The Forests of the Night the war as it really was, as James Kirkup observed, an "acid portrait of those who played at being members of the [French] Resistance". The novel's theme and title come from the opening lines to William Blake's poem "The Tyger": "Tiger, tiger, burning bright - in the forests of the night." "The Forests of the Night" was translated in 1951 into English by Nora Wydenbruck; it has not been re-printed since. Francis is the son of the Comte de Balansun, whose family resides in the French town of Saint-Clar, near the Pyrenees. Francis, in the beginning of the novel, skips
HMS Tyger barge was sunk and several men wounded, but none of the "Tyger"'s crew were killed. Preparations were made to leave Garden Key. The salvaged sloop was repaired, and one "periagua" was lengthened and rigged as a schooner. On 19 March the crew of the "Tyger" boarded the sloop, the schooner rigged "periagua", the yawl, the two other "periaguas" and the canoe, and set sail for Port Royal. The canoe capsized and sank after only two days, but its crew were rescued by one of the other boats. The little fleet rounded the western end of Cuba and reached the Cayman