Shaken but not Stirred:
Or
The Blended Bond
How the James Bond
films
fit into the WNU
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Doctor
No
1956 February-March
THE NOVEL: A summary of the novel
THE FILM: A Summary of the film
THE BLENDED BOND: A recreation
of the true events
Doctor No begins shortly after the cliffhanger ending of From Russia, With Love with James Bond
in the process of dying from poison courtesy of Rosa Klebb’s
razor tipped shoes. Bond makes a full recovery from the poison tetrodotoxin and after a rest cure is sent to Jamaica to
investigate the disappearance of Station J’s head Strangeways.
Strangeways had been investigating something for the
Audubon Society. The island of Crab Key was a wild bird sanctuary that was
supposed to have been maintained by the island’s owner Doctor No as a
condition of purchase. However all of
the inspections for the island had been suspended and the last Inspector who
had made an unannounced visit to the island had returned badly burned and
muttering of a Dragon. Doctor No had bought the island to take advantage of the
guano deposits and re-opened a processing factory. It is not certain if Strangeways had succumbed to foul play or if he had just
skipped out with his secretary. His bungalow was burned to the ground but that
could have been to cover his tracks. M considers this case as total waste of
the Secret Service time and expense and since he is angry at Bond for having
botched the previous mission by getting poisoned, he assigns Bond to the case,
knowing that being on a worthless case will be a blow to Bond’s ego.
Bond is met at the airport by his friend Quarrel. A girl
takes Bond’s picture at the airport. Bond and Quarrell
are followed by a cab but Quarrel shakes the driver. They meet at a club called
the Joy Boat to discuss their plans. A girl takes Bond’s picture it is
the same girl from the airport. Quarrel grabs her and the camera. Bond destroys
the film but the girl will not reveal whom she is working for.
Before Bond even begins a serious investigation of Doctor No,
No tries to kill him with a poisoned fruit bowl placed in his room and a
centipede placed in his bed. When he checks with the Governor’s secretary
for files about Doctor No, he is informed that they have all disappeared. The
secretary, Miss Taro, like Annabel Chung, the photographer was Chinese.
According to local sources Doctor No employs Jamaican and
Cuban laborers for good wages at the guano plant but under the brutal
supervision of Chigroes, (Chinese-Negroes) from
Jamaica. No one is allowed to leave the island. Bond recruits his friend
Quarrel to take him to Crab Key. Quarrel is initially reluctant to go due to the
dragon however after Bond agrees to buy a life insurance policy for him, he
agrees to go. While on Crab Key island they met up with Honeychile
Rider, a beautiful young woman who collects exotic shells to sell in Miami. She
wants to get enough money so she can get her nose fixed and become a call girl
which she believes is a laudable and lucrative profession.
After exploring the island for a bit, they are discovered by
Doctor No’s men. They first elude them but eventually confront the Dragon
which is a flamethrowing tank. Quarrel is burned to
death by the tank and Honeychile and Bond are
captured. They are led into Doctor No’s subterranean retreat, allowed to
shower and put on clean clothes. After drinking drugged coffee and sleeping for
a while they are escorted into the presence of Doctor No.
Dr No is an extremely tall Eurasian who is totally bald
except for eyebrows. Oddly enough he does not have eyelashes. He also has two
mechanical pincers in the place of hands. Doctor No entertains Bond and Honeychile Rider with his story. He was the son of a German
Methodist Missionary and a Chinese girl but raised by his aunt. When older he
became involved with the Tongs, a Chinese crime syndicate. Sent to the United
States he became the treasurer for a tong in the United States. During the Tong
wars of the 1920’s Doctor No embezzled a million dollars in gold and
disappeared. The Tongs found him and tortured him cutting off his hands and
shooting him in the chest when he refused to talk. Since his heart was on the right
side of his chest he was not killed. After recovering from his wounds he
attended medical school. He purchased the island of Crab Key to be a legitimate
front for his crime syndicate. He was paid by the Soviets to use the island as
a staging area for Soviet sabotage using a radio controlled beacon to scramble
the guidance systems of US missiles, forcing the Americans to spend time and
money redesigning their missiles. He also recovered missiles from the ocean and
turned them over to the Soviets.
Doctor No also informed
Bond and Honeychile that he was a student of the
human spirit, which was best, studied when under duress. To this end he would
subject Bond and Honeychile to torture and study
their reactions.
Honeychile was placed on the edge of the beach
and pegged down. She was placed directly in the path of the black land crabs
migration route. Like locusts they devoured everything in their path and Doctor
No assumed Honeychile would be slowly consumed.
Bond had to run through a
gauntlet of tortures in a shaft that could lead to freedom. He encounters,
electrical shock, extreme heat, a cage full of tarantulas and finally is
emptied into an inlet with a hungry octopus.
Bond succeeds in getting
through the maze and out to Doctor No’s guano plant where he commandeers
a crane and buries No under a ton of guano. When he rescues Honeychile
he finds her untouched by the crabs because she knew enough about their nature
to dissuade them from eating her. Bond is so wounded by the experience he has
to once again go on sick leave. He sends M a sarcastic thank you for the easy
mission.
