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She heard hihs She had a paroxysainst his ear and the thuainst his breast At the same time their speed slackened

'Hold your breath,' shouted Bond 'I've got to have a look Ready?'

A pressure of her arms answered his

With the weight of his body he swung her round so that his head was now quite out of water

They were ploughing along at about three knots He twisted his head above the s up

The Secatur was entering the passage through the reef, about eighty yards away, he guessed The paravane was skiles to her Another thirty yards and the red torpedo would be crossing the broken water over the reef A further thirty yards behind, they were riding slowly across the surface of the bay

Sixty yards to go to the reef

Bond twisted his body and Solitaire ca through the water

Five yards, ten, fifteen, twenty

Only forty yards to go before they hit the coral

The Secatur would be just through Bond gathered his breath It must be past six now What had happened to the blasted ht a quick fervent prayer God save us, he said into the water

Suddenly he felt the rope tighten under his arms

'Breathe, Solitaire, breathe,' he shouted as they got under way and the water started to hiss past the over the sea towards the crouching reef

There was a slight check Bond guessed that the paravane had fouled a niggerhead or a piece of surface coral Then their bodies hurtled on again in their deadly eo, twenty, ten

Jesus Christ, thought Bond We're for it He braced his ed Solitaire further above him to protect her from the worst of it

Suddenly the breath whistled out of his body and a giant fist thuht out of the sea above hi flashed across the sky and there was the thunder of an explosion

They stopped dead in the water and Bond felt the weight of the slack rope pulling thes sank down beneath his stunned body and water rushed into his ht hiht their ht in his ar Solitaire's lolling head on his shoulder above the surface

The first thing he saas the swirling waters of the reef not five yards away Without its protection they would both have been crushed by the shock-wave of the explosion He felt the tug and eddy of its currents round his legs He backed desperately towards it, catching gulps of air when he could His chest was bursting with the strain and he saw the sky through a red filirl's hair filled his mouth and tried to choke him

Suddenly he felt the sharp scrape of the coral against the back of his legs He kicked and felt frantically with his feet for a foothold, flaying the skin off with every movement

He hardly felt the pain

Now his back was being scraped and his ar in his chest Then there was a bed of needles under his feet He put all his weight on it, leaning back against the strong eddies that tried to dislodge him His feet held and there was rock at his back He leant back panting, blood streairl's cold, scarcely breathing body against him

For a minute he rested, blessedly, his eyes shut and the blood pounding through his liain His first thought was for the blood in the water around hi fish would not venture into the reef Anyway there was nothing he could do about it

Then he looked out to sea

There was no sign of the Secatur

High up in the still sky there was ato trail, with the Doctor's Wind, in towards the land

There were things strewn all over the water and a few heads bobbing up and down and the whole sea was glinting with the white stomachs of fish stunned or killed by the explosion There was a strong se of the debris, the red paravane lay quietly, hull down, anchored by the cable whose other end must lie so on the glassy surface of the sea

On the edge of the circle of bobbing heads and dead fish a few triangular fins were cutting fast through the water More appeared as Bond watched Once he saw a great snout co The fins threw up spray as they flashed a the tidbits Two black arms suddenly stuck up in the air and then disappeared There were screams Two or three pairs of arms started to flail the water towards the reef Onethe water in front of him with the flat of his hand Then his hands disappeared under the surface Then he too began to scream and his body jerked to and fro in the water Barracuda hitting into him, said Bond's dazednearer,for the bit of reef where Bond stood, the sirl's black hair hanging down his back

It was a large head and a veil of blood streareat bald skull

Bond watched it co breast-stroke, h flurry in the water to attract any fish that wasn't already occupied

Bond wondered whether he would make it Bond's eyes narrowed and his breath became calmer as he watched the cruel sea for its decision

The surging head caony and frenzied endeavour Blood half veiled the eyes that Bond kneould be bulging in their sockets He could alrey-black skin Would it give out before the bait was taken?