He caught a glimpse of the tip of his spear lancing into the centre of a black eyeball and then the whole sea erupted up at him in a fountain of blackness and he fell and hung upside down by the knees, his head an inch from the surface of the water.īond flattened himself against the rock and warily inched his head round the corner.īond sat and thought, measuring distances, guessing at angles, remembering exactly where the crane driver's hands and feet were on the levers and the pedals. From out of the mouth of the sock, in a solid downward jet, the scrambled-egg-coloured guano dust was pouring into the hold of the tanker at a rate of tons a minute. The purpose of the crane was to lift the wireframed mouth of the sock so that it hung directly over the hold of the tanker and to move it to right or left to give even distribution. Its mouth ended in a huge canvas sock, perhaps six feet in diameter. It was carried on high stanchions above the jetty and stopped just short of the hold of the tanker. From just to the right of the crane, an overhead conveyor-belt in a corrugated-iron housing ran out from the cliff-face. The rest of the crew would be below, battened away from the guano dust. There was no sign of life On board except one figure lolling at the wheel in the enclosed bridge.
The tanker was called Blanche, and the Ant of Antwerp showed at her stern. It stood well out of the water, its deck perhaps twelve feet above the quay. An aged tanker of around ten thousand tons deadweight was secured alongside the top of the T. In front of him the jetty ran twenty yards out into the sea and ended in a T.
#Still into you lyrics driver#
It was the Chinese Negro boss, the driver of the marsh buggy.
Round the corner, not more than ten yards away, was the crane. The wounded squid had emptied its ink sac at him.īelow, on the jetty, to the left and to leeward of the drifting smoke of the guano dust, stood the tall, watchful figure of Doctor No. It was covered with black slime, and blackness stained the sea for twenty yards around. He got a hold and reached up his other hand and slowly, agonizingly, pulled himself up so that he was sitting in the fence. So he must be alive Dazedly Bond let go the spear from his trailing hand and reached up and felt for the nearest strand of wire. But he could feel the wire cutting into the tendons behind his knees. His eyes were stinging and there was a horrible fish taste in his mouth. What had happened? Had he gone blind? He could see nothing. All he needed was an ounce of hope, an ounce of reassurance that it was still worth while trying to stay alive. Only, with Bond, the two halves were not yet dead. Bond was like a cut worm, the two halves of which continue to jerk forward although life has gone and been replaced by the mock life of nervous impulses. It moved alongside his body, or floated above it, keeping enough contact to pull the strings that made the puppet work.
The thinking, feeling apparatus of Bond was no longer part of his body. The stinking, bleeding, black scarecrow moved its arms and legs quite automatically. A voice called out, startlingly close, "Okay to go?" There was a distant answer: "Okay." The crane engine accelerated. Bond crept softly forward, watching his footholds for loose stones. Round the bead, the track filtered through a maze of giant, tumbled boulders. Should he chance it? He must Get movingīond, leaving drops of blood behind him, picked his way carefully down the track and along the bottom of the shadowed cliff. It was black, impenetrable, as deep as the rest. He gazed vaguely at the softly heaving sheen of water. Slowly he let himself down to the bottom rung of wire.
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