In Competition No 2556 you were invited to describe an encounter between Bertie Wooster and James Bond in the style of either P.G. Wodehouse or Ian Fleming.
They are two of the most popular characters in English fiction, but it’s hard to think of two more disparate ones; Bertie, the chump, always in some sort of soup and needing Jeeves to free him from unsuitable romantic entanglements; Bond, the spook, both gunman and swordsman, in a state of perpetual priapism. Nearly all of you chose Bertie as narrator, which is as it should be; I expect Bond will eventually go the way of the action heroes of my childhood Dick Hannay, Bulldog Drummond and Biggles — unread and unremembered save for his martinis and his 007 licence to kill — while Bertie, bless him, will live for ever.
The winners, from a big entry and printed below, get £30 each while the bonus fiver goes to Bill Greenwell.
Bond grimaced. He took a Morland Special carefully from his cigarette case, lit it, and drew the sharp smoke carefully into his lungs. He looked at the strange specimen in front of him. What a gadfly! He recognised the type at once, from his brief sojourn at Eton, before the unfortunate incident with the maid had terminated his stay.
‘Hullo,’ said the newcomer. ‘Sky raining the old potatoes, what? Or so I have heard my man remark. Ref to the Swan of Avon, I suspect.’
‘Now listen,’ said Bond, sternly. ‘And cut the cackle. Have you seen anything suspicious?’ He gripped his Walther PPK.
‘Some bally Hammedatha the Agagite prowling the premises, you mean? After the Wooster family s?’
‘Worse, I fear.’
‘Some inscrutable stinker casing the thingummy, eh?’
Bond heard a soft footfall, turned, and despatched the assailant with one bullet. It was done! Oddjob was finished.
‘Jeeves!’
Bill Greenwell
‘Who is this cove, Jeeves?’
‘He announced himself as Bond James-Bond, sir. He is enquiring about your club.’
‘The Drones! I hope you told him the waiting-list is the length of a croupier’s arm.’
‘I adumbrated the membership qualifications, sir. But he remained desirous of speech with you.’
‘Tenacious fellow, eh?’
‘Precisely, sir. And not, I suggest, one to be trifled with.’
‘We Woosters trifle where we will, Jeeves. Wheel the blighter in.’
Jeeves had, as usual, scented the wind from Asgarth. This chap could clearly cut several kinds of mustard. He reminded me of a man I knew who boxed at Oxford. Useful middleweight. Went nearly a round with ‘Have-’em-in-hospital’ Hobart. Pipkin? Paskins? I was still fishing for the pugilist’s name as we ping-ponged through the pleasantries. So I started like a galvanised frog when I caught the words, ‘There’s a sleeper in the Drones who must be eliminated.’
‘I say!’ I said.
W.J. Webster
Saturday found me motoring west for my school’s birthday bash. Slice Bertram where you will, at the core there’s a heart that beats for the Alma Mater. I refer to Eton, not the den of that hellhound Aubrey Upjohn.
I staggered into the tent on Sixpenny. ‘Mix me one of your very ripest. And a pen, please.’
‘You can borrow mine.’
The man beside me was a complete stranger. I lifted a stylish eyebrow and brushed an invisible speck from the irreproachable lace at my wrists. ‘Have we met?’
‘The name’s Bond, James Bond.’
‘Bond? The chap old Codrose caught under two boysmaids?‘ I signed the chit and clicked the pen-top.
‘Don’t do that!’
Spode could have told him that was the wrong tone to take with a Wooster. I clicked it twice and swallowed the brew.
As the smoke cleared, I stared at what remained of my glass. ‘Golly!’
Freddie Stockdale
Though Aunt Agatha generally displayed the fortitude of a Cromwellian fusilier, I felt her old noodle must be suffering incipient invasions of dry rot, summoning me to a weekend in Woollam Chersey just to meet some government blighter.
‘It’s a poor show, Jeeves,’ I explained. ‘It’ll be some pompous cove burning to eradicate cocktails or chorus girls. Why does she do it?’
‘I fear that is beyond conjecture, sir. Shall I pack the pale green herringbone?’
Actually it was Bertram who felt pale green on Monday morning, when the thought of eggs and b. made the Wooster gorge positively rise.
‘I believe, sir, that you and Mr Bond found ways of entertaining yourselves once the ladies had retired.’
How true. Bond wasn’t a priggish bore but distinctly on the rakish side.
‘However,’ continued Jeeves, ‘he will hardly do as a permanent acquaintance. He takes his martinis shaken, not stirred.’
Basil Ransome-Davies
‘A vodka martini, shaken not stirred,’ said the fellow ordering a snifter at the bar of the Drones.
I felt it my duty to intervene.
‘Excuse my butting in, but you should never shake a martini. Bruises the flavour. My man Jeeves is absolutely firm on the matter.’
He gave me the glittering eye, rather like the chap in the poem who stopped another chap and told him a longish story about an albatross. Fortunately he said nothing.
At this point the barman slipped me the word. Apparently, apart from being visibly a tough egg, built on the same lines as Roderick Spode, this bird was some sort of secret agent.
We Woosters are quick on the uptake, and I soon saw that Fate had dished out an opportunity not to be missed.
‘Would you care to help my Aunt Dahlia recover a cow creamer?’ I asked.
Peter Gasson
Competition No 2559: On target
‘Come, friendly bombs, and fall on …!’ You are invited to complete the poem with the target of your choosing. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to ‘Competition 2559’ by August 21 or email jamesy@greenbee.net (no attachments, please).
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