The
film begins with three blind men walking with canes along the streets of
Kingston, Jamaica. They pass by the Queen’s club where a bridge game is
in progress. One of the players Mr. Strangeways has
to leave the game for a bit to report into his office, which he has to do every
day at the same time. In the parking lot he notices three blind men near his
car as he opens his car door the three blind men pull out silenced pistols and
shoot Strangeways. A old black sedan hearse drives up
and the body is thrown inside and it speeds away.
At
Strangeways’ office his secretary opens a panel
in a book case revealing a shortwave radio. She warms the radio up and makes
the initial call while waiting for Strangeways. The
three blind men shoot at her from the windows, killing her. They take her body
and any records pertaining to Doctor No.
At
Le Cercele club James Bond is playing baccharat against a beautiful young woman named Sylvia
Trench. He is called away but she makes a date to play golf in the morning.
Bond
is summoned to M’s office and told of Strangeways’
disappearance and his secretary which has taken on serious import because it
was done in the middle of transmission. Strangeways
has been working on something for the Americans, something has been playing
havoc with their missile and moon rockets and they have pinpointed the trouble
to the area near Jamaica. Bond is to work with CIA agent Leiter.
M
makes Bond replace his Beretta for a Walther for his own safety, blaming it for
his recent failure. When Bond returns to his room to pack he finds Sylvia
Trench in his room dressed only in one of his shirts and playing with his
putter. She convinces him stay for a little while before leaving.
When
Bond arrives at the airport a young woman takes his picture. He is met by a
young man who calls himself Mr. Johnson who claims to have been sent by the
government house. Bond tells the young man he has to check on his reservation
and makes a phone call to the government house. As he suspected they had not
sent a car for him. Johnson drives very rapidly until Bond tells him to slow
down however Johnson points out that they had picked up a tail. Bond tells them
to shake them by driving off the road behind some trees. Bond holds a gun on
Johnson, demanding to know who he is working for. Johnson tries to pull a gun
but Bond disarms him. Johnson agrees to talk but wants a cigarette first.
Johnson bites down on the end of his cigarette and dies.
Bond
drives to the government house with Johnson in the back seat. Investigation
reveals that the cigarette contained cyanide and that the car was stolen.
Johnson was not from Kingston. Bond asks Pleydell-Smith
to arrange a meeting the last people who saw Strangeways
alive. Pleydell-Smith says that three members of Strangeways bridge game that included Professor Dent,
General Potter and himself. Dent is a geologist and Potter was a career
military man who had been there for years. While searching Strangeways’
office Bond sees a picture of Strangeways with a
black man. Bond asks who it was. He is told it is Quarrel a local fisherman.
Bond comments he was in the car tailing him from the airport. Bond also found a
receipt from Dent. Bond learns from them that Strangeways’
latest kick had been deep-sea fishing. He had gone on many trips with Quarrel,
one of the best fishermen in Jamaica.
Bond
looks up Quarrel and his fishing boat but Quarrel is reluctant to talk to him,
telling him he takes a lot of people fishing. When Bond wants to rent his boat
Quarrel says it is not for rent. Following Bond into a bar, Quarrel agrees to
talk privately with Bond, that out by the boat had been too public. In a
storage room Quarrel pulls a knife on Bond while the bartender holds Bond’s
arms. Bond breaks the hold, knocks Quarrel into a stack of boxes and pulls out
his gun. He is stopped by a gun at his back.
Holding
the gun is Felix Leiter of the CIA. After they
realize that they all working together they meet in the bar to compare
information. While sitting in the nightclub a young woman takes a picture of
Bond. Bond tells Quarrel to get the girl and the camera. As Quarrel bends her
arm backwards, Bond asks who she is working for she said she works for the
local paper the Daily Gleaner but when Bond asks the nightclub owner to call
and see if the Gleaner sent a photographer, she claims to be freelance. She
refuses to say whom she is working for and tries to get away by raking
Quarrel’s face with a broken flashbulb. Bond lets her go after destroying
the film.
Quarrel
tells Bond that Strangeways visited almost all of the
islands in the area, except for Crab Key since they were not allowed to go
there. When asked what was so special about Crab Key, Leiter
told Bond it was owned by a Chinese character that did not allow visitors. He
ran a bauxite mine. Quarrel admitted that Strangeways
did take some soil and water samples from Crab Key at night. Bond, Leiter and Quarrel agreed to meet on the following night to
make another trip to Crab Key.
When
Bond returned to his hotel the three blind men were set up to shoot him but a
car passed in front of them and blocked their shot.
Bond
met with Dent to ask him about the samples that Strangeways
had given him. Dent said that they were of no value and had thrown them out.
When asked if they could have come from Crab Key Dents said that was
geologically impossible. After Bond leaves Dent hurries to the waterfront and
takes a boat to Crab Key defying the orders to stay away. Once on Crab Key he
was led to into a palatial building and into a large room that its empty except
for a chair and a table several feet distance from each other. A voice asked
Dent why he had violated the rule about coming to Crab Key. Dent told him he
had come to warn that Bond knew about Crab Key. The voice said that Bond would
not be a problem if Dent had not failed in his attempts to kill Bond. He told
Dent to go the table and pick up what was on it. This was a cage containing a
tarantula. Dent was told to use this against Bond.
