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Part Three

23 December 1940

Early evening

By half-past seven the Hastings Constabulary's annual Christmas party was getting underway in the station waiting room. A meagre array of refreshments, mostly biscuits and tea sandwiches contributed by police wives, was arranged on a trestle table by Sylvia Reid, the Chief Superintendent's wife. Liquid refreshment consisted of bottles of ginger beer and cider and a bowl of rather watery fruit punch, all non-alcoholic since some of the officers were still on duty. A subdued buzz of conversation began to rise as the room gradually filled.

From his post by the door, where he and his wife were greeting new arrivals, Hugh Reid surveyed the assembled company. The contingent of policemen was augmented by several ARP wardens along with the usual complement of wives and children. It came as little surprise to Hugh, however, that his friend Christopher was not among them.

Still working, he thought. Might not put in an appearance at all if he can avoid it. Reid had known Christopher Foyle for more than fifteen years, had witnessed how his friend had thrown himself into his work after he was widowed. He had also noticed Christopher's reluctance to join in the holiday festivities, which had also begun with his wife's death. And this year, with Andrew on active service with the RAF, he knew Foyle had even less reason to keep Christmas. Reid frowned, wishing he could find a way to break through his friend's grief and loneliness, before his wife's nudge brought him back to his duties as host.


Hugh Reid wasn't wrong. Foyle was in the evidence room, sorting through several crates confiscated from a black-market clothing dealer they had arrested that morning. The room was tucked away in a back corner of the station, too far from the waiting area for him to make out more than the faintest party noises even if he hadn't been concentrating on the task at hand. The job of sorting through the garments to determine from which shops they had been stolen could have waited until the following week, but he had gladly seized the excuse to delay his arrival at the party.

He was just re-folding a pair of ugly tweed knickerbockers when a new sound reached his ears. Was that … music? He set the trousers to one side and moved closer to the door, brow furrowing. Greensleeves, he thought. Without thinking he stepped out into the corridor, the better to hear the faint the strains of song:

"This, this is Christ the King

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing

Hail, hail, to bring Him laud

The babe, the Son of Mary …"

Almost of their own volition Foyle's feet carried him round the corner, past kitchen and offices to the double doors that led out to the waiting room. He pushed one open and peered out. Had someone brought a gramophone into the station? Or was it a wireless? Or could it be …

The room was crowded and rather poorly lit, due to wartime wattage restrictions, but between shoulders and heads he could glimpse the cluster of young women standing close together under a hanging light-bulb. They were singing the ancient tune, a favourite of his since boyhood, as sweetly, as purely as he'd ever heard it.

"So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh

Come peasant, king to own Him

The King of Kings, salvation brings

Let loving hearts enthrone Him."

He slipped silently through the open door and let it swing shut, his eyes glued upon the little group of singers. His eyes widened when he spied his driver in the back row, momentarily nonplussed until he remembered something she'd mentioned several times recently. Of course, he thought. Christmas carolling. But surely she hadn't said anything about singing here at the station, had she?

"Raise, raise a song on high

The Virgin sings her lullaby

Joy, joy for Christ is born

The Babe, the Son of Mary."

He watched, captivated, asthe carolended on a sweetly drawn-out note. Without pausing for applause, one of the girls sounded three low notes on a pitch-pipe and they immediately launched into another carol. Irresistibly drawn, he studied the singers more closely as "Adeste Fideles" washed over the room.

"O come, all ye faithful

Joyful and triumphant

O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem …"

All seven girls, he noticed, were in uniform – three WAAFs in RAF blue, two brown-clad ATS privates and a lone WREN in black mixed with Sam's MTC olive drab. Despite the severe garb, flat service shoes and regulation hairstyles, they looked every bit as fresh and wholesome as they sounded. They looked, in fact, like exactly what they were – ordinary English girls singing traditional English carols, bringing Yuletide cheer to their war-weary fellows.

All the singers had pleasant voices, though they lacked the operatic sophistication one heard in wireless broadcasts from the Albert Hall. And yet they were pouring their souls into the music with a sweet sincerity that Foyle found unexpectedly moving.

"O, come let us adore Him

O, come let us adore Him

O, come let us adore Him

Christ the Lord!"

He watched the play of emotion on his driver's face as she sang. Sam's features were transfigured by a serenity he had never seen before, her eyes half-closed as she concentrated, seemingly fixed upon some inner vision. Carol followed carol – "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "In the Bleak Midwinter", "Away in a Manger", "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", "The Holly and the Ivy", "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" – each pure, each lovely, voices harmonising softly. Some verses were sung in duets or trios, sopranos chiming in a sweet descant over the melody. He stood transfixed as each familiar, beloved tune made his heart swell a little more within him.

Glancing around him he saw his own feelings echoed on the faces of his fellow police officers. His eyes lingered for a long moment on Milner, standing tall and silent in a shadowy corner, his eyes glowing with emotion as he drank in the music. His sergeant's expression reminded Foyle forcibly that he wasn't the only with burdens to bear this Christmas. Milner, he knew, was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of his leg, and the long hours he spent at work suggested that all was not well in his home life.

Foyle had lost count of how many carols they had sung when the girl with the pitch-pipe sounded a single note and a lone voice, high and clear, sounded forth like a beam of light in the darkness:

"I wonder as I wander out under the sky

How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die

For poor on'ry people like you and like I

I wonder as I wander out under the sky"

It was a tune he had never heard before, in a minor key and plaintive enough to wring tears from a stone. The melody seemed to echo Foyle's longing for Rosalind, for everything he had lost when she went and for what he feared he might yet lose if Andrew was taken from him, too. The other singers chimed in softly on the second verse before the WAAF soloist repeated the first stanza, her voice lingering effortlessly on an impossibly high, hauntingly beautiful note:

"I wonder as I wan-der … out under the sky …"

There was a long moment of stunned silence, but before any of the listeners could collect themselves to applaud the pitch-pipe was sounding again. Each girl seemed to draw a deep breath and Foyle saw one or two exchange nervous glances before another soloist began.

"Hark how the bells

Sweet silver bells

All seem to say

Throw cares away"

A second girl joined in, harmonising with the first:

"Christmas is here

Bringing good cheer

To young and old

Meek and the bold"

It was unlike any music he had ever heard before. A third girl joined in, then a fourth and a fifth, until all seven voices were weaving a rich tapestry of sound. Foyle was amazed. How was it possible for human voices sound so much like bells? Softly at first, the song swelled, voices chasing each other round and round, ringing louder and louder until they peaked in a glorious crescendo:

"Gaily they ring

While people sing

Songs of cheer

Christmas is here

Merry, merry, merry Christmas!

Merry, merry, merry Christmas!"

Revelling in the music, he was sorry when the bells began to fade, when the voices dropped lower and quieter until there was only one girl left singing. Sam sang the final notes alone, knowing that every listener in the room was riveted:

"Ding, dong, ding … dong!"

While those around him burst into enthusiastic applause, Foyle closed his eyes for a long moment, the better to savour the peace and hope that stirred deep within him. Somehow, despite all his cares, Sam and her little group of carollers had given him a sense of Christmas joy, the first time he'd felt it in many years. He felt that he had been given a precious gift.

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Finis