Christmas Day, 1943. Early evening.
"Well, Herr Oberst. What did Sergeant Carter mean by a 'Christmas truce'? Radio Berlin made no mention of one."
Colonel Hogan laughed as he helped Doktor Falke descend into the emergency tunnel. "Not the war, Fraulein Doktor. A truce between us."
Corporal Newkirk stood at the bottom of the ladder. "We got a sprig of mistletoe in the last air drop," he said as he guided her to the ground. Holding it over their heads, he wrapped his free arm around her, bent her back and kissed her full on the mouth before she could take a breath.
"I'll wager no one has ever kissed you like that before."
Doktor Falke smoothed down her skirt and patted her hair. "Nor ever will again." Newkirk's smile wavered. "Unless it's you, Peter," she added, hugging him close. "A happy Christmas."
"A happy Christmas to you too," he replied. He whispered in her ear. "I oh-so-casually yarned to the guys about how Mavis's engagement struck me all a heap, just like you hinted." He glanced at Kinch and shook his head. "Why didn't he tell me what was bothering him, poor sod? I would've put him right in a jif."
"I don't know." She looked up. "We're not expecting a thunderstorm tonight, are we?"
"No, should we?"
"I may need to be wary of lightening bolts. Divine retribution."
Newkirk squeezed her waist. "You never told me straight out what was wrong with him. Even if you did, would God kill you for easing the heart of a friend?"
Doktor Falke returned the squeeze. "What would I do without you to set me straight?"
Gently pulling out of the Englishman's embrace, the doctor hugged and kissed each of the men surrounding her until she came to Colonel Hogan. They eyed each other warily.
The colonel held his arms out slightly. "Truce, Marlena?
The doctor smiled. She put her hands on his shoulders and lightly kissed his cheek. "Truce, Colonel."
Slipping her right hand over his arm, Colonel Hogan escorted her into the radio room, the center of the clandestine operation beneath the earth of Luftstalag Thirteen. The men following them all grinned at Doktor Falke's gasp of wonder. Evergreen boughs and paper chains garlanded the walls of the tunnel. Reflected light, from both the electric light over the radio table and from the kerosene lamps bracketed along the sides of the room, gleamed or danced off ornaments made of tinsel and tins from their Red Cross packages. On the map table lay an assortment of food, some from the Red Cross packages, some from the rations they had hoarded, some as gifts from fellow partisans. There was a pitcher of LeBeau's wine, made from the wild grapes and berries that grew in the woods outside the wire. Schnitzer the veterinarian, who, like Doktor Falke herself, was usually paid in farm produce when he was paid at all, had sent cabbage, beans and carrots, which the resourceful French corporal had made into an edible salad. Newkirk had 'liberated' a bottle of the camp kommandant's best brandy.
"Isn't it something, Doktor?" Carter asked, enthusiastically eying the food.
By pre-war standards, it was a meagre feast; but this was 1943. It looked as bountiful to the ration-strapped Doktor Falke as it did to the five prisoners of war who provided it.
"It's incredibly beautiful," she whispered. She turned to LeBeau, who stood smiling with delight and pride at his handiwork. "I shouldn't share all this with you. You have so few supplies at hand and you may need to feed some escaping airmen."
"Nonsense, Mademoiselle la Doctrice. There is much more where this came from."
"Well then, I thank you all." She pointed out a paper bag and an earthenware jug that Newkirk and Carter had carried for her into the tunnel. "My little offerings, Corporal LeBeau. When Andrew swooped down and carried me off, these were all I could find to bring." LeBeau looked inside the bag. "Dried apple rings and apple cider, I'm afraid."
"The perfect gift," Sergeant Kinchloe reassured her. "Nothing like an apple, even dried."
Doktor Falke smiled; but her eyes questioned his with concern. This was the week of his sister's wedding. He seemed to be his old composed self; but she knew how well he could hide his pain under an impassive exterior.
The sergeant returned her smile. "I'm all right, Doktor Fledermaus. Still getting through the pain, but it hurts less now," his eyes replied. "Stop worrying and enjoy the party."
Colonel Hogan had snatched five cigars from the humidor in Kommandant Klink's office. Doktor Falke munched on her dried apple rings and tried not to choke on the fumes, to the politely hidden but obvious amusement of the colonel and his men.
