Sublime

Les vieux barbons d’ambassade redoutaient un peu le jeune hussard ironique qui se coulait si bien dans la société du pays. Il travaillait à une thèse de géographie sur les confins des empires. Il aurait aimé ne jamais quitter les sommets des montagnes, la profondeur des forêts, cette géographie de la désolation qui, seule, convenait à sa tristesse.

Walking along the ridge leading to Hillary Step, where the mountain face plummets 9,840 feet down to Tibet on one side and 6,560 feet down to Nepal on the other.

In addition to the landing force, the fleet carried more than two hundred thousand tons of supplies, half of which were munitions. John C. H. Lee, it was said, always doubled whatever his staff thought the Army needed “just in case.”

The philosophy of the pinch was not confined to the British, and neither was the use of commandos. The enemy was making strides in these areas too. In the summer of 1941 Admiral Godfrey was interested to learn that when the Germans were on the offensive, the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, had ‘reconnaissance detachments’ right up in the front