Free Monsieur le Commandant by Romain Slocombe

beautiful and the just, which gave rise to his missionary and charitable work; and the utopian, such as Equality and Fraternity.
    To satisfy his sense of honour and his need for something larger than himself, the Frenchman introduced the concept of Chivalry. Regardless of the nobility of his birth, the Frenchman was a born Knight in his respect for maidens, widows and all those weaker than himself (the Jews cleverly exploited this national trait to drag us into their war by persuading us to come to Poland’s assistance); in staying true to his own word; and in his penchant for selfless gestures and even futile loyalties.
    My gesture may have been selfless – if my daughter-in-law had not come to plead for my help, I would undoubtedly have stayed at home, contemptuous of the mass flight – but I counted on my efforts to bear fruit. The night had given me leisure to gather my thoughts and study the map. Avoiding Chartres and Le Mans (which could very well be quickly overrun in the event that Paris, sensing the German pincer about to close, abruptly gave way to panic), I decided to pursue our south-westerly route as directly as possible. And if the front continued to advance, and the rout deteriorated further, we could head southwards all the way to the Pyrenees. I had, and still have, good friends in Spain, both in the General Staff and the diplomatic corps. It also occurred to me that I could make use of Maréchal Pétain’s contacts, since he was a fellow Academy member and a personal friend of General Franco’s,and had made the best of impressions in Madrid. Having decided to remain neutral in the midst of the European upheavals, Spain could serve as a temporary safe haven for Ilse if she was really so terrified of the Germans.

    From Evreux, which we were obliged to circumvent, we reached Conches and the Ouche region, whose jittery population was packing up and readying to flee in its turn. Other runaways were arriving en masse from Vexin. The more the morning advanced, the more the roads grew clogged with vehicles of all sorts, while the village bells rang out the alarm everywhere continually. The wind of panic was blowing across my lovely farming country, thrown headlong and unsuspecting into war and exodus. Our farmers now joined the horde of northerners – Dutch, Belgians and Picards – who had been streaming by for days under their mocking or compassionate gaze. The situation was deteriorating from one hour to the next. The road to Verneuil-sur-Avre was already considerably congested with carts, horses and automobiles; that to Alençon, it seemed to me, was at a complete standstill.
    Disorganised units of the Tenth Army were pulling back, before having made any contact with the enemy, to join the chaotic tide of deserters of all ages and social classes. We encountered a long column of French military, led by light tanks that advanced with a grinding metallic noise, followed by a convoy of ambulances and mobile artillery, and an endless file of trucks in camouflage at the rear. Shortly afterwards, some thirty kilometres to our left, your air force pounded a military airfield, pulverising our planes on the ground and blowing up the fuel depots. Vast columns of black smoke rose above abandoned fields, where cows ran back and forth mooing in desperate concert, begging to be milked. The stench of burning permeated the air, adding to the stifling heat. We had not brought enough water and Hermionewas already complaining of thirst. I stopped at a farmhouse, where without compunction they charged us three francs a litre for well water.
    Outraged by the peasants’ greed, the refugees returned the favour by blithely helping themselves to fruit and vegetables in the field. In the small towns, I saw smashed windows and grocers’ shops looted by the crowds. I noted that even the disbanded soldiers participated in these misdeeds. At the wheel of our overladen car, now pinioned in one great traffic jam, I raged at the