The outer door slammed.
Bond slowly raised his head and grinned painfully at the girl with his bloodstained lips.
«Had to get him mad,» he said with difficulty. «Didn’t want to give him time to think. Had to work up a brainstorm.» Gala looked at him uncomprehendingly, her eyes wide at the terrible mask of his face.
«’S’all right,» said Bond thickly. «Don’t worry. London’s okay. Got a plan.»
Over on the desk the blowtorch gave a quiet ‘plop’ and went out.
CHAPTER XXIII
ZERO MINUS
THROUGH HALF-CLOSED eyes Bond looked intently at the torch while for a few precious seconds he sat and let life creep back into his body. His head felt as if it had been used as a football, but there was nothing broken. Drax had hit him unscientifically and with the welter of blows of a drunken man.
Gala watched him anxiously. The eyes in the bloody face were almost shut, but the line of the jaw was taut with concentration and she could feel the effort of will he was making.
He gave his head a shake and when he turned towards her she could see that his eyes were feverish with triumph.
He nodded towards the desk. «The lighter,» he said urgently. «I had to try and make him forget it. Follow me. I’ll show you.» He started to rock the light steel chair inch by inch towards the desk. «For God’s sake don’t tip over or we’ve had it. But make it fast or the blowlamp’ll get cold.»
Uncomprehendingly, and feeling almost as if they were playing some ghastly children’s game, Gala carefully rocked her way across the floor in his wake.
Seconds later Bond told her to stop beside the desk while he went rocking on round to Drax’s chair. Then he manoeuvred himself into position opposite his target and with a sudden lurch heaved himself and the chair forward so that his head came down.
There was a painful crack as the Ronson desk lighter connected with his teeth, but his lips held it and the top of it was in his mouth as he heaved the chair back with just enough force to prevent it spilling over. Then he started his patient journey back to where Gala was sitting at the corner of the desk on which Krebs had left the blowlamp.
He rested until his breath was steady again. «Now we come to the difficult part,» he said grimly. «While I try to get this torch going, you get your chair round so that your right arm is as close in front of me as possible.»
Obediently she edged herself round while Bond swayed his chair so that it leant against the edge of the desk and allowed his mouth to reach forward and grip the handle of the blowtorch between his teeth.
Then he eased the torch towards him and after minutes of patient work he had the torch and the lighter arranged to his liking at the edge of the desk.
After another rest he bent down, closed the valve of the torch with his teeth, and proceeded to get pressure back by slowly and repeatedly pulling up the plunger with his lips and pressing it back with his chin. His face could feel the warmth in the pre-heater and he could smell the remnants of gas in it. If only it hadn’t cooled off too much. He straightened up.
«Last lap, Gala,» he said, smiling crookedly at her. «I may have to hurt you a bit. All right?»
«Of course,» said Gala.
«Then here goes,» said Bond, and he bent forward and released the safety valve on the left of the canister.
Then he quickly bent forward over the Ronson, which was standing at right angles and just below the neck of the torch, and with his two front teeth pressed down sharply on the ignition lever.
It was a horrible manoeuvre and though he whipped back his head with the speed of a snake he let out a gasp of pain as the jet of blue fire from the torch seared across his bruised cheek and the bridge of his nose.
But the vaporized paraffin was hissing out its vital tongue of flame and he shook the water out of his streaming eyes and bent his head almost at right angles and again got his teeth to the handle of the blowtorch.
He thought his jaw would break with the weight of the thing and the nerves of his front teeth screamed at him, but he swayed his chair carefully upright away from the desk and then strained his bent neck forward until the tip of blue fire from the torch was biting into the flex that bound Gala’s right wrist to the arm of her chair.
He tried desperately to keep the flame steady but the breath rasped through the girl’s teeth as the handle shifted between his jaws and the flame of the torch brushed her forearm.
But then it was over. Melted by the fierce heat, the copper strands parted one by one and suddenly Gala’s right arm was free and she was reaching to take the torch out of Bond’s mouth.
Bond’s head fell back on to his shoulders and he twisted his neck luxuriously to get the blood moving in the aching muscles.
Almost before he knew it, Gala was bending over his arms and legs and he too was free.
As he sat still for a moment, his eyes closed, waiting for the life to come back into his body, he suddenly, delightedly felt Gala’s soft lips on his mouth.
He opened his eyes. She was standing in front of him, her eyes shining. «That’s for what you did,» she said seriously.
«You’re a wonderful girl,» he said simply.
But then, knowing what he was going to have to do, knowing that while she might conceivably survive, he had only another few minutes to live, he closed his eyes so that she should not see the hopelessness in them.
Gala saw the expression on his face and she turned away. She thought it was only exhaustion and the culminative effect of what his body had suffered, and she suddenly remembered the peroxide in the washroom next to her office.
She went through the communicating door. How extraordinary it was to see her familiar things again. It must be someone else who had sat at that desk and typed letters and powdered her nose. She shrugged her shoulders and went into the little washroom. God what a sight and God how tired she felt! But first she took a wet towel and some peroxide and went back and spent ten minutes attending to the battlefield which was Bond’s face.
He sat silent, a hand resting on her waist, and watched her gratefully. Then when she had gone back into her room and he heard her shut the door of the washroom behind her he got up, turned off the still hissing blowtorch, and walked into Drax’s shower, stripped and stood for five minutes under the icy water. ‘Preparing the corpse!’ he reflected ruefully as he surveyed his battered face in the mirror.
He put on his clothes and went back to Drax’s desk which he searched methodically. It yielded only one prize, the ‘office bottle’, a half-full bottle of Haig and Haig. He fetched two glasses and some water and called to Gala.
He heard the door of the washroom open. «What is it?»
«Whisky.»
«You drink. I’ll be ready in a minute.»
Bond looked at the bottle and poured himself three-quarters of a toothglass and drank it straight down in two gulps. Then he gingerly lit a blessed cigarette and sat on the edge of the desk and felt the liquor burn down through his stomach into his legs.
He picked up the bottle again and looked at it. Plenty for Gala and a whole full glass for himself before he walked out through the door. Better than nothing. It wouldn’t be too bad with that inside him so long as he walked quickly out and shut the doors behind him. No looking back.
Gala came in, a transformed Gala, looking as beautiful as the night he had first seen her, except for the lines of exhaustion under the eyes that the powder could not quite conceal and the angry welts at her wrists and ankles.