Bond lived on..................
stag
Posts: 2,083MI6 Agent
Hey all. After reading the entire series of Flemings books I was at a loss as I wanted more. I did try a couple of John Gardners works but, frankly, they weren't for me. My solution? Write my own.
I part produced a novelette, strictly for private consumption which picked up from where TMWTGG ended. I attempted to write it in cod Fleming & even if I say so myself I managed a half decent job.
It was entitled 'TERMINUS' (& no it wasn't about a bus stop)
I part produced a novelette, strictly for private consumption which picked up from where TMWTGG ended. I attempted to write it in cod Fleming & even if I say so myself I managed a half decent job.
It was entitled 'TERMINUS' (& no it wasn't about a bus stop)
Comments
I also think Col Sun, is very close to Fleming's style and was written in the same time period, Unlike the Other Books.
Thanks. I was unsure where to post.
I haven't read it since the time of writing but from memory the main plot line was that Bond was all washed up, considered a spent force by the powers that be & clinging onto his 00 designation by the skin of his teeth. In order to get him out 'from under everyones feet'. Bond was dispatched on what was expected to be little more than a routine assignment to Jamaica to investigate the activities of the mysterious international businessman, Solo Santaga. Little did SIS or Bond know but this very same routine assignment was to turn out to be perhaps the deadliest mission of his entire career...................................
If you can find it, post it
Mindful of copyright & repeating the fact that this was for private consumption only I present what I have found so that you may get a feel for the things. Unfortunately The first page of the TERMINUS notes are missing but as I remember it started with Bond regarding himself critically in the mirror whilst shaving before getting dressed;
Short extract from the beginning of TERMINUS (which in terms of timescale followed directly on from TMWTGG).
...............the two tunnels of serge. Bond fastened the slim black Italian leather belt, noting with dissatisfaction that once again he had to draw the buckle two holes beyond its normal position. The tie, of the finest black woven silk, was looped Windsor fashion tightly round his neck. Almost subconsciously Bond ran his index finger along the inside of the once flush fitting collar before bending to push his feet into the pair of plain neatly polished black shoes. He slipped into the jacket & moved to the bedside table to gather up his watch, Ronson lighter & cigarette case. After clipping the bracelet of his Rolex oyster perpetual onto his left wrist & depositing the remainder of his haul into the inside pocket of his jacket, Bond turned & walked slowly to the door.
Bond belched softly & briefly revived the memory of what had been a splendid breakfast before lighting his first cigarette of the day. The Moreland with the triple gold bands tasted particularly good this morning. May, his faithful housekeeper, had entered the dining room. From the way she absent mindedly dithered in the collection of the breakfast things, Bond knew she was aching to release all the feelings which had been festering unsaid over the past weeks. Normally May, as forthright as her tough Scottish upbringing had conditioned her to be, would usually just have said whatever she felt was justified & to hell with the fact that she was speaking to her employer, indeed Bond had come to expect this & would parry any & all her matronly observations with a a counter barrage of well worn & well meaning witticisms. But not now, not since he had been released from hospital, a new & unfamiliar atmosphere had settled over their relationship during those past two months. Gone was the easy familiarity to be replaced by an almost oppressive air of non communication & clipped politeness which May, even though she detested it, had finally come to accept. "Excellent meal May. Thank you." Said Bond vaguely. He caught the hint of a shake of the head & a muffled 'tut tut' as the stiff backed May ferried the tray of spent crockery towards the door. Bond watched her retreat towards the kitchen & when she was gone brought the cigarette up to his tightly drawn lips & sucked gratefully on it as he once again immersed himself in his recent past.
