This sequence, it needs to be stated, is recreated roughly faithfully in the 1969 movie adaptation of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which leans into the vacation setting with an authentic Christmas music written by John Barry and Hal David. But even in one of many few Bond films daring sufficient to finish on a downer after Tracy is murdered on her marriage ceremony day, the movie nonetheless glosses over the minute particulars that make the literary On Her Majesty’s Secret Service so revealing. Certain, a Christmas Eve chase throughout ski slopes is thrilling… however what concerning the day after such shenanigans when the chilly gentle of (Christmas) Day arrives like some ghost haunting Ebenezer Scrooge? That’s the place the ebook actually presents a window into Bond’s world… and maybe Fleming’s as effectively.
A Very James Bond Christmas
Whereas Fleming intentionally leaves imprecise what 007’s Christmas plans might need been if he wasn’t roped into infiltrating Blofeld’s winter sports activities stronghold, this omission is likely to be the precise level. A personality created to be a vicarious window right into a world of excessive stakes espionage, glamour, and intercourse by no means must be house for Christmas… as a result of when he’s the fact is a lot extra telling.
Certainly, the chapters in query set on Christmas Day start with Bond arriving from the airport out of Zürich, nonetheless reeling from his near-death expertise and what is likely to be construed as second ideas about proposing marriage to Tracy earlier that morning (on the flight to London, he has a nightmare about attending a swanky aristocratic operate with Tracy in high hat and tails). However that’s all spur of the second pleasure. Actuality units in as soon as again at house the place he has nobody to see him house for Christmas, save for his secretary Mary Goodnight.
Within the books, Miss Goodnight is much nearer to what followers of the Bond films may anticipate from Miss Moneypenny; she is Bond’s workplace confidant and flirting associate, and the one who reprimands 007 on the airport by saying, “As you’re wrecking so many different individuals’s Christmases, I believed I would as effectively throw mine on the slag-heap with the others.” In truth, she enjoys the distraction from lunch along with her aunt, however the reality James can solely condescend to her about not being house to stir the plum pudding (one thing she did weeks in the past), reveals how little James is aware of about precise vacation life.
Afterward, Mary drives James to first his flat, the place he’s unaware if his beloved landlady is celebrating Christmas or not, after which to the workplace the place a skeleton crew awaits his debriefing report. Lastly, he’s shuttled to a minimum of M’s house within the nation, which is revealed to be a stately little Regency period home on the Crown Lands by Windsor Forest. Bond spends the drive brooding over whether or not M obtained a particular deal from Her Majesty as head of the British Secret Service since 007 is aware of his boss solely earns £5,000 a 12 months, which even in 1963 couldn’t afford a house so close to Windsor Citadel.
In the end, these chapters provide a curious perception into the non-public lives of Bond and his employer. The 2 are maybe nearer than the primary a number of books counsel, with Bond being greeted with an “afternoon, James, Blissful Christmas and all that,” by M. The grasp of spies is on the time in his research and leisure, engaged on what we’re instructed is the “inventory bachelor’s passion” of portray watercolors of English wild orchids. We’re reminded that M was a vice admiral within the Royal Navy earlier than retiring for British Intelligence’s new, segregated function within the post-World Battle II period. However he nonetheless lives the lifetime of a seaman, if regrettably by timber as a substitute of water. His devoted former chief petty officer, a person named Hammond, even adopted M into non-public life, working together with his spouse as the nice man’s valet and chef, respectfully.
