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Title: You Only Live Twice
Author: Fleming, Ian [Ian Lancaster] (1908-1964)
Date of first publication: 1964
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: New American Library of World Literature, [1964]
Date first posted: 15 November 2017
Date last updated: 15 November 2017
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1481

This ebook was produced by Al Haines, Cindy Beyer,
Mark Akrigg & the Online Distributed Proofreading
Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

In order to ensure that this ebook can be displayed on as many
devices as possible, we have omitted the macron (horizontal bar)
over the letter "o", which Fleming uses a total of eleven times:
in single instances of "Koan", "Koan-Chosa-Kyoku" (throughout),
"sayonara", and in all six mentions of the famous Japanese poet
"Bassho", in which however we have retained Fleming's double "ss",
where modern usage prefers a single "s".






YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

by Ian Fleming








  TO _Richard Hughes_ AND _Torao Saito_
  BUT FOR WHOM ETC....




  You only live twice:
  Once when you are born,
  And once when you look death in the face.

    _After_ Bassho
    _Japanese poet_,
    1643-94




CONTENTS

PART ONE _"It is better to travel hopefully..._

1. Scissors Cut Paper
2. Curtains for Bond?
3. The Impossible Mission
4. Dikko on the Ginza
5. Magic 44
6. Tiger, Tiger!
7. The Death Collector
8. Slay it with Flowers
9. Instant Japan
10. Advanced Studies
11. Anatomy Class

PART TWO _...than to arrive"_

12. Appointment in Samarra
13. Kissy Suzuki
14. One Golden Day
15. The Six Guardians
16. The Lovesome Spot
17. Something Evil Comes this Way
18. Oubliette
19. The Question Room
20. Blood and Thunder
21. Obit:
22. Sparrows' Tears




YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE




_PART ONE_
_"IT IS BETTER TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY..._




1. SCISSORS CUT PAPER


The geisha called "Trembling Leaf," on her knees beside James Bond,
leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek.

"That's a cheat," said Bond severely. "You agreed that if I won it would
be a real kiss on the mouth. At the very least," he added.

"Grey Pearl," the madame, who had black lacquered teeth, a bizarre
affectation, and was so thickly made up that she looked like a character
out of a No play, translated. There was much giggling and cries of
encouragement. Trembling Leaf covered her face with her pretty hands as
if she were being required to perform some ultimate obscenity. But then
the fingers divided and the pert brown eyes examined Bond's mouth, as if
taking aim, and her body lanced forward. This time the kiss was full on
the lips, and it lingered fractionally. In invitation? In promise? Bond
remembered that he had been promised a "pillow geisha." Technically,
this would be a geisha of low caste. She would not be proficient in the
traditional arts of her calling--she would not be able to tell humorous
stories, sing, paint, or compose verses about her patron. But, unlike
her cultured sisters, she might agree to perform more robust
services--discreetly, of course, in conditions of the utmost privacy and
at a high price. But to the boorish, brutalized tastes of a _gaijin_, a
foreigner, this made more sense than having a _tanka_ of thirty-one
syllables, which in any case he couldn't understand, equate, in
exquisite language, his charms with budding chrysanthemums on the slopes
of Mount Fuji.

The applause which greeted this unbridled exhibition of lasciviousness
died quickly and respectfully. The powerful chunky man in the black
_yukata_, sitting directly across the low red lacquer table from Bond,
had taken the Dunhill filter holder from between his golden teeth and
had laid it beside his ash-tray. "Bondo-san," said Tiger Tanaka, head of
the Japanese Secret Service, "I will now challenge you to this
ridiculous game, and I promise you in advance that you will not win."
The big creased brown face that Bond had come to know so well in the
past month split expansively. The wide smile closed the almond eyes to
slits--slits that glittered. Bond knew that smile. It wasn't a smile. It
was a mask with a golden hole in it.

Bond laughed. "All right, Tiger. But first, more _sak_! And not in
these ridiculous thimbles. I've drunk five flasks of the stuff and its
effect is about the same as one double martini. I shall need another
double martini if I am to go on demonstrating the superiority of Western
instinct over the wiles of the Orient. Is there such a thing as a lowly
glass tumbler discarded in some corner behind the cabinets of Ming?"

"Bondo-san. Ming is Chinese. Your knowledge of porcelain is as meagre as
your drinking habits are gross. Moreover, it is unwise to underestimate
_sak_. We have a saying, 'It is the man who drinks the first flask of
_sak_; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the _sak_
that drinks the man.'" Tiger Tanaka turned to Grey Pearl, and there
followed a laughing conversation which Bond interpreted as jokes at the
expense of this uncouth Westerner and his monstrous appetites. At a word
from the madame, Trembling Leaf bowed low and scurried out of the room.
Tiger turned to Bond. "You have gained much face, Bondo-san. It is only
the _sumo_ wrestlers who drink _sak_ in these quantities without
showing it. She says you are undoubtedly an eight-flask man." Tiger's
face became sly. "But she also suggests that you will not make much of a
companion for Trembling Leaf at the end of the evening."

"Tell her that I am more interested in her own more mature charms. She
certainly possesses talents in the art of love-making which would
overcome any temporary lassitude on my part."

This leaden gallantry got what it deserved. There came a spirited
crackle of Japanese from Grey Pearl. Tiger translated. "Bondo-san, this
is a woman of some wit. She has made a joke. She says she is already
respectably married to one _bon-san_ and there is no room in her _futon_
for another. _Bon-san_ means a priest, a greybeard. _Futon_, as you
know, is bedding. She has made a joke on your name."

The geisha party had been going on for two hours, and Bond's jaws were
aching with the unending smiles and polite repartee. Far from being
entertained by the geisha, or bewitched by the inscrutable discords
issuing from the catskin-covered box of the three-stringed _samisen_,
Bond had found himself having to try desperately to make the party go.
He also knew that Tiger Tanaka had been observing his efforts with a
sadistic pleasure. Dikko Henderson had warned him that geisha parties
were more or less the equivalent, for a foreigner, of trying to
entertain a lot of unknown children in a nursery with a strict
governess, the madame, looking on. But Dikko had also warned him that he
was being done a great honour by Tiger Tanaka, that the party would cost
Tiger a small fortune, whether from secret funds or from his own pocket,
and that Bond had better put a good face on the whole thing since this
looked like a break-through in Bond's mission. But it could equally well
be disaster.

So now Bond smiled and clapped his hands in admiration. He said to
Tiger, "Tell the old bitch she's a clever old bitch," accepted the
brimming tumbler of hot _sak_ from the apparently adoring hands of
Trembling Leaf, and downed it in two tremendous gulps. He repeated the
performance so that more _sak_ had to be fetched from the kitchen, then
he placed his fist decisively on the red lacquer table and said with
mock belligerence, "All right, Tiger! Go to it!"

It was the old game of Scissors cut Paper, Paper wraps Stone, Stone
blunts Scissors, that is played by children all over the world. The fist
is the Stone, two outstretched fingers are the Scissors, and a flat hand
is the Paper. The closed fist is hammered twice in the air
simultaneously by the two opponents, and at the third downward stroke,
the chosen emblem is revealed. The game consists of guessing which
emblem the opponent will choose, and of you yourself choosing one that
will defeat him. Best of three goes or more. It is a game of bluff.

Tiger Tanaka rested his fist on the table opposite Bond. The two men
looked carefully into each other's eyes. There was dead silence in the
box-like little lath-and-paper room, and the soft gurgling of the tiny
brook in the ornamental square of garden outside the opened partition
could be heard clearly for the first time that evening. Perhaps it was
this silence, after all the talk and giggling, or perhaps it was the
deep seriousness and purpose that was suddenly evident in Tiger Tanaka's
formidable, cruel, _samurai_ face, but Bond's skin momentarily crawled.
For some reason this had become more than a children's game. Tiger had
promised he would beat Bond. To fail would be to lose much face. How
much? Enough to breach a friendship that had become oddly real between
the two of them over the past weeks? This was one of the most powerful
men in Japan. To be defeated by a miserable _gaijin_ in front of the two
women might be a matter of great moment to this man. The defeat might
leak out through the women. In the West, such a trifle would be
farcically insignificant, like a cabinet minister losing a game of
backgammon at Blades. But in the East? In a very short while, Dikko
Henderson had taught Bond total respect for Oriental conventions,
however old-fashioned or seemingly trivial, but Bond was still at sea in
their gradations. This was a case in point. Should Bond try and win at
this baby game of bluff and double-bluff, or should he try to lose? But
to try and lose involved the same cleverness at correctly guessing the
other man's symbols in advance. It was just as difficult to lose on
purpose as to win. And anyway, did it really matter? Unfortunately, on
the curious assignment in which James Bond was involved, he had a nasty
feeling that even this idiotic little gambit had significance towards
success or failure.

As if with second sight, Tiger Tanaka spelled the problem out. He gave a
harsh taut laugh that was more of a shout than an expression of humour
or pleasure. "Bondo-san, with us, and certainly at a party at which I am
the host and you are the honoured guest, it would be good manners for me
to let you win this game that we are to play together. It would be more.
It would be required behaviour. So I must ask your forgiveness in
advance for defeating you."

Bond smiled cheerfully. "My dear Tiger, there is no point in playing a
game unless you try to win. It would be a very great insult to me if you
endeavoured to play to lose. But if I may say so, your remarks are
highly provocative. They are like the taunts of the _sumo_ wrestlers
before the bout. If I was not myself so certain of winning, I would
point out that you spoke in English. Please tell our dainty and
distinguished audience that I propose to rub your honourable nose in the
dirt at this despicable game and thus display not only the superiority
of Great Britain, and particularly Scotland, over Japan, but also the
superiority of our Queen over your Emperor." Bond, encouraged perhaps by
the crafty ambush of the _sak_, had committed himself. This kind of
joking about their different cultures had become a habit between himself
and Tiger, who, with a first in P.P.E. at Trinity before the war, prided
himself in the _demokorasu_ of his outlook and the liberality and
breadth of his understanding of the West. But Bond, having spoken,
caught the sudden glitter in the dark eyes, and he thought of Dikko
Henderson's cautionary, "Now listen, you stupid limey bastard. You're
doing all right. But don't press your luck. T.T.'s a civilized kind of a
chap--as Japs go, that is. But don't overdo it. Take a look at that mug.
There's Manchu there, and Tartar. And don't forget the so-an-so was a
Black Belt at judo before he ever went up to your bloody Oxford. And
don't forget he was spying for Japan when he called himself assistant
naval attach in their London embassy before the war, and you stupid
bastards thought he was okay because he'd got a degree at Oxford. And
don't forget his war record. Don't forget he ended up as personal aide
to Admiral Ohnishi and was training as a _kami-kaze_ when the Americans
made loud noises over Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the Rising Sun suddenly
took a backward somersault into the sea. And if you forget all that,
just ask yourself why it's T.T. rather than any other of the ninety
million Japanese who happens to hold down the job as head of the
_Koan-Chosa-Kyoku_. Okay, James? Got the photo?"

Since Bond had arrived in Japan he had assiduously practised sitting in
the lotus position. Dikko Henderson had advised it. "If you make the
grade with these people," he had said, "or even if you don't, you'll be
spending a lot of time sitting on your ass on the ground. There's only
one way to do it without cracking your joints--that's in the Indian
position, squatting with your legs crossed and the sides of your feet
hurting like hell on the floor. It takes a bit of practice, but it won't
kill you and you'll end up gaining plenty of face." Bond had more or
less mastered the art, but now, after two hours, his knee-joints were on
fire and he felt that if he didn't alter his posture he would end up
bandy-legged for life. He said to Tiger, "Playing against a master such
as yourself, I must first adopt a relaxed position so that my brain may
be totally concentrated." He got painfully to his feet, stretched, and
sat down again--this time with one leg extended under the low table and
with his left elbow resting on the bent knee of the other. It was a
blessed relief. He lifted his tumbler and, obediently, Trembling Leaf
filled it from a fresh flagon. Bond downed the _sak_, handed the
tumbler to the girl, and suddenly crashed his right fist down on the
lacquer table so that the little boxes of sweetmeats rattled and the
porcelain tinkled. He looked belligerently across at Tiger Tanaka.
"Right!"

Tiger bowed. Bond bowed back. The girl leant forward expectantly.

Tiger's eyes bored into Bond's, trying to read his plan. Bond had
decided to have no plan, display no pattern. He would play completely at
random, showing the symbol that his fist decided to make at the
psychological moment after the two hammer blows.

Tiger said, "Three games of three?"

"Right."

The two fists rose slowly from the table top, quickly hammered twice in
unison, and shot forward. Tiger had kept his fist balled in the Stone.
Bond's palm was open in the Paper that wrapped the Stone. One up to
Bond. Again the ritual and the moment of truth. Tiger had kept to the
Stone. Bond's first and second fingers were open in the Scissors,
blunted by Tiger's Stone. One all.

Tiger paused and placed his fist against his forehead. He closed his
eyes in thought. He said, "Yes. I've got you, Bondo-san. You can't
escape."

"Good show," said Bond, trying to clear his mind of the suspicion that
Tiger would keep to the Stone, or alternatively, that Tiger would expect
him to play it that way, expect Bond to play the Paper and himself
riposte with the Scissors to cut the Paper. And so on and so forth. The
three emblems whirled round in Bond's mind like the symbols on a fruit
machine.

The two fists were raised--one, two, forward! Tiger had kept to his
Stone. Bond had wrapped it up with the Paper. First game to Bond.

The second game lasted longer. They both kept on showing the same
symbol, which meant a replay. It was as if the two players were getting
the measure of each other's psychology. But that could not be so, since
Bond had no psychological intent. He continued to play at random. It was
just luck. Tiger won the game. One all.

Last game! The two contestants looked at each other. Bond's smile was
bland, rather mocking. A glint of red shone in the depths of Tiger's
dark eyes. Bond saw it and said to himself, "I would be wise to lose. Or
would I?" He won the game in two straight goes, blunting Tiger's
Scissors with his Stone, wrapping Tiger's Stone with his Paper.

Tiger bowed low. Bond bowed even lower. He sought for a throwaway
remark. He said, "I must get this game adopted in time for your
Olympics. I would certainly be chosen to play for my country."

Tiger Tanaka laughed with controlled politeness. "You play with much
insight. What was the secret of your method?"

Bond had had no method. He quickly invented the one that would be most
polite to Tiger. "You are a man of rock and steel, Tiger. I guessed that
the paper symbol would be the one you would use the least. I played
accordingly."

This bit of mumbo-jumbo got by. Tiger bowed. Bond bowed and drank more
_sak_, toasting Tiger. Released from the tension, the geisha applauded
and the madame instructed Trembling Leaf to give Bond another kiss. She
did so. How soft the skins of Japanese women were! And their touch was
almost weightless! James Bond was plotting the rest of his night when
Tiger said, "Bondo-san, I have matters to discuss with you. Will you do
me the honour of coming to my house for a nightcap?"

Bond immediately put away his lascivious thoughts. According to Dikko,
to be invited to a Japanese private house was a most unusual sign of
favour. So, for some reason, he had done right to win this childish
game. This might mean great things. Bond bowed. "Nothing would give me
more pleasure, Tiger."

****

An hour later, they were sitting in blessed chairs with a drink-tray
between them. The lights of Yokohama glowed a deep orange along the
horizon, and a slight smell of the harbour and the sea came in through
the wide-open partition leading on to the garden. Tiger's house was
designed, enchantingly, as is even the meanest Japanese salary-man's
house, to establish the thinnest possible dividing line between the
inhabitant and nature. The three other partitions in the square room
were also fully slid back, revealing a bedroom, a small study, and a
passage.

Tiger had opened the partitions when they entered the room. He had
commented, "In the West, when you have secrets to discuss, you shut all
the doors and windows. In Japan, we throw everything open to make sure
that no one can listen at the thin walls. And what I have now to discuss
with you is a matter of the very highest secrecy. The _sak_ is warm
enough? You have the cigarettes you prefer? Then listen to what I have
to say to you and swear on your honour to divulge it to no one." Tiger
Tanaka gave his great golden shout of mirthless laughter. "If you were
to break your promise, I would have no alternative but to remove you
from the earth."




2. CURTAINS FOR BOND?


Exactly one month before, it had been the eve of the annual closing of
Blades. On the next day, September 1st, those members who were still
unfashionably in London would have to pig it for a month at Whites' or
Boodle's. Whites' they considered noisy and "smart," Boodle's too full
of superannuated country squires who would be talking of nothing but the
opening of the partridge season. For Blades, it was one month in the
wilderness. But there it was. The staff, one supposed, had to have their
holiday. More important, there was some painting to be done and there
was dry-rot in the roof.

M., sitting in the bow-window looking out over St. James's Street,
couldn't care less. He had two weeks' trout fishing on the Test to look
forward to, and for the other two weeks, he would have sandwiches and
coffee at his desk. He rarely used Blades, and then only to entertain
important guests. He was not a "clubable" man, and if he had had the
choice, he would have stuck to The Senior, that greatest of all
Services' clubs in the world. But too many people knew him there, and
there was too much "shop" talked. And there were too many former
shipmates who _would_ come up and ask him what he had been doing with
himself since he retired. And the lie, "Got a job with some people
called Universal Export," bored him, and, though verifiable, had its
risks.

Porterfield hovered with the cigars. He bent and offered the wide case
to M.'s guest. Sir James Molony raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I see the
Havanas are still coming in." His hand hesitated. He picked out a Romeo
y Julieta, pinched it gently and ran it under his nose. He turned to M.
"What's Universal Export sending Castro in return? Blue Streak?"

M. was not amused. Porterfield observed that he wasn't. As Chief Petty
Officer, he had served under M. in one of his last commands. He said
quickly, but not too quickly, "As a matter of fact, Sir James, the best
of the Jamaicans are quite up to the Havanas these days. They've got the
outer leaf just right at last." He closed the glass lid of the case and
moved away.

Sir James Molony picked up the piercer the head waiter had left on the
table and punctured the tip of his cigar with precision. He lit a Swan
Vesta and waved its flame to and fro across the tip and sucked gently
until he had got the cigar going to his satisfaction. Then he took a
sip, first at his brandy and then at his coffee, and sat back. He
observed the corrugated brow of his host with affection and irony. He
said, "All right, my friend. Now tell me. What's the problem?"

M.'s mind was elsewhere. He seemed to be having difficulty getting his
pipe going. He said vaguely, between puffs, "What problem?"

Sir James Molony was the greatest neurologist in England. The year
before, he had been awarded a Nobel Prize for his now-famous _Some
Psychosomatic Side-effects of Organic Inferiority_. He was also nerve
specialist by appointment to the Secret Service and, though he was
rarely called in, and then only in extremis, the problems he was
required to solve intrigued him greatly because they were both human and
vital to the State. And, since the war, the second qualification was a
rare one.

M. turned sideways to his guest and watched the traffic up St. James's.

Sir James Molony said, "My friend, like everybody else, you have certain
patterns of behaviour. One of them consists of occasionally asking me to
lunch at Blades, stuffing me like a Strasbourg goose, and then letting
me in on some ghastly secret and asking me to help you with it. The last
time, as I recall, you wanted to find out if I could extract certain
information from a foreign diplomat by getting him under deep hypnosis
without his knowledge. You said it was a last resort. I said I couldn't
help you. Two weeks later, I read in the paper that this same diplomat
had come to a fatal end by experimenting with the force of gravity from
a tenth floor window. The coroner gave an open verdict of the 'fell or
was pushed' variety. What song am I to sing for my supper this time?"
Sir James Molony relented. He said with sympathy, "Come on, M.! Get it
off your chest!"

M. looked him coldly in the eye. "It's 007. I'm getting more and more
worried about him."

"You've read my two reports on his condition. Anything new?"

"No. Just the same. He's going slowly to pieces. Late at the office.
Skimps his work. Makes mistakes. He's drinking too much and losing a lot
of money at one of these new gambling clubs. It all adds up to the fact
that one of my best men is on the edge of becoming a security risk.
Absolutely incredible, considering his record."

Sir James Molony shook his head with conviction. "It's not in the least
incredible. You either don't read my reports or you don't pay enough
attention to them. I have said all along that the man is suffering from
shock." Sir James Molony leant forward and pointed his cigar at M.'s
chest. "You're a hard man, M. In your job you have to be. But there are
some problems--the human ones, for instance--that you can't always solve
with a rope's end. This is a case in point. Here's this agent of yours,
just as tough and brave as I expect you were at his age. He's a bachelor
and a confirmed womanizer. Then he suddenly falls in love, partly, I
suspect, because this woman was a bird with a wing down and needed his
help. It's surprising what soft centres these so-called tough men always
have. So he marries her and within a few hours she's shot dead by this
super-gangster chap. What was his name?"

"Blofeld," said M. "Ernst Stavro Blofeld."

"All right. And your man got away with nothing worse than a crack on the
head. But then he started going to pieces, and your M.O. thought he
might have suffered some brain injury and sent him along to me. Nothing
wrong with him at all. Nothing physical that is--just shock. He admitted
to me that all his zest had gone. That he wasn't interested in his job
any more, or even in his life. I hear this sort of talk from patients
every day. It's a form of psychoneurosis, and it can grow slowly or
suddenly. In your man's case, it was brought on out of the blue by an
intolerable life-situation--or one that he found intolerable because he
had never encountered it before--the loss of a loved one, aggravated in
his case by the fact that he blamed himself for her death. Now, my
friend, neither you nor I have had to carry such a burden, so we don't
know how we would react under it. But I can tell you that it's a hell of
a burden to lug around. And your man's caving in under it. I thought,
and I said so in my report, that his job, its dangers and emergencies
and so forth, would shake him out of it. I've found that one must try
and teach people that there's no top limit to disaster--that, so long as
breath remains in your body, you've got to accept the miseries of life.
They will often seem infinite, insupportable. They are part of the human
condition. Have you tried him on any tough assignments in the last few
months?"

"Two," said M. drearily. "He bungled them both. On one he nearly got
himself killed, and on the other he made a mistake that was dangerous
for others. That's another thing that worries me. He didn't make
mistakes before. Now suddenly he's become accident-prone."

"Another symptom of his neurosis. What are you going to do about it?"

"Fire him," said M. brutally. "Just as if he'd been shot to pieces or
got some incurable disease. I've got no room in his section for a
lame-brain, whatever his past record or whatever excuses you
psychologists can find for him. Pension, of course. Honourable discharge
and all that. Try and find him a job. One of these new security
organizations for the banks might take him." M. looked defensively into
the clear blue, comprehending eyes of the famous neurologist. He said,
seeking support for his decision, "You do see my point, Sir James? I'm
tightly staffed at headquarters, and in the field, for that matter.
There's just no place where I can tuck away 007 so that he won't cause
harm."

"You'll be losing one of your best men."

"Used to be. Isn't any longer."

Sir James Molony sat back. He looked out of the window and puffed
thoughtfully at his cigar. He liked this man Bond. He had had him as his
patient perhaps a dozen times before. He had seen how the spirit, the
reserves in the man, could pull him out of badly damaged conditions that
would have broken the normal human being. He knew how a desperate
situation would bring out those reserves again, how the will to live
would spring up again in a real emergency. He remembered how countless
neurotic patients had disappeared for ever from his consulting rooms
when the last war had broken out. The big worry had driven out the
smaller ones, the greater fear the lesser. He made up his mind. He
turned back to M. "Give him one more chance, M. If it'll help, I'll take
the responsibility."

"What sort of chance are you thinking of?"

"Well now, I don't know much about your line of business, M. And I don't
want to. Got enough secrets in my own job to look after. But haven't you
got something really sticky, some apparently hopeless assignment you can
give this man? I don't mean necessarily dangerous, like assassination or
stealing Russian cyphers or whatever. But something that's desperately
important but apparently impossible. By all means give him a kick in the
pants at the same time if you want to, but what he needs most of all is
a supreme call on his talents, something that'll really make him sweat
so that he's simply forced to forget his personal troubles. He's a
patriotic sort of a chap. Give him something that really matters to his
country. It would be easy enough if a war broke out. Nothing like death
or glory to take a man out of himself. But can't you dream up something
that simply stinks of urgency? If you can, give him the job. It might
get him right back on the rails. Anyway, give him the chance. Yes?"

****

The urgent thrill of the red telephone, which had been silent for so
many weeks, shot Mary Goodnight out of her seat at the typewriter as if
it had been fitted with a cartridge ejector. She dashed through into the
next room, waited a second to get her breath back, and picked up the
receiver as if it had been a rattlesnake.

"Yes, sir."

"No, sir. It's his secretary speaking." She looked down at her watch,
knowing the worst.

"It's most unusual, sir. I don't expect he'll be more than a few
minutes. Shall I ask him to call you, sir?"

"Yes, sir." She put the receiver back on its cradle. She noticed that
her hand was trembling. Damn the man! Where the hell was he? She said
aloud, "Oh James, please hurry." She walked disconsolately back and sat
down again at her empty typewriter. She gazed at the grey keys with
unseeing eyes and broadcast with all her telepathic strength, "James!
James! M. wants you! M. wants you! M. wants you!" Her heart dropped a
beat. The syncrophone. Perhaps just this once he hadn't forgotten it.
She hurried back into his room and tore open the right-hand drawer. No!
There it was, the little plastic receiver on which he could have been
bleeped by the switchboard. The gadget that it was mandatory for all
senior headquarters staff to carry when they left the building. But for
weeks he had been forgetting to carry it, or worse, not caring if he did
or didn't. She took it out and slammed it down in the centre of his
blotter. "Oh, damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" she said out loud, and
walked back into her room with dragging feet.

****

The state of your health, the state of the weather, the wonders of
nature--these are things that rarely occupy the average man's mind until
he reaches the middle thirties. It is only on the threshold of
middle-age that you don't take them all for granted, just part of an
unremarkable background to more urgent, more interesting things.

Until this year, James Bond had been more or less oblivious to all of
them. Apart from occasional hangovers, and the mending of physical
damage that was merely, for him, the extension of a child falling down
and cutting his knee, he had taken good health for granted. The weather?
Just a question of whether or not he had to carry a raincoat or put the
hood up on his Bentley convertible. As for birds, bees, and flowers, the
wonders of nature, it only mattered whether or not they bit or stung,
whether they smelled good or bad. But today, on the last day of August,
just eight months, as he had reminded himself that morning, since Tracy
had died, he sat in Queen Mary's Rose Garden in Regent's Park, and his
mind was totally occupied with just these things.

First his health. He felt like hell and knew that he also looked it. For
months, without telling anyone, he had tramped Harley Street, Wigmore
Street, and Wimpole Street looking for any kind of doctor who would make
him feel better. He had appealed to specialists, G.P.'s, quacks--even to
a hypnotist. He had told them, "I feel like hell. I sleep badly. I eat
practically nothing. I drink too much, and my work has gone to blazes.
I'm shot to pieces. Make me better." And each man had taken his blood
pressure, a specimen of his urine, listened to his heart and chest,
asked him questions he had answered truthfully, and had told him there
was nothing basically wrong with him. Then he had paid his five guineas
and gone off to John Bell and Croyden to have the new lot of
prescriptions--for tranquillizers, sleeping pills, energizers--made up.
And now he had just come from breaking off relations with the last
resort--the hypnotist, whose basic message had been that he must go out
and regain his manhood by having a woman. As if he hadn't tried that!
The ones who had told him to take it easy up the stairs. The ones who
had asked him to take them to Paris. The ones who had inquired
indifferently, "Feeling better now, dearie?" The hypnotist hadn't been a
bad chap. Rather a bore about how he could take away warts and how he
was persecuted by the B.M.A., but Bond had finally had enough of sitting
in a chair and listening to the quietly droning voice while, as
instructed, he relaxed and gazed at a naked electric light bulb. And now
he had thrown up the fifty-guinea course after only half the treatment
and had come to sit in this secluded garden before going back to his
office ten minutes away across the park.

He looked at his watch. Just after three o'clock, and he was due back at
two-thirty. What the hell! God, it was hot. He wiped a hand across his
forehead and then down the side of his trousers. He used not to sweat
like this. The weather must be changing. Atomic bomb, whatever the
scientists might say to the contrary. It would be good to be down
somewhere in the south of France. Somewhere to bathe whenever he wanted.
But he had had his leave for the year. That ghastly month they had given
him after Tracy. Then he had gone to Jamaica. And what hell that had
been. No! Bathing wasn't the answer. It was all right here, really.
Lovely roses to look at. They smelled good, and it was pleasant looking
at them and listening to the far-away traffic. Nice hum of bees. The way
they went around the flowers, doing their work for their queen. Must
read that book about them by the Belgian chap, Metternich or something.
Same man who wrote about the ants. Extraordinary purpose in life. They
didn't have troubles. Just lived and died. Did what they were supposed
to do and then dropped dead. Why didn't one see a lot of bees' corpses
around? Ants' corpses? Thousands, millions of them must die every day.
Perhaps the others ate them. Oh well! Better go back to the office and
get hell from Mary. She was a darling. She was right to nag at him as
she did. She was his conscience. But she didn't realize the troubles he
had. What troubles? Oh well. Don't let's go into that! James Bond got to
his feet and went over and read the lead labels of the roses he had been
gazing at. They told him that the bright vermilion ones were "Super
Star" and the white ones "Iceberg."

Then, with a jumble of his health, the heat, and the corpses of bees
revolving lazily round his mind, James Bond strolled off in the
direction of the tall grey building whose upper storeys showed
themselves above the trees.

It was three-thirty. Only two more hours to go before his next drink!

****

The lift man, resting the stump of his right arm on the operating
handle, said, "Your secretary's in a bit of a flap, sir. Been asking
everywhere for you."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

He got the same message when he stepped out at the fifth floor and
showed his pass to the security guard at the desk. He walked unhurriedly
along the quiet corridor to the group of end rooms whose outer door bore
the Double-O sign. He went through and along to the door marked 007. He
closed it behind him. Mary Goodnight looked up at him and said calmly,
"M. wants you. He rang down half an hour ago."

"Who's M.?"

Mary Goodnight jumped to her feet, her eyes flashing. "Oh for God's
sake, James, snap out of it! Here, your tie's crooked." She came up to
him, and he docilely allowed her to pull it straight. "And your hair's
all over the place. Here, use my comb." Bond took the comb and ran it
absent-mindedly through his hair. He said, "You're a good girl,
Goodnight." He fingered his chin. "Suppose you haven't got your razor
handy? Must look my best on the scaffold."

"Please, James." Her eyes were bright. "Go and get on to him. He hasn't
talked to you for weeks. Perhaps it's something important. Something
exciting." She tried desperately to put encouragement into her voice.

"It's always exciting starting a new life. Anyway, who's afraid of the
Big Bad M.? Will you come and lend a hand on my chicken farm?"

She turned away and put her hands up to her face. He patted her casually
on the shoulder and walked through into his office and went over and
picked up the red telephone. "007 here, sir."

"I'm sorry, sir. Had to go to the dentist."

"I know, sir. I'm sorry. I left it in my desk."

"Yes, sir."

He put the receiver down slowly. He looked round his office as if saying
good-bye to it, walked out and along the corridor, and went up in the
lift with the resignation of a man under sentence.

Miss Moneypenny looked up at him with ill-concealed hostility. "You can
go in."

Bond squared his shoulders and looked at the padded door behind which he
had so often heard his fate pronounced. Almost as if it were going to
give him an electric shock, he tentatively reached out for the door
handle and walked through and closed the door behind him.




3. THE IMPOSSIBLE MISSION


M., his shoulders hunched inside the square-cut blue suit, was standing
by the big window looking out across the park. Without looking round he
said, "Sit down." No name, no number!

Bond took his usual place across the desk from M.'s tall-armed chair. He
noticed that there was no file on the expanse of red leather in front of
the chair. And the In and Out baskets were both empty. Suddenly he felt
really bad about everything--about letting M. down, letting the Service
down, letting himself down. This empty desk, the empty chair, were the
final accusation. We have nothing for you, they seemed to say. You're no
use to us any more. Sorry. It's been nice knowing you, but there it is.

M. came over and sat heavily down in the chair and looked across at
Bond. There was nothing to read in the lined sailor's face. It was as
impassive as the polished blue leather of the empty chair-back had been.

M. said, "You know why I've sent for you?"

"I can guess, sir. You can have my resignation."

M. said angrily, "What in hell are you talking about? It's not your
fault that the Double-O Section's been idle for so long. It's the way
things go. You've had flat periods before now--months with nothing in
your line."

"But I made a mess of the last two jobs. And I know my medical's been
pretty poor these last few months."

"Nonsense. There's nothing the matter with you. You've been through a
bad time. You've had good reason to be a bit under the weather. As for
the last two assignments, anyone can make mistakes. But I can't have
idle hands around the place, so I'm taking you out of the Double-O
Section."

Bond's heart had temporarily risen. Now it plummeted again. The old man
was being kind, trying to let him down lightly. He said, "Then, if it's
all the same to you, sir, I'd still like to put in my resignation. I've
held the Double-O number for too long. I'm not interested in staff work,
I'm afraid, sir. And no good at it either."

M. did something Bond had never seen him do before. He lifted his right
fist and brought it crashing down on the desk. "Who the devil do you
think you're talking to? Who the devil d'you think's running this show?
God in Heaven! I send for you to give you promotion and the most
important job of your career and you talk to me about resignation!
Pig-headed young fool!"

Bond was dumbfounded. A great surge of excitement ran through him. What
in hell was all this about? He said, "I'm terribly sorry, sir. I thought
I'd been letting the side down lately."

"I'll soon tell you when you're letting the side down." M. thumped the
desk for a second time, but less hard. "Now listen to me, I'm giving you
acting promotion to the Diplomatic Section. Four-figure number and a
thousand a year extra pay. You won't know much about the section, but I
can tell you there are only two other men in it. You can keep your
present office and your secretary, if you like. In fact I would prefer
it. I don't want your change of duty to get about. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"In any case, you'll be leaving for Japan inside a week. The Chief of
Staff is handling the arrangements personally. Not even my secretary
knows about it. As you can see," M. waved his hand, "there's not even a
file on the case. That's how important it is."

"But why have you chosen me, sir?" Bond's heart was thumping. This was
the most extraordinary change in his fortunes that had ever come about!
Ten minutes before he had been on the rubbish heap, his career, his life
in ruins, and now here he was being set-up on a pinnacle! What the hell
was it all about?

"For the simple reason that the job's impossible. No, I won't go as far
as that. Let's say totally improbable of success. You've shown in the
past that you have an aptitude for difficult assignments. The only
difference here is that there won't be any strong-arm stuff." M. gave a
frosty smile. "None of the gun-play you pride yourself on so much. It'll
just be a question of your wits and nothing else. But if you bring it
off, which I very much doubt, you will just about double our
intelligence about the Soviet Union."

"Can you tell me some more about it, sir?"

"Have to, as there's nothing written down. Lower-echelon stuff, about
the Japanese Secret Service and so forth, you can get from Section J.
The Chief of Staff will tell Colonel Hamilton to answer your questions
freely, though you will tell him nothing about the purpose of your
mission. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well now. You know a bit about cryptography?"

"The bare bones, sir. I've preferred to keep clear of the subject.
Better that way in case the Opposition ever got hold of me."

"Quite right. Well now, the Japanese are past masters at it. They've got
the right mentality for finicky problems in letters and numbers. Since
the war, under C.I.A. guidance, they've built incredible cracking
machines--far ahead of I.B.M. and so forth. And for the last year
they've been reading the cream of the Soviet traffic from Vladivostok
and Oriental Russia--diplomatic, naval, air-force, the lot."

"That's terrific, sir."

"Terrific for the C.I.A."

"Aren't they passing it on to us, sir? I thought we were hand in glove
with C.I.A. all along the line."

"Not in the Pacific. They regard that as their private preserve. When
Allen Dulles was in charge, we used at least to get digests of any stuff
that concerned us, but this new man McCone has cracked down on all that.
He's a good man, all right, and we get along well personally, but he's
told me candidly that he's acting under orders--National Security
Council. They're worried about our security. Can't blame them. I'm
equally worried about theirs. Two of their top cryptographers defected a
couple of years ago--they must have blown a lot of the stuff we give the
Americans. Trouble with this so-called democracy of ours is that the
press get hold of these cases and write them up too big. _Pravda_
doesn't burst into tears when one of their men come over to us.
_Izvestia_ doesn't ask for a public enquiry. Somebody in K.G.B. gets
hell, I suppose. But at least they're allowed to get on with their job
instead of having retired members of the Supreme Soviet pawing through
their files and telling them how to run a secret service."

Bond knew that M. had tendered his resignation after the Prenderghast
case. This had involved a Head of Station with homosexual tendencies who
had recently, amidst world-wide publicity, been given thirty years for
treason. Bond himself had had to give evidence in that particular case,
and he knew that the Questions in the House, the case at the Old Bailey,
and the hearings before the Farrer Tribunal on the Intelligence Services
that had followed had held up all work at headquarters for at least a
month and brought about the suicide of a totally innocent Head of
Section who had taken the whole affair as a direct reflection on his own
probity. To get M. back on the track, Bond said, "About this stuff the
Japanese are getting. Where do I come in, sir?"

M. put both hands flat on the table. It was the old gesture when he came
to the sixty-four-dollar question, and Bond's heart lifted even further
at the sight of it. "There's a man in Tokyo called Tiger Tanaka. Head of
their secret service. Can't remember what they call it. Some
unpronounceable Japanese rubbish. He's quite a man. First at Oxford.
Came back here and spied for them before the war. Joined the
_Kempeitai_, their wartime Gestapo, trained as a _kami-kaze_, and would
be dead by now but for the surrender. Well, he's the chap who has
control of the stuff we want, I want, the Chiefs of Staff want. You're
to go out there and get it off him. How, I don't know. That's up to you.
But you can see why I say you're unlikely to succeed. He's in
fief"--Bond was amused by the old Scottish expression--"to the C.I.A. He
probably doesn't think much of us." M.'s mouth bent down at the corners.
"People don't these days. They may be right or wrong. I'm not a
politician. He doesn't know much about the Service except what he's
penetrated or heard from the C.I.A. And that won't be greatly to our
advantage, I'd say. We haven't had a station in Japan since 1950. No
traffic. It all went to the Americans. You'll be working under the
Australians. They tell me their man's good. Section J says so too.
Anyway, that's the way it is. If anyone can bring it off, you can. Care
to have a try, James?"

M.'s face was suddenly friendly. It wasn't friendly often. James Bond
felt a quick warmth of affection for this man who had ordered his
destiny for so long, but whom he knew so little. His instinct told him
that there were things hidden behind this assignment, motives which he
didn't understand. Was this a rescue job on him? Was M. giving him his
last chance? But it sounded solid enough. The reasons for it stood up.
Hopeless? Impossible? Perhaps. Why hadn't M. chosen a Jap speaker? Bond
had never been east of Hong Kong. But then Orientalists had their own
particular drawbacks--too much tied up with tea ceremonies and flower
arrangements and Zen and so forth. No. It sounded a true bill. He said,
"Yes, sir. I'd like to have a try."

M. gave an abrupt nod. "Good." He leant forward and pressed a button on
the intercom. "Chief of Staff? What number have you allotted to 007?
Right. He's coming to see you straightaway."

M. leant back. He gave one of his rare smiles. "You're stuck with your
old digit. All right, four sevens. Go along and get briefed."

