John Brock
John Brock is a fictional British undercover agent created by Desmond Skirrow. He appeared in three fast-paced, witty, and irreverent spy novels written in the late 1960s. Like his creator, he is an advertising executive in London but also a part-time agent coerced by intimidating photographs to work from time to time for an secret department on the Addison Road run by The Fat Man. Brock is tough, witty, extremely competent, and supremely resilient. Even by fictional standards, he absorbs incredible amounts of physical damage at the hands of his adversaries before, after a few whiskeys and a few hours sleep, he is ready for his next fight against overwhelming odds and, quite likely, yet another beating.
At the time of his first appearance in It Won't Get You Anywhere, published in 1966, Brock is mostly likely in his early 40s, a large (at least 6'1"), tough, extremely fit man who had apparently served with British special forces in small boats during World War II, probably with SIS (Secret Intelligence Service} or SOE (Special Operations Executive). An elliptical reference to climbing Gothic church spires, a traditional activity of students at Oxford, indicates that he may have attended that university before his military service. He smokes cigarettes, drinks large whiskeys, prefers sweet white wine and Champagne to dry, and has an eye for the ladies, with whom, as is usual with fictional agents, he is frequently, though not always, successful.
My father taught me at his knee never to say no, for a refusal may offend. Whatever it is, he used to say, accept it at once and then, if necessary, reject it at leisure. I have always tried to follow this ridiculous advice and to teach it to the wives of all my friends. It never got me anywhere, of course, but I have always enjoyed the effort.[1]
In spite of the detached and witty restraint of most of his first-person narration, Brock can be both surly and truculent, especially when dealing with those he considers his adversaries. His usual response, although not always a wise one, to those attempting to coerce him is an inelegant, "Get stuffed!" Aside from that, however, he eschews profanity and vulgar language, letting his actions express his emotions. He is, in fact, disrespectful and mistrustful of almost everyone in authority. Upon being ordered to visit The Fat Man at the beginning of It Won't Get You Anywhere,
I pushed open the front door in Addison Road and walked past Det.-Sgt. Pratt. But Pratt had been replaced, and a newer, bigger, keener copper shoved the thick arm of the law across my throat.... He was confident as well as keen, and he flipped as though he was greased. I grabbed his throat and dangled him against the panelling.... I punched him low and let him slide.... "I'm Brock," I said. "I didn't want to come here, and I won't want to come the next time either." [2]
Brock keeps his Volvo in a garage "under a block of cocktail cabinet flats behind the King's Road," where a "Volvomaniac" mechanic has spent years tinkering with it to maximize its preformance. "Many more of your modificatons," says Brock, "and I'll be the fastest thing between any two filling stations on the road." [3] Brock's preferred arm is an enormous single-shot Kruger Hawkeye Special that shoots .265 Magnum shells. The shells are expensive, "but it is the nearest thing to an elephant gun under twelve inches."[4] Unless he is "non-operational with fright", he carries it in his luggage. Brock says that he can reload it fast enough, but that, in fact, he has never had to shoot it twice. "The Kruger is designed to make such a spectacular stew of anything it hits that it stops most fights stone cold dead."[5]
Why then is Brock working for The Fat Man