The James Bond Anthology

Colonel Johns opened a drawer in the desk and took out a bulging file and opened it. The top document was a list. He put his pencil on the first item and looked across at Bond. He ran his eye over Bond’s old black and white hound’s-tooth tweed suit and white shirt and thin black tie. He said: ‘Clothes.’ He unclipped a plain sheet of paper from the file and slid it across the desk. ‘This is a list of what I reckon you’ll need and the address of a big second-hand clothing store here in the city. Nothing fancy, nothing conspicuous – khaki shirt, dark brown jeans, good climbing boots or shoes. See they’re comfortable. And there’s the address of a chemist for walnut stain. Buy a gallon and give yourself a bath in the stuff. There are plenty of browns in the hills at this time and you won’t want to be wearing parachute cloth or anything that smells of camouflage. Right? If you’re picked up, you’re an Englishman on a hunting trip in Canada who’s lost his way and got across the border by mistake. Rifle. Went down myself and put it in the boot of your Plymouth while you were waiting. One of the new Savage 99Fs, Weatherby 6 × 62 ’scope, five-shot repeater with twenty rounds of high-velocity .250-3.000. Lightest big game lever action on the market. Only six and a half pounds. Belongs to a friend. Glad to have it back one day, but he won’t miss it if it doesn’t turn up. It’s been tested and it’s okay up to five hundred. Gun licence,’ Colonel Johns slid it over, ‘issued here in the city in your real name as that fits with your passport. Hunting-licence ditto, but small game only, vermin, as it isn’t quite the deer season yet, also driving-licence to replace the provisional one I had waiting for you with the Hertz people. Haversack, compass – used ones, in the boot of your car. Oh, by the way,’ Colonel Johns looked up from his list, ‘you carrying a personal gun?’

‘Yes. Walther PPK in a Burns Martin holster.’

‘Right, give me the number. I’ve got a blank licence here. If that gets back to me it’s quite okay. I’ve got a story for it.’

Bond took out his gun and read off the number. Colonel Johns filled in the form and pushed it over.

‘Now then, maps. Here’s a local Esso map that’s all you need to get you to the area.’ Colonel Johns got up and walked round with the map to Bond and spread it out. ‘You take this route 17 back to Montreal, get on to 37 over the bridge at St Anne’s and then over the river again on to 7. Follow 7 on down to Pike River. Get on 52 at Stanbridge. Turn right in Stanbridge for Frelighsburg and leave the car in a garage there. Good roads all the way. Whole trip shouldn’t take you more than five hours including stops. Okay? Now this is where you’ve got to get things right. Make it that you get to Frelighsburg around three a.m. Garage-hand’ll be half asleep and you’ll be able to get the gear out of the boot and move off without him noticing even if you were a double-headed Chinaman.’ Colonel Johns went back to his chair and took two more pieces of paper off the file. The first was a scrap of pencilled map, the other a section of aerial photograph. He said, looking seriously at Bond: ‘Now, here are the only inflammable things you’ll be carrying and I’ve got to rely on you getting rid of them just as soon as they’ve been used, or at once if there’s a chance of you getting into trouble. This,’ he pushed the paper over, ‘is a rough sketch of an old smuggling route from Prohibition days. It’s not used now or I wouldn’t recommend it.’ Colonel Johns smiled sourly. ‘You might find some rough customers coming over in the opposite direction, and they’re apt to shoot and not even ask questions afterwards – crooks, druggers, white-slavers – but nowadays they mostly travel up by Viscount. This route was used for runners between Franklin, just over the Derby Line, and Frelighsburg. You follow this path through the foothills, and you detour Franklin and get into the start of the Green Mountains. There it’s all Vermont spruce and pine with a bit of maple, and you can stay inside that stuff for months and not see a soul. You get across country here, over a couple of highways, and you leave Enosburg Falls to the west. Then you’re over a steep range and down into the top of the valley you want. The cross is Echo Lake and, judging from the photographs, I’d be inclined to come down on top of it from the east. Got it?’

‘What’s the distance? About ten miles?’