Templars on Trek E-Book

Otto Lohmüller

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Jungpfadfinder Tempelritter Gengenbach
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 277

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The Knights Templar in this book do not wear armour, but Scout uniforms; they are fresh boys of the Panther and Seagull patrols on their Whitsun trip in the south of France. But with the same pride as those medieval warriors they wear the Knights Templar cross, along with the scout lily, as a symbol of their troop name. None of the boys would have dreamed that they would be drawn into a tremendous adventure through this. Who is the mysterious Dark One? Where did Torti go? Are the riddles solved at the Cathar Castle? This is not a fictitious story; it was really experienced, and is described to us in a gripping manner by Otto Lohmüller, the leader of the happy band, who also contributes the illustrations and expressive portraits as well as the painting and the design of the title.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to my two sons David and Adrian, through whom I immersed myself again in the boy scout world.

David

Adrian

Foreword

Thoughts about the second edition

The story within this book happened 26 years ago, which is why I am writing this introduction for better understanding. It was at a time when you were talking by looking into someone‘s eyes and not by typing letters into a mini device. There were places where you could be alone without fear of being torn out of silence by a ringing sound - places of silence, refuge, freedom. You weren't accessible around the clock and everywhere you went; you were closer to Nature.

Despite the tendency of many youth associations at the time to become more and more political and to downgrade the boys and girls to sexless ‘kids’ (young goats!), and although there was a growing overprotective care in some families, girls were still allowed to be girls or, like us, boys; boys were allowed to flail about, play the fool, tease each other, but when things got serious, they could also be devout, even downright sacred. They were allowed to win, to be victorious, to learn to lose without going under. Laughing at someone was frowned upon. The boys respected each other, were allowed to dream with red cheeks, were allowed to rejoice in their bodies, were allowed to run, cavort, throw themselves into the water, throw mud at each other on occasion, build dams in small streams and break them open again. Your freedom allowed you to jump into the water with free legs, without having wet and cold material glued to them for hours afterwards. And when they were among themselves, they plunged naked into the water. Back then, it was a matter of course. There were no weird looks at your comrades. The time was not poisoned by unfounded suspicions; the citizen was not stirred up by ideologies, by prudish thinking.

After the difficult years of the Second World War, and after the poverty of the post-war period, life had become easier, society had become more liberal and more permissive. In that age of lightheartedness, the receptive reader is taken back and can understand bright, adventurous thoughts. The happy boys will take him away to their still-not-completely-lost world. There is still space around our campfire.

Enjoy reading this book

With good wishes to you,

Otto Lohmüller or Otolo or ‘Zeus’

Table of Contents

The Seagull and Panther Patrols

Departure and downpour

Roland, Charlie and his senior scouts from the ‘Avventura’ troop

The scouts in their gorge

Barbu and his secret

A Hard Decision

The campfire and the Knights Templar

Where is Torti?

The message in the Knights Templar Chapel

On the way to La Couvertoirade

Fulfillment at Puilaurens Castle

Lots of cliffs and Torti’s pride

The circles are closing

Chapter 1

The Seagull and Panther Patrols

There I sat again for the umpteenth time on the banks of a magical tributary of the Ardèche in southern France. Me, a 46-year-old donkey and father of two sons who, a few years ago, let himself be persuaded to take over the management of a group of lively boys aged 11 to 13, the scouts. I used to be an avid boy scout and in a sense remained so all my life, but as time went on, I had ...

“Ottooo ...?!”

Nestor, a boy of the Panther Patrol with big eyes under thick glasses and striking buck teeth, interrupted my thoughts.

“Ottooo ... can I go down with Ringo and break stones?”

“You’re on kitchen duty!”

“Yes, but I've already fetched wood, and Tiger is helping Jurgen cook.”

“You can go and smash stones.” For him, that meant looking for fossils. We had already conjured up the most beautiful fossils from the black stones out of this gorge.

Nestor trotted off with Ringo.

“But be careful not to hurt yourselves!” I called after them.

