The Ian Fleming Files (4 page)

That morning,
Lafayette was wearing the officer’s full dress of cocked hat, dark blue double
breasted cutaway frock coat with sleeves bearing the three silver stars of his
rank, gilt epaulets and dark blue cloth trousers decorated with gold lace
stripes down the side.

The second man
that Admiral Darlan occasionally listened to, Lieutenant Bruno, was fair and
skinny and wound too tight. He spoke quickly and was never quite still; there
was always a shaking knee or toe tapping or excessive nodding. He wore round,
wire-rimmed spectacles and had blond hair slicked back in a tight pompadour. He
was thirty years old. His rise had been uneventful. There were no glowing
dispatches or illustrious family background. Bruno came from nothing and worked
like a dog to get where he was and stay there.

Five years of
cadet training in Grenoble were followed by seven long years touring French
Indochina. Long voyages interspersed with shore leave to explore jungle. It was
like being marooned. He nearly married a Vietnamese woman, whom he loved and
with whom he had a daughter, but he bolted from Hanoï the instant he was
offered a position on the Teste. Bruno was hired as a junior midshipman and in
the first two years never saw land. His devotion got the Admiral’s attention
and he was promoted to a supervisory role when he informed on a mutinous quorum
of disgruntled marines. Bruno was feared on deck and had no friends. At night
he dreamed about the wife and daughter he left behind but by reveille his mind
reset and he would forget all about them.

He was wearing a
dark blue cap with a band of black silk ribbon and a gold foul anchor placed
vertical, white service tunic with four stripes of gold braid on the shoulder
straps and dark blue trousers.

A sumptuous buffet
graced the elegantly appointed dining table before the three seamen. Covered
hot plates held lobster bisque, scrambled quail eggs with black truffles or
brouillade
de truffes
, smoked Boudin Blanc sausages, caviar and crab soufflé omelets
and croque madams. There were Breton crepes with salted butter caramel and a
selection of fresh pastries, bread rolls and baguettes; along with the typical
fruit and cheese plate and pewters of assorted juices, strong coffee and hot
chocolate.

A short,
two-pronged wooden fork speared a Boudin Blanc. Darlan walked with his morsel
to a wall installed with a matrix of oxygenated saltwater tanks populated by
rare and colorful fish. He dropped the sausage into an aquarium where it was
instantly gobbled up by a nasty sharp-toothed piranha.

Darlan retrieved
the little meat-eater with a net and deposited it in a tank which held a black,
slithering moray eel.

He checked to see
that Lafayette and Bruno were watching.

There was a moment
of stillness and then the fight began with both fish proceeding to take little
vicious bites at the other.

“These two are not
unlike our dear friends England and Germany,” said Darlan. “And here we see a
different kind of hunter...” He gestured to a baby thresher shark lurking in a
dark corner of the tank. “A predator who lets the other two fight while he
waits... Waits until his enemies are too tired to fight any more.”

The thresher began
to move in toward the wounded fighting fish.

“Consider our
friend the shark here as ourselves,” continued Darlan.

There was a
violent movement, the famous threshing of the tail and when the tank gravel had
settled the piranha and the eel were belly up. The tank belonged to the shark.

“Gentlemen: The
indomitable power of patience.”

Bruno burst into
applause. “Brilliant!”

Lafayette’s face
was neutral. “What about Stalin? Roosevelt?”

Darlan wasn’t
fazed. “What about them?”

“Waiting for
Germany and England to destroy each other could take years. We may exceed the
range of bombers for now, but soon there will be American planes capable of
circling half the world without refueling.”

Darlan was
unswayed. “That is why, like the shark, we must keep moving.”

The red telephone
on Darlan’s vast antique desk shrilled.

Darlan answered
it. “Oui?”

He hung up and
looked perturbed as he crossed to a small door that opened to a narrow wooden
deck jutting over the water. Lafayette and Bruno followed him onto the catwalk.

Broken sunshine
dappled the placid sea and a light breeze wafted salty air their way. Darlan
lifted up a bucket of chum and scooped it into the water with a small trowel.

“Still, Admiral,”
Lafayette persisted, “it is only a matter of time before our position is
pinpointed by Churchill or Hitler. Or any enemy of France.”

