THE HILDEBRAND RARITY.
The sting-ray was about six feet from wing-tip to wing-tip, and perhaps ten feet long from the blunt wedge of its nose to the end of its deadly tail. It was dark grey with that violet tinge that is so often a danger signal in the underwater world. When it rose up from the pale golden sand and swam a little distance it was as if a black towel was being waved through the water.
James Bond, his hands along his flanks and swimming with only a soft trudge of his fins, followed the black shadow across the wide palm-fringed lagoon, waiting for a shot. He rarely killed fish except to eat, but there were exceptions - big moray eels and all the members of the scorpion-fish family. Now he proposed to kill the sting-ray because it looked so extraordinarily evil.
It was ten o"clock in the morning of a day in April, and the lagoon, Belle Anse near the southernmost tip of Mahe, the largest island in the Seych.e.l.les group, was gla.s.sy calm. The north-west monsoon had blown itself out months before and it would be May before the south-east monsoon brought refreshment. Now the temperature was eighty in the shade and the humidity ninety, and in the enclosed waters of the lagoon the water was near blood heat. Even the fish seemed to be sluggish. A ten-pound green parrot-fish, nibbling algae from a lump of coral, paused only to roll its eyes as Bond pa.s.sed overhead, and then went back to its meal. A school of fat grey chub, swimming busily, broke courteously in half to let Bond"s shadow by, and then joined up and continued on their opposite course. A chorus line of six small squids, normally as shy as birds, did not even bother to change their camouflage at his pa.s.sage.
Bond trudged lazily on, keeping the sting-ray just in sight. Soon it would get tired or else be rea.s.sured when Bond, the big fish on the surface, did not attack. Then it would settle on to a patch of flat sand, change its camouflage down to the palest, almost translucent grey, and, with soft undulations of its wing-tips, bury itself in the sand.
The reef was coming nearer and now there were outcrops of coral n.i.g.g.e.rheads and meadows of sea-gra.s.s. It was like arriving in a town from open country. Everywhere the jewelled reef fish twinkled and glowed and the giant anemones of the Indian Ocean burned like flames in the shadows. Colonies of spined sea-eggs made sepia splashes as if someone had thrown ink against the rock, and the brilliant blue and yellow feelers of langoustes quested and waved from their crevices like small dragons. Now and then, among the seaweed on the brilliant floor, there was the speckled glitter of a cowrie bigger than a golf ball - the leopard cowrie - and once Bond saw the beautiful splayed fingers of a Venus"s harp. But all these things were now commonplace to him and he drove steadily on, interested in the reef only as cover through which he could get to seaward of the ray and then pursue it back towards the sh.o.r.e. The tactic worked, and soon the black shadow with its pursuing brown torpedo were moving back across the great blue mirror. In about twelve feet of water the ray stopped for the hundredth time. Bond stopped also, treading water softly. Cautiously he lifted his head and emptied water out of his goggles. By the time he looked again the ray had disappeared.
Bond had a Champion harpoon-gun with double rubbers. The harpoon was tipped with a needle-sharp trident - a short-range weapon, but the best for reef work. Bond pushed up the safe and moved slowly forward, his fins pulsing softly just below the surface so as to make no sound. He looked around him, trying to pierce the misty horizons of the great hail of the lagoon. He was looking for any big lurking shape. It would not do to have a shark or a large barracuda as witness of the kill. Fish sometimes scream when they are hurt, and even when they do not the turbulence and blood caused by a sharp struggle bring the scavengers. But there was not a living thing in sight and the sand stretched away into the smoky wings like the bare boards of a stage. Now Bond could see the faint outline on the bottom. He swam directly over it and lay motionless on the surface looking down. There was a tiny movement in the sand. Two minute fountains of sand were dancing above the nostril-like holes of the spiracles. Behind the holes was the slight swelling of the thing"s body. That was the target. An inch behind the holes. Bond estimated the possible upward lash of the tail and slowly reached his gun down and pulled the trigger.
