The James Bond MEGAPACK®

by Ian Fleming

  Bond laughed. He made a threatening move towards her. ‘If I thought there was any hope of being kicked out of this damn place I’d kiss you again.’

  She said, ‘Don’t be silly. Now pick up your things. You’ve got half an hour’s Traction.’ She smiled grimly. ‘That ought to keep you quiet.’

  Bond said morosely, ‘Oh, all right. But only on condition you let me take you out on your next day off.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. It depends how you behave at the next treatment.’ She held open the door. Bond picked up his clothes and went out, almost colliding with a man coming down the passage. It was Count Lippe, in slacks and a gay windcheater. He ignored Bond. With a smile and a slight bow he said to the girl, ‘Here comes the lamb to the slaughter. I hope you’re not feeling too strong today.’ His eyes twinkled charmingly.

  The girl said briskly, ‘Just get ready, please. I shan’t be a moment putting Mr Bond on the Traction table.’ She moved off down the passage with Bond following.

  She opened the door of a small anteroom, told Bond to put his things down on a chair, and pulled aside plastic curtains that formed a partition. Just inside the curtains was an odd-looking kind of surgical couch in leather and gleaming aluminium. Bond didn’t like the look of it at all. While the girl fiddled with a series of straps attached to three upholstered sections that appeared to be on runners, Bond examined the contraption suspiciously. Below the couch was a stout electric motor on which a plate announced that this was the Hercules Motorized Traction Table. A power drive in the shape of articulated rods stretched upwards from the motor to each of the three cushioned sections of the couch and terminated in tension screws to which the three sets of straps were attached. In front of the raised portion where the patient’s head would lie, and approximately level with his face, was a large dial marked in lbs.-pressure up to 200. After 150 lbs. the numerals were in red. Below the headrest were grips for the patient’s hands. Bond noted gloomily that the leather on the grips was stained with, presumably, sweat.

  ‘Lie face downwards here, please.’ The girl held the straps ready.

  Bond said obstinately, ‘Not until you tell me what this thing does. I don’t like the look of it.’

  The girl said impatiently, ‘This is simply a machine for stretching your spine. You’ve got some mild spinal lesions. It will help to free those. And at the base of your spine you’ve got some right sacroiliac strain. It’ll help that too. You won’t find it bad at all. Just a stretching sensation. It’s very soothing really. Quite a lot of patients fall asleep.’

  ‘This one won’t,’ said Bond firmly. ‘What strength are you going to give me? Why are those top figures in red? Are you sure I’m not going to be pulled apart?’

  The girl said with a touch of impatience, ‘Don’t be silly. Of course if there was too much tension it might be dangerous. But I shall be starting you at only 90 lbs. and in a quarter of an hour I shall come and see how you’re getting on and probably put you up to 120. Now come along. I’ve got another patient waiting.’

  Reluctantly Bond climbed up on the couch and lay on his face with his nose and mouth buried in a deep cleft in the headrest. He said, his voice muffled by the leather, ‘If you kill me, I’ll sue.’

  He felt the straps being tightened round his chest and then round his hips. The girl’s skirt brushed the side of his face as she bent to reach the control lever beside the big dial. The motor began to whine. The straps tightened and then relaxed, tightened and relaxed. Bond felt as if his body was being stretched by giant hands. It was a curious sensation, but not unpleasant. With difficulty Bond raised his head. The needle on the dial stood at ninety. Now the machine was making a soft iron hee-hawing, like a mechanical donkey, as the gears alternatively engaged and disengaged to produce the rhythmic traction.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ He heard the girl pass through the plastic curtains and then the click of the outer door. Bond abandoned himself to the soft feel of the leather at his face, to the relentless intermittent haul on his spine and to the hypnotic whine and drone of the machine. It really wasn’t too bad. How silly to have had nerves about it!

  A quarter of an hour later he heard again the click of the outside door and the swish of the curtains.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  The girl’s hand came into his line of vision as she turned the lever. Bond raised his head. The needle crept up to 120. Now the pull was really hard and the voice of the machine was much louder.

  The girl put her head down to his. She laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She said, her voice loud above the noise of the gears, ‘Only another quarter of an hour to go.’

  ‘All right.’ Bond’s voice was careful. He was probing the new strength of the giant haul on his body. The curtains swished. Now the click of the outside door was drowned by the noise of the machine. Slowly Bond relaxed again into the arms of the rhythm.

