The boys all dreaded evening prep. It was enough to endure a day of lessons without having to spend two hours after dinner in the library, silently working on their homework from the day, under the eye, it seemed, of all of the strictest teachers in the school.

Sherlock was unusual in that he didn't seem to resent this time as much as the others. He didn't like schoolwork much, except in those very specific subject areas that he favoured, but he appreciated the silence, and, when the masters weren't looking, he could be seen to be thinking rather than writing. It was rare that he would so much as make a noise during prep, and so rather surprised John on this particular June evening when he got up to ask to get something from his dormitory.

'I've left a book I need there,' he explained to the teacher on duty.

The master glared at him a little over his spectacles, but eventually conceded to his request. 'Very well. But be quick about it.'

Sherlock raced off in his usual fashion, and the boys who had been disturbed by this intervention settled back down to work.

But a few minutes passed without him returning, and the teacher began to glare at the door to the library; then he went to John and said quietly:

'Can you go and find Sherlock, and tell him to come back here?'

The teachers, it seemed, trusted John greatly, where they did not trust Sherlock much at all. John nodded and sprang up, and headed off in search of his friend.


He found him not in the dormitory, but in the deserted common-room, with his ear pressed to the wireless, which was playing at a very low volume. He did not even look up at John's entrance, and only noticed him when the boy had crossed the room.

'What are you listening to?' asked John.

'Ssh,' said Sherlock, leaning in closer.

John knelt down, forgetting that he was supposed to take Sherlock back to prep, and listened. Among the crackles he could just about distinguish a deep foreign voice. The broadcast was, it seemed, in French.

Sherlock had a natural flair for languages. He seemed to pick them up as if they were his mother tongue, and therefore hated French and Latin lessons, because he was so far ahead of the others. John too was skilled at languages, but wasn't half as good as Sherlock, and could only understand snatches of this broadcast.

He caught something about battle in France, and the enemy, and from various other fragments concluded that this was some sort of call to arms. When the broadcast was finished, Sherlock turned off the radio, and saw John looking at him in confusion.

'Mycroft told me to listen to that,' Sherlock said vaguely, standing. 'Mr Jones isn't too angry at me, is he?'

'He'll be angry at both of us if we don't hurry back to prep,' John told him, and therefore they both ran back to the library.


John waited until they were back in their dormitory to demand an explanation. Sherlock paused for a moment, as if wondering if he could be bothered to explain his actions, and then said:

'That was Charles de Gaulle, a French general. He wants to resist against the French government, and he was calling on French people who are in England to join him.'

'Why does he want to resist?' asked John.

Sherlock furrowed his brow. 'Pétain, the head of the French government, wants to sign an armistice with Germany. – Have you not heard about that? – France is just about overwhelmed, and –'

'I heard about them being overpowered,' John said. 'I didn't realise they wanted to surrender.'

'Some see it as the only option.' Sherlock shrugged. 'Some don't. Hence la Résistance.'

John paused a moment, and then said: 'But why did Mycroft tell you to listen to his broadcast?'

He had struck some sort of chord within Sherlock, and the other boy looked away, hesitating for a long moment before admitting: 'I haven't the least idea.'


Four days later, France surrendered.

The broadcast by General de Gaulle had not been widely heard, but the actions of the French government could hardly be escaped. The announcement on the 22nd of June that they were to sign an armistice with Germany was reported in all of the newspapers, talked about by all of those who had been following the politics of the war.

Sherlock read the article over breakfast, again and again, as if hoping to divine some secret meaning from it. John too had read it, and found it a deeply moving article, if one looked at it from the French point of view, but he didn't really understand Sherlock's obsession with it. He remembered the mention of Mycroft, and supposed that that must have had something to do with it.

At last Sherlock folded up the newspaper and cast it aside, before picking up a bread roll and beginning to shred it absently. 'The war's coming closer,' he said.

'Yes,' John murmured.

'If France have surrendered, then we're the next target,' Sherlock continued, surprising John a little: he didn't usually speak this much at breakfast, or indeed during the course of an entire day.

'Well,' said John, 'well, we're an island, so we can hope that that will give us an advantage.'

Sherlock nodded, and began to nibble some of the crumbs that he had created.

'And if they come over here, they'll have the British to contend with.' John chuckled a little, and sipped at his drink. 'We're fuelled by tea. We can't go wrong.'

'Would you...' Sherlock paused. 'Would you fight, if you were old enough?'

'Yes.' John did not hesitate. 'Or at least help. I'm not sure I'd be that good at fighting.' His eyes met Sherlock's. 'Would you?'

Sherlock was silent for a while. Then he murmured: 'I don't know...' and let the conversation drop.