Bond said, "Right, sir. And, er, thank you." He got up and walked over
to the door and let himself out. He walked straight over to Miss
Moneypenny and bent down and kissed her on the cheek. She turned pink
and put a hand up to where he had kissed her. Bond said, "Be an angel,
Penny, and ring down to Mary and tell her she's got to get out of
whatever she's doing tonight. I'm taking her out to dinner. Scotts. Tell
her we'll have our first roast grouse of the year and pink champagne.
Celebration."

"What of?" Miss Moneypenny's eyes were suddenly wide and excited.

"Oh I don't know. The Queen's birthday or something. Right?" James Bond
crossed the room and went into the Chief of Staff's office.

Miss Moneypenny picked up the inter-office telephone and passed on the
message in a thrilled voice. She said, "I do think he's all right again,
Mary. It's all there again like it used to be. Heaven knows what M.'s
been saying to him. He had lunch with Sir James Molony today. Don't tell
James that. But it may have something to do with it. He's with the Chief
of Staff now. And Bill said he wasn't to be disturbed. Sounds like some
kind of a job. Bill was very mysterious."

Bill Tanner, late Colonel Tanner of the Sappers and Bond's best friend
in the Service, looked up from his heavily laden desk. He grinned with
pleasure at what he saw. He said, "Take a pew, James. So you've bought
it? Thought you might. But it's a stinker all right. Think you can bring
it off?"

"Not an earthly, I'd guess," said Bond cheerfully. "This man Tanaka
sounds a tough nut, and I'm no great hand at diplomacy. But why did M.
pick on me, Bill? I thought I was in the dog-house because of messing up
those last two jobs. I was all set to go into chicken farming. Now, be a
good chap and tell me what's the real score."

Bill Tanner had been ready for that one. He said easily, "Balls, James.
You've been running through a bad patch. We all hit 'em sometimes. M.
just thought you'd be the best man for the job. You know he's got an
entirely misplaced opinion of your abilities. Anyway, it'll be a change
from your usual rough-housing. Time you moved up out of that damned
Double-O Section of yours. Don't you ever think about promotion?"

"Absolutely not," said Bond with fervour. "As soon as I get back from
this caper, I'll ask for my old number back again. But tell me, how am I
supposed to set about this business? What's this Australian cover
consist of? Have I got anything to offer this wily Oriental in exchange
for his jewels? How's the stuff to be transmitted back here if I do get
my hands on it? Must be the hell of a lot of traffic."

"He can have the entire product of Station H. He can send one of his own
staffers down to Hong Kong to sit in with us if he likes. He'll probably
be pretty well off on China already, but he won't have anything as
high-grade as our Macao link, the 'Blue Route.' Hamilton will tell you
all about that. In Tokyo, the man you'll be working with is an Aussie
called Henderson--Richard Lovelace Henderson. Fancy name, but Section J
and all the old Jap hands say he's a good man. You'll have an Australian
passport, and we'll fix for you to go out as his number two. That'll
give you diplomatic status and a certain amount of face, which counts
for damn near everything out there, according to Hamilton. If you get
the stuff, Henderson will push it back to us through Melbourne. We'll
give him a communications staff to handle it. Next question."

"What are the C.I.A. going to say about all this? After all, it's
bare-faced poaching."

"They don't own Japan. Anyway, they're not to know. That's up to this
fellow Tanaka. He'll have to fix the machinery for getting it into the
Australian embassy. That's his worry. But the whole thing's on pretty
thin ice. The main problem is to make sure he doesn't go straight along
to the C.I.A. and tell 'em of your approach. If you get blown, we'll
just have to get the Australians to hold the baby. They've done it
before when we've been bowled out edging our way into the Pacific. We're
good friends with their service. First-rate bunch of chaps. And, anyway,
the C.I.A.'s hands aren't as clean as all that. We've got a whole file
of cases where they've crossed wires with us round the world. Often
dangerously. We can throw that book at McCone if this business blows up
in our faces. But part of your job is to see that it doesn't."

"Seems to me I'm getting all balled up in high politics. Not my line of
country at all. But is this stuff really as vital as M. says?"

"Absolutely. If you get hold of it, your grateful country will probably
buy you that chicken farm you're always talking about."

"So be it. Now, if you'll give Hamilton a buzz, I'll go and start
learning all about the mysterious East."

****

"_Kangei!_ Welcome aboard," said the pretty kimono-ed and obi-ed
stewardess of Japan Air Lines as, a week later, James Bond settled into
the comfortable window seat of the four-jet, turbofan Douglas DC-8 at
London Airport and listened to the torrent of soft Japanese coming from
the tannoy that would be saying all those things about life-jackets and
the flying time to Orly. The sick-bags "in case of motion disturbance"
were embellished with pretty bamboo emblems and according to the
exquisitely bound travel folder, the random scribbles on the luggage
rack above his head were "the traditional and auspicious tortoiseshell
motif." The stewardess bowed and handed him a dainty fan, a small hot
towel in a wicker basket, and a sumptuous menu that included a note to
the effect that an assortment of cigarettes, perfumes, and pearls were
available for sale. Then they were off with 50,000 pounds of thrust on
the first leg of the four that would take the good aircraft Yoshino over
the North Pole to Tokyo.

Bond gazed at the picture of three oranges (no! after an hour he decided
they were persimmons) in a blue bowl that faced him and, when the
aircraft flattened out at 30,000 feet, ordered the first of the chain of
brandies and ginger ales that was to sustain him over the Channel, a leg
of the North Sea, the Kattegat, the Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Sea, the
Bering Sea, and the North Pacific Ocean, and decided that, whatever
happened on this impossible assignment, he would put up no resistance to
his old skin being sloughed off him on the other side of the world. By
the time he was admiring the huge stuffed polar bear at Anchorage,
Alaska, the embrace of J.A.L.'s soft wings had persuaded him that he
didn't even mind if the colour of the new skin was to be yellow.




4. DIKKO ON THE GINZA


The huge right fist crashed into the left palm with the noise of a
forty-five pistol shot. The great square face of the Australian turned
almost purple, and the veins stood out on the grizzled temples. With
controlled violence, but almost under his breath, he intoned savagely:

    "I bludge,
    Thou bludgest,
    He bludges,
    We bludge,
    You bludge,
    They all bludge."

He reached under the low table, then seemed to think better of it and
moved his hand to the glass of _sak_, picked it up, and poured it down
his throat without a swallow.

Bond said mildly, "Take it easy, Dikko. What's bitten you? And what does
this vulgar-sounding colonial expression mean?"

Richard Lovelace Henderson, of Her Majesty's Australian Diplomatic
Corps, looked belligerently round the small crowded bar in a by-street
off the Ginza and said out of the corner of his large and usually
cheerful mouth that was now turned down in bitterness and anger, "You
stupid pommy bastard, we've been miked! That bludger Tanaka's miked us!
Here, under the table! See the little wire down the leg? And see that
wingy over at the bar? Chap with one arm looking bloody respectable in
his blue suit and black tie? That's one of Tiger's men. I can smell 'em
by now. They've been tailing me off and on for ten years. Tiger dresses
'em all like little C.I.A. gentlemen. You watch out for any Jap who's
drinking Western and wearing that rig. All Tiger's men." He grumbled,
"Damn good mind to go over and call the bastard."

Bond said, "Well, if we're being miked, all this'll make sweet reading
for Mr. Tanaka tomorrow morning."

"What the hell," said Dikko Henderson resignedly. "The old bastard knows
what I think of him. Now he'll just have it in writing. Teach him to
stop leaning on me. And my friends," he added, with a blistering glance
at Bond. "It's really you he wants to size up. And I don't mind if he
hears me saying so. Bludger? Well, hear me now, Tiger! This is the great
Australian insult. You can use it anyway." He raised his voice. "But in
general it means a worthless pervert, ponce, scoundrel, liar, traitor,
and rogue--with no redeeming feature. And I hope your stewed seaweed
sticks in your gullet at breakfast tomorrow, when you know what I think
of you."

Bond laughed. The torrent of powerful swear-words had started its
ceaseless flow the day before at the airport--Haneda, "the field of
wings." It had taken Bond nearly an hour to extract his single suit-case
from the customs area, and he had emerged fuming into the central hall
only to be jostled and pushed aside by an excited crowd of young
Japanese bearing paper banners that said "International Laundry
Convention." Bond was exhausted from his flight. He let out one single
four-letter expletive.

Behind him a big voice repeated the same word and added some more.
"That's my boy! That's the right way to greet the East! You'll be
needing all those words and more before you're through with the area."

Bond had turned. The huge man in the rumpled grey suit thrust out a hand
as big as a small ham. "Glad to meet you. I'm Henderson. As you were the
only pommy on the plane, I guess you're Bond. Here. Give me that bag.
Got a car outside, and the sooner we get away from this blankety-blank
madhouse, the better."

Henderson looked like a middle-aged prize-fighter who has retired and
taken to the bottle. His thin suit bulged with muscle round the arms and
shoulders and with fat round the waist. He had a craggy, sympathetic
face, rather stony blue eyes, and a badly broken nose. He was sweating
freely (Bond was to find that he was always sweating), and as he barged
his way through the crowd, using Bond's suit-case as a battering ram, he
extracted a rumpled square of terry-cloth from his trouser-pocket and
wiped it round his neck and face. The crowd parted unresentfully to let
the giant through, and Bond followed in his wake to a smart Toyopet
saloon waiting in a no-parking area. The chauffeur got out and bowed.
Henderson fired a torrent of instructions at him in fluent Japanese and
followed Bond into the back seat, settling himself with a grunt. "Taking
you to your hotel first--the Okura, latest of the Western ones. American
tourist got murdered at the Royal Oriental the other day, and we don't
want to lose you all that soon. Then we'll do a bit of serious drinking.
Had some dinner?"

"About six of them, as far as I can remember. J.A.L. certainly takes
good care of your stomach."

"Why did you choose the willow-pattern route? How was the old ruptured
duck?"

"They told me the bird was a crane. Very dainty. But efficient. Thought
I might as well practise being inscrutable before plunging into all
this." Bond waved at the cluttered shambles of the Tokyo suburbs through
which they were tearing at what seemed to Bond a suicidal speed.
"Doesn't look the most attractive city in the world. And why are we
driving on the right?"

"God knows," said Henderson moodily. "The bloody Japs do everything the
wrong way round. Read the old instruction books wrong, I daresay. Light
switches go up instead of down. Taps turn to the left. Door handles
likewise. Why, they even race their horses clockwise instead of
anti-clockwise like civilized people. As for Tokyo, it's bloody awful.
It's either too hot or too cold or pouring with rain. And there's an
earthquake about every day. But don't worry about them. They just make
you feel slightly drunk. The typhoons are worse. If one starts to blow,
go into the stoutest bar you can see and get drunk. But the first ten
years are the worst. It's got its points when you know your way around.
Bloody expensive if you live Western, but I stick to the back alleys and
do all right. Really quite exhilarating. Got to know the lingo, though,
and when to bow and take off your shoes and so on. You'll have to get
the basic routines straight pretty quickly if you're going to make any
headway with the people you've come to see. Underneath the stiff collars
and striped pants in the government departments, there's still plenty of
the old _samurai_ tucked away. I laugh at them for it, and they laugh
back because they've got to know my line of patter. But that doesn't
mean I don't bow from the waist when I know it's expected of me and when
I want something. You'll get the hang of it all right." Henderson fired
some Japanese at the driver, who had been glancing frequently in his
driving mirror. The driver laughed and replied cheerfully. "Thought so,"
said Henderson. "We've got ourselves a tail. Typical of old Tiger. I
told him you were staying at the Okura, but he wants to make sure for
himself. Don't worry. It's just part of his crafty ways. If you find one
of his men breathing down your neck in bed tonight, or a girl, if you're
lucky, just talk to them politely and they'll bow and hiss themselves
out."

But a solitary sleep had followed the serious drinking in the Bamboo Bar
of the Okura, and the next day had been spent doing the sights and
getting some cards printed that described Bond as second secretary in
the cultural department of the Australian embassy. "They know that's our
intelligence side," said Henderson, "and they know I'm the head of it
and you're my temporary assistant, so why not spell it out for them?"
And that evening they had gone for more serious drinking to Henderson's
favourite bar, Melody's, off the Ginza, where everybody called Henderson
"Dikko" or "Dikko-san," and where they were ushered respectfully to the
quiet corner table that appeared to be his _stammtisch_.

And now Henderson reached under the table and, with a powerful wrench,
pulled out the wires and left them hanging. "I'll give that black
bastard Melody hell for this when I get around to it," he said
belligerently. "And to think of all I've done for the dingo bastard!
Used to be a favourite pub of the English colony and the press-club
layabouts. Had a good restaurant attached to it. That's gone now. The
Eyteye cook trod on the cat and spilled the soup, and he picked up the
cat and threw it into the cooking stove. Of course that got around
pretty quick, and all the animal-lovers and sanctimonious bastards got
together and tried to have Melody's licence taken away. I managed to put
in squeeze in the right quarter and saved him, but everyone quit his
restaurant and he had to close it. I'm the only regular who's stuck to
him. And now he goes and does this to me! Oh well, he'll have had the
squeeze put on _him_, I suppose. Anyway, that's the end of the tape so
far as T.T.'s concerned. I'll give him hell, too. He ought to have
learned by now that me and my friends don't want to assassinate the
Emperor or blow up the Diet or something." Dikko glared around him as if
he proposed to do both those things. "Now then, James, to business. I've
fixed up for you to meet Tiger tomorrow morning at eleven. I'll pick you
up and take you there. 'The Bureau of All-Asian Folkways.' I won't
describe it to you. It'd spoil it. Now, I don't really know what you're
here for. Spate of top-secret cables from Melbourne. To be deciphered by
yours truly in person. Thanks very much! And my ambassador, Jim
Saunderson, good bloke, says he doesn't want to know anything about it.
Thinks it'd be even better if he didn't meet you at all. Okay with you?
No offence, but he's a wise guy and likes to keep his hands clean. And I
don't want to know anything about your job either. That way, you're the
only one who gets the powdered bamboo in his coffee. But I gather you
want to get some high-powered gen out of Tiger without the C.I.A.
knowing anything about it. Right? Well that's going to be a dicey
business. Tiger's a career man with a career mind. Although, on the
surface, he's a hundred per cent _demokorasu_, he's a deep one--very
deep indeed. The American occupation and the American influence here
look like a very solid basis for a total American-Japanese alliance. But
once a Jap, always a Jap. It's the same with all the other great
nations--Chinese, Russian, German, English. It's their bones that
matter, not their lying faces. And all those races have got tremendous
bones. Compared with the bones, the smiles or scowls don't mean a thing.
And time means nothing for them either. Ten years is the blink of a star
for the big ones. Get me? So Tiger, and his superiors, who, I suppose,
are the Diet and, in the end, the Emperor, will look at your proposition
principally from two angles. Is it immediately desirable, today? Or is
it a long-term investment? Something that may pay off for the country in
ten, twenty years. And if I were you, I'd stick to that spiel--the
long-term talk. These people, people like Tiger, who's an absolutely top
man in Japan, don't think in terms of days or months or years. They
think in terms of centuries. Quite right, when you come to think of it."

Dikko Henderson made a wide gesture with his left hand. Bond decided
that Dikko was getting cheerfully tight. He had found a Palomar pony to
run with. They must be rare enough in Tokyo. They were both past the
eighth flask of _sak_, but Dikko had also laid a foundation of Suntory
whisky in the Okura while he'd been waiting for Bond to write out an
innocuous cable to Melbourne with the prefix "Informationwise," which
meant that it was for Mary Goodnight, to announce his arrival and give
his current address. But it was all right with Bond that Dikko should be
getting plastered. He would talk better and looser and, in the end,
wiser that way. And Bond wanted to pick his brains.

Bond said, "But what sort of a chap is this Tanaka? Is he your enemy or
your friend?"

"Both. More of a friend probably. At least I'd guess so. I amuse him.
His C.I.A. pals don't. He loosens up with me. We've got things in
common. We share a pleasure in the delights of _samsara_--wine and
women. He's a great cocksman. I also have ambitions in that direction.
I've managed to keep him out of two marriages. Trouble with Tiger is he
always wants to marry 'em. He's paying cock-tax--that's alimony, in the
Australian vernacular--to three already. So he's acquired an ON with
regard to me. That's an obligation--almost as important in the Japanese
way of life as 'face.' When you have an ON, you're not very happy until
you've discharged it _hon_ourably, if you'll pardon the bad pun. And if
a man makes you a present of a salmon, you mustn't repay him with a
shrimp. It's got to be with an equally large salmon--larger, if
possible--so that then you've jumped the man, and now he has an ON with
regard to you, and you're quids in morally, socially, and
spiritually--and the last one's the most important. Well now. Tiger's ON
towards me is a very powerful one, very difficult to discharge. He's
paid little slices of it off with various intelligence dope. He's paid
off another big slice by accepting your presence here and giving you an
interview so soon after your arrival. If you'd been an ordinary
supplicant, it might have taken you weeks. He'd have given you a fat
dose of _shikirinaoshi_--that's making you wait, giving you the great
stone face. The _sumo_ wrestlers use it in the ring to make an opponent
look and feel small in front of the audience. Got it? So you start with
that in your favour. He would be predisposed to do what you want because
that would remove all his ON towards me and, by his accounting, stick a
whole packet of ON on my back towards him. But it's not so simple as
that. All Japanese have permanent ON towards their superiors, the
Emperor, their ancestors, and the Japanese gods. This they can only
discharge by doing 'the right thing.' Not easy, you'll say. Because how
can you know what the higher echelon thinks is the right thing? Well,
you get out of that by doing what the bottom of the ladder thinks
right--i.e., your immediate superiors. That passes the buck,
psychologically, on to the Emperor, and he's got to make his peace with
ancestors and gods. But that's all right with him, because he embodies
all the echelons above him, so he can get on with dissecting fish, which
is his hobby, with a clear conscience. Got it? It's not really as
mysterious as it sounds. Much the same routine as operates in big
corporations, like I.C.I. or Shell, or in the services, except with them
the ladder stops at the board of directors or the chiefs of staff. It's
easier that way. You don't have to involve the Almighty and your
great-grandfather in a decision to cut the price of aspirin by a penny a
bottle."

"It doesn't sound very _demokorasu_ to me."

"Of course it isn't, you dumb bastard. For God's sake, get it into your
head that the Japanese are a separate human species. They've only been
operating as a civilized people, in the debased sense we talk about it
in the West, for fifty, at the most a hundred years. Scratch a Russian
and you'll find a Tartar. Scratch a Japanese and you'll find a
_samurai_--or what he thinks is a _samurai_. Most of this _samurai_
stuff is a myth, like the Wild West bunk the Americans are brought up
on, or your knights in shining armour at King Arthur's court. Just
because people play baseball and wear bowler hats doesn't mean they're
quote civilized unquote. Just to show you I'm getting rather tight--not
drunk, mark you--I'd add that the U.N. are going to reap the father and
mother of a whirlwind by quote liberating unquote the colonial peoples.
Give 'em a thousand years, yes. But give 'em ten, no. You're only taking
away their blow-pipes and giving them machine-guns. Just you wait for
the first one to start crying to high heaven for nuclear fission.
Because they must have quote parity unquote with the lousy colonial
powers. I'll give you ten years for that to happen, my friend. And when
it does, I'll dig myself a deep hole in the ground and sit in it."

Bond laughed. "That also doesn't sound very _demokorasu_."

"'I fornicate upon thy _demokorasu_' as brother Hemingway would have
said. I stand for government by an elite." Dikko Henderson downed his
ninth pint of _sak_. "And voting graded by each individual's rating in
that elite. And one tenth of a vote for my government if you don't agree
with me!"

"For God's sake, Dikko! How in hell did we get on to politics? Let's go
and get some food. I'll agree there's a certain aboriginal common sense
in what you say..."

"Don't talk to me about the aborigines! What in hell do you think you
know about the aborigines? Do you know that in my country there's a move
afoot, not afoot, at full gallop, to give the aborigines the vote? You
pommy poofter. You give me any more of that liberal crap and I'll have
your balls for a bow tie."

Bond said mildly, "What's a poofter?"

"What you'd call a pansy. No," Dikko Henderson got to his feet and fired
a string of what sounded like lucid Japanese at the man behind the bar,
"before I condemn you utterly, we'll go and eat eels--place where you
can get a serious bottle of plonk to match. Then we'll go to 'The House
of Total Delight.' After that, I will give you my honest verdict,
honestly come by."

Bond said, "You're a no-good kangaroo bum, Dikko. But I like eels. As
long as they're not jellied. I'll pay for them and for the later
relaxation. You pay for the rice wine and the plonk, whatever that is.
Take it easy. The wingy at the bar has an appraising look."

"I come to appraise Mr. Richard Lovelace Henderson, not to bury him."
Dikko Henderson produced a wad of thousand-yen notes and began counting
them out for the waiter. "Not yet, that is." He walked, with careful
majesty, up to the bar and addressed himself to the large Negro in a
plum-coloured coat behind it. "Melody, be ashamed of yourself!" Then he
led the way, with massive dignity, out of the bar.




5. MAGIC 44


Dikko Henderson came to fetch Bond at ten o'clock next morning. He was
considerably overhung. The hard blue eyes were veined with blood, and he
made straight for the Bamboo Bar and ordered himself a double brandy and
ginger ale. Bond said mildly, "You shouldn't have poured all that _sak_
on top of the Suntory. I can't believe Japanese whisky makes a good
foundation for anything."

"You've got something there, sport. I've got myself a proper
_futsuka-yoi_--honourable hangover. Mouth like a vulture's crutch. Soon
as we got home from that lousy cat house, I had to go for the big spit.
But you're wrong about Suntory. It's a good enough brew. Stick to the
cheapest, the White Label, at around fifteen bob a bottle. There are two
smarter brands, but the cheap one's the best. Went up to the distillery
some whiles ago and met one of the family. Told me an interesting thing
about whisky. He said you can only make good whisky where you can take
good photographs. Ever heard that one? Said it was something to do with
the effect of clear light on the alcohol. But did I talk a lot of crap
last night? Or did you? Seem to recollect that one of us did."

"You only gave me hell about the state of the world and called me a
poofter. But you were quite friendly about it. No offence given or
taken."

"Oh Christ!" Dikko Henderson gloomily pushed a hand through his tough
grizzled hair. "But I didn't hit anyone?"

"Only that girl you slapped so hard on the bottom that she fell down."

"Oh that!" said Dikko Henderson with relief. "That was just a love-pat.
What's a girl's bottom for, anyway? And so far as I recall, they all
screamed with laughter. Including her. Right? How did you make out with
yours by the way? She looked pretty enthusiastic."

"She was."

"Good show." He swallowed the remains of his drink and got to his feet.
"Come on, bud. Let's go. Wouldn't do to keep Tiger waiting. I once did,
and he wouldn't speak to me for a week."

It was a typical Tokyo day in late summer--hot, sticky, and grey--the
air full of fine dust from the endless demolition and reconstruction
work. They drove for half an hour towards Yokohama and pulled up outside
a dull grey building which announced itself in large letters to be the
"Bureau of All-Asian Folkways." There was a busy traffic of Japanese
scurrying in and out through the bogusly important-looking entrance, but
no one glanced at Dikko and Bond, and they were not asked their business
as Dikko led the way through an entrance hall where there were books and
postcards on sale as if the place were some kind of museum. Dikko made
for a doorway marked "Co-ordination Department," and there was a long
corridor with open rooms on both sides. The rooms were full of
studious-looking young men at desks. There were large wall maps with
coloured pins dotted across them, and endless shelves of books. A door
marked "International Relations" gave on to another corridor, this time
lined with closed doors which had people's names on them in English and
Japanese. A sharp right turn took them through the "Visual Presentation
Bureau" with more closed doors, and on to "Documentation," a large
hall-shaped library with more people bent over desks. Here, for the
first time, they were scrutinized by a man at a desk near the entrance.
He rose to his feet and bowed wordlessly. As they walked on Dikko said
quietly, "This is where the cover tapers off. Up till now, all those
people really were researching Asian folkways. But these here are part
of Tiger's outside staff, doing more or less classified work. Sort of
archivists. This is where we'd be politely turned back if we'd lost our
way." Behind a final wall of bookshelves that stretched out into the
room, a small door was concealed. It was marked PROPOSED EXTENSION
TO DOCUMENTATION DEPARTMENT. DANGER! CONSTRUCTION WORK IN PROGRESS.
From behind it came the sound of drills, a circular saw cutting
through wood, and other building noises. Dikko walked through
the door into a totally empty room with a highly polished wood floor.
There was no sign of construction work. Dikko laughed at Bond's
surprise. He gestured towards a large metal box fitted to the back of
the door through which they had come. "Tape recorder," he said. "Clever
gimmick. Sounds just like the real thing. And this"--he pointed to the
stretch of bare floor ahead--"is what the Japanese call a 'nightingale
floor.' Relic of the old days when people wanted to be warned of
intruders. Serves the same purpose here. Imagine trying to get across
here without being heard." They set off, and immediately the cunningly
sprung boards gave out penetrating squeaks and groans. In a small facing
door, a spy-hole slid open and one large eye surveyed them. The door
opened to reveal a stocky man in plain clothes who had been sitting at a
small deal table reading a book. It was a tiny box-like room that seemed
to have no other exit. The man bowed. Dikko said some phrases containing
the words "Tanaka-san." The man bowed again. Dikko turned to Bond.
"You're on your own now. Be in it, champ! Tiger'll send you back to your
hotel. See you."

Bond said, "Tell mother I died game," and walked into the little box.
The door was closed behind him. There was a row of buttons by the desk,
and the guard pressed one of them. There came a barely perceptible
whine, and Bond got the impression of descent. So the room was a lift.
What a box of tricks the formidable Tiger had erected as a screen for
himself! The authentic Eastern nest of boxes. What next?

The descent continued for some time. When it stopped, the guard opened
the door and Bond stepped out and stood stock still. He was standing on
the platform of an underground station! There it all was: the red and
green signals over the two yawning tunnels, the conventional white tiles
on the walls, and the curved roof--even an empty cigarette kiosk let
into the wall beside him! A man had come out of this. He now said in
good English, "Please to follow me, Commander," and led the way through
an arch marked EXIT. But here all the floor space of the hall that would
one day lead to the moving stairways was occupied by trim prefabricated
offices on both sides of a wide corridor. Bond was led into the first of
these, which revealed itself as a waiting-room and outer office. A male
secretary rose from his typewriter, bowed, and went through a
communicating door. He immediately reappeared, bowed again, and held the
door open. "Please come this way, Commander."

Bond went through, and the door was softly closed behind him. The big
square figure that Dikko had described to him came forward across the
handsome red carpet and held out a hand that was hard and dry. "My dear
Commander. Good morning. It is a great pleasure to meet you." The wide
gold-toothed smile signalled welcome. The eyes glittered between long
dark lashes that were almost feminine. "Come and sit down. How do you
like my offices? Rather different from your own chief's, no doubt. But
the new underground will take another ten years to complete, and there
is little office space in Tokyo. It crossed my mind to make use of this
disused station. It is quiet. It is private. It is also cool. I shall be
sorry when the trains begin to run and we shall have to move out."

Bond took the proffered chair across the empty desk from Tanaka. "It's a
brilliant idea. And I enjoyed the folkways above our heads. Are there
really so many people in the world interested in folkways?"

Tiger Tanaka shrugged. "What does it matter? The literature is given
away free. I have never asked the director who reads it. Americans, I
expect, and Germans. Perhaps some Swiss. The serious-minded can always
be found for such stuff. It is an expensive conceit, of course. But
fortunately the expense is not carried by the Ministry of Internal
Affairs, with whom I am concerned. Down here, we have to count our
pennies. I suppose it is the same with your own budget."

Bond assumed that this man would know the published facts of the Secret
Service Vote. He said, "Under ten million pounds a year doesn't go far
when there is the whole world to cover."

The teeth glistened under the neon strip lighting. "At least for the
last ten years you have saved money by closing down your activities in
this part of the world."

"Yes. We rely on the C.I.A. to do our work here for us. They are most
efficient and helpful."

"As much so under McCone as under Dulles?"

The old fox! "Nearly so. Nowadays they are even more inclined to regard
the Pacific as their own back garden."

"From which you wish to borrow the mowing machine. Without them
knowing." Tiger's smile was even more tigerish.

Bond had to laugh. The wily devil had certainly been putting two and two
together. When Bond laughed, Tiger also laughed, but carefully. Bond
said, "We had a man called Captain Cook and various others who
discovered much of this garden. Australia and New Zealand are two very
great countries. You must admit that our interest in this half of the
world is perfectly legitimate."

"My dear Commander. You were lucky that we struck at Pearl Harbour
rather than at Australia. Can you doubt that we would have occupied that
country and New Zealand if we had done otherwise? These are big and
important land spaces, insufficiently developed. You could not have
defended them. The Americans would not have. If our policy had been
different, we would now own half the British Commonwealth. Personally, I
have never understood the strategy behind Pearl Harbour. Did we wish to
conquer America? The supply lines were too long. But Australia and New
Zealand were ripe for the plucking." He pushed forward a large box of
cigarettes. "Do you smoke? These are Shinsei. It is an acceptable
brand."

James Bond was running out of his Morland specials. He would soon have
to start on the local stuff. He also had to collect his thoughts. This
was rather like being involved in a summit meeting between the United
Kingdom and Japan. He felt way out of his depth. He took a cigarette and
lit it. It burned rapidly with something of the effect of a slow-burning
firework. It had a vague taste of American blends, but it was good and
sharp on the palate and lungs, like 90 proof spirits. He let the smoke
out in a quiet hiss and smiled. "Mr. Tanaka, these are matters for
political historians. I am concerned with much lower matters. And
matters concerning the future rather than the past."

"I quite understand, Commander." Tiger Tanaka was obviously displeased
that his game of generalities had been dodged by Bond. "But we have a
saying 'Speak of next year and the devil laughs.' The future is
inscrutable. But tell me, what are your impressions of Japan? You have
been enjoying yourself?"

"I imagine that one always enjoys oneself with Dikko Henderson."

"Yes, he is a man who lives as if he were going to die tomorrow. This is
a correct way to live. He is a good friend of mine. I greatly enjoy his
company. We have certain tastes in common."

Bond said ironically, "Folkways?"

"Exactly."

"He has a great affection for you. I do not know him well, but I suspect
that he is a lonely man. It is an unfortunate combination to be both
lonely and intelligent. Wouldn't it be a good thing for him to marry a
Japanese girl and settle down? Couldn't you find him one?" Bond was
pleased that the conversation had descended to personalities. He sensed
that he was on the right track. At least on a better track than this
talk about power politics. But there would come a bad moment when he
would have to get down to business. He didn't care for the prospect.

As if he had sensed this, Tiger Tanaka said, "I have arranged for our
friend to meet many Japanese girls. The result in every case has been
negative or, at the best, fleeting. But tell me, Commander. We have not
met here to discuss Mr. Henderson's private life. In what respect can I
be of service to you? Is it the lawn mower?"

Bond smiled. "It is. The manufacturers' trade-mark for this particular
implement is MAGIC 44."

"Ah yes. A most valuable implement of many uses. I can understand that
your country would wish to have the services of this implement. A case
in point is an example of its capabilities which came into my hands only
this morning." Tiger Tanaka opened a drawer in his desk and extracted a
file. It was a pale green file stamped in a square box with the word
GOKUHI in black Roman characters. Bond assumed this to be the equivalent
of top secret. He put this to Mr. Tanaka, who confirmed it. Mr. Tanaka
opened the file and extracted two sheets of yellow paper. Bond could see
that one was covered with Japanese characters and that the other had
perhaps fifty lines of typewriting. Mr. Tanaka slipped the typewritten
one across the desk. He said, "May I beg you on oath not to reveal to
anyone what you are about to read?"

"If you insist, Mr. Tanaka."

"I am afraid I must, Commander."

"So be it." Bond drew the sheet of paper towards him. The text was in
English. This is what it said:

TO ALL STATIONS OF GRADE TWO AND ABOVE STOP TO BE DECIPHERED BY
ADDRESSEE PERSONALLY AND THEN DESTROYED STOP WHEN DESTRUCTION HAS BEEN
EFFECTED CONFIRM BY THE CODE WORD QUOTE SATURN UNQUOTE TEXT BEGINS COLON
IN AMPLIFICATION OF NUMBER ONES PUBLISHED SPEECH TO THE SUPREME SOVIET
ON SEPTEMBER FIRST THIS CONFIRMS THAT WE ARE IN POSSESSION OF THE TWO
HUNDRED MEGATON WEAPON AND THAT A TEST FIRING WILL TAKE PLACE ON
SEPTEMBER TWENTIETH AT HIGH ALTITUDE IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA AREA STOP
CONSIDERABLE FALLOUT CAN BE EXPECTED AND PUBLIC OUTCRY CAN BE
ANTICIPATED IN THE ARCTIC NORTH PACIFIC AND ALASKAN AREAS STOP THIS
SHOULD BE COUNTERED AND WILL BE COUNTERED FROM MOSCOW BY REFERENCE TO
THE MORE RECENT TESTS BY AMERICA AND TO NUMBER ONES REPEATED DEMANDS FOR
AN END TO TESTS OF NUCLEAR FISSION WEAPONS OF OFFENCE WHICH HAVE
SUCCESSIVELY BEEN REBUFFED STOP FOR INFORMATION COMMA THE DELIVERY OF
ONE SUCH WEAPON BY ICBM ON LONDON WOULD DESTROY ALL LIFE AND PROPERTY
SOUTH OF A LINE DRAWN BETWEEN NEWCASTLE AND CARLISLE STOP IT FOLLOWS
THAT A SECOND MISSILE DROPPED IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ABERDEEN WOULD
INEVITABLY RESULT IN THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF BRITAIN AND ALL IRELAND
STOP THIS FACT WILL SHORTLY BE EMPLOYED BY NUMBER ONE AS THE TEETH IN A
DIPLOMATIC DEMARCHE DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE THE REMOVAL OF ALL AMERICAN
BASES AND OFFENSIVE WEAPONS FROM BRITAIN AND THE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT OF
BRITAIN ITSELF STOP THIS WILL TEST TO THE UTTERMOST AND PROBABLY DESTROY
THE ANGLO HYPHEN AMERICAN ALLIANCE SINCE IT CAN BE ASSUMED THAT AMERICA
WILL NOT RISK A NUCLEAR WAR INVOLVING HER TERRITORY FOR THE SAKE OF
RESCUING A NOW MORE OR LESS VALUELESS ALLY DASH AN ALLY NOW OPENLY
REGARDED IN WASHINGTON AS OF LITTLE MORE ACCOUNT THAN BELGIUM OR ITALY
STOP IF THIS DIPLOMATIC DEMARCHE COMMA WHICH MUST OF COURSE BE
CATEGORIZED AS CARRYING SOME DEGREE OF RISK COMMA IS SUCCESSFUL IT
FOLLOWS THAT SIMILAR DEMARCHES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN IN EUROPE AND LATER IN
THE PACIFIC AREA COMMA INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES BEING SINGLED OUT ONE BY ONE
FOR TERRORIZATION AND DEMORALIZATION STOP THE FINAL FRUITS OF THIS GRAND
STRATAGEM IF SUCCESSFUL WILL GUARANTEE THE SECURITY OF THE USSR FOR THE
FORESEEABLE FUTURE AND ULTIMATELY RESULT IN PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE WITH
AMERICA STOP PEACEFUL INTENT OF THE USSR WELL THEREFORE BE EMPHASIZED
THROUGHOUT BY NUMBER ONE AND BY ALL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES STOP THIS LINE
OF REASONING YOU WILL ALSO FOLLOW SHOULD YOUR STATION BE AT ANY TIME
INVOLVED OR AFFECTED STOP INFORMATIVELY ALL SOVIET CITIZENS WORKING IN
BRITAIN WELL BE WITHDRAWN FROM THAT COUNTRY ONE WEEK BEFORE THE INITIAL
DEMARCHE STOP NO EXPLANATION WILL BE GIVEN BUT A CONSIDERABLE AND
DESIRABLE HEIGHTENING OF TENSION WELL THUS BE ACHIEVED STOP THE SAME
PROCEDURE WHICH CAN BE CATEGORIZED AS A SOFTENING UP OF THE TARGET
COUNTRY WILL BE FOLLOWED IN THE SECONDARY DEMARCHES REFERRED TO ABOVE
STOP FOR THE TIME BEING YOU SHOULD TAKE NO PRECAUTIONARY STEPS ON YOUR
STATION EXCEPT TO PREPARE YOUR MIND IN TOTAL SECRECY FOR THE EVENTUALITY
THAT YOUR STATION MAY BECOME INVOLVED AT SOME LATER DATE AND THAT
EVACUATION OF YOUR STAFF AND THE BURNING OF ARCHIVES WILL BECOME
MANDATORY ON RECEIPT OF THE CODE WORD QUOTE LIGHTNING UNQUOTE ADDRESSED
TO YOU PERSONALLY OVER CIRCUIT FORTY HYPHEN FOUR STOP END OF TEXT SIGNED
CENTRAL

James Bond pushed the document away from him as if he feared
contamination from it. He let out his breath in a quiet hiss. He reached
for the box of Shinsei and lit one, drawing the harsh smoke deep down
into his lungs. He raised his eyes to Mr. Tanaka's, which were regarding
him with polite interest. "I suppose Number One is Khrushchev?"

"That is correct, and the meaning of stations grade two and above is
consulates-general and embassies. It is interesting material, is it
not?"

"It is a mistake that you are keeping this material from us. We have a
treaty of friendship and a trade treaty with you. Do you not regard the
withholding of this vital information as a dishonourable act?"

"Honour is a very serious word in Japan, Commander. Would it not be even
more dishonourable to break our word to our good American friends? They
have several times assured me and my government that any information of
vital importance to our other friends and allies will be passed on to
them in such a way as not to divulge the source. I have no evidence that
they are not pursuing this routine."

"You know as well as I do, Mr. Tanaka, that rewriting and doctoring to
conceal the source reduces this type of material to a grade no higher
than secret reports from countless other 'delicate and reliable'
sources. The nature of this particular source, the fact that one is
reading the very words of the enemy, is at least fifty per cent of the
value of the information this message contains. No doubt Washington will
pass on a garbled version of this message to London. I hope they already
have. But you realize that it might be in their interests to keep quiet
about this terrible threat that hangs over England? At the same time, it
is in England's interest to use every hour in devising some counter to
this plan. One small step, which at once comes to mind, is preparations
for the internment of all Soviet citizens in Britain at the first sign
of the evacuation measures mentioned in the message."

"I appreciate your point of view, Commander. There is, of course, in
this instance, an alternative route for this information to reach your
government." Mr. Tanaka's face crinkled wickedly.

Bond leant urgently over the desk. "But I gave my word of honour!"

