James Bond: The Authorised Biography

by John Pearson

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Where d'you think? Back to Aunt Charmian of course. But even she was busy winning the war – civil defence, evacuees, the Women's Services. Aunt Charmian was in the thick of it. It was the old girl's finest hour. I stayed with her for something like a month. I'm sure that she believed I was some sort of draft dodger, but she was too polite to say so. She would go on about my brother Henry though. He was in the War Office and he had a uniform. Two or three times a week I'd call Headquarters, but they had somehow found out I was born in Germany. At one stage I'm sure they wanted to intern me.’

  Bond laughed and signalled to Augustus for some more to drink.

  ‘It really was one of the most depressing periods of my life. I was just nineteen, and I felt useless and unwanted. It also dawned on me that my whole way of life was over. Nothing would ever be such fun again – and, to be quite honest, it never really has.’

  By a strange coincidence the man who rescued Bond from the stagnation of the ‘phoney war’ was Ian Fleming. He was already working in intelligence – as personal assistant to Admiral Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty – and he was on the look-out for suitable recruits to the Admiral's empire. He must have heard about the strange young man that he had met at Kitzbühel, checked on his records, and decided, as he often did, that this was the sort of man Naval Intelligence required. Thanks to his backing, Bond was commissioned as lieutenant in the Royal Navy with immediate secondment to the D.N.I. Bond's war had finally begun – and also the bizarre relationship with Ian Fleming.

  M. has authoritatively described the two of them as ‘personal friends’. If he is right, it was a most uneasy friendship, for they were very different characters.

  Fleming was a dreamer, an intellectual manqué, the perfect desk-man at the D.N.I. Bond was essentially a man of action; he had inherited from his father the clear-cut mind of a good Scottish engineer. He was a realist, and his experience of life had taught him to keep his imagination in check and not to be too sensitive with people.

  Fleming was witty, sociable and worldly. Bond was plain-spoken, wary of others and something of an outsider. And yet they seemed to complement each other. Each came to play a vital part in the other's life – so much so that today it is difficult to think of them apart; even in 1939 there are clear signs that this strange interdependence was beginning.

  During this period Fleming must have seen that Bond had been living the life that he had dreamed of, the life which just conceivably he might have followed had he continued his original career with Reuters instead of leaving it in 1936 and entering a City stockbrokers. And, similarly, Bond was acknowledging the power figure which he saw in Fleming. This was the person that he envied; and, as with Fleming, this was a self that he could never be – the settled, rich, impeccable insider, an influential cautious man who spoke to press lords by their Christian names, hobnobbed with admirals, and played bridge with members of the Cabinet.

  During these first months in Naval Intelligence Bond was impatient for action. Finally, with one of Fleming's wild-cat schemes, he found it.

  Fleming had written of the D.N.I.'s concern with the movements of the U-boats and the German fleet from Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven into the North Sea and the Atlantic. This was a constant headache for the British Admiralty, for these North German ports were impossible to blockade. The U-boat packs could come and go and there was constant risk that the German battle fleet would choose some unguarded moment to issue forth. Naval Intelligence at Whitehall had to do its best to find out what was going on, but this was difficult. We had our spies in Hamburg, but they were at best erratic, and the ports were beyond the range of normal aerial reconnaissance.

  Different solutions were discussed, and it was Fleming who brought up the idea of the isle of Wangerooge. It was a typical Fleming plan. The island is an elongated sand-bank off the German coast, pointing out to the German Bight. Its sole inhabitants were fishermen and sea-birds, but it lay along the main channel out of Wilhelmshaven. Shipping from Hamburg and Bremerhaven used it as a landmark as they sailed to the North Sea.

  ‘It ought to be quite possible to hide a trained observer there,’ said Fleming casually.

  ‘How on earth?’ said somebody.

  ‘It could work,’ Fleming said. ‘Those off-shore German islands are pretty bleak at the best of times. At this time of the year there'd be nothing there but miles of God-forsaken sand dunes. A trained man with binoculars and a radio transmitter …’

  Somebody asked how he proposed to hide such a man under the noses of the Germans.

  ‘Didn't you ever read The Riddle of the Sands?’ Fleming replied.

