John Pearson - James Bond - The Authorised Biography

‘Then why not let the truth come out completely, and have the fact of your identity made public?’

‘No. We couldn't have done that. To start with, Ian just wasn't that sort of writer. I think he could only write about this fictional James Bond he had created in the past. He had to have what he used to call his author's licence to play around with facts and characters a little when he felt inclined. And of course it suited M. to have this enormously successful publicity put out as so-called fiction. In any other form it would have been impossible.’

‘And you really didn't mind?’

‘Quite honestly I didn't – not by now. My few close friends were in the Service, and it amused me to find myself suddenly becoming a sort of popular hero. Remember it was only now – say 1956 and ’57 – that the books started catching on. Ian became suddenly excited at the idea of having a best-seller on his hands and I really couldn't tell him it had got to stop. We used to get on very well together.’

Another factor in the story of the books was that just about this time, Bond suddenly began to have the great successes of his career. Thanks to Sir James Molony he had avoided a recurrence of the trouble of the year before. Jamaica – and the fight with Dr No – had put him back on form. He was supremely confident, and fighting fit, and it was in this mood that he embarked upon the Goldfinger affair.

Again, one must be grateful to Ian Fleming for simply being there to describe this most extraordinary coup in Goldfinger . Perhaps he paid overmuch attention to the more bizarre aspects of that arch villain and capitalist extraordinary, Arno Goldfinger. His cheating habits at cards, the game of golf he played with Bond at Sandwich are of no great importance, when put against the real menace of the man. But they were the sort of personal details no writer can resist and Goldfinger's obsession – his Midas-like craving for gold – was at the heart of his whole criminal achievement. Had it not been for Bond, he would undoubtedly have robbed Fort Knox: and once that happened, once the gold reserves of the world's richest nation had disappeared, the whole financial structure of the West would have been at risk. By beating Goldfinger, Bond became the man who saved the world's economy.

But when he returned to London something distinctly odd occurred. He was expecting if not congratulations at least a certain warmth from M. There was no sign of it – rather the reverse. M.'s reception was distinctly frosty. The Prime Minister was anxious to offer Bond a knighthood, and the Americans had suggested the Congressional Medal of Honour. M. forbade both, and in a way that made it seem as if James Bond had actually been seeking honours.

It was then that Bond got the first inkling of the truth – M. was jealous. This was Bill Tanner's theory too. Bond said he really didn't mind about the knighthood.

‘And didn't you?’ I asked.

Bond smiled ruefully.

‘Sir James Bond? It isn't really me – but May would have liked it, and of course Aunt Charmian. If it had been offered I'd probably have accepted. But it wasn't.’

Instead, M. recommended Bond for what he evidently felt his due. Bond was promoted to Grade IV. Practical as ever, Bond told himself that it was better than nothing: at any rate his salary increased by ?750. And on the strength of this, James Bond decided to indulge himself.

For some time now his old grey 4?-litre Bentley with the Amhurst Villiers supercharger had been giving trouble. He had owned the car for more than twenty years. Marthe de Brandt had given it him before the war and he had been hanging on to it for sentimental reasons. He told himself that this was stupid – especially now that it was needing a new engine and regularly costing more each year to run. Wakeford, the former Bentley mechanic who looked after it for him had obviously grown tired of it, and it was Wakeford who told him about the Bentley Continental which, in Fleming's graphic phrase, ‘some rich idiot had married to a telegraph pole on the Great West Road’. Wakeford convinced him that the car could be restored, and Bond finally paid ?1,500 for the whole wreck as it stood.

Bond had always dreamed of building his ideal car. This was his chance. Rolls straightened out the chassis and fitted the new engine Bond had set his heart on – a six cylinder with 8.1 compression. Then came the biggest luxury of all – the body built to Bond's own private specification by Mulliners. It cost ?3,000 which, as Fleming has revealed, was exactly half of Bond's remaining capital. It was the sort of body Bond had always wanted on a car – two bucket seats in black English hide (not morocco leather as Fleming said), big convex Triplex windscreeen, power operated steering, and the paintwork once more the old ‘elephant's breath grey’ that Bond had made his private livery. It was both simple and luxurious and Bond loved it.

Despite his normal carefulness with money, he refused to think about the petrol it would use or the sheer cost of keeping such a monster on the road. For Bond the Bentley was an echo of that lost rich Europe he had known before the war, and, as he says, ‘everyone should have at least one folly in his life’. The Bentley was quite clearly his.

Most of that year Bond was too busy to enjoy it, and the Bentley, lovingly maintained, languished in its garage as its owner rocketed around the world – France and the Bahamas, Canada and Italy – on the assignments chronicled by Fleming in his book, For Your Eyes Only . As Bond put it, ‘there wasn't much time that year for desk work or for getting bored. True, there were no major missions – rather too many fiddling affairs – but at least I felt that I was paying for my keep. M. couldn't really grumble.’

It was in fact a crippling work load for a single agent and once again one wonders whether M., in some sadistic way, was out to break him. When I asked Bond this he shook his head.

‘I don't think so – not consciously at any rate. The work simply needed to be done, and the 00 section was short-staffed that year.’

In fact there had been more casualties – and resignations, thanks to the crises that were still afflicting the Regent's Park Headquarters. Bond was unique in never arguing with M. He was also the only member of the section who could last the pace – although by 1959 even he was showing signs of strain. Fleming has explained what happened at the start of Thunderball . On the surface it was just a minor upset over Bond's state of health – but there was more to it than that.

As Bond quite willingly admits, he had been ‘slightly overdoing things’ (entirely in the line of duty one should add) and this had led to certain symptoms which the Service's M.O. had noticed on his annual check-up. These were nothing serious, simply the usual signs of overwork – the occasional headache, slightly raised blood pressure and difficulty sleeping. His work had also forced on him a certain level of rich living. Sometimes he ate and smoked and drank more than was strictly good for him, but this was something of an occupational hazard for James Bond. As he points out, the drinks and rich food Fleming took such pleasure in describing, belonged strictly to the world of his assignments. When he was on a job he needed alcohol (in what for him was moderation) and also nicotine. Rich food, too, tended to become part of the normal ritual of an assignment, simply because his work took him to good restaurants and excellent hotels. It would have been an affectation – and sometimes positively dangerous – to have tried to live off eggs, salad and fresh orange juice.

But the pessimistic tone of James Bond's medical report gave M. the excuse he needed. As Fleming hinted, M. had become a health food addict. This was just one of his current manias and it was typical of him to have forced Bond off to the sitzbaths and meagre diet of the Shrublands health clinic. Not that Bond really minded. As he admits he was a few pounds overweight and the fortnight that he spent there toned him up, and gave the osteopath a chance to deal with the damage to his back caused by his jump from the Arlberg Express. Shrublands also gave him a fortnight's welcome rest at the expense of the department, and offered a vital lead to the operations of the notorious Spectre organization.