There was a pause on the other end. Now the voice was professional, judicious.
"Physically he's as fit as a fiddle. Leg's healed up. Shouldn't be any after-effects.
Yes, he's all right." There was another pause. "Just one thing, M. There's a lot of
tension there, you know. You work these men of yours pretty hard. Can you give
him something easy to start with? From what you've told me he's been having a
tough time for some years now."

M said gruffly, "That's what he's paid for. It'll soon show if he's not up to the
work. Won't be the first one that's cracked. From what you say, he sounds in
perfectly good shape. It isn't as if he'd really been damaged like some of the
patients I've sent you—men who've been properly put through the mangle."

"Of course, if you put it like that. But pain's an odd thing. We know very little
about it. You can't measure it—the difference in suffering between a woman
having a baby and a man having a renal colic. And, thank God, the body seems
to forget fairly quickly. But this man of yours has been in real pain, M. Don't
think that just because nothing's been broken..."


"Quite, quite." Bond had made a mistake and he had suffered for it. In any case



M didn't like being lectured, even by one of the most famous doctors in the
world, on how he should handle his agents.

Dr. No, Chapter 2, Choice of Weapons