Bond 13 - The Man With The Golden Gun

15 - Crab-meat

The cough sounded about twenty yards away, towards the river. Bond dropped to one knee, his senses questing like the antennae of an insect. He waited five minutes. When the cough was not repeated, he crept forwards on hands and knees, his gun gripped between his teeth.

In a small clearing of dried, cracked black mud, he saw the man. He stopped in his tracks, trying to calm his breathing.

Scaramanga was lying stretched out, his back supported by a clump of sprawling mangrove roots. His hat and his high stock had gone, and the whole of the right-hand side of his suit was black with blood upon which insects crawled and feasted. But the eyes in the controlled face were still very much alive. They swept the clearing at regular intervals, questing. Scaramanga's hands rested on the roots beside him. There was no sign of a gun.

Scaramanga's face suddenly pointed, like a retriever's, and the roving scrutiny held steady. Bond could not see what had caught his attention, but then a patch of the dappled shadow at the edge of the clearing moved and a large snake, beautifully diamonded in dark and pale brown, zigzagged purposefully across the black mud towards the man.

Bond watched, fascinated. He guessed it was a boa of the Epicrates family, attracted by the smell of blood. It was perhaps five feet long and quite harmless to man. Bond wondered if Scaramanga would know this. He was immediately put out of his doubt. Scaramanga's expression had not changed, but his right hand crept softly down his trouser leg, gently pulled up the cuff, and removed a thin, stiletto-style knife from the side of his short Texan boot. Then he waited, the knife held ready across his stomach, not clenched in his fist, but pointed in the flick-knife fashion. The snake paused for a moment a few yards from the man and raised its head high to give him a final inspection. The forked tongue licked out inquisitively, again and again, then, still with its head held above the ground, it moved slowly forward.

Not a muscle moved in Scaramanga's face. Only the eyes were dead-steady, watchful slits. The snake came into the shadow of his trouser leg and moved slowly up towards the glistening shirt. Suddenly the tongue of steel that lay across Scaramanga's stomach came to life and leaped. It transfixed the head of the snake exactly in the centre of the brain and pierced through it, pinning it to the ground and holding it there while the powerful body thrashed wildly, seeking a grip on the mangrove roots, on Scaramanga's arm. But immediately, when it had a grip, its convulsions released its coils which flailed off in another direction.

The death struggles diminished and finally ceased altogether. The snake lay motionless. Scaramanga was careful. He ran his hand down the full length of the snake. Only the tip of the tail lashed briefly. Scaramanga extracted the knife from the head of the snake, cut off its head with a single hard stroke, and threw it, after reflection, accurately towards a crab hole. He waited, watching, to see if a crab would come out and take it. None did. The thud of the arrival of the snake's head would have kept any crab underground for many minutes, however enticing the scent of what had made the thud.

James Bond, kneeling in the bush, watched all this, every nuance of it, with the most careful attention. Each one of Scaramanga's actions, every fleeting expression on his face, had been an index of the man's awareness of his aliveness. The whole episode of the snake was as revealing as a temperature chart or a lie detector. In Bond's judgment, Scaramanga, for all his blood-letting and internal injuries, was still very much alive. He was still a most formidable and dangerous man.

Scaramanga, his task satisfactorily completed, minutely shifted his position, and, once again, made his penetrating examination of the surrounding bush.

As Scaramanga's gaze swept by him without a flicker, Bond blessed the darkness of his suit--a black patch of shadow among so many others. In the sharp blacks and whites from the midday sun, Bond was well camouflaged.

Satisfied, Scaramanga picked up the limp body of the snake, laid it across his stomach, and carefully slit it down its underside as far as the anal vent. Then he scoured it and carefully etched the skin away from the red-veined flesh with the precise flicks and cuts of a surgeon. Every scrap of unwanted reptile he threw towards crab holes, and, with each throw, a flicker of annoyance crossed the granite face that no one would come and pick up the crumbs from the rich man's table. When the meal was ready, he once again scanned the bush, and then, very carefully, coughed and spat into his hand. He examined the results and flung his hand sideways. On the black ground, the sputum made a bright pink scrawl. The cough didn't seem to hurt him or cause him much effort. Bond guessed that his bullet had hit Scaramanga in the right chest and had missed a lung by a fraction. There was haemorrhage and Scaramanga was a hospital case, but the blood-soaked shirt was not telling the whole truth.

