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He said, "Yes--it's a very great pity. I had to come away before the water was fit to fish. It's not much good out there before the very end of May. Before then the water is all muddy and the rivers are running very full--the thawing snows, you know. Later than that, in August, there's apt to be very little water to fish in, and it gets too hot. The middle of June is the best time."

I turned my head. "You went out there this year?" Because the end of May that he had spoken of so casually was the time when the Germans had been pouring into France through Holland and Belgium, when we had been retreating on Dunkirk and when the French were being driven back to Paris and beyond. It didn't seem to be a terribly good time for an old man to have gone fishing in the middle of France.

He said, "I went out there in April. I meant to stay for the whole of the summer, but I had to come away."

I stared at him, smiling a little. "Have any difficulty in getting home?"

"No," he said. "Not really."

"You had a car, I suppose?"