Mr. Tanaka's face underwent a curious change. All the upward lines
turned downwards. The dark eyes lost their glitter and assumed an inward
look. In a curious way, the whole face slumped into melancholy. He said,
"Commander, I was very happy in England. Your people were very good to
me. I repaid them in an unworthy fashion." (Ah! thought Bond. The ON.)
"I plead youth and the heat of a war that I thought would bring much
glory to my country. I was mistaken. We were defeated. The expiation of
that dishonour is a large matter, a matter for the youth of this
country. I am not a politician and I do not know what course that
expiation will take. At present we are going through the usual
transition period of the vanquished. But I, Tanaka, have my own private
accounting to balance. I am in great debt to your country. This morning
I have betrayed a state secret to you. I was encouraged in my action by
my friendship for Dikko. I was also encouraged by the sincerity of your
bearing and the honesty of your approach to the duty that has been laid
upon you. I fully realize the importance of this piece of paper to
Britain. You remember its contents?"

"Exactly, I think."

"And you are on your honour not to communicate it elsewhere."

"Yes."

Tiger Tanaka got to his feet and held out his hand. "Good-bye for the
time being, Commander. I hope that we shall be seeing more of each
other." The powerful face lit up again. Now there was no pretence in the
great golden smile. "Honour is a pattern of behaviour, Commander. The
bamboo must bend to the breeze. But equally the cedar must bend to the
typhoon. The meaning of this is that sometimes duty is more compelling
than any words. A car is waiting to take you back to your hotel. Please
give my deep respects to Dikko and tell him he owes me one thousand yen
for repairs to electronic equipment that is the property of the state."

James Bond took the hard dry paw. He said from his heart, "Thank you,
Mr. Tanaka." He walked out of the little secret room with one thought
uppermost in his mind. How fast were Dikko's communications to
Melbourne? How fast from Melbourne to London?




6. TIGER, TIGER!


And now it was a month later and Mr. Tanaka had become "Tiger" and
Commander Bond had become "Bondo-san." Tiger had explained his name for
James Bond. "James," he had said. "That is a difficult word in Japanese.
And it does not convey sufficient respect. Bond-san is too much like the
Japanese word _bon-san_, which means a priest, a greybeard. The hard
consonants at the end of 'Bond' are also not easy for the Japanese, and
when these occur in a foreign word, we add an O. So you are Bondo-san.
That is acceptable?"

"Does Bondo mean a pig or anything like that in Japanese?"

"No. It has no meaning."

"Forgive my asking. The Japanese seem to enjoy many private jokes at the
expense of the _gaijin_. I referred the other day to a friend of mine
called 'Monkey' McCall, whom we used to call 'Monko.' You told me that
this was an unmentionable word in your language. So I thought 'Bondo'
might be equally unmentionable."

"Have no fear. It is totally respectable."

The weeks had passed without any significant progress in Bond's mission
except in the direction of what seemed to be a genuine friendship
between Bond, Tiger, and Dikko. Outside working hours, the three men
became well-nigh inseparable, but Bond sensed that on their excursions
into the country-side and during their roistering in the evenings he was
being constantly, but with great discretion, sized up. Dikko had
confirmed Bond's impression. "I think you're making progress, champ.
Tiger would regard it as dishonourable to lead you up the garden path
and then pull the rug out from under you with a flat refusal.
Something's definitely cooking in the background, but what it is I
haven't the faintest idea. I guess the ball's with Tiger's superiors,
but with Tiger on your side. And, in the vernacular, Tiger's got what's
called 'a broad face.' That means he has great powers as a fixer. And
this ON he's got in respect of Britain is a huge factor in your favour.
What he gave you on your first meeting was an unheard-of _presento_, as
we call it here. But watch out! You're piling up a great heap of ON in
respect of Tiger. And if it comes to striking a bargain, I hope you've
got a pretty massive _presento_ up your sleeve so that the ON on both
sides is more or less evenly balanced. None of this salmon and shrimp
business! Have got? Can do?"

"I'm not so sure," said Bond doubtfully. The Macao "Blue Route" material
had already dwindled in his mind to the size of a minnow in comparison
with the salmon that was Tiger's to give or withhold. The impact of the
single slice he had handed Bond had already been formidable. The test of
the 200-megaton bomb had duly taken place and had been greeted by the
public uproar anticipated by Moscow. But counteraction by the West had
been swift. On the excuse of protecting Soviet personnel in England from
demonstrations of public animosity, they had been confined within a
radius of twenty miles of their homes, and "for their protection,"
police were thick round the Soviet embassy, the consulates, and their
various trading offices. There had, of course, been reprisals on British
diplomats and journalists in Russia, but these had been expected. Then
President Kennedy had come out with the strongest speech of his career,
and had committed total reprisals from the United States in the event of
a single nuclear device being exploded by the Soviet Union in any
country in the world outside Soviet territory. This thundering
pronouncement, which had produced a growl of dismay from the American
man-in-the-street, was greeted from Moscow by the feeble riposte that
they would take similar action in answer to any Western nuclear device
exploded on the territory of the U.S.S.R. or her allies.

A few days later Bond had been summoned again to Tiger's underground
hide-out. "You will not, of course, repeat this," Tiger had said with
his wicked smile. "But action in respect of the matter of which you are
privately aware has been indefinitely postponed by the Central
Authority."

"Thank you for this private information," Bond had said. "But you do
realize how your kindness of three weeks ago has greatly alleviated the
international tension, particularly in relation to my country. My
country would be immensely grateful if they knew of your personal
generosity to me. Have I grounds for hoping for your further
indulgence?" Bond had got used to the formalities of Oriental
circumlocution, although he had not yet attained the refinements of
Dikko's speech with Tiger, which included at least one four-letter word
in each flowery sentence and which caused Tiger much amusement.

"Bondo-san, this implement which you wish to rent from us, in the most
improbable event that it is made available, will command a very high
price. As a fair trader, what has your country to offer in exchange for
the full use of MAGIC 44?"

"We have a most important intelligence network in China known as the
Macao 'Blue Route.' The fruits of this source would be placed entirely
at your disposal."

Melancholy settled over Tiger's massive face, but deep down in the
Tartar eyes there was a wicked gleam. "I am very much afraid that I have
bad news for you, Bondo-san. 'Blue Route' has been penetrated by my
organization almost since its inception. We already receive the entire
fruits of that source. I could show you the files if you wish. We have
simply renamed it 'Route Orange,' and I admit that the material is very
acceptable. But we already have it. What other goods had you in mind for
exchange?"

Bond had to laugh. The pride of Section J--and of M., for that matter!
The work, the expense, the danger of running the "Blue Route." And at
least fifty per cent in aid of Japan! By God, his eyes were being opened
on this trip. This news would put a fine cat among the pigeons at H.Q.
He said blandly, "We have many other commodities. Now that you have
demonstrated the undoubted value of your implement, may I suggest that
you name your price?"

"You believe that you have something on your shelves that is of
comparable value? Perhaps material from a similar, though no doubt
inferior, source that would be of equal importance in the defence of
_our_ country?"

"Undoubtedly," said Bond staunchly. "But, my dear Tiger, would it not be
a good idea, once your mind is made up, for you to pay a visit to London
and inspect the shelves for yourself? I am sure my chief would be
honoured to receive you."

"You do not possess full powers of negotiation?"

"That would be impossible, my dear Tiger. Our security is such that even
I have not full knowledge of all our merchandise. So far as I personally
am concerned, I am only in a position to pass on to my chief the
substance of what you say or to render you any other personal services
you might ask of me."

For a moment, Tiger Tanaka looked thoughtful. He seemed to be turning
Bond's last words over in his mind. Then he closed the interview with
the invitation to the geisha restaurant, and Bond went off with mixed
feelings to report to Melbourne and London what he had gleaned.

****

In the room where he now sat after the geisha party, and where Tiger had
just cheerfully threatened him with death, tigers' heads snarled at him
from the walls and gnashed at him from the floor. His ash-tray was
enclosed in a stuffed tiger's paw and the chair in which he was sitting
was upholstered in tiger's skin. Mr. Tanaka had been born in the year of
the Tiger, whereas Bond, as Tiger had taken much pleasure in telling
him, had been born in the year of the Rat.

Bond took a deep drink of _sak_ and said, "My dear Tiger, I would hate
to put you to the inconvenience of having to remove me from the face of
the earth. You mean that this time the cedar may not bow before the
typhoon? So be it. This time you have my very topmost word of honour."

Tiger pulled up a chair and faced Bond across the low drink table. He
poured himself a liberal tot of Suntory and splashed in the soda. The
sound of night traffic from the main Tokyo-Yokohama road came in from
some way beyond the surrounding houses, only a few of which now showed
doll's-house squares of yellow light. It was the end of September, but
warm. It was ten minutes to midnight. Tiger began talking in a soft
voice. "In that case, my dear Bondo-san, and since I know you to be a
man of honour, except, of course, in matters affecting your country,
which this does not, I will tell you quite an interesting story. This is
how it is." He got out of his chair and sat down on the _tatami_ and
arranged himself in the lotus position. He was obviously more
comfortable in this posture. He said, in an expository tone of voice,
"Ever since the beginning of the era of Meiji, who you will know was the
emperor who fathered the modernization and Westernization of Japan from
the beginning of his reign nearly a hundred years ago, there have from
time to time been foreigners who have come to this country and settled
here. They have for the most part been cranks and scholars, and the
European-born American Lafcadio Hearn, who became a Japanese citizen, is
a very typical example. In general, they have been tolerated, usually
with some amusement. So, perhaps, would be a Japanese who bought a
castle in the Highlands of Scotland, and who learned and spoke Gaelic
with his neighbours and expressed unusual and often impertinent interest
in Scottish folkways. If he went about his researches politely and
peaceably, he would be dubbed an amiable eccentric. And so it has been
with the Westerners who have settled and spent their lives in Japan,
though occasionally, in time of war, as would no doubt be the case with
our mythical Japanese in Scotland, they have been regarded as spies and
suffered internment and hardship. Now, since the occupation, there have
been many such settlers, the great majority of whom, as you can imagine,
have been American. The Oriental way of life is particularly attractive
to the American who wishes to escape from a culture which, I am sure you
will agree, has become, to say the least of it, more and more
unattractive except to the lower grades of the human species to whom bad
but plentiful food, shiny toys such as the automobile and the
television, and the 'quick buck,' often dishonestly earned, or earned in
exchange for minimal labour or skills, are the _summum bonum_, if you
will allow the sentimental echo from my Oxford education."

"I will," said Bond. "But is this not a picture of the life that is
being officially encouraged in your own country?"

Tiger Tanaka's face darkened perceptibly. "For the time being," he said
with distaste, "we are being subjected to what I can best describe as
the 'Scuola di Coca Cola.' Baseball, amusement arcades, hot dogs,
hideously large bosoms, neon lighting--these are part of our payment for
defeat in battle. They are the tepid tea of the way of life we know
under the name of _demokorasu_. They are a frenzied denial of the
official scapegoats for our defeat--a denial of the spirit of the
_samurai_ as expressed in the _kami-kaze_, a denial of our ancestors, a
denial of our gods. They are a despicable way of life"--Tiger almost
spat the words--"but fortunately they are also expendable and temporary.
They have as much importance in the history of Japan as the life of a
dragonfly." He paused. "But to return to my story. Our American
residents are of a sympathetic type--on a low level, of course. They
enjoy the subservience, which I may say is only superficial, of our
women. They enjoy the remaining strict patterns of our life--the
symmetry, compared with the chaos that reigns in America. They enjoy our
simplicity, with its underlying hint of deep meaning, as expressed for
instance in the tea ceremony, flower arrangements, No plays--none of
which, of course, they understand. They also enjoy, because they have no
ancestors and probably no family life worth speaking of, our veneration
of the old and our worship of the past. For in their impermanent world,
they recognize these as permanent things just as, in their ignorant and
childish way, they admire the fictions of the Wild West and other
American myths that have become known to them, not through their
education, of which they have none, but through television."

"This is tough stuff, Tiger. I've got a lot of American friends who
don't equate with what you're saying. Presumably you're talking of the
lower-level G.I.s--second-generation Americans who are basically Irish
or Germans or Czechs or Poles who probably ought to be working in the
fields or coal-mines of their countries of origin instead of swaggering
around a conquered country under the blessed coverlet of the Stars and
Stripes with too much money to spend. I daresay they occasionally marry
a Japanese girl and settle down here. But surely they pull up stumps
pretty quickly. Our Tommies have done the same thing in Germany. But
that's quite a different thing from the Lafcadio Hearns of the world."

Tiger Tanaka bowed almost to the ground. "Forgive me, Bondo-san. Of
course, you are right, and I have been diverted from my story down most
unworthy paths. I did not ask you here to pour out my innermost
repugnance at the occupation of my country. This, of course, is
repugnance against the fact of defeat. I apologize. And, of course, you
are correct. There are many cultured Americans who have taken up
residence in this country and who are most valued citizens. You are
right to correct me, for I have friends of this nature, in the arts, the
sciences, in literature, and they are indeed valued members of the
community. I was, let us say, letting off steam. You understand?"

"Of course, Tiger. My country has not been occupied for many centuries.
The imposition of a new culture on an old one is something we have not
suffered. I cannot imagine my reactions in the same circumstances. Much
the same as yours, I expect. Please go on with your story." Bond reached
for the _sak_ flask. It stood in a jar of warm water being heated over
a slow flame from a charcoal burner. He filled his glass and drank.
Tiger Tanaka rocked two or three times on his buttocks and the sides of
his feet. He resumed.

"As I have said, there are a number of foreigners who have taken up
residence in Japan, and for the most part, they are inoffensive
eccentrics. But there is one such person who entered the country in
January of this year who has revealed himself to be an eccentric of the
most devilish nature. This man is a monster. You may laugh, Bondo-san,
but this man is no less than a fiend in human form."

"I have met many bad men in my time, Tiger, and generally they have been
slightly mad. Is that the case in this instance?"

"Very much the reverse. The calculated ingenuity of this man, his
understanding of the psychology of my people, show him to be a man of
quite outstanding genius. In the opinion of our highest scholars and
savants, he is a scientific research worker and collector probably
unique in the history of the world."

"What does he collect?"

"He collects death."




7. THE DEATH COLLECTOR


James Bond smiled at this dramatic utterance. "A collector of death? You
mean he kills people?"

"No, Bondo-san. It is not as simple as that. He persuades, or rather
entices people to kill themselves." Tiger paused, the wide expanse of
his brow furrowed. "No, that also is not being just. Let us just say
that he provides an easy and attractive opportunity--a resort--for
people to do away with themselves. His present tally, in just under six
months, is something over five hundred Japanese."

"Why don't you arrest him, hang him?"

"Bondo-san, it is not as easy as that. I had better begin at the
beginning. In January of this year, there entered the country, quite
legally, a gentleman by the name of Doctor Guntram Shatterhand. He was
accompanied by Frau Emmy Shatterhand, born de Bedon. They had Swiss
passports, and the doctor described himself as a horticulturalist and
botanist specializing in subtropical species. He carried high references
from the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Kew Gardens, and other
authorities, but these were couched in rather nebulous terms. He quickly
got in touch with the equivalent authorities in Japan and with experts
in the Ministry of Agriculture, and these gentlemen were astonished and
delighted to learn that Doctor Shatterhand was prepared to spend no less
than one million pounds on establishing an exotic garden or park in this
country which he would stock with a priceless collection of rare plants
and shrubs from all over the world. These he would import at his own
expense in a sufficient state of maturity to allow his park to be
planted with the minimum of delay--an extremely expensive procedure, if
you know anything about horticulture."

"I know nothing about it. Like the Texan millionaires who import
full-grown palms and tropical shrubs from Florida?"

"Exactly. Well, the park was not to be open to the public, but would be
freely available for study and research work by authorized Japanese
experts. All right. A wonderful offer that was enthusiastically accepted
by the government, who, in return, granted the good doctor a ten-year
residence permit--a very rare privilege. Meanwhile, as a matter of
routine, the immigration authorities made inquiries about the doctor
through my department. Since I have no representative in Switzerland, I
referred the matter to our friends of the C.I.A., and in due course he
was given complete clearance. It appeared that he was of Swedish origin
and was not widely known in Switzerland, where he only possessed the
minimum requirement for residential status in the shape of two rooms in
an apartment block in Lausanne. But his financial standing with the
Union de Banques Suisses was grade one, which I understand requires you
to be a millionaire many times over. Since money is almost the unique
status symbol in Switzerland, his clearance by the Swiss was impeccable,
though no information could be obtained about his standing as a
botanist. Kew and the Jardin des Plantes, on inquiry, referred to him as
an enthusiastic amateur who had made valuable contributions to these
institutions in the form of tropical and subtropical species collected
for him by expeditions which he had financed. So! An interesting and
financially sound citizen whose harmless pursuits would be of some
benefit to Japan. Yes?"

"Sounds like it."

"After travelling round the country in great style, the doctor took a
fancy to a semi-ruined castle in Kyushu, our southern island. The castle
was in an extremely remote corner of the coast not far from Fukuoka, the
principal prefecture of the island, and in ancient times it had been one
of a line of castles facing the Tsushima Strait, the scene of the famous
defeat of the Russian navy. These castles were originally designed to
repel attacks from the Korean mainland. Most of them had fallen into
disrepair, but the one chosen by the doctor was a giant edifice that had
been occupied until the last war by a rich and eccentric family of
textile millionaires, and its monumental surrounding wall was just what
the doctor required for the privacy of his undertaking. An army of
builders and decorators moved in. Meanwhile, the plants ordered by the
doctor began arriving from all over the world, and with a blanket
customs clearance from the Ministry of Agriculture, they were planted in
appropriate soils and settings. Here I should mention that an additional
reason for the doctor's choice of site was that the property, which
extends for some five hundred acres, is highly volcanic and furnished
with many geysers and fumaroles, which are common in Japan. These would
provide, all the year round, the temperature needed for the successful
propagation of these tropical shrubs, trees, and plants from the
equatorial zones. The doctor and his wife, who is by the way extremely
ugly, moved into the castle with all speed and set about recruiting
staff in the neighbourhood who would look after the establishment and
its grounds." Here Tiger assumed his sorrowful face. "And it was at this
time that I should not have dismissed as fanciful certain reports that
reached me from the chief of police at Fukuoka. These were to the effect
that the doctor was recruiting his staff uniquely from former members of
the Black Dragon Society."

"And what might that be?"

"Have been," Tiger corrected him. "The society was officially disbanded
before the war. But in its heyday it was the most feared and powerful
secret society in Japan. It consisted originally of the dregs of the
_soshi_--the unemployed _samurai_ who were left high and dry after the
Meiji Restoration of about a hundred years ago--but it later recruited
terrorists, gangsters, Fascist politicians, cashiered officers from the
navy and army, secret agents, soldiers of fortune and other riff-raff,
but also big men in industry and finance, and even the occasional
cabinet minister who found Black Dragon support of much practical value
when dirty work had to be done. And the odd thing is, though it does not
seem so odd to me today, that the doctor should have chosen his site,
leaving out its practical amenities, in just that corner of Japan that
used to be the headquarters of the Black Dragons and has always been a
hotbed of extremists. Toyama Mitsuru, the former head of the Black
Dragons, came from Fukuoka; so did the anarchist Hirota, and Nakano,
leader of the former Tohokai, or Fascist group, in the Diet. It has
always been a nest of scoundrels, this district, and it remains so
today. These extreme sects never die out completely, as you have
recently, my dear Bondo-san, found in the resurgence of the Black Shirts
in England, and this Doctor Shatterhand found no difficulty in
collecting some twenty extremely tough and dangerous characters around
him, all most correctly clothed as servants and gardeners and, no doubt,
perfectly good at their ostensible jobs. On one occasion the prefect of
police thought it his duty to make a courtesy call and give his
distinguished inhabitant a word of caution. But the doctor dismissed the
matter on the grounds that competent guards would be necessary to
maintain his privacy and keep trespassers away from his valuable
collection of plants. This seemed reasonable enough, and anyway the
doctor appeared to be under high patronage in Tokyo. The prefect bowed
himself out, much impressed with the lavish display of wealth in the
heart of his poor province."

Tiger Tanaka paused and poured more _sak_ for Bond and more Suntory for
himself. Bond took the opportunity to ask just how dangerous this Black
Dragon Society had really been. "Was it the equivalent of the Chinese
tongs?

"Much more powerful. You have heard of the Ching-Pang and Hung-Pang
tongs that were so much feared in China in the days of the Kuomintang.
No? Well, the Black Dragons were a hundred times worse. To have them on
your heels was certain death. They were totally ruthless and not out of
any particular political conviction. They operated strictly for cash."

"Well, under this doctor from Switzerland, have they done any harm yet?"

"Oh no. They are nothing more than he says--personal staff, at the
worst, if you like, a bodyguard. No. The trouble is quite different,
much more complex. You see, this man Shatterhand has created what I can
only describe as a garden of death."

Bond raised his eyebrows. Really, for the head of a national secret
service, Tiger's metaphors were almost ridiculously dramatic.

Tiger exploded his golden smile. "Bondo-san, I can see from your face
that you think I am either drunk or mad. Now listen. This Doctor
Shatterhand has filled this famous park of his uniquely with poisonous
vegetation, the lakes and streams with poisonous fish, and he has
infested the place with snakes, scorpions, and poisonous spiders. He and
this hideous wife of his are not harmed by these things, because
whenever they leave the castle he wears full suits of armour of the
seventeenth century, and she wears some other kind of protective
clothing. His workers are not harmed because they wear rubber boots up
to the knee, and _maskos_, that is, antiseptic gauze masks such as many
people in Japan wear over the mouth and nose to avoid infection or the
spreading of infection."

"What a daft set-up."

Tiger reached into the folds of the _yukata_ he had changed into when
they entered the house. He brought out several sheets of paper pinned
together. He handed them over to Bond and said, "Be patient. Do not
judge what you do not understand. I know nothing of these poisonous
plants. Nor, I expect, do you. Here is a translation of a list of those
that have so far been planted by this doctor, together with comments by
our Ministry of Agriculture. Read it. Take your time. You will be
interested to learn what charming vegetation grows on the surface of the
globe."

Bond took the papers. The first page was a general note on vegetable
poisons. There followed an annotated list. The papers bore the seal of
the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture. This is what he read:

    The poisons listed fall into six main categories:

    1. _Deliriant._ Symptoms: spectral illusions, delirium; dilated
    pupils; thirst and dryness; inco-ordination; then paralysis and
    spasms.

    2. _Inebriant._ Symptoms: excitement of cerebral functions and
    of circulation; loss of co-ordination and muscular movements;
    double vision; then sleep and deep coma.

    3. _Convulsivant._ Symptoms: intermittent spasms, from head
    downwards. Death from exhaustion, usually within three hours, or
    rapid recovery.

    4. _Depressant._ Symptoms: vertigo, vomiting, abdominal pain,
    confused vision, convulsions, paralysis, fainting, sometimes
    asphyxia.

    5. _Asthenic._ Symptoms: numbness, tingling mouth, abdominal
    pain, vertigo, vomiting, purging, delirium, paralysis, fainting.

    6. _Irritant._ Symptoms: burning pain in throat and stomach,
    thirst, nausea, vomiting. Death by shock, convulsions or
    exhaustion; or starvation by injury to throat or stomach.

                  SPECIMENS LISTED BY CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
                     DEPARTMENT AS IMPORTED BY DOCTOR
                           GUNTRAM SHATTERHAND

    _Jamaica dogwood, fish-poison tree_ (_Piscidia erythrina_):
    Tree, 30 ft. White and blood-coloured flowers. Inebriant. Toxic
    principle: piscidine. W. Indies.

    _Nux-vomica tree, poison-nut, crow-fig, kachita_ (_Strychnos
    nux-vomica_): Tree, 40 ft. Smooth bark, attractive fruits, which
    have bitter taste. Greenish-white flowers. Seeds most poisonous
    part. Convulsivant. Toxic principle: strychnine, brucine. S.
    India, Java.

    _Guiana poison-tree_ (_Strychnos toxifera_): curare arrow-poison
    taken from bark. Creeper. Death within one hour from respiratory
    paralysis. Toxic principles: curare, strychnine, brucine.
    Guiana.

    _St. Ignatius's bean_ (_Strychnos Ignatii_): small tree, seeds
    yield brucine. Convulsivant. Philippines.

    _False Upas-tree_ (_Strychnos tieut_): large climbing shrub.
    Strychnine or brucine from leaf, seed, stem or root-bark. Java.

    _East Indian snake-wood_ (_Strychnos colubrina_): climbing tree.
    Yields strychnine, brucine. Convulsivant. Java, Timor.

    _Ipecacuanha_ (_Psychotria ipecacuanha_): shrubby plant.
    Depressant. Toxic principle: emetine, from root. Brazil.

    _White-woolly Kombe bean, Gaboon arrow poison_ (_Stropanthus
    hispidus_): woody climber, 6 ft. Toxic principle: strophanthin,
    incine. Asthenic. W. Africa.

    _Ordeal-tree, poison tanghin_ (_Tanghini venenifera_ or _cerbera
    tanghin_): small evergreen tree, 20 ft. Fruit purplish, tinged
    with green. Toxic principle: tanghinine, cerberin. Asthenic.
    Madagascar.

    _Upas-tree, Malay arrow-poison tree_ (_Antiaris toxicaria_):
    jungle tree--100 ft. before branches start. Wood light, white,
    hard, milk-bearing. Toxic principle: antiarin, from milky sap.
    Asthenic. Java, Borneo, Sumatra, Philippines.

    _Poison ivy, trailing poison oak_ (_Rhus toxicodendron_):
    climbing shrub. Greenish-yellow flowers. Stem contains milky
    juice--irritant. Toxic principle: toxicodendrol. U.S.A.

    _Yellow oleander, campanilla, be-still tree_ (_Thevetia
    peruviana_): small tree. All parts can be fatally toxic,
    particularly fruit. Pulse slows, vomiting, shock. Hawaii.

    _Castor bean plant_ (_Ricinus communis_): seeds are source of
    castor oil, also contain toxic principle, ricin. Harmless if
    eaten. If it enters the circulation through scratch or abrasion,
    is fatal within 7-10 days. One-hundredth of a milligram can kill
    a 200-lb. man. Loss of appetite, emesis, purgation, delirium,
    collapse, and death. Hawaii, S. America.

    _Common oleander_ (_Nerium Indicum_): evergreen shrub. The
    roots, bark, juice, flowers, and leaves all fatally toxic. Acts
    chiefly on the heart. Used in India as leprosy treatment,
    abortifacient, means of suicide. India, Hawaii. One death was
    due to the victim's having eaten meat cooked over an open fire,
    spitted on a stick of oleander wood.

    _Rosary pea, crab's eye, Jequiritz bean_ (_Abrus precatorius_):
    climbing shrub. Small shiny red seeds weigh average 1.75 grains.
    Used by Indian goldsmiths as weights. Seeds are ground down into
    a paste with a little cold water, made into small pointed
    cylinders. If these are inserted beneath skin of human or
    animal, death occurs within four hours. India, Hawaii.

    _Jimson-weed_ (_Datura stramonium_): variety of thorn apple
    plant, found in N. Africa, India. Also: _Ololiuqui_ (_D.
    meteloides_) from Mexico, and _D. tatula_ from C. and S.
    America. All three are hallucinatory. _D. stramonium's_ apples
    are smoked by Arabs and Swahilis, leaves eaten by E. African
    Negroes, seeds added to hashish and leaves to hemp by Bengalese
    Indians. _D. tatula_ was used as a truth-drug by Zapotec Indians
    in courts of law. Addiction to toloachi, a drink made from _D.
    tatula_, causes chronic imbecility.

    _Gloriosa superba_: spectacularly beautiful climbing lily.
    Roots, stalks, leaves contain an acrid narcotic, superbine, as
    well as colchicine and choline. Three grains of colchicine are
    fatal. Hawaii.

    _Sand-box tree_ (_Hura crepitans_): whole tree contains an
    active emetocathartic, used as a fish-poison in Brazil. Also
    contains crepitin, same group of poisons as ricin. Harmless if
    swallowed, must be taken into circulation through wound to be
    fatal. Death comes in 7-10 days. C. and S. America.

    _Pride-of-India, Chinaberry tree, China tree_ (_Melia
    azedarach_): small tree. Beautiful dark-green leaves, lavender
    blossoms. Fruit contains toxic narcotic which attacks entire
    central nervous system. Hawaii, C. and S. America.

    _Physic nut_ (_Jatropha curcas_): bushy tree. Raw seeds
    violently purgative, often fatal due to exhaustion. Caribbean.

    _Mexican tuber, camotillo_: wild potato, grows generally.
    According to Indian tradition, it is plucked during the waning
    of the moon; it is alleged to begin deadly action the same
    number of days after consumption as it was stored after being
    dug up. Toxic principle: solanine. C. and S. America.

    _Divine mushroom_ (_Amanita mexicana_): closely related to
    European Fly Agaric. Black mushroom, eaten fresh or steeped in
    warm milk laced with agave spirits. Causes hypersensitivity of
    the skin surface, ultra-acute hearing and sight, then
    hallucinations for several hours, followed by deep melancholia.
    Active principle unknown. C. and S. America.

Bond finished his reading. He handed the papers back. He said, "Doctor
Shatterhand's garden is indeed a lovesome thing, God wot."

"And you have of course heard of the South American piranha fish? They
can strip a whole horse to the bones in less than an hour. The
scientific name is Serrasalmus. The sub-species Nattereri is the most
voracious. Our good doctor has preferred these fish to our native
goldfish for his lakes. You see what I mean?"

"No," said Bond, "frankly I don't. What's the object of the good
doctor's exercise?"




8. SLAY IT WITH FLOWERS


It was three o'clock, in the morning. The noise of the traffic to
Yokohama had died. James Bond didn't feel tired. He was now totally
absorbed in this extraordinary story of the Swiss doctor, who, as Tiger
had originally said, "collected death." Tiger wasn't telling him this
bizarre case history for his entertainment. There was going to come a
moment of climax. What would that climax be?

Tiger wiped his hand over his face. He said, "Did you read a story in
the _Japan Times_ today? It concerned a suicide."

"No."

"This was a young student aged eighteen who had failed his examination
for the university for the second time. He lived in the suburbs of
Tokyo. There was construction work on a new _departmento_, a department
store, going on near where he lived. He went out of his room on to the
site. A pile-driver was at work, sinking the foundations. Suddenly this
youth broke through the surrounding workmen and, as the pile came
crashing down, laid his head on the block beneath it."

"What a ghastly business! Why?"

"He had brought dishonour on his parents, his ancestors. This was his
way of expiation. Suicide is a most unfortunate aspect of the Japanese
way of life." Tiger paused. "Or perhaps a most noble one. It depends how
you look at it. That boy, and his family, will have gained great face in
his neighbourhood."

"You can't gain face from strawberry jam."

"Think again, Bondo-san. Your posthumous V.C.s, for instance?"

"They're not awarded for committing suicide after failing in an
examination."

"We are not so _demokorasu_ as you are." There was irony in Tiger's
voice. "Dishonour must be expunged--according to those of us who remain
what you would describe as old-fashioned. There is no apology more
sincere than the offering up of your own life. It is literally all you
have to give."

"But even if this boy failed for the university, he could have gone for
a lower standard of examination, for a lower grade of college. As you
know, we say 'Blast!' or perhaps a stronger word if we fail an
examination in Britain. But we readjust our sights, or our parents do it
for us, and have another bash. We don't kill ourselves. It wouldn't
occur to us. It would be dishonourable rather than honourable. It would
be cowardly--a refusal to stand up to reverses, to life. And it would
give great pain to our parents, and certainly no satisfaction to our
ancestors."

"With us it is different. And despite _demokorasu_, the parents of this
youth will be rejoicing this evening and their neighbours will be
rejoicing with them. Honour is more important to us than life--more
proud, more beautiful."

Bond shrugged. "Well, I just think that if the boy had the guts to do
this thing, it was the waste of a perfectly good Japanese life. In fact,
of course, this suicide business in Japan is nothing more than a form of
hysteria--an expression of the streak of violence that seems to run all
through the history of Japan. If you hold your own life so cheaply, it
follows that you will hold others' lives even more cheaply. The other
day, I saw a traffic accident at one of the main crossings. I don't know
the name of it. It was a multiple affair, and there were bodies all over
the place. The police came, but instead of concentrating on getting the
wounded to hospital, insisted that they should lie where they were so
that they could draw chalk lines round them and photograph
them--presumably for use when the case came to court."

"That is common practice," said Tiger indifferently. "We are much
overpopulated. Abortion is legal. It is helping to solve one of our
problems if a few extra people die in an automobile accident. But there
is something in what you said earlier. Our word for suicide is
_jisatsu_, literally 'self-murder,' and although it is a violent
solution to a personal problem, it carries no stigma as it would in your
country. In fact, one of our most famous folk-tales, known to all
children, is of the forty-seven _ronin_, or bodyguards. Through their
negligence, their lord, Asano, was assassinated. They swore to avenge
him, and they did so. But then they came together at a place called Ako
and all committed _seppuku_ to expiate their negligence. This is what
you know as _hara-kiri_, which is a vulgar term meaning 'belly-cutting.'
Today, at the time of the festival at the Ako shrine, special trains
have to be laid on to accommodate the respectful pilgrims."

"Well, if you bring your children up on that sort of stuff, you can't
expect them not to venerate the act of suicide."

"Just so," said Tiger proudly. "Twenty-five thousand Japanese commit
suicide every year. Only the bureaucrats regard that as a shameful
statistic. And the more spectacular the suicide, the more warmly it is
approved. Not long ago, a young student achieved great renown by trying
to saw his own head off. Lovers link hands and throw themselves over the
very high Kegon Falls at Nikko. The Mihara volcano on the island of
Oshima is another favourite locale. People run down the roasting slope
of the crater and hurl themselves, their shoes on fire, into the
bubbling cauldron in its centre. To combat this popular pastime, the
interfering authorities have now opened, at great expense, a 'Suicide
Prevention Office' on the peak. But always the wheels of the good
old-fashioned railway train provide the most convenient guillotine. They
have the merit of being self-operating. All you need to do is make a
four-foot jump."

"You're a bloodthirsty old bastard, Tiger. But what's all this lecture
about anyway? What's it got to do with friend Shatterhand and his pretty
garden?"

"Everything, Bondo-san. Everything. You see, much against the good
doctor's wishes, of course, his poison garden has become the most
desirable site for suicides in the whole of Japan. It has everything--a
ride on our famous 'Romance' express to Kyoto; a boat trip across our
beautiful Inland Sea that is so full of Japanese history; a local train
from the terminal harbour at Beppu to Fukuoka, and a walk or taxi drive
along a beautiful coast to the awe-inspiring ramparts of this mysterious
Castle of Death. Climb these, or smuggle yourself in on a provision
cart, and then a last delicious ruminative walk, perhaps hand-in-hand
with your lover, through the beautiful groves. And finally the great
gamble, the game of _pachinko_ the Japanese love so much. Which ball
will have your number on it? Will your death be easy or painful? Will a
Russell's Viper strike at your legs as you walk the silent well-raked
paths? Will some kindly, deadly dew fall upon you during the night as
you rest under this or that gorgeous tree? Or will hunger or curiosity
lead you to munch a handful of those red berries or pick one of those
orange fruits? Of course, if you want to make it quick, there is always
a bubbling, sulphurous fumarole at hand. In any one of those, the
thousand degrees Centigrade will allow you just enough time for one
scream. The place is nothing more than a _departmento_ of death, its
shelves laden with delicious packages of self-destruction, all given
away for nothing. Can you not imagine that old and young flock there as
if to a shrine? The police have erected a barricade across the road.
Genuine visitors, botanists and so on, have to show a pass. But the
suicides fight their way to the shrine across the fields and marshes,
scrabble at the great walls, break their nails to gain entrance. The
good doctor is, of course, much dismayed. He has erected stern notices
of warning, with skulls and crossbones upon them. They act only as
advertisements! He has even gone to the expense of flying one of those
high helium balloons from the roof of his castle. The hanging streamers
threaten trespassers with prosecution. But, alas for the doctor's
precautions, the high balloon serves only to beckon. 'Here is death!' it
proclaims. 'Come and get it!'"

"You're daft, Tiger. Why don't you arrest him? Burn the place down?"

"Arrest him for what? For presenting Japan with this unique collection
of rare plants? Burn down a million-pound establishment belonging to a
respected _gaijin_ resident? The man has done nothing wrong. If anyone
is to blame, it is the Japanese people. It is true that he could
exercise more careful surveillance, have his grounds more regularly
patrolled. And it is certainly odd that when he has the ambulance
called, the victims are always totally dead and are usually in the form
of a bag of calcined bones fished out of one of the fumaroles. From the
list I have shown you, one would have expected some to be only crippled,
or blinded. The Herr Doktor expresses himself as much puzzled. He
suggests that, in the cases of blindness or amnesia, the victims
presumably fall into one of the fumaroles by mistake. Maybe. But as I
have said, his tally so far is over five hundred, and with the stream of
publicity, more and more people will be attracted to the Castle of
Death. We have got to put a stop to it."

"What steps have been taken so far?"

"Commissions of investigation have visited the doctor. They have been
most courteously treated. The doctor has begged that something shall be
done to protect him from these trespassers. He complains that they
interfere with his work, break off precious boughs, and pick valuable
plants. He shows himself as entirely co-operative with any measures that
can be suggested short of abandoning this project, which is so dear to
his heart and so much appreciated by the Japanese specialists in botany
and so forth. He has made a further most generous offer. He is
constructing a research department--to be manned by workers of his own
choice, mark you--to extract the poisons from his shrubs and plants and
give the essences free to an appropriate medical research centre. You
will have noted that many of these poisons are valuable medicines in a
diluted form."

"But how has all this come on your plate?" Bond was now getting drowsy.
It was four o'clock, and the horizon of jagged grey porcelain-shingled
roof-tops was lightening. He poured down the last of the _sak_. It had
the flat taste of too much. It was time he was in bed. But Tiger was
obviously obsessed with this lunatic business, and subtle authentic
glimpses of Japan were coming through the ridiculous nightmare story
with its undertones of Poe, Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce.

Tiger seemed unaffected by the lateness of the hour. The _samurai_ face
was perhaps etched in more sinister, more brutal lines. The hint of
Tartar, tamed and civilized, lurked with less concealment, like a caged
animal, in the dark pools of his eyes. But the occasional rocking motion
on the buttocks and sides of the feet was the only sign that he was
interested, even excited. He said, "One month ago, Bondo-san, I sent one
of my best men into this place to try and discover what it was all
about. I was so instructed by my Minister, the Minister of the Interior.
He in turn was under orders from the Prime Minister. The matter was
becoming one of public debate. I chose a good man. He was instructed to
get into the place, observe, and report. One week later, Bondo-san, he
was recovered from the sea on a beach near this Castle of Death. He was
blinded and in delirium. The lower half of his body was terribly burned.
He could only babble a _haiku_ about dragonflies. I later discovered
that, as a youth, he had indulged in the pastime of our youngsters. He
had tied a female dragonfly on a thread and let it go. This acts as a
lure for the male dragonfly, and you can quickly catch many males in
this way. They attach themselves to the female and will not let go. The
_haiku_--that is a verse of seventeen syllables--he kept on reciting
until his death, which came soon, was 'Desolation! Pink dragonflies
flitting above the perfumed graves.'"