Below him the sand erupted and for an anxious moment Bond could see nothing. Then the harpoon line came taut and the ray showed, pulling away from him while its tail, in reflex aggression, lashed again and again over the body. At the base of the tail Bond could see the jagged poison-spines standing up from the trunk. These were the spines that were supposed to have killed Ulysses, that Pliny said would destroy a tree. In the Indian Ocean, where the sea poisons are at their most virulent, one scratch from the ray"s sting would mean certain death. Cautiously, keeping the ray on a taut line, Bond trudged after the furiously wrestling fish. He swam to one side to keep the line away from the lashing tail which could easily sever it. This tail was the old slave-drivers" whip of the Indian Ocean. Today it is illegal even to possess one in the Seych.e.l.les, but they are handed down in the families for use on faithless wives, and if the word goes round that this or that woman a eu la c.r.a.pule, the Provencal name for the sting ray, it is as good as saying that that woman will not be about again for at least a week. Now the lashes of the tall were getting weaker and Bond swam round and ahead of the ray, pulling it after him towards the sh.o.r.e. In the shallows the ray went limp and Bond pulled it out of the water and well up on the beach. But he still kept away from it. It was as well he did so. Suddenly, at some move from Bond and perhaps in the hope of catching its enemy unawares, the giant ray leapt clean into the air. Bond sprang aside and the ray fell on its back and lay with its white underbelly to the sun and the great ugly sickle of the mouth sucking and panting.
Bond stood and looked at the sting-ray and wondered what to do next.
A short, fat white man in khaki, shirt and trousers came out from under the palm trees and walked towards Bond through the scattering of sea-grape and sun-dried wrack above highwater mark. When he was near enough he called out in a laughing voice: "The Old Man and the Sea! Who caught who?"
Bond turned. "It would be the only man on the island who doesn"t carry a machete. Fidele, be a good chap and call one of your men. This animal won"t die, and he"s got my spear stuck in him."
Fidele Barbey, the youngest of the innumerable Barbeys who own nearly everything in the Seych.e.l.les, came up and stood looking down at the ray. "That"s a good one. Lucky you hit the right spot or he"d have towed you over the reef and you"d have had to let go your gun. They take the h.e.l.l of a time to die. But come on. I"ve got to get you back to Victoria. Something"s come up. Something good. I"ll send one of my men for the gun. Do you want the tail?"
Bond smiled. "I haven"t got a wife. But what about some raie au beurre noir tonight?"
"Not tonight, my friend. Come. Where are your clothes?"
On their way down the coast road in the station wagon Fidele said: "Ever hear of an American called Milton Krest? Well, apparently he owns the Krest hotels and a thing called the Krest Foundation. One thing I can tell you for sure. He owns the finest d.a.m.ned yacht in the Indian Ocean. Put in yesterday. The Wawekrest. Nearly two hundred tons. Hundred feet long. Everything in her from a beautiful wife down to a big transistor gramophone on gimbals so the waves won"t jerk the needle. Wall-to-wall carpeting an inch deep. Air-conditioned throughout. The only dry cigarettes this side of the African continent, and the best after-breakfast bottle of champagne, since the last time I saw Paris." Fidele Barbey laughed delightedly. "My friend, that is one h.e.l.l of a b.l.o.o.d.y fine ship, and if Mr Krest is a grand slam redoubled in b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, who the h.e.l.l cares?"
"Who cares anyway? What"s it got to do with you - or me for the matter of that?"
"Just this, my friend. We are going to spend a few days sailing with Mr Krest - and Mrs Krest, the beautiful Mrs Krest. I have agreed to take the ship to Chagrin - the island I have spoken to you about. It is b.l.o.o.d.y miles from here - off the African Banks, and my family have never found any use for it except for collecting b.o.o.bies" eggs. It"s only about three feet above sea-level. I haven"t been to the d.a.m.ned place for five years. Any way, this man Krest wants to go there. He s collecting marine specimens, something to do with his Foundation, and there"s some blasted little fish that"s supposed to exist only around Chagrin Island. At least Krest says the only specimen in the world came from there."
"Sounds rather fun. Where do I come in?"
"I knew you were bored and that you"d got a week before you sail, so I said that you were the local under water ace and that you"d soon find the fish if it was there, and anyway that I wouldn"t go without you. Mr Krest was willing. And that"s that. I knew, you"d be fooling around somewhere down the coast, so I just drove along until one of the fishermen told me there was a crazy white man trying to commit suicide alone at Belle Anse and I knew that would be you."
Bond laughed. "Extraordinary the way these island people are afraid of the sea. You"d think they"d have got on terms with it by now. d.a.m.ned few of the Seych.e.l.lois can even swim."