Bond
awakened at night to feel the tarantula crawling across his naked body. He had
lay quietly and let the spider crawl up his body and away from him before
moving. He then killed flipped it off of his bed and killed it.
In
the morning Bond visits Peydell-Smith to ask him on
any information about Doctor No. Peydell-Smith’s
assistant, Miss Taro, a pretty young Chinese girl, informs Peydell-Smith
that the files are gone. After she leaves the room Bond discusses his plans with
Peydell-Smith and go out via her desk and finds her
kneeling before the door. He tells her that is a nasty habit, listening at
doors. She claims to have been looking for the file. Bond asks her if she will
show him around the island. She agrees to do that in the afternoon.
Bond
tests Quarrel’s boat and finds that it has residual radiation from the
samples Strangeways had taken from Crab Key Island.
In
the afternoon Bond gets a phone call from Miss Taro asking to meet her at her
mountain house. Bond agrees and once he is off the main roads a hearse tries to
run him off the winding mountain road. Bond drives under a rock shifting truck
that the hearse has to swing aside to miss. This turn takes them over the side
of the mountain. Miss Taro answers her door surprised to see Bond. She has just
taken a shower. She receives a phone call and Bond overhears her say she will
try to keep him there. Bond seduces her and then tries to get her to leave for
Kingston for dinner but she wants to stay in the cabin with him. Finally he
calls for a cab insisting on taking her to dinner
When
the cab arrives it turns out to be the police and he has Miss Taro taken away.
Bond sets up two wine glasses, leaves the record player on and makes the bed
appear as though two figures lay underneath the sheets. He then sits down to
wait playing solitaire with his gun out. Dent sneaks into the room and fires
his gun into the figures on the bed. Bond tells Dent to put his gun on the
floor. Dent drops it on a fallen sheet. Bond tries to get some information
about Dent but Dent is too afraid to talk. He pulled his gun to him with his
foot and tries to shoot Bond. Bond knew the gun was empty. He tells Dent that
is a Smith and Wesson and he has had his six. Bond then shoots Dent.
Bond,
Leiter and Quarrel go to Crab Key Island. Quarrel and
Bond land on the island and began to explore. In the morning Bond sees a young
girl come walking out of the surf. She is collecting shells and suspicious of
Bond, thinking he wants to take her shells. Her name is Honey Rider. Quarrel
comes down the beach to warn them of a coming patrol boat. They hide in the
sand dunes. The patrol boat tells them to come out or be fired on. When they
remain hidden a machine gun rakes the beach. They are told that they will be back
with dogs. The only casualty is Honey’s boat. She takes them to a hiding
place and walk through a stagnant pond. Honey tells Bond that she has seen the
dragon. A patrol with dogs chases after them but they elude them by hiding
under water breathing through reeds. Bond is forced to kill a straggler when he
comes too close to their hiding spot. Honey agrees to take them to where she
saw the Dragon. There are several warning and dangers signs in the area. They
ignore these and soon see the dragons tracks, which are tank treads. The dragon
is a flame throwing tank. Bond tells Quarrel to shoot at it head lights and the
driver when it comes out. Quarrel and Bond both shoot at the tank but Quarrel
is incinerated by the flames. Bond and Honey are captured by men wearing suits
with glass helmets.
They
are led to a subterranean palace where they are immediately decontaminated.
They were exposed to a great deal of
radiation. After being decontaminated two Chinese woman named Sister Rose and
Sister Lily took Bond and Honeychild to comfortably
and expensively furnished rooms by. The are told to freshen up and have some
breakfast, Doctor No will see them at dinner. Their breakfast has drugged
coffee and they fall asleep. As Bond sleeps a man wearing a gray tunic and large black gloved hands sneaks into his room
and looks him over.
After
they have awakened and dressed appropriately in Chinese style clothing, they
are escorted to an elevator that takes them down to a large drawing room with a
window aquarium. This lets them know they are below sea level. The window cost
one million dollars said a tall Chinese man with black gloved hands. Doctor No
escorts them to the table. He tells them his story as the unwanted child of a
German missionary and a Chinese girl of good family. He became the treasurer of
the most powerful criminal society in China and then escaped to America with 10
million dollars. He studied in American specializing in atomic energy which
cost him the use of his hands. When Bond told him that his island could be
destroyed with ease by the American or British navies, Doctor No said he
planned to destroy it once it had accomplished his purpose.
When
he began to tell Bond what his plans were Bond insisted that Honey be sent
away. Doctor No agreed, adding that she might amuse his guards. Under
Bond’s protests she was dragged away.
Doctor
No said that he had offered his service to the West and to the Soviets but they
had all rejected him and so he worked for SPECTRE. They planned to disable the
American space and missile programs. Doctor No had to attend to matters in the
control room, he told his guards to soften up Bond, he would talk to him later.
