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Plot[]

René informs the audience that the café has a new pianist, Ernest LeClerc who is the brother of Roger LeClerc. When Ernest was in prison, he and Roger switched places, because, as Roger explained, the prison food was better than madame Edith's. Thus, Ernest has now taken Roger's place in the café. After he has recapitulated the events of his own death and his now posing as his twin brothers, he is about to put some flowers on his "brother's" grave. Both Yvette and Edith join him in the café, but they both decline the offer to come with him to the graveyard. Yvette asks him to place a cactus on the grave for her, and Edith gives him a rhubarb to be placed there. René is not very fond of either idea, but they are soon interrupted, when Mimi tells them they are wanted in the backroom by Michelle of the Resistance.

Michelle informs them that beneath Ren'es brother's "grave", the Resistance are building a communication center, with a wireless radio, because the one in madame Fanny's bedroom is being jammed by the Germans. Secondly, they need a bigger aerial to be able to contact London and tell them when to put the next escape plan for the British airmen into action. The radio will be ready within the next 24 hours and because they will go there when it is ready, under the pretence of putting flowers on René's brother's grave, they must not go yet.

As Michelle is leaving, Officer Crabtree enters the café and tells the café gang of the new rescue plan for the airmen. They are about to walk through the village canal down to the estuary, where they will be picked up by a British submarine. Edith remarks that the airmen are six feet tall and the canal is eight feet deep, so they are all wondering how they are supposed to be able to walk down the canal. Crabtree then shows the airmen in, wearing their escape outfit - consisting of a wetsuit for each and the two of them carrying an upside down tin bath tub with an air tube over their heads.

Herrs Flick and Von Smallhausen of the Gestapo are poundering the question of how to discover who is helping the British airmen to escape. Herr Flick finally decides they will disguise themselves as British airmen in order to find out. When they have found out where the airmen are being hidden, they will leave and return with the German army. In order to be able to pose as genuine British, they take a grammophone language couse - "How to fool the French that you are English in one easy lesson" - from the Gestapo language course library.

As Helga enters the anteroom of colonel Von Strohm's office, she finds captain Bertorelli at her desk. He has just written a poem for her on her typewriter. He also wants to give her a gift (a négligée), but they are interrupted by the colonel, calling for Helga. When she tells him and lieutenant Gruber of Herrs Flick's and Von Smallhausen's plan, they become rather concerned that their trail will lead to René and the café. They decide to give René an anonymous call to warn him. This fails utterly, partly because the colonel's message makes little sense (he gives the cryptic message "Listen sweetheart, get out of town or you will find yourself wearing a concrete overcoat" in a Humphrey Bogart-esque style), partly because René recognises his voice immediately and thinks he is going mad.

When René has put the receiver down, he has a little cuddle with Yvette. As they are discovered by Edith, he explains the situation by telling her that he is examining Yvette's teeth, since she has not been to the dentist in three months. When she has gone into the kitchen, madame Fanny comes down the stairs, announcing that Ernest LeClerc has asked her to marry her and that she intends to accept this proposal. René thinks it's been rather quick, since Ernest has only been with them for 24 hours, but Fanny says he has "rekindled the dying embers of her love". The next moment, Ernest enters the café and gives Fanny an engagement ring. After that he takes her for a walk in the square.

At the chateau, Helga announces general Von Klinkerhoffen. He is dissatisfied with the way the colonel is running the town and lately, he has found out about the strange doings in the graveyard. Therefore, he has arrested Monsieur Alfonse, the undertaker, and intends to let the colonel and the lieutenant interrogate him. After making a few lame attempts, which the general is not satisfied with, lieutenant Gruber manages to get an answer from Monsieur Alfonse about the mounds of earth in the graveyard; the graves are being dug in the summer, when business is "slack", to be prepared for winter, when people will fall of the perch. As the general says he is satisfied with this answer, they let Monsieur Alfonse go. After this, the general urges the colonel and the lieutenant to keep an eye on him, since he is not at all satisfied with the answer and suspects the gravediggers are up to something.

Monsieur Alfonse goes to the graveyard and goes down René's brother's grave. Down there, Michelle and a tall blonde woman, who is the aerial expert, are preparing the radio, which they will use that same night to contact London. They show him how it works, by removing the slab of the grave and raising the aerial, which will rise 20 feet above ground level. However, for the moment, they do not raise it out of the grave, in order not to risk the Germans spotting it.

In the evening, Mimi enters the café with some flowers, informing Edith and René that they are to go to the grave and send a message (written on a little note which she gives them) to London. The halo, which operates the opening of the slab of the grave from the outside, has gone "wonky" and they will have to press the cherub's "buzzer" instead. Edith and René leave the bar in Mimi's hands and go to the graveyard. Meanwhile, lieutenant Gruber tries to warn René of the Gestapo's plan by calling him on the telephone, just as Helga is entering the room where he is. As he is informed that René has gone to put flowers on his brother's grave, Gruber is reminded of the time when he had René shot - something which still haunts him to this day. The two of them also decide to place some flowers on the grave.

When René pushes the "buzzer", Monsieur Alfonse opens the grave and lets him and Edith down. As it appears that the aerial expert is not there, René wants to cancel the sending of the message, but Edith and Monsieur Alfonse insist that it must be sent. The try to operate the machinery themselves and manage to open the slab and raise the aerial. However, René is caught on the aerial and rises out of the grave - just as Gruber and Helga are approaching. In the darkness and mist, Gruber thinks it is René's brother's ghost and cries "René, forgive me!" René answers "You are forgiven, my son" and is lowered down the grave again, while Gruber and Helga leave the graveyard.

Trivia[]

  • This episode marks the first appearance of Derek Royle as Ernest LeClerc.
Allo Allo Series 6
Desperate Doings In The Graveyard | The Gestapo For The High Jump | The Nouvion Oars | The Nicked Airmen | The Airmen De-Nicked | The Crooked Fences | Crabtree's Podgeon Pist | Rising To The Occasion


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