ABSTRACT
One night with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the bar of the Siem Reap hotel in Indo-China, lying about my bravery that morning during a panther hunt, I remembered what André Gide had said about this almost legendary pilot of the Aeropostale Company: “A man keeps, like his love, his courage dark” Perhaps … but how much of himself had not this huge, genial hero of the dread Rio de Oro run revealed in his books Courier Sud and Vol de Nuit! How much does not any talented man tell, and better, who has a job that he is good at, and writes about it occasionally? I was to think of this again when, back home and concluding the extended and pleasant task of this compilation, along came a letter from a magazine editor who had learned about the book: “I am presuming to send you the galley proofs of a short story scheduled for appearance in the July issue of Adventure. The writer is new; he is a genuine sandhog writing of sandhogs and a tunnel. He’s a bit crude, naturally, but I think a comer. This yarn is his first tunnel story, and I more or less submit it to your judgment as a striking novelty than a literary piece.” And I hope you’ll join me in being glad that he did.