"Roman Catholic Church. Doesn"t like them taking their clothes off. b.l.o.o.d.y nonsense, but there it is. And as for being afraid, don"t forget you"ve only been here for a month. Shark, barracuda - you just haven"t met a hungry one. And stone-fish. Ever seen a man that"s stepped on a stone-fish? His body bends backwards like a bow with the pain. Sometimes it"s so frightful his eyes literally fall out of their sockets. They very seldom live."
Bond said unsympathetically: "They ought to wear shoes or bind their feet up when they go on the reef. They"ve got these fish in the Pacific and the giant clam into the bargain. It"s d.a.m.ned silly. Everybody moans about how poor they are here, although the sea"s absolutely paved with fish. And there are fifty varieties of cowrie under those rocks. They could make another good living selling those round the world."
Fidele Barbey laughed boisterously. "Bond for Governor! That"s the ticket. Next meeting of LegCo I"ll put the idea up. You"re just the man for the job far-sighted, full of ideas, plenty of drive. Cowries! That"s splendid. They"ll balance the budget for the first time since the patchouli boom after the War. "We sell sea-sh.e.l.ls from the Seych.e.l.les." That"ll be our slogan. I"ll see you get the credit. You"ll be Sir James in no time."
"Make more money that way than trying to grow vanilla at a loss." They continued to wrangle with light-hearted violence until the palm groves gave way to the giant sangdragon trees on the outskirts of the ramshackle capital of Mahe.
It had been nearly a month before when M had told Bond he was sending him to the Seych.e.l.les. Admiralty are having trouble with their new fleet base in the Maldives. Communists creeping in from Ceylon. Strikes, sabotage - the usual picture. May have to cut their losses and fall back on the Seych.e.l.les. A thousand miles farther south, but at least they look pretty secure. But they don"t want to be caught again. Colonial Office say it"s safe as houses. All the same I"ve agreed to send someone to give an independent view. When Makarios was locked up there a few years ago there were quite a few Security scares. j.a.panese fishing-boats hanging about, one or two refugee crooks from England, strong ties with France. Just go and have a good look." M glanced out of the window at the driving March sleet. "Don"t get sunstroke."
Bond"s report, which concluded that the only conceivable security hazard in the Seych.e.l.les lay in the beauty and ready availability of the Seych.e.l.loises, had been finished a week before and then he had nothing to do but wait for the ss Kampala to take him to Mombasa. He was thoroughly sick of the heat and the drooping palm trees and the plaintive cry of the terns and the interminable conversations about copra. The prospect of a change delighted him.
Bond was spending his last week in the Barbey house, and after calling there to pick up their bags, they drove out to the end of Long Pier and left the car in the Customs shed. The gleaming white yacht lay half a mile out in the roadstead. They took a pirogue with an outboard motor across the gla.s.sy bay and through the opening in the reef. The Wawekrest was not beautiful - the breadth of beam and cluttered superstructure stunted her lines - but Bond could see at once that she was a real ship, built to cruise the world and not just the Florida Keys. She seemed deserted, but as they came alongside two smart-looking sailors in white shorts and singlets appeared and stood by the ladder with boat-hooks ready to fend the shabby pirogue off the yacht"s gleaming paint. They took the two bags and one of them slid back an aluminium hatch and gestured for them to go down. A breath of what seemed to Bond to be almost freezing air struck him as he went through and down a few steps into the lounge.
The lounge was empty. It was not a cabin. It was a room of solid richness and comfort with nothing to a.s.sociate it with the interior of a ship. The windows behind the half-closed venetian blinds were full size, as were the deep armchairs round the low central table. The carpet was the deepest pile in pale blue. The walls were panelled in a silvery wood and the ceiling was off-white. There was a desk with the usual writing-materials and a telephone. Next to the big gramophone was a sideboard laden with drinks. Above the sideboard was what looked like an extremely good Renoir - the head and shoulders of a pretty dark-haired girl in a black and white striped blouse. The impression of a luxurious living-room in a town house was completed by a large bowl of white and blue hyacinths on the central table and by the tidy range of magazines to one side of the desk.
"What did I tell you, James?"
Bond shook his head admiringly. "This is certainly the way to treat the sea - as if it d.a.m.ned well didn"t exist." He breathed in deeply. "What a relief to get a mouthful of fresh air. I"d almost forgotten what it tastes like."
