When an Englishman and his tractor crossed the Channel from here, at Cap Gris-Nez, this week, local Frenchmen applauded and said it was very good publicity for tractors.
A Belgian swimmer had a go, but failed; a young Canadian girl swimmer succeeded; an Englishman – also a swimmer – came ashore from a motor-boat, covered himself with protective grease in front of admiring French families, and plunged in for the return journey.
Then came a lull. Larks grated in the sky, a paper kite hung caught in the telephone wires; geese honked; an elderly German couple staying in a small white hotel with a steep pink roof had a dachshund that sat at table with them; in the evenings an old man milked his cows in a field, at night the lighthouse on the Cap lit up fields and derelict German concrete bunkers.
Suddenly came a report that two French swimmers were about to make a Channel attempt. French Channel swimmers are rare. Apparently the two men were staying at the Bar Welcome, in Calais.
A peasant
The Bar Welcome was near a dyke by the port. The patron and his wife said the swimmers were not actually staying with them, but were around. Big tins of protective lanoline were by the door of the bar. We found the two men at last on their escort vessel, which was moored by some tugs, and shouted to them.
They climbed up a metal ladder on to the quay. Both were from Nantes. M. Georges Montilly, aged 34, who works in the town hall, a short, well-covered man, with dark hair and a straight nose; and M Adrien Mabileau, aged 39, who described himself firmly as a peasant, and works on a farm near Nantes, a man with the same build as his friend, but bigger with a red face and red-brown hair going grey. They told how the night before they had had to call off an attempt in the early hours because their escort vessel had decided it was too foggy.
Montilly said that he did the breast-stroke, Mabileau the crawl, but that both went about the same speed, and had swum 100 kilometres together more than once in the Loire. Montilly had three children, Mabileau was a bachelor. They were making this attempt during their annual holidays and had to finance the whole thing themselves. They had been training under a Dr Tessier, who had prescribed for them vitamins and other ‘dynamic products’. During the swim they would eat chicken and a lot of bananas We would be welcome, they said, to see them set off from la Plage de la Siréne, Cap Gris-Nez, at 2 a.m. next day.
The swimmers turned up on the beach well before 2 a.m. It was windy. Between them they had one suitcase, which they put down on the beach. The suitcase looked lonely.
In their party was a muffled-up official with cap and huge dark moustache, who would time the swim, and a friend in an enormous jersey. There was also a Negro, who turned out to be a former European middleweight boxing champion.
The wind was cold. Families of campers, including small children, joined the crowd. One man had a yellow sou’wester, white cap, and rimless glasses. He was very busy with advice. There was no sign of the escort vessel. At last a light appeared well out to sea, in the wrong place. It stayed there for hours despite the furious signaling from the beach with torches and car headlights.
‘It’s too bad,’ said the man in the enormous jersey. ‘Those two boys are paying for the whole thing themselves and neither has much of a salary. They can’t delay until tomorrow because the tide will be wrong.’
For four hours the two swimmers signaled and walked about the beach with a sad, rolling gait. Occasionally they rested in a car. Their suitcase looked more lonely than ever. There were some large bats. Dawn came at last, it began to rain, and there were mournful cries from sea birds. Then, suddenly, we made out a small mauve shape a mile out to sea: the escort vessel.
Wet coat-tails
Montilly stripped down to blue swimming pants with black stripes, revealing plenty of good, heat-retaining flesh. Mabileau had green pants, and was much hairier, which seemed and advantage. They put their clothes in the suitcase, took out goggles, and then pasted bright yellow lanoline all over their bodies. At 5.45 a.m. they waded into the waves, with French photographers following, wetting their coat-tails.
A small white outboard motor-boat took out the timekeeper and the man in the enormous jersey to the escort vessel. The weary crowd left the beach. We turned back once, and could just make out two tiny dark heads bobbing on the grey sea.
Cross-Channel togetherness by John Gale was published in the Observer on 4 August 1963
