Bond took the bottle and walked boldly up to the cow who raised her head and opened her slavering jaws. Bond thrust the bottle between them and poured. The cow almost ate the bottle in its delight and ran its harsh tongue gratefully over Bond’s hand. Bond stood his ground. He was getting used to Tiger’s ploys by now, and he was determined to show at any rate an approximation of the kami-kaze spirit whatever test Tiger put him to.
The herdsman now handed Bond a bottle of what appeared to be water. Tiger said, ‘This is shochu. It is a very raw gin. Fill your mouth with it and spray it over the back of the cow and then massage it into the cow’s flesh.’
Bond guessed that Tiger hoped he would swallow some of the gin and choke. He closed his throat but lustily filled his mouth with the stuff, compressed his lips and blew hard so that the vapour from the stuff would not go up his nostrils. He wiped his hands across his lips that were already stinging with the harsh spirit and scrubbed energetically at the rough pelt. The cow bent her head in ecstasy ... Bond stood back. ‘Now what?’ he said belligerently. ‘What’s the cow going to do for me?’
Tiger laughed and translated for the herdsman, who also laughed and looked at Bond with some respect. Money changed hands, and with much happy talk between Tiger and the herdsman and final bows they got back into the car and drove into the village, where they were welcomed into a shuttered and discreet restaurant, polished, spotless and blessedly deserted. Tiger ordered and they sat in wonderful Western chairs at a real table while the usual dimpling waitresses brought saké. Bond swallowed down his first flask at one long gulp to wash away the rasp of the gin. He said to Tiger, ‘And now, what was that all about?’
Tiger looked pleased with himself. ‘You are about to eat what it was all about – the finest, most succulent beef in the world. Kobe beef, but of a grade you wouldn’t find in the most expensive restaurant in Tokyo. This herd is owned by a friend of mine. The herdsman was a good man, was he not? He feeds each of his cows four pints of beer a day and massages them with shochu as you did. They also receive a rich meal of oaten porridge. You like beef?’
‘No,’ said Bond stolidly. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t.’
‘That is unfortunate,’ said Tiger, not looking as if it were. ‘For what you are about to eat is the finest steak that will be eaten today anywhere outside the Argentine. And you have earned it. The herdsman was greatly impressed by your sincere performance with his cow.’
‘And what does that prove?’ said Bond sourly. ‘And what honourable experience is awaiting me this afternoon?’
The steak came. It was accompanied by various succulent side-dishes, including a saucer of blood, which Bond refused. But the meat could be cut with a fork, and was indeed without equal in Bond’s experience. Tiger, munching with gusto, answered Bond’s question. ‘I am taking you to one of the secret training establishments of my Service,’ he said. ‘It is not far from here, in the mountains, in an old fortified castle. It goes under the name of the “Central Mountaineering School”. It arouses no comment in the neighbourhood, which is just as well, since it is here that my agents are trained in one of the arts most dreaded in Japan–ninjutsu, which is, literally, the art of stealth or invisibility. All the men you will see have already graduated in at least ten of the eighteen martial arts of bushido, or “ways of the warrior”, and they are now learning to be ninja, or “stealers-in”, which has for centuries been part of the basic training of spies and assassins and saboteurs. You will see men walk across the surface of water, walk up walls and across ceilings, and you will be shown equipment which makes it possible for them to remain submerged under water for a full day. And many other tricks besides. For of course, apart from physical dexterity, the ninja were never the superhumans they were built up to be in the popular imagination. But, nevertheless, the secrets of ninjutsu are still closely guarded today and are the property of two main schools, the Iga and the Togakure, from which my instructors are drawn. I think you will be interested and perhaps learn something yourself at this place. I have never approved of agents carrying guns and other obvious weapons. In China, Korea and Oriental Russia, which are, so to speak, my main beats, the possession of any offensive weapon on arrest would be an obvious confession of guilt. My men are expected to be able to kill without weapons. All they may carry is a staff and a length of thin chain which can be easily explained away. You understand?’
‘Yes, that makes sense. We have a similar commando training school for unarmed combat attached to Headquarters. But, of course, your judo and karate are special skills requiring years of practice. How high did you get in judo, Tiger?’
Tiger picked his teeth reminiscently. ‘No higher than a Black Belt of the Seventh Dan. I never graduated to a Red Belt, which is from the Eighth to the Eleventh Dan. To do so would have meant abandoning all other forms of activity. And with what object? To be promoted to the Twelfth and final Dan on my death? In exchange for spending the whole of my life tumbling about in the Kodokan Academy in Tokyo? No thank you. That is the ambition of a lunatic.’ He smiled. ‘No saké! No beautiful girls! Worse still, probably no opportunity in a whole lifetime to exercise my art in anger, to tackle a robber or murderer with a gun, and get the better of him. In the higher realms of judo, you are nothing but a mixture between a monk and a ballet dancer. Not for me!’
Back on the open, dusty road some instinct made Bond glance through the rear window between the dainty lace blinds that are both the hallmark of a truly sincere hired car and a dangerous impediment to the driver’s vision. Far behind, there was a solitary motorcyclist. Later when they turned up a minor road into the mountains, he was still there. Bond mentioned the fact. Tiger shrugged. ‘He is perhaps a speed cop. If he is anyone else, he has chosen a bad time and place.’
The castle was the usual horned roof affair of Japanese prints. It stood in a cleft between the mountains that must have once been an important pass, for ancient cannon pointed out from the summit of giant, slightly sloping walls of black granite blocks. They were stopped at the gate to a wooden causeway across a brimming moat and again at the castle entrance. Tiger showed his pass, and there was much hissing and deep bowing from the plain-clothes guards and a bell clanged in the topmost tier of the soaring edifice, which, as Bond could see from the inner courtyard, was badly in need of a coat of paint. As the car came to a stop young men in shorts and gym shoes came running from various doors in the castle and formed up behind three older men. They bowed almost to the ground as Tiger descended regally from the car. Tiger and Bond also bowed. Brief greetings were exchanged with the older men and Tiger then proceeded to fire off a torrent of staccato Japanese which was punctuated by respectful ‘Hai’s’ from the middle-aged man who was obviously the commandant of the team. With a final ‘Hai, Tanaka-san’ this official turned to the twenty-odd students whose ages seemed to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. He called numbers and six men fell out of the ranks. They were given orders and ran off into the castle. Tiger commented to Bond. ‘They will put on camouflage clothes and go off into the mountains through which we have come. If anyone is lurking about they will bring him to us. And now we will see a little demonstration of an attack on the castle.’ Tiger fired off some more orders, the men dispersed at the double and Bond followed Tiger out on to the causeway accompanied by the chief instructor with whom Tiger had a long and animated discussion. Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, there came a whistle from above them on the ramparts and at once ten men broke cover from the forest to their left. They were dressed from head to foot in some black material, and only their eyes showed through slits in the black hoods. They ran down to the edge of the moat, donned oval battens of what must have been some light wood such as balsa, and skimmed across the water with a kind of skiing motion until they reached the bottom of the giant black wall. There they discarded their battens, took lengths of rope and a handful of small iron pitons out of pockets in their black robes and proceeded to almost run up the walls like fast black spiders.