It was brutally clear that there was no easy way through to the nerve centre of the Stromberg empire. And there were less than four hours to Armageddon.
Drowned, Buried and Cremated
Bond fought off weariness and despondency and edged his way out on to the quayside. There had never been any doubt that it was going to be difficult. Once you started feeling sorry for yourself you were finished. Maybe the same was true about feeling sorry for other people.
He shrank back against the iron plating and reviewed the situation. From what he could see, Carter and the rest of the escaped prisoners were spread out round the berths. Some of them had got into the side galleries; occasional shots were winging from that direction. A number of them had perished in an unsuccessful attack on the control room. From the spread of their fire it sounded as if they had laid their hands on some more weapons. But wherever they moved they were within range of the central gun emplacement on the catwalk. That had to be knocked out. Bond’s eye swung on a closer orbit. The hovercar track and its protective tube ran within six feet. One of the hovercraft was conveniently placed in the nearest opening. That was twenty feet away. Bond looked around him and emerged from the shadow.
He had taken two steps when there was an ear-splitting screech above his head. He threw himself full length and screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the bullets to skewer into his flesh. Nothing happened. The siren continued to wail and he relaxed fractionally. It must be an alarm signal announcing the fire on deck. No help likely from down here, chums. Everybody has got their hands full. He raised his head and crawled towards the hovercar. It was a simple six-seater shell with a dead-man’s handle connecting to the electrified monorail. Lift it and you got the juice to propel the hovercar. The wailing of the siren stopped and there was an eerie silence
broken by the groans of a wounded man lying near the brig. There was a short burst of fire from the central catwalk and the groans stopped. Bond’s teeth ground together with a sound that was almost audible. He didn’t like shooting people in the back but sometimes they made it easier for you.
Looking carefully along the gallery that ran above his head, he straightened up and peered across to the far gallery. There was no sign of movement. Now he had to move fast before his own side picked him out as one of the enemy and started shooting. He unslung his empty weapon and placed it in the cockpit of the hovercar. Then he scrambled on to the roof of the track cover and moved towards the bows. Ten paces and he was beyond the gun crew. Looking up, he could see their shoulders hunched behind the square metal plate with the observation slits. He raised his gun and there was a warning shout followed by a burst of automatic fire from the shadows opposite. Bond concentrated on the gun crew. As they spun round he unleashed a long burst and saw two of the men buckle and slump. The third was struggling with the handle that turned the gun. Bond fired again but the defensive shield continued to swing round. He could see the sparks as his bullets screamed off it. The gun barrels were depressing towards him when the third man suddenly slid sideways and lay still with his arm draped over one of the gantry rails.
Bond could feel his body awash with sweat. The tunnel beneath his feet was raked by bullets and he started to run towards the hovercar. He sprang through the opening and snatched at the lever. There was a high-pitched whine and the hovercar lifted and began to glide forward. Bullets drummed against the tunnel housing like tropical rain. Bond kept his head down and the handle up. Two more openings flashed by and he was at the quayside on the port side of the brig. He saw the startled faces of Carter’s men bringing their weapons to bear. ‘Hold your fire men! ’ Bond felt a surge of gratitude for Carter’s quick reading of the situation and scrambled out to shelter behind the stairs leading up to the control room. Carter ducked down beside him. ‘Did you get him?’
‘No.’
Carter noticed from the expression on Bond’s face that something was wrong but he did not pursue it. ‘Tough.
Thanks for knocking out that machine-gun. We got the guy who was trying to nail you. I think we’ve just about cleaned them up out here but they’re thick as ticks on a hog’s back in the control room.’
Bond saw that Carter was holding an FN automatic rifle. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘We got into the magazine. We’ve got no problem about arms.’
‘Excellent.’ Bond looked through the door of the brig where he could see ‘Chuck’ Coyle supervising the treatment of a line of injured men. Dead bodies lay where they had dropped. The ghastly stench of death already filled the air, ‘What about losses?’
Carter’s face clouded. ‘Heavy. They really poured it into us coming out of the brig. About thirty dead and half as many again injured. The Russian captain bought it in the assault on the magazine.’ Carter shook his head in admiration. ‘Those guys fought like wildcats.’
‘What about Talbot, your opposite number on Ranger?’ ‘He’s over there behind the other stairway. He’s itching to have a go at the control room. He thinks he can blast his way in with hand-grenades.’
Bond thought about the four-inch-thick steel louvres and was sceptical. He looked at his watch. Three and a half hours to go. ‘Let’s have a talk to him.*
Talbot was in his mid-thirties, blond-haired and handsome in a typically English way which made his face seem unmarked by any contact with the unpleasant realities of life. Bond could imagine the teacups at the vicarage trembling when he returned on leave.
‘Absolutely. My chaps are rearing at the bit. Give us some covering fire and we’ll be in there like a dose of salts.’
Bond felt uneasy, but with every second that passed the two nuclear submarines were drawing closer to their firing positions. Something had to be done. He turned from Talbots eager, shiny face and read the resignation in Carter’s tired, red- veined eyes.
‘All right.’
Five minutes later, Talbot was poised beneath the shelter of the gallery with twenty men. They were armed with Sch- meisser sub-machine guns found in the magazine and four hand-grenades wrapped in cloth so that they could be lobbed against the foot of the metal screen without rolling away.
The assault party was divided into two groups of ten. They would attack simultaneously up the two stairways, under covering fire from the side of the quay. Covering fire against what? thought Bond as he looked towards the blank wall of steel. He had a terrible sense of foreboding but tried to shut it out of his mind.
Talbot swung his arm from side to side to show that he was ready and machine gun fire began to rake the steel louvres. There was the nerve-torturing screech of bullets glancing off metal but no suggestion that any impression was being made. The louvres remained bland and impervious as closed eyes. Then, suddenly, the eyes opened. Talbot’s shouting men had reached the top of the stairways when four vertical slits appeared in the steel curtains and the cheese-grater barrels of heavy machine-guns poked into view.
Bond winced and prepared for the inevitable. The barrels shuddered and a hail of bullets cut a swathe through the attackers. The muzzle velocity was so great that men seemed to be wiped away like figures from a blackboard. One, more in advance of the others, was held in the air by the weight of bullets pouring into him. He trembled as if a powerful hosepipe was playing on his chest and then pitched full length. Bond felt like weeping as he watched his countrymen being butchered. Only Talbot remained to charge on, firing from the hip. He lobbed his hand grenade and then staggered after it like a bowler following through his delivery. Two faltering steps and a thin column of flame burst from an opening in the louvres and engulfed him. Within seconds he was a blazing torch collapsing on his own grenade. There was an explosion and he was tossed in the air like a theatrical prop. Pieces of burning uniform lay scattered across the deck. The steel louvres were unscathed. As if performing a drill movement, the gun-barrels withdrew at the same instant and the slits closed. Dying men twitched and the disgusting roast pork smell of burning flesh began to waft down from the gallery. Bond felt sick in mind and body.