This warning was well-founded, because our clothes, which could have protected against stone splinters, left a lot to be desired in this heavenly solitude and in this spring warmth. The dress code was actually zero in the truest sense of the word, although in uniform we could be seen, actually, as a very smart group of scouts.

Usually the boys wore either a blue Scout neckerchief with their khaki shirt or the orange neckerchief of the Wolves, and the coral-red beret or, depending on the weather, the well-tried scout hat crowned the boys’ heads, even with the most dishevelled hair. This outfit was adorned with the Scouts’ blue lily badge, the insignia of Germany, the cloth coat-of-arms of earlier trips to France and Italy, the Patrol ribbons and animal symbols of the Seagulls in blue-red and the Panther in green-black as well as our own troop’s coat-of-arms, the Knights Templar cross – the red cross, with split ends, on a white background.

An earlier generation of scouts had chosen the name ‘Templars’ for the troop on their first big trip, but as they were boys, not knights-in-shining-armour, they chose to omit the word ‘knight’ from their troop name. This happened in the environment of weathered Templar ruins on a rock core of a remote loop of the Ardèche gorge. In doing so, they had shown a good feeling for this Mediterranean landscape, which was intimately and inextricably linked with the glorious, but ultimately tragic history of the Knights Templar.

With the first point, ‘landscape,’ which is timelessly existing relative to human life, and the second point, ‘Templars,’ who strongly influenced the fortunes of this region for two hundred years during the Middle Ages, the boys, in naming our troop, fatefully added a third point ‘Jungpfadfinder / Youngpathfinder / Young Scout / scout’ as a direct reference to the present. ‘Three’ had also been the sacred number of the Templars. Since then, we have been magically drawn to these regions, and time and again we have come across the history and remnants of the Knights Templars, often completely unexpectedly.

On our trip this particular year, however, the drawn triangle ‘Landscape-Templar-Scout’ would have an astonishing and extraordinary meaning for us. We would, almost inevitably, become involved in an adventure that was drawing us towards an unknown and mysterious destination.

The trip back then, on which our present-day routes were almost subconsciously planned, was also the first trip for me after my decision to take over the young boy scout group. What could be more natural than to go with the boys to a place that I knew very well and which offered everything: wonderfully wild landscape with rocks and water, different people of another country, but nevertheless seclusion, and enough warmth at Whitsun to swim and sleep outdoors too!

We all knew our home territory, the Black Forest in southern Germany, from many small hikes and activities. Therefore, the boys were completely enthusiastic about the idea of going to the south of France to hike through the Ardèche gorge with a backpack and tent. In addition, my friend Charlie, today’s Leader of the 14- to 16-year-old ‘Senior Scouts’, jumped on this Boy Scout Express which was about to start. I’ll talk about his story in more detail later. Like me, he had been a boy scout before, and this way of life had also become a way of life for him.

“Ottooo ...?! See what a great snail I found in the stone!” exclaimed Nestor, an excited Ringo following after him, panting:

“Such bad luck, mine is actually much bigger, but unfortunately it’s completely splintered!”

“Well, you’ll have used too much strength there,” I remarked.

I had to grin, because Ringo, the son of a former sports comrade, looked at me completely aghast. His rather whitish body, partly sprinkled with freckles, seemed to me even more reddened by his eagerness, since it had already been coloured by the southern sun. His brace flashed at me as he added:

“But something like this always happens to me!”

He was right, because he had proven himself to be our little ‘Mr. Clumsy’ in the few days of our trip, with Diver and Torti sometimes trying to outdo him.

Diver had, unhappily, managed to lose balance and slip three times while crossing the river, so that he was running around constantly in wet clothes. The last time he finally made us happy by going completely under the water, so that from now on his real name, Torsten, was revoked and he was now only called ‘Diver’.

