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'Not many,' said Bond. 'And then one day when you're playing your little game
you'll suddenly find yourself pinned down like a butterfly.'
She put her arms round him and they kissed, long and passionately.
Finally she sank back among the pillows.
'Hurry up and get well,' she said. 'I'm tired of my game already.' , Bond
climbed down to the floor and pulled her curtains across the berth.
'Try and get some sleep now,' he said. 'We've got a long day tomorrow.'
She murmured something and he heard her turn over. She switched off the light.
Bond verified that the wedges were in place under the doors. Then he took off
his coat and tie and lay down on the bottom berth. He turned off his own light
and lay thinking of Solitaire and listening to the steady gallop of the wheels
beneath his head and the comfortable small noises in the room, the gentle
rattles and squeaks and murmurs in the coachwork that bring sleep so quickly
on a train at night-time.
It was eleven o'clock and the train was on the long stretch between Columbia
and Savannah, Georgia.
There were another six hours or so to Jacksonville, another six hours of
darkness during which The Big
Man would almost certainly have instructed his agent to make some move, while
the whole train was asleep and while a man could use the corridors without
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interference.
The great train snaked on through the dark, pounding out the miles through the
empty plains and mingy hamlets of Georgia, the 'Peach State', the angry moan
of its four-toned wind-horn soughing over the wide savannah and the long shaft
of its single searchlight ripping the black calico of the night.
Bond turned on his light again and read for a while, but his thoughts were too
insistent and he soon gave up and switched the light off. Instead, he thought
of Solitaire and of the future and of the more immediate prospects of
Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and of seeing Leiter again.
Much later, around one o'clock in the morning, he was dozing and on the edge
of sleep, when a soft metallic noise quite close to his head brought him wide
awake with his hand on his gun.
There was someone at the passage door and the lock was being softly tried.
Bond was immediately on the floor and moving silently on his bare feet. He
gently pulled the wedge away from under the door to the next compartment and
as gently pulled the bolt and opened the door.
He crossed the next compartment and softly began to open the door to the
corridor.
There was a deafening click as the bolt came back. He tore the door open and
threw himself into the corridor, only to see a flying figure already nearing
the forward end of the car.
If his two hands had been free he could have shot the man, but to open the
doors he had to tuck his gun into the waistband of his trousers. Bond knew
that pursuit would be hopeless. There were too many empty compartments into
which the man could dodge and quietly close the door. Bond had worked all this
out beforehand. He knew his only chance would be surprise and either a quick
shot or the man's surrender.
He walked a few steps to Compartment H. A tiny diamond of paper protruded into
the corridor.
He went back and into their room, locking the doors behind him. He softly
turned on his reading light.
Solitaire was still asleep. The rest of the paper, a single sheet, lay on the
carpet against the passage door.
He picked it up and sat on the edge of his bed.
It was a sheet of cheap ruled notepaper. It was covered with irregular lines
of writing in rough capitals, in red ink.
Bond handled it gingerly, without much hope that it would yield any prints.
These people weren't like
that.
Oh Witch [he read] do not slay me, Spare me. His is the body.
The divine drummer declares that
When he rises with the dawn
He will sound his drums for YOU in the morning
Very early, very early, very early, very early.
Oh Witch that slays the children of men before they are fully matured
Oh Witch that slays the children of men before they are fully matured
The divine drummer declares that
When he rises with the dawn
He will sound his drums for YOU in the morning
Very early, very early, very early, very early.
We are addressing YOU And YOU will understand.
Bond lay down on his bed and thought. Then he folded the paper and put it in
his pocket-book. He lay on his back and looked at nothing, waiting for
daybreak.
CHAPTER XII
THE EVERGLADES
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IT was around five o'clock in the morning when they slipped off the train at
Jacksonville.
It was still dark and the naked platforms of the great Florida junction were
sparsely lit. The entrance to the subway was only a few yards from Car 245 and
there was no sign of life on the sleeping train as they dived down the steps.
Bond had told the attendant to keep the door of their compartment locked after
they had gone and the blinds drawn and he thought there was quite a chance
they would not be missed until the train reached St. Petersburg.
They came out of the subway into the booking-hall. Bond verified that the next
express for St.
Petersburg would be the Silver Meteor, the sister train of the Phantom, due at
about nine o'clock, and he booked two Pullman seats on it. Then he took
Solitaire's arm and they walked out of the station into the warm dark street.
There were two or three all-night diners to choose from and they pushed
through the door that announced 'Good Eats' in the brightest neon. It was the
usual sleazy food-machine two tired waitresses behind a zinc counter loaded
with cigarettes and candy and paper-backs and comics. There was a big coffee
percolator and a row of butane gas-rings. A door marked 'Restroom' concealed
its dreadful secrets next to a door marked 'Private' which was probably the
back entrance. A group of overalled men at one of the dozen stained crueted
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