The James Bond Anthology

A deafening silence fell. Somewhere behind Bond, a wakened tree frog tinkled uncertainly. Four white egrets flew down and over the wreck, their necks outstretched inquisitively. In the distance, black dots materialized high up in the sky and circled lazily closer. The sixth sense of the turkey buzzards had told them that the distant explosion was disaster – something that might yield a meal. The sun hammered down on the silver rails and, a few yards away from where Bond lay, a group of yellow butterflies danced in the shimmer. Bond got slowly to his feet and, parting the butterflies, began walking slowly but purposefully up the line towards the bridge. First Felix Leiter and then after the big one that had got away.

Leiter lay in the stinking mud. His left leg was at a hideous angle. Bond went down to him, his finger to his lips. He knelt beside him and said softly, ‘Nothing much I can do for now, pal. I’ll give you a bullet to bite on and get you into some shade. There’ll be people coming before long. Got to get on after that bastard. He’s somewhere up there by the bridge. What made you think he was dead?’

Leiter groaned, more in anger with himself than from the pain. ‘There was blood all over the place.’ The voice was a halting whisper between clenched teeth. ‘His shirt was soaked in it. Eyes closed. Thought if he wasn’t cold he’d go with the others on the bridge.’ He smiled faintly. ‘How did you dig the River Kwai stunt? Go off all right?’

Bond raised a thumb. ‘Fourth of July. The crocs’ll be sitting down to table right now. But that damned dummy! Gave me a nasty turn. Did you put her there?’

‘Sure. Sorry, boy. Mr S. told me to. Made an excuse to spike the bridge this morning. No idea your girl friend was a blonde or that you’d fall for the spiel.’

‘Bloody silly of me, I suppose. Thought he’d got hold of her last night. Anyway, come on. Here’s your bullet. Bite the lead. The story-books say it helps. This is going to hurt, but I must haul you under cover and out of the sun.’ Bond got his hands under Leiter’s armpits and, as gently as he could, dragged him to a dry patch under a big mangrove bush above swamp level. The sweat of pain poured down Leiter’s face. Bond propped him up against the roots. Leiter gave a groan and his head fell back. Bond looked thoughtfully down at him. A faint was probably the best thing that could have happened. He took Leiter’s gun out of his waistband and put it beside his left, and only, hand. Bond still might get into much trouble. If he did, Scaramanga would come after Felix.

Bond crept off along the line of mangroves towards the bridge. For the time being he would have to keep more or less in the open. He prayed that, nearer the river, the swamp would yield to drier land so that he could work down towards the sea and then cut back towards the river and hope to pick up the man’s tracks.

It was 1.30 and the sun was high. James Bond was hungry and very thirsty and his shoulder wound throbbed with his pulse. The wound was beginning to give him a fever. One dreams all day as well as all night, and now, as he stalked his prey, he found, quizzically, that much of his mind was taken up with visualizing the champagne buffet waiting for them all, the living and the dead, at Green Harbour. For the moment, he indulged himself. The buffet would be laid out under the trees, as he saw it, adjoining the terminal station, which would probably be on the same lines as Thunderbird Halt. There would be long trestle tables, spotless tablecloths, rows of glasses and plates and cutlery and great dishes of cold lobster salad, cold meat cuts, and mounds of fruit – pineapple and such – to make the décor look Jamaican and exotic. There might be a hot dish, he thought. Something like roast stuffed sucking-pig with rice and peas – too hot for the day, decided Bond, but a feast for most of Green Harbour when the rich ‘tourists’ had departed. And there would be drink! Champagne in frosted silver coolers, rum punches, Tom Collinses, whisky sours, and, of course, great beakers of iced water that would only have been poured when the train whistled its approach to the gay little station. Bond could see it all. Every detail of it under the shade of the great ficus trees. The white-gloved, uniformed coloured waiters enticing him to take more and more; beyond, the dancing waters of the harbour, in the background the hypnotic throb of the calypso band, the soft, enticing eyes of the girls. And, ruling, ordering all, the tall, fine figure of the gracious host, a thin cigar between his teeth, the wide white Stetson tilted low over his brow, offering Bond just one more goblet of iced champagne.