James Bond felt he was living inside a dream: the little room,
partitioned in imitation rice-paper and cedar plywood, the open vista of
a small inscrutable garden in which water tinkled, the distant redness
of an imminent dawn, the long background of _sak_ and cigarettes, the
quiet voice of the story-teller telling a fairy-tale, as it might be
told in a tent under the stars. And yet this was something that had
happened the other day, close by--was happening now, something that
Tiger had brought him here to tell. Why? Because he was lonely? Because
there was no one else he could trust? Bond pulled himself out of his
somnolent slouch. He said, "I'm sorry, Tiger. What did you do next?"

Tiger Tanaka seemed to sit slightly more upright on his black-edged
rectangle of golden _tatami_. He looked very directly at James Bond and
said, "What was there to do? I did nothing except apologize to my
superiors. I waited for an honourable solution to present itself. I
waited for you to come."

"Me!"

"You were sent. It might have been another."

James Bond yawned. He couldn't help it. He could see no end to the
evening. Tiger had got some Japanese bee in his Japanese bonnet. How in
hell could Bond stop it buzzing? He said, "Tiger. It's time for bed.
Let's talk about the rest of this tomorrow. Of course I'll give you any
advice I can. I can see it's a difficult problem. But those are just the
ones to sleep on." He made to rise from his chair.

Tiger said, and it was an order, "Sit down, Bondo-san. If you have any
regard for your country, you leave tomorrow." He consulted his watch.
"By the twelve-twenty from Tokyo main station. Your ultimate destination
is Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. You will not be going back
to your hotel. You will not be seeing Dikko. From now on you are under
my personal orders." The voice went very quiet and velvety. "Is that
understood?"

Bond sat up as if he had been stung. "What in God's name are you talking
about, Tiger?"

Tiger Tanaka said, "In my office the other day you made a significant
statement. You said words to the effect that in exchange for MAGIC 44
you were empowered to carry out any personal services that I might
require of you."

"I didn't say that I was empowered. I meant that I would do anything for
you on my personal responsibility."

"That is quite good enough. I took you at your word and I requested an
audience of the Prime Minister. He instructed me to proceed, but to
regard the matter as a state secret known only to him and to me--and of
course to you."

"Come on, Tiger," said Bond impatiently. "Cut the cackle. What is it you
want me to do?"

But Tiger was not to be hurried. He said, "Bondo-san, I will now be
blunt with you, and you will not be offended, because we are friends.
Yes? Now it is a sad fact that I, and many of us in positions of
authority in Japan, have formed an unsatisfactory opinion about the
British people since the war. You have not only lost a great empire, you
have seemed almost anxious to throw it away with both hands. All right,"
he held up a hand, "we will not go deeply into the reasons for this
policy, but when you apparently sought to arrest this slide into
impotence at Suez, you succeeded only in stage-managing one of the most
pitiful bungles in the history of the world, if not the worst. Further,
your governments have shown themselves successively incapable of ruling
and have handed over effective control of the country to the
trades-unions, which appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing
less and less work for more money. This feather-bedding, this shirking
of an honest day's work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral
fibre of the British, a quality the world once so much admired. In its
place we now see a vacuous aimless horde of
seekers-after-pleasure--gambling at the pools and bingo, whining at the
weather and the declining fortunes of the country, and wallowing
nostalgically in gossip about the doings of the Royal Family and of your
so-called aristocracy in the pages of the most debased newspapers in the
world."

James Bond roared with laughter. "You've got a bloody cheek, Tiger! You
ought to write that out, sign it 'Octogenarian,' and send it in to _The
Times_. You just come over and take a look at the place. It's not doing
all that badly."

"Bondo-san, you have pleaded guilty out of your own mouth. 'Not doing
too badly,' indeed! That is the crybaby excuse of a boy who gets a
thoroughly bad end-of-term report. In fact, you are doing very badly
indeed in the opinion of your few remaining friends. And now you come to
me and ask for some very important intelligence material to bolster up
the pitiful ruins of a once great power. Why should we give it to you?
What good will it do us? What good will it do you, Bondo-san? It is like
giving smelling salts to a punch-drunk heavy-weight just before the
inevitable knock-out."

Bond said angrily, "Balls to you, Tiger! And balls again! Just because
you're a pack of militant potential murderers here, longing to get rid
of your American masters and play at being _samurai_ again, snarling
behind your subservient smiles, you only judge people by your own jungle
standards. Let me tell you this, my fine friend. England may have been
bled pretty thin by a couple of world wars, our welfare-state politics
may have made us expect too much for free, and the liberation of our
colonies may have gone too fast, but we still climb Everest and beat
plenty of the world at plenty of sports and win Nobel Prizes. Our
politicians may be a feather-pated bunch, but I expect yours are, too.
All politicians are. But there's nothing wrong with the British
people--although there are only fifty million of them."

Tiger Tanaka smiled happily. "Well spoken, Bondo-san. I thought your
famous English stoicism might break down if I hit hard enough. I just
wanted to see. And, for your information, those are very similar to the
words I addressed to my Prime Minister. And do you know what he said? He
said, all right, Mr. Tanaka. Put this Commander Bond to the test. If he
succeeds, I will agree that there is still an elite in Britain and that
this valuable material would be safe in their hands. If he fails, you
will politely turn down the request."

Bond shrugged impatiently. He was still smarting under Tiger's
onslaught, and the half-truths which he knew lay behind his words. "All
right, Tiger. What is this ridiculous test? Some typical bit of
_samurai_ nonsense, I suppose."

"More or less," agreed Tiger Tanaka, with equanimity. "You are to enter
this Castle of Death and slay the dragon within."




9. INSTANT JAPAN


The black Toyopet hurtled through the deserted streets, which were shiny
with the dew of what would be a beautiful day.

Tiger had dressed in casual clothes as if for a country outing. He had a
small overnight bag on the seat beside him. They were on the way to a
bath-house which Tiger said was of a very special, a very pleasurable
nature. It was also, Tiger said, very discreet, and the opportunity
would be taken to make a start in transforming Bond's appearance into
something more closely resembling a Japanese.

Tiger had overridden all Bond's objections. On all the evidence, this
doctor was a purveyor of death. Because he was mad? Because it amused
him? Tiger neither knew nor cared. For obvious reasons of policy, his
assassination, which had been officially agreed to, could not be carried
out by a Japanese. Bond's appearance on the scene was therefore very
timely. He had had much practice in such clandestine operations, and if
he was subsequently arrested by the Japanese police, an adequate cover
story involving foreign intelligence services could be cooked up. He
would be tried, sentenced, and then quietly smuggled out of the country.
If he failed, then presumably the doctor or his guards would kill him.
That would be too bad. Bond argued that he had personally nothing
against this Swiss botanist. Tiger replied that any good man's hand
would be against a man who had already killed five hundred of his fellow
creatures. Was that not so? And in any case, Bond was being hired to do
this act in exchange for MAGIC 44. Did that not quieten his conscience?
Bond agreed reluctantly that it did. As a last resort, Bond said that
the operation was in any case impossible. A foreigner in Japan could be
spotted five miles away. Tiger replied that this matter had been
provided for and the first step was a visit to this most discreet
bath-house. Here Bond would receive his first treatment and then get
some sleep before catching the train on which Tiger would be
accompanying him. And Tiger, with a devilish grin, had assured him that
at any rate part of his treatment would be most pleasurable and
relaxing.

The exterior of the bath-house looked like a Japanese inn--some
carefully placed stepping-stones meandering briefly between dwarf pines,
a wide-open, yellow-lighted doorway with a vista of polished wood floors
behind, three bowing, smiling women in traditional dress, as bright as
birds although it was nearly five in the morning, and the inevitable row
of spotless but undersized slippers. After much bowing and
counter-bowing and a few phrases from Tiger, Bond took off his shoes
and, in his socks (explanation by Tiger; polite giggles behind raised
hands), did as Tiger told him and followed one of the women along a
gleaming corridor and through an open partition that revealed a
miniature combination of a bedroom and a Turkish bath. A young girl,
wearing nothing but tight, brief white shorts and an exiguous white
brassire, bowed low, said, "Excuse, please," and began to unbutton
Bond's trousers. Bond held the pretty hand where it was. He turned to
the older woman who was about to close the partition and said,
"Tanaka-san," in a voice that pleaded and ordered. Tiger was fetched. He
was wearing nothing but his underpants. He said, "What is it now?"

Bond said, "Now listen, Tiger, I'm sure this pretty girl and I will get
along very well indeed. But just tell me what the menu is. Am I going to
eat her or is she going to eat me?"

Tiger said patiently, "You really must learn to obey orders without
asking questions, Bondo-san. That is the essence of our relationship
during the next few days. You see that box? When she has undressed you,
she will put you in the box which has a charcoal fire under it. You will
sweat. After perhaps ten minutes, she will help you out of the box and
wash you from head to foot. She will even tenderly clean out your ears
with a special ivory instrument. She will then pour a very tenacious
dark dye with which she has been supplied into that tiled bath in the
floor, and you will get in. You will relax and bathe your face and hair.
She will then dry you and cut your hair in the Japanese style. She will
then give you a massage on that couch and, according to your
indications, she will make this massage as delightful, as prolonged as
you wish. You will then go to sleep. When you are awakened with eggs and
bacon and coffee, you will kiss the girl good morning and shave, or the
other way round, and that will be that." Tiger curtly asked the girl a
question. She brushed back her bang of black hair coquettishly and
replied. "The girl says she is eighteen and that her name is Mariko
Ichiban. Mariko means 'Truth' and Ichiban means 'number one.' The girls
in these establishments are numbered. And now, please don't disturb me
any more. I am about to enjoy myself in a similar fashion, but without
the walnut stain. And please, in future, have faith. You are about to
undergo a period of entirely new sensations. They may be strange and
surprising. They will not be painful--while you are under my authority,
that is. Savour them. Enjoy them as if each one was your last. All
right? Then good night, my dear Bondo-san. The night will be short,
alas, but if you embrace it fully, it will be totally delightful up to
the last squirm of ecstasy. And," Tiger gave a malicious wave of the
hand as he went out and closed the partition, "you will arise from it
what is known as 'a new man.'"

James Bond got at any rate part of the message. As Mariko's busy fingers
proceeded to remove his trousers and then his shirt, he lifted her chin
and kissed her full on the soft, yielding, bud-like mouth.

Later, sitting sweating and reflecting in the comfortable wooden box,
very tired, slightly but cheerfully drunk, he remembered his dismal
thoughts in Queen Mary's Rose Garden. He also remembered his interview
with M., and M. saying that he could leave the hardware behind on this
purely diplomatic assignment; the lines of irony round Bond's mouth
deepened.

Mariko was looking into the wall mirror and fiddling with her hair and
eyebrows. Bond said, "Mariko. Out!"

Mariko smiled and bowed. She unhurriedly removed her brassire and came
towards the wooden box.

Bond reflected, What was it that Tiger had said about becoming a new
man? He reached for Mariko's helping hands and watched her breasts
tauten as she pulled him out and towards her.

****

It was indeed a new man who followed Tiger through the thronged halls of
Tokyo main station. Bond's face and hands were of a light brown tint,
his black hair, brightly oiled, was cut and neatly combed in a short
fringe that reached halfway down his forehead, and the outer corners of
his eyebrows had been carefully shaved so that they now slanted upwards.
He was dressed, like so many of the other travellers, in a white cotton
shirt buttoned at the wrists and a cheap, knitted silk, black tie
exactly centred with a rolled gold pin. His ready-made black trousers,
held up by a cheap black plastic belt, were rather loose in the fork,
because Japanese behinds are inclined to hang low, but the black plastic
sandals and dark blue nylon socks were exactly the right size. A
much-used overnight bag of Japan Air Lines was slung over his shoulder,
and this contained a change of shirt, singlet, pants, and socks, Shinsei
cigarettes, and some cheap Japanese toilet articles. In his pockets were
a comb, a cheap, used wallet containing some five thousand yen in small
denomination notes, and a stout pocket knife which, by Japanese law, had
a blade not more than two inches long. There was no handkerchief, only a
packet of tissues. (Later, Tiger explained. "Bondo-san, this Western
habit of blowing the nose and carefully wrapping up the result in silk
or fine linen and harbouring it in your pocket as if it were something
precious! Would you do the same thing with the other excretions of your
body? Exactly! So, if in Japan you wish to blow your nose, perform the
act decorously and dispose at once, tidily, of the result.")

Despite his height, Bond merged quite adequately into the bustling,
shoving crowds of passengers. His "disguise" had mysteriously appeared
in his room at the bath-house, and Mariko had greatly enjoyed dressing
him up. "Now Japanese gentreman," she had said approvingly as, with a
last lingering kiss, she had gone to answer Tiger's rap on the
partition. Bond's own clothes and possessions had already been taken
away.

"They and your things from the hotel will be transferred to Dikko's
apartment," Tiger had said. "Later today, Dikko will inform your chief
that you have left Tokyo with me for a visit to the MAGIC establishment,
which is, in fact, a day's journey from Tokyo, and that you will be away
for several days. Dikko believes that this is so. My own department
merely know that I shall be absent on a mission to Fukuoka. They do not
know that you are accompanying me. And now we will take the express to
Gamagori on the south coast and the evening hydrofoil across Atsumi and
Ise Bays to the fishing port of Toba. There we will spend the night.
This is to be a slow journey to Fukuoka for the purpose of training and
educating you. It is necessary that I make you familiar with Japanese
customs and folkways so that you make as few mistakes as possible--when
the time comes."

The gleaming orange and silver express slid to a stop beside them. Tiger
barged his way on board. Bond waited politely for two or three women to
precede him. When he sat down beside Tiger, Tiger hissed angrily, "First
lesson, Bondo-san! Do not make way for women. Push them, trample them
down. Women have no priority in this country. You may be polite to very
old men, but to no one else. Is that understood?"

"Yes, master," said Bond sarcastically.

"And do not make Western-style jokes while you are my pupil. We are
engaged on a serious mission."

"Oh all right, Tiger," said Bond resignedly. "But damn it all..."

Tiger held up a hand. "And that is another thing. No swearing, please.
There are no swear-words in the Japanese language, and the usage of bad
language does not exist."

"But good heavens, Tiger! No self-respecting man could get through the
day without his battery of four-letter words to cope with the roughage
of life and let off steam. If you're late for a vital appointment with
your superiors, and you find that you've left all your papers at home,
surely you say, well, Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie, if I may put it so as
not to offend."

"No," said Tiger. "I would say '_Shimatta_,' which means 'I have made a
mistake.'"

"Nothing worse?"

"There is nothing worse to say."

"Well, supposing it was your driver's fault that the papers had been
forgotten. Wouldn't you curse him backwards and sideways?"

"If I wanted to get myself a new driver, I might conceivably call him
'_bakyaro_,' which means a 'bloody fool,' or even '_konchikisho_,' which
means 'you animal.' But these are deadly insults, and he would be within
his rights to strike me. He would certainly get out of the car and walk
away."

"And those are the worst words in the Japanese language! What about your
taboos? The Emperor, your ancestors, all these gods? Don't you ever wish
them in hell, or worse?"

"No. That would have no meaning."

"Well then, dirty words. Sex words?"

"There are two--'_chimbo_,' which is masculine, and '_monko_,' which is
feminine. These are nothing but coarse anatomical descriptions. They
have no meaning as swear-words. There are no such things in our
language."

"Well I'm... I mean, well, I'm astonished! A violent people without a
violent language! I must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you
have nothing left but to commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut
your girl friend's head off when she annoys you."

Tiger laughed. "We generally push them under trams or trains."

"Well, for my money, you'd do much better to say 'You----,'" Bond fired
off the hackneyed string, "and get it off your chest that way."

"That is enough, Bondo-san," said Tiger patiently. "The subject is now
closed. But you will kindly refrain both from using these words or
looking them. Be calm, stoical, impassive. Do not show anger. Smile at
misfortune. If you sprain your ankle, laugh."

"Tiger, you're a cruel taskmaster."

Tiger grinned with satisfaction. "Bondo-san, you don't know the half of
it. But now let us go and get something to eat and drink in the buffet
car. All that Suntory you forced on me last night is crying out for the
skin of the dog that bit me."

"The hair," corrected Bond.

"One hair would not be enough, Bondo-san. I need the whole skin."

James Bond wrestled with his chopsticks and slivers of raw octopus and a
mound of rice ("You must get accustomed to the specialities of the
country, Bondo-san") and watched the jagged coast-line, interspersed
with glittering paddy fields, flash by. He was lost in thought when he
felt a hard jostle from behind. He had been constantly jostled as he sat
up at the counter--the Japanese are great jostlers--but he now turned
and caught a glimpse of the stocky back of a man disappearing into the
next compartment. There were white strings round his ears which showed
that he was wearing a _masko_, and he wore an ugly black leather hat.
When they went back to their seat, Bond found that his pocket had been
picked. His wallet was gone. Tiger was astonished. "That is very unusual
in Japan," he said defensively. "But no matter. I will get you another
at Toba. It would be a mistake to call the conductor. We do not wish to
draw attention to ourselves. The police would be sent for at the next
station, and there would be much interrogation and filling out of forms.
And there is no way of finding the thief. The man will have pocketed his
_masko_ and hat and will be unrecognizable. I regret the incident,
Bondo-san. I hope you will forget it."

"Of course. It's nothing."

They left the train at Gamagori, a pretty sea-side village with a humped
island in the bay that Tiger said housed an important shrine, and the
fifty-knot ride in the hydrofoil to Toba, an hour away across the bay,
was exhilarating. As they disembarked, Bond caught a glimpse of a stocky
silhouette in the crowd. Could it be the thief on the train? But the man
wore heavy horn-rimmed spectacles, and there were many other stocky men
in the crowd. Bond dismissed the thought and followed Tiger along the
narrow streets, gaily hung with paper banners and lanterns, to the usual
discreet frontage and dwarf pines that he had become accustomed to. They
were expected and were greeted with deference. Bond had had about enough
of the day. There weren't many bows and smiles left in him, and he was
glad when he was at last left alone in his maddeningly dainty room with
the usual dainty pot of tea, dainty cup, and dainty sweetmeat wrapped in
rice-paper. He sat at the open partition that gave on to a handkerchief
of garden and then the sea-wall and gazed gloomily across the water at a
giant statue of a man in a bowler hat and morning coat that Tiger had
told him was Mr. Mikimoto, founder of the cultured pearl industry, who
had been born at Toba and had there, as a poor fisherman, invented the
trick of inserting grains of sand under the mantle of a live oyster to
form the kernel of a pearl. Bond thought, To hell with Tiger and his
crazy plan. What in God's name have I got myself into? He was still
sitting there cursing his lot when Tiger came in and brusquely ordered
him to don one of the _yukatas_ that hung with the bedding in the single
cupboard in the paper wall.

"You really must concentrate, Bondo-san," said Tiger mildly. "But you
are making progress. As a reward, I have ordered _sak_ to be brought in
large quantities and then a dinner of the speciality of this
place--lobster."

Bond's spirits rose minutely. He undressed to his pants, donned the
dark-brown _yukata_ ("Stop!" from Tiger. "Wrap it round to the right!
Only a corpse wraps it round to the left."), and adopted the lotus
position across the low table from Tiger. He had to admit that the
kimono was airy and comfortable. He bowed low. "That sounds a most
sincere programme. Now then, Tiger. Tell me about the time you were
training as a _kami-kaze_. Every detail. What was it all about?"

The _sak_ came. The pretty waitress knelt on the _tatami_ and served
them both. Tiger had been thoughtful. He had ordered tumblers. Bond
swallowed his at one gulp. Tiger said, "The grossness of your drinking
habits fits well with your future identity."

"And what is that to be?"

"A coal-miner from Fukuoka. There are many tall men in that profession.
Your hands are not rough enough, but you pushed a truck underground.
Your nails will be filled with coal dust when the time comes. You were
too stupid to wield a pick. You are deaf and dumb. Here," Tiger slipped
across a scrubby card, creased and dog-eared. There were some Japanese
characters on it. "That is '_tsumbo de oshi_'--deaf and dumb. Your
disability will inspire pity and some distaste. If someone talks to you,
show that and they will desist. They may also give you a few pieces of
small coin. Accept them and bow deeply."

"Thanks very much. And I suppose I have to account for these tips to
your secret fund?"

"That will not be necessary." Tiger was wooden-faced. "Our expenses on
this mission are a direct charge on the Prime Minister's purse."

Bond bowed. "I am honoured." He straightened himself. "And now, you old
bastard, more _sak_ and tell me about the _kami-kaze_. In due course, I
am prepared to become a deaf-and-dumb miner from Fukuoka. In public, I
am prepared to hiss and bow with the best of them. But, by God, when
we're alone, the password is Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie or I'll be
putting my head under a pile-driver before you get me on to the first
tee. Is that agreed?"

Tiger bowed low. "_Shimatta!_ I am in error. I have been pressing you
hard. It is my duty to entertain a friend as well as instruct a pupil.
Lift your glass, Bondo-san. Until you do so, the girl will not pour.
Right. Now you ask me about the _kami-kaze_." Tiger rocked backwards and
forwards, and his dark assassin's eyes became introspective. He didn't
look up at Bond. He said, "It was nearly twenty years ago. Things were
looking bad for my country. I had been doing intelligence work in Berlin
and Rome. I had been far from the air raids and even farther from the
front line, and every night when I listened to the radio from my
homeland and heard the bad news of the slow but sure approach of the
American forces, island by island, airstrip by airstrip, I paid no
attention to the false news of the Nazis, but thought only that my
country was in danger and that I was needed to defend it." Tiger paused.
"And the wine turned sour in my mouth and the girls turned cold in my
bed. I listened to the accounts of this brilliant invention, the corps
of _kami-kaze_. That is the 'Divine Wind' that saved my country from
invasion by Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century by destroying his
fleet. I said to myself that that was the way to die--no medals, total
death, suicide if you like, but at enormous cost to the enemy. It seemed
to me the most heroic form of personal combat that had ever been
invented. I was nearly forty. I had lived fully. It seemed to me that I
could take the place of a younger man. The technique was simple. Anyone
can learn to pilot a plane. The escorts of fighter planes led in to the
attack. It was then just a question of aiming yourself at the largest
ship, preferably an aircraft carrier that was bringing planes to the
islands to attack the homeland. You got the ship lined up below you and
you went for the flight deck and the lift which is the heart of a
carrier. Pay no attention to the bridge or the water-line. They are
heavily armoured. Go for the vulnerable machinery of the flight deck.
You understand?"

Tiger was completely sent. He was back there again fighting the war.
Bond knew the symptoms. He often visited this haunted forest of memory
himself. He lifted his glass. The kneeling girl bowed and poured. Bond
said, "Yes. Go on, Tiger."

"I forced the _Kempeitai_ to accept my resignation and I returned to
Japan and more or less bribed my way into a _kami-kaze_ training
squadron. They were very difficult to get into. All the youth of the
nation seemed to want to serve the Emperor in this way. At this time we
were running out of aircraft and we were forced to use the more
difficult _baku_--that was a small plane made mostly of wood with a
thousand pounds of explosive in the nose, a kind of flying bomb. It had
no engine, but was released from below the belly of a fighter bomber.
The pilot had a single joystick for controlling direction." Tiger looked
up. "I can tell you, Bondo-san, that it was a terrible and beautiful
thing to see an attack wave going off. These young men in their pure
white shifts, and with the ancient white scarf that was the badge of the
_samurai_ bound round their heads, running joyfully for their planes as
if they were running to embrace a loved one. The roar of the engines of
the mother planes, and then the take-off into the dawn or into the
setting sun towards some distant target that had been reported by spies
or intercepted on the radio. It was as if they were flying to their
ancestors in heaven, as indeed they were, for, of course, none ever came
back or were captured."

"But what did it all achieve? Of course it frightened the American fleet
all right, and the British. But you lost thousands of your best young
men. Was it worth it?"

"Is it worth writing one of the most glorious pages in your country's
history? Do you know that the _kami-kaze_ is the only unit in the
history of air warfare whose claims were less than the truth? The unit
claimed as sunk or damaged two hundred seventy-six naval craft from
aircraft carriers downwards. Those actually sunk or damaged were three
hundred twenty-two."

"You were lucky the surrender came before you were sent on a mission."

"Perhaps. And yet, Bondo-san, it is one of my most cherished dreams
today to come diving out of the sun into a hail of antiaircraft fire,
see the tiny terrified figures running for shelter from the flight deck
of a wildly swerving carrier, and know that you are about to kill a
hundred or more of the enemy and destroy a million pounds' worth of his
fighting machine, all by yourself."

"And I suppose Admiral Ohnishi, who invented the whole idea, committed
suicide when the surrender came?"

"Naturally. And in a most honourable fashion. When you commit _seppuku_,
you invite two of your best friends to be present to finish you off if
you fail. The admiral executed the cross-cut from left to right of the
belly, and then the upward cut to the breastbone, most admirably. But it
did not kill him. Yet he refused the coup de grce. He sat there
contemplating his insides for a whole day before he finally died. A most
sincere gesture of apology to the Emperor." Tiger waved a hand airily.
"However, I must not spoil your dinner. I can see that some of our
honourable customs offend your soft Western susceptibilities. Here comes
the lobster. Are they not splendid animals?"

Lacquer boxes of rice, raw quails' eggs in sauce, and bowls of sliced
seaweed were placed in front of them both. Then they were each given a
fine oval dish bearing a large lobster whose head and tail had been left
as a dainty ornament to the sliced pink flesh in the centre. Bond set to
with his chopsticks. He was surprised to find that the flesh was raw. He
was even more surprised when the head of his lobster began moving off
his dish and, with questing antennae and scrabbling feet, tottered off
across the table. "Good God, Tiger!" Bond said, aghast. "The damn
thing's alive!"

Tiger hissed impatiently, "Really, Bondo-san. I am much disappointed in
you. You fail test after test. I sincerely hope you will show
improvement during the rest of our journey. Now eat up and stop being
squeamish. This is a very great Japanese delicacy."

James Bond bowed ironically. "_Shimatta!_" he said. "I have made a
mistake. It crossed my mind that honourable Japanese lobster might not
like being eaten alive. Thank you for correcting the unworthy thought."

"You will soon become accustomed to the Japanese way of life," said
Tiger graciously.

"It's their way of death that's got me a little bit puzzled," said Bond
amiably, and he handed his glass to the kneeling waitress for more
_sak_ to give him strength to try the seaweed.




10. ADVANCED STUDIES


Tiger and Bond stood in the shade of the avenue of giant cryptomerias
and observed the pilgrims, slung with cameras, who were visiting the
famous Outer Shrine of Ise, the greatest temple to the creed of
Shintoism. Tiger said, "All right. You have observed these people and
their actions. They have been saying prayers to the sun goddess. Go and
say a prayer without drawing attention to yourself."

Bond walked over the raked path and through the great wooden archway and
joined the throng in front of the shrine. Two priests, bizarre in their
red kimonos and black helmets, were watching. Bond bowed towards the
shrine, tossed a coin on to the wire netting designed to catch the
offerings, clapped his hands loudly, bent his head in an attitude of
prayer, clapped his hands again, bowed, and walked out.

"You did well," said Tiger. "One of the priests barely glanced at you.
The public paid no attention. You should perhaps have clapped your hands
more loudly. It is to draw the attention of the goddess and your
ancestors to your presence at the shrine. Then they will pay more
attention to your prayer. What prayer did you in fact make?"

"I'm afraid I didn't make any, Tiger. I was concentrating on remembering
the right sequence of motions."

"The goddess will have noted that, Bondo-san. She will help you to
concentrate still more in the future. Now we will go back to the car and
proceed to witness another interesting ceremony in which you will take
part."

Bond groaned. In the parking place beyond the vast _torii_ that guarded
the entrance, char--bancs were disgorging hordes of students while the
conductresses shouted, "_Awri_, _awri_, _awri_" and blew whistles to
help the drivers of other char--bancs to back in. The giggling girls
were severely dressed in dark blue with black cotton stockings. The
youths wore the handsome, high-collared black uniform of Japanese
students. Tiger led the way through the middle of the crowd. When they
emerged Tiger looked pleased. "Did you notice anything, Bondo-san?"

"Only a lot of pretty girls. Rather too young for me."

"Wrong. Yesterday many of them would have stared and giggled behind
their hands and said '_Gaijin!_' Today you were not recognized as a
foreigner. Your appearance is one thing, but your comportment has also
improved. You exude more self-confidence. You are more at home." Tiger
gave his golden sunburst of a smile. "The Tanaka system. It is not so
foolish as you think."

Wadakin, on the road across the mountains to the ancient capital of
Kyoto, was a little upland hamlet without distinction. Tiger gave
decisive orders to the driver of the hired car, and they arrived at a
tall barn-like building in a back street. There was a strong smell of
cattle and manure. The chief herdsman, as he turned out to be, greeted
them. He had the apple cheeks and wise kindly eyes of his counterparts
in Scotland and the Tyrol. Tiger had a long conversation with him. The
man looked at Bond, and his eyes twinkled. He bowed perfunctorily and
led the way inside. It was cool out of the sun. There were rows of
stalls in which vastly fat brown cows lay chewing the cud. A gay small
dog was licking the muzzle of one of them and being occasionally given a
lick in return. The herdsman lifted a barrier and said something to one
of the cows, which got unsteadily up on to legs that had become spindly
through lack of exercise. It ambled unsteadily out into the sunshine and
looked warily at Tiger and Bond. The herdsman hauled out a crate of beer
bottles. He opened one and handed it to Bond. Tiger said peremptorily,
"Give it to the cow to drink."

Bond took the bottle and walked boldly up to the cow, who raised her
head and opened her slavering jaws. Bond thrust the bottle between them
and poured. The cow almost ate the bottle in its delight and ran its
harsh tongue gratefully over Bond's hand. Bond stood his ground. He was
getting used to Tiger's ploys by now, and he was determined to show at
any rate an approximation of the _kami-kaze_ spirit whatever test Tiger
put him to.

The herdsman now handed Bond a bottle of what appeared to be water.
Tiger said, "This is _shochu_. It is a very raw gin. Fill your mouth
with it and spray it over the back of the cow and then massage it into
the cow's flesh."

Bond guessed that Tiger hoped he would swallow some of the gin and
choke. He closed his throat but lustily filled his mouth with the stuff,
compressed his lips, and blew hard so that the vapour from the stuff
would not go up his nostrils. He wiped his hands across his lips that
were already stinging with the harsh spirit and scrubbed energetically
at the rough pelt. The cow bent her head in ecstasy.... Bond stood
back. "Now what?" he said belligerently. "What's the cow going to do for
me?"

Tiger laughed and translated for the herdsman, who also laughed and
looked at Bond with some respect. Money changed hands, and with much
happy talk between Tiger and the herdsman and final bows they got back
into the car and drove into the village, where they were welcomed into a
shuttered and discreet restaurant, polished, spotless, and blessedly
deserted. Tiger ordered, and they sat in wonderful Western chairs at a
real table while the usual dimpling waitresses brought _sak_. Bond
swallowed down his first flask at one long gulp to wash away the rasp of
the gin. He said to Tiger, "And now, what was that all about?"

Tiger looked pleased with himself. "You are about to eat what it was all
about--the finest, most succulent beef in the world. Kobe beef, but of a
grade you wouldn't find in the most expensive restaurant in Tokyo. This
herd is owned by a friend of mine. The herdsman was a good man, was he
not? He feeds each of his cows four pints of beer a day and massages
them with _shochu_ as you did. They also receive a rich meal of oaten
porridge. You like beef?"

"No," said Bond stolidly. "As a matter of fact, I don't."

"That is unfortunate," said Tiger, not looking as if it were. "For what
you are about to eat is the finest steak that will be eaten today
anywhere outside the Argentine. And you have earned it. The herdsman was
greatly impressed by your sincere performance with his cow."

"And what does that prove?" said Bond sourly. "And what honourable
experience is awaiting me this afternoon?"

The steak came. It was accompanied by various succulent side-dishes,
including a saucer of blood, which Bond refused. But the meat could be
cut with a fork and was indeed without equal in Bond's experience.
Tiger, munching with gusto, answered Bond's question. "I am taking you
to one of the secret training establishments of my service," he said.
"It is not far from here, in the mountains, in an old fortified castle.
It goes under the name of the 'Central Mountaineering School.' It
arouses no comment in the neighbourhood, which is just as well, since it
is here that my agents are trained in one of the arts most dreaded in
Japan--_ninjutsu_, which is, literally, the art of stealth or
invisibility. All the men you will see have already graduated in at
least ten of the eighteen martial arts of _bushido_, or 'ways of the
warrior,' and they are now learning to be _ninja_, or 'stealers-in,'
which has for centuries been part of the basic training of spies and
assassins and saboteurs. You will see men walk across the surface of
water, walk up walls and across ceilings, and you will be shown
equipment which makes it possible for them to remain submerged under
water for a full day. And many other tricks besides. For, of course,
apart from physical dexterity, the _ninja_ were never the superhumans
they were built up to be in the popular imagination. But, nevertheless,
the secrets of _ninjutsu_ are still closely guarded today and are the
property of two main schools, the Iga and the Togakure, from which my
instructors are drawn. I think you will be interested and perhaps learn
something yourself at this place. I have never approved of agents
carrying guns and other obvious weapons. In China, Korea, and Oriental
Russia, which are, so to speak, my main beats, the possession of any
offensive weapon on arrest would be an obvious confession of guilt. My
men are expected to be able to kill without weapons. All they may carry
is a staff and a length of thin chain, which can be easily explained
away. You understand?"

"Yes, that makes sense. We have a similar commando training school for
unarmed combat attached to headquarters. But, of course, your judo and
karate are special skills requiring years of practice. How high did you
get in judo, Tiger?"

Tiger picked his teeth reminiscently. "No higher than a Black Belt of
the Seventh Dan. I never graduated to a Red Belt, which is from the
Eighth to the Eleventh Dan. To do so would have meant abandoning all
other forms of activity. And with what object? To be promoted to the
Twelfth and final Dan on my death? In exchange for spending the whole of
my life tumbling about in the Kodokan Academy in Tokyo? No thank you.
That is the ambition of a lunatic." He smiled. "No _sak_! No beautiful
girls! Worse still, probably no opportunity in a whole lifetime to
exercise my art in anger, to tackle a robber or murderer with a gun and
get the better of him. In the higher realms of judo, you are nothing but
a mixture between a monk and a ballet dancer. Not for me!"

Back on the open dusty road, some instinct made Bond glance through the
rear window between the dainty lace blinds that are both the hall-mark
of a truly sincere hired car and a dangerous impediment to the driver's
vision. Far behind, there was a solitary motor-cyclist. Later, when they
turned up a minor road into the mountains, he was still there. Bond
mentioned the fact. Tiger shrugged. "He is perhaps a speed cop. If he is
anyone else, he has chosen a bad time and place."

The castle was the usual horned roof affair of Japanese prints. It stood
in a cleft between the mountains that must have once been an important
pass, for ancient cannon pointed out from the summit of giant, slightly
sloping walls of black granite blocks. They were stopped at the gate to
a wooden causeway across a brimming moat and again at the castle
entrance. Tiger showed his pass, and there was much hissing and deep
bowing from the plainclothes guards and a bell clanged in the topmost
tier of the soaring edifice, which, as Bond could see from the inner
courtyard, was badly in need of a coat of paint. As the car came to a
stop, young men in shorts and gym shoes came running from various doors
in the castle and formed up behind three older men. They bowed almost to
the ground as Tiger descended regally from the car. Tiger and Bond also
bowed. Brief greetings were exchanged with the older men, and Tiger then
proceeded to fire off a torrent of staccato Japanese which was
punctuated by respectful "_Hai's_" from the middle-aged man who was
obviously the commandant of the team. With a final "_Hai_, Tanaka-san,"
this official turned to the twenty-odd students whose ages seemed to be
somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. He called numbers, and
six men fell out of the ranks. They were given orders and ran off into
the castle. Tiger commented to Bond. "They will put on camouflage
clothes and go off into the mountains through which we have come. If
anyone is lurking about, they will bring him to us. And now we will see
a little demonstration of an attack on the castle." Tiger fired off some
more orders, the men dispersed at the double, and Bond followed Tiger
out on to the causeway accompanied by the chief instructor, with whom
Tiger had a long and animated discussion. Perhaps a quarter of an hour
later, there came a whistle from above them on the ramparts and at once
ten men broke cover from the forest to their left. They were dressed
from head to foot in some black material, and only their eyes showed
through slits in the black hoods. They ran down to the edge of the moat,
donned oval battens of what must have been some light wood such as
balsa, and skimmed across the water with a kind of skiing motion until
they reached the bottom of the giant black wall. There they discarded
their battens, took lengths of rope and a handful of small iron pitons
out of pockets in their black robes, and proceeded to almost run up the
walls like fast black spiders.

Tiger turned to Bond. "You understand that it is night-time. In a few
days, you will have to be doing something similar. Note that the lengths
of rope terminate in an iron hook which they throw up and catch in
crevices between the stone blocks." The instructor said something to
Tiger and pointed. Tiger nodded. He said to Bond, "The man at the end is
the weakest of the team. The instructor thinks he will soon fall."

The line of climbing men was now almost at the summit of the
two-hundred-foot wall, and sure enough, with only yards to go, the end
man lost his foothold and, with arms and legs flailing and with a scream
of terror, fell back down the sheer black face. His body hit once and
then crashed into the calm waters of the moat. The instructor muttered
something, stripped off his shirt, clambered on to the rail of the
causeway, and dived the hundred feet down into the water. It was a
perfect dive, and he swam in a swift crawl towards the body that lay
ominously face downwards in the moat. Tiger turned to Bond. "It is of no
account. He was going to fail the man anyway. And now come into the
courtyard. The invaders have scaled the wall and they will now use
_bojutsu_ on the defenders--that is fighting with the stave."

Bond took a last glance at the instructor, who was now towing the
corpse, which it certainly was, to the shore by its black hood. Bond
wondered if any of the students was going to fail his test at _bojutsu_.
Failure was certainly total in Tiger's training camp!

Back in the courtyard, individual couples, dancing and dodging, were
fighting furious single combats with thick staves about two yards long.
They swung and parried with two hands on the stave, lunged at the belly,
using the stave as a lance, or did complicated in-fighting with face
almost pressed against face. Bond was astonished to see tremendous
thrusts and whacks into the groin leaving the victim unmoved when he,
Bond, would have been writhing in agony. He asked Tiger about this.
Tiger, his eyes bright with the lust of battle, answered briefly that he
would explain this later. Meanwhile, the invaders were slowly being
overcome by the defence. Black figures toppled unconscious or lay
groaning with hands clutched to head or stomach or shin. Then there came
a shrill blast on the whistle from one of the instructors and it was all
over. The defenders had won. A doctor appeared and attended the fallen,
and those who were on their feet bowed deeply to one another and then in
the direction of Tiger. Tiger made a brief and fierce speech which he
later told Bond was of congratulation on the sincerity of the display,
and Bond was then led into the castle to drink tea and view the museum
of _ninja_ armament. This included spiked steel wheels, the size of a
silver dollar, which could be whirled on the finger and thrown, chains
with spiked weights at each end, used like the South American bolas for
catching cattle, sharp nails twisted into knots for defeating barefoot
pursuers (Bond remembered similar devices spread on the roads by the
Resistance to puncture the tyres of German staff cars), hollowed bamboo
for breathing under water (Bond had used the same device during an
adventure on a Caribbean island), varieties of brass knuckles, gloves
whose palms were studded with very sharp, slightly hooked nails for
"walking" up walls and across ceilings, and a host of similar rather
primitive gadgets of offence and defence. Bond made appropriate noises
of approval and amazement and reflected on the comparable Russian
invention used with much success in West Germany, a cyanide gas pistol
that left no trace and a sure diagnosis of heart failure. Tiger's much
vaunted _ninjutsu_ just wasn't in the same league!