  The idea hung around as ideas do but Bond could see its possibilities. Unlike the other members of the department, he had worked as an agent inside Germany and knew how often the most daring scheme succeeded. Without Bond's interest the idea would have lapsed. Fleming, the potential thriller writer, liked to devise his daydreams, but for James Bond anything was better than this futile life in London. And, for once, Fleming was spurred to action.

  It was the first time Bond had seen the practical side of Fleming. Every objection was politely swept aside, each difficulty calmly coped with. Fleming displayed an obsessive attention to detail, almost as if he, not Bond, were going. Bond, who lacked this sort of mind, could value it in others. Fleming worked hard. Within a day or two he had decided on the sort of clothing Bond should wear, the food that he should take, his weapons and his sanitary arrangements. The two men spent several afternoons at Brookwood, testing entrenching tools in the Surrey sandhills, and planning the living quarters Bond could dig for himself on Wangerooge. Experts were summoned to devise a form of shuttering to hold back the sand. Binoculars and periscopes were lovingly selected and Bond instructed how to use the latest model short-wave transmitter. Fleming performed all this with boundless energy. He was planning an adventure – Bond had merely to perform in it. The fact that his life would be at stake seemed almost incidental.

  This did occur to Bond. Increasingly, it seemed as if he were simply taking part in some complicated game. He wanted action now – not suicide. His doubts, however, merely acted as a spur to Fleming. For the last few days Bond had been through a crash-course in identifying German warships and had been practising the final points in the construction of his shelter. Fleming explained arrangements for landing and retrieving him by submarine. This would take place at night.

  ‘God willing,’ said James Bond.

  ‘My dear chap, it will go like clockwork. There'll be no problems for a submarine. No problems at all.’

  ‘And if I'm caught?’

  ‘You won't be. There are only a few fishermen around, and they won't bother you.’

  It was too late to argue, and at the beginning of February, Bond joined H.M. submarine Thruster at Harwich at the start of a three-week Baltic patrol.

  Secretly Bond had always dreaded submarines, which seemed like steel coffins, but he was excited by this new adventure. Fleming was there to see him off – a tall and somehow melancholy figure in his superbly cut lieutenant's greatcoat. There was a thin dawn drizzle from the sea. The submarine shipped moorings, the engines started. Fleming smiled wryly, raising a languid hand and Bond finally sensed how much he envied him his journey.

  It was an exciting voyage. The Germans had anti-submarine patrols working from the Isle of Sylt: the submarine submerged by the Dutch coast and proceeded slowly northwards under water. There was a scare of enemy attack and only after dark did Thruster surface and pick up speed from her diesels. For a while Bond stood on the bridge with the Commander. It was pitch black with freezing sleet in the wind. The Commander pointed to the right, ‘Emden's through there and Wilhelmshaven's further on. We'll reach your place by midnight.’

  Germany seemed such forbidden territory that Bond was surprised at how easily he landed. Just twenty minutes later he was climbing into a rubber dinghy from the submarine and being rowed ashore.
Two sailors helped with his equipment. No one spoke or showed a light; when Bond was safely in the dunes they left him. Bond had never felt so lonely in his life before.

  Not that he had much time to brood. First light was due at eight. By then he would have had to have dug himself in, camouflaged his hide, and made himself secure before his first full day. He worked furiously. There was a fishing village just along the coast. His stretch of beach was theoretically deserted at this time of year, but he could take no risks. The dunes were covered with thick clumps of dense sea grass and sea holly – more than enough to give the cover he required. The fine sand too was simple enough to burrow; as Bond dug he kept remembering himself as a small boy, building his sandcastles on the beaches of the Baltic.

  Long before the dismal morning light reached Wangerooge, James Bond was ready. It had been easier than he expected, and he had excavated a sufficient cavity to hold himself, his stores and his transmitter. The walls were shored back with the aluminium planking specially devised by Fleming and the supplies department. The roof was driftwood, sand and grass. Thanks to Bond's weeks of training, his hide was virtually invisible. Bond had become a human mole.

