Win, Lose or Die (4 page)

“Don’t hang about,” the young Commander had told them in the briefing room. “There are four of you at five-minute intervals, so just do the job, then get out fast.”

Altogether, there were eight naval pilots on the conversion course: three more Royal Navy men, a US Marine Corps pilot on liaison, two Indian Navy pilots and one from the Spanish Navy. All but Bond had already done several hours on Harriers with their home units and were at Yeovilton to sharpen their skills, with some weapons and tactical training. That afternoon, Bond had been first man away and was followed by the Spanish officer - a sullen young man called Felipe Pantano, who kept very much to himself-one of the Royal Navy Lieutenants, and the American.

To comply with safety regulations, there was a predetermined flight path to and from the target, and Bond swept his Harrier into a long climbing turn, then gave her full throttle, stood the aeroplane on its tail and, looking down at the small radar screen on the starboard side of his cockpit, swept the skies immediately above his return course, to be certain none of the other aircraft had strayed.

The radar showed nothing out of the ordinary, so he dropped the nose to a gentle 200 climb. He had hardly stabilised the Harrier in its ascent when a completely unexpected sound seemed to fill the cockpit. So surprised was Bond that it took at least two seconds for him to realise what was happening.

As the sound became louder in his ears, Bond woke to the danger.

So far he had only experienced this in the simulator: the harsh, rasping neep-neep-neep quickening all the time. There was a missile locked on to him -judging by its tone, a Sidewinder.

Just under thirty pounds of high-explosive fragmentation was being guided towards the engine heat of his Harrier.

Bond had reacted slowly, and that was the way people got blown out of the sky. He pushed the stick forward, putting the Harrier into a power dive,jinking to left and right, pulling about seven Gs to each jink, holding it for a second or two, then going the other way. At the same time, he hit the button which would release four flares to confuse the missile’s heat-seeking guidance system, then, for luck, followed it with a bundle of chaff radar-confusing metal strips. It was another safety regulation that all aircraft using the bombing range should carry both flares and chaff’ housed in special pods - another lesson of the Falklands where chaff had been stuffed in bundles inside the airbrakes.

The neep-neeping was still there, quickening as the missile gained on the Harrier. He lifted the nose, jinked again and, at a thousand feet, performed a rate five turn, pulling a lot of G, then rolling and putting the Harrier into a second dive. His body felt like lead, his throat was dust-dry and the controls felt stiff as he pushed the Harrier to its limit.

He had the aircraft right down almost to sea level before the growling signal suddenly stopped. There was a flash far off to the starboard, in the direction of the target range. Bond took a deep breath, lifted the Harrier’s nose, reset his course and climbed to 30,000 feet with the throttle right forward. As he went up so he switched his radio to transmit - “Bluebird to Homespun.

Some idiot almost put a Sidewinder up my six.” Taking the points of a standard clock, “six” meant directly behind.

“Say again, Bluebird.”

Bond repeated and Yeovilton asked him to confirm no damage, which he did, adding that it was more luck than judgment. Of the four aircraft detailed for the bombing range that afternoon, no one carried anything but clusterbombs. The range, however, belonged to the RAF, though its use and timings were strictly monitored. It was just possible that a Royal Air Force jet had accidentally been scheduled and had arrived either early or late.

“Bluebird, are you certain it was a missile?”

“Chased me all around the sky. Of course I’m sure.”

Bond reached Yeovilton without further incident and, once landed and out of his flying gear, he stormed into the office of Commander (Air) - known to most as Wings - set in the control tower.

“Who was the fool?” Bond snapped, then he stopped, for Commander Bernie Brazier, an experienced officer, looked both angry and shaken.

He motioned Bond to sit. “There’ll be an investigation, sir.” His eyes had the weary look of a man who had seen it all and never really got used to it. “There’s a problem.

Nobody from here was carrying missiles, and the RAF say they were not using the range today. We’re checking your Harrier for possible malfunction of detection electronics.”

“That wasn’t a malfunction, for God’s sake. It was a real missile, Bernie. I’m filing a report to that effect and heaven help the cretin who loosed one off in my direction.”

Commander Brazier still looked unhappy. Quietly he said, “There’s another problem.”

“What?”

“We’ve lost an aircraft.”

“Who?”

“Captain Pantano. The Spanish officer. He was second away, bombed on time then went off the radar during his climb out.

Nobody’s reported seeing him go down and we’ve got S and R out looking for him, or wreckage.”

“Perhaps a Sidewinder popped him.” There was a large segment of sarcasm in Bond’s voice.

“There were no missile-carrying aircraft around, sir, as I’ve already told you.”

“Well, what do you think the one up my backside was, Wings?

A Scotch mist?” Now, quite angry, James Bond turned on his heel and left.

In the wardroom bar that night before dinner, the atmosphere was only slightly subdued. It was always a bit of a shaker losing a pilot, but the strange circumstances surrounding this loss, coupled with the fact that the Spanish pilot had not been a natural mixer, helped to calm what often causes a slight twitch among young pilots.

So, when Bond entered the wardroom, the bar hummed with near enough the usual high-spirited pre-dinner chatter. He was about to go over and join two of the other Navy pilots from the course, when his eyes landed on someone he had been watching from afar since reporting to RNAS Yeovilton. She was tall and very slim; a WRNS First Officer (Women’s Royal Naval Service - “Wrens” as they were referred to) who was always much in demand, as she had the kind of looks and figure that make middle-aged men regret their lost youth: a sloe-eyed combination of self-confidence, together with a hint of complete indifference to the many officers who paid court to her, “Like hornets around a honeypot,” as one crusty old visiting Admiral commented. Her name was Clover Pennington, though she was known to many, in spite of her upbringing in the bosom of a well-connected west country family, as “Irish Penny”.

Now this dark-haired, black-eyed beauty had the usual quota of three young Lieutenants toasting her, but, on seeing Bond, she stepped away from the bar towards him. “I hear you had a near-miss today, sir.” Her smile lacked the cautious deference her rank demanded when approaching a much senior officer.

“Not as close as our Spanish pilot it would seem, Miss er, First Officer Bond let it trail off. Recently, he had not been given the chance of spending much of his time with women, a fact which would have gladdened M’s heart.

“First Officer Pennington, sir. Clover Pennington.”

“Well, Miss Pennington, how about joining me for dinner?

The name’s Bond, by the way, James Bond.”

“Delighted, sir.” She gave him a dazzling smile and turned towards the wardroom. Daggers were invisibly hurled in Bond’s direction from the eyes of the three young officers still at the bar.

Tonight was not a formal wardroom dinner, so Bond seized the chance while it was on offer. “Not here, First Officer Pennington.”

His hand brushed her uniformed arm with the three blue stripes, denoting her rank, low on the sleeve. “I know a reasonable restaurant about a quarter of an hour’s drive away, near Wedmore. Give you ten minutes to change.” Another smile which spoke of a more than usually pleasant evening, “Oh, good, sir. I always feel better out of uniform.”

Bond thought unpardonable thoughts and followed her from the bar.

He gave her twenty minutes, knowing the ways of women when changing for an evening out. In any case, Bond also wanted to get into civilian clothes, even though it would have to be almost another kind of uniform, Dunhill slacks and blazer complete with RN crest on the breast pocket.

Before taking up his new duties, M had advised, “Shouldn’t take that damned great Bentley with you, 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.”
“We have to check. You know what the Commander (Air) is
Though it has only been hinted at, and never admitted in print, Bond almost certainly saw action during the Falklands War. It has been said that he was the man landed secretly to assist and help train civilians before the real shooting war started.

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