Pied Piper by Nevil Shute (query about French)

[Danny McG]

Protagonist has arrived at a chalet in French Alps and they ask him a question..

EXTRACT:- ##Well, they had to know. He turned away from her blindly. 'Madame,' he said, 'mon fils est mort. ll est tombé de son avion, au-dessus de Heligoland Bight.'##

I've sussed out he tells 'em his son is dead but I can't remember enough schoolboy French to get the rest of it.
Help please
Thanks
Danny

 

[The Judge]

My French is rusty, but I think it might be "He fell from [?with/in?] his plane, over the Heligoland Bight" (it's his son who is dead).

 

[Danny McG]

Cheers for this TJ.
I went back to look at my question and had already edited the she to he for his son.
His son was in RAF and, as the protagonist had spent three weeks in seclusion for 'undisclosed reason' before setting off to France, it was easy to conjecture he was some sort of war casualty.
Thanks again
Danny

(I hope Nevil Shute doesn't keep doing this throughout the book or it'll go onto my 'never finished' stack )

 

[Vertigo]

Google translate mate!

My son is dead. He fell off his plane, over Heligoland Bight

Quality does tend to vary though! Even does Latin which an be handy when reading some of those more pretentious books like The Name of the Rose

 

[Danny McG]

Cheers. I didn't know google translate existed. I had asked eldest grandkid for his French/ English dictionary but he forgot it at school. Didn't fancy waiting until September when he started back

 

[Vertigo]

Cheers. I didn't know google translate existed. I had asked eldest grandkid for his French/ English dictionary but he forgot it at school. Didn't fancy waiting until September when he started back

You get some pretty weird translations sometimes but you can usually figure out the meaning.

I used to devour Nevil Shute as a teenager (even his autobiography Slide Rule). Keep meaning to return to them as I'm sure many of the more adult theme's completely passed me by.

I always remember the poignancy of the scene in On the Beach where one of the characters went off down the race track with his last bit of petrol that he'd squirreled away, figuring he'd rather kill himself racing his car too fast than die from radiation.