Bond was knocked unconscious and awakened in small prison room with a small
grate. He found the grate to be electrified. He knocked it out with his shoes
and then climbed the airshaft. The airshaft was rigged with traps becoming
sharp, growing red hot and flooding with water. It exited in the
decontamination center. Bond disabled a passing person in a radiation proof
suit and entered the control room. They were preparing to knock the Mercury
rocket off course. Bond used his disguise to get close to the atomic reactor.
While everyone’s attention was centered on the preparations he overloaded
the atomic reactor. While most of his minions fled Doctor No attacked Bond.
They fought near the coolant pool with Doctor No falling into the pool and
dying.
Bond
rushed through the plant to find Honey. He finally found her staked out on a
ramp near the ocean. Freeing her they found a boat and escaped the island
before the atomic reactor blew up. Their drifting boat was found by Leiter and the US navy and given a tow. Bond untied the
towing rope to give Honey and he some privacy.
THE BLENDED BOND: A Recreation Of The True Events
A blind man walked
along the streets of Kingston, Jamaica helped by another man. A third companion
accompanied them.[1]
Passing by the
Queen’s club they noted that a bridge game is in progress. Their target
was one of the players. Mr. Strangeways had to absent
himself from the game to report into his office, which he had to do every day
at the same time. In the parking lot he noticed a blind man near his car. As Strangeways opened his car door the “blind” man
pulled out a silenced pistol and shot Strangeways. An
old black sedan hearse drove up and the body was thrown inside by the blind man
and his two companions. The hearse sped away.
At Strangeways’ office his secretary was shot through
the open window with silenced guns. The
“blind” man and his companions take her body and any records
pertaining to Doctor No.[2]
The
events of the Doctor No incident began a few months after the events novelized
as From Russia, With Love. James Bond
rebounded from imminent death due to being poisoned by Rosa Klebb’s
razor tipped shoes. After Bond made a full recovery from the tetrodotoxin he met with M and was briefed on a simple
mission.[3]
Bond
was being sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of Station J’s
head Strangeways.[4] Strangeways had been investigating something for the
Audubon Society. The island of Crab Key was a wild bird sanctuary that was
supposed to have been maintained by the island’s owner Doctor No as a
condition of purchase. However all of
the inspections for the island had been suspended and the last Inspector who
had made an unannounced visit to the island had returned badly burned and
muttering of a dragon. Doctor No had bought the island to take advantage of the
guano deposits and re-opened a guano processing factory. It was not certain if Strangeways had succumbed to foul play or if he had just
skipped out with his secretary.[5] M
considered this case as total waste of the Secret Service’s time and
expense. Since he was angry at Bond for having botched the previous mission by
getting poisoned, he assigned Bond to the case, knowing that being on a
worthless case would be a blow to Bond’s ego.[6]
When Bond arrived
at the airport a young woman took his picture. A young man who called himself
Mr. Johnson greeted Bond. Mr. Johnson claimed to have been sent by the
government house. Since Bond was supposed to have been met by his friend
Quarrel, Bond told the young man he had to check on his reservation. Bond made
a phone call to the government house. As he had suspected they had not sent a
car for him. Johnson drove very rapidly until Bond told him to slow down.
Johnson pointed out that they had picked up a tail. Bond noticed that the
“tail” was Quarrel. Bond told Johnson to shake the tail by driving
off the road behind some trees. Once they do so Bond pulled a gun on Johnson,
demanding to know whom he was working for. Johnson tried to pull a gun but Bond
disarmed him. Johnson agreed to talk but wanted a cigarette first. Johnson bit
down on the end of his cigarette and died.
Bond drove to the
government house with Johnson in the back seat. Subsequent investigation
revealed that the cigarette contained cyanide and that the car had been stolen.
Johnson had not been from Kingston. Bond asked Pleydell-Smith,
the Governor’s secretary, to arrange a meeting with people who had last
seen Strangeways alive. Pleydell-Smith
said that three members of Strangeways bridge game
that included Professor Dent, General Potter and himself. Dent was a geologist
and Potter was a career military man who had been in Jamaica for years. While
searching Strangeways’office Bond found a
picture of Strangeways on a fishing Boat with
Quarrel. Bond had earlier learned from the members of his bridge club that Strangeways’ latest kick had been deep-sea fishing.
He had gone on many trips with Quarrel, one of the best fishermen in Jamaica.
Bond also found a receipt from Dent.[7]
Bond
met up with Quarrel at a club called the Joy Boat. Quarrel told Bond that Strangeways had visited almost all of the islands in the
area, except for Crab Key since they were not allowed to go there. Quarrel admitted that Strangeways did take some soil and water samples from Crab
Key at night but that he did not accompany him.[8]
While sitting in
the nightclub a young woman took a picture of Bond. He recognized her as the
same girl from the airport. Bond told Quarrel to get the girl and the camera.
As Quarrel bent her arm backwards, Bond asked who she was working for. Annabel Chung said she worked for the
local paper the Daily Gleaner but when Bond asked the nightclub owner to call
and see if the Gleaner had sent a photographer, she claimed to be freelance.
She refused to say whom she was working for and tried to get away by raking
Quarrel’s face with a broken flashbulb. Bond let her go after destroying
the film.
