Dingle and Jones are agents with SS(O)S.
That organization with the very sibilant sounding name, standing for Special Security (Operations) Section, is a very special department of MI-5 and is tasked with jobs that take its agents to all corners of the globe, not just inside the territories of the United Kingdom as most of MI-5. It is under the control of the Director, a man who has a name but who does not like using it at work. This very dominating man, of incredible keenness, still often looked less than the part as Dingle once described him 'affectionately' as a 'Old English sheepdog with a bald pate.' He was a tall, powerfully built man who had gained a good deal of weight with office duty and who had a huge bald head and bushy eyebrows. He seldom smiled but then his job seldom gave him occasion to do so.
Two of the agents that SS(O)S had were James Dingle and Glyn Jones. Some people in the organization might say they were his favorites and one in particular, Miss Peach, the Director's assistant, would insist that he coddled them too much. Dingle would likely shrug at either suggestion and Jones would, remembering the early morning summonses and the unbelievable missions they were sent on would have snorted loudly. The truth was that the Director used them for his toughest assignments because they found a way to get the job done and if that meant listening to Dingle's occasional wisecracks or Jones' complaints, so be it.
Of the two, James Dingle, of English descent, is the far more senior agent. In the first recorded adventure, The Power Bug, he was the man the Director sent to the Indian subcontinent to take care of the problem. He is described as about forty-two years of age though he might have been a few years younger (he wasn't). 5'10" in height, he "moved with the easy grace of an athlete". He had flecks of gray in his dark, close-cropped hair. His face was one which was neither ugly nor handsom but which made most men feel they could trust him and "had been known to make women wish they couldn't trust him." He had been an agent for at least a decade if not longer when he first met the man who would become his partner, Jones.
Glyn Jones had been working in Burma for a major British oil company as their head of security. At first Dingle's opinion was not too high, especially when they first met and Dingle decided "Jones the Oil' was just that - an oily man "with shiny, black cream-slicked hair and a greasy smile and a smoothly-lubricated walk". Dingle was in Rangoon investigating a matter that Jones had brought to the attention of MI-5 and that got eventually to SS(O)S. Jones had been in Military Intelligence during the "war" (like WWII) and was possibly younger than Dingle but if so, only a couple years. He clearly showed that he was brave enough when needed but with a well-working amount of common sense for not leaping into trouble.
Dingle's first impression of slickness disappeared shortly after being briefed by Jones as to what had sparked his suspicions and what Jones had done on his own since then. Nevertheless, at the end of their first meeting, Dingle still thought Jones too swarmy and Jones had firmly concluded he did not like Dingle. Those opinions would change dramatically when within a couple of days, each would have saved the other life.
At the end of the first adventure together, one which contains a mountain climbing excursion which was very well presented, both Dingle and Jones suffer physical handicaps, either of which could have ended their involvement with SS(O)S but their determination made would not have that and Jones returned to the U.K. with a new career and Dingle came back with a good friend and a new partner.