Paradise Lost

The abandoned Norman village was a flaming rose of no man's land by day. The Germans were just beyond, and could rake its rubble with fire. But night after night U.S. and German patrols wriggled into the village to spy out each other's moves.

Only one building had not been blown apart--the small inn. In its basement were big casks of wine and rows of bottles. There each night went one U.S. outpost patrol. Thither also (at a different hour) went one German patrol. The patrols never met. They spied on, but never surprised each other. It was too good a thing to be ruined by war.

Last week the unofficial armistice was ended, the playhouse wrecked. Major Asa Gardiner, suspicious because his G.I.s had" not griped over night patrol duty, sent a more trusted, less thirsty patrol under secret orders to the inn. Its men opened the casks, smashed the bottles, let the good wine run out on the earthen floor.

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