UNDERGRADUATE PAGE Interlude Landaise

By ALAN URWICK, (New College, Oxford) ITLAIRE ! Hitlaire ! " The shout was echoed by half a score of eager French throats. Our force was small, but we were determined and armed jusqu'aux dents. It was true that some of the weapons had seen better days (in the Crimean War, perhaps), and that too few were fitted with safety- catches for comfort. But in a dangerous enterprise it is the stomach and the morale of an army which count for most ; both belly and brandy flask were filled to capacity. It was a sunny winter morning, and our hopes were high. If only that "Hitlaire! . . ." Again the sinister name, followed this time by a long-drawn wail which ran up and down the scale like an air-raid warning. Then from further up the line came the cry: " Voila Hitlaire." " Le voila," the words were repeated from mouth to mouth.

Eventually " Hitlaire " was brought to the doctor who led us in our enterprise. He introduced me to " Hitlaire," who was one of the strangest products of canine intermarriage conceivable. His ancestry was anybody's guess, and any guess had a good chance of being correct. His large ears flopped over a crookedly-set nose, and his eyes looked at you in servile abasement. " The ugliest dog in the Landes," the doctor said . . . " Well-named, heirs ? " I felt sorry for Hitler, but I could have spared my pity. For he also had his place and his peculiar pride. The army could not and would not start without him.

The preliminaries, the interminable argument as to where we should go first, and where the guns were to be posted, were at last over. It was time for the hunt to move off. Our quarry was the wild boar which inhabits the pine forests and thickets of the Landes. La chasse au sanglier had begun. The doctor did his best to arrange the field. His orders were lengthy and given in a falsetto voice. They were not understood and therefore not obeyed by anyone save himself ; but neither he nor anyone else seemed to mind. He looked a quiet little man, but he quite lost any bedside manner he might have possessed in the excitement of the chase. His headgear was curious. In shape it looked not unlike a jockey cap, but it was heavily reinforced with metal. He pointed out to me a small dent on its outer surface, and muttered darkly, " Le satzglier. . . ."

The field was a varied one. There was the local schoolmaster, a rich business-man up from St. Jean de Luz and a contingent of black-haired, olive-skinned Basques, farmers, small hotel- and shop- keepers and one or two junior government officials. The Basques had come many miles in a ramshackle lorry, which could only have been held together by supernatural forces. Most numerous were the local peasants of the Landed. They looked a hardy breed, the eager light of the chase in their eyes brightened by enormous alcoholic consumption in preparing for it. The hounds were very varied both in shape and size but had one trait in common ; they refused to obey anybody's orders throughout the day. This was not, perhaps, surprising, for everybody shouted at them simultaneously.

We had assembled on the edge of a large pine forest. The guns

posted themselves around the wood, while a few of the bravest accompanied the hounds which went in to draw the thickets. The next two hours passed entirely without event. Then the faint sound of a hound speaking to a line became audible. My only visible neighbour, an old Landais peasant, listened intently. " Hitlaire," he said emphatically, and, throwing down his wine-flask, seized his gun. Nearer and nearer came the cries of hounds. I could hear pantings and rustlings in the undergrowth. My neighbour now charged headlong into the wood towards the noise. I hesitated- c'est le premier pas a qui coate—and then followed ' his example fearfully. Would the borrowed gun really go off at the right moment and in the right direction ? And what would happen if it did not ? The noise was now tremendous. " How lucky you are to be so near the sanglier on your first day," the Landais shouted to me. I was not sure. It might be a dubious privilege. I remem- bered the dent in the doctor's hat.

We entered a small clearing, on the far side of which the hounds could be seen jostling one another at the foot of a large tree.

Their heads were all turned skywards. My neighbour advanced, cheeks aflame_ and finger on trigger. If his attitude was a trifle ridiculous, his determination was certainly sublime. All at once

I saw his features relax, the muzzle of his gun fell noisily on to one of his boots, and in a tone of terrible despair he shouted : "11 est mort." And indeed he was. There lying on the ground was the corpse of a large boar. To judge by its odour, it had been lying there for quite a long time.

The hunt gathered round this nauseous trophy. There was a heated argument as to who had shot it, and when. The early-

comers hurriedly cut off its feet. Newly dead or several weeks old, a "pate de sanglier " was still fail booty. But there was no longer unity among our ranks. The Basques blamed the Landais for our ill-luck. The Landais told the doctor what they thought of a man who could lead them only to a dead sanglier. The dispute, which became noisier and noisier, was suddenly settled by a local youth,

who rushed up in great excitement to say that he had just observed twelve sangliers (" douze s'il y en avail un") in a near-by marsh. This settled matters for the Basque element at least. They would leave " ces crapauds de Landais" to stew in their own juice. I followed..

Once more we were posted, this time along the edge of the marsh. To my right, some distance away behind a clump of trees, was a

Basque whose unqualified approval of the local vintage had left him a trifle unsteady on his feet. The time of waiting again passed pleasantly. The business-man told how that morning he had only been prevented from killing a fox " by the emergence of a hare from a wood. At the identical moment, you understand. Naturally, my aim was deflected." The schoolmaster refused a proffered drink. " I am probably the only teetotaller in the Landes," he said, and began a diatribe on drink which he never finished.

For suddenly we were deafened by the sound of a tremendous discharge. The drunken Basque was waving his gun above his head in great excitement and shouting, " I've shot a fox." It was the only time I ever heard a Basque guilty of an under-statement.

The hunt came hurriedly to the spot. There, about twenty yards from the stalwart hunter and at the edge of a thicket, lay the corpse not of a fox but of a mighty sanglier. The blood was trickling out on to the ground from a hole behind its left ear. "Au moins deux cent kilos," said the business-man with characteristic attention to accuracy. Basques and Landais were suddenly happily united. Honour had been more than satisfied. We staggered back to the village, dragging the corpse proudly behind us.

That evening the wine flowed at the inn. The room was crowded, and the atmosphere became very thick. Each incident of the chase was relived, embellished and pickled in the memory.

Whatever may be conditions in the towns of France, these Tartarins of the countryside have preserved their vigour. In them love of country is blended with a stout provincialism and that real equality which is the secret of French democracy. In their comradeship, the antithesis of Communism, is surely the hope of France.

I felt the pressure of a hand upon my shoulder. It was the killer of the sanglier, the marksman par excellence, the tireur du renard. " Venez prendre un petit verre, mon kune anglais," he said. We drank " d la chasse au sanglier." It was a good toast, and my heart warmed to him. I suddenly felt that I belonged here. Was this dream of a new Europe perhaps not so fantastic after all ?