MADAGASCAR (III) —CONTD. 281 
fields, the avenues of trees were felled so that the way was com- 
pletely blocked, with no possibility of making a detour. Thus the 
campaign lingered on with hordes of administrative types filling 
the towns. One got the impression that for every soldier in the 
field, there must be at least a hundred doing base jobs. 
My own absence from the island had never caused concern 
among the authorities in Tananarive, as it was taken for granted 
that I was collecting in a certain piece of forest. Indeed, the day 
before I left the capital I had made it known that that was where 
I was going. 
Shortly after reaching Majunga in the second attack, I offered 
my services to the Supplies and Transport Unit. This gave me the 
opportunity of doing something useful in the way of helping to 
organize supplies in a region wholly disorganized and unfavor- 
able to cope with such heavy demands. The difficulties were in- 
creased by the fact that the local Malagasy had fled in terror at 
the time of the invasion, and so their codperation was missed. 
When Tananarive was captured, I was whisked off there in a 
fighter plane in a convoy carrying mainly generals and their staff, 
and soon linked up with old friends again in an entirely different 
atmosphere from that when I left. 
Base Headquarters sprang up like mushrooms and staff cars 
filled the streets. There was an atmosphere of gaiety; hotels and 
bars did a roaring trade after the period of doldrums during the 
blockade; dances were held, and the formerly Vichy-minded 
community jumped over the fence, and a good time was had 
by all—especially the womenfolk. 
Perhaps the least happy about all this were the English mis- 
sionaries. Madagascar was under British influence long before the 
island was conquered by the French in 1895. Schools and churches 
for the Malagasy were built by English missions as long as a 
hundred years ago, and through their efforts the island is still 
predominantly Protestant. In and around Tananarive alone there 
are over three hundred Protestant churches, all supported by 
British missions. 
In the 1880’s there was even an English newspaper called the 
Madagascar Times. Thus the Malagasy in general, and the old 
