Ian Fleming: For Your Eyes Only

That evening, with the Wawekrest heading for home down the path of a huge yellow moon, Mr Krest gave orders for what he called a 'wingding'. "Gotta celebrate, Liz. This is terrific, a terrific day. Cleaned up the last target and we can get the hell out of these goddam Seychelles and get on back to civilization. What say we make it to Mombasa when we've taken on board the tortoise and that goddam parrot? Fly to Nairobi and pick up a big plane for Rome, Venice, Paris — anywheres you care for. What say, treasure?" He squeezed her chin and cheeks in his big hand and made the pale lips pout. He kissed them drily. Bond watched the girl's eyes. They had shut tight. Mr Krest let go. The girl massaged her face. It was still white with his finger-marks.

"Gee, Milt," she said half laughing, "you nearly squashed me. You don't know your strength. But do let's celebrate. I think that would be lots of fun. And that Paris idea sounds grand. Let's do that, shall we? What shall I order for dinner?"

"Hell — caviar of course." Mr Krest held his hands apart. "One of those two-pound tins from Hammacher Schlemmer — the grade ten shot size, and all the trimmings. And that pink champagne." He turned to Bond. "That suit you, feller?"

"Sounds like a square meal." Bond changed the subject. "What have you done with the prize?"

"Formalin. Up on the boat-deck with some other jars of stuff we've picked up here and there — fish, shells. All safe in our home morgue. That's how we were told to keep the specimens. We'll airmail that damned fish when we get back to civilization. Give a Press conference first. Should make a big play in the papers back home. I've already radioed the Smithsonian and the news agencies. My accountants'll sure be glad of some Press cuttings to show those darned revenue boys."

Mr Krest got very drunk that night. It did not show greatly. The soft Bogart voice became softer and slower. The round, hard head turned more deliberately on the shoulders. The lighter's flame took increasingly long to relight the cigar, and one glass was swept off the table. But it showed in the things Mr Krest said. There was a violent cruelty, a pathological desire to wound, quite near the surface in the man. That night, after dinner, the first target was James Bond. He was treated to a soft-spoken explanation as to why Europe, with England and France in the van, was a rapidly diminishing asset to the world. Nowadays, said Mr Krest, there were only three powers — America, Russia and China. That was the big poker game and no other country had either the chips or the cards to come into it. Occasionally some pleasant little country — and he admitted they'd been pretty big league in the past — like England would be lent some money so that they could take a hand with the grown-ups. But that was just being polite like one sometimes had to be — to a chum in one's club who'd gone broke. No. England — nice people, mind you, good sports — was a place to see the old buildings and the Queen and so on. France? They only counted for good food and easy women. Italy? Sunshine and spaghetti. Sanatorium, sort of. Germany? Well, they still had some spunk, but two lost wars had knocked the heart out of them. Mr Krest dismissed the rest of the world with a few similar tags and then asked Bond for his comments.

Bond was thoroughly tired of Mr Krest. He said he found Mr Krest's point of view oversimplified — he might even say naive. He said: "Your argument reminds me of a rather sharp aphorism I once heard about America. Care to hear it?"

"Sure, sure."

"It's to the effect that America has progressed from infancy to senility without having passed through a period of maturity."

Mr Krest looked thoughtfully at Bond. Finally he said: "Why, say, Jim, that's pretty neat." His eyes hooded slightly as they turned towards his wife. "Guess you'd kinda go along with that remark of Jim's, eh, treasure? I recall you saying once you reckoned there was something pretty childish about the Americans. Remember?"

"Oh Milt." Liz Krest's eyes were anxious. She had read the signs. "How can you bring that up? You know it was only something casual I said about the comic sections of the papers. Of course I don't agree with what James says. Anyway, it was only a joke, wasn't it, James?"

"That's right," said Bond. "Like when Mr Krest said England had nothing but ruins and a queen."

Mr Krest's eyes were still on the girl. He said softly: "Shucks, treasure. Why are you looking so nervous? Course it was a joke." He paused. "And one I'll remember, treasure. One I'll sure remember."

Bond estimated that by now Mr Krest had just about one whole bottle of various alcohols, mostly whisky, inside him. It looked to Bond as if, unless Mr Krest passed out, the time was not far off when Bond would have to hit Mr Krest just once very hard on the jaw. Fidele Barbey was now being given the treatment. "These islands of yours, Fido. When I first looked them up on the map I thought it was just some specks of fly-dirt on the page." Mr Krest chuckled. "Even tried to brush them off with the back of my hand. Then I read a bit about them and it seemed to me my first thoughts had just about hit the nail on the head. Not much good for anything, are they, Fido? I wonder an intelligent guy like you doesn't get the hell out of there. Beach-combing ain't any kind of a life. Though I did hear one of your family had logged over a hundred illegitimate children. Mebbe that's the attraction, eh, feller?" Mr Krest grinned knowingly.

Fidele Barbey said equably: "That's my uncle, Gaston. The rest of the family doesn't approve. It's made quite a hole in the family fortune."

"Family fortune, eh?" Mr Krest winked at Bond. "What's it in? Cowrie-shells?"

"Not exactly." Fidele Barbey was not used to Mr Krest's brand of rudeness. He looked mildly embarrassed. "Though we made quite a lot out of tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl about a hundred years ago when there was a rage for these things. Copra's always been our main business."

"Using the family bastards as labour, I guess. Good idea. Wish I could fix something like that in my home circle." He looked across at his wife. The rubber lips turned still further down. Before the next gibe could be uttered, Bond had pushed his chair back and had gone out into the well-deck and pulled the door shut behind him.

Ten minutes later, Bond heard feet coming softly down the ladder from the boat-deck. He turned. It was Liz Krest. She came over to where he was standing in the stern. She said in a strained voice: "I said I'd go to bed. But then I thought I'd come back here and see if you'd got everything you want. I'm not a very good hostess, I'm afraid. Are you sure you don't mind sleeping out here?"

"I like it. I like this kind of air better than the canned stuff inside. And it's rather wonderful to have all those stars to look at. I've never seen so many before."

She said eagerly, grasping at a friendly topic: "I like Orion's Belt and the Southern Cross the best. You know, when I was young, I used to think the stars were really holes in the sky. I thought the world was surrounded by a great big black sort of envelope, and that outside it the universe was full of bright light. The stars were just holes in the envelope that let little sparks of light through. One gets terribly silly ideas when one's young." She looked up at him, wanting him not to snub her.

Bond said: "You're probably quite right. One shouldn't believe all the scientists say. They want to make everything dull. Where did you live then?"

"At Ringwood in the New Forest. It was a good place to be brought up. A good place for children. I'd like to go there again one day."

Bond said: "You've certainly come a long way since then. You'd probably find it pretty dull."

She reached out and touched his sleeve. "Please don't say that. You don't understand — " there was an edge of desperation in the soft voice — "I can't bear to go on missing what other people have — ordinary people. I mean," she laughed nervously, "you won't believe me, but just to talk like this for a few minutes, to have someone like you to talk to, is something I'd almost forgotten." She suddenly reached for his hand and held it hard. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to do that. Now I'll go to bed."