"It"s the stuff outside that"s fresh, feller. This is canned." Mr Milton Krest had come quietly into the room and was standing looking at them. He was a tough, leathery man in his early fifties. He looked hard and fit, and the faded blue jeans, military-cut shirt and wide leather belt suggested that he made a fetish of doing so - looking tough. The pale brown eyes in the weather-beaten face were slightly hooded and their gaze was sleepy and contemptuous. The mouth had a downward twist that might be humorous or disdainful - probably the latter - and the words he had tossed into the room, innocuous in themselves except for the patronizing "feller" had been tossed like small coin to a couple of coolies. To Bond the oddest thing about Mr Krest was his voice. It was a soft, most attractive lisping through the teeth. It was exactly the voice of the late Humphrey Bogart. Bond ran his eyes down the man from the spa.r.s.e close-cropped black and grey hair, like iron filings sprinkled over the bullet head, to the tattooed eagle above a fouled anchor on the right forearm, and then down to the naked leathery feet that stood nautically square on the carpet. He thought: this man likes to be thought a Hemingway hero. I"m not going to get on with him.
Mr Krest came across the carpet and held out his hand. "You Bond? Glad to have you aboard, sir."
Bond was expecting the bone-crushing grip and parried it with stiffened muscles.
"Free-diving or aqualung?"
"Free, and I don"t go deep. It"s only a hobby."
"Whadya do the rest of the time?"
"Civil Servant."
Mr Krest gave a short barking laugh. "Civility and Servitude. You English make the best G.o.ddam butlers and valets in the world. Civil Servant, you say? I reckon we"re likely to get along fine. Civil Servants are just what I like to have around me."
The click of the deck hatch sliding back saved Bond"s temper. Mr Krest was swept from his mind as a naked sunburned girl came down the steps into the saloon. No, she wasn"t quite naked after all, but the pale brown satin sc.r.a.ps of bikini were designed to make one think she was.
""Lo, treasure. Where have you been hiding? Long time no see. Meet Mr Barbey and Mr Bond, the fellers who are coming along." Mr Krest raised a hand in the direction of the girl. "Fellers, this is Mrs Krest. The fifth Mrs Krest. And just in case anybody should get any ideas, she loves Mr Krest. Don"t you, treasure?"
"Oh don"t be silly, Milt, you know I do." Mrs Krest smiled prettily. "How do you do, Mr Barbey. And Mr Bond. It"s nice to have you with us. What about a drink?"
"Now just a minute, treas. Suppose you let me fix things aboard my own ship, hein?" Mr Krest"s voice was soft and pleasant.
The woman blushed. "Oh yes, Milt, of course."
"Okay then, just so we know who"s skipper aboard the good ship Wawekrest." The amused smile embraced them all. "Now then, Mr Barbey. What"s your first name, by the way? Fidele, eh? That"s quite a name. Old Faithful," Mr Krest chuckled bonh.o.m.ously. "Well now, Fido, how"s about you and me go upon the bridge and get this little old skiff moving, hein? Mebbe you better take her out into the open sea and then you can set a course and hand over to Fritz. I"m the captain. He"s the mate, and there are two for the engine-room and pantry. All three Germans. Only darned sailors left in Europe. And Mr Bond. First name? James, eh? Well, Jim, what say you practise a bit of that civility and servitude on Mrs Krest. Call her Liz, by the way. Help her fix the canapes and so on for drinks before lunch. She was once a Limey too. You can swap yarns about Piccadilly Circus and the Dooks you both know. Okay? Move, Fido." He sprang boyishly up the steps. "Let"s get the h.e.l.l outa here."
When the hatch closed, Bond let out a deep breath. Mrs Krest said apologetically: "Please don"t mind his jokes. It"s just his sense of humour. And he"s a bit contrary. He likes to see if he can rile people. It"s very naughty of him. But it"s really all in fun."
Bond smiled rea.s.suringly. How often did she have to make this speech to people, try and calm the tempers of the people Mr Krest had practised his "sense of humour" on? He said: "I expect your husband needs a bit of knowing. Does he go on the same way back in America?"
She said without bitterness: "Only with me. He loves Americans. It"s when he"s abroad. You see, his father was a German, a Prussian really. He"s got that silly German thing of thinking Europeans and so on are decadent, that they aren"t any good any more. It"s no use arguing with him. It"s just a thing he"s got."
So that was it! The old Hun again. Always at your feet or at your throat. Sense of humour indeed! And what must this woman have to put up with, this beautiful girl he had got hold of to be his slave - his English slave? Bond said: "How long have you been married?"
