Bond was carried straight to the bottom by the weight of the limpet mine that he had secured to his chest with tapes and by the leaded belt which he wore round his waist to correct the buoyancy of the compressed-air cylinders.
He didn’t pause for an instant but immediately streaked across the first fifty yards of open sand in a fast crawl, his face just above the sand. The long webbed feet would almost have doubled his normal speed if he had not been hampered by the weight he was carrying and by the light harpoon g*n in his left hand, but he travelled fast and in under a minute he came to rest in the shadow of a mass of sprawling coral.
He paused and examined his sensations.
He was warm in the rubber suit, warmer than he would have been swimming in the sunshine. He found his movements v