Satisfied with his inspection of his surroundings, Scaramanga bit into the body of the snake and was at once, like a dog with its meal, absorbed by his hunger and thirst for the blood and juices of the snake.

Bond had the impression that if he now came forward from his hiding place Scaramanga, like a dog, would bare his teeth in a furious snarl. He got quietly up from his knees, took out his gun, and, his eyes watching Scaramanga's hands, strolled out into the centre of the little clearing.

Bond was mistaken. Scaramanga did not snarl. He barely looked up from the cut-off length of snake in his two hands and, his mouth full of meat, said, “You've been a long while coming. Care to share my meal?”

“No thanks. I prefer my snake grilled with hot butter sauce. Just keep on eating. I like to see both hands occupied.”

Scaramanga sneered. He gestured at his blood-stained shirt. “Frightened of a dying man? You limeys come pretty soft.”

“The dying man handled that snake quite efficiently. Got any more weapons on you?” Scaramanga moved to undo his coat. “Steady! No quick movements. Just show your belt, armpits, pat the thighs inside and out. I'd do it myself only I don't want what the snake got. And while you're about it, just toss the knife into the trees. Toss. No throwing, if you don't mind. My trigger finger's been getting a bit edgy today. Seems to want to go about its business on its own. Wouldn't like it to take over. Yet, that is.”

Scaramanga, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the knife into the air. The sliver of steel spun like a wheel in the sunshine. Bond had to step aside. The knife pierced the mud where Bond had been standing and stood upright. Scaramanga gave a harsh laugh. The laugh turned into a cough. The gaunt face contorted painfully. Too painfully? Scaramanga spat red, but not all that red. There could be only slight haemorrhage. Perhaps a broken rib or two. Scaramanga could be out of hospital in a couple of weeks. Scaramanga put down his piece of snake and did exactly as Bond had told him, all the while watching Bond's face with his usual cold, arrogant stare. He finished and picked up the piece of snake and began gnawing it. He looked up. “Satisfied?”

“Sufficiently.” Bond squatted down on his heels. He held his gun loosely, aiming somewhere halfway between the two of them. “Now then, let's talk. Afraid you haven't got too much time, Scaramanga. This is the end of the road. You've killed too many of my friends. I have the licence to kill you and I am going to kill you. But I'll make it quick. Not like Margesson. Remember him? You put a shot through both of his knees and both of his elbows. Then you made him crawl and kiss your boots. You were foolish enough to boast about it to your friends in Cuba . It got back to us. As a matter of interest, how many men have you killed in your life?”

“With you, it'll make the round fifty.” Scaramanga had gnawed the last segment of backbone clean. He tossed it towards Bond. “Eat that, scum, and get on with your business. You won't get any secrets out of me, if that's the pitch. And don't forget. I've been shot at by experts and I'm still alive. Maybe not precisely kicking, but I've never heard of a limey who'd shoot a defenceless man who's badly wounded. They haven't got the guts. We'll just sit here, chewing the fat, until the rescue team comes. Then I'll be glad to go for trial. What'll they get me for, eh?”

“Well, just for a start, there's that nice Mr. Rotkopf with one of your famous silver bullets in his head in the river back of the hotel.”

“That'll match with the nice Mr. Hendriks with one of your bullets somewhere behind his face. Maybe we'll serve a bit of time together. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? They say the jail at Spanish Town has all the comforts. How about it, limey? That's where you'll be found with a shiv in your back in the sack-sewing department. And by the same token, how d'you know about Rotkopf?”

“Your bug was bugged. Seems you're a bit accident-prone these days, Scaramanga. You hired the wrong security men. Both your managers were from the C.I.A. The tape'll be on the way to Washington by now. That's got the murder of Ross on it too. See what I mean? You've got it coming from every which way.”

“Tape isn't evidence in an American court. But I see what you mean, shamus. Mistakes seem to have got made. So okay,”--Scaramanga made an expansive gesture of the right hand--“take a million bucks and call it quits?”

“I was offered three million on the train.”

“I'll double that.”