Darlan shoveled
more chunks of amberjack into the water and the combination of blood and guts
formed a slick that started to attract fins.  

“We should be
careful not to underestimate the British,” Lafayette continued. “The Royal Navy
is the largest military force in the world and has been for four hundred years.
It took the Romans two attempts to conquer England and she proved too hard for
Napoleon. No other European nation has kept its boundaries intact over so many
centuries.”

Bruno squared his
glasses and watched as medium-sized blacktips and long, scalloped hammerheads
glided in lazy loops around the bloody offerings before lurching into a feeding
frenzy.

“I, of all people,
whose family sacrificed at the altar of English imperialism, do not need a
lesson on Napoleon’s history with the British,” said Darlan. “Why are you
extolling the virtues of France’s enemy?”

“I am merely
pointing out that Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy may defeat Germany with
or without France’s battleships. The Kriegsmarine was crippled by Norway and
will need time to rebuild. England has fifty destroyers, twenty-one cruisers
and eight battleships. Hitler will need to mount an airborne and amphibious
invasion of England. In my humble opinion, there is a strong chance he could
fail.”

“The bomber will
always get through,” said Darlan. “If the Luftwaffe’s attacks on military
targets fail, shelling civilians will force the British government to
surrender.”

“England will
never defeat Germany,” said Bruno. “I think they will be lucky to be offered an
armistice. The Reich’s might is colossal. Germany is Rome and will rule Europe
for the next thousand years.”

Darlan glowered at
him. “No one asked you what you thought, Lieutenant!”

Bruno shriveled
back into his uniform.

Darlan put the
chum bucket down. “What do you propose we do, Rear Admiral?” he asked
Lafayette.

“We should present
the ships to King George.”

Darlan scowled.
“Surrender my fleet to a rival nation? Why would I do that?”

“Because that
nation would rather sink us than see our vessels end up in the hands of the
Third Reich. Winston Churchill will not negotiate peace. The British will never
surrender and they will do anything to ensure a victory. Including murder
French sailors by torpedoing our ships into oblivion.”

Darlan was peeved.
He knew deep down that Lafayette was right but refused to face this blunt
reality which put a definite damper on his plans for post-war pan-European
domination. He booted the bucket of chum over the gunwale into the sea. There
was a furious slapping of cartilage as two hammerheads fought for it.

“The British,”
said Darlan. “You’re worried about them locating us? Those imbeciles couldn’t
find the Eiffel Tower!”

There suddenly
came a loud roar from above as the Mosquito blasted by and nearly lopped
Darlan’s head off. The Admiral was incensed and bellowed at his officers. “Open
fire! Immediately!”

On the flight
deck, a black Loire 120 single-seat fighter seaplane with menacing swirls of
green and retractable wings was launched into the air by catapult, shrieking as
it took off, extending to full lethal length in mid-air. A fast, heavily armed
interceptor, the Loire was a floatplane to be reckoned with. It was fitted with
four wing-mounted Darne machine guns and was powered by a single nose-mounted
Hispano Suiza 9Vbs radial engine.

A second Loire
scrambled, wings folded. The catapult pulley attached and the plane was flung
into flight. The Loires screamed as they twisted and spun, arcing through the
clouds.

A few thousand
feet away, Fleming hauled up a brandy canteen kept warm by the engines and
poured himself a capful when...

RATATATATATATATAT!!!
Sizzling flak crackled at him from behind, cascading off the tail and fuselage
in showering sparks.

He looked aft to
see the Loires corkscrewing at them, sending rounds into their tail. Tracers
streaked the air in yellow, red and green and more flak burst up, trailing
streamers of smoke over the planes before bursting into black puffs, sparkling
with shrapnel.

“Loire 210s at six
o’clock!” he hollered to Cotton who pulled on the wheel as the steaming streams
of burning metal strafed past. “Take her up two hundred feet!”

Cotton strained,
wrestling with the yoke. “I’m at full rudder, she won’t climb any faster!”

Fleming hunched
forward and eyed the instrument panel, quickly calculated. “Reduce speed to one
thousand!”

Shrapnel battered
the bodywork as Cotton soared through howling air currents and Fleming
navigated. “Climb five hundred, heading due west four-five. Wait for my word,
then cut back.”

