Its mouth ended in a huge canvas sock, perhaps six feet in diameter. It was carried on high stanchions above the jetty and stopped just short of the hold of the tanker. From just to the right of the crane, an overhead conveyor-belt in a corrugated-iron housing ran out from the cliff-face. The rest of the crew would be below, battened away from the guano dust. There was no sign of life On board except one figure lolling at the wheel in the enclosed bridge. The tanker was called Blanche, and the Ant of Antwerp showed at her stern. It stood well out of the water, its deck perhaps twelve feet above the quay. An aged tanker of around ten thousand tons deadweight was secured alongside the top of the T. In front of him the jetty ran twenty yards out into the sea and ended in a T.
#LOADING WALLPAPER DRIVER#
It was the Chinese Negro boss, the driver of the marsh buggy. Round the corner, not more than ten yards away, was the crane. But softly, gently, slowly The prize was almost intolerably sweet.īond let his whole body slip down the ladder of wire and lunged through and down with all his force. Slowly, a thin, hard smile broke across the haggard, sunburned face.
All he needed was an ounce of hope, an ounce of reassurance that it was still worth while trying to stay alive.īond sat and thought, measuring distances, guessing at angles, remembering exactly where the crane driver's hands and feet were on the levers and the pedals. Only, with Bond, the two halves were not yet dead. Bond was like a cut worm, the two halves of which continue to jerk forward although life has gone and been replaced by the mock life of nervous impulses. It moved alongside his body, or floated above it, keeping enough contact to pull the strings that made the puppet work. The thinking, feeling apparatus of Bond was no longer part of his body. The stinking, bleeding, black scarecrow moved its arms and legs quite automatically. The wounded squid had emptied its ink sac at him. It was covered with black slime, and blackness stained the sea for twenty yards around. He got a hold and reached up his other hand and slowly, agonizingly, pulled himself up so that he was sitting in the fence. So he must be alive Dazedly Bond let go the spear from his trailing hand and reached up and felt for the nearest strand of wire. But he could feel the wire cutting into the tendons behind his knees. His eyes were stinging and there was a horrible fish taste in his mouth. What had happened? Had he gone blind? He could see nothing. Now the eyes and the great triangular beak were right out of the water and the beak was reaching up for his feet.
He could even feel his spine being stretched. Bond was being pulled down, inch by inch. The eyes were glaring up at him, redly, venomously, and the forest of feeding arms was at his feet and legs, tearing the cotton fabric away and flailing back. Now the head of the squid had broken the surface and the sea was being thrashed into foam by the great heaving mantle round it. Apart from aiming the canvas mouth of the conveyor, there was nothing else for anyone to do.īond had not time to worry about them. On the other side of the mountain men would be working, feeding the guano to the conveyor-belt that rumbled away through the bowels of the rock, but on this side no one was allowed and no one was necessary. There was no other sound, no other movement, no other life apart from the watch at the ship's wheel, the trusty working at the crane, and Doctor No, seeing that all went well. The morning breeze feathered the deep-water anchorage, still half in shadow beneath the towering cliffs, the' conveyor-belt thudded quietly on its rollers, the crane's engine chuffed rhythmically. On the bridge, the watch was lighting a cigarette. Twenty yards away, Doctor No, also with his back to Bond, stood sentry over the thick rich cataract of whity-yellow dust. The neck above the open khaki shirt was naked, offered, waiting. His guess at the distances had been right. Bond stepped up to the rock and inched an eye round.
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