Fair Stood the Wind for France
“During World War II, [Bates] was commissioned by the RAF to write fiction about the war; Fair Stood the Wind for France…was one of the outstanding results.”
Time
When John Franklin brings his plane down into Occupied France at the height of the Second World War, there are two things in his mind: the safety of his crew, and his own badly injured arm. It is a stroke of unbelievable luck when the family of a French farmer offers them protection. The family’s courage derives from different sources. In Françoise, it was faith, a piety so humble and complete that the Reich could not touch her spirit. In her father, it was a glorious stubbornness; in her grandmother, a certitude born of surviving two wars. And in Pierre, it was hatred—a hatred so deep that only rarely did it flash on the surface.
All through the delirious pain of his wounded arm, Franklin felt Françoise’s presence like a cool, comforting hand. In the end, it was her courage and, above all, her faith that saved him—saved him not only from the enemy, but from himself.
Praise