We had to keep our blades above the water until they let go for fear that the stream would tear them out of our hands. Then at the last moment, Sammy Stockton, the one member of our rather temperamental crew who could be relied upon never to show any temperament, turned pale-green. A combination of heat, goulash, and Tokay had proved too much for him and he came up to the start a very sick man. Once again we were pinning all our faith on our Four, as the eight in the bows had an air of uncoordinated individualism. We were three-quarters of the way down the course and still in front, when John Garton, who was steering, ran into the boat on our left. There was an immediate uproar of which we understood not one word, but it was, alas, impossible to misconstrue the meaning of the umpire’s arm pointing firmly back towards the start. Once again we battled upstream and turned around with a sense of foreboding. Again we were off, half-way down the course and still ahead: a faint hope began to flutter in my agonized stomach, but it was not to be. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Behind me I heard Sammy let out a whistling sigh like a pricked balloon and the race was over. The jubilation of the Hungarians was tempered by the fact that our defeat nearly caused a crisis, for at the Mayor’s banquet that night we were to be presented with medals struck in honour of our victory, and it was doubtful whether any others could be manufactured in time. But they were. The evening passed off admirably. Frank rose to his feet and delivered a speech in fluent if ungrammatical German. He congratulated the Hungarians on their victory, apologized for, but did not excuse our defeat and thanked them for their excellent hospitality. There were, fortunately, no repercussions apart from a cartoon in the Pesti Hirlap, showing eight people in a boat looking over their left shoulders at a naked girl in a skiff with the caption underneath: ‘Why Oxford Lost?’

The others returned to England shortly afterwards, but I stayed on an extra month with some people I knew who had an estate at Vecses about twelve miles out of Budapest. They were Jews, and even then very careful about holding large parties or being in any way publicized for fear of giving a handle to the Nazi sympathizers in the Government. With them I travelled all around Hungary and found everywhere an atmosphere of medieval feudalism: most of the small towns and villages were peopled entirely by peasants, apart from a bored army garrison. In Budapest there was a sincere liking for the English tempered by an ever-present memory of the Treaty of Trianon, and a very genuine dislike of the Germans; but there was a general resignation to the inevitability of a Nazi alliance for geographical reasons. Any suggestion that there was still time for a United Balkans to put up a solid front as a counter to German influence was waved aside. The Hungarians were a proud race; what had they in common with the upstart barbarians who surrounded them and who had so cynically carved up their country?

I left with a genuine regret and advice from the British Embassy not to leave the train anywhere on the way through Germany.

Before the outbreak of the war I made two more trips abroad, each to France. As soon as I got back from Hungary I collected the car and motored through Brittany. My main object was, I must admit, food. I saw before me possibly years of cold mutton, boiled potatoes, and Brussels sprouts, and the lure of one final diet of cognac at fourpence a glass, oysters, coq-au-vin, and soufflés drew me like a magnet. I motored out through Abbeville, Rouen, Rennes and Quimper and ended up at Beg Meil, a small fishing village on the east coast, where between rich meals of impossible cheapness and nights of indigestion and remorse I talked with the people. Everywhere there was the same resignation, the same it’s-on-the-way-but-what-the-hell attitude. I was in Rouen on the night of Hitler’s final speech before Munich. The hysterical ‘Sieg Heils!’ of his audience were picked up by the loud-speakers throughout the streets, and sounded strangely unreal in the quiet evening of the cathedral city. The French said nothing, merely listening in silence and then dispersing with a shrug of their shoulders. The walls were plastered with calling-up notices and the stations crowded with uniforms.