Torti, on the other hand, was more concerned with financial loss. At a ford, a gust of wind tore his scout hat off his head, which then swam away in the rapids. When he tried to catch it with a stick from the bank, he suddenly found himself, stunned, up to his neck in the water... with an “Oh”, his clothes and all the groceries. The hat he finally got back by swimming after it a few days later – “Man, I’m so unlucky” – during a night hike.

Nestor left with his snail treasure in hand, still getting the admiration from the kitchen staff – “Isn’t that an implement!” - and from the swimmers in the river, with whom he joined up after his success – “I’d also like to find a missile like that!”- .

Yes, it was a real lazy day, our sixth day on the move. Many small experiences had already welded us together. On the one hand it was the awkwardness on the river crossings or the joint effort while hiking, on the other it was the contemplative hours around the campfire or the willingness of the boys to help each other. We had slowly become a conspiratorial group.

... the management team with the second man, Jurgen, with the thunderous voice, an old, experienced warrior who was not knocked over by every little earthquake and who turned out to be a cook for the trip - “Jurgen, you are the River-Bokus for us,” Al said appreciatively, alluding to the famous French chef Paul Bocuse - and stood out as a driver as well.

... and me, Otto or Zeus, as I was called after the Greek father of the gods.

I roared fiercely, and Tiger performed a pagan spectacle with the huge pot lid and a log. “Food is ready, food is ready!” it echoed through the rocky gorge, and hungry mouths raced up from the river below to the tents to gulp down, in a cosy atmosphere, a hearty soup on their tables made of stacked stones.

Today, there was a strange vibration and foreboding tension among the boys, as you only know from eventful days. It was not the first time that we felt something like this, because we had been overcome by strange feelings days before. We knew it more precisely later: it was an omen of the events to come, which would leave their mark on our journey and lead to an unexpected adventure, which the boys will tell about years after growing out of their childhood.

Today we felt that even the birds behaved differently than usual, the crickets also seemed to chirp even more intensely, even the fish disturbed the smooth surface of the water more often by jumping, then splashing back loudly. A great uneasiness took hold of the boys. Like ants, they were constantly looking for new fields of activity, but were in no way quarrelsome or irritable, as one might easily assume.

Despite everything, they bathed peacefully, followed their ideas and helped each other. The short week of being together had already helped most of them become proper scouts, to such an extent that I had announced the day before:

“We will soon be looking for a nice, suitable place so that you can finally make your promise as a Young Scout.”

And that applied to almost everyone.

Torti glanced over at his neighbour, Diver:

“You can promise us straight away that you will give us a diving course.”

“You would say that, the boy who has hung his soggy ID and pocket money on the clothes-line to dry along with his clothes.”

“But my head wasn't under water, so only YOU can give diving courses. But if you don't want to promise that, you could at least promise to spare us your reptilian creatures. Your snake almost puked up over us with its nasty black stuff.”

“Did it hit you? Huh? Besides, you were very enthusiastic about the fat toad that I discovered and brought to you.”

Adrian mused quietly to himself:

“Oh, she had such beautiful spots, I would have liked to squeeze them.”

I interrupted the argumentative lads. “Just for once, I’d like to experience a situation where a serious matter is not immediately ridiculed by your silly jokes.”

“You’re only saying that now because you’d have liked to squeeze the spots yourself, maybe even sucked them out. I saw that your mouth was already watering.”

“Stop that now,” I tried to recover the seriousness of the moment in a low voice, but this was completely lost in the laughter that echoed brightly from the opposite rock walls.

After everyone had calmed down, I was able to suggest the following experiment:

“In order to get us in the right mood for the promise, we want to sit ourselves down in the shade, read the Boy Scouts’ Law and discuss the individual points.”

We had done that yesterday afternoon.

I would have liked some parents to hear the seriousness and zeal with which their so often unfocussed offspring took part in the conversation.

You felt the willingness of everyone, desiring to be good scouts. No one let himself be drawn into foolish jokes. To lighten things up, Jurgen, who took a little circular walk, appeared now and then on the high battlements of the rock face opposite, and to whom we waved back.

