James Bond at War, Tester

As I try to gee life into my fledgling NaNo project, I thought I'd flex the muscles and write this snippet. On the old MI6 one of my longest and sometimes popular stories was a Bond where Germany had invaded England in 1940. Bond is brought from exile by his old boss, to help fight back against the Nazis in 1943.

So this below, was written on the fly this evening.

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The English Channel, November 1942

Even an officer of the former Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve –the Wavy Navy- could sometimes get seasick. Or at least the steady pitching of the cross-Channel ferry was making his stomach lurch. It was an uneven pitch, down, onto the left, back to the front and all over the place. As well he stood on the fo’csle with his gaze focused on the horizon. The dark hair was a little unruly; the familiar comma of hair was not there at present. The pale face was haggard, with a thick beard –flecked with grey- dominating much of it.
James Bond had changed, but then they all had since the invasion. He still was haunted by the memory of those confused days from what the Germans had called S-Day up to when he had fled onto one of the last boats out of Bristol heading for perceived freedom.
September 15, 1940.
That was when he had fled. Three days after his friend Jonathan McKnight was hanged –along with other ‘terroristen’ outside Dover.
Bond released a hand from his coat pocket to rub his nose, the tip was inching and he dropped the hand to his side where it swiftly was pricked by the icy cold. Another harsh winter was upon the continent.
Ahead lay a brooding shape, the Dover cliffs that he had not seen in two years. Britain filled the horizon in either direction as the ferry gamely took on the waves. What had once been a French ran ferry company had become bedecked in red white and black with swastikas fore and aft on the deck (largely for aircraft identification purposes) and “Volksfährgesellschaft" on the sides –People’s Ferry Company. As the ferry bashed closer to the port at Dover, the country seemed to swallow his field of vision. He did not look but either side for a few miles was the grey-Channel torn here and there by breakers, a swell that was deceptively harmless in appearance. France was already lost astern in the low cloud that had settled over the Channel creating this weather. Bond tilted his head as the tannoys blared a brief burst of martial music then an announcement first in German, then French and finally, English.
“All passengers are requested to prepare for disembarkation upon arrival at Dover. Passengers taking the rail ferry onto London are to go through customs with other passengers prior to boarding the train.”
Bond worked his way past the shadow of the superstructure’s front, under the starboard bridge wing and eventually into the superstructure and to the small dining area where most of the passengers were sat about. A couple were in uniform, German Army. Bond went to the bar. The bartender wearing a neat white waistjacket and with a central parting to his hair nodded at Bond and spoke with a refined London accent.
“May I help, sir? Word if I may, though, the bar is locking up shortly.”
“Then I best make it quick,” Bond said thickly. He had not spoken much English lately, not since he left Spain what must have been a month ago. “Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir.”
Bond sat at the bar on one of the stools bolted to the wooden deck. In September 1940 he had initially ended up in Ireland, the Republic was then relatively free of German influence which then changed in early 1941 when Hitler moved troops into Northern Ireland. Gradually Irish independence as such faded by the end of 1941 as the Nazis asserted conditions over the Irish. Bond though had not hanged around long. Within a week, he was on a packet steamer heading south for Spain. Actually, he landed in Gibraltar but that was a mistake. What was still a British colony was imploding from within. Despite Churchill’s assertions on May 29, 1940 that the fleet, overseas, would continue the fight, there were internal factions appearing. At the same time the Spanish under Franco had started to lob shells into the colony. Even as Bond made it over the border with the help of a former contact in the navy, the colony fell apart. Most of the ships there including the famous Hood, left for Canada to join the government in exile –so-called Free Britain. The rest, a handful of destroyers and two cruisers, left for Hong Kong.
