M grunted non-committally. “People in-er-love do stupid things,” he said gruffly. “Act like lunatics sometimes. And anyway, what other explanation is there? Absolutely no trace of foul play-no reason for it that anyone can see. It’s a quiet station down there. Same routines every month-an occasional communist trying to get into the island from Cuba, crooks from England thinking they can hide away just because Jamaica’s so far from London. I don’t suppose Strangways has had a big case since 007 was there.” He turned to Bond. “On what you’ve heard, what do you think, 007? There’s not much else to tell you.”
Bond was definite. “I just can’t see Strangways flying off the handle like that, sir. I daresay he was having an affair with the girl, though I wouldn’t have thought he was a man to mix business with pleasure. But the Service was his whole life. He’d never have let it down. I can see him handing in his papers, and the girl doing the same, and then going off with her after you’d sent out reliefs. But I don’t believe it was in him to leave us in the air like this. And from what you say of the girl, I’d say it would be much the same with her. Chief Officers WRNS don’t go out of their senses.”
“Thank you, 007.” M’s voice was controlled. “These considerations had also crossed my mind. No one’s been jumping to conclusions without weighing all the possibilities. Perhaps you can suggest another solution.”
M sat back and waited. He reached for his pipe and began filling it. The case bored him. He didn’t like personnel problems, least of all messy ones like this. There were plenty of other worries waiting to be coped with round the world. It was only to give Bond the pretence of a job, mixed with a good rest, that he had decided to send him out to Jamaica to close the case. He put the pipe in his mouth and reached for the matches. “Well?”
Bond wasn’t going to be put off his stride. He had liked Strangways and he was impressed by the points the Chief of Staff had made. He said: “Well, sir. For instance, what was the last case Strangways was working on? Had he reported anything, or was there anything Section III had asked him to look into. Anything at all in the last few months?”
“Nothing whatsoever.” M was definite. He took the pipe out of his mouth and cocked it at the Chief of Staff. “Right?”
“Right, sir,” said the Chief of Staff. “Only that damned business about the birds.”
“Oh that,” said M contemptuously. “Some rot from the Zoo or somebody. Got wished on us by the Colonial Office. About six weeks ago, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, sir. But it wasn’t the Zoo. It was some people in America called the Audubon Society. They protect rare birds from extinction or something like that. Got on to our Ambassador in Washington, and the FO passed the buck to the Colonial Office. They shoved it on to us. Seems these bird people are pretty powerful in America. They even got an atom bombing range shifted on the West Coast because it interfered with some birds’ nests.”
M snorted. “Damned thing called a Whooping Crane. Read about in the papers.”
Bond persisted. “Could you tell me about it, sir? What did the Audub.on people want us to do?”
M waved his pipe impatiently. He picked up the Strangways file and tossed it down in front of the Chief of Staff. “You tell him, Chief of Staff,” he said wearily. “It’s all in there.”
The Chief of Staff took the file and riffled through the pages towards the back. He found what he wanted and bent the file in half. There was silence in the room while he ran his eye over three pages of typescript which Bond could see were headed with the blue and white cipher of the Colonial Office. Bond sat quietly, trying not to feel M’s coiled impatience radiating across the desk.
The Chief of Staff slapped the file shut. He said, “Well, this is the story as we passed it to Strangways on January zoth. He acknowledged receipt, but after that we heard nothing from him.” The Chief of Staff sat back in his chair. He looked at Bond. “It seems there’s a bird called a Roseate Spoonbill. There’s a coloured photograph of it in here. Looks like a sort of pink stork with an ugly flat bill which it uses for digging for food in the mud. Not many years ago these birds were dying out. Just before the war there were only a few hundred left in the world, mostly in Florida and thereabouts. Then somebody reported a colony of them on an island called Crab Key between Jamaica and Cuba. It’s British territory-a dependency of Jamaica. Used to be a guano island, but the quality of the guano was too low for the cost of digging it. When the birds were found there, it had been uninhabited for about fifty years. The Audubon people went there and ended up by leasing a corner as a sanctuary for these spoonbills. Put two