Flies and Beetles

In one or two of my earlier stories about life with the Free French Second Armoured Division I have referred to my friendship with an American Military Police Captain. We originally met at a rather dreadful social gathering organised by the American Army group of which we were part. I had been dragooned into going to represent our little band of English Quaker ambulance drivers(partly because I was Second-in-command but largely I suspect because I was the only one with an almost clean battle dress.) In order to make the jacket a little less drab I had pinned on a colourful fishing fly. This was of course totally against the rules but it went well with the French medal ribbon. I had chosen a "Peter Ross", which is fairly bright with a touch of red in it. It was one I had tied myself and as usual it looked rather less immaculate than a bought one.

I was trying to work out how to escape from what was a very boring occasion without upsetting the Americans when a very large American Captain spotted the fly and prodded it with one of his huge fingers. He said in an unmistakable Texan accent "A Peter Ross, I believe, bring your glass and come with me".

The boring "get together" was being held in a commandeered chateau and we escaped into the very beautiful gardens and settled down on a fine garden seat out of sight and sound of the proceedings The Captain, whose name was Al turned out to be the Commander of the Military Police detachment providing the security for the occasion. I explained who I was and how I was able to defy all rules about correct dress "That's fine" he said, "My mother is a Quaker and you will provide at least a couple of pages for my next letter home." He went on to say, "You must be a fisherman because that fly is home-tied and looks almost as woolly as those that I create."

That was how I met Al, whose surname I have long forgotten. He took me back to his Mess where he introduced me to the pleasure of Bourbon whisky, of which he always seemed to have large stocks. He was in charge of a large fleet of jeeps, vans, and staff cars and he showed me how they all carried rods, spare clothing and the other bits and pieces required for fishing expeditions. From that day on we always managed one or more fishing days on water of some sort during the R & R (Rest and Recuperation ) periods. I suspect that Al sent his men out to search the area for suitable streams or lakes.

The Mess cook provided marvellous food and drink, but Al told me that he had been a chef on an ocean liner and had got into trouble when found being slightly too friendly with the local French girls! Al managed to extricate him on the basis that if the Mess food failed to come up to a high standard he would go straight back to the French prison. When it turned out that he too was a fisherman there was nothing to spoil those perfect days fishing, often within earshot of a very violent war. I remember on one occasion we were sitting in the Mess going over the day's events and I mentioned that I had caught a lot of chub which, being inedible, I had thrown back. The chef was with us (Al ran a very easy-going Mess) and told me to bring to the kitchen EVERYTHING I caught because he could often make coarse fish into very acceptable dishes.

On one occasion I was lucky enough to catch a 23lb pike. We were fly-fishing and had no net so keeping it hooked and then landing it posed problems. It is very difficult to land a pike by grasping it just above the tail because the "wrist" is not much thinner than the rest of the fish, unlike a salmon. However Al's hands were quite up to the job and he hauled it out without, it seemed, any difficulty. The chef greeted it with real joy and the meal he produced (which fed the entire Mess) was a triumph.

Since our division was highly mobile and frequently operated miles ahead of the main force we often captured very interesting items from the Germans. One of these was a very early model of the Volkswagen "Beetle" the Peoples car. This one was produced for the army and was amphibious. The photograph does not show the propeller, but it was there protruding from the stem. As I was now operating with several ambulances crewed by Berber stretcher-bearers I needed a separate vehicle so the Volks was allocated to me. However my own headquarters were very jealous and made it clear that, in their opinion this interesting article should be based with the Central office which was always miles away from my very detached section.

During one of the "R and R" periods I was stationed at a village with a splendid pond. It was larger than such ponds usually are and could almost have been called a lake. It was about ten acres and Al and I decided that as it was not suitable for our sort of fishing it would be ideal for testing the sailing qualities of my Beetle. This coincided with a visit to my detachment of our "Top-Brass". They comprised my immediate superior officer to whom I was second-in-command. He was in charge of all the Unit's sections in Europe. This visit was officially to see how I was getting on because I was not very good at reporting our activities. Actually I strongly suspected they had turned up to overrule me and take possession of the Beetle. I had foreseen this and had made sure that the staff in the Colonel's office were alerted. The result was an absolute ban on the transfer leaving my visitors to depart empty-handed and very frustrated. This left Al and I to carry on with our sailing test.

The pond had a sloping piece of hard-standing down which I drove very slowly. Sure enough when there was sufficient depth of water we floated. I pulled the lever which I presumed transferred the drive to the propeller shaft. We began to move slowly but gracefully forward with a boat-like swishing from the stern. It was no speedboat but move it did and only a small amount of water came on board. Al called to ask for a turn in it so slowly and carefully manoeuvred back to the ramp. I got out and Al got behind the wheel. The machine had not been built for Texans but he did 'finally get settled and seemed able to get at the controls. He accelerated away going rather faster than I had done. The vessel seemed a lot lower with Al's weight in place and it soon became dear that the machine was sinking. He soon noticed the water sloshing round his feet. He was about thirty yards into the lake and we had no idea how deep it was . Al solved this problem by getting overboard to find out. As soon as his weight was removed the vessel rose up but the water already shipped was enough to make the leak continue. The trouble was with the gland where the propeller shaft went through the hull.

Al was up to his middle in water but seemed to have his feet on a firm bottom. It was a very hot day so neither of us was worried about getting very wet. Al was at the stem where he had climbed out so he grasped the transom and lifted. This stopped the water from going in but was incredibly heavy. Al called to say he would try to walk with the machine back to the ramp. That would have been fine if everything had been the same, but the mud on the bottom became more and more of a problem as it got slowly deeper and Al was visibly tiring.

By this time the shouting and general activity had attracted the villagers who thought the whole thing was a great joke. Al did not share this view and I tried to remain neutral. He was now moving very slowly towards the ramp where I was standing. It was beginning to be doubtful if he would make it though he remained determined to get himself and the Beetle to dry land. He blamed me for all his difficulties which I did not mind so long as I was not the one up to my neck in water. The villagers were full of advice about deeper and shallower places, but all contradicted each other viewing the whole thing as splendid entertainment provided by their gallant Allies.. Those watching the performance were mostly women and children (the men were either in prison camps or doing forced labour) but there was one very old man who could speak quite good English. He knew a lot about the lake and told me that the river, from which the lake was formed, ran along the edge of the lake where Al would step in the next few yards. I moved forward and shouted to him but it was too late, as I watched he slipped down what had been the river bank and disappeared from sight under the water. The machine splashed back onto the water but was hardly floating and almost immediately filled with water and sank. Meanwhile Al had surfaced but the sinking Beetle slid down the underwater river bank and knocked Al's feet from under him. This left both Al and the Beetle underwater!! Al soon appeared again and dreadful Texan oaths echoed to the four corners of the lake.

At that point Al abandoned the machine and splashed his way to join me on the ramp. My idea of Texas is a place where doesn't often rain but Al seemed to carry a large supply of dry clothes in all his vehicles. He was soon looking reasonably smart and dry again and we began to discuss the next moves. The divisional repair shop was used to handling large vehicles and we imagined that a waterlogged Beetle would be no problem, but it was not to be.

At this point a messenger arrived from headquarters. We were to be ready to move in two hours. Luckily I was all ready to go but Al had the whole of his section to collect up and to issue their orders. The best we had time to do was to ask the aged English speaking villager if he could possibly get a buoy of some sort fixed to our sunken vehicle and we would hope to return for it. Like the end of so many of these stories - we never did.