"Two years. I was working as a receptionist in one of his hotels. He owns the Krest Group, you know. It was wonderful. Like a fairy story. I still have to pinch my self sometimes to make sure I"m not dreaming. This, for instance," she waved a hand at the luxurious room, "and he"s terribly good to me. Always giving me presents. He"s a very important man in America, you know. It"s fun being treated like royalty wherever you go."
"It must be. He likes that sort of thing, I suppose?"
"Oh yes." There was resignation in the laugh. "There"s a lot of the sultan in him, He get"s quite impatient if he doesn"t get proper service. He says that when one"s worked very hard to get to the top of the tree one has a right to the best fruit that grows there." Mrs Krest found she was talking too freely. She said quickly: "But really, what am I saying? Anyone would think we had known each other for years." She smiled shyly. "I suppose it"s meeting someone from England. But I really must go and get some more clothes on. I was sunbathing on deck." There came a deep rumble from below-deck amidships. "There. We"re off. Why don"t you watch us leave harbour from the afterdeck, and I"ll come and join you in a minute. There"s so much I want to hear about London. This way." She moved past him and slid open a door. "As a matter of fact, if you"re sensible, you"ll stake a claim to this for the nights. There are plenty of cushions, and the cabins are apt to get a bit stuffy in spite of the air-conditioning."
Bond thanked her, and walked out and shut the door behind him. It was a big well-deck with hemp flooring and a cream-coloured semicircular foam rubber settee in the stern. Rattan chairs were scattered about and there was a serving-bar in one corner. It crossed Bond"s mind that Mr Krest might be a heavy drinker. Was it his imagination, or was Mrs Krest terrified of him? There was something painfully slavish in her att.i.tude towards him. No doubt she had to pay heavily for her fairy story. Bond watched the green flanks of Mahe slowly slip away astern. He guessed that their speed was about ten knots. They would soon be at North Point and heading for the open sea. Bond listened to the glutinous bubble of the exhaust and idly thought about the beautiful Mrs Elizabeth Krest.
She could have been a model - probably had been before she became a hotel receptionist - that respectable female calling that yet has a whiff of the high demi-monde about it - and she still moved her beautiful body with the unselfconsciousness of someone who is used to going about with nothing, or practically nothing, on. But there was none of the chill of the model about her - it was a warm body and a friendly, confiding face. She might be thirty, certainly not more, and her prettiness, for it was not more than that, was still immature. Her best feature was the ash-blonde hair that hung heavily to the base of her neck, but she seemed pleasantly lacking in vanity about it. She didn"t toss it about or fiddle with it, and it occurred to Bond that she didn"t in fact show any signs of coquetry. She had stood quietly, almost docilely, with her large, dear blue eyes fixed almost the whole time on her husband. There was no lipstick on her mouth and no lacquer on her fingernails or toenails, and her eyebrows were natural. Did Mr Krest perhaps order that it should be so - that she should be a Germanic child of nature? Probably. Bond shrugged his shoulders. They were certainly a curiously a.s.sorted couple - the middle-aged Hemingway with the Bogart voice and the pretty, artless girl. And there was tension in the air - in the way she had cringed as he brought her to heel when she had offered them drinks, in the forced maleness of the man. Bond toyed idly with the notion that the man was impotent and that all the tough, rude act was nothing more than exaggerated virility-play. It certainly wasn"t going to be easy to live with for four or five days. Bond watched the beautiful Silhouette Island slip away to starboard and made a vow not to lose his temper. What was that American expression? "Eating crow". It would be an interesting mental exercise for him. He would eat crow for five days and not let this d.a.m.nable man interfere with what should be a good trip.
"Well, feller. Taking it easy?" Mr Krest was standing on the boat-deck looking down into the well. "What have you done with that woman I live with? Left her to do all the work, I guess. Well, and why not? That"s what they"re for, ain"t it? Care to look over the ship? Fido"s doin" a spell at the wheel and I"ve got time on my hands." Without waiting for an answer, Mr Krest bent and lowered himself down into the well-deck, dropping the last four feet.
"Mrs Krest"s putting on some clothes. Yes, I"d like to see over the ship."