  It was perhaps five minutes later when a tiny movement of the air against his face made Bond open his eyes. In front of his eyes was a hand, a man’s hand, reaching softly for the lever of the accelerator. Bond watched it, at first fascinated, and then with dawning horror as the lever was slowly depressed and the straps began to haul madly at his body. He shouted — something, he didn’t know what. His whole body was racked with a great pain. Desperately he lifted his head and shouted again. On the dial, the needle was trembling at 200! His head dropped back, exhausted. Through a mist of sweat he watched the hand softly release the lever. The hand paused and turned slowly so that the back of the wrist was just below his eyes. In the centre of the wrist was the little red sign of the zigzag and the two bisecting lines. A voice said quietly, close up against his ear, ‘You will not meddle again, my friend.’ Then there was nothing but the great whine and groan of the machine and the bite of the straps that were tearing his body in half. Bond began to scream, weakly, while the sweat poured from him and dripped off the leather cushions on to the floor.

  Then suddenly there was blackness.

  Chapter 4

  Tea And Animosity

  It is just as well that the body retains no memory of pain. Yes, it hurt, that abscess, that broken bone, but just how it hurt, and how much, is soon forgotten by the brain and the nerves. It is not so with pleasant sensations, a scent, a taste, the particular texture of a kiss. These things can be almost totally recalled. Bond, gingerly exploring his sensations as life came flooding back into his body, was astonished that the web of agony that had held his body so utterly had now completely dissolved. It was true that his whole spine ached as if it had been beaten, each vertebra separately, with wooden truncheons, but this pain was recognizable, something within his knowledge and therefore capable of control. The searing tornado that had entered his body and utterly dominated it, replacing his identity with its own, had gone. How had it been? What had it been like? Bond couldn’t remember except that it had reduced him to something lower in the scale of existence than a handful of grass in the mouth of a tiger.

  The murmur of voices grew more distinct.

  ‘But what told you first that something was wrong, Miss Fearing?’

  ‘It was the noise, the noise of the machine. I had just finished a treatment. A few minutes later I heard it. I’d never heard it so loud. I thought perhaps the door had been left open. I wasn’t really worried but I came along to make sure. And there it was. The indicator up to 200! I tore down the lever and got the straps off and ran to the surgery and found the coramine and injected it into the vein — one c.c. The pulse was terribly weak. Then I telephoned you.’

  ‘You seem to have done everything possible, Miss Fearing. And I’m sure you bear no responsibility for this terrible thing.’ Mr Wain’s voice was doubtful. ‘It really is most unfortunate. I suppose the patient must have jerked the lever, somehow. Perhaps he was experimenting. He might easily have killed himself. We must tell the company about this and have some safety arrangement installed.’

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nbsp; A hand gingerly clasped Bond’s wrist, feeling for his pulse. Bond thought it was time to re-enter the world. He must quickly get himself a doctor, a real one, not one of these grated-carrot merchants. A sudden wave of anger poured through him. This was all M.’s fault. M. was mad. He would have it out with him when he got back to Headquarters. If necessary he would go higher — to the Chiefs of Staff, the Cabinet, the Prime Minister. M. was a dangerous lunatic — a danger to the country. It was up to Bond to save England. The weak, hysterical thoughts whirled through his brain, mixed themselves up with the hairy hand of Count Lippe, the mouth of Patricia Fearing, the taste of hot vegetable soup and, as consciousness slipped away from him again, the diminishing voice of Mr Wain: ‘No structural damage. Only considerable surface abrasion of the nerve ends. And of course shock. You will take personal charge of the case, Miss Fearing. Rest, warmth, and effleurage. Is that under...?’

  Rest, warmth, and effleurage. When Bond came round again, he was lying face downward on his bed and his whole body was bathed in exquisite sensation. Beneath him was the soft warmth of an electric blanket, his back glowed with the heat from two large sun lamps, and two hands, clad in what felt to be some particularly velvety fur, were rhythmically passing, one after the other, up and down the whole length of his body from his neck to the backs of his knees. It was a most gentle and almost piercingly luxurious experience, and Bond lay and bathed himself in it.

  Presently he said sleepily, ‘Is that what they call effleurage?’

  The girl’s voice said softly, ‘I thought you’d come round. The whole tone of your skin suddenly changed. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Wonderful. I’d be still better for a double whisky on the rocks.’

