The Ian Fleming Files (40 page)

“But that’s a hospice.” Fleming’s tongue blistered on the word. “Do we
know how long he has?”

“Regrettable as the news is, 17F, this is not a hospital committee. You
know the name of Dilly’s physicians, telephone them after this meeting.”

Blake cut in. “If 17F has time.”

“Quite,” said Godfrey gruffly. He flapped a mimeograph of a cablegram in
Fleming’s face. “Care to explain this, Commander?”

Fleming took it from him and glanced at the message:

‘Have information. Must tell 17F in person. Saye. Dawn. HVA.’

It was anonymous and postmarked ‘Parish of St. Anne.’

“It’s from Alderney,” said Fleming.

Hargreaves scoffed. “Even I know St. Anne is in Alderney!”

Godfrey got in Fleming’s face. “We want to know who it’s from, not where.
Is this a pre-arranged code between you two that we’re not privy to? If so
that’s not how things run around here.”

Feeling the need to be heard, Quacker added: “What is it between you and
this girl, Fleming?”

Satisfied that all four of them were out of breath, Fleming began to
speak. “Her code name is still Tinkerbell. Perhaps it was compromised. The initials
HVA refer to Heidi von Aachen, a fake name Fraulein Lustbaden and I concocted
for the initial mission to Cracow.”

“So it’s either her,” said Godfrey, “or someone who knows the
significance of Heidi von Aachen and wants us to think it’s her.”

“Saye refers to Saye Beach,” said Blake, tapping a wall map of Alderney
with the tip of a bamboo cane, “On the west coast between Braye Beach and Arch
Bay.”

Godfrey continued: “If they know who Heidi von Aachen it’s because she
told them which would mean she would be actively involved in any deception.”

“And what exactly is the purpose of their deception?” asked Hargreaves.

“I would have thought that was obvious,” said Godfrey. “They are
insisting on a face to face to seduce one of our agents to Alderney for interrogation.”

Fleming looked unconvinced. “That’s a bit thin. What do I know that could
be of concern to Parsifal?”

Blake answered for Godfrey: “They want to know what we know about them.”

“Or,” offered Fleming, “Maria Lustbaden managed to sneak out to St. Anne’s
post office and send a short cable.”

“It’s a ruse!” cried Quacker. “Plain as the broken nose on your face,
Fleming.”

Fleming paused. Here he was again. Forced to trust a woman! They had put
all their eggs in a hen’s basket so what did they expect? At some point it
always got down to trust. His gut told him to believe her but his mind ignored
it.

“I agree. It’s a trap,” he declared. “If she could communicate this she
could have told us more or at least hinted at something meaningful.”

“Space in a telegram is limited,” countered Godfrey. “She may not have
had much time.”

“We should have foreseen this,” said Fleming dispassionately. “We have no
choice but to treat it as real.”

Godfrey chewed on an unlit cigar and puzzled it out. It was in these
moments that he appreciated his mercurial and quixotic operative the most, when
their minds sparred in a no holds barred collaborative quest for the truth. He
would never tell him or anyone else for that matter but he loved Ian Fleming’s
quicksilver mind and knew no other man who possessed an intellect so perfectly
suited to the corkscrew business of spycraft.

The back and forth quelled. They had come to the same conclusion. It was
probably a deception but not conclusively enough to ignore its potential
validity, which meant they had to treat it as though it were the genuine
article. Ruse or no ruse, the missive from the lion’s den was actionable.

“Now comes the tricky part,” said Godfrey. “Getting you there.”

Everyone crowded around Blake’s map. Godfrey nodded at Blake’s pointing
stick. “May I?”

Blake reluctantly handed over the short bamboo cane. Godfrey took it and
rapped the map. Fleming was distracted by an overhead light on the fritz
zapping and crackling as it short-circuited. He screwed his eyes shut and winced.
A short sharp thwack of bamboo against paper snapped him out of it.

“Pay attention, Commander,” said Godfrey jabbing his bamboo rod at him.
“Krupp’s got two fully loaded
schnellboots
circling the coast covering a
loop with a two mile radius from shore. Tonight is the fourth, a clear night
with a full moon. That means we can get you close enough to the island at night
and there’ll be enough natural light to guide you.” He paused.

