The Tally Ho

               Danger Man Resigns!

                 by our own reporter

    News has reached the office of The Tally Ho today that ‘Danger Man’ John Drake has resigned his position within M9 {British Intelligence}. The reason given is unknown, although colleagues have told our own reporter that Drake had become increasingly concerned about the type of work he had been expected to do.

   Like 007 James Bond and Phillip Calvert, John Drake was recruited by British Intelligence from the Royal Navy, after it was proved that he was ideally suited to Intelligence work. Intelligent, quick witted, with the mind of a detective, both physically and mentally strong. These attributes enabled him to look after himself in a fight, and with the strength of mind to resist any interrogation technique.

    Drake travelled the globe, from London to Mankow. From England to India and the Middle East, and behind both the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. He has rescued scientists, retrieved forged £5 notes from the bottom of an Austrian lake. He once infiltrated the Blue Veil to combat slavers in an unspecified Middle Eastern Country. He broke up a Communist spy ring operating in London, through a book shop specifically selling Incunabula, books before 1501. Further more, Drake infiltrated Colony Three, located somewhere on the Russian Steppes, in order to discover why certain people were disappearing.

  Some of the assignments which Drake had been required to complete, he had not totally agreed with, going against his moral principles. You see other people’s dirty work. Someone has to do it. Someone’s got to – I suppose. And there was the affair of ‘The Black Book,’ when a General Carteret tried to use Drake to achieve his own ends in a case of blackmail. One thing is for sure, Drake took a very dim view of anyone trying to use him to achieve their own ends.

   So what now for John Drake? Official reports state that having stormed into an office, he shouted the odds at the first person he came to, slammed down his resignation letter on the desk, and stormed out. Apparently he then drove home. Gossip has it that he was going on a journey, perhaps to take a holiday. However, his car remained parked outside his house, the owner of which having completely disappeared! I spoke to neighbours across the street from No.1 Buckingham Place, some said they had been out at the time. Others said they hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. A Mrs. Braithwaite, a very observant woman said she had seen the man at No.1 arrive home, he’d parked his car and had gone into the house. But curiously Mrs. Braithwaite said, a hearse had been parked in the street a few minutes before the man at No.1 came home. Then two undertakers got out of the hearse, one opened up the back of the hearse, while the other went into the house. “The man of the house let the undertaker in?” I asked. No, she said, the undertaker let himself in. A few moments later he came out, and with the other undertaker carried a coffin into the house. “I thought it was a bit strange” Mrs. Braithwaite said “the way the undertakers arrived like that, almost as though they had been waiting.” I asked Mrs. Braithwaite what happened then. She told me that the two undertakers carried the coffin out of the house, put it in the back of the hearse and drove away. Strange she told me when only one young man lived in the house, and he had only just returned home a few moments before!

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