After the discussion, to which everyone contributed, I immediately started to have the usual confidential talks with the individual boys before the promise, while the others went swimming and jumping-in again.

After one of the first conversations, a boy said:

“Chris doesn't really belong to us.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked back.

“It’s as if he's angry about something; he wants to kick off straight away.”

“But he doesn’t really mean it”

“Sometimes he does!”

“Well, you’re not entirely wrong; I’ve already noticed that he never misses the opportunity to pick a fight. You know, he still wants to make the promise.”

“Yes, but he is still not one of us. Besides, he avoids any work, whenever he can.”

“I noticed that too. This is one of the reasons why I’ve already considered whether I should postpone his promise-making until our alpine hike in the Autumn. But don't you think he should get another chance anyway?”

“Every one of us is through with him.”

Those were plain words.

Indeed, things were bad for Chris within the group because he kept stepping out of line. What was particularly bad was the fact that nobody wanted to co-operate with him anymore. He no longer had credit with his comrades, for whom he was already an incorrigible outsider. His tentative attempts to join in the action and turn the tide in his favour have meanwhile run like water into the sand.

After thinking about it, I saw just one possibility for Chris:

“You should give him the opportunity to start over again. However, each individual would have to make a contribution to this, and we might therefore also find out what is going on with him regarding the scout way of thinking. I don't want to speak to Chris in front of the assembled squad because otherwise he would be too embarrassed. Question: Are you giving him another chance?”

“Okay! I don't want it to fail because of me.”

“Don't judge him right away if he has a little relapse; maybe even make him aware of it?”

“Yes, okay, okay!”

I took Chris with me for the next conversation. We strolled away from the camp, along the river.

“You know you are in a bad way?”

I was surprised when he realised:

“Right, so I’m not allowed to make the promise?”

“It almost looks like it, but you should get another chance, though, to start over with your comrades. I will talk to each one in private about their own problems and also about yours. Do you agree?”

“Yes, I would be happy myself if I could start all over again.”

“All right, it’s up to you. We’ll see.”

This turned into an extended conversation, and in the following days each boy agreed to do his part to help break Chris out of his impasse.

It was downright touching to see how the boys had been trying to help Chris since then, giving him help, deliberately ignoring the beginnings of a relapse but, on the other hand, also the efforts that Chris made as he volunteered to clean up unpleasant pots by the river, helped the other Patrol with collecting the wood and sometimes let himself be teased without the usual critical reaction.

Our two rest days were particularly suitable for all of these discussions. The days before had just been too strenuous for that, and I didn't have the time I needed, least of all at the very beginning of the journey. The tension among the boys had been so great that such profound arguments would not have been possible. In addition, at this point in time, some of them themselves still lacked the scouting ethos.

Chapter 2

Departure and downpour

Yes, how had this journey begun?

On the day of departure, we met at no less than four o'clock in the morning (when the righteous citizens of our medieval hometown of Gengenbach, asleep, usually roll over in bed with a satisfied grunt) at the foot of the Obertorturm, our scout tower in which we had our troop meetings, to finally begin the long-awaited journey.

“Great! How did you get hold of this fantastic Ducato minibus?”

Jurgen and I were just about to explain how we had succeeded when Torti teased about the bright red colour of the vehicle:

“All that’s missing is a ladder on it, then we can use it as a fire engine and go out and extinguish the fire.”

“Der, der, der, der,” Nestor immediately started trumpeting with the greatest enthusiasm, while Adrian aimed a non-existent water cannon at his comrades.

“Don't make such a noise, a light is already going on over there,” I tried to reduce the noise a little.

Then Torti added: “If there's a fire at night, the fire brigade has to sound the alarm right away; they can't wait until the last citizen in town wakes up, around noon, so that they don't disturb them!”

“Alright, alright. But do you see that there’s a fire somewhere?”

