Page 5 (1/2)

'Seeh politics Not my line of country at all But is this stuff really as vital as M says?'

'Absolutely If you get hold of it, your grateful country will probably buy you that chicken far about'

'So be it Now, if you'll give Ha all about the ei! Welcome aboard,' said the pretty kimono-ed and obi-ed stewardess of Japan Air Lines as, a week later, James Bond settled into the colas D C 8 at London Airport and listened to the torrent of soft Japanese cos about life jackets and the flying tis 'in case of motion disturbance' were e to the exquisitely bound travel folder, the randoe rack above his head were'the traditional and auspicious tortoiseshell motif The stewardess bowed and handed him a dainty fan, a small hot towel in a wicker-basket and a sumptuous menu that included a note to the effect that an assortarettes, perfumes and pearls were available for sale Then they were off with 50,000 pounds of thrust on the first leg of the four that would take the good aircraft Yoshino over the North Pole to Tokyo

Bond gazed at the picture of three oranges (no! after an hour he decided they were persimmons) in a blue bowl that faced him and, when the aircraft flattened out at 30,000 feet, ordered the first of the chain of brandies and ginger ales that was to sustain hiat, the Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Sea, the Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean and decided that, whatever happened on this in sloughed off hi the huge stuffed Polar bear at Anchorage, in Alaska, the es had persuaded him that he didn't even mind if the colour of the new skin was to be yellow

4

DIKKO ON THE GINZA

THE huge right fist crashed into the left palreat square face of the Australian turned alrizzled temples With controlled violence, but alely

'I bludge,

Thou bludgest,

He bludges,

We bludge,

You bludge,

They all bludge'

He reached under the low table and then seelass of sake, picked it up and poured it down his throat without a s

Bond said mildly, 'Take it easy, Dikko What's bitten you? And what does this vulgar-sounding colonial expression mean?'