Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #19. Arthur Conan Doyle
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He returns to the only locked door, swings it open and disappears inside.
Joseph turns a contorted and frightened face toward me: “What?” says he.
“Search me,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. But our eyes are on the doorway. Where has he gone? What is he doing?
Marcel reappears with three bottles under his arm. “This’ll make the day go better,” he says.
We are suddenly very thirsty, and we jump to our feet.
“Is it cider?” asks Joseph, doubtfully.
“No. They don’t make cider around here,” says Marcel. “It’s wine, red wine!”
He passes out the bottles, and I seize mine and pick at the cork with my bayonet. It refuses to budge. I jab at it but only succeed in stabbing my fingers. Frustrated, I shove the damn thing down into the bottle. At last it is mine. My lone victory in this crazy war. I hold my captive up by its neck:
“May Hitler rot in Hell,” I say. “Ar Breizh!” I’m not being patriotic; I am railing at a God that allows the blind ambition of a fascist lunatic to put the world at peril.
“Ar Breizh,” they echo, and we take long pulls at our bottles, none of us knowing whether we will ever see our homeland again.
The wine is rich and dry. It rolls down my throat and through my body, embracing and warming me as it passes, numbing my senses. The hell outside begins to fade as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and stumble against the wall. Marcel is standing in the middle of the room, savoring a mouthful. But it is Joseph, shell-shocked and frightened Joseph, who captures the moment. He is sitting back on the floor leaning against the wall and gazing reverently at his bottle:
“Jesus!” he says. “That’ll settle your fucking nerves.”
We say nothing more until our bottles are empty. By this time I am back on the floor next to Joseph, and we are both watching Marcel, who is rocking gently back and forth with his eyes closed. Then another shell lands, just missing the house, but the impact throws him to the ground. He picks himself back up, curses the air, and hurls his flagon at the wall.
“Those Nazi pigs,” he says indignantly. “Don’t they know it’s the cocktail hour?” He dusts himself off. “Shall we have another?” he asks, as an impish grin lights up his war-torn and filthy face.
This seems like a good idea to me, but Joseph is not so sure: “I don’t know, Marcel,” he cautions. “We don’t want to get drunk.”
“Why the hell not?” says Marcel. “We could be dead any moment. Let’s go out with a bang. Tell him, Yann.”
“Just one more bottle, Joseph,” I say. “It will keep our spirits up while we wait for it to get dark. Don’t worry, my friend. We won’t leave you down here.”
Marcel chuckles at that and dives back into the stock. He returns with three more bottles.
“Here,” he says, affecting a French accent. “Try a thirty-eight; one of my better years.”
There’s no mercy for the cork this time when I grasp my bayonet, and I drive it straight down into the bottle and take a quick swig. Meanwhile Marcel has pitched one to Joseph, but it slips between his fingers and drops to the floor, exploding at his feet.
“Damn!” he says. And he stares down at the puddle of wine as though it were his own blood.
“After all the crap we’ve been through today, that’s nothing—nothing!” says Marcel. “There’s plenty more where that came from. Here, catch this.” He tosses over the other bottle and dives back into the stock room. Soon bottles come rolling out along the floor.
“Help yourselves, boys,” his voice calls from deep within the cellar, just before another shell hits the house next door.
I don’t remember how long we were down there, because I must have fallen asleep. But the next thing I know, a boot is kicking me in the ribs.
“Raus, raus!” I hear. I open my eyes and find myself staring straight down the barrel of a rifle.
“On your feet! Hände hoch! Raus, raus!” Teutonic roars fill the room.
I look around me. Marcel is on his feet with his hands in the air, and Joseph is picking himself off his knees.
They take us outside and herd us with some other prisoners in the village square. We stand there with hands on our heads while they search the rest of the buildings. Then they lock us in the village hall for the night. And as darkness falls on our makeshift prison the cannons of Hell go strangely silent.
There are about twenty prisoners in the hall, but only five of us are from Brittany. We group together in the back of the room. And as usual, Marcel is nosing around behind a platform. When he comes back, he has news:
“There’s a way out of here,” he says. “And the forest is just beyond the building.”
Joseph and I are ready to follow him anywhere. If he can pull wine out of the air, he can get us out of this. “Fine,” I say. “Anything’s better than a German prison camp.”
“What about them?” says Joseph, jerking his thumb toward the other men standing around in small groups, talking in low tones.
“To hell with them,” says Marcel. “Besides, we don’t speak French. How can we tell them without alerting the Boches?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t just vanish.” I am torn. Leaving them behind doesn’t seem very patriotic, but I know we would have more chance of success on our own. “I can speak a few words,” I offer. “There’s an officer over there. Why don’t I tell him?”
I go to the officer, a captain of artillery, and ask him if he wants to try to escape, although I don’t tell him how. But he’s afraid the Germans will shoot him if someone tries it. I shrug and go back to the Breton group.
“We’re on our own,” I say. “He has cold feet.”
“Okay,” says Marcel. “Let’s wait till everyone’s asleep.”
We all get down on the floor and pretend to settle in for the night. I actually do try to sleep, but my nerves are all jangled up from the fighting, the running, and the wine. Finally, Marcel whispers in my ear:
“Okay,” he says. “It’s time to get the hell out of here.”
One by one, five Bretons sneak under the platform and climb up and out through a coal shoot. We find ourselves in a small enclosure at the back of the hall. There are no guards to be seen, and there are no lights except for a half moon that is diving in and out behind some wind-swept clouds. We wait for a minute, but there is no sound, and Marcel waves us on and leads us single file down a long alleyway to the edge of the sheltering forest.
We walk all night hoping we are going in the right direction. Finally, just as day breaks we come to the banks of a river. We follow the river away from the morning sun, towards the west, and eventually we come to a bridge guarded by a German patrol.
“Now what the hell do we do?” growls Joseph.
“Let’s go back upstream and swim across,” I offer.
But it turns out that swimming is not an option for Breton peasants. So we contemplate fighting our way across, but we don’t even have our bayonets. Marcel, who has become our leader, decides to take a closer look, and he motions me to follow him.
“You men wait here,” he says.
We creep up close to the road and onto a wooded knoll that affords us a view of the bridge. There are two guards at each end, and on our side there’s a light truck parked alongside the road.
Marcel studies the scene for a moment, and his eyes light up:
“Okay!” he says. “The key here is to get down to that truck without being noticed. Stay here and keep an eye