“No. Sorry.” Bond got to his feet. The left hand behind his back was clenched with the horror of what he was about to do. He forced himself to think of what the broken body of Margesson must have looked like, of the others that this man had killed, of the ones he would kill afresh if Bond weakened. This man was probably the most efficient one-man death-dealer in the world. James Bond had him. He had been instructed to take him. He must take him-- lying down wounded or in any other position. Bond assumed casualness, tried to make himself the enemy's cold equal. “Any messages for anyone, Scaramanga? Any instructions? Anyone you want looking after? I'll take care of it if it's personal. I'll keep it to myself.”

Scaramanga laughed his harsh laugh, but carefully. This tune the laugh didn't turn into the red cough. “Quite the little English gentleman! Just like I spelled it out. S'pose you wouldn't like to hand me your gun and leave me to myself for five minutes like in the books? Well, you're right, boyo! I'd crawl after you and blast the back of your head off.” The eyes still bored into Bond's with the arrogant superiority, the cold superman quality that had made him the greatest pro gunman in the world--no drinks, no drugs--the impersonal trigger man who killed for money and, by the way he sometimes did it, for the kicks.

Bond examined him carefully. How could Scaramanga fail to break when he was going to die in minutes? Was there some last trick the man was going to spring? Some hidden weapon? But the man just lay there, apparently relaxed, propped up against the mangrove roots, his chest heaving rhythmicallv, the granite of his face not crumbling

even minutely in defeat. On his forehead there was not as much sweat as there was on Bond's. Scaramanga lay in dappled black shadow. For ten minutes James Bond had stood in the middle of the clearing in blazing sunshine. Suddenly he felt the vitality oozing out through his feet into the black mud. And his resolve was going with it. He said, and he heard his voice ring out harshly, “All right, Scaramanga, this is it.” He lifted his gun and held it in the two-handed grip of the target man. “I'm going to make it as quick as I can.”

Scaramanga held up a hand. For the first time his face showed emotion. “Okay, fella.” The voice, amazingly, supplicated. “I'm a Catholic, see? Just let me say my last prayer. Okay? Won't take long, then you can blaze away. Every man's got to die sometime. You're a fine guy as guys go. It's the luck of the game. If my bullet had been an inch maybe two inches, to the right, it'd be you that's dead in place of me. Right? Can I say my prayer, mister?”

James Bond lowered his gun. He would give the man a few minutes. He knew he couldn't give him more. Pain and heat and exhaustion and thirst. It wouldn't be long before he lay down himself, right there on the hard cracked mud, just to rest. If someone wanted to kill him, they could. He said, and the words came out slowly, tiredly, “Go ahead, Scaramanga. One minute only.”

“Thanks, pal.” Scaramanga's hands went up to his face and covered his eyes. There came a drone of Lathi which went on and on. Bond stood there in the sunshine, his gun lowered, watching Scaramanga, but at the same tune not watching him, the edge of his focus dulled by the pain and the heat and the hypnotic litany that came from behind the shuttered face and the horror of what Bond was going to have to do--in one minute, perhaps two.

The fingers of Scaramanga's right hand crawled imperceptibly sideways across his face, inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre. They got to his ear and stopped. The drone of the Lathi prayer never altered its slow, lulling tempo.

And then the hand leaped behind the head and the tiny golden Derringer roared, and James Bond spun round as if he had taken a right to the jaw and crashed to the ground.

At once Scaramanga was on his feet and moving forward like a swift cat. He snatched up the discarded knife and held it forward like a tongue of silver flame.

But James Bond twisted like a dying animal on the ground and the iron in his hand cracked viciously again and again--five times--and then fell out of his hand onto the black earth as his gun hand went to the right side of his belly and stayed there, clutching at the terrible pain.

The big man stood for a moment and looked up at the deep blue sky. His fingers opened in a spasm and let go the knife. His pierced heart stuttered and limped and stopped. He crashed flat back and lay, his arms flung wide, as if someone had thrown him away.

After a while, the land crabs came out of their holes and began nosing at the scraps of the snake. The bigger offal could wait until the night.

