مجاز به کشتن!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Licensed to Kill!

Bond hid behind the large rock. He thought about everything that he’d seen during those ten seconds when he’d looked beyond the rock. He tried to make a picture in his mind.

In front of him and below him, Bond had seen a quay which was built out into the sea. The quay was about 20 yards long and had the shape of a letter ‘T’. A large old ship was tied beside the T of the quay. Bond hadn’t seen any men on the deck of the ship. He guessed that they were in their cabins, below the deck.

The ship was being loaded with guano by two machines - a long conveyor and a crane. It was these machines which were making the strange noise that Bond had heard.

The conveyor stood on tall metal legs. It was built down the side of the mountain to the quay. Its belt was covered by a metal roof. Guano was carried from the mountain, to the ship waiting at the quay, along this belt. The end of the conveyor which was nearest to the quay did not stand on metal legs, it moved from one side to another. It was like an arm. At the end of the conveyor’s arm, there was a huge sleeve of strong cloth.

The crane stood on the quay beside the ship. The crane also had a long arm made of metal. As the guano travelled along the conveyor, the crane’s arm moved the arm and sleeve of the conveyor. The crane moved the sleeve of the conveyor above some openings in the deck of the ship. The crane moved the sleeve to each of these openings until the ship was completely loaded with guano.

The arm and sleeve of the conveyor was controlled by one man - the driver who sat in the control cabin of the crane. There was a steering wheel and levers and buttons in front of the driver.

He turned the wheel and pulled and pressed the levers to control the long arm at the front of the crane. And the cabin of the crane was just on the other side of the big rock, only ten yards from where Bond was standing now.

Bond thought about all this. And he thought about two other things that he’d seen. The first thing was the position of the crane’s arm.

It was controlled by the steering wheel in the cabin. If this wheel was turned as far as possible to the right, the sleeve of the conveyor wouldn’t be above the ship. It would be above the quay.

The other thing was this. Standing on the quay, watching the loading of the guano, was a tall, thin man. Doctor Julius No! If someone turned the crane’s steering wheel as far as possible to the right, the sleeve of the conveyor would stop above his head!

‘Yes, I must do it,’ Bond told himself. ‘But first, I’ll have to get rid of the crane driver.’

Bond was agent 007 - he was licensed to kill. He knew that he had to kill Doctor No - The madman was dangerous and cruel. He enjoyed torturing people. Slowly and carefully, Bond looked around the rock again.

As he did this, the crane driver turned his head. Bond recognized him immediately. It was the big man who had driven the ‘dragon’. It was the man who had killed Quarrel! Quarrel had died in a terrible way, so now Bond wanted to kill this man very much.

Bond waited till the crane driver was looking at the ship again, then he moved fast. He pulled his knife from his belt, ran to the crane’s cabin, and pulled open the door.

Before the tall Afro-Chinese man could turn around, Bond had grabbed his hair. Then Bond pulled back the man’s head, and stabbed the knife deep into his neck.

As the driver fell dead onto the floor of the cabin, Bond grabbed the steering wheel. He turned it towards the right, as fast as he could. The arm of the crane started to move the arm and sleeve of the conveyor away from the ship.

Down on the quay, Doctor No didn’t realize what was happening at first. He’d stopped looking at the guano falling from the sleeve and into the ship. He was looking out across the sea.

But when the guano started to fall on him, he looked up quickly and started to shout. Then he turned and looked at the crane’s cabin. He saw Bond at the controls. And at that moment, Doctor No understood what was happening.

He tried to scream and he tried to run, but it was too late. The guano poured from the sleeve of the conveyor like a river. The stinking dust fell into Doctor No’s eyes and mouth. The river of guano knocked him to the ground and covered his head and body. In a few seconds, only his arms could be seen, waving in the air.

Two minutes later, Doctor Julius No was under a pile of guano which was twenty feet high. He was dead and Bond was happy about it. Doctor No would never torture another person and the Russians wouldn’t get their information about Turks Island!

Bond switched off the conveyor’s engine. He took the gun from the dead man who was lying at his feet. It was a Smith and Wesson 38 - a good gun! Then he ran from the quay. He had to find Honey.

