The '44 Vintage

tasted pale yellow-gold too, light and dry and infinitely refreshing. It was the heavy red wines that must be dangerous, he decided—this was little more than a fruit juice. He drained the glass thirstily.

'That's the spirit!' Jones filled his glass again, nodding his head approvingly. 'This Touraine is going to be a bit of all right, I'm thinking.' He lifted a glass of his own.

'Who told you it was Touraine?' asked Harry Purvis.

'Who told me? Who told me?' Jones drank, winking at Butler as he did so. “Why, man, our Willy told me, that's who. Who d'you think I get my information from, eh?'

'When?'

'Just now he did—just before you came in, when he took our corkscrew.' Jones snapped the clasp knife shut and returned it to Butler. 'Nothing wrong with that, Jack, so you look after it carefully. I had a little knife like that once—stolen by an Albanian it was. He didn't call it stealing though, 'redistribution of property' he called it, and he was a terrible redistributor of other people's property until the Eyeties caught him at it. Then they redistributed him. So I got myself a bigger knife from one of his friends, but it doesn't have a corkscrew, I'm sorry to say.'

Harry Purvis sighed. “What did our Willy say?'

'I was just telling you. Came in looking for a corkscrew, he did. And then he spotted these here bottles, and he said 'I'll have a couple of those, then,' bold as brass.' Jones shook his head. 'Of course, I didn't say anything, but he saw the look in my eye and he says 'Is there anything the matter, Corporal?' as though he doesn't know perfectly well that I had a whole case of red wine sent to the officers' mess. And so I said, 'I thought you liked the red better than the white, sir'—which is nothing less than the truth, although it wasn't what I'd had in mind when he laid hold of our bottles, I can tell you.

'And he said 'Aye, so I do. But this that you've kept for yourself, Corporal, comes from where we're going, and I've a mind to try it'— now, isn't that what he said, lads?' Jones appealed to the other NCOs.

There was a chorus of agreement.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

'Not that I disagree with him, mind you.' Jones splashed some more wine into his glass and then into the empty glasses which were stretched out towards him. 'Knocks spots off what we've been used to, and that's a fact—here, Jack, you're missing out, and there's plenty more where this came from.'

Butler's glass had emptied itself again somehow. Two pints of beer was his self-imposed limit, but: this wasn't in the same class as beer. And besides, he hadn't had half a pint of it yet, so far as he could judge, so he could take no very great harm from another cup or two.

Jones nodded encouragingly as he filled the glass. 'There now . . . so it's Touraine for us then, wherever that is. But if there's plenty of this'—he raised the bottle—

'And no bloody Germans,' said someone.

'All, now there'— Jones pointed the bottle at the speaker—'now there you have put your finger on a matter of greater interest to us, I'm thinking.'

'But they're all buggering off home, Taf. Our Willy said so.'

'So he did, boyo, so he did. And maybe it's true, and maybe it isn't.'

'Oh, come on, Taf! If the Yanks are over the Seine—'

'And we've landed in the South of France, Taf—' Jones raised the bottle to silence them. 'All right! If it's all the Gospel truth then it's in a mean, nasty, and disinheriting mood they'll be in, I'm thinking—

remember those Waffen SS troops that chased us that time? The ones out of Sarajevo? Nasty, they were . . . and I can't see them going home without a fight, either, no matter what.'

'But they're in Jugland, Taf.'

'Those ones are. But what about the ones that are here, eh?'

Jones shook his head mournfully, reducing the company to silence in contemplation of unpleasant possibilities. Butler was reminded suddenly of Colonel Clinton's reference to the rules which didn't need to be spelt out.

For once his curiosity was stronger than his shyness. 'What happens if we get captured?' he inquired. 'I mean ... I know what the officer said, but . . .' he trailed off helplessly.

'Get captured?' Taffy Jones seemed highly amused. 'Name, rank, and number—and just leave the rest to them.' He put the bottle down on the table and drew his finger across his throat, grinning horribly.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

'Put a sock in it, Taf,' said Sergeant Purvis sharply. 'We don't get captured, Jack—that's the short answer.'

'Ah—but he wants the long answer, Harry,' said Jones, unabashed. 'And the long answer is ... make sure that you're taken by the proper German army, boyo. Not bad fellows they are—just like you and me . . . shoot you, they will, most like—just like we'd do in the same place —unless you're a very good liar, that is . . .'

Butler stared at him.

'But that's all they'll do,' continued Jones. 'But now ... if it's the Abwehr or the Feldgendarmerie—what are like our Redcaps, the Feldgendarmerie—if you're lucky then they'll shoot you too. But you've got to be lucky, mind.'

He picked up the bottle and filled Butler's glass.

'It's the SS you've got to steer clear of. Because they don't take name, rank, and number for an answer, they don't. They like a lot more than that, and they aren't fussy about how they get it, either. So with them it's like Harry says: you don't get captured.' He smiled. 'It's like at the pictures, with the cowboys and the Indians—you save the last bullet for yourself, see?'

Butler was appalled.