Christopher Wood: James Bond and Moonraker

Inside the lower deck of the Moonraker a trained ear could have heard a faint vibration. All was in darkness. The whole structure of the craft trembled. Then there was another sound. A muffled, fizzing noise like a firework in a tin can about to explode. But the noise went on and on and there was no explosion. The noise did not get louder but there slowly came a faint glow of light that showed itself like a tiny slit mouth at the extremity of one of the wall lockers. The glow concentrated itself about the locked securing catch, which slowly began to turn red and then white hot. A thin column of black smoke rose in the air and the Metal began to buckle. Fifteen seconds passed and then there was a sharp crack and the locker burst open. Immediately the bright light that was revealed extinguished itself and the glowing metal faded rapidly until it lost its identity in the darkness. The shuttle continued to vibrate through space and there was a rustle of clothing as a man’s legs swung from the locker. A thin torch beam probed the darkness and a laser welder was tossed on to one of the bunks. The light probed like an impatient finger and found what it wanted: the opening device on the opposite locker. This was swiftly pressed open and a second pair of legs swung into view.

The two figures that were revealed looked like hob-goblins in the quarter-light. Their tight-fitting black uniforms covered them from head to toe and were melded into pressurized oxygen masks with tubes that led from beneath the reinforced glass panels at eye level to two thin cylinders on their backs. They did not hesitate but moved instantly towards the foot of a spiral stairway. The first man to emerge led the way and began to climb. Above him was the control cabin of the Moonraker space shuttle.

In the cabin of the 747 the first officer rubbed his hands together ruminatively. ‘How we doing now, Dick?’

‘We just passed over Fairbanks.’

‘On schedule?’

‘Twenty minutes ahead.’

The first officer rubbed his hands some more and thought of how in a few hours’ time he would be walking his date back from the Italian restaurant. The winter fog would be fuzzing up the street lamps. He could hear their footsteps and see the breath in the cold air. He liked London in the winter. Most of all he liked the thought of what was going to happen once the prim counterpane had been stripped off the bed that was too small for sleeping but just the right size for everything else.

He felt the captain’s eyes on him.

‘I can read you like a book, Joe. I don’t think I ever flew with a —’

He broke off as he saw the first officer start forward in his seat.

‘What the —’

A light was flashing on the right-hand extremity of the control panel.

‘The shuttle ignition!’

‘There must be a fault in the system. Check the circuits!’

Before the first officer could obey the order there was a deafening roar and the 747 lurched as if swatted in mid-air by an invisible hand. The cabin trembled and the roar increased in intensity.

‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘The shuttle’s taking off!’

‘It can’t —’ The voice broke off as it was overtaken by the terrible reality. An eldritch wail nearly split their eardrums and a blinding light burned their staring eyes as if the door of a blast furnace had suddenly been wrenched open before their faces. The orbital engines of the Moonraker achieved full combustion and a ball of flame engulfed the cabin, scorching the screams out of the crew’s throats. Like an insect poised after delivering its deadly sting, the Moonraker shuddered in mid-air and the fiery exhaust from its tail continued to play on the cabin of the stricken 747.. Almost simultaneously it roared away in a steep climb. The nose of the 747 drooped and flames raced the length of the fuselage. Like a heavy cinder it started to fall out of the sky.

Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, K.C.M.G., alias M, gazed thoughtfully out of the window of his eighth floor office overlooking Regent’s Park. The office belonged to Trans-world Consortium but this was also an alias for an adjunct of the British Ministry of Defence which might have been termed—the Secret Service. ‘Might have been’ if M had nothing to do with the appellation. He would have found such terminology too showy and dramatic for his puritan, sea dog tastes. He preferred the obscurantism of Trans-world Consortium and had even regretted, though accepted the wisdom of, the change from the organization’s original title of Universal Export. He reached out across the redleather-topped desk and helped himself to a pipeful of tobacco from the polished brass fourteen-pounder shell base that served him as a memento of his naval days and a tobacco jar, in that order.

There was an atmosphere of brooding menace in the air that perhaps communicated itself from the clouds lowering over the park. Perhaps not. M was uneasy. He felt his eye drawn to the telephone on his desk as- if receiving some telepathic message that it was about to ring. Just below the receiver was a light that glowed red when a top secret call was being placed from the upper echelons of the Ministry of Defence. The light came on when kings died and presidents were assassinated.

As M watched, the telephone rang and the light glowed red.

M’s pulse did not change an iota. He held his half-filled pipe in his left hand and picked up the receiver. ‘M here.’ He listened to the urgent, harassed voice on the end of the telephone and the lines at the corner of his clear, grey eyes deepened. ‘Very well, Minister,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll get on to it.’ He replaced the receiver and paused to reflect for an instant before flicking up the switch on the intercom that connected him to his secretary.

Her voice came through immediately. ‘Yes, sir?’

M took a deep breath and spoke with a voice long since purged of all emotion. ‘Moneypenny. I want 007. As fast as you can get him.’

2

‘ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT’

The face was dark and clean-cut with a three-inch scar showing whitely down the right cheek. The eyes were wide and level under straight, rather long black brows. The hair was black, parted on the left, and brushed so that a thick black comma fell over the right eyebrow. The longish straight nose ran down to a narrow upper lip below which was a wide and finely drawn but cruel mouth. The line of the jaw was firm and ruthless.

The man was wearing a dark blue alpaca suit, a Sea Island cotton shirt and plain black shoes made for him by John Lobb of St James’s Street, London. His tie was black and hand-knitted and a trifle thinner than contemporary fashion dictated. But James Bond was impervious to the transient fads of the male fashion world. Such details were of no interest to him. He pulled out a gunmetal cigarette case and considered his fiftieth cigarette of the day. As he looked down at the scuffed metal he could almost see the report of his last medical check-up which M had slid across the desk, one eyebrow raised above those damnably clear grey eyes:

The officer admits to a daily consumption of alcohol in excess of half a bottle of spirits of seventy proof or above. He also smokes an average of sixty non-filter cigarettes per day. These cigarettes are specially made for him from a mixture of Turkish and Balkan tobaccos with a higher nicotine content than ordinary brands. On examination, this regimen [Bond smiled at the recollection of the word ‘regimen’] is beginning to have the expected effect. The tongue is furred. The blood pressure raised at 180/100. The liver is becoming palpable. There is no diminution in the frequency or severity of the occipital headaches referred to in a previous report. The spasm in the trapezius muscles has increased in intensity and the ‘fibrositis’ nodules are becoming more manifest.