Fleming looked at the admiral quizzically. “Close enough for what, sir? Parachute?”

“Impossible,” said Blake. “Any plane would be shot down by the island’s
anti-aircraft guns. 128 millimeters, flak 40. One of the largest weapons
systems on God’s green earth.”

It dawned on Fleming what they had in mind. “You want me to swim the English
Channel? At night?!”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” snapped Godfrey. “It’s a two mile strait, one
tenth of the shortest distance across the Channel. We’ll deposit you in The
Swinge between Alderney and Burhou. Braye Harbor which faces it has a mile long
breakwater. You’ll have the latest equipment and we’ll be waiting for you five
miles offshore.”

Fleming was flabbergasted.

“Corbet Rock lies in the Swinge,” said Blake, snatching his stick back
and tapping the spot on the map. “You can pause there. I pulled your swim
charts from Camp X and your latest medical. We all think you should be able to
manage it.”

“But the water must be subzero,” Fleming said. “I…”

He paused. Four sets of penetrative eyes were suddenly upon him. This was
what they wanted him to do and if he demurred they’d ask someone else. The war
would soon be over. They might never ask anything of him ever again if he
refused them now. He had no post-war plans and did not want to return to living
off his mother’s largess or groveling to Fleet Street hack editors for work. A
night swim in freezing moonlit waters to a Nazi stronghold sounded like a job
for Bulldog Drummond. Or possibly Peter Fleming. But Ian Fleming, the ‘Man
Behind The Memos,’ as Dilly called him, churn through frigid waters, penetrate
the castle and rescue the Rhinemaiden? His emotions ran from fear to
exhilaration and ended with a two-pronged twinge of patriotism and pride even
as his innards trembled and the tiny hairs at the top of his spine stood on
end. He remembered the words of the manual:

Cheerful obedience leads to a better performance of your duties. It
makes it easier for all of your comrades to do their part. It means better
teamwork.

He straightened his spine. When he spoke again all the truculence, all
the peevishness had vanished from his voice.

“Ready to do my duty, sir.” He added a smart stiff salute for good
measure.

“Good lad,” Godfrey said as if he had expected nothing else. “There’s a
car waiting downstairs to take you to Portsmouth.”

THE WALRUS
pitched and lifted with monotonous regularity as it
knifed its way south from Portsmouth through a long swell, bobbing like a cork,
teeming rain all but obliterating it from view. The large bottom multi-rig
trawler or “rock-hopper” had spent its prewar years chugging coal-powered steam
and dragging nets across the bottom of the shallow British coastal waters rich
in cod and mackerel. It was commissioned by the Royal Navy when war broke out,
outfitted with turbines and put to use as a Channel minesweeper and U-boat
hunter.

Fleming and Godfrey were huddled in the wheelhouse with the skipper, two
crewmen, a meteorologist from Bletchley, an astronomer from the Royal Academy
and an oceanographer from the Marina Institute.

The co-pilot’s seat had been ripped out to make room for an operations
table. Portable equipment for fish detection and trawl sensors were stacked in
a corner.

They were drinking steaming cups of tea with a chart and tide report
spread out before them as they debated the best swim path through surface
currents. Two cadets were greasing Fleming down as he stood impassively in
trunks and dog-tags, his skin starting to gooseflesh as they sheathed him in a
tight body-hugging dry-suit made of thermal insulating material and drag
reduction fabrics.

Archibald “Archie” Lund, the swim instructor, was a slim brisk man in his
mid-forties with the springy step of a boxer, the jutting pectorals of a weight
lifter, regulation length hair and a pair of deep-set black eyes.

“Remember,” he said to Fleming, “keep most of your head submerged and
watch the water in your nostrils. Dip to your hairline at first and work your
way to longer deeper immersion. Put your face in the water to rest your neck
and give your body a better plane relative to the surface. Bob up and begin to
inhale as soon as your mouth clears. Start with the crawl, generate body heat
then switch to another stroke or try replacing the flutter kick with a scissors
kick during the crawl. Although your arms keep moving, your legs will get a breather.”

“I believe that stroke is known as a trudgeon,” said Fleming.

