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certain that he himself would die in the process. Dulce et decorum est& and all that
jazz! But then he thought of Kissy, and he wasn't so sure about not fearing for himself.
She had brought a sweetness back into his life that he thought had gone for ever.
Bond dropped off into an uneasy, watchful sleep that was once again peopled by
things and creatures out of nightmare-land.
18
OUBLIETTE
AT SIX O'CLOCKinthe evening, the deep bell tolled briefly from the castle and dusk
came like the slow drawing of a violet blind over the day. Crickets began to zing in a
loud chorus and geckos chuckled in the shrubbery. The pink dragonflies disappeared
and large horned toads appeared in quantities from their mud holes on the edge of the
lake and, so far as Bond could see through his spy-hole, seemed to be catching gnats
attracted by the shining pools of their eyes. Then the four guards reappeared, and there
came the fragrant smell of a bonfire they had presumably lit to consume the refuse they
had collected during the day. They went to the edge of the lake and raked in the
tattered scraps of blue clothing and, amidst delighted laughter, emptied long bones out
of the fragments into the water. One of them ran off with the rags, presumably to add
them to the bonfire, and Bond got under cover as the others pushed their wheelbarrows
up the slope and stowed them away in the hut. They stood chattering happily in the
dusk until the fourth arrived and then, without noticing the slashed and disarrayed sacks
in the shadows, they filed off in the direction of the castle.
After an interval, Bond got up and stretched and shook the dust out of his hair and
clothes. His back still ached, but his overwhelming sensation was the desperate urge
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for a cigarette. All right. It might be his last. He sat down and drank a little water and
munched a large wedge of the highly-flavoured pemmican, then took another swig at
the water-bottle. He took out his single packet of Shinsei and lit up, holding the cigarette
between cupped hands and quickly blowing out the match. He dragged the smoke deep
down into his lungs. It was bliss! Another drag and the prospect of the night seemed
less daunting. It was surely going to be all right! He thought briefly of Kissy who would
now be eating her bean curd and fish and preparing the night's swim in her mind. A few
hours more and she would be near him. But what would have happened in those few
hours? Bond smoked the cigarette until it burned his fingers, then crushed out the stub
and pushed the dead fragments down through a crack in the floor. It was seven thirty
and already some of the insect noises of sundown had ceased. Bond went meticulously
about his preparations.
At nine o'clock he left the hideout. Again the moon blazed down and there was total
silence except for the distant burping and bubbling of the fumaroles and the occasional
sinister chuckle of a gecko from the shrubbery. He took the same route as the night
before, came through the same belt of trees and stood looking up at the great bat-
winged donjon that towered up to the sky. He noticed for the first time that the warning
balloon with its advertisement of danger was tethered to a pole on the corner of the
balustrade surrounding what appeared to be the main floor - the third, or centre one of
the five. Here, from several windows, yellow light shone faintly, and Bond guessed that
this would be his target area. He let out a deep sigh and strode quietly off across the
gravel and came without incident to the tiny entrance under the wooden bridge.
The black ninja suit was as full of concealed pockets as a conjurer's tail coat. Bond
took out a pencil flashlight and a small steel file and set to work on a link of the chain.
Occasionally he paused to spit into the deepening groove to lessen the rasp of metal on
metal, but then there came the final crack of parting steel and, using the file as a lever,
he bent the link open and quietly removed the padlock and chain from its stanchions.
He pressed lightly and the door gave inwards. He took out his flashlight and pushed
farther, probing the darkness ahead with his thin beam. It was as well he did so. On the
stone floor where his first step past the open door would have taken him, lay a yawning
man-trap, its rusty iron jaws, perhaps a yard across, waiting for him to step on the thin
covering of straw that partially concealed it. Bond winced as, in his imagination, he
heard the iron clang as the saw-teeth bit into his leg below the knee. There would be
other such booby-traps - he must keep every sense on the alert!
Bond closed the door softly behind him, stepped round the trap and swept the beam
of his torch ahead and around him. Nothing but velvety blackness. He was in some vast
underground cellar where no doubt the food supplies for a small army had once been
stored. A shadow swept across the thin beam of light and another and another, and
there was a shrill squeaking from all around him. Bond didn't mind bats or believe the
Victorian myth that they got caught in your hair. Their radar was too good. He crept
slowly forward, watching only the rough stone flags ahead of him. He passed one or
two bulky arched pillars, and now the great cellar seemed to narrow because he could
just see walls to right and left of him and above him an arched, cobwebby roof. Yes,
here were the stone steps leading upwards! He climbed them softly and counted twenty
of them before he came to the entrance, a wide double door with no lock on his side.
He pushed gently and could feel and hear the resistance of a rickety-sounding lock. He
took out a heavy jemmy and probed. Its sharp jaws notched round some sort of a
cross-bolt, and Bond levered hard sideways until there came the tearing sound of old
metal and the tinkle of nails or screws on stone. He pushed softly on the crack and, with
a hideously loud report, the rest of the lock came away and half the door swung open
with a screech of old hinges. Beyond Was more darkness.
Bond stepped through and listened, his torch doused. But he was still deep in the
bowels of the castle and there was no sound. He switched on again. More stone stairs
leading up to a modern door of polished timber. He went up them and carefully turned
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the metal door handle. No lock this time! He softly pushed the door open and found
himself in a long stone corridor that sloped on upwards. At the end was yet another
modern door, and beneath it showed a thin strip of light!
Bond walked noiselessly up the incline and then held his breath and put his ear to the
keyhole. Dead silence! He grasped the handle and inched the door open and then,
satisfied, went through and closed the door behind him, leaving it on the latch. He was
in the main hall of the castle. The big entrance door was on his left, and a well-used
strip of red carpet stretched away from it and across the fifty feet of hall into the
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