  He found a mole's life most unsatisfactory – boring and cramped and very cold. But he was busy. He had his specially constructed periscope binoculars to watch the sea. He also had his short-wave radio. The aerial was hidden in the dunes. He had prearranged times to speak to London.

  During the first morning Bond could appreciate the accuracy of Fleming's thinking. Wangerooge was on the German navy's doorstep and there was a constant flow of inshore shipping – first the low crouching shape of German E-boats roaring their way home to Bremerhaven after a night patrolling in the Channel. Then came some coasters bound for Hamburg. And twice that morning Bond saw the quarry he was really after – two U-boats, grey steel whales sliding past so close that he could hear the throb of engines. He could see their numbers on the conning towers. Within two days they would be trailing Allied shipping out in the Atlantic.

  This was exciting, but Bond found himself longing for a cigarette, someone to talk to, even a book to read. At times he felt a wild urge to leave his burrow and stroll across the sand. To console himself he munched biscuits and sucked malted milk tablets from his rations. Around six o'clock he made himself his first meal of the day – more biscuits, chocolate and a can of self-heating soup. Afterwards he thought that he had earned a double swig of brandy.

  Like a large nocturnal animal, Bond crept from his lair when it was safely dark. The joy of stretching cramped limbs and sniffing the night air from the sea! For a while he worked, enlarging the burrow so that he could lie full length in it and sleep. He had an inflatable sleeping-bag and was soon comfortable. At 12.15 he called the Admiralty in London, using a simple code and prearranged wave-band, and reporting everything that he had seen. He would have liked a two-way conversation, even a word, with Fleming. This was too big a risk. He pulled the cover tight above his head, wound in the aerial, and slept.

  He was awakened early by the roar of aircraft overhead. He raised his periscope and saw the grey-green body of a Dornier flying-boat passing some thirty yards away. He could see the pilot's face and an observer in the rear gun turret. There was a big white swastika on the tail.

  The plane roared off. Bond breathed again, remembering there was a seaplane base at Cuxhaven. Three minutes later the plane returned. This time it seemed still closer, roaring along the surf-line of the beach. This was no training flight.

  He watched the flying-boat wheel like a big suspicious sea-bird: then with a shower of spray it landed, and came taxiing towards the shore. It anchored. Bond watched four men climb into a black rubber dinghy. They rowed ashore, and then fanned out along the beach.

  Fleming had been over-optimistic about the transmitter. The Germans must have intercepted last night's message and fixed its origin with accuracy. These searchers knew what they were looking for.

  Bond thought he was lost. All he could do was lower the periscope and wait. Never had he felt so vulnerable and helpless. It seemed impossible that four trained German airmen could miss him. He could hear them calling to each other and even picked out certain words – ‘English spy’, ‘radio’. One of them was mentioning a gun. Finally the four men seemed to give up. They had stopped ten yards from where he lay. One of them, the leader, said, ‘It's no use. No one could hide out here. Perhaps the bastard's in the village.’

  Someone replied, ‘But that's impossible. He'd have been spotted. He must be here.’

  The first voice replied, ‘Well, he's not, is he? We'll just have to wait. The Herr Colonel will be furious.’ Bond heard them walk away – and then he breathed. Slowly he raised the periscope and saw the men climb back aboard the dinghy. There was the savage rasp of engines; the Dornier swept up and away.

  Bond forced himself to think. The outlook seemed distinctly bleak. The Germans had been more efficient than anyone had guessed. True, they had not found him – yet – but it could only be a matter of time before they did. They were watching for him now. Once he broke radio silence they would find him, and there was no question now of summoning the submarine to take him off. Nor could he stay trapped in this hole for ever. Water would run out first – unless he went mad from solitude or claustrophobia.

  Bond spent the morning trying to devise some method of escape – without success. Surrender in some form or other seemed inevitable. Bond shuddered at the thought of the remainder of the war inside a prisoner-of-war camp. Rather than this he would wait till nightfall, make his way up to the village, then steal a boat. It would be risky. The villagers must have been warned of him by now, but anything was preferable to surrender. Bond knew he must conserve his strength. He fed himself and slept.

