Writings of James Delahaye

The strange ways of fate.

The strange ways of fate. It must have been somewhere round eight-thirty, a moonless night in Libya had plunged the Sahara desert into near total darkness, at least seen from the cockpit of my plane.

The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers

This is an excerpt from the book: The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers. End of chapter four.

Jupiter shook his head and Venus laughed

If we have to believe the art of astrology then we may well be predestined to follow a specific path in life, because allegedly, our “destiny” is written in the stars; one day you’ll get there whether you want to or not.

Disappeared forever

Monday night, thanks to a little virus going by the dubious name of Covid 19, was the last night restaurants, bars and cafés were legally open...

And Lucifer said, ‘Give me your hand…’

We had found the militia soldier slumped forward over the wheel of his jeep with the engine still idling. For how many hours had he sat there?

Orelia of Barcino

A few years ago, during a visit in Barcelona, my daughter, my wife and I visited among others, the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, named after a thirteen year old Christian girl persecuted and subsequently killed by the Romans

Shadows of my life

“This is the end my beautiful friend, The end of our elaborate plan, The end of everything that stands, The end, I’ll never look into your eyes again…” The Doors.

The Continental Palace

The Continental Palace was one of those typical imposing, yet stylish French hotels in Saigon build during the colonial era at the end of the ninetieth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.

In honour of friendship

It was probably in 1960, yes I’m quite sure of that, and I would even say that it was sometime in the spring, but there again I don’t give a guarantee about the exact date but I’m fairly confident that it wasn’t “freeze your balls off” kind of weather anymore

Stars in the desert

It was late in the afternoon, too late in fact. With the setting sun in my eyes about to disappear over the endless horizon of the Sahara desert, landing an aircraft between the sand dunes was always going to be a risky proposition;

The Swamp patrol.

The Swamp Patrol. A look back into my days while serving in the last of the Dutch Colonial Army in the jungles of Suriname, South America.

The mission that never was

Excerpt from: The Girl Who Ran with black Tigers©… Chapter four, October 1973. These are only short passages from the book I wrote relating to our time in Vietnam.

What’s beyond the beyond?

It may have been sometime in 1957 or maybe it was in fifty-eight, maybe it was many nights or maybe just a single one, who knows and frankly it’s not very relevant.

Haunting voices.

Haunting voices. Not all stories made it into our book “The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers”© This one didn’t but it is time to share it.

Discussion with myself, or something like that…

Memories are what the fabric of history is made of; without memories there is no history.

The Miller's Wife, or the Ghost I Loved©

Short story Conversation with a ghost. Most of my stories are taken from the memories and souvenirs of my life; writing a fantasy about a Conversation with a Ghost was therefore a refreshing change and within no time I let the Ghost take me by the hand and lead me into the past… but who’s past?

A glimpse into the past.

On the move… again. Now let’s see, it’s all a very long time ago, maybe it was just after Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo or maybe it was more recent,

The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers©

Excerpt from: The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers© Chapter 5.

Lonely looking sky

The Bronco… No, we are not talking here about untrained horses used in rodeos whose sole purpose seems to be to unseat unwelcome riders, but something nearly as famous: the Rockwell OV-10 Bronco, a twin engine turbine-prop aircraft.

Memories that didn’t go six feet under.

The problem with memories is, that they are not always very well memorised. For some mysterious reason the brain doesn’t quite work like a computer; oh no, it is far superior to the very thing I’m tapping these words out on.

Let’s go kill those bastards

Excerpt from: The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers. © In a dark and dingy sand bagged bunker Marlyne was perched over a blood drenched kitchen table holding a surgical sewing needle.

Spinach.

I wrote about memories previously and I think I said something along the lines of: The problem with memories is, that they are not always very well memorised… and I am now going to have to contradict myself immediately because there are some things one never forgets,