The 120s screeched
at them.

“Steady,” said
Fleming. “Wait for it... now!”

Cotton jerked the
wheel and turned them near vertical.

The Loires shot past in a thunderous blur. Fleming
engaged the guns and fired off a warning volley before they ascended higher and
soared off into a massive sun. The limited range seaplanes looped up and
circled back to the
Teste
as the Mosquito fast became a dot on the
horizon.

Ten hours later,
at seven o’clock in the morning, Cotton’s Bedford OX pulled up outside 22B
Ebury Street with nary a rattle or a squeak.

Fleming clambered
out and shut the passenger door after him. “Smashing job, Sydney, I can’t wait
to develop the film.”

“Wanna grab a
beer, mate? Need to unwind after that. Bastards nearly took my ear off.”

“I would love to
Sydney but I have a blasted wedding rehearsal in Oxford to attend. Actually,
it’s a renewal of vows not a wedding.”

“A what?”

“The couple’s been
married for five years and they want to do it again.”

“I’ve never heard
of anyone marrying the same woman twice. You crazy pommies. Cheerio, cobber.
Nice shooting by the way.” Sydney winked and the Bedford rumbled off down the
lane.

Fleming slammed
the door shut and hurried quickly up the steps to his front door.

The esteemed
Fleming clan was at a wedding rehearsal in Oxford University’s Christ Church
college chapel. Slanting shafts of multicolored light stabbed down through the
stained glass and splashed onto the chapel’s Baroque organ from 1693, its
ornate shrine with saint’s relics and the famous 12th Century altar upon which
a very old and small hand-held sanctus bell rested.

Fleming, wearing a
dark blue suit and his Eton Rambler’s cricket club tie, sat at a pew beside his
mother, the formidable Lady Fleming who was squinting her beady eyes at the
couple consulting with the priest: her son Peter Fleming and his wife the chic theater
star Celia Johnson. Peter was an intelligence officer serving under General
Archibald Wavell, then supreme allied commander in the far east. He was a good
looking man, like his younger brother, with a neatly clipped mustache and a
gold signet ring on the third finger of his left hand with the initials “P.F.”
He wore his hair carefully parted and greased down. Celia was a skinny,
luminous brunette with big almond eyes. She was currently having an annus
mirabilis thanks to back to back successes with her stage portrayals of
Elizabeth Bennet in
Pride and Prejudice
and the second Mrs. de Winter in
Rebecca
.

Lady Fleming had
the hard, strong-featured, self-absorbed face of an aristocrat and was dressed
in a floral print dress that hung like a drape from her ample bosom. Her head
supported a hat that was Ascot-worthy, a massive wide-brimmed bonnet with two
probing, antennae-like peacock eye feather clips made by a mad milliner in
Mayfair.

Lady Fleming slept
with a .22 under her pillow.

“When are we going
to see you up there?” she said. 

“On the silver
screen? I don’t know, mother, perhaps Celia can get me an audition. Actually,
it’s called a ‘screen test.’”

“Up there!” She
nodded to the front of the chapel. “The altar! You’re thirty-two years old,
Ian!”

“I’m a little
preoccupied at the moment. You may have heard there’s a war on.” 

“What about Anne
O’Neill? I thought you two were serious?”

“Can we change the
subject?”

“As you wish.
How’s that job I got you?”

Fleming paused.
“There’s a possibility I may fly to Portugal to attend a naval conference on
Godfrey’s behalf.”

“Look out Dick
Tracy!”

“You had dinner
last night with Eileen Nearn.”

“Who?”

“The French
ambassador’s new paramour. Beautiful English brunette. The reason he’s here and
not partying with Petain and the Nazis.” 

“She might have
been there with a dozen other forgettable people. The evening was a trifle
bore. Who told you what I was doing?”

“What did she have
to say about Admiral Darlan?”

“She’s twenty-two,
Ian. I don’t think she knows who Admiral Darlan is.”

“She knows. That’s
all her French ambassador boyfriend has been talking about for the past week.”

“Why the interest
in Darlan?”

“If Hitler gets
his fleet we’re done for.”

“Does Godfrey have
a plan?”