Bond climbed up the rocks and ran into a tunnel. As he ran, Bond heard the ship’s siren. Somebody had realized what had happened at the quay. Somebody was warning Doctor No’s men.

Bond was tired. There was pain in every part of his body. His strength was nearly gone, but he kept running.

The tunnel had only a few lights in the ceiling and it smelled of guano. Bond couldn’t see clearly and he couldn’t breathe easily.

Suddenly, someone was on the path in front of him. The person started hitting him and biting him. Bond had just enough strength to lift his attacker off the ground. Then he saw that it was a girl with long, pale blonde hair.

‘Honey - Stop - This is James,’ he said.

There was silence for a few moments. Then the girl started to cry and Bond held her tightly in his arms.

‘Oh, James, my darling,’ she cried. ‘I thought that you were dead. I thought that Doctor No had killed you. I love you, James. Please don’t leave me again.’

‘I thought that you were dead, too,’ Bond replied. ‘I thought that the crabs had eaten you.’

‘Oh that stupid man doesn’t know anything about the animals who live on these islands,’ Honey said. ‘I was never worried about the crabs. I know all about them. They eat plants, they don’t eat meat.

And they don’t usually attack people. Perhaps if someone had an injury, with lots of blood, the crabs might bite a person. Perhaps that happened to the other girl that Doctor No told us about. But I didn’t have any injuries. The crabs just walked over me and went on up the mountain.’

‘But you fainted when Doctor No told you about the crabs,’ Bond said. ‘When that happened, I believed what he’d said about them.’

‘I was afraid for you, James,’ Honey replied. ‘That’s why I fainted, my darling. I thought that he was going to torture you terribly. Was it terrible?’

‘Yes, it was terrible,’ Bond said. ‘But it’s all finished now. Doctor No is dead. Now we must escape from this island before his men kill us! We’ve got to get to the beach as fast as we can. We’ve got to find the canoe!’

After all their ordeals, Bond and Honey reached the beach easily. They stole the dragon!

Doctor No’s men had hunted Bond and Honey for a while. They had followed the fugitives out of the tunnel. They had brought dogs to follow the fugitives’ tracks. But then Bond shot five of Doctor No’s men, and the hunters let Bond and the girl escape.

Bond and Honey found the dragon and drove it towards the lake. And after driving through the mangroves for an hour, they reached the beach and found the canoe.

With the last of his strength, Bond pulled the little boat from its hiding-place and pushed it into the water. Then he fell into the canoe and lay there, unable to move.

It was Honey who sailed the canoe back to Morgan’s Harbour. For most of the journey, Bond lay in the bottom of the little boat, resting and sleeping. But when they were near to the Jamaican coast, the girl woke him.

Bond sat up slowly and looked at the sea. He was thinking about the future, and about the past.

When they landed, he would take the girl to Beau Desert. He would leave her there for a day or two. While she rested there, he would be in Kingston. He’d go to King’s House and he’d send a message to M in London.

And then he’d tell the Acting Governor everything that he knew about Crab Key and about the work that Doctor Julius No had been doing for the Soviet Union. He’d also tell him that Strangways and Trueblood had been murdered.

Bond thought about everything that had happened since his arrival in Jamaica. He thought sadly about his friend Quarrel. Soon, he would have to talk to Quarrel’s family.

Bond would tell them about Doctor No and about Crab Key. He’d tell them that Quarrel had been a good man and a good friend. He’d tell them about the money that they would soon have from Quarrel’s life insurance. But he wouldn’t tell them exactly how his friend had died.

Bond thought about Honey too. She was clever. She could study sea animals at a university.

He’d ask Pleydell- Smith to arrange that. And he’d ask the Colonial Secretary and his wife to look after Honey for the next few years. He couldn’t do more for her than that.

Soon there would be another mission for Bond. Soon he’d have to return to London. But before he had to leave, he would spend some time alone with Honey. They wouldn’t have much time together.

He hoped that the girl would understand that. She’d said that she loved him. But the life of an SIS agent was a lonely and difficult one. There wasn’t much time in an agent’s life for love.

James Bond was very thoughtful as he watched the coast of Jamaica get nearer and nearer.