Chevalier, the mess corporal, both our Vatel and cup bearer, had come back from leave the day before. Before our ravished eyes he untied his packages, spread out sumptuous, epicurean dainties, and drew from their thick straw covers generous bottles of wine whose very appearance made us joyful.
Morin had been a constant guest at the select restaurants of La Cannebière and at the famous inns of La Corniche, and is an expert in the art of opening a fine wine without shaking it, and he also knows how to carve roasts and chickens skilfully and symmetrically.
He was opening with suitable impressiveness an old bottle of Sauterne, whose bright golden color brought smiles to our faces, when a tremendous explosion brought us to our feet and threw down the single partition in the room.
“The gun back in the garden draws the fire,” mumbled Dedouche with his mouth full, and without letting go of his plate which he was rubbing carefully with a large bit of bread.
But as he spoke a still more violent explosion shattered all the window panes in the house to bits.
A great Boche shell had fallen thirty yards from us in the street which had been recently covered with hard flint and which it scattered into innumerable fragments. We heard the cries of the wounded and the dying outside.
“Quick! Into the cellar!”
But none of us lost our heads sufficiently to take refuge in the cellar without our munitions.
One brought the fowl, another the bottles, a third the sauce, and someone the cheese and candles, and under the threat of shots which speeded us we reached our underground shelter.