Below the peak, where the diggings began, the hundred or so Negro men and women who were the labour force were coming to the end of the day’s shift. Another fifty cubic yards of guano had been dug out of the mountainside and another twenty yards of terrace had been added to the working level. Below, the mountainside looked like terraced vineyards in Upper Italy, except that here there were no vines, only deep barren shelves cut in the mountainside. And here, instead of the stink of marsh gas on the rest of the island, there was a strong ammoniac smell, and the ugly hot wind that kept the diggings dry blew the freshly turned whitish-brown dust into the eyes and ears and noses of the diggers. But the workers were used to the smell and the dust, and it was easy, healthy work. They had no complaints.
The last iron truck of the day started off on the Decauville Track that snaked down the mountainside to the crusher and separator. A whistle blew and the workers shouldered their clumsy picks and moved lazily down towards the high-wired group of Quonset huts that was their compound. Tomorrow, on the other side of the mountain, the monthly ship would be coming in to the deep-water quay they had helped to build ten years before, but which, since then, they had never seen. That would mean fresh stores and fresh goods and cheap jewellery at the canteen. It would be a holiday. There would be rum and dancing and a few fights. Life was good.
Life was good, too, for the senior outside staff-all Chinese Negroes like the men who had hunted Bond and Quarrel and the girl. They also stopped work in the garage and the machine shops and at the guard posts and filtered off to the ‘officers” quarters. Apart from watch and loading duties, tomorrow would also be a holiday for most of them. They too would have their drinking and dancing, and there would be-a new monthly batch of girls from ‘inside’. Some ‘marriages’ from the last lot would continue for further months or weeks according to the taste of the ‘husband’, but for the others there would be a fresh choice. There would be some of the older girls who had had their babies in the creche and were coming back for a fresh spell of duty ‘outside’, and there would be a sprinkling of young ones who had come of age and would be ‘coming out’ for the first time. There would be fights over these and blood would be shed, but in the end the officers’ quarters would settle down for another month of communal life, each officer with his woman to look after his needs.
Deep down in the cool heart of the mountain, far below this well-disciplined surface life, Bond awoke in his comfortable bed. Apart from a slight nembutal headache he felt fit and rested. Lights were on in the girl’s room and he could hear her moving about. He swung his feet to the ground and, avoiding the fragments of glass from the broken lamp, walked softly over to the clothes cupboard and put on the first kimono that came to his hand. He went to the door. The girl had a pile of kimonos out on the bed and was trying them on in front of the wall mirror. She had on a very smart one in sky-blue silk. It looked wonderful against the gold of her skin. Bond said, “That’s the one.”
She whirled round, her hand at her mouth. She took it down. “Oh, it’s you!” She smiled at him. “I thought you’d never wake up. I’ve been to look at you several times. I’d made up my mind to wake you at five. It’s half-past four and I’m hungry. Can you get us something to eat?”
“Why not,” Bond walked across to her bed. As he passed her he put his arm round her waist and took her with him. He examined the bells. He pressed the one marked ‘Room Service’. He said, “What about the others? Let’s have the full treatment”
She giggled. “But what’s a manicurist?”