Laughing, the rucksacks were stowed in the ‘fire truck’ and the first seats were taken. Meanwhile, the worried parents looked for the last time on their loved ones, onto whom the usual questions and admonitions now rained down:

“Have you got the apples in your pocket?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Just don't forget to change your socks!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Do you have your lunch with you?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Don't always wear the same underwear!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Take good care of yourself!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Don't forget to brush your teeth!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Did you find your swimming trunks in the cupboard?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

I also joined-in: “Do you have the IDs in your pocket?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

After enduring these well-intentioned outpourings of the adults, who obviously felt an almost compulsive urge to harass travelling boys, it was possible to move on with the agenda, the departure. The Seagull and Panther pennants were draped over the luggage next to the rear windows, for a better look and to give our ‘fire engine’ a slightly more scouting touch. The emphasis here is particularly on the word ‘rear’ window, because at our speed as a Tatu-Tata vehicle you would only get to see us from behind anyway. After that, everyone in the seating compartment was busy stowing their haversack with the provisions and the sweets that Grandma had secretly hidden away, within reach if possible, and finally all that stuff was shoved between the jittery boys’ legs.

Eventually, calm returned to the stable and the pack drove on towards the great adventure, waving and laughing.

“Everyone down! We are being followed by a car,” Ringo called out excitedly, shortly after leaving Gengenbach.

“What? Does our spy thriller start now?”

“We live in Ohlsbach, and that’s only my mother who is going home now,” Diver re-assured us.

Thanks to Jurgen’s driving skills, probably learned from watching American TV thrillers, we soon left our last Mum behind and headed for the motorway, the French border and the Burgundian Gate. The boys had long been waiting for the adventure to start, but the further south we got, the quieter they became. Sitting in the passenger seat, I strummed my guitar softly and soon almost everyone was over in the realm of dreams. At the back, they lay across, over and under each other, like the disciples on the Mount of Olives. Everyone laid their head where it seemed most convenient. A lap, shoulder or a thigh were the most popular pillows to rest on. Patrick slept like an ostrich, his head tucked between his knees, and Al sat contentedly in the middle, grinning quietly to himself and sucking on his drinks bottle, seen by his comrades on both sides as an oasis of calm.

It had started to drizzle and, from the reflection of the headlights, the roadway shone in a thousand small lights that flashed briefly, only to go out again immediately. Due to the thick curtain of clouds, the night clung to the darkness for an unusually long time, and by the time daylight finally arrived the drizzle had turned into continuous rain which, the closer we got to Lyons, then turned into a heavy downpour.

“When it pours down like this, it’s no fun - are you sure you don’t mind driving?” I asked Jurgen, who had been driving all the way up to this point except for a short ‘water break’. “Shall I take over for a bit?”

“No, Otto, I don't mind at all,” Jurgen waved me off.

“But we should take a break.”

“Sure, I have to re-fuel soon anyway, then we can have a coffee at a rest stop and stretch our legs.”

So it happened, and the boys, none of whom wanted to go back to sleep, first rummaged through the small supermarket for unknown foreign sweets. Soon, in the wild, they would be completely starved in this regard. Then they stormed into the car park with a soccer ball to run round and ‘stretch’ their legs.

Fortunately, the rain was just having a rest while on our motorway island but after Lyon, on the Motorway-to-the-Sun, it took vicious revenge and slammed whole cloudbursts down at once onto the defenceless earth, which could no longer swallow this vast amount of water, so that we had to slow down in order to drive through huge puddles.

“Not much longer and we’ll have to convert the Ducato into an amphibious vehicle in some workshop,” I nudged Jurgen, who was focussed on manoeuvring us through this storm.

“Why not convert it to an airplane right away?” Jurgen fantasised further.

“Well, d’you think that our top speed is enough to get him up?”

Torti crowed loudly:

“Yeah, then we’ll fly to Corsica with our ‘fire service jet’ on firefighting duty and pee the big forest fires out from above!”

“Then you’ll have to get your stomach full of water beforehand. You need a lot of pressure to extinguish it.”

