Swimming Aboard a French Destroyer to Join Free France

After the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, Romain Gary leaves an English ship by swimming to a French destroyer. The crossing does not end in a simple change of allegiance: although the destroyer is bound for England with twelve Air Force sergeants joining Charles de Gaulle, he dives back into the sea when remaining aboard would mean helping with potato peeling. The episode makes his commitment to continue the war coexist with fury at Britain, and gives that conflict a wry, resolutely personal turn.

Background and Stakes

The narrator’s response to the attack is shaped by a French identity formed through his mother’s idealized stories of France. Her patriotic vision had, he recalls, sheltered him from doubts about the country and its military leaders. Yet he had also learned that France’s history and national belonging were more complicated than that protective picture: the French Air Force had recently excluded him from a flying-officer commission because he was Russian-born and had been naturalized too recently.

The attack at Mers-el-Kébir brings these strains together in an immediate decision. The narrator is on an English ship but cannot bear to remain under its flag after Britain has attacked its French ally. In his account, the impulse to reach the French tricolor is at once a reaction to grief and anger and a movement toward the country he has long treated as home.

The Swim to the Destroyer

Having spotted a French destroyer, the narrator strips off his clothes and plunges into the sea. At first, rage and confusion overwhelm him; as he swims, the distance—two kilometers—gives him time to calm down. He concludes that the British attack, however inexcusable, demonstrates England’s determination to continue the war, and that this remains the decisive consideration. He therefore does not abandon his plan to go to England.

Near the destroyer, he pauses, spits into the air, and continues to its companion ladder. An Air Force sergeant on deck is peeling potatoes and greets the naked swimmer without apparent surprise. The incongruity of this ordinary chore against the shocks of France’s defeat and the attack on its fleet lends the scene its dry humor: even in a moment of national crisis, the practical details of shipboard life intrude.

Aboard, Then Back to Sea

The sergeant, Caneppa, explains that the destroyer is not returning to North Africa. It is bound for England with twelve Air Force sergeants who are joining Charles de Gaulle. The narrator and the men agree in condemning the British attack, while also recognizing that England intends to continue the war. Their agreement lets him distinguish anger at Britain from the larger decision to keep fighting.

Caneppa invites him to stay aboard, both to spare him the need to sail under the British flag and to help with potato duty. The narrator weighs this unexpected offer and decides that the work is too undignified for him. He waves farewell and dives back into the water. The refusal does not reverse his resolve to reach England; it punctures the solemnity of the choice with a comic assertion of personal preference.

Consequences and Significance

The episode presents allegiance not as an uncomplicated response to a flag, but as a choice made amid conflicting loyalties. The narrator is appalled by Britain’s attack, yet judges that continuing the war matters more than his indignation and maintains his intention to go to England. His brief encounter with Caneppa and the twelve sergeants confirms that the French destroyer is itself carrying men toward that same struggle, even though the narrator does not remain aboard it.

The swim also sits in contrast with the maternal patriotism that had first formed his attachment to France. His mother’s stories had made the country a kind of fairy tale; later experience, including exclusion from an officer’s commission, exposed the gap between national ideals and institutional treatment. At Mers-el-Kébir, however, his instinct is still to make for the French flag. The episode gives that attachment a more complicated shape: a choice to persevere without pretending that France’s allies, or France itself, are beyond reproach.