Bond came up behind her and put a protective arm across her shoulders. He said softly: “Take it easy, Judy. It’s all over now. How bad’s the arm?”
She said in a muffled voice: “It’s nothing. Something hit me. But that was awful. I didn’t – I didn’t know it would be like that.”
Bond pressed her arm reassuringly. “It had to be done. They’d have got you otherwise. Those were pro killers – the worst. But I told you this sort of thing was man’s work. Now then, let’s have a look at your arm. We’ve got to get going – over the border. The troopers’ll be here before long.”
She turned. The beautiful wild face was streaked with sweat and tears. Now the grey eyes were soft and obedient. She said: “It’s nice of you to be like that. After the way I was. I was sort of – sort of wound up.”
She held out her arm. Bond reached for the hunting-knife at her belt and cut off her shirtsleeve at the shoulder. There was the bruised, bleeding gash of a bullet wound across the muscle. Bond took out his own khaki handkerchief, cut it into three lengths and joined them together. He washed the wound dean with the coffee and whisky, and then took a thick slice of bread from his haversack and bound it over the wound. He cut her shirtsleeve into a sling and reached behind her neck to tie the knot. Her mouth was inches from his. The scent of her body had a warm animal tang. Bond kissed her once softly on the lips and once again, hard. He tied the knot. He looked into the grey eyes close to his. They looked surprised and happy. He kissed her again at each corner of the mouth and the mouth slowly smiled. Bond stood away from her and smiled back. He softly picked up her right hand and slipped the wrist into the sling. She said docilely: “Where are you taking me?”
Bond said: “I’m taking you to London. There’s this old man who will want to see you. But first we’ve got to get over into Canada, and I’ll talk to a friend in Ottawa and get your passport straightened out. You’ll have to get some clothes and things. It’ll take a few days. We’ll be staying in a place called the KO-ZEE Motel.”
She looked at him. She was a different girl. She said softly: “That’ll be nice. I’ve never stayed in a motel.”
Bond bent down and picked up his rifle and knapsack and slung them over one shoulder. Then he hung her bow and quiver over the other, and turned and started up through the meadow.
She fell in behind and followed him, and as she walked she pulled the tired bits of golden-rod out of her hair and undid a ribbon and let the pale gold hair fall down to her shoulders.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
James Bond said: “I’ve always thought that if I ever married I would marry an air hostess.”
The dinner party had been rather sticky, and now that the other two guests had left accompanied by the ADC to catch their plane, the Governor and Bond were sitting together on a chintzy sofa in the large Office of Works furnished drawing-room, trying to make conversation. Bond had a sharp sense of the ridiculous. He was never comfortable sitting deep in soft cushions. He preferred to sit up in a solidly upholstered armed chair with his feet firmly on the ground. And he felt foolish sitting with an elderly bachelor on his bed of rose chintz gazing at the coffee and liqueurs on the low table between their outstretched feet. There was something clubable, intimate, even rather feminine, about the scene and none of these atmospheres was appropriate.
Bond didn’t like Nassau. Everyone was too rich. The winter visitors and the residents who had houses on the island talked of nothing but their money, their diseases and their servant problems. They didn’t even gossip well. There was nothing to gossip about. The winter crowd were all too old to have love affairs and, like most rich people, too cautious to say anything malicious about their neighbours. The Harvey Millers the couple that had just left, were typical – a pleasant rather dull Canadian millionaire who had got into Natural Gas early on and stayed with it, and his pretty chatterbox of a wife. It seemed that she was English. She had sat next to Bond and chattered vivaciously about ‘what shows he had recently seen in town’ and ‘didn’t he think the Savoy Grill was the nicest place for supper. One saw so many interesting people – actresses and people like that’. Bond had done his best, but since he had not seen a play for two years, and then only because the man he was following in Vienna had gone to it, he had had to rely on rather dusty memories of London night life which somehow failed to marry up with the experiences of Mrs Harvey Miller.