Out in the courtyard again, the leader of the camouflaged troop reported
the discovery of motor-cycle tyre tracks that stopped and turned back a
mile from the castle. That had been the only trace of a tail. Then came,
to Bond, the blessed bows and farewells and they were on their way
again, bound for Kyoto.

"Well, Bondo-san. What did you think of my training school?"

"I thought it was very sincere. I can imagine that the skills that are
learned would be most valuable, but I would have thought that the black
dress for night work and the various gadgets would have been as
incriminating, if you were caught, as a pistol. But they certainly went
up that wall damned quick, and that _bojutsu_ business would be very
effective against the usual night-prowler with a bicycle chain or a
flick-knife. I must get Swaine and Adeney to make me a two-yard-long
walking-stick."

Tiger sucked his teeth impatiently. "You speak like a man who only knows
of the sort of fighting that goes on in a cheap Western. You would not
get very far with your methods if you were trying to penetrate North
Korea dressed as a simple peasant with his staff."

James Bond was rather exhausted by the day. He was also sorry for the
student who had died showing off for his and Tiger's delectation. He
said shortly, "None of your _ninja_ would last very long in East
Berlin," and relapsed into a surly silence.




11. ANATOMY CLASS


To Bond's unspeakable relief, they put up that night at the smartest
hotel in Kyoto, the Miyako. The comfortable bed, air-conditioning, and
Western-style lavatory on which one could actually sit were out of this
world. Better still, Tiger said that unfortunately he had to dine with
the chief of police of the prefecture and Bond ordered a pint of Jack
Daniels and a double portion of eggs Benedict to be brought up to his
room. Then, from a belated sense of duty, he watched "The Seven
Detectives," a famous Japanese television series, failed to spot the
villain, and went to bed and slept for twelve hours.

The next morning, hungover and conscience-stricken, he obediently fell
in with Tiger's plans that they should visit the oldest whore-house in
Japan before a quick drive to Osaka for the day's journey across the
Inland Sea to the southern island of Kyushu. "Bit early for visiting a
whore-house," had been his only comment.

Tiger laughed. "It is a matter of deep regret to me that your baser
instincts should always be in the ascendancy, Bondo-san. Prostitution is
now illegal in Japan. What we are about to visit is a national
monument."

"Oh, good show!"

There was a deal of bowing and hissing at the whore-house, a spacious
establishment in the now defunct red lamp street of the ancient capital,
and they were presented with handsomely bound descriptive booklets by
the earnest curator. They wandered over polished floors from chamber to
chamber and gravely inspected the sword cuts in the wooden supports that
had been inflicted, according to Tiger, by _samurai_ infuriated by lust
and impatience. Bond inquired how many actual bedrooms there had been.
It seemed to him that the whole place was taken up by a vast kitchen and
many dining-rooms.

"Four rooms," answered the curator.

"That's no way to run a whore-house," commented Bond. "You need quick
through-put, like a casino."

"Bondo-san," complained Tiger. "Please try and put out of your mind
comparisons between our way of life and yours. In former times, this was
a place of rest and recreation. Food was served and there was music and
story-telling. People would write _tankas_. Take that inscription on the
wall. It says 'Everything is new tomorrow.' Some man with a profound
mind will have written that."

"Then he threw his pen away and reached for his sword and shouted, 'When
is room No. 4 going to be empty?' National monument indeed! It's like in
the new African states where they pretend the cannibal stewpot in the
chief's hut was for cooking yams for the hungry children. Everyone tries
to forget his rowdy past instead of being proud of it. Like we are of
Bloody Morgan, or Nell Gwynne, for instance. The great murderer and the
great whore are part of our history. You shouldn't try and pretend that
your oldest whore-house is a sort of Stratford-on-Avon."

Tiger uttered an explosive laugh. "Bondo-san, your comments on our
Japanese way of life become more and more outrageous. Come, it is time
to cleanse your mind in the salubrious breezes of the Inland Sea."

The _Murasaki Maru_ was a very modern 3000-ton ship with all the
luxuries of an ocean liner. Crowds waved her good-bye as if the ship was
setting off across the Atlantic instead of doing a day trip down the
equivalent of a long lake. There was much throwing of paper streamers by
groups bearing placards to show whom they represented--business outings,
schools, clubs--part of the vast travelling population of Japan, for
ever on the move, making an outing, visiting relatives or shrines, or
just seeing the sights of the country. The ship throbbed grandly through
the endless horned islands. Tiger said that there were fine whirlpools
"like great lavatory pans, specially designed for suicides" between some
of these. Meanwhile, Tiger and Bond sat in the first-class dining-room
and consumed "Hamlets"--ham omelets--and _sak_. Tiger was in a
lecturing mood. He was determined to correct Bond's boorish ignorance of
Japanese culture. "Bondo-san, I wonder if I will ever get you to
appreciate the nuances of the Japanese _tanka_, or of the _haiku_, which
are the classical forms of Japanese verse. Have you ever heard of
Bassho, for instance?"

"No," said Bond with polite interest. "Who's he?"

"Just so," said Tiger bitterly. "And yet you would think me grossly
uneducated if I had never heard of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes,
Goethe. And yet Bassho, who lived in the seventeenth century, is the
equal of any of them."

"What did he write?"

"He was an itinerant poet. He was particularly at home with the _haiku_,
the verse of seventeen syllables." Tiger assumed a contemplative
expression. He intoned:

    "In the bitter radish
    that bites into me, I feel
    the autumn wind.

"Does that not say anything to you? Or this:

    "The butterfly is perfuming
    its wings, in the scent
    of the orchid.

"You do not grasp the beauty of that image?"

"Rather elusive, compared to Shakespeare."

    "In the fisherman's hut
    mingled with dried shrimps
    the crickets are chirping."

Tiger looked at him hopefully.

"Can't get the hang of that one," said Bond apologetically.

"You do not catch the still-life quality of these verses? The flash of
insight into humanity, into nature? Now, do me a favour, Bondo-san.
Write a _haiku_ for me yourself. I am sure you could get the hang of it.
After all you must have had _some_ education?"

Bond laughed. "Mostly in Latin and Greek. All about Caesar and Balbus
and so on. Absolutely no help in ordering a cup of coffee in Rome or
Athens after I'd left school. And things like trigonometry, which I've
totally forgotten. But give me a pen and a piece of paper and I'll have
a bash, if you'll forgive the bad joke." Tiger handed them over, and
Bond put his head in his hands. Finally, after much crossing out and
rewriting he said, "Tiger, how's this? It makes just as much sense as
old Bassho and it's much more pithy." He read out:

    "You only live twice:
    Once when you're born,
    Once when you look death in the face."

Tiger clapped his hands softly. He said with real delight, "But that is
excellent, Bondo-san. Most sincere." He took the pen and paper and
jotted some Japanese characters up the page. He shook his head. "No, it
won't do in Japanese. You have the wrong number of syllables. But it is
a most honourable attempt." He looked keenly at Bond. "You were perhaps
thinking of your mission?"

"Perhaps," said Bond with indifference.

"It is weighing on your mind?"

"The practical difficulties are bound to do so. I have swallowed the
moral principles involved. Things being as they are, I have to accept
that the end justifies the means."

"Then you are not concerned with your own safety?"

"Not particularly. I've had worse jobs to do."

"I must congratulate you on your stoicism. You do not appear to value
your life as highly as most Westerners." Tiger looked at him kindly. "Is
there perhaps a reason for that?"

Bond was offhand. "Not that I can think of. But for God's sake chuck it,
Tiger! None of your Japanese brainwashing! More _sak_, and answer my
question of yesterday. Why weren't those men disabled by those terrific
slashes to the groin? That might be of some practical value to me
instead of all this waffle about poetry."

Tiger ordered the _sak_. He laughed. "Unfortunately, you are too old to
benefit. I would need to have caught you at the age of about fourteen.
You see, it is this way. You know the _sumo_ wrestlers? It is they who
invented the trick many centuries ago. It is vital for them to be immune
from damage to those parts of the body. Now, you know that, in men, the
testicles, which until puberty have been held inside the body, are
released by a particular muscle and descend between the legs?"

"Yes."

"Well, the _sumo_ wrestler will have been selected for his profession by
the time of puberty. Perhaps because of his weight and strength, or
perhaps because he comes of a _sumo_ family. Well, by assiduously
massaging those parts, he is able, after much practice, to cause the
testicles to re-enter the body up the inguinal canal down which they
originally descended."

"My God, you Japanese!" said Bond with admiration. "You really are up to
all the tricks. You mean he gets them right out of the way behind the
bones of the pelvis or what not?"

"Your knowledge of anatomy is as vague as your appreciation for poetry,
but that is more or less so, yes. Then, before a fight, he will bind up
that part of the body most thoroughly to contain these vulnerable organs
in their hiding-place. Afterwards, in the bath, he will release them to
hang normally. I have seen them do it. It is a great pity that it is now
too late for you to practise this art. It might have given you more
confidence on your mission. It is my experience that agents fear most
for that part of the body when there is fighting to be done or when they
risk capture. These organs, as you know, are most susceptible to torture
for the extraction of information."

"Don't I know it!" said Bond from the heart. "Some of our chaps wear a
box when they think they're in for a rough-house. I don't care for them.
Too uncomfortable."

"What is a box?"

"It is what our cricketers wear to protect those parts when they go out
to bat. It is a light padded shield of aluminium."

"I regret that we have nothing of that nature. We do not play cricket in
Japan. Only baseball."

"Lucky for you you weren't occupied by the British," commented Bond.
"Cricket is a much more difficult and skilful game."

"The Americans say otherwise."

"Naturally. They want to sell you baseball equipment."

****

They arrived at Beppu in the southern island of Kyushu as the sun was
setting. Tiger said that this was just the time to see the famous
geysers and fumaroles of the little spa. In any case, there would be no
time in the morning as they would have to start early for Fukuoka, their
final destination. Bond shivered slightly at the name. The moment was
rapidly approaching when the _sak_ and sightseeing would have to stop.

Above the town of Beppu, they visited in turn the ten spectacular
"hells," as they are officially designated. The stink of sulphur was
disgusting, and each bubbling, burping nest of volcanic fumaroles was
more horrific than the last. The steaming mud and belching geysers were
of different colours--red, blue, and orange--and everywhere there were
warning notices and skulls and crossbones to keep visitors at a safe
distance. The tenth "hell" announced in English and Japanese that there
would be an eruption punctually every twenty minutes. They joined a
small group of spectators under the arc lights that pinpointed a small
quiescent crater in a rocky area bespattered with mud. Sure enough, in
five minutes, there came a rumbling from underground and a jet of
steaming grey mud shot twenty feet up into the air and splashed down
inside the enclosure. As Bond was turning away, he noticed a large red
painted wheel, heavily padlocked and surrounded by wire netting in a
small separate enclosure. There were warning notices above it and a
particularly menacing skull and crossbones. Bond asked Tiger what it
was.

"It says that this wheel controls the pulse of the geyser. It says that
if this wheel were screwed down it could result in the destruction of
the entire establishment. It gives the explosive force of the volcano,
if the exhaust valve of the geyser were to be closed, as the equivalent
of a thousand pounds of T.N.T. It is, of course, all a bit of nonsense
to attract the tourists. But now, back to the town, Bondo-san! Since it
is our last day together," he added hastily, "on this particular voyage,
I have arranged a special treat. I ordered it by radio from the ship. A
_fugu_ feast!"

Bond cursed silently. The memory of his eggs Benedict the night before
was intolerably sweet. What new monstrosity was this? he asked.

"_Fugu_ is the Japanese blow-fish. In the water, it looks like a brown
owl, but when captured it blows itself up into a ball covered with
wounding spines. We sometimes dry the skins and put candles inside and
use them as lanterns. But the flesh is particularly delicious. It is the
staple food of the _sumo_ wrestlers because it is supposed to be very
strength-giving. The fish is also very popular with suicides and
murderers because its liver and sex glands contain a poison which brings
death instantaneously."

"That's just what I would have chosen for dinner. How thoughtful of you,
Tiger."

"Have no fear, Bondo-san. Because of the dangerous properties of the
fish, every _fugu_ restaurant has to be manned by experts and be
registered with the state."

They left their bags at a Japanese inn where Tiger had reserved rooms,
enjoyed the _o-furo_, honourable bath, together in the blue-tiled
miniature swimming pool whose water was very hot and smelled of sulphur,
and then, totally relaxed, went off down the street leading to the sea.

(Bond had become enamoured of the civilized, vaguely Roman bathing
habits of the Japanese. Was it because of these, because they washed
_outside_ the bath instead of wallowing in their own effluvia, that they
all smelled so clean? Tiger said bluntly that, at the very best,
Westerners smelled of sweet pork.)

The restaurant had a giant blow-fish hanging as a sign above the door,
and inside, to Bond's relief, there were Western-style chairs and tables
at which a smattering of people were eating with the intense
concentration of the Japanese. They were expected, and their table had
been prepared. Bond said, "Now then, Tiger, I'm not going to commit
honourable suicide without at least five bottles of _sak_ inside me."
The flasks were brought, all five of them, to the accompaniment of much
tittering by the waitresses. Bond downed the lot, tumbler by tumbler,
and expressed himself satisfied. "Now you can bring on this blasted
blow-fish," he said belligerently, "and if it kills me, it will be doing
a good turn to our friend the doctor in his castle."

A very beautiful white porcelain dish as big as a bicycle wheel was
brought forward with much ceremony. On it were arranged, in the pattern
of a huge flower, petal upon petal of a very thinly sliced and rather
transparent white fish. Bond followed Tiger's example and set to with
his chopsticks. He was proud of the fact that he had reached Black Belt
standard with these instruments--the ability to eat an underdone fried
egg with them.

The fish tasted of nothing, not even of fish. But it was very pleasant
on the palate and Bond was effusive in his compliments because Tiger,
smacking his lips over each morsel, obviously expected it of him. There
followed various side-dishes containing other parts of the fish, and
more _sak_, but this time containing raw _fugu_ fins.

Bond sat back and lit a cigarette. He said, "Well, Tiger. This is nearly
the end of my education. Tomorrow you say I am to leave the nest. How
many marks out of a hundred?"

Tiger looked at him quizzically. "You have done well, Bondo-san. Apart
from your inclination to make Western jokes about Eastern customs.
Fortunately I am a man of infinite patience, and I must admit that your
company has given me much pleasure and a certain amount of amusement. I
will award you seventy-five marks out of a possible hundred."

As they rose to go, a man brushed past Bond to get to the exit. He was a
stocky man with a white _masko_ over his mouth, and he wore an ugly
leather hat. The man on the train!

Well, well! thought Bond. If he shows up on the last lap to Fukuoka,
I'll get him. If not, I'll reluctantly put it down to "funny-coincidence
department." But it looks like nought out of a hundred to Tiger for
powers of observation.




_PART TWO_
_...THAN TO ARRIVE"_




12. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA

At six in the morning, a car from the prefect of police in Fukuoka came
for them. There were two police corporals in the front seat. They went
off northwards on the coast road at a good pace. After a while, Bond
said, "Tiger, we're being followed. I don't care what you say. The man
who stole my wallet was in the _fugu_ restaurant last night, and he's
now a mile behind on a motor-cycle--or I'll eat my hat. Be a good chap
and tell the driver to dodge up a side-road and then go after him and
get him. I've got a sharp nose for these things and I ask you to do what
I say."

Tiger grunted. He looked back and then issued rapid instructions to the
driver. The driver said, "_Hai!_" briskly, and the corporal at his side
unbuttoned the holster of his M-14 automatic. Tiger flexed his powerful
fingers.

They came to a track on the left which went into the scrub. The driver
did a good racing change and pulled in out of sight of the road. He cut
his engine. They listened. The roar of a motor-cycle approached and
receded. The driver reversed sharply on to the road and tore off in
pursuit. Tiger issued more sharp instructions. He said to Bond, "I have
told him to try warning the man with his siren, and if he doesn't stop,
to ride him into the ditch."

"Well, I'm glad you're giving him a chance," said Bond, beginning to
have qualms. "I may be wrong, and he may only be a Fuller brush man in a
hurry."

They were doing eighty along the winding road. They soon came up with
the man's dust, and then there was the machine itself. The man was
hunched over the handlebars, going like hell.

The driver said something. Tiger translated, "He says it's a five
hundred-cc. Honda. On that, he could easily get away from us. But even
Japanese crooks are men of discipline. He will prefer to obey the
siren."

The siren wailed and then screamed. The white mask gleamed as the man
glanced over his shoulder. He braked slowly to a stop. His right hand
went inside his jacket. Bond had his hand on the door-latch. He said,
"Watch out, Tiger, he's got a gun!" and as they pulled up alongside, he
hurled himself out of the door and crashed into the man, knocking him
and his machine to the ground. The corporal beside the driver took a
flying leap, and the two bodies rolled into the ditch. Almost
immediately the corporal got to his feet. He had a blood-stained knife
in his hand. He threw it aside and tore at the man's coat and shirt. He
looked up and shook his head. Tiger shouted something, and the corporal
began slapping the man's face as hard as he could from side to side. The
_masko_ was knocked off, and Bond recognized the snarling rictus of
death. He said, sickened, "Stop him, Tiger! The man's dead."

Tiger walked down into the ditch. He picked up the man's knife and bent
down and slit the right sleeve of the corpse up to the shoulder. He
looked and then called Bond down. He pointed to a black figure tattooed
in the crook of the man's arm. He said, "You were right, Bondo-san. He
is a Black Dragon." He stood up and, his face contorted, spat out:
"_Shimatta!_"

The two policemen were standing by looking politely baffled. Tiger gave
them orders. They searched the man's clothing and extracted various
commonplace objects including Bond's wallet, with the five thousand yen
still intact, and a cheap diary. They handed everything to Tiger and
then hauled the corpse out of the ditch and stuffed it roughly into the
boot of the car. Then they hid the motor-cycle in some bushes, and
everyone dusted himself and got back into the car.

After a few moments, Tiger said thoughtfully, "It is incredible! These
people must have a permanent tail on me in Tokyo." He riffled through
the diary. "Yes, all my movements for the past week and all the
stopping-places on our journey. You are simply described as a _gaijin_.
But he could have telephoned a description. This is indeed an
unfortunate business, Bondo-san. I apologize most deeply. You may
already be incriminated. I will naturally absolve you from your mission.
It is entirely my fault for being careless. I have not been taking these
people seriously enough. I must talk with Tokyo as soon as we get to
Fukuoka. But at least you have seen an example of the measures Doctor
Shatterhand takes for his protection. There is certainly more to this
man than meets the eye. At some time in his life, he must have been an
experienced intelligence agent. To have discovered my identity, for
instance, which is a state secret. To have recognized me as his chief
enemy. To have taken the appropriate countermeasures to ensure his
privacy. This is either a great madman or a great criminal. You agree,
Bondo-san?"

"Looks quite like it. I'm really getting keen to have a sight of the
fellow. And don't worry about the mission. This was probably just the
jolt I needed to get the wind under my tail."

The headquarters of the local department of the _Sosaka_, the C.I.D.,
for the southern island of Kyushu, was just off the main street of
Fukuoka. It was a stern-looking building in yellow lavatory brick in a
style derived from the German. Tiger confirmed that it had been the
headquarters of the _Kempeitai_, the Japanese Gestapo, before and during
the war. Tiger was received with pomp. The office of the chief of the
C.I.D. was small and cluttered. Superintendent Ando himself looked to
Bond like any other Japanese salary-man, but he had a military bearing
and the eyes behind the rimless spectacles were quick and hard. Bond sat
patiently smoking while much conversation went on. A blown-up aerial
mosaic of the Castle of Death and the surrounding country was produced
from a filing cabinet and laid out on the desk. Superintendent Ando
weighted down the corners with ash-trays and other hardware and Tiger
called him over with a respect, Bond noticed, that was not lost on the
superintendent. It crossed Bond's mind that he had heaped much ON on
Tiger, or alternatively that Tiger had lost much face vis--vis Bond by
the business of the Black Dragon agent. Tiger said, "Please examine this
photograph, Bondo-san. The superintendent says that a clandestine
approach from the landward side is now very difficult. The suicides pay
local peasants to lead them through these marshlands," he pointed, "and
there are recognized breaches in the walls surrounding the property
which are constantly changed and kept open for the suicides. Every time
the superintendent posts a guard at one of them, another is made known
to the peasants by the castle guards. He says he is at his wits' end.
Twenty bodies have been fetched to the mortuary in the past week. The
superintendent wishes to hand in his resignation."

"Naturally," said Bond. "And then perhaps honourable _fugu_ poisoning.
Let's have a look."

At first glance, Bond's heart quailed. He might just as well try and
storm Windsor Castle single-handed! The estate covered the whole expanse
of a small promontory that jutted out into the sea from a rocky coast,
and the two-hundred-foot cliff round the promontory had been revetted
with giant stone blocks down to the breaking waves to form an unbroken
wall that sloped slightly up to gun-ports and the irregularly sited
tiled watch-towers. From the top of this wall there appeared to be a
ten-foot drop into the park, heavily treed and shrubbed between winding
streams and a broad lake with a small island in its centre. Steam
appeared to be rising from the lake, and there were occasional wisps of
it among the shrubbery. At the back of the property stood the castle,
protected from the low-lying country-side by a comparatively modest
wall. It would be over this wall that the suicides gained access. The
castle itself was a giant five-storeyed affair in the Japanese
tradition, with swooping winged roofs of glazed tile. Dolphin-shaped
finials decorated the topmost storey, and there was a profusion of other
decorative devices, small balconies, isolated turrets and gazebos so
that the whole black-painted edifice, edged here and there with what
Tiger said was gold paint, gave the impression of a brilliant attempt to
make a stage setting for Dracula. Bond picked up a large magnifying
glass and ran over the whole property inch by inch, but there was
nothing more to be gleaned except the presence of an occasional
diminutive figure at work in the park or raking the gravel round the
castle.

Bond laid down the glass. He said gloomily, "That's not a castle! That's
a fortress! How am I supposed to get into the bloody place?"

"The superintendent asks if you are a good swimmer. I have had a
complete outfit sent down from my _ninjutsu_ establishment. The seaward
wall would present no problems."

"I can swim well enough, but how do I get to the base of the wall? Where
do I start from?"

"The superintendent says there is an Ama island called Kuro only half a
mile out to sea."

"What's an Ama island?"

"They exist at different places round Japan. I believe there are some
fifty such settlements. The Ama are a tribe whose girls dive for the
_awabi_ shells--that is our local abalone. A clam. It is a great
delicacy. They sometimes dive for pearl oysters. They dive naked. Some
of them are very beautiful. But they keep themselves very much to
themselves, and visitors to their islands are completely discouraged.
They have their own primitive culture and customs. I suppose you could
compare them to sea-gypsies. They rarely marry outside the tribe, and it
is that which has made them a race apart."

"Sounds intriguing, but how am I going to make a base on this Kuro
Island? I may have to wait days for the weather to be right."

Tiger spoke rapidly to the superintendent, and there was a lengthy
reply. "_Ah, so desu ka!_" said Tiger with interest and enthusiasm. He
turned to Bond. "It seems that the superintendent is distantly related
to a family on Kuro. It is a most interesting family. There is a father
and a mother and one daughter. She is called Kissy Suzuki. I have heard
of her. When she was seventeen, she became famous in Japan by being
chosen to go to Hollywood to make a film. They wanted a Japanese diving
girl of great beauty, and someone had heard of her. She made the film,
but hated Hollywood and longed only to return to her Ama life. She could
have made a fortune, but she retired to this obscure island. There was a
great to-do in the press at the time, and it was judged that she had
behaved most honourably. They christened her 'The Japanese Garbo.' But
Kissy will now be twenty-three, and everyone has forgotten about her.
The superintendent says that he could arrange for you to stay with this
family. They seem to have some obligation towards him. He says it is a
simple house, but comfortable because of the money this girl earned in
Hollywood. The other houses on the island are nothing but fishermen's
shacks."

"But won't the rest of the community resent me being there?"

"No. The people of the island belong to the Shinto religion. The
superintendent will speak to the Shinto priest and everything will be
okay."

"All right, so I stay on this island and then one night I swim across to
the wall. How do I get up it?"

"You will have the _ninja_ outfit. It is here. You have seen how it is
used. You will use it. It is very simple."

"As I saw from the man who fell into the moat. Then what do I do?"

"You hide up in the grounds and wait for an opportunity to kill him. How
you do that is up to you. As I told you, he goes about in armour. A man
in armour is very vulnerable. You only have to knock him off his feet.
Then you will throttle him with the _ninja_ chain you will be wearing
round your waist. If his wife is with him, you will throttle her, too.
She is certainly involved in all this business, and anyway she is too
ugly to live. Then you escape over the wall and swim back to Kuro. There
you will be picked up by the police launch, which will visit the place
at once. The news of the death will quickly get round."

Bond said doubtfully, "Well, it all sounds very simple. But what about
these guards? The place is crawling with them."

"You must just keep out of their way. As you can see, the park is full
of hiding-places."

"Thanks very much. In one of those poison bushes or up one of those
trees. I don't want to blind myself or go mad."

"The _ninja_ clothing will give you complete protection. You will have a
black suit for night and a camouflage one for the day. You will wear the
swimming goggles to protect your eyes. All this equipment you will tow
over in a plastic bag, which will be provided."

"My dear Tiger, you've thought of everything. But I'd much rather have
just one little gun."

"That would be crazy, Bondo-san. You know perfectly well that silence
will be essential. And with a silencer, which would be very heavy to
swim with, the speed of the bullet would be so much reduced that you
might not pierce the armour. No, my friend. Use _ninjutsu_. It is the
only way."

"Oh all right," said Bond resignedly. "Now let's have a look at a
photograph of this chap. Has the superintendent got one?"

It had been taken from a long way away with a telephoto lens. It showed
a giant figure in full medieval chain armour with the jagged, winged
helmet of ancient Japanese warriors. Bond studied the photograph
carefully, noting the vulnerable spots at neck and joints. A metal
shield protected the man's groin. A wide-bladed _samurai_ sword hung
from his waist, but there was no sign of any other weapon. Bond said
thoughtfully, "He doesn't look as daft as he ought to. Probably because
of the Dracula setting. Have you got one of his face? Perhaps he looks a
bit madder in the raw."

The superintendent went to the bottom of his file, extracted what looked
like a blown-up copy of Doctor Guntram Shatterhand's passport
photograph, and handed it over.

Bond took it nonchalantly. Then his whole body stiffened. He said to
himself, _God Almighty! God Almighty!_ Yes. There was no doubt, no doubt
at all! He had grown a drooping black moustache. He had had the
syphilitic nose repaired. There was a gold-capped tooth among the upper
frontals, but there could be no doubt. Bond looked up. He said, "Have
you got one of the woman?"

Startled by the look of controlled venom on Bond's face, and by the
pallor that showed through the walnut dye, the superintendent bowed
energetically and scrabbled through his file.

Yes, there she was, the bitch--the flat ugly wardress face, the dull
eyes, the scraped-back bun of hair.

Bond held the pictures, not looking at them, thinking. Ernst Stavro
Blofeld. Irma Bunt. So this was where they had come to hide! And the
long strong gut of fate had lassoed him to them! They of all people! He
of all people! A taxi-ride down the coast in this remote corner of
Japan. Could they smell him coming? Had the dead spy got hold of his
name and told them? Unlikely. The power and prestige of Tiger would have
protected him. Privacy, discretion, are the heartbeat of Japanese inns.
But would they know that an enemy was on his way? That fate had arranged
this appointment in Samarra? Bond looked up from the pictures. He was in
cold control of himself. This was now a private matter. It had nothing
to do with Tiger or Japan. It had nothing to do with MAGIC 44. It was
ancient feud. He said casually, "Tiger, could the superintendent inquire
what his detectives have made of that Black Dragon agent? And of his
belongings? I am particularly interested to know whether he may have
telephoned or telegraphed my description or my purpose in coming down
here."

There was a long and electric silence in the room. Tiger examined Bond's
face with piercing interest before he passed the inquiry on to the
superintendent. The superintendent picked up the receiver of an
old-fashioned telephone on a double hook. He spoke into it, then, a
Japanese habit, blew sharply into the mouthpiece to clear the line, and
spoke again at length. He said, "_Ah, so desu ka!_" many times. Then he
put down the receiver. When he had finished talking, Tiger turned to
Bond. Again with the same piercing appraisal of Bond's face, he said,
"The man came from these parts. He has a police record. Fortunately, he
was poorly educated and is known as nothing more than a stupid thug. On
the first page of the diary he wrote down his assignment, which was only
to follow me to my destination and then report to his master. It seems
unlikely that he was authorized to communicate before then. But what is
it, Bondo-san? Is it that you know these people?"

James Bond laughed. It was a laugh that grated. Even to Bond, it sounded
harsh and false in the small room. He had immediately made up his mind
to keep his knowledge to himself. To reveal the true identity of Doctor
Shatterhand would be to put the whole case back into official channels.
The Japanese secret service and the C.I.A. would swarm down to Fukuoka.
Blofeld and Irma Bunt would be arrested. James Bond's personal prey
would be snatched from him. There would be no revenge! Bond said, "Good
lord, no! But I am something of a physiognomist. When I saw this man's
face, it was as if someone had walked over my grave. I have a feeling
that, whether I succeed or not, the outcome of this mission is going to
be decisive for one or the other of us. It will not be a drawn game. But
now I have a number of further questions with which I must worry you and
the superintendent. They are small matters of detail, but I want to get
everything right before I start."

Tiger looked relieved. The raw animalism in Bond's face had been so
different from the stoical, ironical face of the Bondo-san for whom he
had come to have so much affection. He gave his great golden smile and
said, "But of course, my friend. And I am pleased with your worries and
with the trouble you are taking to make sure of everything in advance.
You will forgive me if I quote you one last Japanese proverb. It says,
'A reasonable number of fleas is good for a dog. Otherwise the dog
forgets he is a dog.'"

"Good old Bassho!" said Bond.




13. Kissy Suzuki


James Bond went through the rest of the morning like an automaton. While
he tried on his _ninja_ equipment and watched each item being carefully
packed into a floatable plastic container, his mind was totally occupied
with the image of his enemy--this man Blofeld, the great gangster who
had founded SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence,
Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, the man who was wanted by the police
of all the NATO countries, the man who had murdered Tracy, Bond's wife
for less than a day, a bare nine months ago. And in those nine months,
this evil genius had invented a new method of collecting death, as Tiger
had put it. This cover as the Swiss Doctor Shatterhand, as a rich
botanist, must have been one of the many he had wisely built up over the
years. It would have been easy. A few gifts of rare plants to famous
botanical gardens, the financing of a handful of expeditions, and all
the while in the back of his mind the plan one day to retire and
"cultiver son jardin." And what a garden! A garden that would be like a
deadly fly-trap for human beings, a killing bottle for those who wanted
to die. And of course Japan, with the highest suicide statistics in the
world, a country with an unquenchable thirst for the bizarre, the cruel,
and the terrible, would provide the perfect last refuge for him. Blofeld
must have gone off his head, but with a monstrous, calculating
madness--the madness of the genius he undoubtedly was. And the whole
demoniac concept was on Blofeld's usual grand scale--the scale of a
Caligula, of a Nero, of a Hitler, of any other great enemy of mankind.
The speed of execution was breathtaking, the expenditure fabulous, the
planning, down to the use of the Black Dragon Society, meticulous, and
the cover as impeccable as the Piz Gloria Clinic, which, less than a
year before, Bond had helped to destroy utterly. And now the two enemies
were lined up again, but this time David was spurred on to kill his
Goliath not by duty but by blood feud! And with what weapons? Nothing
but his bare hands, a two-inch pocket knife and a thin chain of steel.
Well, similar weapons had served him before. Surprise would be the
determining factor. Bond added a pair of black flippers to his
equipment, a small supply of pemmican-like meat, benzedrine tablets, a
plastic flask of water. Then he was ready.

They motored down the main street to where the police launch was waiting
at the jetty and set off at a good twenty knots across the beautiful bay
and round the headland into the Sea of Genkai. Tiger produced sandwiches
and a flask of _sak_ for each of them, and they ate their luncheon as
the jagged green coast with its sandy beaches passed slowly by to port.
Tiger pointed out a distant dot on the horizon. "Kuro Island," he said.
"Cheer up, Bondo-san! You seem preoccupied. Think of all those beautiful
naked women you will soon be swimming with! And this Japanese Greta
Garbo with whom you will be passing the nights!"

"And the sharks who will already be gathering at the news of my swim to
the castle!"

"If they do not eat the Ama, why should they eat a bit of tough
Englishman? Look at the two fish eagles circling! That is an excellent
augury. One alone would have been less propitious. Four would have been
disastrous, for with us four is the same as your thirteen--the worst
number of all. But, Bondo-san, does it not amuse you to think of that
foolish dragon dozing all unsuspecting in his castle while St. George
comes silently riding towards his lair across the waves? It would make
the subject for a most entertaining Japanese print."

"You've got a funny sense of humour, Tiger."

"It is merely different from yours. Most of our funny stories involve
death or disaster. I am not a 'picture-daddy'--a professional
story-teller--but I will tell you my favourite. It concerns the young
girl who comes to the toll bridge. She tosses one sen, a very small
piece of money, to the watchman and walks on. The watchman calls after
her, 'Hey! You know that the toll for crossing the bridge is two sen.'
The girl answers, 'But I do not intend to cross the bridge. I intend
only to go halfway and then throw myself into the river.'" Tiger laughed
uproariously.

Bond smiled politely. "I must save that one up for London. They'll split
their sides over it."

The small speck on the horizon grew larger and soon revealed itself as a
horned island about five miles in circumference with steep cliffs and a
small harbour facing north. On the mainland, Doctor Shatterhand's small
peninsula reached out into the sea, and the fortress-like black wall
soared up out of the breaking waves. Above it were the tops of trees,
and behind them, in the distance, the winged roof of the topmost storey
of the castle broke the sky-line. The formidable silhouette reminded
Bond vaguely of photographs of Alcatraz taken from sea-level. He
shivered slightly at the thought of the night's swim across the
half-mile channel and of the black spider that would then scale those
soaring fortifications. Ah well! He turned his attention back to Kuro
Island.

It appeared to be made of black volcanic rock, but there was much green
vegetation right up to the summit of a small peak on which there was
some kind of a stone beacon. When they rounded the headland that formed
one arm of the bay, a crowded little village and a jetty appeared. Out
to sea, thirty or more rowing boats were scattered, and there was the
occasional glint of pink flesh in the sunlight. Naked children were
playing among the big smooth black boulders that tumbled like bathing
hippos along the shore-line, and there were green nets hung up to dry.
It was a pretty scene, with the delicate remoteness, the fairyland
quality, of small fishing communities all the world over. Bond took an
immediate liking to the place, as if he was arriving at a destination
that had been waiting for him and that would be friendly and welcoming.

A group of village elders, grave, gnarled old men with the serious
expressions of simple people on important occasions, led by the Shinto
priest, was on the jetty to welcome them. The priest was in ceremonial
robes, a dark red three-quarter-length kimono with vast hanging sleeves,
a turquoise skirt in broad pleats and the traditional shining black hat
in the shape of a blunt cone. He was a man of simple dignity and
considerable presence, middle-aged, with a round face and round
spectacles and a pursed, judging mouth. His shrewd eyes took them in one
by one as they came ashore, but they rested longest on Bond.
Superintendent Ando was greeted with friendship as well as respect. This
was part of his parish, and he was the ultimate source of all fishing
permits, reflected Bond ungraciously, but he had to admit that the
deference of the bows was not exaggerated and that he was lucky in his
ambassador. They proceeded up the cobbled path of the main street to the
priest's house, a modest weather-beaten affair of stone and carpentered
drift-wood. They entered and sat on the spotless polished wood floor in
an arc in front of the priest, and the superintendent made a long speech
punctuated by serious _Hai's_ and _Ah, so desu ka's_ from the priest,
who occasionally let his wise eyes rest thoughtfully on Bond. He made a
short speech in return, to which the superintendent and Tiger listened
with deference. Tiger replied, and the business of the meeting was over
save for the inevitable tea.

Bond asked Tiger how his presence and mission had been explained. Tiger
said that it would have been of no use lying to the priest, who was a
shrewd man, so he had been told most of the truth. The priest had
expressed regret that such extreme measures were contemplated, but he
agreed that the castle across the sea was a most evil place and its
owner a man in league with the devil. In the circumstances, he would
give the project his blessing, and James Bond would be allowed to stay
on the island for the minimum time necessary to accomplish his mission.

The priest would invite the Suzuki family to accord him an honourable
welcome. Bond would be explained away to the elders as a famous _gaijin_
anthropologist who had come to study the Ama way of life. Bond should
therefore study it, but the priest requested that Bond should behave in
a sincere manner. "Which means," explained Tiger with a malicious grin,
"that you are not to go to bed with the girls."

In the evening, they walked back to the jetty. The sea was a dark slate
colour and mirror-calm. The little boats, bedecked with coloured flags
which meant that it had been an exceptional day's fishing, were winging
their way back. The entire population of Kuro, perhaps two hundred
souls, was lined up along the shore to greet the heroines of the day,
the older people holding carefully folded shawls and blankets to warm up
the girls on their way to their homes where, according to Tiger, they
would be given hot basin-baths to get back their circulation and remove
all traces of salt. It was now five o'clock. They would be asleep by
eight, said Tiger, and out again with the dawn. Tiger was sympathetic.
"You will have to adjust your hours, Bondo-san. And your way of life.
The Ama live very frugally, very cheaply, for their earnings are
small--no more than the price of sparrows' tears, as we say. And for
heaven's sake be very polite to the parents, particularly the father. As
for Kissy..." He left the sentence hanging in the air.

Eager hands reached for each boat and, with happy shouts, pulled it up
on the black pebbles. Big wooden tubs were lifted out and rushed up the
beach to a kind of rickety market where, according to Tiger, the _awabi_
were graded and priced. Meanwhile, the chattering, smiling girls waded
in through the shallows and cast modestly appraising glances at the
three mainland strangers on the jetty.

To Bond, they all seemed beautiful and gay in the soft evening
light--the proud, rather coarse-nippled breasts, the gleaming muscled
buttocks, cleft by the black cord that held in place the frontal
triangle of black cotton, the powerful thong round the waist with its
string of oval lead weights, through which was stuck an angular steel
pick, the white rag round the tumbled hair, and, below, the laughing
dark eyes and lips that were happy with the luck of the day. At that
moment, it all seemed to Bond as the world, as life, should be, and he
felt ashamed of his city-slicker appearance, let alone the black designs
it concealed.

