The sun had already lit the tops of the rock face above them, across on the other side of the gully, when David gently untangled from Maria and crawled to look out through the triangle. He checked his watch.

Eight thirty-five. I've slept in, Maria's still asleep.

Rachel walked toward him with a hot cup of tea as he dressed. "You had a very long sleep," she said as she passed him the cup. "You must have been exhausted."

"It's not a good idea to miss a night's sleep," he replied, and pointing into the little canvas shelter, he added, "Maria's still asleep."

"No, I'm not. How can anyone be expected to sleep with so much noise?" She giggled, then asked, "What time is it?"

"Almost quarter to nine. Did you sleep well?"

"Too well. Out of my way, I'm coming through, desperate to pee." She crawled out and trotted past them holding herself.

David reached into the shelter, pulled out the top blanket set and walked across the slab with it. "Put this around you," he said as she got up from her squat and walked toward him. "It's quite cold still, and you'll catch a chill. We all need to remain healthy." He draped the blanket around her and gave her a gentle kiss.

"These rocks are nearly freezing," she said as she began tiptoeing toward the shelter, appearing to be trying to keep her feet off the cold rocks. David swept her off her feet and carried her the rest of the way. She sighed, then as they passed Rachel, she said, "Good morning, Mama, have you been up long?"

"Almost an hour, I scampered off without the audience." She laughed. "And without a gentleman to bring a blanket for me and carry me back. Crawl inside and sit in the blanket for a while. Warm up a bit before you dress, I should have done that. It took me a long time to re-warm. I'll bring you a cup of tea."

David came back, rubbing his hands together to dry them. "I'll start cooking breakfast. What should we have?"

"There are still seven eggs." Rachel pointed to them by the stove. "I can scramble them in butter. You can slice some ham off the bone."

As they sat quietly eating their ham and eggs with thick slabs off the remains of the dark rye loaf, David was turning plans over in his mind. He set his emptied plate on the rock and nibbled at the crude ham sandwich he had made. His jaw was still sore when he opened his mouth too wide, so he took little bites. Between his nibbles, he said, "I'm thinking of going out for a careful look around, see if I can plot a safe route onward. See if I can spot Fritz or identify any of the places they may be posted."

"Fritz? Who's Fritz?" Maria asked, wrinkling her brow.

"That's the name we call the German soldiers, the whole German Army, we refer to as Fritz, individually and collectively."

"I guess it's an outside joke, then." Rachel chuckled. "Only those outside Germany would know it."

David nodded as he continued, "I've been looking around. I'm now certain that the only way into this little nook, is the way we came in. The rock walls at the back and sides of the gully are too steep, and besides, they're covered in slippery growth from the spray of the waterfall." He pointed out toward the line of the Alps across the tops of the trees. "Over there, the edge of the slab drops vertically. It actually overhangs, and the little stream begins another waterfall."

He tilted his head to the left. "Over there, the thick stratum of gabbro juts beyond the sandstone face below it. There is no way in from that direction. No wonder you couldn't find it again. Thirty feet higher or thirty feet lower heading east across the side of the ridge, and you'd walk right past it. Heading west, you'd never find it."

"Besides," Maria said, "with the much easier going on the open top of the ridge a hundred — can't be more than a hundred metres above here, who would come along this way?"

"We found it when we had left the ridge to get out of some extreme north winds and driving rain," Rachel said. "Many trees were broken, some uprooted in that storm. The cliff faces, the outcrops, the ramps and the ledges led us here as we scrambled for shelter. Even in the rain, the pools were warm, and it was a wonderful refuge from the storm. We tried so many times to find it after that but could never put together the right combination of outcrops, ramps and ledges again."

"I'll mark my route when I head out so I can find my way back in," David said a quarter hour later as he prepared to leave on a reconnaissance. "I probably don't need to go too far to survey the route and sense where Fritz may be. I should be back within half an hour."

"Wait!" Maria said. "You can't head out without a hug and a kiss."

"This stuff is all new to me," he said as he wrapped her in his arms, and they stood swaying. "But enough of this," he said after a short while. "The last thing I need is to go out there with lumpy trousers. I need to concentrate, and this makes it hard to do that." He tenderly kissed her with the side of his mouth to keep from scraping her with the hard stitches. "When can these stitches come out?"

"I'll take a close look when you come back."

He hugged Rachel and then headed across the stream and along the narrow ledge to the corner. After pausing to wave, he disappeared from their view. The ramp led slightly upward along the base of the cliffs, with the trunks of large trees standing from precipitous slopes below him. He took a soft new branch on a bush. Probably a berry bush, he thought as he bent a loose overhand knot in its end, then undid it.

Just beyond the end of the line of bluffs, he bent a loose figure-of-eight knot in a branch, then headed straight up the slope, aiming at a broken tree and adding overhand knots on bush branches every five yards or so. At the base of the splintered tree, he looked back down the slope, recording in his mind its appearance. He looked around for other splintered trees and saw none similar.