The colonel made a short speech recapping the events of the previous year. The men reminisced about their many successes and few failures, bragging slightly to impress Doktor Falke or to tease her a little acidly, knowing that she did not appreciate what they did. They no longer blamed her for believing in her pacifism, knowing that every time they sabotaged something, she had to deal with the bloody aftermath. It was, however, still a contentious barrier between them.
Doktor Falke asked about Group Captain Donovan, Sergeant Olsen and Corporal Marcus Simms.
"Donovan and the 'lads' as he calls them are having a good time above in our barracks while watching for the guards." Colonel Hogan held up the brandy bottle. "This isn't the only liquor Newkirk found in Klink's cellar and these are not the only cigars I stole. They send their warmest wishes and Donovan intends to come down and dance a jig with you later."
"Better wear armour plated shoes, Doktor!" Newkirk shouted.
Everyone laughed at this. Group Captain Donovan was built as high, as wide, and as strong as a Sherman tank and everyone knew that Marlena Falke had two left feet, both of which the RAF officer would surely step upon in the narrow confines of their tunnel.
"Marlena, last night the men and I were reminiscing about what Christmas was like when we were children. Do you have any memories to share with us?"
Doktor Falke bit into an apple ring. "Not really, Colonel Hogan."
"I guess you don't celebrate Christmas in your brand of religion."
"Oh, we're not so strict as the Amish. My branch of the church came through from the Russian Ukraine. The Ukrainians really enjoy Christmas, although with their calendar, they celebrate it later than we in the Western world. If the 'English' still celebrated Twelfth Night, it would fall near the Ukrainian Christmas. I suppose a bit of their merriment rubbed off on their 'Russian' Mennonite neighbours. We give gifts to the small children and we eat a hearty meal with all our family and friends, but Christmas is really for church worship. Santa Claus doesn't mean much to us."
Doktor Falke looked down at her lap. The men looked away uncomfortably. They forgot that Doktor Falke's father had been over strict with her. Her childhood memories were not altogether happy ones, like those of her friends here, or even of her friends of her own religion back home.
Carter cleared his throat to break the heavy silence. "Last night, Schultz told us of a really terrific legend about his great-great grandfather."
"That's his 'great-great-great-great' grandfather, Carter." Newkirk contradicted him.
"Well, whatever. All about how he began his toy company in Heidelburg, and how every Christmas, he distributed toys to the children here in Hammelburg and elsewhere."
"His toy company? Do you mean the Schatze toy company?"
"You've heard of it?"
"Who has not? Oh, they made the most wonderful toys. The first Christmas I was here, in 1938, the year before the war started, I lived in Heidelburg. Herr Schultz invited all the townspeople to tour the factory. I remember looking into a huge display case on the first floor of the office building. It was magical. Like fairyland. There was a Weinachtsmann – a Father Christmas – and his dwarves in a workshop. They were carved from wood; but they actually moved. They were so funny to watch and the expressions carved on their faces were so droll. There were the most beautiful baby dolls, they looked just like real infants. Like sleeping cherubs."
She stared upward at the 'roof' of the tunnel, enraptured by the memory. "There were little mechanical dogs – terriers. The employees wound up the key in each one's side, and they would walk and sit up and beg and even turn somersaults. And the most remarkable teddy bears – so furry looking and so funny. Each with a face that would melt your heart. And puzzles and kites and building sets and dolls tea sets made of real china. And there were electric trains and toy aeroplanes."
Doktor Falke's face clouded. "I confess I did not like the aeroplanes. They had swastikas all over them. And the toy soldiers were not the gaudy ones that make you think of the Nutcracker Prince. They were dressed like your guards upstairs, although Herr Schultz und Herr Langenscheidt look much better than they did. Less fearsome." She shuddered. "No, I did not like them at all. But they were the only things I did not like." She looked down at her hands.
"Carter, why don't you tell the Fraulein Doktor what Schultz told us?" Colonel Hogan prodded gently. [which you will find as Patti and Marg's story "Game Preserver"]
Carter told the tale, as only Carter could. [I'll leave that up to your imaginations.]
"What a lovely story, and just like Herr Schultz to be so generous." Doktor Falke replied when he had finished. "He always comes to the hospital twice a month with a bag of sweets for the little ones. You should see him wheedle the nursing sisters into letting the children have their candies." Her eyes were shining, her troubled memories forgotten.