One girl, rather taller than the rest, seemed to pay no attention to the
men on the jetty or to the police launch riding beside it. She was the
centre of a crowd of laughing girls as she waded with a rather long,
perhaps studied, stride over the shiny black pebbles and up the beach.
She flung back a remark at her companions, and they giggled, putting
their hands up to their mouths. Then a wizened old woman held out a
coarse brown blanket to her and she wrapped it round herself and the
group dispersed.

The couple, the old woman and the young one, walked up the beach to the
market. The young one talked excitedly. The old one paid attention and
nodded. The priest was waiting for them. They bowed very low. He talked
to them, and they listened with humility, casting occasional glances
towards the group on the jetty. The tall girl drew her blanket more
closely round her. James Bond had guessed it already. Now he knew. This
was Kissy Suzuki.

The three people, the splendidly attired priest, the walnut-faced old
fisherwoman, and the tall naked girl wrapped in her drab blanket came
along the jetty, the girl hanging back. In a curious way they were a
homogeneous trio, and the priest might have been the father. The women
stopped, and the priest came forward. He bowed to Bond and addressed
him. Tiger translated: "He says that the father and mother of Kissy
Suzuki would be honoured to receive you in their humble abode for whose
poverty they apologize. They regret that they are not accustomed to
Western ways, but their daughter is proficient in English as a result of
her work in America and will endeavour to convey your wishes to them.
The priest asks if you can row a boat. The father, who previously rowed
for his daughter, is stricken with rheumatism. It would be of great
assistance to the family if you would deign to take his place."

Bond bowed. He said, "Please convey to his reverence that I am most
grateful for his intercession on my behalf. I would be most honoured to
have a place to lay my head in the home of Suzuki-san. My needs are very
modest and I greatly enjoy the Japanese way of life. I would be most
pleased to row the family boat or help the household in any other way."
He added, sotto voce, "Tiger, I may need these people's help when the
time comes. Particularly the girl's. How much can I tell her?"

Tiger said softly, "Use your discretion. The priest knows, therefore the
girl can know. She will not spread it abroad. And now come forward and
let the priest introduce you. Don't forget that your name here is Taro,
which means 'first son,' Todoroki, which means 'thunder.' The priest is
not interested in your real name. I have said that this is an
approximation of your English name. It doesn't matter. Nobody will care.
But you must try to assume some semblance of a Japanese personality for
when you get to the other side. This name is on your identity card and
on your miner's union card from the coal-mines of Fukuoka. You need not
bother with these things here, for you are among friends. On the other
side, if you are caught, you will show the card that says you are deaf
and dumb. All right?"

Tiger talked to the priest, and Bond was led forward to the two women.
He bowed low to the mother, but he remembered not to bow too low as she
was only a woman, and then he turned to the girl.

She laughed gaily. She didn't titter or giggle, she actually laughed.
She said, "You don't have to bow to me, and I shall never bow to you."
She held out her hand. "How do you do. My name is Kissy Suzuki."

The hand was ice-cold. Bond said, "My name is Taro Todoroki, and I am
sorry to have kept you here so long. You are cold and you ought to go
and have your hot bath. It is very kind of your family to accept me as
your guest, but I do not want to be an imposition. Are you sure it's all
right?"

"Whatever the _kannushi-san_, the priest, says is all right. And I have
been cold before. When you have finished with your distinguished
friends, my mother and I will be happy to lead you to our house. I hope
you are good at peeling potatoes."

Bond was delighted. Thank God for a straightforward girl at last! No
more bowing and hissing! He said, "I took a degree in it. And I am
strong and willing and I don't snore. What time do we take out the
boat?"

"About five-thirty. When the sun comes up. Perhaps you will bring me
good luck. The _awabi_ shells are not easy to find. We had a lucky day
today, and I earned about thirty dollars, but it is not always so."

"I don't reckon in dollars. Let's say ten pounds."

"Aren't Englishmen the same as Americans? Isn't the money the same?"

"Very alike, but totally different."

"Is that so?"

"You mean '_Ah, so desu ka?_'"

The girl laughed. "You have been well trained by the important man from
Tokyo. Perhaps you will now say good-bye to him and we can go home. It
is at the other end of the village."

The priest, the superintendent, and Tiger had been talking together,
ostensibly paying no attention to Bond and the girl. The mother had been
standing humbly, but with shrewd eyes, watching every expression on the
two faces. Bond now bowed again to her and went back to the group of
men.

Farewells were brief. Dusk was creeping up over the sea, and the orange
ball of the sun had already lost its brilliance in the evening haze. The
engine of the police boat had been started up, and its exhaust bubbled
softly. Bond thanked the superintendent and was wished good fortune in
his honourable endeavours. Tiger looked serious. He took Bond's hand in
both of his, an unusual gesture for a Japanese. He said, "Bondo-san, I
am certain you will succeed, so I will not wish you luck. Nor will I say
'_sayonara_,' farewell. I will simply say a quiet '_banzai!_' to you and
give you this little _presento_ in case the gods frown upon your venture
and, through no fault of yours, things go wrong, very wrong." He took
out a little box and gave it to Bond.

The box rattled. Bond opened it. Inside was one long brownish pill. Bond
laughed. He gave it back to Tiger and said, "No thanks, Tiger. As Bassho
said, or almost said, 'You only live twice.' If my second life comes up,
I would rather look it in the face and not turn my back on it. But
thanks, and thanks for everything. Those live lobsters were really
delicious. I shall now look forward to eating plenty of seaweed while
I'm here. So long! See you in about a week."

Tiger got down into the boat, and the engine revved up. As the boat took
the swell at the entrance to the harbour, Tiger raised a hand and
brought it swiftly down with a chopping motion, and then the boat was
round the sea-wall and out of sight.

Bond turned away. The priest had gone. Kissy Suzuki said impatiently,
"Come along, Todoroki-san. The _kannushi-san_ says I am to treat you as
a comrade, as an equal. But give me one of those two little bags to
carry. For the sake of the villagers who will be watching inquisitively,
we will wear the Oriental face in public."

And the tall man with the dark face, cropped hair, and slanting
eyebrows, the tall girl, and the old woman walked off along the shore
with their angular Japanese shadows preceding them across the smooth
black boulders.




14. ONE GOLDEN DAY


Dawn was a beautiful haze of gold and blue. Bond went outside and ate
his bean curd and rice and drank his tea sitting on the spotless
doorstep of the little cut-stone and timbered house, while indoors the
family chattered like happy sparrows as the women went about their
housework.

Bond had been allotted the room of honour, the small sitting-room with
its _tatami_ mats, scraps of furniture, house shrine, and a cricket in a
small cage "to keep you company," as Kissy had explained. Here his
_futon_ had been spread on the ground and he had for the first time and
with fair success tried sleeping with his head on the traditional wooden
pillow. The evening before, the father, an emaciated greybeard with
knotted joints and bright squirrel eyes, had laughed with and at him as
Kissy translated Bond's account of some of his adventures with Tiger,
and there was from the first a complete absence of tension or
self-consciousness. The priest had said that Bond should be treated as a
member of the family, and although his appearance and some of his
manners were strange, Kissy had apparently announced her qualified
approval of him, and the parents followed her lead. At nine o'clock,
under the three-quarter moon, the father had beckoned to Bond and had
hobbled out with him to the back of the house. He showed him the little
shack with the hole in the ground and the neatly quartered pages of the
_Asahi Shimbun_ on a nail, and the last of Bond's private fears about
life on the island was removed. His flickering candle showed the place
to be as spotless as the house, and at least adequately salubrious.
After the soft movements in the other two rooms had ceased, Bond had
slept happily and like the dead.

Kissy came out of the house. She was wearing a kind of white cotton
night-dress and a white cotton kerchief bound up the thick black waves
of her hair. She wore her equipment, the weights and the heavy flat
angular pick, over the white dress; only her arms and feet were bare.
Bond may have shown his disappointment. She laughed, teasing him. "This
is ceremonial dress for diving in the presence of important strangers.
The _kannushi-san_ instructed me to wear it in your company. As a mark
of respect, of course."

"Kissy, I believe that is a fib. The truth of the matter is that you
consider that your nakedness might arouse dishonourable thoughts in my
impious Western mind. That is a most unworthy suspicion. However, I
accept the delicacy of your respect for my susceptibilities. And now,
let's cut the cackle and get going. We'll beat the _awabi_ record today.
What should we aim at?"

"Fifty would be good. A hundred would be wonderful. But above all, you
must row well and not let me drown. And you must be kind to David."

"Who's David?" asked Bond, suddenly jealous at the thought that he would
not be having this girl to himself.

"Wait and see." She went back indoors and brought out the balsa-wood tub
and a great coil of fine quarter-inch rope. She handed the rope to Bond
and hoisted the tub on her hip, leading the way along a small path away
from the village. The path descended slowly to a small cove in which one
rowing-boat, covered with dried reeds to protect it from the sun, was
drawn high up on the flat black pebbles. Bond stripped off the reeds and
laid them aside and hauled the simple locally made craft down to the
sea. It was constructed of some heavy wood and lay low but stable in the
deeply shelving, totally transparent water. He loaded in the rope and
the wooden tub. Kissy had gone to the other side of the little bay and
had undone a string from one of the rocks. She began winding it in
slowly and at the same time uttering a low cooing whistle. To Bond's
astonishment, there was a flurry in the water of the bay and a big black
cormorant shot like a bullet through the shallows and waddled up the
beach to Kissy's feet, craning its neck up and down and hissing,
apparently in anger. But Kissy bent down and stroked the creature on its
plumed head and down the outstretched neck, at the same time talking to
it gaily. She came towards the boat, winding up the long line, and the
cormorant followed clumsily. It paid no attention to Bond but jumped
untidily over the side of the boat and scrambled on to the small thwart
in the bows, where it squatted majestically and proceeded to preen
itself, running its long bill down and through its breast feathers and
occasionally opening its wings to the full extent of their five-foot
span and flapping them with gentle grace. Then, with a final shimmy
through all its length, it settled down and gazed out to sea with its
neck coiled backwards as if to strike and its turquoise eyes questing
the horizon imperiously.

Kissy climbed into the boat and settled herself with her knees hunched
decorously between Bond's outstretched legs, and Bond slid the heavy
narrow-bladed oars into their wooden rowlocks and began rowing at a
powerful, even pace, more or less, under Kissy's direction, due north.

He had noticed that Kissy's line to the cormorant ended with a thin
brass ring, perhaps two inches in diameter, round the base of the bird's
neck. This would be one of the famous fishing cormorants of Japan. Bond
asked her about it.

Kissy said, "I found him as a baby three years ago. He had oil on his
wings, and I cleaned him and cared for him and had him ringed. The ring
has had to be made larger as he grew up. Now, you see, he can swallow
small fish, but the big ones he brings to the surface in his beak. He
hands them over quite willingly and occasionally he gets a piece of a
big one as a reward. He swims a lot by my side and keeps me company. It
can be very lonely down there, particularly when the sea is dark. You
will have to hold the end of the line and look after him when he comes
to the surface. Today he will be hungry. He has not been out for three
days because my father could not row the boat. I have been going out
with friends. So it is lucky for him that you came to the island."

"So this is David?"

"Yes. I named him after the only man I liked in Hollywood--an
Englishman, as it happens. He was called David Niven. He is a famous
actor and producer. You have heard of him?"

"Of course. I shall enjoy tossing him a scrap or two of fish in exchange
for the pleasure he has given me in his other incarnation."

The sweat began to pour down Bond's face and chest into his bathing
pants. Kissy undid the kerchief round her hair and leant forward and
mopped at him gently. Bond smiled into her almond eyes and had his first
close-up of her snub nose and petalled mouth. She wore no make-up and
did not need to, for she had that rosy-tinted skin on a golden
background--the colours of a golden peach--that is quite common in
Japan. Her hair, released from the kerchief, was black with dark-brown
high-lights. It was heavily waved, but with a soft fringe that ended an
inch or so above the straight fine eyebrows that showed no signs of
having been plucked. Her teeth were even and showed no more prominently
between the lips than with a European girl, so that she avoided the
toothiness that is a weak point in the Japanese face. Her arms and legs
were longer and less masculine than is usual with Japanese girls, and
the day before, Bond had seen that her breasts and buttocks were firm
and proud and that her stomach was almost flat--a beautiful figure,
equal to that of any of the star chorus girls he had seen in the
cabarets of Tokyo. But her hands and feet were rough and scarred with
work, and her finger-nails and toe-nails, although they were cut very
short, were broken. Bond found this rather endearing. Ama means
"sea-girl" or "sea-man," and Kissy wore the marks of competing with the
creatures of the ocean with obvious indifference, and her skin, which
might have suffered from constant contact with salt water, in fact
glowed with a golden sheen of health and vitality. But it was the charm
and directness of her eyes and smile as well as her complete
naturalness--for instance, when she mopped at Bond's face and
chest--that endeared her so utterly to Bond. At that moment, he thought
there would be nothing more wonderful than to spend the rest of his life
rowing her out towards the horizon during the day and coming back with
her to the small clean house in the dusk.

He shrugged the whimsy aside. Only another two days to the full moon and
he would have to get back to reality, to the dark dirty life he had
chosen for himself. He put the prospect out of his mind. Today and the
next day would be stolen days, days with only Kissy and the boat and the
bird and the sea. He must just see to it that they were happy days and
lucky ones for her and her harvest of sea-shells.

Kissy said, "Not much longer. And you have rowed well." She gestured to
the right, to where the rest of the Ama fleet was spread out over the
ocean. "With us, it is first come first served with the sites we choose.
Today we can get out as far as a shoal most of us know of, and we shall
have it to ourselves. There the seaweed is thick on the rocks, and that
is what the _awabi_ feed on. It is deep, about forty feet, but I can
stay down for almost a minute, long enough to pick up two, three _awabi_
if I can find them. That is just a matter of luck in feeling about with
the hands among the seaweed, for you rarely see the shells. You only
feel them and dislodge them with this," she tapped her angular pick.
"After a while I shall have to rest. Then perhaps you would like to go
down. Yes? They tell me you are a good swimmer, and I have brought a
pair of my father's goggles. These bulbs at the sides," she showed him,
"have to be squeezed to equalize the pressure between the glasses and
the eyes. You will perhaps not be able to stay down long to begin with.
But you will learn quickly. How long will you be staying on Kuro?"

"Only two or three days, I'm afraid."

"Oh, but that is sad. What will David and I do for a boatman then?"

"Perhaps your father will get better."

"That is so. I must take him to a cure place at one of the volcanoes on
the mainland. Otherwise it will mean marrying one of the men on Kuro.
That is not easy. The choice is not wide, and because I have a little
money from my film work--and a little is a lot, on Kuro--the man might
want to marry me for the wrong reasons. That would be sad, and how is
one to know?"

"Perhaps you will go back into films?"

Her expression became fierce. "Never. I hated it. They were all
disgusting to me in Hollywood. They thought that because I am a Japanese
I am some sort of an animal and that my body is for everyone. Nobody
treated me honourably except this Niven." She shook her head to get rid
of the memories. "No. I will stay on Kuro for ever. The gods will solve
my problems," she smiled, "as they have today." She scanned the sea
ahead. "Another hundred yards." She got up and, balancing perfectly
despite the swell, tied the end of the long rope round her waist and
adjusted the goggles above her forehead. "Now remember, keep the rope
taut, and when you feel one tug, pull me up quickly. It will be hard
work for you, but I will massage your back when we get home this
evening. I am very good at it. I have had enough practice with my
father. Now!"

Bond shipped the oars gratefully. Behind him, David began shifting on
his feet, craning his long neck and hissing impatiently. Kissy tied a
short line to the wooden tub and put it over the side. She followed,
slipping decorously into the water and clasping her white dress between
her knees so that it did not flower out around her. At once, David dived
and disappeared without a ripple. The line, tied to Bond's thwart, began
paying out fast. He picked up the coil of Kissy's rope and stood up, his
joints cracking. Kissy pulled down her goggles and put her head
underwater. In a moment, she came up. She smiled. "Yes, it looks fine
down there." She rested in the water and began making a soft cooing
whistle through pursed lips--to fill her lungs to the uttermost, Bond
assumed. Then, with a brief wave of the hand, she put down her head and
arched her hips so that Bond had a brief sight of the black string
cleaving her behind under the thin material. Suddenly, like a fleeting
white wraith, she was gone, straight down, her feet twinkling behind her
in a fast crawl to help the pull of the weights.

Bond paid out fast, keeping an anxious eye on his watch. David appeared
below him, bearing a half-pound silvery fish crosswise in his beak. Damn
the bird! This was no time to get mixed up with retrieving fish from the
extremely sharp-looking beak. But with a contemptuous glance, the
cormorant tossed the fish into the floating tub and disappeared like a
black bullet.

Fifty seconds! Bond started nervously when the tug came. He pulled in
fast. The white wraith appeared far below in the crystal water, and as
she came up, Bond saw that her hands were tight against her sides to
streamline her body. She broke surface beside the boat and held out two
fat _awabi_ to show him and then dropped them into the tub. She held on
to the side of the boat to regain her breath, and Bond gazed down at the
wonderful breasts, taut beneath their thin covering. She smiled briefly
up at him, began her cooing whistle, and then came the exciting arch of
the back, and she was gone again.

An hour went by. Bond got used to the routine and had time to watch the
nearest of the fleet of other boats. They covered perhaps a mile of sea,
and from across the silent water, there came the recurrent eerie
whistle--a soft, sea-bird sound--of the diving girls. The nearest boat
rocked in the slow swell perhaps a hundred yards away, and Bond watched
the young man at the rope and caught an occasional glimpse of a
beautiful golden body, shiny as a seal, and heard the excited chattering
of their voices. He hoped he would not disgrace himself when it came to
his turn to dive. _Sak_ and cigarettes! Not a good mixture to train on!

The pile of _awabi_ was slowly growing in the tub and, amongst them,
perhaps a dozen leaping fish. Occasionally, Bond bent down and retrieved
one from David. Once he dropped a slippery fish, and the bird had to
dive for it again. This time he received an even haughtier look of scorn
from the turquoise eyes.

Then Kissy came up, her stint done, and climbed, not so decorously this
time, into the boat, and tore off her kerchief and goggles and sat
panting quietly in the stern. Finally she looked up and laughed happily.
"That is twenty-one. Very good. Now take my weights and pick and see for
yourself what it is like down there. But I will pull you up anyway in
thirty seconds. Give me your watch. And please do not lose my _tegane_,
my pick, or our day's fishing will be over."

Bond's first dive was a clumsy affair. He went down too slowly and
barely had time to survey the grassy plain, scattered with black rocks
and clumps of _Posidonia_, the common seaweed of all the oceans, when he
felt himself being hauled up. He had to admit to himself that his lungs
were in terrible shape, but he had spied one promising rock thick with
weed, and on his next dive he got straight to it and clung, searching
among the roots with his right hand. He felt the smooth oval of a shell,
but before he could get the pick to it, he was being pulled up again.
But he got the shell on this third try, and Kissy laughed with pleasure
as he dropped it into the tub. He managed to keep the diving up for
about half an hour, but then his lungs began to ache and his body to
feel the cold of the October sea and he came up for the last time
simultaneously with David, who shot past him like a beautiful gleaming
black fish with green high-lights and, as a mark of approval, pecked
gently at his hair as Bond deposited his fifth shell in the tub.

Kissy was pleased with him. She had a rough brown kimono in the boat and
she rubbed him down with it as he sat with bowed head and heaving chest.
Then, while he rested, she hauled the wooden tub inboard and emptied its
contents into the bottom of the boat. She produced a knife and cut one
of the fish down the middle and fed the two halves to David, who was
riding expectantly beside the boat. He swallowed the pieces in two great
gulps and set to preening his feathers contentedly.

Later they stopped for a lunch of rice with a few small bits of fish in
it and dried seaweed which tasted of salty spinach. And then, after a
short rest in the bottom of the boat, the work went on until four
o'clock, when a small chill breeze came from nowhere and got between
them and the warmth of the sun and it was time to make the long row
home. Kissy climbed for the last time into the boat and gave several
soft tugs at David's line. He surfaced some distance from the boat, and
as if this was a well-worn routine, rose into the air and circled round
them again and again before making a low dive and skiing in to the side
of the boat on his webbed feet. He flapped his way over the side and
went to his perch, where he stood with wings magnificently outstretched
to dry and waited in this lordly stance for his boatman to take him back
home to his cove.

Kissy changed with extreme propriety into her brown kimono and dried
herself inside it. She announced that their haul was sixty-five _awabi_,
which was quite wonderful. Of these Bond was responsible for ten, which
was a very honourable first catch. Ridiculously pleased with himself,
Bond took a vague bearing on the island which, because of the drifting
of the boat, was now only a speck on the horizon, and gradually worked
himself into the slow unlaboured sweep of a Scottish gillie.

His hands were sore, his back ached as if he had been thrashed with a
wooden truncheon, and his shoulders were beginning to sting with
sunburn, but he comforted himself with the reflection that he was only
doing what he would have had to do anyway--get into training for the
swim and the climb and what would come afterwards, and he rewarded
himself from time to time with a smile into Kissy's eyes. They never
left him, and the low sun shone into them and turned the soft brown to
gold. And the speck became a lump, and the lump an island, and at last
they were home.




15. THE SIX GUARDIANS


The next day was as golden as the first, and the haul of _awabi_ went up
to sixty-eight, largely thanks to Bond's improved diving.

The evening before, Kissy had come back from selling her shells at the
market and had found Bond writhing on the floor of his room with cramps
in his stomach muscles and her mother clucking helplessly over him. She
had shooed her mother away, spread the soft _futon_ on the floor beside
him, and had pulled off his bathing pants and rolled him on to the
_futon_ face downwards. Then she had stood upright on his back and had
walked softly up and down his spine from his buttocks to his neck, and
the ache had slowly gone. She told him to lie still and brought him warm
milk. Then she led him into the tiny bath-house and poured hot and then
tepid water over him from an _awabi_ tub until all the salt was out of
his skin and hair. She dried him softly, rubbed warm milk into his
sunburn and his chafed hands, and led him back to his room, telling him
with gentle sternness to go to sleep and to call her if he awoke in the
night and needed anything. She blew out his candle and left him, and he
went out, to the night-song of the cricket in its cage, like a light.

In the morning, nothing remained of his aches except the soreness of the
hands, and Kissy gave him the rare treat of an egg beaten up in his rice
and bean curd and he apologized for his bad manners of the night before.
She said, "Todoroki-san, you have the spirit of ten _samurai_, but you
have the body of only one. I should have known that I had asked too much
of that single body. It was the pleasure of the day. It made me forget
everything else. So it is I who apologize, and today we will not go so
far. Instead, we will keep close to the cliffs of the island and see
what we can find. I will do the rowing, for it is a small distance, but
you will be able to do more diving because the place that I know of,
which I haven't visited for many weeks, is inshore and the water is, at
the most, twenty feet deep."

And so it had been, and Bond had worn a shirt to protect him from the
sun and his tally of shells had gone up to twenty-one, and the solitary
shadow on the day had been the clear view he had had of the black
fortress across the straits and the chunky yellow-and-black warning
balloon that flew the column of black ideograms above it.

During one of their rests, Bond casually asked Kissy what she knew of
the castle, and he was surprised by the way her face darkened.
"Todoroki-san, we do not usually talk about that place. It is almost a
forbidden subject on Kuro. It is as if hell had suddenly opened its
mouth half a mile away across the sea from our home. And my people, the
Ama, are like what I have read about your gypsies. We are very
superstitious. And we believe the devil himself has come to live over
there." She didn't look at the fortress, but gestured with her head.
"Even the _kannushi-san_ does not deny our fears, and our elders say
that the _gaijin_ have always been bad for Japan and that this one is
the incarnation of all the evil in the West. And there is already a
legend that has grown up on the island. It is that our six _Jizo_
Guardians will send a man from across the sea to slay this 'King of
Death,' as we call him."

"Who are these Guardians?"

"_Jizo_ is the god who protects children. He is, I think, a Buddhist
god. On the other side of the island, on the foreshore, there are five
statues. The sixth has been mostly washed away. They are rather
frightening to see. They squat there in a line. They have rough bodies
of stone and round stones for heads and they wear white shirts that are
changed by the people every month. They were put there centuries ago by
our ancestors. They sit on the line of low tide, and as the tide comes
up, it covers them completely, and they keep watch under the surface of
the sea and protect us, the Ama, because we are known as 'The Children
of the Sea.' At the beginning of every June, when the sea is warm after
the winter and the diving begins, every person on the island forms into
a procession and we go to the Six Guardians and sing to them to make
them happy and favourable towards us."

"And this story of the man from Kuro. Where did it come from?"

"Who knows? It could have come from the sea or the air and thus into the
minds of the people. Where do stories like that come from? It is widely
believed."

"_Ah, so desu ka!_" said Bond, and they both laughed and got on with the
work.

On the third day, when Bond was as usual eating his breakfast on the
doorstep, Kissy came to the doorway and said softly, "Come inside,
Todoroki-san." Mystified, he went in, and she shut the door behind him.

She said in a low voice, "I have just heard from a messenger from the
_kannushi-san_ that there were people here yesterday in a boat from the
mainland. They brought _presentos_--cigarettes and sweets. They were
asking about the visit of the police boat. They said it came with three
visitors and left with only two. They wanted to know what had happened
to the third visitor. They said they were guards from the castle and it
was their duty to prevent trespassers. The elders accepted the
_presentos_, but they showed _shiran-kao_, which is 'the face of him who
knows nothing,' and referred the man to the _kannushi-san_, who said
that the third visitor was in charge of fishing licences. He had felt
sick on the way to the island and had perhaps lain down in the boat on
the way back. Then he dismissed the men and sent a boy to the top of the
High Place to see where the boat went, and the boy reported that it went
to the bay beside the castle and was put back into the boat-house that
is there. The _kannushi-san_ thought that you should know these things."
She looked at him piteously. "Todoroki-san, I have a feeling of much
friendship for you. I feel that there are secret things between you and
the _kannushi-san_, and that they concern the castle. I think you should
tell me enough to put me out of my unhappiness."

Bond smiled. He went up to her and took her face in both his hands and
kissed her on the lips. He said, "You are very beautiful and kind,
Kissy. Today we will not take the boat out because I must have some
rest. Lead me up to the High Place from which I can take a good look at
this castle and I will tell you what I can. I was going to anyway, for I
shall need your help. Afterwards, I would like to visit the Six
Guardians. They interest me--as an anthropologist."

Kissy collected their usual lunch in a small basket, put on her brown
kimono and rope-soled shoes, and they set off along a small foot-path
that zigzagged up the peak behind the crouching grey cluster of the
village. The time of the camellia was almost past, but here there were
occasional bushes of wild camellias in red and white, and there was a
profusion of these round a small grove of dwarf maples, some of which
already wore their flaming autumn colours. The grove was directly above
Kissy's house. She led him in and showed him the little Shinto shrine
behind a rough stone _torii_. She said, "Behind the shrine there is a
fine cave, but the people of Kuro are afraid of it as it is full of
ghosts. But I explored it once, and if there are ghosts there, they are
friendly ones." She clapped her hands before the shrine, bent her head
for a moment, and clapped them again. Then they went on up the path to
the top of the thousand-foot peak. A brace of gorgeous copper pheasants
with golden tails fled squawking over the brow and down to a patch of
bushes on the southern cliff as they approached. Bond told Kissy to stay
out of sight while he went and stood behind the tall cairn of stones on
the summit and gazed circumspectly round it and across the straits.

He could see over the high fortress wall and across the park to the
towering black-and-gold donjon of the castle. It was ten o'clock. There
were figures in blue peasant dress with high boots and long staves
moving busily about the grounds. They occasionally seemed to prod into
the bushes with their staves. They wore black _maskos_ over their
mouths. It crossed Bond's mind that they might be doing the morning
rounds looking for overnight prey. What did they do when they found some
half-blinded creature, or a pile of clothes beside one of the fumaroles
whose little clouds of steam rose here and there in the park? Take them
to the Doctor? And, in the case of the living, what happened then? And
when he, Bond, got up that wall tonight, where was he going to hide from
the guards? Well, sufficient unto the day! At least the straits were
calm and it was cloudless weather. It looked as if he would get there
all right. Bond turned away and went back to Kissy and sat with her on
the sparse turf. He gazed across the harbour to where the Ama fleet lay
sprawled across the middle distance.

He said, "Kissy, tonight I have to swim to the castle and climb the wall
and get inside."

She nodded. "I know this. And then you are going to kill this man and
perhaps his wife. You are the man who we believe was to come to Kuro
from across the sea and do these things." She continued to gaze out to
sea. She said dully, "But why have you been chosen? Why should it not be
another, a Japanese?"

"These people are _gaijin_. I am a _gaijin_. It will cause less trouble
for the state if the whole matter is presented as being trouble between
foreigners."

"Yes, I see. And has the _kannushi-san_ given his approval?"

"Yes."

"And if... And after. Will you come back and be my boatman again?"

"For a time. But then I must go back to England."

"No. I believe that you will stay for a long time on Kuro."

"Why do you believe that?"

"Because I prayed for it at the shrine. And I have never asked for such
a big thing before. I am sure it will be granted." She paused. "And I
shall be swimming with you tonight." She held up a hand. "You will need
company in the dark, and I know the currents. You would not get there
without me."

Bond took the small dry paw in his. He looked at the childish broken
nails. His voice was harsh. He said, "No. This is man's work."

She looked at him. The brown eyes were calm and serious. She said, and
she used his first name, "Taro-san, your other name may mean thunder,
but I am not frightened of thunder. I have made up my mind. And I shall
come back every night, at midnight exactly, and wait among the rocks at
the bottom of the wall. I shall wait for one hour in case you need my
help in coming home. These people may harm you. Women are much stronger
in the water than men. That is why it is the Ama girls who dive and not
the Ama men. I know the waters round Kuro as a peasant knows the fields
round his farm, and I have as little fear of them. Do not be
stiff-necked in this matter. In any case, I shall hardly sleep until you
come back. To feel that I am close to you for a time and that you may
need me will give me some peace. Say yes, Taro-san."

"Oh, all right, Kissy," said Bond gruffly. "I was only going to ask you
to row me to a starting point down there somewhere." He gestured to the
left across the straits. "But if you insist on being an extra target for
the sharks..."

"The sharks never trouble us. The Six Guardians look after that. We
never come to any harm. Years ago, one of the Amas caught her rope in a
rock underwater, and the people have talked of the accident ever since.
The sharks just think we are big fish like themselves." She laughed
happily. "Now it is all settled and we can have something to eat and
then I will take you down to see the Guardians. The tide will be low by
then, and they will want to inspect you."

****

They followed another little path from the summit. It went over the
shoulder of the peak and down to a small protected bay to the east of
the village. The tide was far out, and they could wade over the flat
black pebbles and rocks and round the corner of the promontory. Here, on
a stretch of flat stony beach, five people squatted on a square
foundation of large rocks and gazed out towards the horizon. Except that
they weren't people. They were, as Kissy had described, stone pedestal
bodies with large round boulders cemented to their tops. Rough white
shirts were roped round them, and they looked terrifyingly human as they
sat in immobile judgement and guardianship over the waters and what went
on beneath them. Of the sixth, only the body remained. His head must
have been destroyed by a storm.

They walked round in front of the five and looked up at the smooth blank
faces, and Bond, for the first time in his life, had a sensation of deep
awe. So much belief, so much authority seemed to have been invested by
the builders in these primitive faceless idols, guardians of the blithe
naked Ama girls, that Bond had a ridiculous urge to kneel and ask for
their blessing as the Crusaders had once done before their God. He
brushed the impulse aside, but he did bow his head and briefly ask for
good fortune to accompany his enterprise. And then he stood back and
watched with a pull at his heart-strings while Kissy, her beautiful face
strained and pleading, clapped to attract their attention and then made
a long and impassioned speech in which his name recurred. At the end,
when she again clapped her hands, did the round boulder-heads briefly
nod? Of course not! But when Bond took Kissy's hand and they walked
away, she said happily, "It is all right, Todoroki-san. You saw them nod
their heads?"

"No," said Bond firmly, "I did not."

****

They crept round the eastern shore of Kuro and pulled the boat up into a
deep cleft in the black rocks. It was just after eleven o'clock, and the
giant moon rode high and fast through wisps of mackerel cloud. They
talked softly, although they were out of sight of the fortress and half
a mile away from it. Kissy took off her brown kimono and folded it
neatly and put it in the boat. Her body glowed in the moonlight. The
black triangle between her legs beckoned, and the black string round her
waist that held the piece of material was an invitation to untie it. She
giggled provocatively. "Stop looking at my black cat!"

"Why is it called that?"

"Guess!"

Bond carefully pulled on his _ninja_ suit of black cotton. It was
comfortable enough and would give warmth in the water. He left the
head-shroud hanging down his back and pushed the goggles that belonged
to Kissy's father up his forehead. The small floating pack he was to tow
behind him rode jauntily in the waters of the creek, and he tied its
string firmly to his right wrist so that he would always know it was
there.

He smiled at Kissy and nodded.

She came up to him and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him full
on the lips.

Before he could respond, she had pulled down her goggles and had dived
into the quiet mercury sea.




16. THE LOVESOME SPOT


Kissy's crawl was steady and relaxed, and Bond had no difficulty in
following the twinkling feet and the twin white mounds of her behind,
divided excitingly by the black cord. But he was glad he had donned
flippers because the tug of his floating container against the wrist was
an irritating brake and, for the first half of the swim, they were
heading diagonally against the easterly current through the straits. But
then Kissy slightly changed her direction, and now they could paddle
lazily in towards the soaring wall that soon became their whole horizon.

There were a few tumbled rocks at its base, but Kissy stayed in the
water, clinging to a clump of seaweed, in case the moon might betray her
gleaming body to a sentry or a chance patrol, though Bond guessed that
the guards kept clear of the grounds during the night so that the
suicides would have free entry. Bond pulled himself up on the rocks and
unzipped the container and extracted the packet of iron pitons. Then he
climbed up a few feet so that he could stow his flippers away in a crack
between the granite blocks above high-water mark, and he was ready to
go. He blew a kiss to the girl. She replied with the sideways wave of
the hand that is the Japanese sign of farewell and then was off across
the sea again, a luminous white torpedo that merged quickly into the
path of the moon.

Bond put her out of his thoughts. He was getting chilled in his soaking
black camouflage, and it was time to get moving. He examined the fitting
of the giant stone blocks and found that the cracks between them were
spacious, as in the case of Tiger's training castle, and would probably
provide adequate toe-holds. Then he pulled down his black cowl and,
towing the black container behind him, began his climb.

It took him twenty minutes to cover the two hundred feet of the slightly
inclined wall, but he only had to use his pitons twice when he came to
cracks that were too narrow to give a hold to his aching toes. And then
he was at one of the gun-ports. He slithered quietly across its six feet
of flat masonry and cautiously looked over the edge into the park. As he
had expected, there were stone steps down from the gun-port, and he
crept down these into the dark shadows at its base and stood up against
the inside of the wall, panting quietly. He waited for his breath to
calm down and then slipped back his cowl and listened. Not a wisp of
wind stirred in the trees, but from somewhere came the sound of softly
running water and, in the background, a regular glutinous burping and
bubbling. The fumaroles! Bond, a black shadow among the rest, edged
along the wall to his right. His first task was to find a hideout, a
base camp where he could bivouac in emergency and where he could leave
his container. He reconnoitred various groves and clumps of bushes, but
they were all damnably well-kept, and the undergrowth had been
meticulously cleared from their roots. And many of them exuded a sickly
sweet, poisonous night-smell. Then, up against the wall, he came upon a
lean-to shed, its rickety door ajar. He listened and then inched the
door open. As he had expected, there was a shadowy jumble of gardeners'
tools, wheelbarrows, and the like, and the musty smell of such places.
Moving carefully, and helped by shafts of moonlight through the wide
cracks in the planked walls, he got to the back of the hut, where there
was an untidy mound of used sacking. He reflected for a moment and
decided that, though this place would be often visited, it had great
promise. He untied the cord of the container from his wrist and
proceeded methodically to move some of the sacks forward so as to
provide a nest for himself behind them. When it was finished, and final
touches of artistic disarray added, he parked his container behind the
barrier and crept out again into the park to continue what he planned
should be a first quick survey of the whole property.

Bond kept close to the boundary wall, flitting like a bat across the
open spaces between clumps of bushes and trees. Although his hands were
covered with the black material of the _ninja_ suit, he avoided contact
with the vegetation, which emitted a continually changing variety of
strong odours and scents amongst which he recognized, as a result of
ancient adventures in the Caribbean, only the sugary perfume of dogwood.
He came to the lake, a wide silent shimmer of silver from which rose the
thin cloud of steam he remembered from the aerial photograph. As he
stood and watched it, a large leaf from one of the surrounding trees
came wafting down and settled on the surface near him. At once a quick
purposeful ripple swept down on the leaf from the surrounding water and
immediately subsided. There were some kind of fish in the lake, and they
would be carnivores. Only carnivores would be excited like that at the
hint of a prey. Beyond the lake, Bond came on the first of the
fumaroles, a sulphurous, bubbling pool of mud that constantly shuddered
and spouted up little fountains. From yards away, Bond could feel its
heat. Jets of stinking steam puffed out and disappeared, wraith-like,
towards the sky. Now the jagged silhouette of the castle, with its
winged turrets, showed above the tree-line, and Bond crept forward with
added caution, alert for the moment when he would come upon the
treacherous gravel that surrounded it. Suddenly, through a belt of
trees, he was facing it. He stopped in the shelter of the trees, his
heart hammering under his rib-cage.

Close to, the soaring black-and-gold pile reared monstrously over him,
and the diminishing curved roofs of the storeys were like vast bat-wings
against the stars. It was even bigger than Bond had imagined, and the
supporting wall of black granite blocks more formidable. He reflected on
the seemingly impossible problem of entry. Behind would be the main
entrance, the lowish wall, and the open country-side. But didn't castles
always have an alternative entrance low down for a rearward escape? Bond
stole cautiously forward, laying his feet flat down so that the gravel
barely stirred. The many eyes of the castle, glittering white in the
moonlight, watched his approach with the indifference of total power. At
any moment, he expected the white shaft of a searchlight or the
yellow-and-blue flutter of gunfire. But he reached the base of the wall
without incident and followed it along to the left, remembering from
ancient schooling that most castles had an exit at moat level beneath
the drawbridge.

And so it was with the castle of Doctor Shatterhand--a small
nail-studded door, arched and weather-beaten. Its hinges and lock were
cracked and rusty, but a new padlock and chain had been stapled into the
woodwork and the stone frame. No moonlight filtered down to this corner
of what must once have been a moat but was now grassed over. Bond felt
carefully with his fingers. Yes! The chain and lock would yield to the
file and jemmy in his conjurer's pockets. Would there be bolts on the
inner side? Probably not, or the padlock would not have been thought
necessary. Bond softly retraced his steps across the gravel, stepping
meticulously in his previous foot-marks. That door would be his target
for tomorrow!

Now, keeping right-handed, but still following the boundary wall, he
crept off again on his survey. Once, something slithered away from his
approaching feet and disappeared with a heavy rustle into the fallen
leaves under a tree. What snakes were there that really went for a man?
The king-cobra, black mamba, the saw-scaled viper, the rattlesnake, and
the fer de lance. What others? The remainder were inclined to make off
if disturbed. Were snakes day or night hunters? Bond didn't know. Among
so many hazards, there weren't even the odds of Russian Roulette. When
all the chambers of the pistol were loaded, there was not even a
one-in-six chance to bank on.