Mr Krest fixed Bond with his hard, disdainful stare. ""Kay. Well now, facts first. It"s built by the Bronson Shipbuilding Corporation. I happen to own ninety per cent of the stock, so I got what I wanted. Designed by Rosenblatts - the top naval architects. Hundred feet long, twenty-one broad, and draws six. Two five-hundred-horsepower Superior diesels. Top speed, fourteen knots. Cruises two thousand five hundred miles at eight. Air-conditioned throughout. Carrier Corporation designed two special five-ton units. Carries enough frozen food and liquor for a month. All we need is fresh water for the baths and showers. Right? Now let"s go up front and you can see the crew"s quarters, and we"ll work back. And one thing, Jim," Mr Krest stamped on the deck. "This is the floor, see? And the head"s the can. And if I want someone to stop doing whatever they"re doing I don"t shout "belay" I shout "hold it". Get me, Jim?"
Bond nodded amiably. "I"ve got no objection. She"s your ship."
"It"s my ship," corrected Mr Krest. "That"s another bit of d.a.m.ned nonsense, making a hunk of steel and wood a female. Anyway, let"s go. You don"t need to mind your head. Everything"s a six-foot-two clearance."
Bond followed Mr Krest down the narrow pa.s.sage that ran the length of the ship, and for half an hour made appropriate comments on what was certainly the finest and most luxuriously designed yacht he had ever seen. In every detail the margin was for extra comfort. Even the crew"s bath and shower was full size, and the stainless steel galley, or kitchen as Mr Krest called it, was as big as the Krest stateroom. Mr Krest opened the door of the latter without knocking. Liz Krest was at the dressing-table. "Why, treasure," said Mr Krest in his soft voice, "I reckoned you"d be out there fixing the drink tray. You"ve sure been one heck of a time dressing up. Puttin" on a little extra Ritz for Jim, eh?"
"I"m sorry, Milt. I was just coming. A zip got stuck." The girl hurriedly picked up a compact and made for the door. She gave them both a nervous half-smile and went out.
"Vermont birch panelling, Corning gla.s.s lamps, Mexican tuft rugs. That sailing-ship picture"s a genuine Montague Dawson, by the way . . ." Mr Krest"s catalogue ran smoothly on. But Bond was looking at some thing that hung down almost out of sight by the bedside table on what was obviously Mr Krest"s side of the huge double bed. It was a thin whip about three feet long with a leather-thonged handle. It was the tail of a sting-ray.
Casually Bond walked over to the side of the bed and picked it up. He ran a finger down its spiny gristle. It hurt his finger even to do that. He said: "Where did you pick that up? I was hunting one of these animals this morning."
"Bahrein. The Arabs use them on their wives." Mr Krest chuckled easily. "Haven"t had to use more than one stroke at a time on Liz so far. Wonderful results. We call it my "Corrector"."
Bond put the thing back. He looked hard at Mr Krest and said: "Is that so? In the Seych.e.l.les, where the creoles are pretty tough, it"s illegal even to own one of those, let alone use it."
Mr Krest moved towards the door. He said indifferently: "Feller, this ship happens to be United States territory. Let"s go get ourselves something to drink."
Mr Krest drank three double bullshots - vodka in iced consomme - before luncheon, and beer with the meal. The pale eyes darkened a little and acquired a watery glitter, but the sibilant voice remained soft and unemphatic as, with a complete monopoly of the conversation, he explained the object of the voyage. "Ya see, fellers, it"s like this. In the States we have this Foundation system for the lucky guys that got plenty dough and don"t happen to want to pay it into Uncle Sam"s Treasury. You make a Foundation - like this one, the Krest Foundation - for charitable purposes - charitable to anyone, to kids, sick folk, the cause of science - you just give the money away to anyone or anything except yourself or your dependants and you escape tax on it. So I put a matter of ten million dollars into the Krest Foundation, and since I happen to like yachting and seeing the world I built this yacht with two million of the money and told the Smithsonian - that"s our big natural history inst.i.tution that I would go to any part of the world and collect specimens for them. So that makes me a scientific expedition, see? For three months of every year I have a fine holiday that costs me just sweet Fatty Arbuckle!" Mr Krest looked to his guests for applause. "Get me?"
Fidele Barbey shook his head doubtfully. "That sounds fine, Mr Krest. But these rare specimens. They are easy to find? The Smithsonian it wants a giant panda, a sea-sh.e.l.l. You can get hold of these things where they have failed?"
