Ernest Hemingway: The Road to Paris – August, 1944

By noon on the following day, Friday 25th August, the French 2nd Armoured were waiting to cross the Seine.

Hemingway, Pelkey, and his group of thoroughly drunk irregulars decided to get into Paris first and “…without being shot.”

While Hemingway was trying to get to the centre of the French capital, with the ugly Spanish girl sitting on his lap, the American top brass had become increasingly agitated at the time it was taking Leclerc to get his army into the city.

Patton had also had enough of Leclerc and the delays he’d caused his beloved Third Army. After consultation with General Omar Bradley, the commander of the American land armies, Patton ordered the remainder of the Third to turn north into Belgium. Bradley then ordered Hemingway’s old friend, Tubby Barton, and his battered 4th Division to assist Leclerc with his advance into Paris.

For Barton the order came out of the blue – he didn’t even have maps of the area, or of Paris. Barton was also ordered to get his men into neckties too – things they’d last worn back in England – ready for the triumphal march. As far as Barton was concerned the whole thing was turning into a French farce.

For Hemingway and his crew, who had just passed an exploding German ammunition dump (which reminded Pelkey of the 4th of July) the whole world seemed to be taking on a surreal edge, and it soon became clear to Bruce that Hemingway didn’t care if he lived or died, that all he wanted was to be with this mad crew of irregulars who had no discipline whatsoever and would’ve killed anyone who came near them, unless of course they were holding out a bottle. There was no order, and worse still, no responsibility.

Bruce now felt very unsafe in Hemingway’s company.