Bond was now on the castle side of the lake. He heard a noise and edged
behind a tree. The distant crashing in the shrubbery sounded like a
wounded animal, but then, down the path, came staggering a man, or what
had once been a man. The brilliant moonlight showed a head swollen to
the size of a football, and only small slits remained where the eyes and
mouth had been. The man moaned softly as he zigzagged along, and Bond
could see that his hands were up to his puffed face and that he was
trying to prise apart the swollen skin round his eyes so that he could
see out. Every now and then he stopped and let out one word in an
agonizing howl to the moon. It was not a howl of fear or of pain, but of
dreadful supplication. Suddenly he stopped. He seemed to see the lake
for the first time. With a terrible cry, and holding out his arms as if
to meet a loved one, he made a quick run to the edge and threw himself
in. At once there came the swirl of movement Bond had noticed before,
but this time it involved a great area of water and there was a wild
boiling of the surface round the vaguely threshing body. A mass of small
fish were struggling to get at the man, particularly at the naked hands
and face, and their six-inch bodies glittered and flashed in the
moonlight. Once the man raised his head and let out a single terrible
scream, and Bond saw that his face was encrusted with pendent fish as if
with silvery locks of hair. Then his head fell back into the lake and he
rolled over and over as if trying to rid himself of his attackers. But
slowly the black stain spread and spread around him and finally, perhaps
because his jugular had been pierced, he lay still, face downwards in
the water, and his head jigged slightly with the ceaseless momentum of
the attack.

James Bond wiped the cold sweat off his face. Piranha! The South
American fresh-water killer whose massive jaws and flat razor-sharp
teeth can strip a horse down to the bones in under an hour! And this man
had been one of the suicides who had heard of this terrible death! He
had come searching for the lake and had got his face poisoned by some
pretty shrub. The Herr Doktor had certainly provided a feast for his
victims. Unending dishes for their delectation! A true banquet of death!

James Bond shuddered and went on his way. All right, Blofeld, he
thought, that's one more notch on the sword that is already on its way
down to your neck. Brave words! Bond hugged the wall and kept going.
Gun-metal was showing in the east.

But the Garden of Death hadn't quite finished the display of its wares.

All over the park, a slight smell of sulphur hung in the air, and many
times Bond had had to detour round steaming cracks in the ground and the
quaking mud of fumaroles, identified by a warning circle of
white-painted stones. The Doctor was most careful lest anyone should
fall into one of these liquid furnaces by mistake! But now Bond came to
one the size of a circular tennis court, and here there was a rough
shrine in the grotto at the back of it and, dainty touch, a vase with
flowers in it--chrysanthemums, because it was now almost the
chrysanthemum season. They were arranged with some sprigs of dwarf
maple, in a pattern which no doubt spelled out some fragrant message to
the initiates of Japanese flower arrangement. And opposite the grotto,
behind which Bond in his ghostly black uniform crouched in concealment,
a Japanese gentleman stood in rapt contemplation of the bursting
mud-boils that were erupting genteelly in the simmering soup of the
pool. James Bond thought "gentleman" because the man was dressed in the
top hat, frock coat, striped trousers, stiff collar and spats of a high
government official--or of the father of the bride. And the gentleman
held a carefully rolled umbrella between his clasped hands, and his head
was bowed over its crook as if in penance. He was speaking, in a soft
compulsive babble, like someone in a highly ritualistic church, but he
made no gestures and just stood, humbly, quietly, either confessing or
asking one of the gods for something.

Bond stood against a tree, black in the blackness. He felt he should
intervene in what he knew to be the man's purpose. But how to do so,
knowing no Japanese, having nothing but his "deaf and dumb" card to
show? And it was vital that he should remain a "ghost" in the garden,
not get involved in some daft argument with a man he didn't know, about
some ancient sin he could never understand. So Bond stood, while the
trees threw long black arms across the scene, and waited, with a cold,
closed, stone face, for death to walk on stage.

The man stopped talking. He raised his head and gazed up at the moon. He
politely lifted his shining top hat. Then he replaced it, tucked his
umbrella under one arm, and sharply clapped his hands. Then walking, as
if to a business appointment, calmly, purposefully, he took the few
steps to the edge of the bubbling fumarole, stepped carefully over the
warning stones, and went on walking. He sank slowly in the glutinous
grey slime; not a sound escaped his lips until, as the tremendous heat
reached his groin, he uttered one rasping "Arghh!" and the gold in his
teeth showed as his head arched back in the rictus of death. Then he was
gone, and only the top hat remained, tossing on a small fountain of mud
that spat intermittently into the air. Then the hat slowly crumpled with
the heat and disappeared, and a great belch was uttered from the belly
of the fumarole and a horrible stench of cooking meat overcame the
pervading stink of sulphur and reached Bond's nostrils.

Bond controlled his rising gorge. Honourable salary-man had gone to
honourable ancestors--his unknown sin expiated as his calcined bones
sank slowly down into the stomach of the world. And one more statistic
would be run up on Blofeld's abacus of death. Why didn't the Japanese
air-force come and bomb this place to eternity, set the castle and the
poison garden ablaze with napalm? How could this man continue to have
protection from a bunch of botanists and scientists? And now here was
he, Bond, alone in this hell to try and do the job with almost no weapon
but his bare hands. It was hopeless! He was scarcely being given a
chance in a million. Tiger and his Prime Minister were certainly
exacting their pound of flesh in exchange for their precious MAGIC
44--one hundred and eighty-two pounds of it, to be exact!

Cursing his fate, cursing Tiger, cursing the whole of Japan, Bond went
on his way, while a small voice whispered in his ear, "But don't you
want to kill Blofeld? Don't you want to avenge Tracy? Isn't this a
God-given chance? You have done well tonight. You have penetrated his
defences and spied out the land. You have even found a way into his
castle and probably up to his bedroom. Kill him in his sleep tomorrow!
And kill her, too, while you're about it! And then back into Kissy's
arms and, in a week or two, back over the pole to London and to the
applause of your chief. Come on! Somewhere in Japan, a Japanese is
committing suicide every thirty minutes all through the year. Don't be
squeamish because you've just seen a couple of numbers ticked off on a
sheet in the Ministry of Health, a couple of points added to a graph.
Snap out of it! Get on with the job!"

And Bond listened to the whisper and went on round the last mile of wall
and back to the gardeners' hut.

He took a last look round before going in. He could see a neck of the
lake about twenty yards away. It was now gun-metal in the approaching
dawn. Some big insects were flitting and darting through the softly
rising steam. They were pink dragonflies. Pink ones. Dancing and
skimming. But of course! The _haiku_ of Tiger's dying agent! That was
the last nightmarish touch to this obscenity of a place. Bond went into
the hut, picked his way carefully between the machines and wheelbarrows,
pulled some sacks over himself, and fell into a shallow sleep full of
ghosts and demons and screams.




17. SOMETHING EVIL COMES THIS WAY


The dreamed screams had merged into real ones when, four hours later,
Bond awoke. There was silence in the hut. Bond got cautiously to his
knees and put his eye to a wide crack in the rickety planking. A
screaming man, from his ragged blue cotton uniform a Japanese peasant,
was running across his line of vision along the edge of the lake. Four
guards were after him, laughing and calling as if it were a game of
hide-and-seek. They were carrying long staves, and now one of them
paused and hurled his stave accurately after the man so that it caught
in his legs and brought him crashing to the ground. He scrambled to his
knees and held supplicating hands out towards his pursuers. Still
laughing, they gathered round him, stocky men in high rubber boots,
their faces made terrifying by the black _maskos_ over their mouths,
black leather nose-pieces, and the same ugly black leather soup-plate
hats as the agent on the train had worn. They poked at the man with the
ends of their staves, at the same time shouting harshly at him in voices
that jeered. Then, as if at an order, they bent down and, each man
seizing a leg or an arm, picked him off the ground, swung him once or
twice, and tossed him out into the lake. The ghastly ripple surged
forward, and the man, now screaming again, beat at his face with his
hands and floundered as if trying to make for the shore, but the screams
rapidly became weaker and finally ceased as the head went down and the
red stain spread wider and wider.

Doubled up with laughter, the guards on the bank watched the show. Now,
satisfied that the fun was over, they turned away and walked towards the
hut, and Bond could see the tears of their pleasure glistening on their
cheeks.

He got back under cover and heard their boisterous voices and laughter
only yards away as they came into the hut and pulled out their rakes and
barrows and dispersed to their jobs, and for some time Bond could hear
them calling to each other across the park. Then, from the direction of
the castle, came the deep tolling of a bell, and the men fell silent.
Bond glanced at the cheap Japanese wrist-watch Tiger had provided. It
was nine o'clock. Was this the beginning of the official working day?
Probably. The Japanese usually get to their work half an hour early and
leave half an hour late in order to gain face with their employer and
show keenness and gratitude for their jobs. Later, Bond guessed, there
would be an hour's luncheon break. Work would probably cease at six. So
it would only be from six-thirty on that he would have the grounds to
himself. Meanwhile, he must listen and watch and find out more about the
guards' routines, of which he had presumably witnessed the first--the
smelling out and final dispatch of suicides who had changed their minds
or turned faint-hearted during the night. Bond softly unzipped his
container and took a bite at one of his three slabs of pemmican and a
short draught from his water-bottle. God, for a cigarette!

An hour later, Bond heard a brief shuffling of feet on the gravel path
on the other side of the lake. He looked through the slit. The four
guards had lined up and were standing rigidly to attention. Bond's heart
beat a little faster. This would be for some form of inspection. Might
Blofeld be doing his rounds, getting his reports of the night's bag?

Bond strained his eyes to the right, towards the castle, but his view
was obstructed by an expanse of white oleanders, that innocent shrub
with its attractive clusters of blossom that is used as a deadly fish
poison in many parts of the tropics. Dear, pretty bush! Bond thought. I
must remember to keep clear of you tonight.

And then, following the path on the other side of the lake, two
strolling figures came into his line of vision, and Bond clenched his
fists with the thrill of seeing his prey.

Blofeld, in his gleaming chain armour and grotesquely spiked and winged
helmet of steel, its visor closed, was something out of Wagner, or,
because of the Oriental style of his armour, a Japanese _Kabuki_ play.
His armoured right hand rested easily on a long naked _samurai_ sword,
while his left was hooked into the arm of his companion, a stumpy woman
with the body and stride of a wardress. Her face was totally obscured by
a hideous bee-keeper's hat of dark-green straw with a heavy pendent
black veil reaching down over her shoulders. But there could be no
doubt! Bond had seen that dumpy silhouette, now clothed in a plastic
rainproof above tall rubber boots, too often in his dreams. That was
her! That was Irma Bunt!

Bond held his breath. If they came round the lake to his side, one
tremendous shove and the armoured man would be floundering in the water!
But could the piranhas get at him through chinks in the armour?
Unlikely! And how would he, Bond, get away? No, that wouldn't be the
answer.

The two figures had almost reached the line of four men, and at this
moment the guards dropped to their knees in unison and bowed their
foreheads down to the ground. Then they quickly jumped up and stood
again at attention.

Blofeld raised his visor and addressed one of the men, who answered with
deference. Bond noticed for the first time that this particular guard
wore a belt round his waist with a holstered automatic. Bond couldn't
hear the language they were speaking. It was impossible that Blofeld had
learned Japanese. English or German? Probably the latter, as a result of
some wartime liaison job. The man laughed and pointed towards the lake,
where a collapsed balloon of blue clothing was jigging softly with the
activities of the horde of feasting piranhas within it. Blofeld nodded
his approval, and the men again went down on their knees. Blofeld raised
a hand in brief acknowledgement, lowered his visor, and the couple moved
regally on.

Bond watched carefully to see if the file of guards, when they got to
their feet, registered any private expressions of scorn or hilarity once
the Master's back was turned. But there was no hint of disrespect. The
men broke ranks and hurried off about their tasks with disciplined
seriousness, and Bond was reminded of Dikko Henderson's illustration of
the automatic ant-like subservience to discipline and authority of the
Japanese that had resulted in one of the great crimes of the century. If
only dear Dikko were here now. What a tremendous boost his fists and his
surging zest would add to this lunatic operation!

The crime had concerned, said Dikko, a modest suburban branch of the
Imperial Bank. It had been a normal day of business, when a man wearing
an official-looking arm-band had presented himself to the manager of the
bank. He was from the Ministry of Health. An outbreak of typhus was
feared, and he would be obliged if the manager would line up his staff
in the courtyard so that he could administer the official antidote. The
manager bowed and complied, and after everything had been locked up, the
staff of fourteen assembled and listened carefully to the short lecture
on health delivered by the man with the arm-band. Then everyone had
bowed in acknowledgement of the wisdom of the Ministry of Health, and
the official had bent to his small suit-case and produced fifteen
glasses into which he measured medicine from a bottle. He handed a glass
to each person and advised them to swallow the mixture at one gulp as
otherwise it might damage their teeth. "Now," he had said, according to
Dikko's version. "All together! One. Two. Three!" And down went the
honourable medicine and down fell the honourable local manager and staff
of the Imperial Bank of Japan. The medicine had been neat cyanide.

The "Ministry of Health official" had removed the keys from the
trouser-pocket of the prone manager, had loaded up his car with two
hundred and fifty million yen, and had driven cheerfully from the scene
of what was to become known as the "Teigin case," after the suburb in
which it took place.

And here, Bond reflected, was the same total obedience to authority, but
in this case the tacit approval and sympathy of the Black Dragon
philosophy was operating. Blofeld told them to do such things as he had
witnessed a couple of hours before. He was invested with power from
certain departments of state. He had dressed for the part. His orders
were obeyed. And there was honourable job to be done. Honourable job
which resulted in much publicity in the newspapers. And this was a
powerful _gaijin_ who had powerful squeeze in high places and "a wide
face." And if people wanted to kill themselves, why worry? If the Castle
of Death, with perhaps an occasional extra push, was not available, they
would choose the railways or the trams. Here was a public service.
Almost a sub-department of the Ministry of Health! So long as their
_maskos_ and nose-pieces protected them from the poisons in the garden,
the main thing was to do their jobs conscientiously, and perhaps one day
they would get a Minister of Self-Destruction appointed in the Diet!
Then the great days of the Black Dragon _Koan_ would come again to save
the Land of the Rising Sun from the creeping paralysis of _demokorasu_!

Now the two strolling figures were coming back into Bond's line of
vision, but this time from the left. They had rounded the end of the
lake and were on their way back, perhaps to visit other groups of guards
and get their reports. Tiger had said there were at least twenty guards
and that the property covered five hundred acres. Five working parties
of four guards each? Blofeld's visor was up, and he was talking to the
woman. They were now only twenty yards away. They stopped at the edge of
the lake and contemplated, with relaxed curiosity, the still turbulent
mass of fish round the floating doll of blue cloth. They were talking
German. Bond strained his ears.

Blofeld said, "The piranhas and the volcanic mud are useful
housekeepers. They keep the place tidy."

"The sea and the sharks are also useful."

"But often the sharks do not complete the job. That spy we put through
the Question Room. He was almost intact when his body was found down the
coast. The lake would have been a better place for him. We don't want
that policeman from Fukuoka coming here too often. He may have means of
learning from the peasants how many people are crossing the wall. That
will be many more, nearly double the number the ambulance comes for. If
our figures go on increasing at this rate, there is going to be trouble.
I see from the cuttings Kono translates for me that there are already
mutterings in the papers about a public enquiry."

"And what shall we do then, lieber Ernst?"

"We shall obtain massive compensation and move on. The same pattern can
be repeated in other countries. Everywhere there are people who want to
kill themselves. We may have to vary the attractions of the
opportunities we offer them. Other people have not the profound love of
horror and violence of the Japanese. A really beautiful waterfall. A
handy bridge. A vertiginous drop. These might be alternatives. Brazil,
or somewhere else in South America, might provide such a site."

"But the figures would be much smaller."

"It is the concept that matters, liebe Irma. It is very difficult to
invent something that is entirely new in the history of the world. I
have done that. If my bridge, my waterfall, yields a crop of only
perhaps ten people a year, it is simply a matter of statistics. The
basic idea will be kept alive."

"That is so. You are indeed a genius, lieber Ernst. You have already
established this place as a shrine to death for evermore. People read
about such fantasies in the works of Poe, Lautramont, de Sade, but no
one has ever created such a fantasy in real life. It is as if one of the
great fairytales has come to life. A sort of Disneyland of Death. But of
course," she hastened to add, "on an altogether grander, more poetic
scale."

"In due course, I shall write the whole story down. Then perhaps the
world will acknowledge the type of man who has been living among them. A
man not only unhonoured and unsung, but a man"--Blofeld's voice rose
almost to a scream--"whom they hunt down and wish to shoot like a mad
dog. A man who has to use all his wiles just to stay alive! Why, if I
had not covered my tracks so well, there would be spies on their way
even now to kill us both or to hand us over for official murder under
their stupid laws! Ah well, liebe Irma," the voice was more rational,
quieter, "we live in a world of fools in which true greatness is a sin.
Come! It is time to review the other detachments."

They turned away and were about to continue along the lake when Blofeld
suddenly stopped and pointed like a dog directly at Bond. "That hut
among the bushes. The door is open! I have told the men a thousand times
to keep such places locked. It is a perfect refuge for a spy or a
fugitive. I will make sure."

Bond shivered. He huddled down, dragging sacks from the top of his
barrier to give extra protection. The clanking steps approached, entered
the hut. Bond could feel the man, only yards away, could feel his
questing eyes and nostrils. There came a clang of metal, and the wall of
sacks shook at great thrusts from Blofeld's sword. Then the sword
slashed down again and again. Bond winced and bit his lip as a
hammer-blow crashed across the centre of his back. But then Blofeld
seemed to be satisfied, and the iron steps clanged away. Bond let out
his breath in a quiet hiss. He heard Blofeld's voice say, "There is
nothing, but remind me to reprimand Kono on our rounds tomorrow. The
place must be cleared out and a proper lock fitted." Then the sound of
the steps vanished in the direction of the oleander clump, and Bond gave
a groan and felt his back. But, though many of the sacks above him had
been sliced through, his protection had been just deep enough--the skin
across his spine wasn't broken.

Bond got to his knees and rearranged the hide-out, massaging his aching
back as he did so. Then he spat the dust from the sacking out of his
mouth, took a swallow from the water-bottle, assured himself through his
slit that there was no movement outside, and lay down and let his mind
wander back over every word that Blofeld had uttered.

Of course the man was mad. A year earlier, the usual quiet tones that
Bond remembered so well would never have cracked into that lunatic,
Hitler scream. And the coolness, the supreme confidence that had always
lain behind his planning? Much of that seemed to have seeped away,
perhaps, Bond hoped, partly because of the two great failures he, Bond,
had done much to bring about in two of Blofeld's most grandiose
conspiracies. But one thing was clear--the hide-out was blown. Tonight
would have to be the night. Ah, well! Once again Bond ran over the hazy
outline of his plan. If he could gain access to the castle, he felt
pretty confident of finding a means to kill Blofeld. But he was also
fairly certain that he himself would die in the process. Dulce et
decorum est... and all that jazz! But then he thought of Kissy, and
he wasn't so sure about not fearing for himself. She had brought a
sweetness back into his life that he thought had gone for ever.

Bond dropped off into an uneasy watchful sleep that was once again
peopled by things and creatures out of nightmareland.




18. OUBLIETTE

At six o'clock in the evening, the deep bell tolled briefly from the
castle and dusk came like the slow drawing of a violet blind over the
day. Crickets began to zing in a loud chorus, and geckos chuckled in the
shrubbery. The pink dragonflies disappeared and large horned toads
appeared in quantities from their mud holes on the edge of the lake and,
so far as Bond could see through his spy-hole, seemed to be catching
gnats attracted by the shining pools of their eyes. Then the four guards
reappeared, and there came the fragrant smell of a bonfire they had
presumably lit to consume the refuse they had collected during the day.
They went to the edge of the lake and raked in the tattered scraps of
blue clothing and, amidst delighted laughter, emptied long bones out of
the fragments into the water. One of them ran off with the rags,
presumably to add them to the bonfire, and Bond got under cover as the
others pushed their wheelbarrows up the slope and stowed them away in
the hut. They stood chattering happily in the dusk until the fourth
arrived, and then, without noticing the slashed and disarrayed sacks in
the shadows, they filed off in the direction of the castle.

After an interval, Bond got up and stretched and shook the dust out of
his hair and clothes. His back still ached, but his overwhelming
sensation was the desperate urge for a cigarette. All right. It might be
his last. He sat down and drank a little water and munched a large wedge
of the highly flavoured pemmican, then took another swig at the
water-bottle. He took out his single packet of Shinsei and lit up,
holding the cigarette between cupped hands and quickly blowing out the
match. He dragged the smoke deep down into his lungs. It was bliss!
Another drag and the prospect of the night seemed less daunting. It was
surely going to be all right! He thought briefly of Kissy, who would now
be eating her bean curd and fish and preparing the night's swim in her
mind. A few hours more and she would be near him. But what would have
happened in those few hours? Bond smoked the cigarette until it burned
his fingers, then crushed out the stub and pushed the dead fragments
down through a crack in the floor. It was seven-thirty, and already some
of the insect noises of sundown had ceased. Bond went meticulously about
his preparations.

At nine o'clock, he left the hide-out. Again the moon blazed down, and
there was total silence except for the distant burping and bubbling of
the fumaroles and the occasional sinister chuckle of a gecko from the
shrubbery. He took the same route as the night before, came through the
same belt of trees, and stood looking up at the great bat-winged donjon
that towered up to the sky. He noticed for the first time that the
warning balloon with its advertisement of danger was tethered to a pole
on the corner of the balustrade surrounding what appeared to be the main
floor--the third, or centre one of the five. Here, from several windows,
yellow light shone faintly, and Bond guessed that this would be his
target area. He let out a deep sigh and strode quietly off across the
gravel and came without incident to the tiny entrance under the wooden
bridge.

The black _ninja_ suit was as full of concealed pockets as a conjurer's
tail-coat. Bond took out a pencil flashlight and a small steel file and
set to work on a link of the chain. Occasionally he paused to spit into
the deepening groove to lessen the rasp of metal on metal, but then
there came the final crack of parting steel, and using the file as a
lever, he bent the link open and quietly removed the padlock and chain
from its stanchions. He pressed lightly, and the door gave inwards. He
took out his torch and pushed farther, probing the darkness ahead with
his thin beam. It was as well he did so. On the stone floor where his
first step past the open door would have taken him lay a yawning
man-trap, its rusty iron jaws, perhaps a yard across, waiting for him to
step on the thin covering of straw that partially concealed it. Bond
winced as, in his imagination, he heard the iron clang as the saw-teeth
bit into his leg below the knee. There would be other such booby
traps--he must keep every sense on the alert!

Bond closed the door softly behind him, stepped round the trap, and
swept the beam of his torch ahead and around him. Nothing but velvety
blackness. He was in some vast underground cellar where no doubt the
food supplies for a small army had once been stored. A shadow swept
across the thin beam of light, then another and another, and there was a
shrill squeaking from all around him. Bond didn't mind bats or believe
the Victorian myth that they got caught in your hair. Their radar was
too good. He crept slowly forward, watching only the rough stone flags
ahead of him. He passed one or two bulky arched pillars, and now the
great cellar seemed to narrow because he could just see walls to right
and left of him and above him an arched cobwebby roof. Yes, here were
the stone steps leading upwards! He climbed them softly and counted
twenty of them before he came to the entrance, a wide double door with
no lock on his side. He pushed gently and could feel and hear the
resistance of a rickety-sounding lock. He took out a heavy jemmy and
probed. Its sharp jaws notched round some sort of a cross-bolt, and Bond
levered hard sideways until there came the tearing sound of old metal
and the tinkle of nails or screws on stone. He pushed softly on the
crack, and with a hideously loud report, the rest of the lock came away
and half the door swung open with a screech of old hinges. Beyond was
more darkness. Bond stepped through and listened, his torch doused. But
he was still deep in the bowels of the castle, and there was no sound.
He switched on again. More stone stairs leading up to a modern door of
polished timber. He went up them and carefully turned the metal door
handle. No lock this time! He softly pushed the door open and found
himself in a long stone corridor that sloped on upwards. At the end was
yet another modern door, and beneath it showed a thin strip of light!

Bond walked noiselessly up the incline and then held his breath and put
his ear to the keyhole. Dead silence. He grasped the handle and inched
the door open and then, satisfied, went through and closed the door
behind him, leaving it on the latch. He was in the main hall of the
castle. The big entrance door was on his left, and a well-used strip of
red carpet stretched away from it and across the fifty feet of hall into
the shadows that were not reached by the single large oil lamp over the
entrance. The hall was not embellished in any way, save for the strip of
carpet, and its roof was a maze of longitudinal and cross beams
interspersed with latticed bamboo over the same rough plaster-work as
covered the walls. There was still the same castle-smell of cold stone.

Bond kept away from the carpet and hugged the shadows of the walls. He
guessed that he was now on the main floor and that somewhere straight
ahead was his quarry. He was well inside the citadel. So far so good!

The next door, obviously the entrance to one of the public rooms, had a
simple latch to it. Bond bent and put his eye to the keyhole. Another
dimly lit interior. No sound. He eased up the latch, inched the door
ajar, and then open, and went through. It was a second vast chamber, but
this time one of baronial splendour--the main reception room, Bond
guessed, where Blofeld would receive visitors. Between tall red
curtains, edged with gold, fine set-pieces of armour and weapons hung on
the white plaster walls, and there was much heavy antique furniture
arranged in conventional groupings on a vast central carpet in royal
blue. The rest of the floor was of highly polished boards, which
reflected back the lights from two great oil lanterns that hung from the
high timbered roof, similar to that of the entrance hall, but here with
the main beams decorated in a zigzag motif of dark red. Bond, looking
for places of concealment, chose the widely spaced curtains and,
slipping softly from one refuge to the next, reached the small door at
the end of the chamber that would, he guessed, lead to the private
apartments.

He bent down to listen, but immediately leaped for cover behind the
nearest curtains. Steps were approaching! Bond undid the thin chain from
around his waist, wrapped it round his left fist, took the jemmy in his
right hand, and waited, his eyes glued to a chink in the dusty-smelling
material.

The small door opened halfway to show the back of one of the guards. He
wore a black belt with a holster. Would this be Kono, the man who
translated for Blofeld? He had probably had some job with the Germans
during the war--in the _Kempeitai_, perhaps. What was he doing? He
appeared to be fiddling with some piece of apparatus behind the door. A
light switch? No, there was no electric light. Apparently satisfied, the
man backed out, bowed deeply to the interior, and closed the door. He
wore no _masko_, and Bond caught a brief glimpse of a surly slit-eyed
brownish face as he passed Bond's place of concealment and walked on
across the reception chamber. Bond heard the click of the far door, and
then there was silence. He waited a good five minutes before gently
shifting the curtain so that he could see down the room. He was alone.

And now for the last lap!

Bond kept his weapons in his hands and crept back to the door. This time
no sound came from behind it. But the guard had bowed. Oh well! Probably
out of respect for the aura of the Master. Bond quietly but firmly
thrust the door open and leaped through, ready for the attacking sprint.

A totally empty, totally featureless length of passageway yawned at his
dramatics. It stretched perhaps twenty feet in front of him. It was
dimly lit by a central oil lamp, and its floor was of the usual highly
polished boards. A "nightingale floor"? No. The guard's footsteps had
uttered no warning creaks. But from behind the facing door at the end
came the sound of music. It was Wagner, the "Ride of the Valkyries,"
being played at medium pitch. Thank you, Blofeld! thought Bond. Most
helpful cover. And he crept softly forward down the centre of the
passage.

When it came, there was absolutely no warning. One step across the exact
halfway point of the flooring and, like a seesaw, the whole twenty feet
of boards swivelled noiselessly on some central axis. Bond, arms and
legs flailing and hands scrabbling desperately for a grip, found himself
hurtling down into a black void. The guard! The fiddling about behind
the door! He had been adjusting the lever that set the trap, the
traditional oubliette of ancient castles. And Bond had forgotten! As his
body plunged off the end of the inclined platform into space, an alarm
bell, triggered by the mechanism of the trap, brayed hysterically. Bond
had a fractional impression of the platform, relieved of his weight,
swinging back into position above him, then he crashed shatteringly into
unconsciousness.

Bond swam reluctantly up through the dark tunnel towards the blinding
pinpoint of light. Why wouldn't someone stop hitting him? What had he
done to deserve it? He had got two _awabis_. He could feel them in his
hands, sharp-edged and rough. That was as much as Kissy could expect of
him. "Kissy," he mumbled, "stop it! Stop it, Kissy!"

The pinpoint of light expanded, became an expanse of straw-covered floor
on which he was crouching while the open hand crashed sideways into his
face. Piff! Paff! With each slap the splitting pain in his head exploded
into a thousand separate pain fragments. Bond saw the edge of the boat
above him and desperately raised himself to grasp at it. He held up the
_awabis_ to show that he had done his duty. He opened his hands to drop
them into the tub. Consciousness flooded back, and he saw the two
handfuls of straw dribble to the ground. But the blows had stopped. And
now he could see, indistinctly, through a mist of pain. That brown face.
Those slit eyes. Kono, the guard. And someone else was holding a torch
for him. Then it all came back. No _awabis_! No Kissy! Something
dreadful had happened! Everything had gone wrong! _Shimatta!_ I have
made a mistake! Tiger! The clue clicked and total realization swept
through Bond's mind. Careful, now. You're deaf and dumb. You're a
Japanese miner from Fukuoka. Get the record straight. To hell with the
pain in your head. Nothing's broken. Play it cool. Bond put his hands
down to his sides. He realized for the first time that he was naked save
for the brief vee of the black cotton _ninja_ underpants. He bowed
deeply and straightened himself. Kono, his hand at his open holster,
fired furious Japanese at him. Bond licked at the blood that was
trickling down his face and looked blank, stupid. Kono took out his
small automatic, gestured. Bond bowed again, got to his feet, and, with
a brief glance round the straw-strewn oubliette into which he had
fallen, followed the unseen guard with the torch out of the cell.

There were stairs and a corridor and a door. Kono stepped forward and
knocked.

And then Bond was standing in the middle of a small pleasant
library-type room and the second guard was laying out on the floor
Bond's _ninja_ suit and the appallingly incriminating contents of his
pockets. Blofeld, dressed in a magnificent black silk kimono across
which a golden dragon sprawled, stood leaning against the mantelpiece
beneath which a Japanese brazier smouldered. It was him all right. The
bland high forehead, the pursed purple wound of a mouth, now shadowed by
a heavy grey-black moustache that drooped at the corners, on its way,
perhaps, to achieving mandarin proportions, the mane of white hair he
had grown for the part of Monsieur le Comte de Bleuville, the black
bullet-holes of the eyes. And beside him, completing the picture of a
homely couple at ease after dinner, sat Irma Bunt, in the full regalia
of a high-class Japanese lady, the petit point of a single chrysanthemum
lying in her lap waiting for those pudgy hands to take it up when the
cause of this unseemly disturbance had been ascertained. The puffy
square face, the tight bun of mousy hair, the thin wardress mouth, the
light-brown, almost yellow eyes. By God, thought Bond dully, here they
are! Within easy reach! They would both be dead by now but for his
single criminal error. Might there still be some way of turning the
tables? If only the pain in his head would stop throbbing!

Blofeld's tall sword stood against the wall. He picked it up and strode
out into the room. He stood over the pile of Bond's possessions and
picked them over with the tip of the sword. He hooked up the black suit.
He said in German, "And what is this, Kono?"

The head guard replied in the same language. His voice was uneasy, and
his eye-slits swivelled with a certain respect towards Bond and away
again. "It is a _ninja_ suit, Herr Doktor. These are people who practise
the secret arts of _ninjutsu_. Their secrets are very ancient, and I
know little of them. They are the art of moving by stealth, of being
invisible, of killing without weapons. These people used to be much
feared in Japan. I was not aware that they still existed. This man has
undoubtedly been sent to assassinate you, my lord. But for the magic of
the passage, he might well have succeeded."

"And who is he?" Blofeld looked keenly at Bond. "He is tall for a
Japanese."

"The men from the mines are often tall men, my lord. He carries a paper
saying that he is deaf and dumb. And other papers, which appear to be in
order, stating that he is a miner from Fukuoka. I do not believe this.
His hands have some broken nails, but they are not the hands of a
miner."

"I do not believe it either. But we shall soon find out." Blofeld turned
to the woman. "What do you think, my dear? You have a good nose for such
problems--the instincts of a woman."

Irma Bunt rose and came and stood beside him. She looked piercingly at
Bond and then walked slowly round him, keeping her distance. When she
came to the left profile, she said softly, with awe, "Du lieber Gott!"
She went back to Blofeld. She said in a hoarse whisper, still staring,
almost with horror, at Bond, "It cannot be! But it is! The scar down the
right cheek! The profile! And the eyebrows have been shaved to give that
upward tilt!" She turned to Blofeld. She said decisively, "This is the
English agent. This is the man Bond, James Bond, the man whose wife you
killed. The man who went under the name of Sir Hilary Bray." She added
fiercely, "I swear it! You have got to believe me, lieber Ernst!"

Blofeld's eyes had narrowed. "I see a certain resemblance. But how has
he come here? How has he found me? Who sent him?"

"The Japanese Geheimdienst. They will certainly have relations with the
British Secret Service."

"I cannot believe it! If that was so, they would have come with warrants
to arrest me. There are too many unknown factors in this business. We
must proceed with great circumspection and extract the whole truth from
this man. We must at once find out if he is deaf and dumb. That is the
first step. The Question Room should settle that. But first of all, he
must be softened up." He turned to Kono. "Tell Kazama to get to work."




19. THE QUESTION ROOM


There were now ten guards in the room. They stood lined up against the
wall behind Kono. They were all armed with their long staves. Kono fired
an order at one of them. The man left his stave in an angle of the wall
and came forward. He was a great box-like man with a totally bald,
shining head like a ripe fruit and hands like hams. He took up his
position in front of Bond, his legs straddled for balance and his lips
drawn back in a snarling smile of broken black teeth. Then he swung his
right hand sideways at Bond's head and slapped him with tremendous force
exactly on the bruise of Bond's fall. Bond's head exploded with fire.
Then the left hand came at him, and Bond rocked sideways. Through a mist
of blood he could see Blofeld and his woman. Blofeld was merely
interested, as a scientist, but the woman's lips were parted and wet.

Bond took ten blows and knew that he must act while he still had the
purpose and the strength. The straddled legs offered the perfect target.
So long as the man had not practised the _sumo_ trick! Through a haze,
Bond took aim and, as another giant blow was on its way, kicked upwards
with every ounce of force left to him. His foot slammed home. The man
gave an animal scream and crashed to the ground, clasping himself and
rolling from side to side in agony. The guards made a concerted rush
forward, their staves lifted, and Kono had his gun out. Bond leaped for
the protection of a tall chair, picked it up, and hurled it at the
snarling pack of guards. One of the legs caught a man in the teeth, and
there was the sound of splintering bone. The man went down clutching his
face.

"Halt!" It was the Hitlerian scream Bond had heard before. The men stood
stock still and lowered their staves. "Kono. Remove those men." Blofeld
pointed down at the two casualties. "And punish Kazama for his
incompetence. Get new teeth for the other one. And enough of this. The
man will not speak with ordinary methods. If he can hear, he will not
withstand the pressure of the Question Room. Take him there. The rest of
the guards can wait in the audience chamber. Also! Marsch!"

Kono fired off orders to which the guards reacted at the double. Then
Kono gestured to Bond with his gun, opened a small doorway beside the
bookcase, and pointed down a narrow stone passage. Now what? Bond licked
the blood from the corners of his mouth. He was near the end of his
tether. Pressure? He couldn't stand much more of it. And what was this
Question Room? He mentally shrugged. There might still be a chance to
get at Blofeld's throat. If only he could take that one with him! He
went ahead down the passage, was deaf to the order from Kono to open the
rough door at the end, had it opened for him by the guard while the
pistol pressed into his spine, and walked forward into a bizarre room of
roughly hewn stone that was very hot and stank disgustingly of sulphur.

Blofeld and the woman entered, the door was closed, and they took their
places in two wooden arm-chairs beneath an oil lamp and a large kitchen
clock whose only unusual feature was that, at each quarter, the figures
were underlined in red. The hands stood at just after eleven, and now,
with a loud iron tick, the minute hand dropped one span. Kono gestured
for Bond to advance the twelve paces to the far end of the room, where
there was a raised stone pedestal-seat with arms. It dripped with drying
grey mud; there was the same volcanic filth on the floor all round it.
Above the stone seat, in the ceiling, there was a wide circular opening
through which Bond could see a patch of dark sky and stars. Kono's
rubber boots squelched after him, and Bond was gestured to sit down on
the stone throne. In the centre of the seat, there was a large round
hole. Bond did as he was told, his skin flinching at the hot sticky
surface of the mud. He rested his forearms wearily on the stone arms of
the throne and waited, his belly crawling with the knowledge of what
this was all about.

Blofeld spoke from the other end of the room. He spoke in English. He
said, in a loud voice that boomed round the naked walls, "Commander
Bond, or number 007 in the British Secret Service if you prefer it, this
is the Question Room, a device of my invention that has the almost
inevitable effect of making silent people talk. As you know, this
property is highly volcanic. You are now sitting directly above a geyser
that throws mud, at a heat of around one thousand degrees Centigrade, a
distance of approximately one hundred feet into the air. Your body is
now at an elevation of approximately fifty feet directly above its
source. I had the whimsical notion to canalize this geyser up a stone
funnel above which you now sit. This is what is known as a periodic
geyser. This particular example is regulated to erupt volcanically at
exactly the fifteenth minute in every hour." Blofeld looked behind him
and turned back. "You will therefore observe that you have exactly
eleven minutes before the next eruption. If you cannot hear me, or the
translation that will follow, if you are a deaf-and-dumb Japanese as you
maintain, you will not move from that chair and, at the fifteenth minute
past eleven, you will suffer a most dreadful death by the incineration
of your lower body. If, on the other hand, you leave the seat before the
death moment, you will have demonstrated that you can hear and
understand and you will then be put to further tortures which will
inevitably make you answer my questions. These questions will seek to
confirm your identity, how you come to be here, who sent you and with
what purpose, and how many people are involved in the conspiracy. You
understand? You would not prefer to give up this play-acting? Very well.
On the off-chance that your papers are perhaps partially correct, my
chief guard will now briefly explain the purpose of this room in the
Japanese language." He turned to the guard. "Kono, sag' ihm auf
japanisch den Zweck dieses Zimmers."

Kono had taken up his position by the door. He now harangued Bond in
sharp Japanese sentences. Bond paid no attention. He concentrated on
regaining his strength. He sat relaxed and gazed nonchalantly round the
room. He had remembered the final "hell" at Beppu, and he was looking
for something. Ah yes! There it was! A small wooden box in the corner to
the right of his throne. There was no keyhole to it. Inside that box
would undoubtedly be the regulating valve for the geyser. Could that bit
of knowledge be put to some use? Bond tucked it away and racked his
tired brain for some kind of a plan. If only the agonizing pulse in his
head would stop. He rested his elbows on his knees and gently lowered
his bruised face into his hands. At least that guard would now be in
even worse agony than he!

