At the far end of the room was a ten-foot-tall carved stone fireplace surrounded by a wall of bookcases. And on either side of the fireplace, appearing as if sentries on duty, stood a pair of ancient suits of armor—the one on the right with a cigar butt strategically placed (one might say crammed) in its face shield, a battered USAAC cotton-twill-and-leather-brim crush cap set atop its helmet, and a woolen scarf in the Royal Stewart tartan pattern wrapped around its neck.
Around the room were arrangements of large and small circular tables, with heavy sofas and armchairs covered in age-softened dark green English leather. Like the bar, the sofas and chairs were filled with an animated crowd of drinkers and smokers.
Right next to the fireplace—and the dashing suit of armor—was one of the larger tables. Seated at it were Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens, First Lieutenant Charity Hoche, First Lieutenant Robert Jamison, Commander Ian Lancaster Fleming, Lieutenant Commander Ewen E. S. Montagu, and Major James David Graham Niven.
All were more or less still wet from the sudden rain shower. Beneath Charity’s tunic, her blouse, while already straining at the buttons to conceal her ample bosom, was just about transparent—and quite distracting. She appeared oblivious to the situation.
“What can I offer you gentlemen to drink?” Charity said. “Some of your country’s nice scotch, perhaps?”
She saw Niven glance at Montagu, who returned the look with a somewhat-serious gaze.
Niven turned back to Charity and—silently grateful that it was a pleasant experience to look her in the eyes and thus avoid gazing at her bosom—said, “That’s very kind of you, Lieutenant—”
“Please, it’s Charity,” she interrupted and smiled warmly.
He smiled back.
“Ah, yes. Right. Thank you, Charity. What I was going to say was, I believe we should touch on this bit of business before getting into all that.”
“No coffee? Or tea?” she suggested, then realized she was falling back to the hostess mode she had used so well in Washington.
“I’d truly like to get into the good stuff,” Niven said, “and the sooner we cover the business, the sooner that can happen. It’s preliminary and should not take long.”
“Of course,” Charity said, nodding understandingly.
She then turned to Commander Fleming.
“I seem to recall seeing you in Washington?” she said. It was more a statement than a question.
She saw Stevens nod, glanced at him, then back at Fleming.
“With General Donovan?” she added.
“That’s right,” Fleming replied. “But, no offense intended,
I remember addressing him as ‘Colonel Donovan.’”
“President Roosevelt,” Ed Stevens explained, “just gave him his commission, Ian.”
“Excellent,” Fleming said, smiling. “Well deserved. I’ll have to remember to send him a note.”
Stevens was aware that Fleming knew Wild Bill Donovan better than everyone at the table knew their OSS boss.
Ian Fleming—who came from a well-to-do family, his father a member of Parliament and his father’s father a financier with very deep pockets—had been a journalist and then a stockbroker. When World War II started, Fleming was already commissioned into the Royal Navy and serving under the director of Naval Intelligence.
In London, during one of the fact-finding missions to Europe on behalf of Roosevelt, Donovan had become very friendly with Fleming. Over many drinks at Fleming’s club (Boodles, founded in the eighteenth century at 24 St. James’s Place, and now mere blocks from OSS London Station), Fleming had shared his views on what did—and, more important, what did not—work in covert and overt intelligence organizations.
Donovan had been fascinated, and he eventually asked Fleming to draft a plan for what in his opinion he believed would be the most effective of all secret services. With this plan, Donovan began formulating his own structure, which eventually found its way into FDR’s hands—and became the working instrument for what would become the Office of the Coordinator of Information and then the Office of Strategic Services.
“I have had the genuine pleasure of visiting with Col—General—Donovan in Washington at his office,” Fleming said. “Most of our time together, however, has been over drinks at Boodles.”
Charity smiled warmly, showing a perfect row of beautiful white teeth.
“I thought I did recall you,” Charity said in her finest Philadelphia socialite voice.
Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens noticed that and he smiled. Her tone reminded him of the code name he and Wild Bill Donovan privately had given her: Katharine Hepburn.
Charity turned to Niven.