大象传媒

We had to lay a telephone line through Waterloo and had trouble getting the line over the road. So Bill Bennett tied half a brick to the end of the line and threw it over the tram wires. We were sitting on a bridge over the river monitoring the telephone traffic and as all was going well I went for a cup of coffee in a cafe. I was sitting at a marble-topped table when a Belgian priest joined me. He was about 30 years of age; he looked at me gloomily and in excellent English said bluntly 'You have lost the war'. Absolutely astounded and in sheer disbelief I said 'What do you mean, we haven't lost a war since 1066'. (Not mentioning that domestic scuffle in North America - that was an away match.) He looked at me and said 'You English are mad'. I wasn't being facetious or arrogant but unlike him, a Belgian who probably remembered the occupation in the 1914-18 war, it simply seemed inconceivable to me that we could lose the war.

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