Almost exactly twenty-four hours before, James Bond had been nursing his car, the old Continental Bentley — the ‘R’ type chassis with the big 6 engine and a 13:40 back-axle ratio — that he had now been driving for three years, along that fast but dull stretch of N.l between Abbeville and Montreuil that takes the English tourist back to his country via Silver City Airways from Le Touquet or by ferry from Boulogne or Calais. He was hurrying safely, at between eighty and ninety, driving by the automatic pilot that is built in to all rally-class drivers, and his mind was totally occupied with drafting his letter of resignation from the Secret Service.
The letter, addressed ‘Personal for M.,’ had got to the following stage:
Sir,
I have the honour to request that you will accept my resignatio
