And his left hand, outflung in the surrender of death, rested on the floor and would provide upward leverage when the moment came.
Above him there sounded a long, cavernous yawn. The brown toecaps shifted. Bond watched the shoe-leather strain as Nash stood up. In a minute, with Bond’s gun in his right hand, Nash would climb on to the bottom bunk and reach up and feel through the curtain of hair for the base of the girl’s neck. Then the snout of the Beretta would nuzzle in after the probing fingers. Nash would press the trigger. The roar of the train would cover the muffled boom.
It would be a near thing. Bond desperately tried to remember simple anatomy. Where were the mortal places in the lower body of a man? Where did the main artery run? The Femoral. Down the inside of the thigh. And the External Iliac, or whatever it was called, that became the Femoral?
Across the centre of the groin. If he missed both, it would be bad. Bond had no illusions about being able to beat this terrific man in unarmed combat.
The first violent stab of his knife had to be decisive.
The brown toecaps moved. They pointed towards the bunk. What was the man doing? There was no sound except the hollow iron clang as the great train tore through the Simplon–through the heart of the Wasenhorn and Monte Leone. The toothglass tinkled. The woodwork creaked comfortably. For a hundred yards on both sides of the little death cell rows of people were sleeping, or lying awake, thinking of their lives and loves, making little plans, wondering who would meet them at the Gare de Lyon. And, all the while, just along the corridor, death was riding with them down the same dark hole, behind the same great Diesel, on the same hot rails.
One brown shoe left the floor. It would have stepped half across Bond. The vulnerable arch would be open above Bond’s head.
Bond’s muscles coiled like a snake’s. His right hand flickered a few centimetres to the hard stitching on the edge of the case. Pressed sideways. Felt the narrow shaft of the knife. Drew it softly half way out without moving his arm.
The brown heel lifted off the ground. The toe bent and took the weight. Now the second foot had gone.
Softly move the weight here, take the purchase there, grasp the knife hard so that it wouldn’t turn on a bone, and then. . . .
In one violent corkscrew of motion, Bond’s body twisted up from the floor. The knife flashed.
The fist with the long steel finger, and all Bond’s arm and shoulder behind it, lunged upwards. Bond’s knuckles felt flannel. He held the knife in, forcing it further.
A ghastly wailing cry came down to him. The Beretta clattered to the floor. Then the knife was wrenched from Bond’s hand as the man gave a convulsive twist and crashed down.
Bond had planned for the fall, but, as he sidestepped towards the window, a flailing hand caught him and sent him thudding on to the lower bunk. Before he could recover himself, up from the floor rose the terrible face, its eyes shining violet, the violet teeth bared. Slowly, agonizingly, the two huge hands groped for him.
Bond, half on his back, kicked out blindly. His shoe connected; but then his foot was held and twisted and he felt himself slipping downwards.
Bond’s fingers scrabbled for a hold in the stuff of the bunk. Now the other hand had him by the thigh. Nails dug into him.
Bond’s body was being twisted and pulled down. Soon the teeth would be at him. Bond hammered out with his free leg. It made no difference. He was going.
Suddenly Bond’s scrabbling fingers felt something hard. The book! How did one work the thing? Which way up was it? Would it shoot him or Nash? Desperately Bond held it out towards the great sweating face. He pressed at the base of the cloth spine.
`Click!’ Bond felt the recoil. `Click-click-click-click.’ Now Bond felt the heat under his fingers. The hands on his legs were going limp. The glistening face was drawing back. A noise came from the throat, a terrible gurgling