  The girl laughed. ‘Mr Wain did say dandelion tea would be best for you. But I thought a little stimulant might be good, I mean just this once. So I brought the brandy with me. And there’s plenty of ice as I’m going to give you an ice-pack presently. Would you really like some? Wait, I’ll put your dressing-gown over you and then you can see if you can turn over. I’ll look the other way.’

  Bond heard the lamps being pulled away. Gingerly, he turned on his side. The dull ache returned, but it was already wearing off. He cautiously slipped his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

  Patricia Fearing stood in front of him, clean, white, comforting, desirable. In one hand was a pair of heavy mink gloves, but with the fur covering the palm instead of the back. In the other was a glass. She held out the glass. As Bond drank and heard the reassuring, real-life tinkle of the ice, he thought: this is a most splendid girl. I will settle down with her. She will give me effleurage all day long and from time to time a good tough drink like this. It will be a life of great beauty. He smiled at her and held out the empty glass and said, ‘More.’

  She laughed, mostly with relief that he was completely alive again. She took the glass and said, ‘Well, just one more then. But don’t forget it’s on an empty stomach. It may make you dreadfully tight.’ She paused with the brandy bottle in her hand. Suddenly her gaze was cool, clinical. ‘And now you must try and tell me what happened. Did you accidentally touch the lever or something? You gave us all a dreadful fright. Nothing like that has ever happened before. The Traction table’s really perfectly safe, you know.’

  Bond looked candidly into her eyes. He said reassuringly, ‘Of course. I was just trying to get more comfortable. I heaved about and I do remember that my hand hit something rather hard. I suppose it must have been the lever. Then I don’t remember any more. I must have been awfully lucky you came along so quickly.’

  She handed him the fresh drink. ‘Well, it’s all over now. And thank heavens nothing’s badly strained. Another two days of treatment and you’ll be right as rain.’ She paused. She looked rather embarrassed. ‘Oh, and Mr Wain asks if you could possibly keep all this, all this trouble, to yourself. He doesn’t want the other patients to get worried.’

  I should think not, thought Bond. He could see the headlines. ‘PATIENT TORN NEARLY LIMB FROM LIMB AT NATURE CLINIC. RACK MACHINE GOES BERSERK. MINISTRY OF HEALTH STEPS IN.’ He said, ‘Of course I won’t say anything. It was my fault anyway.’ He finished his drink, handed back the glass, and cautiously lay back on the bed. He said, ‘That was marvellous. Now how about some more of the mink treatment. And by the way. Will you marry me? You’re the only girl I’ve ever met who knows how to treat a man properly.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. And turn over on your face. It’s your back that needs treatment.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Two days later, Bond was once more back in the half-world of the nature cure. The routine of the early morning glass of hot water, the orange, carefully sliced into symmetrical pigs by some ingenious machine wielded, no doubt, by the wardress in charge of diets, then the treatments, the hot soup, the siesta, and the blank, aimless walk or bus ride to the nearest tea-shop for the priceless strength-giving cups of tea laced with brown sugar. Bond loathed and despised tea, that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses, but on his empty stomach, and in his febrile state, the sugary brew acted almost as an intoxicant. Three cups he reckoned had the effect, not of hard liquor, but of just about half a bottle of champagne in the outside world, in real life. He got to know them all, these dainty opium dens — Rose Cottage, which he avoided after the woman charged him extra for emptying the sugar bowl; The Thatched Barn, which amused him because it was a real den of iniquity — large plates of sugar cakes put on one’s table, the piercing temptation of the smell of hot scones — the Transport Café, where the Indian tea was black and strong and the lorry drivers brought in a smell of sweat and petrol and the great world (Bond found that all his senses, particularly his palate and nose, had miraculously become sharpened), and a dozen other cottagey, raftery nooks where elderly couples with Ford Populars and Morris Minors talked in muted tones about children called Len and Ron and Pearl and Ethel, and ate in small mouthfuls with the points of their teeth and made not a sound with the tea things. It was all a world whose ghastly daintiness and propriety would normally have sickened him. Now, empty, weak, drained of all the things that belonged to his tough, fast, basically dirty life, through banting, he had somehow regained some of the innocence and purity of childhood. In this frame of mind, the naivety and total lack of savour, surprise, excitement, of the dimity world of the Nice-Cup-of-Tea, of the Home-made Cakes, and the One-Lump-or-Two, were perfectly acceptable.