Kono stopped talking. The clock uttered a deep iron tick.

It ticked nine times more. Bond looked up at the black-and-white
clockwork face. It said 11.14. A deep angry grumble sounded from down
beneath him. It was followed by a hard buffet of very hot breath. Bond
got to his feet and walked slowly away from the stinking stone vent
until he reached the area of the floor that was not wet with mud. Then
he turned and watched. The grumble had become a far-away roar. The roar
became a deep howl that swelled up into the room like an express train
coming out of a tunnel. Then there was a mighty explosion, and a solid
jet of grey mud shot like a gleaming grey piston out of the hole Bond
had just left and exactly penetrated the wide aperture in the ceiling.
The jet continued, absolutely solid, for perhaps half a second, and
searing heat filled the room so that Bond had to wipe the sweat from his
forehead. Then the grey pillar collapsed back into the hole, and mud
pattered on to the roof of the place and splashed down into the room in
great steaming gobbets. A deep bubbling and burping came up the pipe,
and the room steamed. The stench of sulphur was sickening. In the total
silence that followed, the tick of the clock to 11.16 was as loud as a
gong-stroke.

Bond turned and faced the couple under the clock. He said cheerfully,
"Well, Blofeld, you mad bastard. I'll admit that your effects man down
below knows his stuff. Now bring on the twelve she-devils, and if
they're all as beautiful as Frulein Bunt, we'll get Nol Coward to put
it to music and have it on Broadway by Christmas. How about it?"

Blofeld turned to Irma Bunt. "My dear girl, you were right! It is indeed
the same Britisher. Remind me to buy you another string of the excellent
Mr. Mikimoto's grey pearls. And now let us be finished with this man
once and for all. It is beyond our bedtime."

"Yes indeed, lieber Ernst. But first he must speak."

"Of course, Irmchen. But that can be quickly done. We have already
broken his first reserves. The second line of defence will be routine.
Come!"

Back up the stone passage! Back into the library! Irma Bunt back to her
petit point, Blofeld back to his stance by the mantelpiece, his hand
resting lightly on the boss of his great sword. It was just as if they
had returned after taking part in some gracious after-dinner
entertainment: a game of billiards, a look at the stamp albums, a dull
quarter of an hour with the home movies. Bond decided: to hell with the
Fukuoka miner! There was a writing-desk next to the bookshelves. He
pulled out its chair and sat down. There were cigarettes and matches. He
lit up and sat back, inhaling luxuriously. Might as well make oneself
comfortable before one went for the Big Sleep! He tapped his ash on to
the carpet and crossed one knee over the other.

Blofeld pointed to the pile of Bond's possessions on the floor. "Kono,
take those away. I will examine them later. And you can wait with the
guards in the outer hall. Prepare the blowlamp and the electrical
machine for further examination in case it should be necessary." He
turned to Bond. "And now--talk and you will receive an honourable and
quick death by the sword. Have no misgivings. I am expert with it and it
is razor-sharp. If you do not talk, you will die slowly and horribly and
you will talk just the same. You know from your profession that this is
so. There is a degree of prolonged suffering that no human can
withstand. Well?"

Bond said easily, "Blofeld, you were never stupid. Many people in London
and Tokyo know of my presence here tonight. At this moment, you might
argue your way out of a capital charge. You have a lot of money and you
could engage the best lawyers. But if you kill me, you will certainly
die."

"Mister Bond, you are not telling the truth. I know the ways of
officialdom as well as you do. Therefore I dismiss your story in its
entirety and without hesitation. If my presence here was officially
known, a small army of policemen would have been sent to arrest me. And
they would have been accompanied by a senior member of the C.I.A. on
whose WANTED list I certainly feature. This is an American sphere of
influence. You might have been allowed to interview me subsequent to my
arrest, but an Englishman would not have featured in the initial police
action."

"Who said this was police action? When, in England, I heard rumours
about this place, I thought the whole project smelled of you. I obtained
permission to come and have a look. But my whereabouts is known, and
retribution will result if I do not return."

"That does not follow, Mister Bond. There will be no trace of your ever
having seen me, no trace of your entry into the property. I happen to
have certain information that fits in with your presence here. One of my
agents recently reported that the head of the Japanese Secret Service, a
certain Tanaka, came down in this direction accompanied by a foreigner
dressed as a Japanese. I now see that your appearance tallies with my
agent's description."

"Where is this man? I would like to question him."

"He is not available."

"Very convenient."

A red fire began to burn deep in the black pools of Blofeld's eyes. "You
forget that it is not I who am being interrogated, Mister Bond. It is
you. Now, I happen to know all about this Tanaka. He is a totally
ruthless man, and I will hazard a guess that fits the facts and that is
made almost into a certitude by your crude evasions. This man Tanaka has
already lost one senior agent whom he sent down here to investigate me.
You were available, on some business concerned with your profession,
perhaps, and, for a consideration, or in exchange for a favour, you
agreed to come here and kill me, thus tidying up a situation which is
causing some embarrassment to the Japanese government. I do not know or
care when you learned that Doctor Guntram Shatterhand was in fact Ernst
Stavro Blofeld. You have your private reasons for wanting to kill me,
and I have absolutely no doubt that you kept your knowledge to yourself
and passed it on to no one for fear that the official action I have
described would take the place of your private plans for revenge."
Blofeld paused. He said softly, "I have one of the greatest brains in
the world, Mister Bond. Have you anything to say in reply? As the
Americans say, 'It had better be good.'"

Bond took another cigarette and lit it. He said composedly, "I stick to
the truth, Blofeld. If anything happens to me, you, and probably the
woman as an accessory, will be dead by Christmas."

"All right, Mister Bond. But I am so sure of my facts that I am now
going to kill you with my own hands and dispose of your body without
more ado. On reflection, I would rather do it myself than have it done
slowly by the guards. You have been a thorn in my flesh for too long.
The account I have to settle with you is a personal one. Have you ever
heard the Japanese expression _kirisute gomen_?"

Bond groaned. "Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn, Blofeld!"

"It dates from the time of the _samurai_. It means literally 'killing
and going away.' If a low person hindered the _samurai's_ passage along
the road or failed to show him proper respect, the _samurai_ was within
his rights to lop off the man's head. I regard myself as a latter-day
_samurai_. My fine sword has not yet been blooded. Yours will be an
admirable head to cut its teeth on." He turned to Irma Bunt. "You agree,
mein Liebchen?"

The square wardress face looked up from its petit point. "But of course,
lieber Ernst. What you decide is always correct. But be careful. This
animal is dangerous."

"You forget, mein Liebchen. Since last January he has ceased to be an
animal. By a simple stroke of surgery on the woman he loved, I reduced
him to human dimensions."

The dominant horrific figure stood away from the mantelpiece and took up
his sword.

"Let me show you."




20. BLOOD AND THUNDER


Bond dropped his lighted cigarette and left it to smoulder on the
carpet. His whole body tensed. He said, "I suppose you know you're both
mad as hatters."

"So was Frederick the Great, so was Nietzsche, so was Van Gogh. We are
in good, in illustrious company, Mister Bond. On the other hand, what
are you? You are a common thug, a blunt instrument wielded by dolts in
high places. Having done what you are told to do, out of some mistaken
idea of duty or patriotism, you satisfy your brutish instincts with
alcohol, nicotine, and sex while waiting to be dispatched on the next
misbegotten foray. Twice before, your chief has sent you to do battle
with me, Mister Bond, and by a combination of luck and brute force, you
were successful in destroying two projects of my genius. You and your
government would categorize these projects as crimes against humanity,
and various authorities still seek to bring me to book for them. But try
and summon such wits as you possess, Mister Bond, and see them in a
realistic light and in the higher realm of my own thinking."

Blofeld was a big man, perhaps six foot three, and powerfully built. He
placed the tip of the _samurai_ sword, which has almost the blade of the
scimitar, between his straddled feet and rested his sinewy hands on its
boss. Looking up at him from across the room, Bond had to admit that
there was something larger than life in the looming imperious figure, in
the hypnotically direct stare of the eyes, in the tall white brow, in
the cruel downward twist of the thin lips. The square-cut, heavily
draped kimono, designed to give the illusion of bulk to a race of
smallish men, made something huge out of the towering figure, and the
golden dragon embroidery, so easily to be derided as a childish fantasy,
crawled menacingly across the black silk and seemed to spit real fire
from over the left breast. Blofeld had paused in his harangue. Waiting
for him to continue, Bond took the measure of his enemy. He knew what
would be coming--justification. It was always so. When they thought they
had got you where they wanted you, when they knew they were decisively
on top, before the knock-out, even to an audience on the threshold of
extinction, it was pleasant, reassuring to the executioner, to deliver
his apologia--purge the sin he was about to commit. Blofeld, his hands
relaxed on the boss of his sword, continued. The tone of his voice was
reasonable, self-assured, quietly expository.

He said, "Now, Mister Bond, take Operation Thunderball, as your
government dubbed it. This project involved the holding to ransom of the
Western World by the acquisition by me of two atomic weapons. Where lies
the crime in this, except in the Erewhon of international politics? Rich
boys are playing with rich toys. A poor boy comes along and takes them
and offers them back for money. If the poor boy had been successful,
what a valuable by-product might have resulted for the whole world!
These were dangerous toys which, in the poor boy's hands, or let us say,
to discard the allegory, in the hands of a Castro, could lead to the
wanton extinction of mankind. By my action, I gave a dramatic example
for all to see. If I had been successful and the money had been handed
over, might not the threat of a recurrence of my attempt have led to
serious disarmament talks, to an abandonment of these dangerous toys
that might so easily get into the wrong hands? You follow my reasoning?
Then this recent matter of the bacteriological warfare attack on
England. My dear Mister Bond, England is a sick nation by any standards.
By hastening the sickness to the brink of death, might not Britain have
been forced out of her lethargy into the kind of community effort we
witnessed during the war? Cruel to be kind, Mister Bond. Where lies the
great crime there? And now this matter of my so-called 'Castle of
Death.'" Blofeld paused, and his eyes took on an inward look. He said,
"I will make a confession to you, Mister Bond. I have come to suffer
from a certain lassitude of mind which I am determined to combat. This
comes in part from being a unique genius who is alone in the world,
without honour--worse, misunderstood. No doubt much of the root cause of
this accidie is physical--liver, kidneys, heart, the usual weak points
of the middle-aged. But there has developed in me a certain mental
lameness, a disinterest in humanity and its future, an utter boredom
with the affairs of mankind. So, not unlike the gourmet, with his jaded
palate, I now seek only the highly spiced, the sharp impact on the taste
buds, mental as well as physical, the tickle that is truly exquisite.
And so, Mister Bond, I came to devise this useful and essentially humane
project--the offer of free death to those who seek release from the
burden of being alive. By doing so, I have not only provided the common
man with a solution to the problem of whether to be or not to be, I have
also provided the Japanese government, though for the present they
appear to be blind to my magnanimity, with a tidy, out-of-the-way
charnel-house which relieves them of a constant flow of messy
occurrences involving the trains, the trams, the volcanoes, and other
unattractively public means of killing yourself. You must admit that,
far from being a crime, this is a public service unique in the history
of the world."

"I saw one man being disgustingly murdered yesterday."

"Tidying up, Mister Bond. Tidying up. The man came here wishing to die.
What you saw done was only helping a weak man to his seat on the boat
across the Styx. But I can see that we have no contact. I cannot reach
what serves you for a mind. For your part, you cannot see further than
the simple gratification of your last cigarette. So enough of this idle
chatter. You have already kept us from our beds far too long. Do you
want to be hacked about in a vulgar brawl, or will you offer your neck
in the honourable fashion?" Blofeld took a step forward and raised his
mighty sword in both hands and held it above his head. The light from
the oil lamps shimmered on the blade and showed up the golden filigree
engraving.

Bond knew what to do. He had known as soon as he had been led back into
the room and had seen the wounded guard's stave still standing in the
shadowed angle of the wall. But there was a bell-push near the woman.
She would have to be dealt with first! Had he learned enough of the
thrusts and parries of _bojutsu_ from the demonstration at the _ninja_
training camp? Bond hurled himself to the left, seized the stave, and
leaped at the woman, whose hand was already reaching upwards.

The stave thudded into the side of her head, and she sprawled
grotesquely forward off her chair and lay still. Blofeld's sword
whistled down, inches from his shoulder. Bond twisted and lunged to his
full extent, thrusting his stave forward in the groove of his left hand
almost as if it had been a billiard cue. The tip caught Blofeld hard on
the breastbone and flung him against the wall, but he hurtled back and
came inexorably forward, swishing his sword like a scythe. Bond aimed at
his right arm, missed, and had to retreat. He was concentrating on
keeping his weapon as well as his body away from the whirling steel, or
his stave would be cut like a matchstick, and its extra length was his
only hope of victory. Blofeld suddenly lunged, expertly, his right knee
bent forward. Bond feinted to the left, but he was inches too slow and
the tip of the sword flicked his left ribs, drawing blood. But before
Blofeld could withdraw, Bond had slashed two-handed, sideways, at his
legs. His stave met bone. Blofeld cursed and made an ineffectual stab at
Bond's weapon. Then he advanced again, and Bond could only dodge and
feint in the middle of the room and make quick short lunges to keep the
enemy at bay. But he was losing ground in front of the whirling steel,
and now Blofeld, scenting victory, took lightning steps and thrust
forward like a snake. Bond leaped sideways, saw his chance, and gave a
mighty sweep of his stave. It caught Blofeld on his right shoulder and
drew a curse from him. His main sword arm! Bond pressed forward, lancing
again and again with his weapon and scoring several hits to the body,
but one of Blofeld's parries caught the stave and cut off that one vital
foot of extra length as if it had been a candle-end. Blofeld saw his
advantage and began attacking, making furious forward jabs that Bond
could only parry by hitting at the flat of the sword to deflect it. But
now the stave was slippery in the sweat of his hands and for the first
time he felt the cold breath of defeat at his neck. Blofeld seemed to
smell it, for he suddenly executed one of his fast running lunges to get
under Bond's guard. Bond guessed the distance of the wall behind him and
leaped backwards against it. Even so, he felt the sword-point fan across
his stomach. But hurled back by his impact with the wall, he
counter-lunged, swept the sword aside with his stave, and, dropping his
weapon, made a dive for Blofeld's neck and got both hands to it. For a
moment, the two sweating faces were almost up against each other. The
boss of Blofeld's sword battered into Bond's side. Bond hardly felt the
crashing blows. He pressed with his thumbs, and pressed and pressed and
heard the sword clang to the floor and felt Blofeld's fingers and nails
tearing at his face, trying to reach his eyes. Bond whispered through
his gritted teeth, "Die, Blofeld! Die!" And suddenly the tongue was out
and the eyes rolled upwards and the body slipped down to the ground. But
Bond followed it and knelt, his hands cramped round the powerful neck,
seeing nothing, hearing nothing, in the terrible grip of blood lust.

Bond slowly came to himself. The golden dragon's head on the black silk
kimono spat flame at him. He unclasped his aching hands from round the
neck and, not looking again at the purple face, got to his feet. He
staggered. God, how his head hurt! What remained to be done? He tried to
cast his mind back. He had had a clever idea. What was it? Oh yes, of
course! He picked up Blofeld's sword and sleep-walked down the stone
passage to the torture room. He glanced up at the clock. Five minutes to
midnight. And there was the wooden box, mud-spattered, down beside the
throne on which he had sat, days, years before. He went to it and hacked
it open with one stroke of the sword. Yes, there was the big wheel he
had expected! He knelt down and twisted and twisted until it was finally
closed. What would happen now? The end of the world? Bond ran back up
the passage. Now he must get out, get away from this place! But his line
of retreat was closed by the guards! He tore aside a curtain and smashed
the window open with his sword. Outside there was a balustraded terrace
that seemed to run round this storey of the castle. Bond looked around
for something to cover his nakedness. There was only Blofeld's sumptuous
kimono. Coldly, Bond tore it off the corpse, put it on, and tied the
sash. The interior of the kimono was cold, like a snake's skin. He
looked down at Irma Bunt. She was breathing heavily with a drunken
snore. Bond went to the window and climbed out, minding his bare feet
among the glass splinters.

But he had been wrong! The balustrade was a brief one, closed at both
ends. He stumbled from end to end of it, but there was no exit. He
looked over the side. A sheer hundred-foot drop to the gravel. A soft
fluted whistle above him caught his ear. He looked up. Only a breath of
wind in the moorings of that bloody balloon! But then a lunatic idea
came to him, a flashback to one of the old Douglas Fairbanks films when
the hero had swung across a wide hall by taking a flying leap at the
chandelier. This helium balloon was strong enough to hold taut fifty
feet of framed cotton strip bearing the warning sign! Why shouldn't it
be powerful enough to bear the weight of a man?

Bond ran to the corner of the balustrade to which the mooring line was
attached. He tested it. It was taut as a wire! From somewhere behind him
there came a great clamour in the castle. Had the woman woken up?
Holding on to the straining rope, he climbed on to the railing, cut a
foothold for himself in the cotton banner, and, grasping the mooring
rope with his right hand, chopped downwards below him with Blofeld's
sword and threw himself into space.

It worked! There was a light night breeze, and he felt himself wafted
gently away over the moonlit park, over the glittering, steaming lake,
towards the sea. But he was rising, not falling! The helium sphere was
not in the least worried by his weight! Then blue-and-yellow fire
fluttered from the upper storey of the castle, and an occasional angry
wasp zipped past him. Bond's hands and feet were beginning to ache with
the strain of holding on. Something hit him on the side of the head, the
same side that was already sending out its throbbing message of pain.
And that finished him. He knew it had! For now the whole black
silhouette of the castle swayed in the moonlight and seemed to jig
upwards and sideways and then slowly dissolve like an ice-cream cone in
sunshine. The top storey crumbled first, then the next, and the next,
and then, after a moment, a huge jet of orange fire shot up from hell
towards the moon. A buffet of hot wind, followed by an echoing crack of
thunder, hit Bond and made his balloon sway violently.

What was it all about? Bond didn't know or care. The pain in his head
was his whole universe. Punctured by a bullet, the balloon was fast
losing height. Below, the softly swelling sea offered a bed. Bond let go
with hands and feet and plummeted down towards peace, towards the
rippling feathers of some childhood dream of softness and escape from
pain.




21. OBIT:
    THE TIMES
    COMMANDER JAMES BOND,
    C.M.G., R.N.V.R.


M. writes:

    As your readers will have learned from earlier issues, a senior
    officer of the Ministry of Defence, Commander James Bond,
    C.M.G., R.N.V.R., is missing, believed killed, while on an
    official mission to Japan. It grieves me to have to report that
    hopes of his survival must now be abandoned. It therefore falls
    to my lot, as the head of the department he served so well, to
    give some account of this officer and of his outstanding
    services to his country.

    James Bond was born of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond of
    Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, from the Canton
    de Vaud. His father being a foreign representative of the
    Vickers armaments firm, his early education, from which he
    inherited a first-class command of French and German, was
    entirely abroad. When he was eleven years of age, both his
    parents were killed in a climbing accident in the Aiguilles
    Rouges above Chamonix, and the youth came under the guardianship
    of an aunt, since deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live
    with her at the quaintly named hamlet of Pett Bottom near
    Canterbury in Kent. There, in a small cottage hard by the
    attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have been a most erudite
    and accomplished lady, completed his education for an English
    public school, and at the age of twelve or thereabouts, he
    passed satisfactorily into Eton, for which College he had been
    entered at birth by his father. It must be admitted that his
    career at Eton was brief and undistinguished, and after only two
    halves, as a result, it pains me to record, of some alleged
    trouble with one of the boys' maids, his aunt was requested to
    remove him. She managed to obtain his transfer to Fettes, his
    father's old school. Here the atmosphere was somewhat
    Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were
    rigorous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by
    nature, he established some firm friendships among the
    traditionally famous athletic circles at the school. By the time
    he left, at the early age of seventeen, he had twice fought for
    the school as a light-weight and had, in addition, founded the
    first serious judo class at an English public school. By now it
    was 1941, and by claiming an age of nineteen and with the help
    of an old Vickers colleague of his father, he entered a branch
    of what was subsequently to become the Ministry of Defence. To
    serve the confidential nature of his duties, he was accorded the
    rank of lieutenant in the Special Branch of the R.N.V.R., and it
    is a measure of the satisfaction his services gave to his
    superiors that he ended the war with the rank of commander. It
    was about this time that the writer became associated with
    certain aspects of the ministry's work, and it was with much
    gratification that I accepted Commander Bond's post-war
    application to continue working for the ministry in which, at
    the time of his lamented disappearance, he had risen to the rank
    of Principal Officer in the Civil Service.

    The nature of Commander Bond's duties with the ministry, which
    were, incidentally, recognized by the appointment of C.M.G. in
    1954, must remain confidential, nay secret, but his colleagues
    at the ministry will allow that he performed them with
    outstanding bravery and distinction, although occasionally,
    through an impetuous strain in his nature, with a streak of the
    foolhardy that brought him in conflict with higher authority.
    But he possessed what almost amounted to "The Nelson Touch" in
    moments of the highest emergency, and he somehow contrived to
    escape more or less unscathed from the many adventurous paths
    down which his duties led him. The inevitable publicity,
    particularly in the foreign press, accorded some of these
    adventures, made him, much against his will, something of a
    public figure, with the inevitable result that a series of
    popular books came to be written around him by a personal friend
    and former colleague of James Bond. If the quality of these
    books, or their degree of veracity, had been any higher, the
    author would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official
    Secrets Act. It is a measure of the disdain in which these
    fictions are held at the ministry that action has not yet--I
    emphasize the qualification--been taken against the author and
    publisher of these high-flown and romanticized caricatures of
    episodes in the career of an outstanding public servant.

    It only remains to conclude this brief _in memoriam_ by assuring
    his friends that Commander Bond's last mission was one of
    supreme importance to the state. Although it now appears that,
    alas, he will not return from it, I have the authority of the
    highest quarters in the land to confirm that the mission proved
    one hundred per cent successful. It is no exaggeration to
    pronounce unequivocally that, through the recent valorous
    efforts of this one man, the Safety of the Realm has received
    mighty reassurance.

    James Bond was briefly married in 1962, to Teresa, only daughter
    of Marc-Ange Draco, of Marseilles. The marriage ended in tragic
    circumstances that were reported in the press at the time. There
    was no issue of the marriage, and James Bond leaves, so far as I
    am aware, no relative living.

M.G. writes:

    I was happy and proud to serve Commander Bond in a close
    capacity during the past three years at the Ministry of Defence.
    If indeed our fears for him are justified, may I suggest these
    simple words for his epitaph? Many of the junior staff here feel
    they represent his philosophy: "I shall not waste my days in
    trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."




22. SPARROWS' TEARS


When Kissy saw the figure, black-winged in its kimono, crash down into
the sea, she sensed that it was her man, and she covered the two hundred
yards from the base of the wall as fast as she had ever swum in her
life. The tremendous impact with the water had at first knocked all the
wind out of Bond, but the will to live, so nearly extinguished by the
searing pain in his head, was revived by the new but recognizable enemy
of the sea, and when Kissy got to him, he was struggling to free himself
from the kimono.

At first, he thought she was Blofeld and tried to strike out at her.

"It's Kissy," she said urgently, "Kissy Suzuki! Don't you remember?"

He didn't. He had no recollection of anything in the world but the face
of his enemy and of the desperate urge to smash it. But his strength was
going, and finally, cursing feebly, he allowed her to man-handle him out
of the kimono and paid heed to the voice that pleaded with him.

"Now follow me, Taro-san. When you get tired, I will pull you with me.
We are all trained in such rescue work."

But, when she started off, Bond didn't follow her. Instead, he swam
feebly round and round like a wounded animal, in ever-increasing
circles. She almost wept. What had happened to him? What had they done
to him at the Castle of Death? Finally she stopped him and talked softly
to him, and he docilely allowed her to put her arms under his armpits;
then, with his head cradled between her breasts, she set off with the
traditional backward leg-stroke.

It was an amazing swim for a girl--half a mile with currents to contend
with and only the moon and an occasional glance over her shoulder to
give her a bearing, but she achieved it and finally hauled Bond out of
the water in her little cove and collapsed on the flat stones beside
him.

She was awoken by a groan from Bond. He had been quietly sick and now
sat with his head in his hands, looking blankly out to sea with the
glazed eyes of a sleep-walker. When Kissy put an arm round his
shoulders, he turned vaguely towards her. "Who are you? How did I get
here? What is this place?" He examined her more carefully. "You're very
pretty."

Kissy looked at him keenly. She said, and a sudden plan of great glory
blazed across her mind, "You cannot remember anything? You do not
remember who you are and where you came from?"

Bond passed a hand across his forehead, squeezed his eyes. "Nothing," he
said wearily. "Nothing except a man's face. I think he was dead. I think
he was a bad man. What is your name? You must tell me everything."

"My name is Kissy Suzuki and you are my lover. Your name is Taro
Todoroki. We live on this island and go fishing together. It is a very
good life. But can you walk a little? I must take you to where you live
and get you some food and a doctor to see you. You have a terrible wound
on the side of your head, and there is a cut on your ribs. You must have
fallen while you were climbing the cliffs after seagulls' eggs." She
stood up and held out her hands.

Bond took them and staggered to his feet. She held him by the hand and
gently guided him along the path towards the Suzuki house. But she
passed it and went on and up to the grove of dwarf maples and camellia
bushes. She led him behind the Shinto shrine and into the cave. It was
large, and the earth floor was dry. She said, "This is where you live. I
live here with you. I had put away our bed things. I will go and fetch
them and some food. Now lie down, my beloved, and rest, and I will look
after you. You are ill, but the doctor will make you well again."

Bond did as he was told and was instantly asleep, the pain-free side of
his head cradled on his arm.

Kissy ran off down the mountain, her heart singing. There was much to be
done, much to be arranged, but now she had got her man back she was
desperately determined to keep him.

It was almost dawn, and her parents were awake. She whispered to them
excitedly as she went about warming some milk and putting together a
bundle of _futon_, her father's best kimono, and a selection of Bond's
washing things--nothing to remind him of his past. Her parents were used
to her whims and her independence. Her father merely commented mildly
that it would be all right if the _kannushi-san_ gave his blessing.
Then, having washed the salt off herself and dressed in her own simple
brown kimono, she scampered off up the hill to the cave.

Later, the Shinto priest received her gravely. He almost seemed to be
expecting her. He held up his hand and spoke to the kneeling figure.
"Kissy-chan, I know what I know. The spawn of the devil is dead. So is
his wife. The Castle of Death has been totally destroyed. These things
were brought about as the Six Guardians foretold, by the man from across
the sea. Where is he now?"

"In the cave behind the shrine, _kannushi-san_. He is gravely wounded. I
love him. I wish to keep him and care for him. He remembers nothing of
the past. I wish it to remain so, so that we may marry and he may become
a son of Kuro for all time."

"That will not be possible, my daughter. In due course he will recover
and go off across the world to where he came from. And there will be
official inquiries for him, from Fukuoka, perhaps even from Tokyo, for
he is surely a man of renown in his own country."

"But _kannushi-san_, if you so instruct the elders of Kuro, they will
show these people _shiran-kao_, they will say they know nothing, that
this man Todoroki left, swimming for the mainland, and has not been
heard of since. Then the people will go away. All I want to do is to
care for him and keep him for myself as long as I can. If the day comes
when he wishes to leave, I will not hinder him. I will help him. He was
happy here fishing with me and my David-bird. He told me so. When he
recovers, I will see that he continues to be happy. Should not Kuro
cherish and honour this hero who was brought to us by the gods? Would
not the Six Guardians wish to keep him for a while? And have I not
earned some small token for my humble efforts to help Todoroki-san and
save his life?"

The priest sat silent for a while with his eyes closed. Then he looked
down at the pleading face at his feet. He smiled. "I will do what is
possible, Kissy-chan. And now bring the doctor to me and then take him
up to the cave so that he can tend this man's wounds. Then I will speak
to the elders. But for many weeks you must be very discreet, and the
_gaijin_ must not show himself. When all is quiet again, he may move
back into the house of your parents and allow himself to be seen."

The doctor knelt beside Bond in the cave and spread out on the ground a
large map of the human head with the sections marked with figures and
ideograms. His gentle fingers probed Bond's wound for signs of fracture,
while Kissy knelt beside him and held one of Bond's sweating hands in
both of hers. The doctor bent forward and, lifting the eyelids one by
one, gazed deeply into the glazed eyes through a large reading-glass. On
his instructions, Kissy ran for boiling water, and the doctor proceeded
to clean the cut made by the bullet across the terrible swelling of the
first wound caused by Bond's crash into the oubliette. Then he tapped
sulpha dust into the wound and bound up the head neatly and expertly,
put surgical plaster over the cut across the ribs, and stood up and took
Kissy outside the cave. "He will live," he said, "but it may be months,
even years before he regains his memory. It is particularly the temporal
lobe of his brain, where the memory is stored, that has been damaged.
For this, much education will be necessary. You will endeavour all the
time to remind him about past things and places. Then isolated facts
that he will recognize will turn into chains of association. He should
undoubtedly be taken to Fukuoka for an X-ray, but I think there is no
fracture and in any case the _kannushi-san_ has ordained that he is to
remain under your care and his presence on the island to be kept secret.
I shall of course observe the instructions of the honourable
_kannushi-san_ and only visit him by different routes and at night. But
there is much you will have to attend to, for he must not be moved in
any way for at least a week. Now listen carefully," said the doctor, and
he gave her minute instructions which covered every aspect of feeding
and nursing and left her to carry them out.

And so the days ran into weeks and the police came again and again from
Fukuoka, and the official called Tanaka came from Tokyo, and later a
huge man who said he was from Australia arrived, and he was the most
difficult of all for Kissy to shake off. But the face of _shiran-kao_
remained of stone, and the island of Kuro kept its secret. James Bond's
body gradually mended, and Kissy took him out for walks at night. They
also went for an occasional swim in the cove, where they played with
David, and she told him all the history of the Ama and of Kuro and
expertly parried all his questions about the world outside the island.

Winter came, and the Ama had to stay ashore and turn their hands to
mending nets and boats and working on the small-holdings on the mountain
side. Bond came back into the house and made himself useful with
carpentry and odd jobs and with learning Japanese from Kissy. The glazed
look went from his eyes, but they remained remote and far-away, and
every night he was puzzled by dreams of a quite different world of white
people and big cities and half-remembered faces. But Kissy assured him
that these were just nightmares such as she had and that they had no
meaning, and gradually Bond came to accept the little stone-and-wood
house and the endless horizon of sea as his finite world. Kissy was
careful to keep him away from the south coast of the island, dreading
the day when fishing would begin again at the end of May and he would
see the great black wall across the straits and memory might come
flooding back.

The doctor was surprised by Bond's lack of progress and resigned himself
to the conclusion that Bond's amnesia was total, but soon there was no
cause for further visits because Bond's physical health and his
apparently complete satisfaction with his lot showed that in every other
respect he was totally recovered.

But there was one thing that greatly distressed Kissy. From the first
night in the cave she had shared Bond's _futon_, and when he was well
and back in the house, she waited every night for him to make love to
her. But while he kissed her occasionally and often held her hand, his
body seemed totally unaware of her, however much she pressed herself
against him and even caressed him with her hands. Had the wound made him
impotent? She consulted the doctor, but he said there could be no
connection, although it was just possible that he had forgotten how to
perform the act of love.

So one day Kissy Suzuki announced that she was going to take the weekly
mail-boat to Fukuoka to do some shopping, and in the big city, she found
her way to the local sex-shop, called The Happy Shop, that is a feature
of all self-respecting Japanese towns, and told her problem to the
wicked-looking old greybeard behind the innocent counter containing
nothing more viciously alluring than tonics and contraceptives. He asked
her if she possessed five thousand yen, which is a lot of money, and
when she said she did, he locked the street door and invited her to the
back of the shop.

The sex merchant bent down and pulled out from beneath a bench what
looked like a small wired rabbit-hutch. As he put this on the bench,
Kissy saw that it contained four large toads on a bed of moss. Next he
produced a metal contraption that had the appearance of a hot-plate with
a small wire cage in the middle. He carefully lifted out one of the
toads and placed it inside the cage so that it squatted on the metal
surface. Then he hauled a large car battery on to the bench, put it
alongside the "hot-plate," and attached wires from one to the other.
Then he spoke some encouraging endearments to the toad and stood back.

The toad began to shiver slightly, and the crosses in its dark red eyes
blazed angrily at Kissy as if it knew it was all her fault. The sex
merchant, his head bent over the little cage, watched anxiously and then
rubbed his hands with satisfaction as heavy beads of sweat broke out all
over the toad's warty skin. He reached for an iron teaspoon and a small
phial, gently raised the wire cage, and very carefully scraped the
sweat-beads off the toad's body and dripped the result into the phial.
When he had finished, the phial contained about half a teaspoon of clear
liquid. He corked it up and handed it to Kissy, who held it with
reverence and great care as if it had been a fabulous jewel. Then the
sex merchant disconnected the wires and put the toad, which seemed none
the worse for its experience, back in its hutch and closed the top.

He turned to Kissy and bowed. "When this valuable product is desired by
a sincere customer, I always ask them to witness the process of
distillation. Otherwise they might harbour the unworthy thought that the
phial contained only water from the tap. But you have now seen that this
preparation is the authentic sweat of a toad. It is produced by giving
the toad a mild electric shock. The toad suffered only temporary
discomfort, and it will be rewarded this evening with an extra portion
of flies or crickets. And now," he went to a cupboard and took out a
small pillbox, "here is powder of dried lizard. A combination of the
two, inserted in your lover's food at the evening meal, should prove
infallible. However, to excite his mind as well as his senses, for an
extra thousand yen I can provide you with a most excellent pillow-book."

"What is a pillow-book?"

The sex merchant went back to his cupboard and produced a cheaply bound
and printed paper book with a plain cover. Kissy opened it. Her hand
went to her mouth, and she blushed furiously. But then, being a careful
girl who didn't want to be cheated, she turned some more of the pages.
They all contained outrageously pornographic close-up pictures, most
faithfully engraved, of the love-act portrayed from every possible
aspect. "Very well," she whispered. She handed back the book. "Please
wrap up everything carefully." She took out her purse and began counting
out the notes.

Out in the shop, the wicked-faced old man handed her the parcel and,
bowing deeply, unlocked the door. Kissy gave a perfunctory bob in return
and darted out of the shop and down the street as if she had just made a
pact with the devil. But by the time she went to catch the mail-boat
back to Kuro, she was hugging herself with excitement and pleasure and
making up a story to explain away her acquisition of the book.

Bond was waiting for her on the jetty. It was the first day she had been
away from him and he had missed her painfully. They talked happily as
they walked hand-in-hand along the foreshore among the nets and boats,
and the people smiled to see them, but looked through them instead of
greeting them, for had not the priest decreed that their _gaijin_ hero
did not officially exist? And the priest's edict was final.

Back at the house, Kissy went happily about preparing a highly spiced
dish of _sukiyaki_, the national dish of beef stew. This was not only a
great treat, for they seldom ate meat, but Kissy didn't know if her
love-potions had any taste and it would be wise not to take any chances.
When it was ready, with a trembling hand, she poured the brown powder
and the liquid into Bond's portion and stirred it well. Then she brought
the dishes in to where the family awaited, squatting on the _tatami_
before the low table.

She watched surreptitiously as Bond devoured every scrap of his portion
and wiped his plate clean with a pinch of rice and then, after warm
compliments on her cooking, drank his tea and retired to their room. In
the evenings, he usually sat mending nets or fishing-lines before going
to bed. As she helped her mother wash up, she wondered if he were doing
so now!

Kissy spent a long time doing her hair and making herself pretty before,
her heart beating like a captured bird, she joined him.

He looked up from the pillow-book and laughed. "Kissy, where in God's
name did you get this?"

She giggled. "Oh that! I forgot to tell you. Some dreadful man tried to
make up to me in one of the shops. He pressed that into my hand and made
an assignation for this evening. I agreed just to get rid of him. It is
what we call a pillow-book. Lovers use them. Aren't the pictures
exciting?"

Bond threw off his kimono. He pointed to the soft _futon_ on the floor.
He said fiercely, "Kissy, take off your clothes and lie down there.
We'll start at page one."

****

Winter slid into spring, and fishing began again, but now Kissy dived
naked like the other girls and Bond and the bird dived with her and
there were good days and bad days. But the sun shone steadily and the
sea was blue and wild irises covered the mountain side and everyone made
a great fuss as the sprinkling of cherry trees burst into bloom. Kissy
wondered what moment to choose to tell Bond that she was going to have a
baby and whether he would then propose marriage to her.

But one day, on the way down to the cove, Bond looked preoccupied, and
when he asked her to wait before they put the boat out as he had
something serious to talk to her about, her heart leaped and she sat
down beside him on a flat rock and put her arms round him and waited.

Bond took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to
her; she shivered with fear and knew what was coming. She took her arms
from round him and looked at the paper. It was one of the rough squares
of newspaper from the spike in the little lavatory. She always tore
these squares herself and discarded any that contained words in
English--just in case.

Bond pointed. "Kissy, what is this word 'Vladivostok'? What does it
mean? It has some kind of a message for me. I connect it with a very big
country. I believe the country is called Russia. Am I right?"

Kissy remembered her promise to the priest. She put her face in her
hands. "Yes, Taro-san. That is so."

Bond pressed his fists to his eyes and squeezed. "I have a feeling that
I have had much to do with this Russia, that a lot of my past life was
concerned with it. Could that be possible? I long so terribly to know
where I came from before I came to Kuro. Will you help me, Kissy?"

Kissy took her hands from her face and looked at him. She said quietly,
"Yes, I will help you, my beloved."

"Then I must go to this place Vladivostok, and perhaps it will awaken
more memories and I can work my way back from there."

"If you say so, my love. The mail-boat goes to Fukuoka tomorrow. I will
put you on a train there and give you money and full directions. It is
advertised that one can go from the northern island, Hokkaido, to
Sakhalin, which is a part of Russia. Then you can no doubt make your way
to Vladivostok. It is a great port to the south of Sakhalin. But you
must take care, for the Russians are not friendly people."

"Surely they would do no harm to a fisherman from Kuro?"

Kissy's heart choked her. She got up and walked slowly down to the boat.
She pushed the boat down the pebbles into the water and waited, at her
usual place in the stern, for him to get in and for his knees to clasp
hers as they always did.

James Bond took his place and unshipped the oars, and the cormorant
scrambled on board and perched imperiously in the bows. Bond measured
where the rest of the fleet lay on the horizon and began to row.

Kissy smiled into his eyes, and the sun shone on his back; so far as
James Bond was concerned, it was a beautiful day just as all the other
days had been--without a cloud in the sky.

But then, of course, he didn't know that his name was James Bond. And,
compared with the blazing significance to him of that single Russian
word on the scrap of paper, his life on Kuro, his love for Kissy Suzuki,
were, in Tiger's phrase, of as little account as sparrows' tears.






[End of You Only Live Twice, by Ian Fleming]
