Flight to Arras
Page 15
"Lacordaire! You take off at dawn. Ground-scraper sortie."
"Very good, Major."
"Better get some sleep."
"Yes, Major."
Lacordaire sat down again. The major went out, drawing Geley in his wake as if he were a dead fish on the end of a line. It was nearer a week than three days since Geley had been to bed. Like Alias, not only did he fly his sorties, but he carried part of the burden of responsibility for the Group. Human resistance has its limits: Geley seemed to have crossed his. Yet there they were, the swimmer and his burden, going off to the Staff for phantom orders.
Vezin, the skeptical Vezin, asleep on his feet, came teetering over to me like a somnambulist: "You asleep?"
"I ..."
I had been lying back in an armchair (for I had found an armchair) and was indeed dropping off. But Vezin's voice bothered me. What was it he had said? "Looks bad, old boy.... Categorically blocked.... Looks bad...."
"You asleep?"
"I.... No.... What looks bad?"
"The war," he said.
That was news, now! I started to drop off again and murmured vaguely, "What war?"
"What do you mean, 'What war'!"
This conversation wasn't going to get very far. Ah, Paula! Had air squadrons been issued with Tyrolian nursemaids we should have been put to bed long ago.
The major flung open the door and called out, "All set! We move out to-night!"
Behind him stood Geley, wide-awake. He would put off his "Yes, of course" until to-morrow night. Once again he would somehow find a reserve of strength in himself to help him with the wearying chores of our removal.
The Group got to its feet. The Group said, "Move again? Very good, sir." What else was there to say?
There was nothing to say. We should see to the removal. Lacordaire would stay behind and take off at dawn. If he got back he would meet us at our new base.
There would be nothing to say to-morrow, either. To-morrow, in the eyes of the bystanders, we would be the defeated. The defeated have no right to speak. No more right to speak than has the seed.
About the Author
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY, the "Winged Poet," was born in Lyon, France, in 1900. A pilot at twenty-six, he was a pioneer of commercial aviation and flew in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. His writings include The Little Prince, Wind, Sand and Stars, Night Flight, Southern Mail, and Airman's Odyssey. In 1944, while flying a reconnaissance mission for his French air squadron, he disappeared over the Mediterranean.