 16      The Wrapup

The extremely smart policeman from the wrecking squad on the railway came down the riverbank at the normal, dignified gait of a Jamaican constable on his beat. No Jamaican policeman ever breaks into a run. He has been taught that this lacks authority. Felix Leiter, now put under with morphine by the doctor, had said that a good man was after a bad man in the swamp and that there might be shooting. Felix Leiter wasn't more explicit than that, but when he said he was from the F.B.I.--a legitimate euphemism--in Washington, the policeman tried to get some of the wrecking squad to come with him and when he failed, sauntered cautiously off on his own, his baton swinging with assumed jauntiness.

The boom of the guns and the explosion of screeching marsh birds gave him an approximate fix. He had been born not far away, at Negril, and as a boy he had often used his gins and his slingshot in these marshes. They held no fears for him. When he came to the approximate point on the riverbank, he turned left into the mangrove, and conscious that his black-and-blue uniform was desperately conspicuous, stalked cautiously from clump to clump into the morass. He was protected by nothing but his nightstick and the knowledge that to kill a policeman was a capital offence without the option. He only hoped that the good man and the bad man knew this too.

With all the birds gone, there was dead silence. The constable noticed that the tracks of bush rats and other small animals were running past him on a course that converged with his target area. Then he heard the rattling scuttle of the crabs, and in a moment, from behind a thick mangrove clump, he saw the glint of Scaramanga's shirt. He watched and listened. There was no movement and no sound. He strolled, with dignity, into the middle of the clearing, looked at the two bodies and the guns, and took out his nickel police whistle and blew three long blasts. Then he sat down in the shade of a bush, took out his report pad, licked his pencil, and began writing in a laborious hand.

A week later, James Bond regained consciousness. He was in a green-shaded room. He was under water. The slowly revolving fan in the ceiling was the screw of a ship that was about to run him down. He swam for his life. But it was no good. He was tied down, anchored to the bottom of the sea. He screamed at the top of his lungs. To the nurse at the end of the bed it was the whisper of a moan. At once she was beside him. She put a cool hand on his forehead. While she took his pulse, James Bond looked up at her with unfocused eyes. So this was what a mermaid looked like! He muttered “You're pretty,” and gratefully swam back down into her arms.

The nurse wrote ninety-five on his sheet and telephoned down to the ward sister. She looked in the dim mirror and tidied her hair in preparation for the R.M.O. in charge of this apparently Very Important Patient.

The Resident Medical Officer, a young Jamaican graduate from Edinburgh , arrived with the matron, a kindly dragon on loan from King Edward VII's. He heard the nurse's report. He went over to the bed and gently lifted Bond's eyelids. He slipped a thermometer under Bond's armpit and held Bond's pulse in one hand and a pocket chronometer in the other, and there was silence in the little room. Outside, the traffic tore up and down a Kingston road.

The doctor released Bond's pulse and slipped the chronometer back into the trouser pocket under the white smock. He wrote figures on the chart. The nurse held the door open, and the three people went out into the corridor. The doctor talked to the matron. The nurse was allowed to listen. “He's going to be all right. Temperature well down. Pulse a little fast, but that may have been the result of his waking. Reduce the antibiotics. I'll talk to the floor sister about that later. Keep on with the intravenous feeding. Dr. Macdonald will be up later to attend to the dressings. He'll be waking again. If he asks for something to drink, give him fruit juice. He should be on soft foods soon. Miracle really. Missed the abdominal viscera. Didn't even shave a kidney. Muscle only. That bullet was dipped in enough poison to kill a horse. Thank God that man at Sav' La Mar recognized the symptoms of snake venom and gave him those massive anti-snakebite injections. Remind me to write to him, matron. He saved the man's life. Now then, no visitors of course, for at least another week. You can tell the police and the High Commissioner's Office that he's on the mend. I don't know who he is, but apparently London keeps on worrying us about him. Something to do with the Ministry of Defence. From now on, put them and all other inquiries through to the High Commissioner's Office. They seem to think they're in charge of him.” He paused. “By the way, how's his friend getting on in Number Twelve? The one the American ambassador and Washington have been on about. He's not on my list, but he keeps on asking to see this Mr. Bond.”

“Compound fracture of the tibia,” said the matron. “No complications.” She smiled. “Except that he's a bit fresh with the nurses. He should be walking with a stick in ten days. He's already seen the police. I suppose it's all to do with that story in the Gleaner about those American tourists being killed when the Orange River Bridge collapsed. But the Commissioner's handling it all personally. The story in the Gleaner's very vague.”

