Fair Stood the Wind For France by H E Bates

Fair Stood the Wind For France by H E Bates

Treacherous mud clutched at the wheels and the Wellington up-ended. End of mission. The great bomber had been giving the crew trouble since leaving Italy. Finally over occupied France, it settles like a weary, wounded edge on what seemed to Franklin a hard, smooth field.

The five members of the crew, already closely bound together that even conversation was seldom necessary, were welded by the crash into a single whole, one tiny forged weapon in the vast territory of the enemy -- weak and ineffectual yet confident as only men can be whose minds are free.

Francoise's family accepted them calmly. In Francoise it was faith, a simple piety so humble, so complete that all the mechanized myrmidons of the Reich could not touch her spirit. In her father it was stubbornness, that glorious pigheadedness of the French peasant who won't be pushed around. In her grandmother it was a kinship with the infinite. Having survived two wars, she remained unmoved by the swaggering vainglory of the Nazi. And in Pierre it was hatred, a hatred so deep that only rarely did it flash on the surface.

It was natural that Francoise should be so strongly drawn to Franklin, the pilot. His gentle strength, his sensitive mind, the careful restrained warmth of his emotion found a calm, sure response in the simple innocence and candor of the girl. All through the delirious pain of his torn, wounded arm, Franklin felt the girl's presence like a cool, comforting hand. In the end it was her courage and, above all, her faith which saved him -- saved him not only from the enemy but from himself.

H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in Northamptonshire. He worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper before publishing his first book, The Two Sisters, when he was twenty. In the next fifteen years he acquired a distinguished reputation for his stories about English country life. During the Second World War he was a Squadron Leader in the R.A.F. The Darling Buds of May, the first of the popular Larkin family novels, was followed by A Breath of French Air (1959), When the Green Woods Laugh (1960), Oh! To Be in England (1963). His works have been translated into sixteen languages. H. E. Bates was awarded the C.B.E. in 1973 and died in January 1974.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780140012798
ISBN 10	0140012796
Title	Fair Stood the Wind For France
Author	H E Bates
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	1973-06-28
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.