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round and under him and seized the haft of the three-foot harpoon where it
disappeared under the rock. He pulled and strained until, with a rending of
flesh, it came away from the black fog that hung over the hole. Panting, he
got up and stood away from the rock, the sweat pouring down his face under the
mask. Above him, the tell-tale stream of silver bubbles rose straight to the
surface and he cursed the wounded 'pus-feller' in its lair.
But there was no time to worry further with it and he re-loaded his gun and
struck out with the moon over his right shoulder.
Now he made good going through the misty grey water and he concentrated only
on keeping his face a few inches above the sand and his head well down to
streamline his body. Once, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a stingray as
big as a ping-pong table shuffle out of his path, the tip of its great
speckled wings beating like a bird's, its long horned tail streaming out
behind it. But he paid it no attention, remembering that Quarrel had said that
rays never attack except in self-defence. He reflected that it had probably
come in over the outer reef to lay its eggs, or 'Mermaids' Purses' as the
fishermen call them, because they are shaped like a pillow with a stiff black
string at each corner, on the sheltered sandy
bottom.
Many shadows of big fish lazed across the moonlit sand, some as long as
himself. When one followed beside him for at least a minute he looked up to
see the white belly of a shark ten feet above him like a glaucous tapering
airship. Its blunt nose was buried inquisitively in his stream of air-bubbles.
The wide sickle slit of its mouth looked like a puckered scar. It leant
sideways and glanced down at him out of one hard pink naked eye, then it
wobbled its great scythe-shaped tail and moved slowly into the wall of grey
mist.
He frightened a family of squids, ranging from about six pounds down to an
infant of six ounces, frail and luminous in the half-light, hanging almost
vertical in a diminishing chorus-line. They righted themselves and shot off
with streamlined jet propulsion.
Bond rested for a moment about half way and then went on. Now there were
barracuda about, big ones of up to twenty pounds. They looked just as deadly
as he had remembered them. They glided above him like silver submarines,
looking down out of then: angry tigers' eyes. They were curious about him and
about his bubbles and they followed him, around and above him, like a pack of
silent wolves. By the time
Bond met the first bit of coral that meant he was coming up with the island
there must have been twenty of them moving quietly, watchfully in and out of
the opaque wall that enclosed him.
Bond's skin cringed under the black rubber but he could do nothing about them
and he concentrated on his objective.
Suddenly there was a long metallic shape hanging in the water above him.
Behind it there was a jumble of broken rock leading steeply upwards.
It was the keel of the Secatur and Bond's heart thumped in his chest.
He looked at the Rolex watch on his wrist. It was three minutes past eleven
o'clock. He selected the seven-hour fuse from the handful he extracted from a
zipped side-pocket and inserted it in the fuse pocket of the mine and pushed
it home. The rest of the fuses he buried in the sand so that if he was
Page 88
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
captured the mine would not be betrayed.
As he swam up, carrying the mine between his hands, bottom upwards, he was
aware of a commotion in the water behind him. A barracuda flashed by, its jaws
half open, almost hitting him, its eyes fixed on something at his back. But
Bond was intent only on the centre of the ship's keel and on a point about
three feet above it.
The mine almost dragged him the last few feet, its huge magnets straining for
the metallic kiss with the hull.
Bond had to pull hard against it to prevent the clang of contact. Then it was
silently in place and with its weight removed Bond had to swim strongly to
counter his new buoyancy and get down again and away from the surface.
It was as he turned to swim towards the twin propellers on his way to the
shelter of the rocks that he suddenly saw the terrible things that had been
going on behind him.
The great pack of barracudas seemed to have gone mad. They were whirling and
snapping in the water like hysterical dogs. Three sharks that had joined them
were charging through the water with a clumsier frenzy. The water was boiling
with the dreadful fish and Bond was slammed in the face and buffeted again
and again within a few yards. At any moment he knew his rubber skin would be
torn with the flesh below it and then the pack would be on him.
'Extreme mob behaviour conditions.' The Navy Department's phrase flashed into
his mind. This was just when he might have saved himself with the
shark-repellent stuff. Without it he might only have a few more minutes to
live.
In desperation he threshed through the water along the ship's keel, the
safety-catch up on the harpoon gun that was now only a toy in the face of this
drove of maddened cannibal fish.
He reached the two big copper screws and clung to one of them, panting, his
lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl of fear, his eyes distended as he
faced the frenzy of the boiling sea around him.
He at once saw that the mouths of the hurtling, darting fish were half open
and that they were plunging in and out of a brownish cloud, spreading
downwards from the surface. Close to him a barracuda hung for an instant,
something brown and glittering in its jaws. It gave a great swallow and then
swirled back into the melee.
At the same time he noticed that it was getting darker. He looked up and saw
with dawning comprehension that the quicksilver surface of the sea had turned
red, a horrible glinting crimson.
Threads of the stuff drifted within his reach. He hooked some towards him with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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