The night wind tugged softly at him and swayed him against the black iron rivets, and from far down below sounded the deep boom and woosh of the sea. From somewhere above came the ropey twang of the wind of their speed in the rigging and, far above that, the stars would be swinging slowly round the twin masts.
Would the blasted, the beloved, sheets hold? Would vertigo get him? Could his arms stand the weight? Don’t think about it. Don’t think of the huge ship, the hungry sea, the great quadruple screws waiting to slice into his body. You are a boy climbing down an apple tree. It’s so easy and so safe there in the orchard with the grass to fall on.
Bond shut his mind and watched his hands and felt the roughness of the paint against his knuckles, and his feet were as sensitive as antennae as they groped below him for the first contact with the porthole.
There. The toes of his right foot had touched the protruding rim. He must stop. He MUST be patient and let his foot explore further – the wide-open porthole, held by its big brass latch; the feel of cloth against his sock: the curtains closed. Now he could go on. It was nearly over.
And then two more handholds and his face was level and he could get a hand to the metal rim of the frame and take some of the weight off the taut white rope and give one arm a blessed rest, and then the other, shifting the burden from the cracking muscles and gathering himself for the slow heave up and through and then the final dive with one hand clutching for his gun.
He listened, gazing at the circle of slowly swaying curtain, trying to forget that he was clinging like a fly half-way down the side of the
There was a mumble inside the little room. A few words in a masculine voice. And then a girl’s voice crying ‘No!’
There was a moment’s silence, and then a slap. It was as loud as a pistol shot and it jerked Bond’s body up and through the porthole as if he had been wrenched inwards by a rope.
Even as he somehow dived cleanly through the three-foot circle he was wondering what he would hit, and his left arm protected his head as his right went to his gun.
Crash on to a suitcase under the porthole, a ragged somersault that took him half across the room, and he was on his feet and backing, crouched low, towards the portholes, and the knuckles were white with tension on his gun hand and there was a thin white line round his clenched lips.
Through the slitted lids the ice-grey eyes flickered from side to side. The blunt, black gun stood at dead centre between the two men.
‘All right,’ said Bond, coming slowly to his full height.
It was a statement of fact. He had the control and the mouth of his gun had said he should have it.
‘Who sent for you?’ said the fat man. ‘You’re not in the act.’
There were hidden reserves in the voice. No panic. Not even enough surprise.
‘Come to make a fourth at gin?’
He was sitting, in buttoned shirt sleeves, sideways-on to the dressing-table, and the small eyes glittered in the moist face. In front of him, with her back to Bond, Tiffany Case sat on an upholstered stool. She was naked except for brief flesh-coloured pants and her knees were gripped between the big man’s thighs. Her face, with red marks across its paleness, was turned towards Bond. Her eyes were wild, like a trapped animal’s, and her mouth was open with disbelief.
The white-haired man had been lying relaxed on one of the beds. Now he was up on one elbow and his other hand was at his shirt, half-way up to the gun in the black holster at his armpit. He looked incuriously at Bond and his mouth was square with the empty letter-box smile. From the middle of his smile a wooden toothpick protruded from between closed teeth like the tongue of a snake.
Bond’s gun held the neutral space between the two men. When he spoke his voice was low and taut.
‘Tiffany,’ he said slowly and distinctly. ‘Get down on your knees. Edge away from that man. Keep your head down. Get into the middle of the room.’
He didn’t watch her, and his eyes continued to flicker between the man on the chair and the man on the bed.
Now she was clear of the two targets.
‘I’m there, James.’ The voice thrilled with hope and excitement.
‘Get up and walk straight into the bathroom. Shut the door. Get into the bath and lie down.’
His eyes slid towards her to see that he was being obeyed. She had stood up and was facing him. His eyes registered the red splay of a whole hand on the white skin of her body. Then she had obeyed him and there was the click of the bathroom door shutting.
Now she was safe from the bullets. And she would not witness what had to be done.
