened away from the guano dust. There was no sign of life On board except one figure lolling at the wheel in the enclosed bridge. The tanker was called Blanche, and the Ant of Antwerp showed at her stern. It stood well out of the water, its deck perhaps twelve feet above the quay. An aged tanker of around ten thousand tons deadweight was secured alongside the top of the T. In front of him the jetty ran twenty yards out into the sea and ended in a T.
Like a thief in the night dance driver#
It was the Chinese Negro boss, the driver of the marsh buggy. Round the corner, not more than ten yards away, was the crane. A voice called out, startlingly close, "Okay to go?" There was a distant answer: "Okay." The crane engine accelerated. Bond crept softly forward, watching his footholds for loose stones. Round the bead, the track filtered through a maze of giant, tumbled boulders. On the bridge, the watch was lighting a cigarette.īond, leaving drops of blood behind him, picked his way carefully down the track and along the bottom of the shadowed cliff. 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. Apart from aiming the canvas mouth of the conveyor, there was nothing else for anyone to do.īond stepped up to the rock and inched an eye round. 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. 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.
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