The next morning
Bond met with Dent to ask him about the samples that Strangeways
had given him for analysis/ Dent said that the samples had been of no value and
he had thrown them out. When Bond asked if the samples could have come from
Crab Key Dent said that was geologically impossible.
After Bond left
Dent hurried to the waterfront and took a boat to Crab Key defying the orders
to stay away from the island unless summoned. Meeting with Doctor No Dent was
asked why he had violated the rule about coming to Crab Key. Dent said he had
come to warn Doctor No that Bond knew about the radioactivity on Crab Key.[9]
Doctor No replied that Bond would not be a problem if Dent had not failed in
his attempts to kill Bond. He told Dent to go the table and pick up what was on
it. This was a cage containing a centipede. Dent was told to use this against
Bond. Dent placed the centipede in Bond’s bed and for good measure placed
a basket of poisoned fruit on his table.[10]
Bond awakened at
night and felt the centipede crawling across his naked body. He lay quietly and let the insect crawl up his
body and away from him before moving. He then killed flipped it off of his bed
and killed it.
In the morning
Bond visits Peydell-Smith for any information about
Doctor No. Peydell-Smith’s assistant, Miss
Taro, informed Peydell-Smith that the files on No are
gone. Miss Taro, like
Annabel Chung, the photographer was Chinese. After she left the room Pleydell-Smith
told Bond what he knew about Doctor No. According to local sources Doctor No
employed Jamaican and Cuban laborers for good wages at the guano plant and a
bauxite mine but under the brutal supervision of Chigroes,
(Chinese-Negroes) from Jamaica. No one was allowed to leave the island. Bond discusseed his
plans with Peydell-Smith and left by the back
entrance near Miss Taro’s desk. He
found her kneeling before the door. He tells her that is a nasty habit,
listening at doors. She claimed to have been looking for the missing files.
Bond asked her if she would show him around the island. She agreed to do so
that in the afternoon.
In the afternoon
Bond received a phone call from Miss Taro asking to meet her at her mountain
house. Bond agreed. Once he drove off
the main roads a hearse tried to run him off the winding mountain road. Bond
drove under a rock shifting truck that the hearse had to swing aside to miss
hitting. Avoiding the truck took the hearse over the side of the mountain.
Miss Taro answered
her door surprised to see Bond. She had just taken a shower. After she lets him
inside the room she received a phone call and Bond overheard her say she would
try to keep him there. Bond seduced her and then tried to get her to leave for
Kingston for dinner but she wanted to stay in the cabin with him. Finally he
called for a cab insisting on taking her to dinner
When the cab
arrives it turned out to be the police and he had Miss Taro taken away. Bond
set up two wine glasses, left the record player on and made the bed appear as
though two figures lay underneath the sheets. He then sat down to wait. He
played solitaire with his gun next to the cards. Dent sneaked into the room and
fired his gun into the figures on the bed. Bond told Dent to put his gun on the
floor. Dent dropped it on a fallen sheet. Bond tried to get some information about
Doctor No but Dent was too afraid to talk. Using his foot, Dent slowly pulled
the sheet with his gun on it towards him. Once it was in reach he tried to
shoot Bond. Bond knew the gun was empty. He told Dent that he had a Smith and
Wesson and he has had his six. Bond then shot Dent.[11]
Bond
recruited his friend Quarrel to take him to Crab Key. Quarrel was initially
reluctant to go due to stories about the dragon however after Bond agreed to
buy a life insurance policy for him, he agreed to go.[12]
Quarrel and Bond
landed on the island and began to explore. In the morning Bond saw a young girl
come walking out of the surf. She was collecting seashells. Spotting Bond she
was immediately suspicious of him, thinking he wanted to take her shells that
she sold in Miami. Her name was Honeychile Rider and wanted to get enough money so
she can get her nose fixed and become a call girl, which she believes is a
laudable and lucrative profession.[13] Quarrel comes down the
beach to warn them of a coming patrol boat. They hid in the sand dunes. The
patrol boat told them to come out or be fired upon. When they remained hidden a
machine gun raked the beach. They were told that the security forces would be
back with dogs. The only casualty of the shootout was Honey’s boat. She
took them to a hiding place by walking through a stagnant pond. Honey told Bond
that she has seen the dragon. A patrol with dogs chased after them but they
eluded them by hiding under water breathing through reeds. Bond was forced to
kill a straggler when he came too close to their hiding spot. Honey agreed to
take them to where she saw the Dragon. There were several warning and dangers
signs in the area. They ignored these and soon saw the dragon’s tracks,
which were tank treads. The dragon was a flame throwing tank. Bond tells
Quarrel to shoot at its head lights and at the driver when it came out. Quarrel
and Bond both shot at the tank but Quarrel was incinerated by a stream of
napalm. Bond and Honey were captured by men wearing suits with glass helmets which
Bond recognized as radiation suits.
They were led to a
subterranean palace where they were immediately decontaminated because had
gotten exposed to a great deal of radiation. After the decontamination two
Chinese woman named Sister Rose and Sister Lily took Bond and Honeychile to comfortably and expensively furnished rooms.
They are told to freshen up and have some breakfast, Doctor No would see them
at dinner. Their breakfast had drugged coffee and they fell into a deep sleep.