Torti countered this again:

“If our pressure is no longer sufficient we can throw you and Jurgen down as sandbags to smother the fire.”

“And who then acts as pilot when Jurgen and I are travelling as sandbags?”

“No problem,” said Torti, “I’ll take over the stick, I’ve even driven a moped without a driver’s license.”

“With Torti's moped driving skills, I'm just afraid that sooner or later you’ll all fly after both of us sandbags as even more sandbags.”

Ringo, who hadn't really listened properly, asked in horror:

“How many sandbags do you need for such a job?”

With that, he had all the laughs on his side.

As if to take part in the extinguishing operation, the next cloud poured on our ‘fire engine,’ which was returned to the former Sun- and newly-created Water-motorway in this banal way, without wings and/or paddle wheels.

“Oh dear, how are we supposed to find a reasonable campground for the night if this rain doesn’t stop?” I mused out loud to myself. “In such downpours, the water in the gorge rises so rapidly that everything is flooded. On an Autumn trip with Charlie’s senior scouts two years ago, we saw the water level in the lower reaches of the Ardèche rise to six metres, so that the plinth of the statue of the saint in the centre of the village of Saint-Martin was already washed by the water. But six metres lower down means twelve meters in the narrow gorge! In the summer, on such a peaceful river, you can hardly imagine such a water level.”

“Where did you sleep under these catastrophic conditions?”

“We went to the mayor’s place, and because the tourist season was over, we were allowed to use the mats in the judo-room of the local club there for two nights. Roland, a good old friend who we knew from previous visits to the Ardèche, also helped us.”

“We’ll probably not be able to ask the mayor this time because there are more people in the area during Whitsun,” said Jurgen.

“We don't want that either; we’re looking for a cave or an empty building, somewhere where we can stay over for a night. After all, we’re scouts.”

The overnight worries were justified because experience shows that the weather limit was at the height of Dijon, but no later than Lyons. But Lyons was already behind us, as was Vienne. So we were relatively close to our southern hiking area.

Full of gloomy thoughts we drove into the downpours; you’d have thought it could be evening again, it had become so dark by now. But there, below the thickest veil on the horizon, hard to believe, one discovered a somewhat bright shimmer which, the closer we got to it, became more and more yellow, the SUN!

And suddenly, at Valence, the heavens tore open, but so violently, powerfully and relentlessly that everyone was blinded and you could only see the castle on the white cliffs on the other bank of the Rhône if you narrowed your eyes to tiny slits.

With the sun came also the warmth, and with the warmth came the joy and pleasure of our journey. The boys were fully alert again, the louder ones chatted animatedly amongst themselves, while the quieter ones read comics or passed the time with a card game or mini-chess.

Suddenly the jackets, sweaters and long trousers that we had previously worn with good reason were too warm, which led Adrian to suggest:

“Jurgen, please drive off the road at the next parking place so we can change. I’m so hot.”

“Isn’t it soon enough at our destination? It’s not even 100 km to Bollène, our motorway exit.”

Jurgen shouldn't have asked that, because a multi-throated protest yelled him down:

“Shall we burn up in here?”

“Are we chickens to be grilled?”

“Heat stroke, heat stroke, ouch, ouch, ouch,” Nestor sang in between.

“Don't worry about that heat stroke nonsense from Nestor, I’m sweating like a pig” shouted Adrian, only to then ask Jurgen:

“Will you take responsibility if we all collapse?”

“Oh, because of a long pair of trousers, the poor children are going to collapse,” I added unnecessarily.

“It’s clear that you have to add something, of course. But it’s easy for you to talk, you don’t mind the heat. You could wear fur and long johns even in Central Africa,” Adrian kept on teasing me.

Ringo, who hadn’t really been listening, encouraged his comrades away to true storms of enthusiasm, when he indignantly rebelled:

“I’m not putting on long johns now; besides, as far as I know, I don’t have any in my backpack!?!”

So we drove to the next parking place.