“You’ve done your reading, good,” said the instructor. “Remember to vary
your strokes, working different muscle groups so that they don't fatigue. After
you've been doing the trudgeon for a while, change to a breast stroke. Again
remember to keep your head in the water when you glide. A good breast stroke
has a beat where your body is in full rest right after your kick and arm
motion.”

“What about hypothermia?” interjected Godfrey, gesturing to the dry suit.
“Will this get-up work?”

“He hasn’t had any time for conditioning,” said Archie, “which is a
slight concern that I would be more worried about if there was a greater
distance involved. At just over two miles, roughly forty-five minutes of
submersion, he should come out wrinkled and numbed, but a long way from shock.”

The cadets handed Fleming a grey caul which he slapped on tucking his
jet-black locks from view, pulling it on snugly and tight.

A rare glimmer flashed in Godfrey’s eyes as he beheld the man-fish before
him and then there came an even rarer flash of humor. “I say, 17F, if I were a
porpoise I think I’d be in love.”

There was a slight pause as everyone registered that the man who never
made a joke had just cracked a belter and then the room exploded in huge gales
of choking, raucous, knee-slapping laughter, the hysterical reaction partly
attributable to tension but mostly explained by Fleming’s truly absurd
amphibious appearance.

The guffaws went on for a while with Godfrey’s line repeated at least
once by all present, many of whom had to bring a sleeve up to their eyes to dry
tears.

Fleming, his face frozen in a forced grin, tried to regain control of the
conversation, speaking loudly to be heard over the snickers. “What about sharks,
seaweed, jellyfish?”

“Predators in these cold waters are rare,” said Archie, suppressing a
smirk. “On the 3rd of September, 1925, a Mister S. Page was fishing off
Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, when a shark rammed his boat and lifted it right
out of the water. He suffered no injuries. That was the last shark sighting in
the Channel. If you see one, it’s probably a bottle-nose dolphin or a
porbeagle, neither of which eat humans, although it’s possible one might
mistake you for a seal, in which case you have your knife. If you see a seaweed
bed try to swim around not through or under it. Your suit should protect you
from jellyfish. But of course you could get unlucky with a vicious bugger who
bites through. If so, don’t urinate on the sting whatever you do, that’s an old
wife’s tale. Use the anti-venom in your med kit.”

Fleming felt the waterproofed pouched belt round his waist which held his
weapon, map, compass, knife and first aid supplies. A compact backpack
contained dry clothes. “How do I avoid getting lost?”

“Focus on a landmark. Don’t let your mind wander. You could drift off
course catch a current and be halfway to Portugal.”

“There aren’t any landmarks,” protested Fleming. “We’re in the middle of
the water with night coming on.”

A bespectacled wonk stepped forward clutching star maps and
meteorological charts. He spoke quietly but with confidence.

“Tonight, when the storm passes it will not be pitch-black. You’ll see
Sirius in the north-northwest quadrant and after a mile you should be able to
perceive the strobes from St. Anne’s lighthouse.” His oracular pronouncement
over, the expert retreated back and was quiet again.

“Perceive?” said Fleming acidly. “Whilst slamming through ice-cold water
with blurred vision?”

“Stop being a drama queen,” snarled Godfrey. “You’ll have our signal lamp
for the return swim.”

There was a moment of silence in the room. Every man knew the enormity of
the task before Fleming and it hung heavily on their shoulders.

The group dispersed. Fleming cast his eyes over the water with its wintry
gleam and choppy wind-whipped waves.

Four hours later, at approximately 23:50 hours, the sea had calmed as
they looked out from the wheelhouse at the slackening curtain of rain. The
drenching cloudburst had yielded to a gentle drizzle, and grey and white cloud
streamers, shredding in the lifting wind, had already pursued the blackly
towering cumulonimbus over the far horizon.

Clad in duffel-coats and rain ponchos, the group was gathered on the
working deck in the space between the try-net winch drum and the main winch
catheads. The icy fingers of the wind scored Fleming’s face and he could feel
the bitter cold through his gelatinous skin of petroleum jelly and vulcanized
rubber.

He flopped a leg over the gunwale, clamped his jaws shut in an effort to
stop the violent chattering of teeth, took out his goggles and tested the
tautness of the elastic head-strap.

Two miles away, framed in its backdrop of indigo sky and diamantine
stars, lay the brooding mass of Alderney.