007.”
“How am I supposed to get around, sir?” he had asked.
“Oh, take something upmarket from the car pool - they’ve a nice little BMW 520i, in an unobtrusive dark-blue, free at the moment. Use that as your runabout until you set sail for distant shores.” M, Bond would have sworn, was humming “Drake’s Drum” as he left the office.
So it was that the dark-blue BMW pulled up in front of the officers’ Wrennery, as the women’s quarters were known, twenty minutes later. To Bond’s surprise she was there, waiting outside wearing a fetching trench-coat over civilian clothes. The coat was tightly belted, showing off the neat waist and adding a touch of sensuality.
She slid into the passenger seat next to him, her skirt riding up to expose around four inches of thigh. As Bond swung the car out through the Wrennery gates he noticed that she did not even bother to adjust the coat and skirt as she pulled on the obligatory seat-belt.
“So where’re we going, Captain Bond?” (Did he imagine the throatiness of her voice, or had it always been there?) “Little pub I know. Good food. The owner’s wife is French and they do a very passable boeuf Beauceronne, almost like the real thing. Off duty, the name’s James, by the way.”
He heard the smile in her voice, “You have a choice -James.
My nickname’s “Irish Penny’, so most of the girls call me Penny.
I prefer my real name, Clover.”
“Clover it is, then. Nice name.
Unusual.”
“My father always used to say that mother was frightened by a bull in a clover field when she was carrying me, but I prefer the more romantic version.”
“Which was?”
Again, the smile in her voice, “That I was conceived in a patch of clover - and my father a respectable clergyman at that.”
“Still a nice name,” Bond paused to negotiate a long bend.
“Only heard it once before, and she was married to someone very big in intelligence matters.” The reference to Mrs. Allan Dulles was a calculated come-on: almost a code to attract Clover into the light in case they were both in the same business. M had said there would be other officers around, on this deep cover assignment. But Clover Pennington did not rise to the bait.
“Is it true about this afternoon, James?”
“Is what true?”
“That someone tried to put a Sidewinder up your six.”
“Felt that way. How did you come to hear about it? The incident’s supposed to be low-profile.”
“Oh, didn’t you know? I’m in charge of the girls who maintain the Harriers.” On most stone frigates, as shore stations are called by the Royal Navy, maintenance and arming was, to a large extent, performed by Wrens. “Bernie - Wings that is - passed me a curt little memo. He writes memos rather as he speaks, words of one syllable, especially to the Wrens. I always imagine he regards us as having very limited vocabularies. We’re checking on all your aircraft’s electronics, just to be sure you weren’t getting some odd fredhack.”
“It was a missile, Clover. I’ve been at the receiving end of those bloody things before today. I know what they sound like.”
like: always accusing us of infesting his precious Harriers with Wrenlins.” She laughed. Throaty and infectious, Bond thought, something he would not really mind catching himself.
“Wrenlins,” he repeated half aloud. He had almost forgotten that old Fleet Air-Arm slang, culled and altered from the RAF’s “gremlins”.
Today’s young people, he presumed, would take for granted that gremlins were creatures conjured from Spielberg’s brain for a popular, if zany, movie.
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at a table in the quiet, neat restaurant ordering the pate and the boeuf Beauceronne that delightful and simple dish of rump steak cooked with bacon, potatoes and onions. Within an hour they were talking like old friends, and, indeed knew people in common, for it turned out that, while Clover’s father had been what she called “a humble man of the cloth”, his elder brother was Sir Arthur Pennington, Sixth Baronet and master of Pennington Nab, a stately home which Bond had enjoyed, in more ways than one. “Oh, you’ll know my cousins, Emma and Jane, then?” Clover asked, looking up sharply.
“Intimately,” Bond replied flatly, and with a completely straight face.
Clover let it pass and they discussed everything from the Hunt Balls at Pennington Nab, to life in the Royal Navy, taking in, on the way, jazz - “My bro’, Julian, introduced me to trad jazz when he was up at Cambridge and I’ve been an addict ever since fishing in the Caribbean, a favorite for both of them; skiing; and, finally, the novels of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene.
“I feel I’ve known you for a lifetime, James,” she said as they drove slowly back towards the RNAS.
It was, Bond thought, a somewhat trite remark, but possibly one of invitation. He pulled the BMW into a lay- by and cut the engine.
“The feeling’s mutual, Clover, my dear.” He reached for her in the darkness and she responded to his first rough kiss, though pulled away when he began to move in closer.
“No,James. No, not yet. It might become difficult, particularly as we’re going to be shipmates.”
“What d’you mean, shipmates?” Bond nuzzled her hair.
“Invincible, of course.”
“What about Invincible?” He gently backed off.
“Well, we’re both being drafted there for Landsea “89, aren’t we?”
“First I’ve heard of it.” Bond’s voice remained steady, while a snake of worry began to curl around his stomach. “First I’ve heard of Wrens going to sea as well - particularly during an exercise like Landsea
“89.”
“Well, it’s all over the place. In fact I’ve been told officially.
Fifteen of us. Me, and fourteen ratings - apart from the other ladies who’ll be on board.”
“And what about me?” Deep within him, Bond was more than concerned now. If it was common knowledge that he was being drafted to Invincible it would not take much intelligence for the unscrupulous to put two and two together, particularly if they had got hold of the information that three senior Admirals, including the C-in-C of the Russian Navy, were going to be aboard. His mind jumped back to the near-miss that afternoon, and he wondered if somebody was already trying to take evasive action and cut him out of the baby-sitting business.
Clover continued to talk, saying that she wouldn’t have said anything if she did not already know he was involved. “Of course it’s classified,” she sounded a shade defensive. “But security’s for those without need-to-know, surely.”
“And I have need-to-know?”
“Your name is on the list, James. Of course you have clearance.
“And these other women. Who are they?”
“We haven’t been told. All I know is that there are to be other women.
“Okay, from the top, you tell me all you know, Clover.”
Bond listened, and became more concerned. Concerned enough to make a very secure call for a crash meeting with M during the coming weekend.
“I shouldn’t go blabbing about this to all and sundry, Clover,” he admonished. “Not even good to talk to me about it,” he told her when they got back to the Wrennery.
“Well, kiss me goodnight, at least, James,” she pouted.
He smiled and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Not just yet,” he said solemnly. “Especially if we’re going to be shipmates.”
Though he laughed as he drove away, the entire events of the day were more than worrying. Bond made his crash call to M from a telephone box a mile up the road, off the Base. The Duty Officer, using a scrambler, arranged the meeting for Sunday.