The wound which had resulted in his premature return to London had healed well. Fortunately the bullet had passed cleanly through his leg, just above the kneecap, neither tumbling or striking bone, yet tearing horribly at the muscle & piercing the Femoral artery during its passage. Now all that served to remind him of the gunfight was yet another scar & the all too occasional twinge of discomfort as the freshly knitted muscle grumbled at any untoward movement. Though the physical injury had healed, the same could not quite be said of the emotional trauma & right on cue, as if forcing him to watch, the incident played out again in glorious technicolor in his minds eye, serving only to cement the conclusion Bond himself had long since reached. He had made the most serious mistake of all (though he had denied the fact during his debriefing) by allowing Gusenko to take the advantage. What should have been for Bond a quick, technically easy, kill had turned into a shambling running firefight with his intended target eventually fleeing the scene unscathed while leaving him, Bond, to almost die through loss of blood. The tiny stiletto dagger which kept pricking his subconscious repeated on a loop what he already knew, by all the laws of heaven & earth he should have died that day. Had it not been for the intervention of the bemused farm workers, drawn to the scene by the sound of gunfire, who found Bond semi conscious in the undergrowth just in time to render crude but life saving first aid, he would not have survived. He had considered every possible permutation for his appalling performance yet, whichever avenue he explored, he was always brought back to the same conclusion. Bonds shooting that day, in the hinterland betwixt the coast & the main Rome to Naples auto route, had mirrored his overall performance & was inexcusably, almost fatally, poor. He had fired no less than thirteen rounds at ranges never in excess of forty yards, which was within the parameters of his PPKs performance envelope & Bonds own shooting abilitiy. The ground between him & Gusenko had been rough but nonetheless mostly devoid of cover from both fire & view, affording the KGB agent little shelter, yet Bond had still failed to hit him. Gousenko had managed to capitalise on Bonds lack of marksmanship & quickly turned the tables, one of his own opening shots catching Bond in the leg thus leaving the hunter to become the hunted. Upon realising he had sustained a wound which had ruptured the artery, Bond had then been forced onto the defensive, expending his remaining ammunition in a desperate attempt to stave off Gousenkos counter attack. Luckily for Bond the Russian had failed to capitalise on his sudden advantage by evidently deciding that, after the ensuing but brief exchange of fire which came after bond was hit, that enough was enough. Perhaps Gousenko had his hand forced at the sight of the farm workers or perhaps he considered that he had used up his own daily ration of luck but, had he pressed home, Bond was confident that it would have been he to die, not fitfully though blood loss but by way of a better aimed bullet fired on that occasion by a better & cooler marksman than he had shown himself to be. All the internal inquiries which Bond had subjected himself to since the incident gave him one answer, an explanation which was as simple as it was blunt. He, Bond, had finally been pushed too far. He had at long last lost the only thing which had kept him alive for so long - his nerve.
For a man, any man, but especially one in Bonds line of work, the sudden realisation of ones own inability to to continue to perform the duties which had been so long part of his life, always comes as a heavy blow yet Bond had taken the diagnosis far worse than he could ever reveal. He had tried in vain to reason what he secretly knew to be the truth but his errors of judgement were too grave, too frequent, to be ignored. The Gousenko fiasco had simply been the straw which had broken the camels back. His private life & subsequently his work had nosedived in a steady downward spiral long before his last mission from which & despite punitive efforts he could not recover. He had lain the blame for his decline at many doors but after mush soul searching he conceded that he showed all the classic symptoms of what the SIS psychiatrist termed 'accumulative stress disorder' colloquially known otherwise as 'Double 0 fever'.
All officers - there were three of them - who held the 00 prefix, the licence to kill for the British Secret Service, were well aware of the nature of the duties which they & they alone were expected to undertake. In essence they were employed to provide the application of extreme violence against any individual or organisation who presented themselves as a threat to the security of the United Kingdom, her dependents &, on occasion, her allies. With such a brief all Double 0 officers could expect to find themselves exposed to varying degrees of stress, physical hardship & serious injury which no amount of preconditioning could ever prepare them for. Indeed it was an established fact that however hard an agent tried to shrug off the unsavoury memories which were sure to accrue during his service, those same memories would fester & nag until they eventually resurfaced, manifesting themselves in the form of physical ailments which were as acute as they were noticeable. Sporadic shaking, weight loss, insomnia, even stammering Bond had fallen prey to them all.
It was perhaps predictable, if not inevitable, that he should find himself more susceptible to this most crippling of conditions for Bonds career within the service had been one epitomised by very hard knock, he had...........................................
That's all I have.
“It was tied with a Windsor knot. Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity. It was often the mark of a cad.”
-Ian Fleming (From Russia With Love, Chapter 25)
It's how I wear a tie, Because Obviously ....................................... I'm a Cad ! )
BTW the TERMINUS of the title refers to a certain device which is central to the story.
I'm not sure about 'Chokehold' as a name, if I ever rewrote the thing I may just change it.
You have seen the sample of text from TERMINUS on the previous page you you have some idea of the manner in which it is written so, from that & that alone, what do you think?
I haven't read Colonel Sun but with what I have learned here I have put it on my 'to do' list.