The Quest for C

"Mansfield Cumming was the first head of MI6 and he signed himself off as ‘C’ in green ink. Since then they have all signed off as ‘C’ in green ink. He had been in the navy but suffered from seasickness. He was in charge of Boom defence in 1909. There was fear that Germany was amassing troops to invade Britain and the secret service bureau was set up – the part that was to round up Germans spies in Britain was MI5 and then Cumming was in charge of the overseas network. It was just two men in an office sharing a secretary and they were supposed to set up a whole intelligence network. The fruits of their labours are MI5 and MI6. Apparently he would never start a meeting until he had finished his cup of tea – people had to sit and wait – one of life’s better lessons. At the start of the war in France he was visiting his son in France. They had a crash and he is supposed to have hacked off his own leg to free himself in order to help his son. His son died. After that he had a wooden leg and had to hobble around, but whenever a potential recruit came in he would stab himself in the leg with a paperknife and gauge their reaction. The reason I have chosen these five books, and the thing they have in common, is that they focus on exceptional characters. Here are a group of people, very unconventional in their approach, but who achieved results and certainly saved lives. In my opinion they were all pioneers of espionage, great figures who realised that sometimes the results were more important than the methods employed."