Bond thanked her, and walked out and shut the door behind him. It was a big well-deck with hemp flooring and a cream-coloured semicircular foam rubber settee in the stern. Rattan chairs were scattered about and there was a serving-bar in one corner. It crossed Bond’s mind that Mr Krest might be a heavy drinker. Was it his imagination, or was Mrs Krest terrified of him? There was something painfully slavish in her attitude towards him. No doubt she had to pay heavily for her fairy story. Bond watched the green flanks of Mahe slowly slip away astern. He guessed that their speed was about ten knots. They would soon be at North Point and heading for the open sea. Bond listened to the glutinous bubble of the exhaust and idly thought about the beautiful Mrs Elizabeth Krest.
She could have been a model – probably had been before she became a hotel receptionist – that respectable female calling that yet has a whiff of the high demi-monde about it – and she still moved her beautiful body with the unselfconsciousness of someone who is used to going about with nothing, or practically nothing, on. But there was none of the chill of the model about her – it was a warm body and a friendly, confiding face. She might be thirty, certainly not more, and her prettiness, for it was not more than that, was still immature. Her best feature was the ash-blonde hair that hung heavily to the base of her neck, but she seemed pleasantly lacking in vanity about it. She didn’t toss it about or fiddle with it, and it occurred to Bond that she didn’t in fact show any signs of coquetry. She had stood quietly, almost docilely, with her large, dear blue eyes fixed almost the whole time on her husband. There was no lipstick on her mouth and no lacquer on her fingernails or toenails, and her eyebrows were natural. Did Mr Krest perhaps order that it should be so – that she should be a Germanic child of nature? Probably. Bond shrugged his shoulders. They were certainly a curiously assorted couple – the middle-aged Hemingway with the Bogart voice and the pretty, artless girl. And there was tension in the air – in the way she had cringed as he brought her to heel when she had offered them drinks, in the forced maleness of the man. Bond toyed idly with the notion that the man was impotent and that all the tough, rude act was nothing more than exaggerated virility-play. It certainly wasn’t going to be easy to live with for four or five days. Bond watched the beautiful Silhouette Island slip away to starboard and made a vow not to lose his temper. What was that American expression? ‘Eating crow’. It would be an interesting mental exercise for him. He would eat crow for five days and not let this damnable man interfere with what should be a good trip.
“Well, feller. Taking it easy?” Mr Krest was standing on the boat-deck looking down into the well. “What have you done with that woman I live with? Left her to do all the work, I guess. Well, and why not? That’s what they’re for, ain’t it? Care to look over the ship? Fido’s doin’ a spell at the wheel and I’ve got time on my hands.” Without waiting for an answer, Mr Krest bent and lowered himself down into the well-deck, dropping the last four feet.
“Mrs Krest’s putting on some clothes. Yes, I’d like to see over the ship.”
Mr Krest fixed Bond with his hard, disdainful stare. “‘Kay. Well now, facts first. It’s built by the Bronson Shipbuilding Corporation. I happen to own ninety per cent of the stock, so I got what I wanted. Designed by Rosenblatts – the top naval architects. Hundred feet long, twenty-one broad, and draws six. Two five-hundred-horsepower Superior diesels. Top speed, fourteen knots. Cruises two thousand five hundred miles at eight. Air-conditioned throughout. Carrier Corporation designed two special five-ton units. Carries enough frozen food and liquor for a month. All we need is fresh water for the baths and showers. Right? Now let’s go up front and you can see the crew’s quarters, and we’ll work back. And one thing, Jim,” Mr Krest stamped on the deck. “This is the floor, see? And the head’s the can. And if I want someone to stop doing whatever they’re doing I don’t shout ‘belay’ I shout ‘hold it’. Get me, Jim?”