There was somehow no question of shaking hands. The man said, ‘I haven’t met him, I only arrived a couple of days ago. I’ve been out round the island most of the time. My name’s Bond, James Bond. I’m from the Ministry of Defence.’
Major Smythe remembered the hoary euphemism for the Secret Service. He said, with forced cheerfulness, ‘Oh. The old firm?’
The question had been ignored. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘Rather. Anywhere you like. Here or in the garden? What about a drink?’ Major Smythe clinked the ice in the glass he still held in his hand. ‘Rum and ginger’s the local poison. I prefer the ginger by itself.’ The lie came out with the automatic smoothness of the alcoholic.
‘No thanks. And here would be fine.’ The man leaned negligently against the wide mahogany window-sill.
Major Smythe sat down and threw a jaunty leg over the low arm of one of the comfortable planters’ chairs he had had copied from an original by the local cabinet-maker. He pulled out the drink coaster from the other arm, took a deep pull at his glass and slid it, with a consciously steady hand, down into the hole in the wood. ‘Well,’ he said cheerily, looking the other man straight in the eyes, ‘what can I do for you? Somebody been up to some dirty work on the North Shore and you need a spare hand? Be glad to get into harness again. It’s been a long time since those days, but I can still remember some of the old routines.’
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ The man had already got his cigarette case in his hand. It was a flat gunmetal one that would hold a round fifty. Somehow this small sign of a shared weakness comforted Major Smythe.
‘Of course, my dear fellow.’ He made a move to get up, his lighter ready.
‘It’s all right, thanks.’ James Bond had already lit his cigarette. ‘No, it’s nothing local. I want to, I’ve been sent out to ask you to recall your work for the Service at the end of the war.’ James Bond paused and looked down at Major Smythe carefully. ‘Particularly the time when you were working with the Miscellaneous Objectives Bureau.’
Major Smythe laughed sharply. He had known it. He had known it for absolutely sure. But when it came out of this man’s mouth, the laugh had been forced out of Major Smythe like the scream of a hit man. ‘Oh Lord, yes. Good old MOB. That was a lark all right.’ He laughed again. He felt the anginal pain, brought on by the pressure of what he knew was coming, build up across his chest. He dipped his hand into his trouser pocket, tilted the little bottle into the palm of his hand and slipped the white T.N.T. pill under his tongue. He was amused to see the tension coil up in the other man, the way the eyes narrowed watchfully. It’s all right, my dear fellow. This isn’t a death pill. He said, ‘You troubled with acidosis? No? It slays me when I go on a bender. Last night. Party at Jamaica Inn. One really ought to stop thinking one’s always twenty-five. Anyway, let’s get back to MOB Force. Not many of us left, I suppose.’ He felt the pain across his chest withdraw into its lair. ‘Something to do with the Official History?’
James Bond looked down at the tip of his cigarette. ‘Not exactly.’
‘I expect you know I wrote most of the chapter on the Force for the War Book. It’s a long time ago now. Doubt if I’d have much to add today.’
‘Nothing more about that operation in the Tyrol – place called Ober Aurach, about a mile east of Kitzbühel?’
One of the names he had been living with for all these years forced another harsh laugh out of Major Smythe. ‘That was a piece of cake! You’ve never seen such a shambles. All those Gestapo toughs with their doxies. All of ’em hog-drunk. They’d kept their files all tickety-boo. Handed them over without a murmur. Hoped that’d earn ’em easy treatment, I suppose. We gave the stuff a first going-over and shipped all the bods off to the Munich camp. Last I heard of them. Most of them hanged for war crimes, I expect. We handed the bumph over to H.Q. at Salzburg. Then we went on up the Mittersill valley after another hideout.’ Major Smythe took a good pull at his drink and lit a cigarette. He looked up. ‘That’s the long and the short of it.’
‘You were Number 2 at the time, I think. The CO was an American, a Colonel King from Patton’s army.’
‘That’s right. Nice fellow. Wore a moustache, which isn’t like an American. Knew his way among the local wines. Quite a civilized chap.’
‘In his report about the operation he wrote that he handed you all the documents for a preliminary run-through as you were the German expert with the unit. Then you gave them all back to him with your comments?’ James Bond paused. ‘Every single one of them?’
Major Smythe ignored the innuendo. ‘That’s right. Mostly lists of names. Counter-intelligence dope. The C.I. people in Salzburg were very pleased with the stuff. Gave them plenty of new leads. I expect the originals are lying about somewhere. They’ll have been used for the Nuremberg Trials. Yes, by Jove!’ Major Smythe was reminiscent, pally. ‘Those were some of the jolliest months of my life, haring around the country with MOB Force. Wine, women and song! And you can say that again!’
Here, Major Smythe was saying the whole truth. He had had a dangerous and uncomfortable war until 1945. When the Commandos were formed in 1941 he had volunteered and been seconded from the Royal Marines to Combined Operations Headquarters under Mountbatten. There his excellent German (his mother had come from Heidelberg) had earned him the unenviable job of being advanced interrogator on Commando operations across the Channel. He had been lucky to get away from two years of this work unscathed and with the O.B.E.(Military), which was sparingly awarded in the last war. And then, in preparation for the defeat of Germany, the Miscellaneous Objectives Bureau had been formed jointly by the Secret Service and Combined Operations, and Major Smythe had been given the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and told to form a unit whose job would be the cleaning up of Gestapo and Abwehr hideouts when the collapse of Germany came about. The O.S.S. got to hear of the scheme and insisted on getting into the act to cope with the American wing of the front, and the result was the creation of not one but six units that went into operation in Germany and Austria on the day of surrender. They were units of twenty men, each with a light armoured car, six jeeps, a wireless truck and three lorries, and they were controlled by a joint Anglo-American headquarters in SHAEF, which also fed them with targets from the army intelligence units and from the S.I.S. and O.S.S. Major Smythe had been Number 2 of ‘A’ Force which had been allotted the Tyrol – an area full of good hiding places with easy access to Italy and perhaps out of Europe – that was known to have been chosen as funkhole number 1 by the people MOB Force was after. And, as Major Smythe had just told Bond, they had had themselves a ball. All without firing a shot – except that is, two fired by Major Smythe.
James Bond said casually, ‘Does the name of Hannes Oberhauser ring a bell?’
Major Smythe frowned, trying to remember. ‘Can’t say it does.’ It was eighty degrees in the shade, but he shivered.
‘Let me refresh your memory. On the same day as those documents were given to you to look over, you made inquiries at the Tiefenbrunner hotel, where you were billeted, for the best mountain guide in Kitzbühel. You were referred to Oberhauser. The next day you asked your C.O. for a day’s leave which was granted. Early next morning you went to Oberhauser’s chalet, put him under close arrest and drove him away in your jeep. Does that ring a bell?’
That phrase about ‘refreshing your memory’. How often had Major Smythe himself used it when he was trying to trap a German liar? Take your time! You’ve been ready for something like this for years. Major Smythe shook his head doubtfully. ‘Can’t say it does.’