Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Flight to Arras

Copyright 1942 by Harcourt, Inc
English translation copyright 1986 by Harcourt, Inc
Introduction copyright 1986 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Saint Exupry, Antoine de, 19001944,
Flight to Arras
Translation of Pilote de guerre
Reprint Originally published New York
Harcourt, Inc., c1942
1 Saint-Exupry, Antoine de, 19001944Biography. 2 Authors, French20th centuryBiography 3 Air pilots, MilitaryFranceBiography, 4 World War, 19391945Aerial operations, French 5 World War, 19391945Personal narratives, French
I Title
PQ2637 A2747.47313 1985 848' 91209[B] 82 22524
ISBN 0-15 631880 6

eISBN 978-0-547-53960-7
v2.0113

Surely I must be dreaming. It is as if I were fifteen again. I am back at school. My mind is on my geometry problem. Leaning over the worn black desk, I work away dutifully with compass and ruler and protractor. I am quiet and industrious.

Near by sit some of my schoolmates, talking in murmurs. One of them stands at a blackboard chalking up figures. Others less studious are playing bridge. Out-of-doors I see the branch of a tree swaying in the breeze. I drop my work and stare at it. From an industrious pupil I have become an idle one. The shining sun fills me with peace. I inhale with delight the childhood odor of the wooden desk, the chalk, the blackboard in this schoolhouse in which we are quartered. I revel in the sense of security born of this daydream of a sheltered childhood.

What course life takes, we all know. We are children, we are sent to school, we make friends, we go to collegeand we are graduated. Some sort of diploma is handed to us, and our hearts pound as we are ushered across a certain threshold, marched through a certain porch, the other side of which we are of a sudden grown men. Now our footfalls strike the ground with a new assurance. We have begun to make our way in life, to take the first few steps of our way in life. We are about to measure our strength against real adversaries. The ruler, the T square, the compass have become weapons with which we shall build a world, triumph over an enemy. Playtime is over.

All this I see as I stare at the swaying branch. And I see too that schoolboys have no fear of facing life. They champ at the bit. The jealousies, the trials, the sorrows of the life of man do not intimidate the schoolboy.

But what a strange schoolboy I am! I sit in this schoolroom, a schoolboy conscious of my good fortune and in no hurry to face life. A schoolboy aware of its cares....

Dutertre comes by, and I stop him.

Sit down. Ill do some card-tricks for you.

Dutertre sits facing me on a desk as worn as mine. I can see his dangling legs as he shuffles the cards. How pleased with myself I am when I pick out the card he has in mind! He laughs. Modestly, I smile. Pnicot comes up and puts his arm across my shoulder.

What do you say, old boy?

How tenderly peaceful all this is!

A school usheris it an usher?opens the door and summons two among us. They drop their ruler, drop their compass, get up, and go out. We follow them with our eyes. Their schooldays are over. They have been released for the business of life. What they have learnt, they are now to make use of. Like grown men, they are about to try out against other men the formulas they have worked out.

Strange school, this, where each goes forth alone in turn. And without a word of farewell. Those two who have just gone through the door did not so much as glance at us who remain behind. And yet the hazard of life, it may be, will transport them farther away than China. So much farther! When schooldays are past, and life has scattered you, who can swear that you will meet again?

The rest of us, those still nestling in the cosy warmth of our incubator, go back to our murmured talk.

Look here, Dutertre. To-night

But once again the same door has opened. And like a court sentence the words ring out in the quiet schoolroom:

Captain de Saint-Exupry and Lieutenant Dutertre report to the major!

Schooldays are over. Life has begun.

Did you know it was our turn?

Pnicot flew this morning.

Oh, yes.

The fact that we had been sent for meant that we were to be ordered out on a sortie. We had reached the last days of May, 1940, a time of full retreat, of full disaster. Crew after crew was being offered up as a sacrifice. It was as if you dashed glassfuls of water into a forest fire in the hope of putting it out. The last thing that could occur to anyone in this world that was tumbling round our ears was the notion of risk or danger. Fifty reconnaissance crews was all we had for the whole French army. Fifty crews of three men eachpilot, observer, and gunner. Out of the fifty, twenty-three made up our unitGroup 2-33. In three weeks, seventeen of the twenty-three had vanished. Our Group had melted like a lump of wax. Yesterday, speaking to Lieutenant Gavoille, I had let drop the words, Oh, well see about that when the war is over. And Gavoille had answered, I hope you dont mean, Cap tain, that you expect to come out of the war alive?

Gavoille was not joking. He was sincerely shocked. We knew perfectly well that there was nothing for us but to go on flinging ourselves into the forest fire. Even though it serve no purpose. Fifty crews for the whole of France. The whole strategy of the French army rested upon our shoulders. An immense forest fire raging, and a hope that it might be put out by the sacrifice of a few glassfuls of water. They would be sacrificed.

And this was as it should be. Who ever thought of complaining? When did anyone ever hear, among us, anything else than Very good, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Quite right, sir. Throughout the closing days of the French campaign one impression dominated all othersan impression of absurdity. Everything was cracking up all round us. Everything was caving in. The collapse was so entire that death itself seemed to us absurd. Death, in such a tumult, had ceased to count. But we ourselves did not count.

Dutertre and I went into the majors office. The majors name was Alias. As I write, he is still in command of Group 2-33, at Tunis.

Afternoon, Saint-Ex. Hello, Dutertre. Sit down.

We sat down. The major spread out a map on the table and turned to his clerk:

Fetch me the weather reports.

He sat tapping on the table with his pencil, I stared at him. His face was drawn. He had had no sleep. Back and forth in a motorcar, he had driven all night in search of a phantom General Staff. He had been summoned to division headquarters. To brigade headquarters. He had argued and wrangled with supply depots that never delivered the spare parts they had promised. His car had been bottled up in the crazy traffic. He had supervised our last moving out and our most recent moving infor we were driven by the enemy from one field to another like poor devils scrambling in the van of a relentless bailiff. Alias had succeeded in saving our planes, saving our lorries, saving the stores and files of the Group. He looked as if he had reached the end of his strength, of his nerves.

Well, he said, and he went on tapping with his pencil. He was still not looking at us.