After they awakened and dressed appropriately in Chinese style clothing,
they were escorted to an elevator that took them down to a large drawing room
with a window aquarium. This let them know they are below sea level. The window
cost one million dollars said a tall Chinese man with large black gloved hands.[14]
He introduces himself as Doctor No. Doctor No was an extremely tall Eurasian who was totally bald
except for eyebrows. Oddly enough he did not even have eyelashes. Doctor No escorted them to
the table.
He told Bond his story. Doctor
No was the son of a German Methodist Missionary and a Chinese girl but had been
raised by his aunt.[15]
When older he became involved with the Tongs, a Chinese crime syndicate. Sent
to the United States he became the treasurer for a tong in the United States.
During the Tong wars of the 1920’s Doctor No embezzled a million dollars
in gold and disappeared. The Tongs found him and tortured him for the
whereabouts of the gold. Wen he refused to talk they
cut off his hands and shot him in the chest. Since his heart was on the right
side of his chest he had not been killed. He told Bond that after recovering
from his wounds he attended medical school.[16]
He had purchased the island of Crab Key to be a legitimate front for his crime
syndicate. He was paid by the Soviets to use the island as a staging area for
Soviet sabotage using a radio controlled beacon to scramble the guidance
systems of US missiles, forcing the Americans to spend time and money
redesigning their missiles. He also recovered missiles from the ocean and
turned them over to the Soviets. He was also to disable the American space programs [17]
When Bond told him that the American or British navies could destroy his
island with ease, Doctor No said he planned to destroy it once it had
accomplished his purpose.
When he began to
tell Bond what his plans were Bond insisted that Honey be sent away. Doctor No
agreed, adding that she might amuse his guards. Under Bond’s protests she
was dragged away.
Doctor No also informed Bond and Honeychile that he was a student of the human spirit, which
was best studied when under duress. To this end he would subject Bond and Honeychile to torture and study their reactions.
Honeychile was placed on the edge of the beach and pegged down.
She was placed directly in the path of the black land crabs migration route.
Like locusts they devoured everything in their path and Doctor No assumed Honeychile would be slowly consumed.[18]
Doctor No had to attend
to matters in the control room. He told his guards to soften up Bond, he would
talk to him later. Bond was knocked unconscious and awakened in small prison
room with a small grate. He found the grate to be electrified. He knocked it
out with his shoes and then climbed the airshaft. The airshaft was rigged with
traps, its surface became sharp, it became red hot and finally it exited into a
cage of tarantulas. Past the tarantula cage was another tunnel that flooded
with water and emptied Bond into a small pool filled with a hungry octopus. Having survived the gantlet Bond
found his way back to the main area. After
disabling a person in a radiation proof suit and stealing the suit, Bond
entered the control room. Dr. No and his crew were preparing to knock the
Mercury rocket off course. Bond used his disguise to get close to the atomic
reactor. While everyone’s attention was centered on the preparations he
overloaded the atomic reactor. While most of his minions fled Doctor No
attacked Bond. Their fight damaged the machinery and started a meltdown in the
nuclear pile. Bond knocked No unconscious and fled the area. Bond rushed
through the plant to find Honey. He finally found her staked out on a ramp near
the ocean.
They ran to the
island’s shipping center which a shipping port. Bond saw that Doctor No
had escaped from his underground lair and was running towards the boats. Bond
commandeered a crane and dropped its contents, a scoop of processed guano on
top of the fleeing Doctor No. Honeychile and Bond
found a boat and escaped the island before the atomic reactor blew up.
Bond had sustained serious wounds and had to
once again go on sick leave. He sent M a sarcastic thank you for the easy
mission.
According to Fleming after her relationship
with Bond came to an end Honeychile Rider went to
Miami and had her nose fixed. She became involved with her surgeon, whose name
was Wilder and eventually married him. She had two children.
John Pearson however depicted quite another
story[19].
In this version, Honeychile Rider did indeed marry a
doctor only to divorce him after a couple of years and take up with a much
older and richer man named Schultz. Honeychile
Schultz had been widowed by 1972 and was on the prowl for husband number three.
She had her sites set on James Bond. The years had transformed Honeychile from a strong quiet beauty that had educated
herself by reading the encyclopedia into a loud, brassy middle aged American
woman who avariciously seized what she wanted.
As Pearson noted at this time Bond was aging
and exhausted. He was tired of his life of constant stress and duplicity, in a
weakened state he seemed ready to fall into the clutches of this mantrap.
John Pearson had written a biography of Ian
Fleming and shortly after it had been published, he accidentally learned that
James Bond was not an entirely fictional character. Pearson doggedly pursued
his threads of information and soon found that his inquiries had not gone
unnoted by British Intelligence. Pearson was at first threatened with violation
of the Official Secrets Act. However someone approached him from the Ministry
of Intelligence who offered him the chance to write the true story of James
Bond, as told by Bond himself. The Ministry wanted their intelligence coup to
be known and they also wanted to control how the story would be told . They
knew Pearson would be cooperative.