The doctor smiled. “Nobody tells me anything. Just as well. I haven't got the tune to listen to them. Well, thank you, matron. I must get along. Multiple crash at Halfway Tree. The ambulances'll be here any minute.” He hurried away. The matron went about her business. The nurse, excited by all this high-level talk, went softly back into the green-shaded room, tidied the sheet over the naked right shoulder of her patient where the doctor had pulled it down, and went back to her chair at the end of the bed and her copy of Ebony.

Ten days later, the little room was crowded. James Bond, propped up among extra pillows, was amused by the galaxy of officialdom that had been assembled. On his left was the Commissioner of Police, resplendent in his black uniform with silver insignia. On his right was a justice of the Supreme Court in full regalia, accompanied by a deferential clerk. A massive figure, to whom Felix Leiter, on crutches, was fairly respectful, had been introduced as “Colonel Bannister” from Washington . Head of Station C, a quiet civil servant called Alec Hill, who had been flown out from London , stood near the door and kept his appraising eyes unwaveringly on Bond. Mary Goodnight, who was to take notes of the proceedings but also, on the matron's strict instructions, watch for any sign of fatigue in James Bond and have absolute authority to close the meeting if he showed strain, sat demurely beside the bed with a shorthand pad on her knees. But James Bond felt no strain. He was delighted to see all these people and know that at last he was back in the great world again. The only matters that worried him were that he had not been allowed to see Felix Leiter before the meeting to agree their stories and that he had been rather curtly advised by the High Commissioner's Office that legal representation would not be necessary.

The Police Commissioner cleared his throat. He said, “Commander Bond, our meeting here today is largely a formality, but it is held on the Prime Minister's instructions and with your doctor's approval. There are many rumours running around the island and abroad, and Sir Alexander Bustamante is most anxious to have them dispelled for the sake of justice and of the island's good name. So this meeting is in the nature of a judicial inquiry having Prime Ministerial status. We very much hope that, if the conclusions of the meeting are satisfactory, there need be no more legal proceedings whatever. You understand?”

“Yes,” said Bond--who didn't.

“Now,” the Commissioner spoke weightily. 'The facts as ascertained are as follows. Recently there took place at the Thunderbird Hotel in the Parish of Westmoreland a meeting of what can only be described as foreign gangsters of outstanding notoriety, including representatives of the Soviet secret service, the Mafia, and the Cuban secret police. The objects of this meeting were, inter alia, sabotage of Jamaican installations in the cane industry, stimulation of illicit ganja-growing in the island and purchase of the crop for export, the bribery of a high Jamaican official with the object of installing gangster-run gambling in the island, and sundry other malfeasances deleterious to law and order in Jamaica and to her international standing. Am I correct, Commander?"

“Yes,” said Bond, this tune with a clear conscience.

“Now.” The Commissioner spoke with even greater emphasis. “The intentions of this subversive group became known to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Jamaican police and the facts of the proposed assembly were placed before the Prime Minister in person by myself. Naturally the greatest secrecy was observed. A decision then had to be reached as to how this meeting was to be kept under surveillance and penetrated so that its intentions might be learned. Since friendly nations, including Britain and the United States , were involved, secret conversations took place with the representatives of the Ministry of Defence in Britain and of the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States . As a result, expert personnel in the shape of yourself, Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Leiter were generously made available, at no cost to the Jamaican government, to assist in unveiling these secret machinations against Jamaica held on Jamaican soil.” The Commissioner paused and looked round the room to see if he had stated the position correctly. Bond noticed that Felix Leiter nodded his head vigorously with the others, but, in his case, in Bond's direction.

Bond smiled. He had at last got the message. He also nodded his agreement.

“Accordingly,” continued the Commissioner, “and working throughout under the closest liaison and direction of the Jamaican C.I.D., Messrs. Bond, Nicholson, and Leiter carried out their duties in exemplary fashion. The true intentions of the gangsters were unveiled, but alas, in the process, the identity of at least one of the Jamaica-controlled agents was discovered and a battle royal took place. During the course of this, thanks to the superior gunfire of Commander Bond the following enemy agents-- here there will be a list--were killed. Immediately after, thanks to Mr. Letter's ingenious use of explosive on the Orange River Bridge , the following--another list--lost their lives. Unfortunately, two of the Jamaica-controlled agents received severe wounds from which they are now recovering in the Memorial Hospital . It remains to mention the names of Constable Percival Sampson of the Negril Constabulary, who was first on the scene of the final battlefield, and Dr. Lister Smith of Savannah La Mar, who rendered vital first aid to Commander Bond and Mr. Leiter. On the instructions of the Prune Minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, a judicial inquiry was held this day at the bedside of Commander Bond and in the presence of Mr. Felix Leiter to confirm the above facts. These, in the presence of Justice Morris Cargill of the Supreme Court, are now and hereby confirmed.”