  It was late afternoon when he awoke. He was cold. He started to prepare the rations he would take with him that night for his escape. But first he needed to survey the beach. It was empty – so was the sea. Then he noticed something. Far to the right there was a ship approaching. There was the beginning of a North Sea mist, making it hard to identify, but as it came closer Bond was certain what it was. One of the outlines he had learned during his lessons on enemy shipping was of the high-speed ocean-going tankers – the Germans called them milch-cows – which the Germans had developed to refuel their U-boat fleets. This was one of them. Two E-boats followed it to give protection as it steamed off into the darkness.

  For James Bond this changed everything. The tanker was a first-class prize. Once the Admiralty knew its route, it could be shadowed: at some point out in the Atlantic there would be a rendezvous with several German U-boats.

  It would be worth a great deal for the Royal Navy to be there.

  Bond knew then where his duty lay. Whatever the risk, he had to radio once more to London – only then would he try to escape. And then he had an even better plan.

  He waited until dawn to send his message. Reaction from the Germans came more swiftly than he thought. They must have been waiting for him to break silence. The Dornier returned, flying in straight above him. Things were working out as he expected. There was the same routine, the same men landing in the rubber dinghy. This time they seemed more determined than before. All of them were armed. His plan was working. He heard the first man shout when he saw the transmitter Bond had left. It was a hundred yards or so behind him, on the far side of the dunes. He had left a lot of other equipment there – enough to keep the Germans occupied for several minutes, minutes he needed for his getaway. He couldn't watch them now. He had to take a chance, waiting just long enough for the search party to be diverted. Then he made a break for it.

  It was easier than he expected. The Germans were quite occupied. Bond could crawl in the cover of the dunes right to the beach. His limbs were cramped and hardly moved at first, but he forced himself. He was almost at the water's edge before they saw him, and he was in the dinghy and away before the shots rang out.

  Bond had never rowed so hard in all his lif
e. Luckily, the sea was calm, and, luckily, the German airmen were no marksmen. But there was still the problem of the flying-boat. The Germans would certainly have left somebody aboard – this firing from the beach must have alerted him. But Bond possessed one advantage. Whoever was aboard the plane had no idea of what was going on. The last thing he would be expecting would be for the English spy his comrades were out looking for to come aboard of his own free will. Bond drew along the side of the Dornier. There was an open door in the fuselage. Here he shouted out in German.

  ‘Quick, you idiot, bring the first-aid kit. There's been shooting, somebody's hurt.’

  ‘What?’ said a voice.

  ‘Quickly,’ said Bond, ‘somebody's dying.’

  A German's head appeared. Bond had his gun out.

  ‘Steady,’ he said, ‘don't move. I'm going to need you. It would be a shame to kill you.’

  It was a terrifying takeoff. The aircraft roared and shuddered over the water. Some of the men on shore began to fire, and for a moment Bond thought the pilot would purposely crash the plane. Then the nose lifted and, reluctantly it seemed, the Dornier was away.

  But even then, Bond's problems weren't over. The pilot was a surly individual – a heavily built, red-headed man. Bond had to keep his pistol firmly in his back as he ordered him to set his course due west for England and climb to 5,000 feet. For a while the man obeyed; then suddenly he shouted – ‘Look out, Englishman. Fighter-planes.’

  Bond glanced where he was pointing. He should have known better. The pilot's fist landed against his jaw, and in a moment the two men were grappling in the cabin, 5,000 feet above the North Sea. It was a vicious battle. The pilot was heavier than Bond, and in the moment of surprise, had knocked Bond's pistol from his hand. Then he kicked out with all his strength. Bond doubled up in agony. As he did so, his shoulder lurched against the Dornier's controls. The nose tilted and suddenly the world became a dizzy, flailing madhouse with the engines screaming and the aircraft diving steeply towards the sea. In desperation Bond tried one last wild blow against the man's throat. Against all the odds it connected. There was a gurgling noise. The man went limp. Desperately attempting to remember his prewar flying instructions and hoping they held good for German aircraft Bond reached for the controls, the plane responded and he managed to pull the aircraft up. But only just. By now it was almost down to sea-level. Bond saw the grey waves just below. He eased the Dornier's controls towards him, and slowly the big lumbering plane responded.