The Ministry’s coup was in
“fictionalizing” Bond, that is to make the public at large and most
of the world’s intelligence agencies believe that James Bond was entirely
fictional. Since any accounts of the
activities of “James Bond” were regarded either mere rumor or some
sort of publicity stunt, one of the Ministry’s top agents could work in the
open without much chance of exposure.
Pearson believed that Bond had agreed to go
along with the biography out of a sincere desire to set the record straight. He
also thought that since Bond was thinking about retirement he wanted this to be
a fitting summary of his life.
Just prior to his pending nuptials Bond was
called away on a mission to Australia that involved Irma Bunt. He promised to
continue his chats with Pearson and also to return to Honeychile
Schultz.
Apparently he did neither. No specifics are
known of Bond’s mission to Australia to fight Irma Bunt and her mutant
rats. And we know that Bond did not retire in 1973.
During the course of his talks with Pearson
Bond had divulged that many foreign powers including the Russians had become
wise to the “fictionalization”. It is further interesting to note
that despite its title when Pearson’s biography was published it was
published as a novel. That is as fiction. The question arises why?
What was the real purpose of Pearson’s
biography and what was the truth about Honeychile
Shultz?
Although we will get into more detail in the
Never Say Never Again article the Pearson biography was part of a
Ministry of Defense disinformation and misdirection operation. John Pearson was
their unwitting accomplice in a plan to further muddy the already murky waters
of Bond’s life. It was designed to once again create doubt as to whether
Bond really existed, was entirely fictional or was series of identities used by
the British Secret Service. The other main purpose of the biography was to lay
the groundwork, for those who believed in the existence of Bond, that he was on
the verge of retirement.
When the biography was published as a novel,
because MI5 withdrew support prior to publication.When
a younger, more vital Bond appeared on the scene shortly after its publication,
great doubt was laid on the veracity of the account and on the existence of
James Bond as a true living individual.
While it seems quite true that the man that
Pearson met really was James Bond, much of what Bond told him about his life and
career was a carefully prepared blend of truth and disinformation. There was
just enough truth to have Bond’s account cast Fleming’s novels as
overblown exaggerations, just enough truth to make Bond’s account seem
like the “real story”. Providing ancillary proof of Fleming’s
exaggerations was the true person whom Fleming had based his characterization
of Honeychile Rider upon. The man hungry, twice wed Honeychile Schultz, who happened to be in Nassau just as
Pearson was interviewing Bond, gave Pearson a vivid picture of the
juxtaposition between Fleming’s works and the reality of Bond’s
life.
That woman was not Honeychile
Schultz nee Rider but rather a woman posing as such. Honeychile
Rider as stated by Fleming married a young doctor named Wilder and had two
children by him. She remained married to him and lived until his death in
Philadelphia. Honeychile Schultz was a fictitious
identity created by MI5 to bolster Bond’s account with Pearson and anyone
who might be spying on them. Honeychile Schultz was role
played by a United States Treasury Agent attached to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Firearms and Tobacco. Della Church was on loan from the US government, having
been vouched for by none other than Felix Leiter. Leiter and Church were close friends, such close friends
that this friendship would lead to the breakup of Leiter’s
marriage. Della and Leiter would be married, with
tragic consequences, in 1988.[20]
Although it may not have seemed like it,
Doctor No was a very lucky man, at least so far as escaping death. Like his
literary prototype Dr Fu Manchu, he was hard to kill. Because his heart was on
his right side instead of his left, he survived a Tong assassination, although
it cost him his hands.
As previously noted Doctor No fought with
James Bond in his control booth and was knocked unconscious, falling into the
cooling pond. The water revived him and he escaped from the control room as the
reactor went into a meltdown. He slid under the doors sealing off the room and
fled towards his shipping harbor. Doctor No had nearly reached a vessel that
would take him to safety when he was spotted by James Bond, who commandeered a
crane and dropped a ton of guano on him. Certainly being buried alive in a ton
of guano should have killed him. However his luck held true and he survived.
Just as his arrogance made him overplay his
hand and lose all he had built up, it also contributed to saving his life. The
badly made nuclear reactor sent tremors through the island because it not only
went into a meltdown, it caused various electrical overloads. The sparks
combined with natural gas and methane leaking from rents in the underground
caverns and caused several massive explosions that ripped through the island.
Doctor No had, despite warnings from his engineers, overly excavated the
natural caverns beneath the island, seeking to also mine the large deposits of
bat guano. The over excavation weakened the caverns in several places,
including under the port necessitating that they be shored up. The shorings crumbled loose when the tremors struck the island.
Doctor No happened to be in one of the weakened sections when the ton of guano
fell on him. The cavern ceiling gave way and Doctor No tumbled down into the
caverns beneath Crab Key Island. Normally the air would have been toxic from
the guano deposits but ocean water had already begun pouring into the tunnels
from various weakened areas around the island. More ocean water followed Doctor
No as the cracked section of the harbor widened. Doctor No was carried in a
rush of foul liquid of ocean water and guano and deposited out a crevice and
into the ocean. Not being able to swim because of his pincer hands, he knew he
would drown. And he would have had he not chanced upon a broken tree floating
near him. Using his pincers he was able grab onto it tightly and swing himself
aboard. He sat upon the log, which was forced further out into to ocean by the
currents from the emptying crevice.
