Bad Meals — Good Stories
(From "La France Nouvelle,’ Fighting French weekly published in Buenos Aires, 11/6/43.) LGIERS restaurants are beginning to look like railway cafetarias. You find would-be clients standing round in the corners, glaring savagely at the diners who are near finished. After waiting for an hour I got a seat at the "Paris," one of thé three or four "best" restaurants in Algiers. Next to me is sitting a little R.A.F, pilot who asks me the stock question: "Well, are you glad we came?" While disposing of the three rounds of radish mingled with chopped fennel and crowned with a round of tomato which together constitute the fruity Aors d’oeuvre of this establishment, I also essay that more complicated task of explaining to him what people in — are thinking. But it’s too hard. I give up. So does he. The Aors d’oeuvre has been suc~ ceeded by a leathery piece of Bar swimming in watery sauce-this is the piéce de résistance (and how) of the menu. He confides that he is 22, a New
Zealander, by name John MacdAllister. He was the first Allied pilot to land on African soil, on Sunday morning. And only because his motor gave out. It was near Ain Taya, and his Hurricane had scarcely touched in a ploughed field when he saw a mob making towards him, civilians, and soldiers with weapons. "Yes, of course I had the wind up. I expected to be shot. But not a bit of it. Ten minutes after I was sitting in the kitchen of the nearest farm being plied with vin rouge, while mechanics dug about in the kite to persuade her another 20 kilometres on to Maison Blanche. "So I started to cheer up. And I cheered up some more on arriving at Maison Blanche; I expected to meet some French fighters there, and ack-ack. But the field was empty-all the French machines were in the hangars. Not a single one took off-that day!" z And John MacAllister passed me the yam-and-grape jam with a triumphant wink, Just as well that there are good stories to go with bad dinners.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 227, 29 October 1943, Page 7
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356Bad Meals — Good Stories New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 227, 29 October 1943, Page 7
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