Mr Krest slowly shook his head. He said sorrowfully: "Feller, you sure were born yesterday. Money, that"s all it takes. You want a panda? You buy it from some G.o.ddam zoo that can"t afford central heating for its reptile house or wants to build a new block for its tigers or something. The sea-sh.e.l.l? You find a man that"s got one and you offer him so much G.o.ddam money that even if he cries for a week he sells it to you. Sometimes you have a little trouble with Governments. Some G.o.ddam animal is protected or something. All right. Give you an example. I arrive at your island yesterday. I want a black parrot from Praslin Island. I want a giant tortoise from Aldabra. I want the complete range of your local cowries and I want this fish we"re after. The first two are protected by law. Last evening I pay a call on your Governor after making certain inquiries in the town. Excellency, I says, I understand you want to build a public swimming-pool to teach the local kids to swim. Okay. The Krest Foundation will put up money. How much? Five thousand, ten thousand? Okay, so it"s ten thousand. Here"s my cheque. And I write it out there and then. Just one little thing, Excellency, I says, holding on to the cheque. It happens I want a specimen of this black parrot you have here and one of these Aldabra tortoises. I understand they"re protected by law. Mind if I take one of each back to America for the Smithsonian? Well, there s a bit of a palaver, but seeing it"s the Smithsonian and seeing I"ve still got hold of the cheque, in the end we shake hands on the deal and everyone"s happy. Right? Well, on the way back I stop in the town to arrange with your nice Mr Abendana, the merchant feller, to have the parrot and tortoise collected and held for me, and I get talking about the cowries. Well, it so happens that this Mr Abendana has been collecting the dam" things since he was a child. He shows them to me. Beautifully kept - each one in its bit of cotton wool. Fine condition and several of those Isabella and Mappa ones I was asked particularly to watch out for. Sorry, he couldn"t think of selling. They meant so much to him and so on. c.r.a.p! I just look at Mr Abendana and I say, how much? No no. He couldn"t think of it. c.r.a.p again! I take out my chequebook and write a cheque for five thousand dollars and push it under his nose. He looks at it. Five thousand dollars! He can"t stand it. He folds the cheque and puts it in his pocket and then the dam" sissy breaks down and weeps! Would you believe it?" Mr Krest opened his palms in disbelief. "Over a few G.o.ddam sea-sh.e.l.ls. So I just tell him to take it easy, and I pick up the trays of sea-sh.e.l.ls and get the h.e.l.l out of there before the crazy so-and-so shoots himself from remorse."
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 Wit.w.a.tersrand in a net off Chagrin Island in the Seych.e.l.les group, April 1925"." Mr Krest looked up. "And then there"s a lot of scientific c.r.a.p. 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 a.n.a.l, 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 G.o.ddam 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 b.u.mp 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 gla.s.s 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 anch.o.r.ed outside the reef in ten fathoms and Fidele Barbey took them through the opening in the speedboat. 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, b.o.o.bies, 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 ash.o.r.e. Mrs Krest swam and picked up sea sh.e.l.ls 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 - sh.e.l.l 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 be 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 d.a.m.nable 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 "fairytale" 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, d.a.m.nable 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 h.e.l.l with it! Don"t interfere with other people"s lives. She probably likes it - m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.e.l.l as big is 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 arm pit. "G.o.ddam sandfly bit me. This is one h.e.l.l of a G.o.d-awful 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 h.e.l.l 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 b.l.o.o.d.y awful places. Nothing but crabs and bird dung surrounded by too dam" much sea. It"s only the poor b.l.o.o.d.y frozen Europeans that dream of coral islands. East of Suez, you won"t find any sane man who gives a d.a.m.n 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 b.l.o.o.d.y lot in exchange for a flat in Paris or London."
Bond laughed. He began: "Put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in The Times and you"d get sackloads . . ." when, fifty yards away, Mr Krest began to make frantic signals. Bond said: "Either the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"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-gra.s.s ended in broken coral and an occasional n.i.g.g.e.rhead. A dozen varieties of b.u.t.terfly 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 gla.s.s, 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 n.i.g.g.e.rhead, 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. "G.o.ddam, I found it!" he said reverently. "Well, G.o.ddam I did." He slowly followed Bond to the sh.o.r.e.
Fidele Barbey was waiting for them. Mr Krest said boisterously: "Fido, I found that G.o.ddam fish. Me - Milton Krest. Whadya know about that? After you two G.o.ddam 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 G.o.ddam 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 gla.s.s 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.