In no time, unseen by the other visitors to the car park, the jackets and long trousers were torn off and replaced by short ones, starting with stylish cord shorts in natural colours, blue jean cut-offs, down to Adrian’s lederhosen, which were particularly robust for our hike in the wilderness. Every boy wore his own gear. Now we could be seen. At that moment, I was really proud of my mob.

The rest of the motorway was then just a matter of form, and we were already heading towards the famous Rhone bridge at Pont-Saint-Esprit. As we drove over that narrow, centuries-old stone bridge with the enchanting view of the city, carefully winding our way past the massive, inconsiderate trucks in on-coming traffic, that mood set in, which Diver aptly summed up:

“Finally we’re really on the move!”

It was exactly as he said.

However, there was something else in the air, probably a premonition of our upcoming adventure: a change of atmosphere that would intensify with each passing day. It was quite strange to see with what directness this oppressive and paralysing feeling overcame us as soon as we had arrived in the land of the Knights Templar. But the associated discomfort was blurred by the confusing impressions of the unfamiliar surroundings, not really taken seriously and easily shaken off. Nobody said a word about it.

Strolling through Pont-Saint-Esprit, the little Rhône town, we bought fresh bread, onions, garlic and cheese.

“Can we walk through the market?” asked Patrick.

“Okay, but the meeting point is here at this fountain in half an hour. We don't want to linger too long. Don't go to the stalls alone, go around in small groups. The Patrol Leaders are responsible for their Patrol.”

“D’you think we won't find our way back alone?”

“I think you can manage that as a scout. But with this mix of people, I just prefer to know that you’re looking after each other by being together. Not everyone is a friend of the Boy Scouts, whatever the reasons that made them their foes.”

“I can’t imagine that, we don’t do anything to anyone!” said Patrick, expressing the thoughts of everyone.

“This uniform makes you promise something, and some people don’t like that. You also know how easy it is to get picked-on, maybe just for fun. But if this happens in a foreign language, misunderstandings can arise and this could lead to unpleasant arguments.”

Jurgen and I treated ourselves to a coffee, then a pastis (an anise-flavoured liqueur), while the boys enjoyed the impressions of the southern market with items that are not so common in our native markets, such as artichokes, olives and peppers – also, just let the scents of lavender or the Provencal spices thyme and rosemary work on them.

When we were back in the van and had escaped the hustle and bustle, Torti began to moan:

“Man, in this sweaty box again, how far do we have to go?”

“Well, you have to expect at least five hundred kilometres ... if you want to go to Paris,” I kidded.

“I don’t want to go to Paris, I want to see the Ardèche!”

“Then take a look at the two large pillars in front of the Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche suspension bridge.”

In fact, by now we had turned onto a smaller side street, and the pillars of the high bridge could already be seen above the trees.

A howl of victory broke out in the poor tin car, which would have done an Indian tribe on the warpath great credit.

“Great!”

“Awesome!”

“Insane!”

“This is absolutely amazing!”

“The Tops!”

“Ardèche, Ardèche, wey hay” Nestor sang, cheering in his own way, which could not be accepted without a contradiction in spite of excessive joy.

“Oh, the boy with his wey-hay singing!”

“Don’t you know any other song?”

“Yes, then I’ll just sing Ardesch-Ardesch-Ardesch,” countered Nestor, proving to be ingenious in a simple way.

“Down with him!”

“Patrick, shut up!”

“Chris, sit on him so that his lungs deflate!”

“Al, stop him breathing!”

During these “crucify him” calls, we had landed in the middle of the single-lane bridge of Saint-Martin, crossed the bustling town centre and, after the village, admired the bizarre tower and pewter village of Aiguèze (pronounced: Aegas), high on the bright cliffs on the other side of the Ardèche.

“It’s a great village.”

“And how steeply it drops to the river.”

“You can’t play catch there,” joked Ringo.

“Why not?”

“Well, if you lose your footing, you suddenly find yourself in the open air and only wings help.”

“Funny, funny!”

“Does anyone live in there?”