  And the extraordinary thing was that he could not remember when he had felt so well — not strong, but without any aches and pains, clear of eye and skin, sleeping ten hours a day and, above all, without that nagging sense of morning guilt that one is slowly wrecking one’s body. It was really quite disturbing. Was his personality changing? Was he losing his edge, his point, his identity? Was he losing the vices that were so much part of his ruthless, cruel, fundamentally tough character? Who was he in process of becoming? A soft, dreaming, kindly idealist who would naturally leave the Service and become instead a prison visitor, interest himself in youth clubs, march with the H-bomb marchers, eat nut cutlets, try and change the world for the better?

  James Bond would have been more worried, as day by day the H-cure drew his teeth, if it had not been for three obsessions which belonged to his former life and which would not leave him — a passionate longing for a large dish of Spaghetti Bolognese containing plenty of chopped garlic and accompanied by a whole bottle of the cheapest, rawest Chianti (bulk for his empty stomach and sharp tastes for his starved palate), an overwhelming desire for the strong, smooth body of Patricia Fearing, and a deadly concentration on ways and means to wring the guts out of Count Lippe.

  The first two would have to wait, though tantalizing schemes for consuming both dishes on the day of his release from Shrublands occupied much of his mind. So far as Count Lippe was concerned, work had started on the project from the moment Bond took up again the routine of the cure.

  With the cold intensity he would have em
ployed against an enemy agent, say in a hotel in Stockholm or Lisbon during the war, James Bond set about spying on the other man. He became garrulous and inquisitive, chatting with Patricia Fearing about the various routines at Shrublands. ‘But when do the staff find time to have lunch?’ ‘That man Lippe looks very fit. Oh, he’s worried about his waist-line! Aren’t the electric blanket baths good for that? No, I haven’t seen the Turkish Bath Cabinet. Must have a look at it some time.’ And to his masseur: ‘Haven’t seen that big chap about lately, Count something — Ripper? Hipper? Oh yes, Lippe. Oh, noon every day? I think I must try and get that time as well. Nice being clear for the rest of the day. And I’d like to have a spell in the Turkish Bath thing when you’ve finished the massage. Need a good sweat.’ Innocently, fragment by fragment, James Bond built up a plan of operations — a plan that would leave him and Lippe alone among the machinery of the sound-proof treatment rooms.

  For there would be no other opportunity. Count Lippe kept to his room in the main building until his treatment time at noon. In the afternoons he swished away in the violet Bentley — to Bournemouth it seemed, where he had ‘business.’ The night porter let him in around eleven each night. One afternoon — in the siesta hour — Bond slipped the Yale lock on Count Lippe’s room with a straight piece of plastic cut off a child’s aeroplane he had bought for the purpose in Washington. He went over the room meticulously and drew a blank. All he learned — from the clothes — was that the Count was a much travelled man — shirts from Charvet, ties from Tripler, Dior, and Hardy Amies, shoes from Peel, and raw silk pyjamas from Hong Kong. The dark red morocco suitcase from Mark Cross might have contained secrets, and Bond eyed the silk linings and toyed with the Count’s Wilkinson razor. But no! Better that revenge, if it could be contrived, should come out of a clear sky.

  That same afternoon, drinking his treacly tea, Bond scraped together the meagre scraps of his knowledge of Count Lippe. He was about thirty, attractive to women, and physically, to judge from the naked body Bond had seen, very strong. His blood would be Portuguese with a dash of Chinaman and he gave the appearance of wealth. What did he do? What was his profession? At first glance Bond would have put him down as a tough maquereau from the Ritz bar in Paris, the Palace at St Moritz, the Carlton at Cannes — good at backgammon, polo, water-skiing, but with the yellow streak of the man who lives on women. But Lippe had heard Bond making inquiries about him and that had been enough for an act of violence — an inspired act that he had carried out swiftly and coolly when he finished his treatment with the Fearing girl and knew, from her remark, that Bond would be alone on the Traction table. The act of violence might only have been designed to warn, but equally, since Lippe could only guess at the effect of a 200-lb. pull on the spine, it might have been designed to kill. Why? Who was this man who had so much to hide? And what were his secrets? Bond poured the last of his tea on to a mound of brown sugar. One thing was certain — the secrets were big ones.