“Just this, my friend. We are going to spend a few days sailing with Mr Krest – and Mrs Krest, the beautiful Mrs Krest. I have agreed to take the ship to Chagrin – the island I have spoken to you about. It is bloody miles from here – off the African Banks, and my family have never found any use for it except for collecting boobies’ eggs. It’s only about three feet above sea-level. I haven’t been to the damned place for five years. Any way, this man Krest wants to go there. He s collecting marine specimens, something to do with his Foundation, and there’s some blasted little fish that’s supposed to exist only around Chagrin Island. At least Krest says the only specimen in the world came from there.”
“Sounds rather fun. Where do I come in?”
“I knew you were bored and that you’d got a week before you sail, so I said that you were the local under water ace and that you’d soon find the fish if it was there, and anyway that I wouldn’t go without you. Mr Krest was willing. And that’s that. I knew, you’d be fooling around somewhere down the coast, so I just drove along until one of the fishermen told me there was a crazy white man trying to commit suicide alone at Belle Anse and I knew that would be you.”
Bond laughed. “Extraordinary the way these island people are afraid of the sea. You’d think they’d have got on terms with it by now. Damned few of the Seychellois can even swim.”
“Roman Catholic Church. Doesn’t like them taking their clothes off. Bloody nonsense, but there it is. And as for being afraid, don’t forget you’ve only been here for a month. Shark, barracuda – you just haven’t met a hungry one. And stone-fish. Ever seen a man that’s stepped on a stone-fish? His body bends backwards like a bow with the pain. Sometimes it’s so frightful his eyes literally fall out of their sockets. They very seldom live.”
Bond said unsympathetically: “They ought to wear shoes or bind their feet up when they go on the reef. They’ve got these fish in the Pacific and the giant clam into the bargain. It’s damned silly. Everybody moans about how poor they are here, although the sea’s absolutely paved with fish. And there are fifty varieties of cowrie under those rocks. They could make another good living selling those round the world.”
Fidele Barbey laughed boisterously. “Bond for Governor! That’s the ticket. Next meeting of LegCo I’ll put the idea up. You’re just the man for the job far-sighted, full of ideas, plenty of drive. Cowries! That’s splendid. They’ll balance the budget for the first time since the patchouli boom after the War. ‘We sell sea-shells from the Seychelles.’ That’ll be our slogan. I’ll see you get the credit. You’ll be Sir James in no time.”
“Make more money that way than trying to grow vanilla at a loss.” They continued to wrangle with light-hearted violence until the palm groves gave way to the giant sangdragon trees on the outskirts of the ramshackle capital of Mahe.
It had been nearly a month before when M had told Bond he was sending him to the Seychelles. Admiralty are having trouble with their new fleet base in the Maldives. Communists creeping in from Ceylon. Strikes, sabotage – the usual picture. May have to cut their losses and fall back on the Seychelles. A thousand miles farther south, but at least they look pretty secure. But they don’t want to be caught again. Colonial Office say it’s safe as houses. All the same I’ve agreed to send someone to give an independent view. When Makarios was locked up there a few years ago there were quite a few Security scares. Japanese fishing-boats hanging about, one or two refugee crooks from England, strong ties with France. Just go and have a good look.” M glanced out of the window at the driving March sleet. “Don’t get sunstroke.”
Bond’s report, which concluded that the only conceivable security hazard in the Seychelles lay in the beauty and ready availability of the Seychelloises, had been finished a week before and then he had nothing to do but wait for the ss Kampala to take him to Mombasa. He was thoroughly sick of the heat and the drooping palm trees and the plaintive cry of the terns and the interminable conversations about copra. The prospect of a change delighted him.