by Ian Fleming
The pilot swallowed. He had to gather saliva before he could speak. He said, ‘Sir, we are about five hundred miles east of Goose Bay. Mr Goldfinger said we would ditch the plane as near the coast north of there as we could get. We were to reassemble at Montreal and Mr Goldfinger said we would come back and salvage the gold. Our ground speed is two hundred and fifty miles per hour and our height two thousand.’
‘How much flying can you do at that altitude? You must be using up fuel pretty fast.’
‘Yes, sir. I estimate that we have about two hours left at this height and speed.’
‘Get me a time signal.’
The navigator answered quickly, ‘Just had one from Washington, sir. Five minutes to five a.m. Dawn at this level will be in about an hour.’
‘Where is Weathership Charlie?’
‘About three hundred miles to the north-east, sir.’
‘Pilot, do you think you can make Goose Bay?’
‘No, sir, by about a hundred miles. We can only make the coast north of there.’
‘Right. Alter course for Weathership Charlie. Operator, call them up and give me the mike.’
‘Yes, sir.’
While the plane executed a wide curve, Bond listened to the static and broken snatches of voice that sounded from the amplifier above his head.
The operator’s voice came softly to him, ‘Ocean Station Charlie. This is Speedbird 510. G-ALGY calling C for Charlie, G-ALGY calling Charlie, G-ALGY ...’
A sharp voice broke in. ‘G-ALGY give your position. G-ALGY give your position. This is Gander Control. Emergency. G-ALGY ...’
London came over faintly. An excited voice began chattering. Now voices were coming at them from all directions. Bond could imagine the fix being quickly co-ordinated at all flying control stations, the busy men under the arcs working on the big plot, telephones being lifted, urgent voices talking to each other across the world. The strong signal of Gander Control smothered all other transmissions. ‘We’ve located G-ALGY. We’ve got them at about 50 N by 70 E. All stations stop transmitting. Priority. I repeat, we have a fix on G-ALGY ...’
Suddenly the quiet voice of C for Charlie came in. ‘This is Ocean Station Charlie calling Speedbird 510. Charlie calling G-ALGY. Can you hear me? Come in Speedbird 510.’
Bond slipped the small gun into his pocket and took the offered microphone. He pressed the transmitter switch and talked quietly into it, watching the crew over the oblong of plastic.
‘C for Charlie this is G-ALGY Speedbird hi-jacked last evening at Idlewild. I have killed the man responsible and partly disabled the plane by depressurizing the cabin. I have the crew at gunpoint. Not enough fuel to make Goose so propose to ditch as close to you as possible. Please put out line of flares.’
A new voice, a voice of authority, perhaps the captain’s, came over the air. ‘Speedbird this is C for Charlie. Your message heard and understood. Identify the speaker. I repeat identify the speaker over.’
Bond said and smiled at the sensation his words would cause, ‘Speedbird to C for Charlie. This is British Secret Service agent Number 007, I repeat Number 007. Whitehall Radio will confirm. I repeat check with Whitehall Radio over.’
There was a stunned pause. Voices from round the world tried to break in. Some control, presumably Gander, cleared them off the air. C for Charlie came back, ‘Speedbird this is C for Charlie alias the Angel Gabriel speaking okay I’ll check with Whitehall and Wilco the flares but London and Gander want more details ...’
Bond broke in, ‘Sorry C for Charlie but I can’t hold five men in my sights and make polite conversation just give me the sea conditions would you and then I’m going off the air till we come in to ditch over.’
‘Okay Speedbird I see the point wind here force two sea conditions long smooth swell no broken crests you should make it okay I’ll soon have you on the radar and we’ll keep constant watch on your wavelength have whisky for one and irons for five waiting good luck over.’
Bond said, ‘Thanks C for Charlie add a cup of tea to that order would you I’ve got a pretty girl on board this is Speedbird saying over and out.’
Bond released the switch and handed the microphone to the radio officer. He said, ‘Pilot, they’re putting down flares and keeping constant watch on our wavelength. Wind force two, long smooth swell with no broken crests. Now take it easy and let’s try and get out of this alive. As soon as we hit the water I’ll get the hatch open. Until then if anyone comes through the cockpit door he gets shot. Right?’
The girl’s voice sounded from the door behind Bond. ‘I was just coming to join the party but I won’t now. Getting shot doesn’t agree with me. But you might call that man back and make it two whiskies. Tea makes me hiccup.’