Continuing straight up, he turned frequently to see if the splintered tree was still in view. A bit farther up, the slope rounded, and through the trees, he could see the golden grasses of an open meadow. He stopped. There were voices. He slid behind a tree trunk.

Not thick enough to hide me.

He rolled behind some low shrubs. Through the branches and leaves, he saw a platoon of soldiers loosely marching past, out in the meadow only fifty yards away, only five yards of this through his screen of bushes and trees. Another platoon followed it, and a third. He looked back to spot the splintered tree. To find safety. He couldn't see it.

A fourth platoon passed, and in the gap behind it, he slowly edged backwards deeper into the woods, farther from the meadow. He heard the faint rumble of another platoon as he turned and headed straight down to find the splintered tree.

His knots led him back down the slope, and he untied them as he passed until he came to the figure-of-eight knot. He untied it and turned left toward the beginning of the line of bluffs and followed along their base, then sidled around the ledge on the block and continued to the corner. He looked across to the slab and liked what he saw.

Only a small corner of the canvas is visible. That can easily be disguised with a couple of rocks and a shrub.

He turned the corner and sidestepped along the ledge, reaching for high handholds at the bulge. Once he was through the waterfall, he leapt over the stream and onto the slab, and he was halfway across it before Maria noticed him, and she shook with a gasp at the startle.

"We need to be much more watchful," he said without any greeting. "Quickly, hide everything from view, then inside, under the canvas."

There was a quick gathering of things which were strewn about, and the women were soon inside while David snapped a few branches off the shrubs and arranged them to cover the corner of the canvas.

"I watched five platoons of soldiers march past. They're just above us at the moment, not much more than a hundred metres higher than here. A platoon is about eighty soldiers, there are three platoons in a German infantry company, so there are at least two companies just up there," he said, pointing up at the canvas roof.

"What are they doing up here? Why so many of them?" Rachel asked.

"I hope they're up here on exercise. A training exercise, not on a search mission. There could have been more platoons go by before I got there. There could be more following the ones I saw."

"So, what do we do now?" Maria asked.

"Not much we can do. Fritz has us outnumbered at least a hundred and sixty to one, probably a lot more. Likely a whole battalion. We need to make sure there is no sign of us if anyone stumbles onto this little nook. It's unlikely anyone would do the traverse over there, along the side of the gully. It's obvious that it leads nowhere. We need to make sure we give Fritz no reason to want to cross over to here."

He pulled his notebook and pen out of the pocket of his small rucksack, opened the cover and made a mark on the calendar. "Let's do some thinking. This is Saturday, the first of May." He looked at his watch and wound it. "It's five past eleven. We're all safe, we're healthy, we're fit, we're well rested and well fed. We have a great supply of fresh running water, we even have some heated. We have a good supply of food, a cosy shelter, a warm bed and warm friends. Except that we are surrounded by Fritz, this seems to be near paradise."

"How long does a training exercise last?" Maria asked.

"I don't know about the German ones, but when we did our training on the Salisbury Plains in England, before we headed across to trenches in Belgium, they were usually two days, sometimes three. We did none longer than three days."

"I had missed that it's May already," Rachel said. "Did you also train on holidays? "Today is May Day, a holiday in Baden und Württenburg."

"War doesn't take a break for such things as holidays or Sundays. It doesn't take a break for anything," He nodded his head toward the west. "There's a lot of fighting going on across the Rhein, over in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace and Lorraine. The hills here are likely a good training area for that. Let's hope Fritz isn't going to be practising hillside tactics past our cosy little nest."

"How long can we stay here?" Maria asked. "I guess the real question is how much food do we have?"

"I probably brought enough dried goods to feed all of us for six or seven days," David said as he thought of his purchases. There's still some ham on the bone and my big piece of soft cheese. Lots of salt and peppercorns."

"I packed all our dried meat," Rachel added, "there must be four kilos of it. We're almost out of fresh bread, I have some more dried to add to David's, we have plenty of butter and two large pieces of hard cheese and a smaller soft one, a Munster. We have onions, turnips, carrots and potatoes to last for several more days, close to a week, probably. We don't have any caviar or asparagus, and our wine cellar is empty, but I'm sure we'll survive."

"What do you mean our wine cellar is empty?" Maria looked at her mother with a wide grin. "I had some spare space in my pack, so I slid in four bottles of Dada's 1911 Bestes Fass. I didn't think you'd mind."

"Much better than leaving it there. Did you bring glasses? I probably don't even need to ask, do I?"

"Of course I did, Mama, three of the smaller ones wrapped up in all the cottons. The wine's far too good to drink from tin cups, and I didn't forget the corkscrew this time," she added with a giggle. "I also put in big bundles of dried plums, apricots and cherries and the last of the hazelnuts."

"So, it looks like we're going to have to rough it," David said with a grin so wide it hurt his lip wound. He looked slowly from face to face and added, "But we're tough; we can survive."