Читать книгу We Were Young and at War: The first-hand story of young lives lived and lost in World War Two - Sarah Wallis - Страница 57

The Lycée Racine reopened today and I have signed up for some summer courses. It won’t be like this for long but it’s quite shocking: no notebooks, no textbooks, no homework. Great or what! Lessons are from 9 till 11 in the morning, nothing in the afternoon. I can go up from the 5th to the 4th form without taking any exams because the head teacher ran away from the college at Verneuil and the Germans who’ve settled in there have taken everything. I found all this out from Yvette. She’s back too, I was so pleased to see her again. She told me that Mademoiselle Brachuet, the Latin teacher, was so scared during the bombing of Verneuil that she wet her pants. She was out for a walk with the weekly boarders and Yvette saw it all. I would have loved to have been there! It would have been revenge for everything she put me through.

There are 2,000 Germans in Verneuil as well as 9,000 French prisoners, 40 Scots and a few English. Everything’s been looted by those who stayed and by refugees passing through. The Germans have requisitioned most of the houses. The Flercks have a huge villa and they have four of them staying, which suits them fine as they get sent to do the shopping—the Germans don’t like to queue. The only annoying thing is that when the Germans are drunk, they sometimes go to the wrong room. Oh to be a fly on the wall!…

The Germans have launched a massive attack on the English from the sea. The English threw tonnes of oil and petrol onto the water and when their planes bombed the Channel it all burst into flames, along with the Bosches. Hip, hip, hip, hurray! At least the English know how to defend themselves! They won’t let their country be invaded while they’re busy making fine speeches, like spineless old Pétain.

The incident in the Channel was part of a deception tactic to make it appear that the shores of Britain were protected by a wall of fire, and as invincible to the Germans as Micheline hoped.

By 20 August, the RAF’s aerial defence of Britain was still keeping the invasion at bay. On that day Brian wrote to Trudie about his part in the events of the previous week.