Bond said, ‘Pussy, get back to your basket.’ He gave a last glance round the cockpit and backed out of the door.
Two hours, two years, later Bond was lying in the warm cabin in Weathership Charlie listening dreamily to an early morning radio programme from Canada. Various parts of his body ached. He had got to the tail of the plane and made the girl kneel down with her head cradled in her arms on the seat of a chair. Then he had wedged himself in behind and over her and had held her life-jacketed body tightly in his arms and braced his back against the back of the seat behind him.
She had been nervously making facetious remarks about the indelicacy of this position when the belly of the Stratocruiser had thudded into the first mountain of swell at a hundred miles an hour. The huge plane skipped once and then crashed nose first into a wall of water. The impact had broken the back of the plane. The leaden weight of the bullion in the baggage compartment had torn the plane in half, spewing Bond and the girl out into the icy swell, lit red by the line of flares. There they had floated, half stunned, in their yellow life-jackets until the lifeboat got to them. By then there were only a few chunks of wreckage on the surface and the crew, with three tons of gold round their necks, were on their way down to the bed of the Atlantic. The boat hunted for ten minutes but when no bodies came to the surface they gave up the search and chugged back up the searchlight beam to the blessed wall of iron of the old frigate.
They had been treated like a mixture of royalty and people from Mars. Bond had answered the first, most urgent questions and then it had all suddenly seemed to be too much for his tired mind to cope with. Now he was lying luxuriating in the peace and the heat of the whisky and wondering about Pussy Galore and why she had chosen shelter under his wing rather than under Goldfinger’s.
The connecting door with the next cabin opened and the girl came in. She was wearing nothing but a grey fisherman’s jersey that was decent by half an inch. The sleeves were rolled up. She looked like a painting by Vertes. She said, ‘People keep on asking if I’d like an alcohol rub and I keep on saying that if anyone’s going to rub me it’s you, and if I’m going to be rubbed with anything it’s you I’d like to be rubbed with.’ She ended lamely, ‘So here I am.’
Bond said firmly, ‘Lock that door, Pussy, take off that sweater and come into bed. You’ll catch cold.’
She did as she was told, like an obedient child.
She lay in the crook of Bond’s arm and looked up at him. She said, not in a gangster’s voice, or a Lesbian’s, but in a girl’s voice, ‘Will you write to me in Sing Sing?’
Bond looked down into the deep blue-violet eyes that were no longer hard, imperious. He bent and kissed them lightly. He said, ‘They told me you only liked women.’
She said, ‘I never met a man before.’ The toughness came back into her voice. ‘I come from the South. You know the definition of a virgin down there? Well, it’s a girl who can run faster than her brother. In my case I couldn’t run as fast as my uncle. I was twelve. That’s not so good, James. You ought to be able to guess that.’
Bond smiled down into the pale, beautiful face. He said, ‘All you need is a course of T.L.C.’
‘What’s T.L.C.?’
‘Short for Tender Loving Care treatment. It�
�s what they write on most papers when a waif gets brought in to a children’s clinic.’
‘I’d like that.’ She looked at the passionate, rather cruel mouth waiting above hers. She reached up and brushed back the comma of black hair that had fallen over his right eyebrow. She looked into the fiercely slitted grey eyes. ‘When’s it going to start?’
Bond’s right hand came slowly up the firm, muscled thighs, over the flat soft plain of the stomach to the right breast. Its point was hard with desire. He said softly, ‘Now.’ His mouth came ruthlessly down on hers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's
IAN FLEMING was born in London on May 28, 1908. He was educated at Eton College and later spent a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters News Agency where a Moscow posting gave him firsthand experience with what would become his literary bête noire—the Soviet Union. During World War II he served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and played a key role in Allied espionage operations.
After the war he worked as foreign manager of the Sunday Times, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home “Goldeneye,” he wrote a book called Casino Royale—and James Bond was born. The first print run sold out within a month. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring Special Agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His travels, interests, and wartime experience lent authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler described him as “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.” Sales soared when President Kennedy named the fifth title, From Russia With Love, one of his favorite books. The Bond novels have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, boosted by the hugely successful film franchise that began in 1962 with the release of Dr No.
He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only son, Caspar, went on to become the well-loved novel and film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Fleming died of heart failure on August 12, 1964, at the age of fifty-six.
www.ianfleming.com