For five days he drifted on the log and he
nearly died of thirst when a small fishing boat found him. Doctor No gladly
accepted their water and when he had recovered his strength, he used his
pincers to snip the carotids of his guests.
He used the boat to get to the Bahamas. Once
had obtained enough cash and supplies Doctor No fled the Caribbean, fleeing not
only MI5 but also SPECTRE. At first taking up residence in Thailand he gained
wealth by getting into narcotics, prostitution and illegal arms. Hiding from
SPECTRE he began using the name Han.Once he obtained
a fortune that he was able to purchase a small island from the Chinese
government. He had convinced them that his activities targeted the West to
bring about their eventual downfall. Ever wary of assassination he trained
extensively in martial arts and had the weapon maker Lazar create him specialty
hands that were deadly weapons.
Partially to recruit bodyguards and
partially to ferret out possible assassins, Doctor No, as Han, began having
annual martial arts tournaments on his island. The Hong Kong police department
had traced the majority of their narcotics, prostitution and gambling activity
to Han. They sent two of their best agents to infiltrate Han’s
organization but they disappeared. It was believed that they had been either
killed or co-opted. The Hong Kong Police tried their luck with outside help, an
renown martial arts instructor who had been contacted by Han with an invitation
to attend his tournament. Normally Lee disregarded the invitation; Inspector Braithwaithe urged that he accept it. Showing Lee, that his
sister’s addiction to narcotics and subsequent career in prostitution
were attributed to Han’s organization were enough to convince him.[21]
Lee accepted the assignment to gain access
to Han’s fortress. En route to Han’s island, he met two men,
Williams and Roper, both were fugitives from the United States and had accepted
the invitation to the tournament to get out of the country. However they did
not seem like the type to willingly join an organization dealing in narcotics
and prostitution, so Lee marked them as possible allies. During the course of
the tournament Han did attempt to recruit Williams, admiring his fighting
prowess and believing that since Williams was a black militant, he would could
be a suitable front man for operations in the United States. Williams rejected
this offer and was subdued. When he still resisted Williams was impaled on meat
hooks and lowered into a vat of acid.[22]
Having witnessed this Roper had second thoughts about joining Han. Roper joined
forces with Lee. Lee investigated Han’s operation. Underground tunnels
beneath his mansion contained cages of women awaiting transportation for
enforced prostitution. There was also a drug processing plant. Lee was forced
to kill one of the guards, who was one of the missing Hong Kong Police
officers.[23]
Lee and Roper sabotaged Han’s
operations and got a message to the Hong Kong police who raided the island.
During the course of the raid, Lee engaged Han in hand-to-hand combat, seeking
to kill him for the death of his sister. Their combat took place inside No’s
armory. No used his specialty hands, one hand was had four razor sharp knives,
the other had pincers with razor sharp edges. Lee, besides being younger, was a
much better martial artist than Doctor No[24].
He broke through No’s defenses several times despite No’s fierce
weapons. To gain some distance between Lee and himself No grabbed a spear and
used it as a slashing weapon. When Lee jumped back from No’s attack, No
used this opportunity to throw the spear at Lee. Lee dodged it easily and the
spear transfixed one of the panels in the room, revealing it to be a revolving
panel with access to another room. Doctor No ducked into the other room and hid
among a maze of mirrors. A fight in the room full of mirrors ended with Han
being kicked backwards and impaled upon the spear sticking out of the wall.[25]
Fortune once again smiled on Doctor No for
he had been impaled on his left side, entirely missing his heart. Regaining
consciousness only moments before an explosion destroyed his mansion, Doctor No
managed to hide in a secret passage in the caverns underneath his mansion until
the island was free of police and their prisoners. Although he was stuck on the
island, he knew that it would only be a matter of time before looters showed up
to sift through the ruins of his estate. He spent this time convalescing from
his wound. It was two weeks before anyone dared to show up. Doctor No killed
them and stole their boat.
Doctor No decided to relocate once more,
believing it would be unhealthy for him to try and re-establish his criminal
empire in Southeast Asia. Taking another page from Fu Manchu, Doctor No turned
his interest to the Middle East, foreseeing vast fortunes to be made in black
gold and various other enterprises. By posing as a Malaysian, Doctor No joined
and eventually came to control a Pan-Islamic terrorist organization known as Iblis.[26]
He claimed that his injuries had been caused by Christians and Jews, seeking to
stop his holy jihad. Elbis, like SPECTRE, carried out
acts of piracy, sabotage, assassination and terror for a price. Doctor
No’s goal was to increase the tensions between Israel and the Arab States
and also to increase chaos within the seemingly stable Islamic nations. (Iran,
Iraq, Syria) Doctor No learned of Maximillian
Largo’s failed attempt to irradiate much of the oil in the Middle East[27]
and decided to try something along that nature. He planned to destroy much of
the oil supply in the region by setting the oil fields on fire with fuel bombs.
Fortunately James Bond, with the aid of Fatima Khalid,
a Palestinian Freedom Fighter stopped Doctor No’s evil plan.[28]
SECRET HISTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS
© 2007 Dennis Power