Bond’s time in Spain had been interesting. He recuperated initially in a former MI9 safe house (MI9 had been tasked with helping escaping prisoners of war get home) and then worked his way into the British Embassy in Madrid where Samuel Hoare was ambassador. Bond worked briefly as a naval attache but he felt this was too in the open and so he faded away. Getting help from the Republican underground, Bond spent the remainder of his time helping them take on Franco as well as to help some escape to America –these being Republicans imprisoned in France after the Civil War ended in 1939.
“Here you go, sir,” the bartender placed the glass down by Bond’s elbow. Bond looked at it, lifting it to his lips he took a sip. It was not Mayfair standard but it would do. “Thank you.”
Bond laid a ten Reichsmark bill down which the bartender took with a grateful smile. “Thank YOU, sir!”
Bond deducted that the bartender was from London’s East End, the accent affected here to appear more in line with the standard of passenger these ferries used to have and sometimes did. Bond finished his martini by the time the ferry entered the shelter of Dover Harbour. In the next hour he joined his fellow passengers in filing off and to the customs hall. Everywhere signs were in German and English. The swastika was an everpresent sight. After this was done, Bond followed a few people onto the train that had been steamed off the ferry. He sat in a second class compartment with two others –an old woman in fine clothes and a vicar who was reading a newspaper. Bond noted the headline:
“RED BEAST TAMED!” and below that a picture of the Kremlin through a haze of smoke.
So, Bond mused, the invasion of Russia was almost over. He wound the window down and beckoned a boy carrying newspapers over. He brought one for himself and wound the window back up. He read the paper as the train shuddered into motion. It was the so-called Englischer Zeitung –the Nazi press had long been on Fleet Street. Yes, the article stated that –supposedly- Field Marshal Model’s forces were on the verge of capturing Moscow. Stalin had either fled or was hiding within the ruins.
He gave up on the paper after a few minutes. Stories of ‘enemies of the Reich’ being rounded out of the Stepney Ghetto in East London to ships on the Thames for ‘resettlement in the east’ and a resistance cell smashed outside Woking.
Bond woke when the train reached Waterloo almost two hours after leaving Dover. He smiled as he peered through the window at the old station. Some things did not change, he thought.
Bond had been carrying nothing but his coat and so did not waste time in walking down the platform and to the Underground station. Despite the sheer plethora of German uniforms everywhere, the Tube was the Tube. Bond sat in the smoking car. As the train rocketed into the tunnel, he fumbled with the slip of paper he had kept in his coat since Spain. It had frayed and was quite fragile now, so often had Bond unravelled it to read.
“FATHER WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU WOULD COME STOP FATHER GETS HIS SUITS STILL STOP”
So, he was needed. He hoped this month long journey would be beneficial. Putting the message away he soon got off at Piccadilly Circus and walked amidst the bustling crowds of the West End into Mayfair and soon onto Savile Row. He tried to ignore the signs in Germanic script that had been attached beneath the older ones declaring Royal patronage.
NO JEWS –NICHT JUDEN.
As he reached the middle of the street halfway, close to the police station, Bond looked through the window. Just past the two mannequins clad in tweed, Bond saw a rotund figure in a pinstriped black suit wearing a smart bowler. The bearded face was ruddy as always
“Admiral Hardy,” whispered Bond. The face turned as if he had heard Bond and soon Bond heard that familiar bellow.
“Don’t just stand there gawping! Come in, man!”
Bond twisted the handle and stepped inside.