The Commissioner was obviously delighted with his rendering of all this rigmarole. He beamed at Bond. “It only remains” he handed Bond a sealed packet, a similar one to Felix Leiter, and one to Colonel Bannister--“to confer on Commander Bond of Great Britain, Mr. Felix Leiter of the United States, and, in absentia, Mr. Nicholas Nicholson of the United States, the immediate award of the Jamaican Police Medal for gallant and meritorious services to the Independent State of Jamaica.”

There was muted applause. Mary Goodnight went on clapping after the others had stopped. She suddenly realized the fact, blushed furiously, and stopped.

James Bond and Felix Leiter made stammered acknowledgments. Justice Cargill rose to his feet and, in solemn tones, asked Bond and Leiter in turn, “Is this a true and correct account of what occurred between the given dates?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Bond.

“I'll say it is, Your Honour,” said Felix Leiter fervently.

The Judge bowed. All except Bond rose and bowed. Bond just bowed. “In that case, I declare this inquiry closed.” The bewigged figure turned to Miss Goodnight. “If you will be land enough to obtain all the signatures, duly witnessed, and send them round to my chambers? Thank you so much.” He paused and smiled. “And the carbon, if you don't mind?”

“Certainly, my lord.” Mary Goodnight glanced at Bond. “And now, if you will forgive me, I think the patient needs a rest. Matron was most insistent. . . .”

Goodbyes were said. Bond called Leiter back. Mary Goodnight smelled private secrets. She admonished, “Now, only a minute!” and went out and closed the door.

Leiter leant over the end of the bed. He wore his most quizzical smile. He said, “Well, I'll be goddamned, James. That was the neatest wrapup job I've ever lied my head off at. Everything clean as a whistle, and we've even collected a piece of lettuce.”

Talking starts with the stomach muscles. Bond's wounds were beginning to ache. He smiled, not showing the pain. Leiter was due to leave that afternoon. Bond didn't want

to say goodbye to him.. Bond treasured his men friends and Felix Leiter was a great slice of his past. He said, “Scaramanga was quite a guy. He should have been taken alive. Maybe Tiffy really did put the hex on him with Mother Edna. They don't come like that often.”

Leiter was unsympathetic. “That's the way you limeys talk about Rommel and Donitz and Guderian. Let alone Napoleon. Once you've beaten them, you make heroes out of them. Don't make sense to me. In my book, an enemy's an enemy. Care to have Scaramanga back? Now, in this room, with his famous golden gun on you--the long one or the short one? Standing where I am? One bets you a thousand you wouldn't. Don't be a jerk, James. You did a good job. Pest control. It's got to be done by someone. Going back to it when you're off the orange juice?”

Felix Leiter jeered at him. “Of course you are, lamebrain. It's what you were put into the world for. Pest control, like I said. All you got to figure is how to control it better. The pests'll always be there. God made dogs. He also made their fleas. Don't let it worry your tiny mind. Right?” Leiter had seen the sweat on James Bond's forehead. He limped towards the door and opened it. He raised a hand briefly. The two men had never shaken hands in their lives. Leiter looked into the corridor. He said, “Okay, Miss Goodnight. Tell matron to take him off the danger list. And tell him to keep away from me for a week or two. Every time I see him a piece of me gets broken off. I don't fancy myself as The Vanishing Man.” Again he raised his only hand in Bond's direction and limped out.

Bond shouted, “Wait, you bastard!” But, by the time Leiter had limped back into the room, Bond, no effort left in him to fire off the volley of four-letter words that were to be his only answer to his friend, had lapsed into unconsciousness.

Mary Goodnight shooed the remorseful Leiter out of the room and ran off down the corridor to the floor sister.