Monday, October 3, 2016

Wyeth's war sonnets illustrated:~~~ 3. "Eu to Molliens-au-Bois: Motor Convoy" (a café on the Place Sadi Carnot in Eu)


Café du Tribunaux on left; Hotel de Ville on right.


               A café on the Place Sadi Carnot,
               and crowded trucks lined up along the square.
               "Vite, dejeuner, Madame--- une ommelette
               avec douze oeufs, compreee?"
                                                                    And halfway through,
               "They're cranking up!"
                                                        "Combien, quick---"
                                                                                            "Run, there they go!"




June 21, in Eu, just a few kilometers from the coast.  It is about 8.30 in the morning and Wyeth and his fellow officers are seated at some sidewalk tables with a view of the Place Sadi Carnot. 

Their most likely location is the Café du Tribunaux (shown in the postcard above from just before the war), as it is the largest café on the square, and able to seat the most officers.  Aanother possibility is the Le Grand Café du Paris, directly across the square, but it has only a couple of sidewalk tables.   

Thirty-seven British lorries, with a capacity of twenty men each, are lined up in the square, numbered consecutively on their side panels.  

Wyeth has only just placed his order when the drivers crank up the engines on their trucks and start pulling out, compelling Wyeth and the others to leap from behind their tables and sprint across the square to catch the convoy before it rumbles away out of town to the east. 


A wider view of the Place Sadi Carnot, with the Café du Tribunaux on the left, under the awning.

Café du Tribunaux on left; Hotel de Ville on right.



 Le Grand Café du Paris

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