Dr. NO BY IAN FLEMING

“Thanks. And thanks for everything else.” Bond put the car into gear and went off down the avenue of flaming tropical shrubbery. He went fast, scattering the gravel on the bends. He wanted to get the hell away from King’s House, and the tennis, and the kings and queens. He even wanted to get the hell away from the .kindly Pleydell-Smith. Bond liked the man, but all he wanted now was to get back across the Junction Road to Beau Desert and away from the smooth world. He swung out past the sentry at the gates and on to the main road. He put his foot down.

The night voyage under the stars had been without incident. No one had come after them. The girl had done most of the sailing. Bond had not argued with her. He had lain in the bottom of the boat, totally collapsed, like a dead man. He had woken once or twice and listened to the slap of the sea against the hull and watched her quiet profile under the stars. Then the cradle of the soft swell had sent him back to sleep and to the nightmares that reached out after him from Crab Key. He didn’t mind them. He didn’t think he would ever mind a nightmare now. After what had happened the night before, it would have to be strong stuff that would ever frighten him again.

The crunch of a nigger-head against the hull had woken him. They were coming through the reef into Morgan’s Harbour. The first quarter moon was up, and inside the reef the sea was a silver mirror. The girl had brought the canoe through under sail. They slid across the bay to the little fringe of sand and the bows under Bond’s head sighed softly into it. She had had to help him out of the boat and across the velvet lawn and into the house. He had clung to her and cursed her softly as she had cut his clothes off him and taken him into the shower. She had said nothing when she had seen his battered body under the lights. She had turned the water full on and taken soap and washed him down as if he had been a horse. Then she led him out from under the water and dabbed him softly dry with towels that were soon streaked with blood. He had seen her reach for the bottle of Milton. He had groaned and taken hold of the washbasin and waited for it. Before she had begun to put it on him, she had come round and kissed him on the lips. She had said softly, “Hold tight, my darling. And cry. It’s going to hurt,” and as she splashed the murderous stuff over his body the tears of pain had run out of his eyes and down his cheeks without shame.

Then there had been a wonderful breakfast as the dawn flared up across the bay, and then the ghastly drive over to Kingston to the white table of the surgery in the emergency ward. Pleydell-Smith had been summoned. No questions had been asked. Merthiolate had been put on the wounds and tannic ointment on the burns. The efficient Negro doctor had written busily in the duty report. What? Probably just ‘Multiple burns and contusions’. Then, with promises to come into the private ward on the next day, Bond had gone off with Pleydell-Smith to King’s House and to the first of the meetings that had ended with the full-dress conference. Bond had enciphered a short signal to M via the Colonial Office which he had coolly concluded with: ‘REGRET MUST AGAIN REQUEST SICK LEAVE STOP

SURGEONS REPORT FOLLOWS STOP KINDLY INFORM ARMOURER SMITH AND WESSON INEFFECTIVE AGAINST FLAME-THROWER ENDIT.’

Now, as Bond swung the little car down the endless S-bends towards the North Shore, he regretted the gibe. M wouldn’t like it. It was cheap. It wasted cipher groups. Oh well! Bond swerved to avoid a thundering red bus with ‘Brownskin Gal’ on the destination plate. He had just wanted M to know that it hadn’t quite been a holiday in the sun. He would apologize when he sent in his written report.

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