.

Curiously, the first thing that struck Bond was the smell of shoe polish. Then a faint sound of martial music from somewhere towards the rear of the shop. Like any shop on Savile Row it felt and looked classy. This shop had been serving gentlemen since the reign of King George III and until the invasion had been making George VI’s suits and uniforms. Now the man affectionately nicknamed Bertie was living a restless life in exile in Canada with his two young daughters and wife. It was his brother, Edward, who now sat on the German made throne.
Bond took off his hat, tucking it under one arm and snapping his right arm automatically up and hand to head: “Admiral Hardy, sir.”
“At ease Bond and act your age,” snapped Hardy with a mixture of humour and irritation. “We’re not in the service anymore young man.”
“No sir.”
“You got my message then?”
What a redundant question, thought Bond archly, I didn’t spend weeks coming to England if I had not. Hardy saw Bond’s expression, the glint to his blue eyes. “Forget that, of course you did. Pursue me, James.”
Bond followed Hardy through the shop. In contrast to Bond’s simple suit, Hardy’s was a two-piece navy blue suit. They went down a short green staircase that bent round into the basement level. Here the noise of the radio was louder, the music was typical Nazi fare- no real shape to its overblown, bombastic tune. Bond looked about as they walked towards heavy burgundy curtains. There were two other men down here, both old, short with hawk-like noses and slaving away on suits. One stopped what he was doing, his watery-blue eyes met Bond’s and the younger man looked away. So what if he’s Jewish? Bond thought, whereas the more logical overworking part of his mind proceeded on: all the Jews were rounded up by February 1941. He had heard snippets in Spain –the rumours of camps throughout Britain that acted as far-off satellites to a growing network in what the Nazis called the General Government and formerly was Poland. The story from the Whitechapel Ghetto in London’s East End or the so-called Einsatzgruppen teams that were based at London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham. These Operational Groups –to give them the English translation- effectively had come ashore after the three waves and started working through a list of names to arrest, interrogate, deport and either imprison or execute.
Through the curtain they stopped. It was almost an alcove such was the curtains effect. The alcove was small, big enough for a desk, bookshelves, a safe and a grey haired man wearing a black overcoat and holding an umbrella by the handle. The umbrella was tapping away until the curtain parted and was pulled back. Hardy produced a pipe, unlit he put the stem in a corner of his mouth.
“Have a seat, James,” he ordered. Bond did so with the hint of a smile. Hardy had been his boss at the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre. The biggest job he had done for OIC had been parachuting into France ahead of the invaders in May 1940. The mission failed from the off, a French traitor and the sheer speed of the Blitzkrieg caught Bond off guard. His team was infiltrated, betrayed and next thing –or so it seemed to the young lieutenant, they were at Dunkirk. After Dunkirk, Bond was recruited by MI(R) to help train resistance agents in the event of invasion. Hardy was a larger than life character, a Great War veteran who in the interwar period did a range of operations be it in the Russian Civil War, China and Abyssinia. The other man was perched on the edge of the desk. Hardy stayed standing by the curtain.
“James, this is Admiral Miles Messervy KCMG.”
The admiral glanced to where Bond sat to his right. “I understand you have had a long journey, commander.”
A question or a statement? Bond nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Bond felt Hardy’s gaze upon him but did not meet it. Hardy had a softened expression, his mind was working. What Bond had seen and done during the invasion alone would still be affecting him. It had been a massive gamble in every sense to get him from Spain.
“James, times are changing. With the Germans now firmly entrenched in Russia, we have the perfect opportunity to strike back at the occupation.”
“Strike back?” Bond felt lost all of a sudden.
Messervy spoke. “The war is going far too well for Germany. Though the winter has stopped their advances, now that they have taken Moscow and have reached the Volga, they are more than likely poised to reach the oil fields of Baku.”
Bond had heard bits of the news in Spain, however it had been diluted through Franco’s presses more often than not.
“I had no idea, sirs.”
“Well, the idea is there, Bond,” Messervy said with a scowl. “After Sealion our resistance cells were mostly destroyed. By the winter of 1941 they were all gone.”
“Over the summer we have began rebuilding a network,” Hardy continued. “At the moment it’s mostly in the south of England and London. I won’t go into detail of the organisation but it’s there, Bond. Getting ready to strike back at the Nazis.”
Bond looked between either man. “Is the aim liberation, sirs? Or maximum disruption?”
Hardy grinned, he took the pipe from his mouth. “Bit of both, Bond. There is hope that the Americans could be persuaded to liberate this nation next year with a view to then defeating Hitler on the continent.”
“Madness,” gasped Bond. “The Americans have stayed well away from it since we fell, Admiral Hardy. Why would they come into it now just to rescue little old England?”
With great patience Messervy answered. “Since the fall of Britain, there has been work going on to curry favour with the Americans. There has been a small band within the American senate that have backed Britain since the war started. Roosevelt has long been a supporter, his hands were tied by public opinion and his cabinet, as well as the senate. Now, there is a large support within the American senate and even some of the people. We’ve been leaking the real news to the United States. The round ups, the persecution of the Jews…”
“Time is now,” interrupted Hardy a little hastily. “During the war, Miles was head of SOE’s SO2 section, Operations. At the time of Sealion, there was a new section taking shape –four men with code numbers that would command cells of up to a dozen each. That section, the Double O’s, are now the heart of this new network.”
“And you want me to head one, sir?” Bond asked Miles Messervy directly.
“Of course. Admiral Hardy has spoken highly of you and your friend, McKnight.”
Bond’s face went red. “McKnight’s dead.”
“I know that much. He spoke admirably of him all the same.”
Bond stood. “Sirs, I will do what I have to. I’m not sure though if I’m your man.”
Messervy glared at Hardy who slowly folded his arms. “No?”
“No, sir. I’m…,” Bond’s hands shook and he put them in his pockets. “That’s behind me.”
“Damn it man, this isn’t a club you can join and leave!” Hardy thundered. “You never left my employ, Bond.”
“Then I quit,” shouted Bond. He pointed at Hardy. “I’ve been on the run long enough.”
Abruptly he surged past Hardy shoving aside the curtains.
“Your country…,” started Hardy then stopped. As Bond vanished he turned to Messervy, face red. “I’m sorry, Miles.”
“He’ll come round to our way of thinking, Charles.”
“You sound quite certain.”
Messervy allowed a rare smile. “I’m always certain.”