Calls and calls again from French friends who want to tell me at length the story of their miraculous crossing in an overcrowded boat of refugees—and can I come to dinner? I am not sure that I can. I know by heart the story of the crowded boat—the thrilling details about air raids and magnetic mines—for the simple réa-son that TE is my own story, and fiat T have had exactly the same adventures. And to work is less tire ing than to find ow.
All this sounds at first like a bad some very easy scientific experiment requiring no explanation at all. Then he bat "I came. of course, to escape the Germans and to make myself useful here if I can. To wage a war, scientists are necessary. We will reorg ganize French scientific work in England, and concentrate on research connected with national defence. I came from Brittany with fifty soldiers and sailors. When I embarked on the boat the first thing I had to face was the barrel of a revolver aiming at my chest. 'A young officer who was going to England {o enlist did not obviously trust my good intentions. Two minutes later we were friends. Twelve hours later we were hungry together and thirsty together on that boat where we had no food or water."
asked another scientist who came io see me, "Why are you here?" He said: "T managed to get a plane and to take away from France at the last minute some of the most valuable materia], documents, plans and potents having to do, if I may say so, with scientific war, offensive and defensive. My own presence here is of no resi importance, but if these materials had remained in German-controlled territory the potential loss to the Allies would have been tragic. Now we can go to work again."
Men accomplish miracles in order to remain free. By what overwhelming instinct did this young, handsome pilot who was training in a Camp in the centre of France, far away from the news, feel the catas-trophy and tyranny? How did he make his plans? By car, by bicycle he reached the coast, and managed {o get near a boat where Polish soldiers were embarking. A Relish sol-Ser handed him a leather coat to püt over his uniform and a passport. Again I asked this man, "Why did you go?" because, as many of my comrades, I considered the old railway carriage where our victory had been signed as a French property. I don't admit that in that same car French plenipotentiaries should come io sur-Tender and should betray our wor:
All at once he had a childish smile, is another reason. I was very unlucky in this war. I was kept in a training camp far away from the front. A war against the Nazis cannot begin and end without somebody from my family doing his share in the fighting." 1 Nearly every day 1'see some of these pilots,' of these officers—calm, stubborn Frenchmen who carry on their personal quarrel with Hitler. Very soon their squadrons will be organized. Very soon they will defend the free British sky and attack the German sky.
The other night three of them asked me to join them. After a hard day of work they had gathered in a small drawing room in a hotel. On the table there were snapshots of women, of children, in soft leather frames; pictures of the wives, of the children of these three men, who lived somewhere in France without being able to send or to receive a letter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.