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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 ca
Tiger turned to Bond. ‘You understand that it is night-time. In a few days, you will have to be doing something similar. Note that the lengths of rope terminate in an iron hook which they throw up and catch in crevices between the stone blocks.’ The instructor said something to Tiger and pointed. Tiger nodded. He said to Bond, ‘The man at the end is the weakest of the team. The instructor thinks he will soon fall.’
The line of climbing men was now almost at the summit of the two-hundred-foot wall, and sure enough, with only yards to go, the end man lost his foothold and, with arms and legs flailing, and with a scream of terror, fell back down the sheer black face. His body hit once and then crashed into the calm waters of the moat. The instructor muttered something, stripped off his shirt, clambered on to the rail of the causeway and dived the hundred feet down into the water. It was a perfect dive, and he swam in a swift crawl towards the body that lay ominously face downwards in the moat. Tiger turned to Bond. ‘It is of no account. He was going to fail the man anyway. And now come into the courtyard. The invaders have scaled the wall and they will now use bojutsu on the defenders, that is fighting with the stave.’