Christopher Wood - The Spy Who Loved Me

The magnet sprang at Jaw’s mouth and clung, whirring, to his teeth. He looked like some malformed baby sucking a huge teat. Then a look of surprise spread over the gross features. A giant hand rose to pluck at the offensive object as if it was an impertinent fly. Bond pressed the second switch and the wire tightened and began to draw Jaws back against the current. Now, both hands were tearing at the magnet and Jaws twisted furiously like a fish on the hook. As Bond watched in fascinated horror, a relentless triangle streaked up behind the stricken giant. A huge, grey force launched itself through the wild water and two rows of white teeth closed about the threshing flesh. Obscene sounds broke through the barrier of the imprisoned teeth and a wave of blood surged against Bond’s chest. Like a man fleeing from a nightmare he turned and let the current carry him away from this mind- searing spectacle of hideous death. The image of the small red eye glowing with demonic purpose pursued him like an avenging fury.

‘Anya!’ Bond shouted to hear his voice and know that he was still alive. The current swirled him round a corner and turned into a whirlpool as it surged, white-tipped against a wall of metal. Bond seized the rail of a companionway and dragged himself from the flood. The structure was listing at an angle of forty-five degrees and beginning to buckle. It groaned and shuddered as if in its death agonies. Ahead, a door twisted and sprang open with a metallic snap. A slim white hand appeared round it.

‘Anya!’ Bond launched himself forward, scrambling along the angle of deck and wall. Anya’s head and shoulders appeared pulling themselves out into the corridor. Her eyes recognized him and then hardened as if frozen over with a layer of ice.

‘Anya.’ He tried to reassure her with the sound of his voice. She must be in a state of shock. God knows what they had done to her. Then a pistol appeared in her hand. The sight reared towards the lop-sided ceiling and then slowly swung down to cover Bond’s heart. The finger started to tighten round the trigger.

‘When this mission is over, Sergei will be avenged and you will be dead.’ The words came back to Bond with chilling clarity. He kept coming. ‘Anya, give me that gun.’ He stretched out his hand. The barrel began to waver. Bond closed his fingers about it and kept looking into Anya’s eyes. She blinked as if awakening from a bad dream. The corridor echoed to the sound of grinding metal as if it had been twisted by two giant hands. Bond took the gun from the unresisting fingers and pressed Anya to his chest. He could feel her heart thudding like a bird’s. ‘We have seconds to get out of this place. Trust me.’ He took her by the hand and drew her after him as a menacing column of water rushed between their feet.

Now the downward motion was terrifying perceptible. The stomach rose, the legs hung weightless. Bond's heart pumped blood and panic through his system. How in God’s name did one escape from this waterlogged tomb? The walls were now listing at such an angle as to become a roof. Bond dropped to his knees and the water rushing past brushed against his chin.

Soon it would be above his shoulders, his head - and then what? How many minutes of palsied dance before the body finally floated belly upwards, the legs and arms dangling down like those of some near-spent insect? Bond jerked his head above the rising torrent and held tight to Anya's hand. To port there was a bulkhead door, opening six inches above the tilting deck. Three inches from its bottom was a small plaque. Two magic words stencilled in four languages: ESCAPE HATCH.

Bond reached up and pulled the heavy metal lever. As the door fell open, it was necessary to plunge his head into the cavity to keep it above water. He dragged Anya after him and began to scramble into the narrow, padded spheroid. The water surged about his feet and battered against the tilted door making it impossible to close. Anya joined him and together they leaned down into the raging torrent, fighting to save their lives. The stricken craft twitched into its final descending spiral and, in that instant, the door cleared the water. Bond’s mangled arm drew it closed and Anya threw the locking bolts. The wild flood thumped vengefully against the closure.

Bond gripped the lever and plunged it down. There was a grinding noise, a breakaway, a resentful tug - and then a sudden sense of floating in space. And then, most beautiful of all, a sensation of rising. A movement towards heaven like that of a flower drawn by the sun.

‘James!’

Bond felt Anya’s arms encircle him and then he collapsed into unconsciousness.

Love in the Morning

Breakfast was Bond’s favourite meal of the day. And since he was supposed to be recuperating - hated word! - he determinedly made the most of it. Two large, strong cups of unsweetened black coffee. Half a pint of fresh orange juice - freshly squeezed with a couple of errant pips paying tribute to the immaculacy of the source. Two fried eggs and three thick rashers of Irish bacon. When the rashers were no more than three serpentine rinds he moved on to the toast. Two slices made more delectable by the addition of generous spreadings of Normandy demi-sel butter and Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade decanted into a silver pot that Bond vaguely remembered having been a christening gift.

Bond brushed a crumb from the comer of his mouth and was about to ring for May, his treasured Scottish housekeeper, when she appeared unannounced. ‘Excuse me-s.’ (‘S’ was May’s grudging diminutive for ‘Sir’.) ‘There's a naval gentleman to see you. I think he’s an American.’ The slight note of disapproval in May’s voice did not totally exclude sympathy for the man’s lot.

Bond felt better immediately. ‘Captain Carter?’ he prompted - remembering names was not May’s forte. ‘Ask him to come in straightaway.’

Seconds later Carter strode in behind a strong hand-shake. His face crinkled up in a genuine smile of greeting. ‘Great to see you, James. I’m sorry to appear at this hour but I’m on a tight schedule. I’ve got to call in at the Embassy and then I’m flying back to the States. How are you?’

Bond extended his case to Carter, then slipped a Morlands between his own lips. ‘I'm here purely under false pretences - or perhaps impurely. I was cured days ago. I think my

superiors must be trying to incarcerate me in my own home while they wonder what to do with me.’

Carter’s face became serious. ‘I wanted to express - hell! I mean, I wanted to say how wretched I felt about shoving those torpedoes up your backside. I saw the thing slipping away and —

Bond held up a restraining hand. ‘I’d have done the same in your position - probably earlier. Anyhow, if you hadn’t disobeyed orders and fished us out of the drink, I probably wouldn’t be here now. When I was a child I was brought up to believe that it was the US Cavalry that always arrived in the nick of time. Now I’m transferring my allegiance to the Navy.’

Carter accepted Bond’s outstretched hand and grasped it warmly. ‘Thanks. I hope we work together again sometime. Oh, by the way’ - his eye twinkled - ‘there was some girl hanging around on the front doorstep when I arrived. I think she wants to see you.’

‘Do you think I’d want to see her?’ asked Bond.

Carter pretended to consider the question and then nodded his head. ‘I think you might.’ He raised a hand to his temple and was gone.

Bond stood up, feeling a mounting sense of excitement spread through him. Was he being stupid? Could it be possible? Somebody came into the room behind him and he turned, expecting to see May.

It was Anya. She wore a black woollen coat down to her ankles and carried a large, soft leather grip. Her face was as beautiful as he had dared to remember it. Perhaps more so. The hair casually brushed back from the high cheek-bones, the delicately tilted nose, the wide sweep of the sensual mouth. And, about her deep blue, richly lashed eyes, that wondrous quality of knowing innocence. She put down her bag and faced him squarely. ‘I have come to look after you.’