The hard tangle of events was smoothed away, too, with his fear. As he knelt watching her the feeling of being watched and followed by someone no longer meant anything. He knelt there looking at her sideways, watching her black hair curl against her face, and the lips firmly and quietly set in the shadow of her hands. She did not speak for a moment or two either. He felt small because of her simplicity and the great assurance behind the simplicity.

‘I had faith that you will get away safely, and I know that it can happen.

Françoise waits for Franklin in the church & he finds her there, praying for all of them, She arranges for a doctor to see his arm & the scene where they go to the village to see him is full of tension. The young woman, Françoise, & Franklin soon become close. The airmen can’t be sure that the family will not betray them to the Germans & the family must rely on the airmen to do as they’re told & take no risks. If the Germans find them, the airmen would be taken to a prison camp, the family would be shot.Īt first, there is distrust on both sides. Franklin realises how dangerous their presence is. They come to a mill where a young woman doesn’t hesitate to take them in, feed them & hide them until her father can arrange for their escape. When their food runs out, & Franklin’s injury is slowing them down, they realise they will have to ask for help. They set off to make their way south to Spain & home. Franklin lands in a marsh & while the others are uninjured, his arm is badly damaged. The camaraderie of the crew is quickly established as a routine flight home almost turns to tragedy when an air-screw comes loose & they have to make an emergency landing. It’s the story of John Franklin, a bomber pilot & his crew, forced to land in Occupied France on the way home from a raid. It gives the story such tension & immediacy, the same kind of immediacy I get from reading diaries & letters of the period.įair Stood the Wind for France is by H E Bates, probably better known these days for his Darling Buds Of May novels about the Larkin family. I love reading a book where the author didn’t know how the war would end.

Reading the many Persephone titles written during WWI & WWII has spoiled me for modern fictional recreations of those times. I also haven’t read any non-fiction for some time, George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia was the last, over a month ago. I’ve found myself mostly back in the 19th century with occasional forays into the early 20th. Apart from Bertie Plays the Blues, I can’t remember the last modern novel I read.

Fair stood the wind for france