16 July 2024
Last week, I received a hand-knit sheep that I’d purchased online from an artisan who lives in Surrey, UK. That locale is not far from where my colonel, Arthur Carmichael, spends the latter half of 1940, until mid-January 1941. His mission has been training Free French soldiers how to parachute-jump and engage in guerrilla warfare.
When I opened the parcel, I was a bit surprised at the appearance of Larry the Lamb. He appeared to be wearing a Muslim skullcap.
She might be speaking in code, I thought. The English have been wont to do such clever things in the midst of their gouvernance falling apart on them. That Enigma machine just might have been re-vamped by much of the citizenry, over there, into a 21st-century form for the new, but very olde England.
The name of this shop contains the name, Rupert, and I very much believe that Grandpa Rupert, of the decoy-dummy, might, once again, be witnessing that unexpected, but always, pivotal, history in the southeast of England
I decided to give Laurence (as in Olivier) a decent head of woolie-ness. I’d purchased some skeins of woolen yarns several years back for tying-off quilts. The entire creature would be authentically Made in the UK!
As I pulled and looped and re-threaded the needle (after dipping the wool in a glass of water), umpteen times, I thought of My Colonel, and of the scenes I’ve worked hard to pull him through in the latest revised chapters of L’AUBE, the French version of THE DAWN.
I am enjoying my writing in ways that I didn’t get a chance to do 10 or so years ago. I didn’t have time, and I wouldn’t have taken the time, even if I could have found it. I was a fast train, moving. Thus it was with bursts of unexpected laughter that I appreciated the dry wit and understatement of Arthur, along with that of Belinda, his maid, or general servant in the early pages of Chapter 16:
Arthur arrived at the breakfast table promptly at seven. He mentioned to Belinda in a casual manner that Captain Howard would not be there for breakfast.
Belinda wordlessly removed the fourth place setting from table. She did wonder if that rude officer had gotten into a dust-up and was in the hospital. She usually kept her distance from that captain because, in her opinion, she had no time for him. She’d not an earthly of ever receiving proper respect from him.
Several minutes later, Belinda returned to the table with a large Blue Willow platter that was heaped with what was known as a fry-up: fried kippers, eggs, potatoes, and onions, with a sliced banger thrown in for good measure. English breakfasts were usually the largest, and heaviest, meal of the day. Arthur observed this greasy food and wished that, just once, he could enjoy a simple breakfast of a cup of coffee, some fruit, and a croissant.
I am resolutely endeavouring to get Arthur out of Chichester, England, and into France, where he can enjoy that lighter fare. That simple cuisine, not coincidentally, is also my idea of properly breaking the fast.
Arthur doesn’t parachute into Provence until Book 4, Operation Nottingham, where he is re-cast as Artur Boucher Carmichael, veterinarian of small farm animals. Before his mission in England, which leads to his SOE mission in France, Colonel Carmichael devotes much time, scrutiny, and emotion to the state of the French state, before 1940.
In Chapter 14, he reviews the preparedness of the French government to protect the nation from attack:
The Char B1 and the Char B1 bis (bis meaning brown) were manufactured in such minuscule numbers that the armored vehicles could not attempt any battlefield effectiveness. Even more crippling was the French military concept for use of the tank. The char was considered as an offensive weapon rather than a defensive one. The geniuses of the French High Command believed that all that was necessary for France to win a battle was to dislodge the enemy from the area of attack with their slow-moving chars. No problems were anticipated beyond the elementary operation of clearing away the threatening line of the enemy. If further action became necessary, a secondary unit could always be mobilized. The char de bataille, the battle tank, was envisioned by these elderly commanders as a mechanized broom which would sweep away the invaders from their line of advance.
Mobility was, at most, a secondary concern for these French war planners. The Char B1 bis was manufactured at an agonizingly slow rate and in the typically minute quantity. It was no faster than its predecessor, the Char B1. Both tanks were so severely limited in tactical and in strategic mobility that they hampered an entire military operation. Because of its meager size, the Char B1 had to refuel twice a day. Moreover, a little one-man turret was preferred simply because of its cheap cost. The commander was forced to command the tank, aim, load the gun, and fire it.
Arthur wondered why the commander was not also expected to bury the dead along the way. He felt angered and disgusted at this reckless, irresponsible, pie-in-the-sky thinking, if it could even be called thinking, by the French politicians as well as by the commanders within the French Army. Arthur had learned of the chronic lack of spare parts in the French military during the months of the Phoney War. He deemed the nationalizing of the armaments industry by the Socialist Blum government another feat of wrong-headedness that was so swiftly accomplished during this lovely lead-up to war.
Arthur would have pretty much the same furious response to l’État of the current day. A caretaker-government, with a reckless narcissistic dead-beat dad, who hasn’t matured enough to become a real father, is no way to run a ship of state. This toad is more of the foster-father, who takes care of the kiddies, just for the money. He’s a Welfare-King of pygmy size in terms of morality and decency.
The French people, however, have learned, through traumas, how to fare a whole lot better without a government, especially one where no legislation is being passed by the bought-off politicians. There’s a merciful break in the passage of laws that, ultimately, endanger them, les Français.
Revolutions, wars, peacetime, and every in-between those times have taught the French how to fend for themselves. They have, sadly, gotten used to the perilous fate of traitors-in-government. They know how to impose order upon chaos. In that sense, on any given day, the American patriots are at one with the French patriots.
The English, are quite another story. They like the tradition of order, and the order of tradition. And, really, who doesn’t?
The order of the day for the UK is not the fry-up. The French are the ones serving that petit-déjeuner, daily, to the rats “running” their ship of state. The Brits have now progressed to the phase of having their backs almost completely against that fateful wall.
The sheeple have no shepherd, save that of the Good Shepherd. I’ll trust in that Caretaker every day, and night.
This sewing project went fairly smoothly, without incident, until I left the work-table for a few minutes. When I returned, Jolene had jumped onto my chair, snatched Laurence from the table, jumped down to the floor, and, with her rolling gait, tail held high, carried off her prey/prize.
Mr. Sheep was returned to me to complete his hair-do, which I hope does not look too much like a bad perm!