Disclaimer: not mine, originally Ian Fleming's and now, I suppose, MGM's.
The first time Bill Tanner meets James Bond, he barely notices. It's a briefing at HQ, a room full of field and desk agents, and Tanner's busy passing documents to his boss and trying to make sure they're in the right order. He's not been in the job long, after all, and this is just one of many things he needs to get right.
There are a few questions from the field agents, about various small operational matters. Bond asks something about the CIA, and Tanner barely registers him at the back of the room. At the end of the meeting they are introduced, briefly, by Tanner's boss, and Tanner is fleetingly impressed at the rarity of meeting a double-0 agent before hurrying off to the next meeting.
They meet again, two years later, at the Christmas party. Tanner's been dragged along unwillingly, and he's at the bar finding out how bad the whisky is.
"Don't you have anything better?" he asks, grimacing after his first taste.
"No use asking," puts in a voice from by his side. "I've tried. It's rot-gut, but it's necessary rot-gut."
Tanner turns to look at the speaker, who smiles affably and holds out a hand. "Bond."
"Tanner."
"We met before," says Bond, throwing back half a glass of the terrible whisky.
"Did we?" Tanner sips, screws up his face, sips again.
"Some briefing on that Operation Ruby, couple of years back," Bond says. "Section 19, right?"
"Right."
"Christ, that was a mess," Bond says. "I said it was going to be, but nobody listened. Still in 19?"
Tanner nods. "Still there." He frowns at Bond, trying to place him, and succeeds. "007."
Bond finishes his glass. "Fancy getting out of here?" he asks, and so it is that, half an hour later, Tanner somehow finds himself drinking a much better whisky in a Soho members' club over a round of poker. He loses, spectacularly, to Bond and finds himself handing over fifty pounds to the other man at the end of the night.
When Bond is in London – which is rarely – they meet for cards or a drink, usually in an anonymous, discreet club or bar. Tanner has been with the Secret Service for years, but he is not a secret agent in the way Bond is. It takes him a while to get used to the way Bond always chooses a seat with sightlines of the exit, even if that means asking for a particular table; the way even on a warm evening Bond keeps his jacket on, to cover up the holster Tanner knows he is carrying.
But Bond is good company. He has interesting stories, he is generous with his rounds of drink and, after a while, Tanner comes to think of him as a friend and not merely an acquaintance or a colleague.
When he gets promoted to Chief of Staff Bond turns up at his new office with a bottle of Dom Perignon. "Congratulations, Bill. Well deserved," he says, handing over the bottle.
Tanner examines it. "Good lord, James, this must have cost you a fortune."
Bond shrugs.
"Don't believe in saving. What am I saving for?"
"Retirement?" suggests Tanner, after a moment.
Bond laughs, short and humourless. "Enjoy the champagne, Bill."
As Chief of Staff Tanner suddenly finds himself knowing far more about his friend's life. It is a mixture, he discovers, of the mundane, the banal and the extraordinary. Bond can spend months in the office, doing little except read files, practise his shooting and spend hours being pummelled by the ex-SAS sergeant who is in charge of physical instruction for MI6. Then, at a moment's notice, he can be flying around the world on M's orders, putting his very life on the line for his country. It is the same for the other members of the double-0 section, of course, but Tanner does not know them in the same way he knows Bond – and Bond's operations tend to be tougher, more lethal. Bond himself is tougher and more lethal than his colleagues, and M knows this, and uses it. Sometimes, Tanner hates his boss for it, but most of the time, he knows that M is right to use Bond in this way.
Bond tends to make light of any injuries he picks up abroad. He conceals them well, hiding bandages under his clothes and barely wincing when he walks, but Tanner has read the medical reports. His friend has been put together and patched up too many times.
The mental scars are even harder to spot, unless you know Bond well. Tanner had not been Chief of Staff when the casino case in Royale-les-Eaux was on, but he has gone back through the files and read the psychiatrist's report, and he knows that for a while the death of Vesper Lynd pushed Bond to the brink. Vesper, and then Tracy, and really after Tracy Bond should have been retired.
Tanner has rarely had a stand-up row with M. He has a coolly professional relationship with his boss, who he admires, after all, but sending a clearly-traumatised man into the field pushes him over the edge.
"You should have looked after him!" he says. "Not send him halfway across the globe. He's not fit to be out there."
"He'll do the job," says M, looking at Tanner through cold eyes. "And he'll do it well."
"Will he?" Tanner says, standing up from his seat at M's desk. "Will he really? You know, I'm not sure he will, not this time."
He's been prepared for Bond's death for years, really, but the reality of it hits him hard when it happens. The news comes through, and he sits, numb, thinking of the drinks and the cards and the rare moments when Bond's smile reached his eyes and he really, truly let his guard down.
The obituary runs in The Times a week later, but it is months before Tanner can voice the question to M about getting Bond's name on the memorial wall. M, apparently, feels the same way and changes the subject. Both of them are hoping that against all the odds, Bond did not drown; that against all the odds, he will walk through the door again.
When he does, and when it's all over, the mission debrief done, Tanner goes to Bond with a bottle of Scotch.
"Just this once. To celebrate your return from the dead," Tanner says, as Bond examines the bottle critically before finding two glasses and opening it.
"I don't plan to make a habit of it," Bond says, lifting his glass to Tanner. "Thanks."
Tanner drinks, eyeing up his friend. He wonders if Bond means he plans not to make a habit of dying, or plans not to make a habit of resurrection.
He decides not to ask.