A Lucky Escape

We had slowed down to go round a corner when the wheel came off our car, otherwise we should probably have been killed. It was a strange sight seeing our wheel running past us and disappearing up the road.

Luckily it was a back wheel. The car dropped heavily on to the axle and tore a hole in the road before we came to a stop. If it had been a front wheel, the car would have rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. When we got out, pale and shaken, we found that the bolts fastening the wheel to the axle had just broken off as if they had been sticks.

While the driver stayed with the car, I stopped a passing Army truck and went to the next village to telephone to the nearest Army garage and workshop. They said that they were very busy because of the big battle that was going on: hundreds of damaged cars and trucks and guns were coming in for repair. They advised me to leave my car with the driver and continue my journey in another one.

I then telephoned my staff headquarters to tell them about the accident and to ask for another car; but as they were 100 miles away, they were unable to help. I went back to tell my driver what had happened, and found that he had managed to get the help of some farmers and their horses, so that the car was now off the road and in a farmyard.

There I left them: a friendly captain took me on to the next small town on the back of his motorcycle, and I spent the night there in a hotel which had been taken over by the Army. Next day I completed my journey, and for two weeks took part in one of the fiercest battles I have ever seen. I had no time to think of my three-wheeled car. Then when things were quieter once more, I telephoned to my staff to ask about it. "Oh," said the voice at the other end, "haven't you heard? The repair shop put a new back-axle in, and your driver was on his way to join you when one of the front wheels came off. Was he killed? Of course he was. It was on a straight piece of road, and he was driving at 80 miles an hour at least. You had a lucky escape, two weeks ago."