The Sandbaggers at HMSS

Bondian Connections

Miscellaneous details...

Some parts of Ian Fleming's special world inevitably were also part of "The Sandbaggers", since Fleming and Mackintosh both came from Royal Navy and Intelligence backgrounds.

One of the ones I find most intriguing is the "open code" method of conversing with headquarters by telephone, used most notably in the novels Live and Let Die and From Russia, With Love.
If you don't recall, or are unfamiliar with it, here's an example from Live and Let Die, Chapter 9:

'Yes?' said the cold voice that Bond loved and obeyed.
'It's James, sir,' said Bond. 'I may need a bit of help over a difficult consignment.'
'Go ahead,' said the voice.
'I went uptown to see our chief customer last night,' said Bond. 'Three of his best men went sick while I was there.'
'How sick?' asked the voice.
'As sick as can be, sir,' said Bond. 'There's a lot of 'flu about.'
'Hope you didn't catch any.'
'I've got a slight chill, sir,' said Bond, 'but absolutely nothing to worry about. I'll write to you about it. The trouble is that with all this 'flu about, Federated think I will do better out of town.' Bond chuckled to himself at the thought of M's grin. 'So I'm off right away with Felicia.'
'Who?' asked M.
'Felicia,' Bond spelled it out. 'My new secretary from Washington.'
'Oh, yes.'
'Thought I'd try that factory you advised at San Pedro.'
'Good idea.'
'But Federated may have other ideas, and I hoped you'd give me your support.'
'I quite understand,' said M. 'How's business?'
'Rather promising, sir. But tough going. Felicia will be typing my full report today.'
'Good,' said M. 'Anything else?'
'No, that's all, Sir. Thanks for your support.'
'That's all right. Keep fit. Goodbye.'
'Goodbye, sir.'

    Bond put down the telephone. He grinned. He could imagine M calling in the Chief of Staff. '007's already tangled up with the FBI. Dam' fool went up to Harlem last night and bumped off three of Mr. Big's men. Got hurt himself, apparently, but not much. Got to get out of town with Leiter, the CIA man. Going down to St. Petersburg. Better warn A and C. Expect we'll have Washington round our ears before the day's over. Tell A to say I fully sympathize, but that 007 has my full confidence and I'm sure he acted in self-defence. Won't happen again, and so forth. Got that?'

Open code is used quite often in many episodes of "The Sandbaggers". A good, although shorter, example from the episode "A Question Of Loyalty" has Burnside and Wallace discussing an agent suspected of passing information to the KGB through "cutouts":

BURNSIDE: Mike?
WALLACE: Good evening, Sir. I've met up with the local storyteller (Station Chief Harry Maddison). Got the picture. But, I'm not sure what I should do next.
BURNSIDE: Are there complications?
WALLACE: No, Sir. It appears to be a straight A to B to C routing, and we know who D is.
BURNSIDE: Question is, then, Mike, what's going out along the route? If it's a bag of sweets we're all right, but if it's anything less digestible we're in trouble.
WALLACE: I appreciate that, Sir, but I don't see how I can find that out unless I make an interception; and if I do that I risk blowing everything.
BURNSIDE: Agreed; so don't intercept. Look, you might try to find out why B is in the chain at all. Why doesn't he go A to C - cut out the middleman?
WALLACE: Yes, Sir,  but...look, if I go in with both feet I could louse this. Is there any chance of my big brother (Willie Caine) taking this one?
BURNSIDE: No need for that. But I'll send you some help. Maybe the prettier one from Grosvenor Square. She's sure to have played this game before. (This is a reference to CIA agent Karen Milner, stationed at the American Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square)
WALLACE: Sounds good to me, Sir.
BURNSIDE: All right then, Mike. Keep me posted.
WALLACE: I'll do that, Sir. Good night.

As with Ian Fleming's literary Bond, and as in a number of the Eon films, the venerable Rolex Oyster Perpetual wristwatch makes a number of appearances-it seems to be very popular with spies. During the first series Burnside sports a genuine Rolex GMT-Master (left), but in Series 2 and 3 he and the Sandbaggers wear what appear (right) to be "knock-offs" - divers' watches in the Rolex style (economies on equipment at SIS,  or on props at Yorkshire TV? ). The CIA's Jeff Ross wears a Rolex Submariner throughout the series - as Burnside was fond of pointing out, CIA did not cut costs on anything; or perhaps Bob Sherman simply owned one...

"The face is familiar" department...
If fate has afforded you an opportunity to see this show, you may have spotted these crossover actors from the Bond films.

Fourteen years prior to playing "C", the head of SIS in "The Sandbaggers", Richard Vernon, as Colonel Smithers of the Bank of England in Goldfinger, briefed 007 and "M" over fine cigars and some "rather disappointing brandy". On the basis of his fine performance as "C" in "The Sandbaggers", EON could have done far worse than to consider Mr. Vernon when casting a replacement for the late Bernard Lee. Mr. Vernon died in December 1997.

Bob Sherman portrayed a USS Wayne officer in The Spy Who Loved Me, delivering three lines: "Get Roberts in the gyro unit!" "C'mon, sailor, get that hatch shut, quick!" and here, wielding a stopwatch as a torpedo is fired: "Shoot." Sherman, of course, played Jeff Ross for the entire run of "The Sandbaggers", and is rumored to have written a "spec script" for a proposed revival of "The Sandbaggers", for which Roy Marsden had supposedly obtained the rights, but was (it is rumored) unable to get backing. Bond fans may remember seeing him most recently as a doctor in the miniseries "Scarlett", starring Timothy Dalton.

Kim Fortune is not quite as lucky as our other crossover actors. He's the only one of these guys who never gets out alive: In The Spy Who Loved Me as an HMS Ranger officer, he's tommy-gunned by Stromberg's men while attempting to lead an assault on the shuttered control room. In Moonraker (right), played the RAF officer on the ill-fated 747 in the pre-credit sequence. In the episode "Decision By Committee", Fortune plays an Iraqi terrorist (left) who gets blown away by Willie Caine.

Gerald James, Director General of Intelligence (left) in the episode "Always Glad To Help", portrayed Professor Frazier, solar energy expert (right) in The Man With The Golden Gun.

The man at left portrayed a Russian cosmonaut in You Only Live Twice and is listed in the credits of that film as Laurence Herder. However, the little bit of him we see and hear leave me 99.5% certain that he is the same man who portrayed KGB Deputy Chief Nikolai Sarkisian (right) in the final Sandbaggers episode "Opposite Numbers" under the name Larry Hoodekoff.