Patrick Ellam was in the British army in World War Two when a notice said Officers are needed to volunteer to drop alone by parachute behind the enemy lines, so he went to Spy School where he learned burglary, forgery, silent killing and other useful things. Then he spent three years with the top secret Special Operations Executive, moving people and things from one place to another. You could call it smuggling. After the war he sailed from England to America in an 18 foot boat and spent ten years moving all kinds of boats from one port to another, which gave him the details that he needed to write this book.