Kinch slipped his hand over Doktor Falke's and squeezed it. He gave Carter a smile of thanks. Carter gave him a shy smile in return.
The 'Fraulein Doktor' meant a lot to the two American sergeants who had befriended her. When they had brought their injured comrade LeBeau to her surgery last January, she had hidden them from the German patrols searching for them and had laboured to save the little Frenchman's life.
Since that time, the two American sergeants visited Doktor Falke at least twice a month; on the Saturday afternoons their colonel permitted each of his men to spend in rotation away from the prison camp and the tunnel. Because his dark complexion made it impossible for Sergeant Kinchloe to walk about town without risking arrest, Doktor Falke's cottage was the only safe house where he could relax from the strain of the operation. Kinch and the doctor read and discussed the contents of her medical books, as well as the books she borrowed for him from the lending library. Sometimes Sergeant Wilson, the prisoners' medic, would study with them. [Both medicos found it mutually beneficial. Doktor Falke translated the news she gleaned from her journals. Wilson gave her and Kinch a 'crash course' in battlefield surgery techniques. Marlena said that the POW's owed her those lessons, since they were providing so many opportunities to practice them.] Carter would join them in the evenings, after going to the zoo or visiting his friend Madie at the Hofbrau or doing the marketing for both the physician and for LeBeau. They would eat a frugal supper together. Carter even tried to teach the doctor how to dance, with results best left to the imagination.
Their acquaintance with her had deepened into friendship during the ten months since that first encounter to the day when the Gestapo's suspicions, aroused by war correspondent Walter Hobson's article about unsung heroes in a POW camp, had made casual visits too dangerous. They had truly missed her and she had missed them. It was nice to be together once again. Neither Sergeants Kinchloe nor Carter wanted her to feel her evening with them had been spoiled.
They sang the songs always sung at Christmas: "Jingle Bells" ["What's 'two-forty for his speed'?" Carter asked. "Is the bob-tailed nag a horse or a Ford?"]; "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" [Doktor Falke insisted on pausing after 'Ye' instead of after 'Merry'. She said that rendered the song more appropriate to the company she was keeping.]; "The Twelve Days of Christmas" [No one could agree on whether it was eight "lords a leaping" or twelve.], and all the others.
Carter sang "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas". LeBeau and Kinch sang a duet about a pair of wandering minstrels who carolled through the streets of Paris. They all softly sang the "Coventry Carol" together – the tears standing in Newkirk's eyes – out of respect for the victims of the massive air strike on that English city. All the dead, cut down like the little babies of the song. LeBeau patted his fellow corporal's shoulder when he broke down. To be shut in here, far away from home, when your family was in danger. The feisty Frenchman knew too well how hard that burden was to bear.
When the conversation and the singing had died away, Colonel Hogan signalled to Carter. He brought a small cardboard box and set it down between Sergeant Kinchloe and Doktor Falke.
"This also arrived via the last air drop from London," the colonel said. "Will you open it, please, Marlena?"
Doktor Falke opened the lid of the box. Inside was a small cake, full of raisins, nuts and candied cherries.
"I'm told that, for some arcane reason, Canadians love to eat fruitcake."
She gaped at the American officer. "This one certainly does; but the expense! Why?"
She stopped. Sergeant Kinchloe was staring at his colonel with such a strange expression: half-suspicious and half… moved?"
"Colonel Hogan, who told you?" Kinchloe asked in a choked voice. "Carter? Doktor Falke?"
Of course. Marlena Falke realized with a gasp. This is really a wedding cake.
"No one needed to tell me, once I found out the letter that upset you was from your sister. Kinch, I have three sisters of my own. I'm a career officer. When a soldier stationed away from home receives a 'Dear John' letter from his sister, it's obvious what she wrote. It happened to me twice." He came behind Doktor Falke and laid his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't have a devoted lady doctor to talk me through the first time."
"Or an understanding C.O., Colonel?"
"Or a barracks full of trustworthy friends, Kinch."
Sergeant Kinchloe looked down at the fruitcake in Doktor Falke's hands. She offered it to him.
"Danke schoen, liebe Freundin." He gave her a gentle smile as he took the box. "Thanks, Colonel. Thanks, guys."
He looked again at Doktor Falke. "So?" She nodded. He took the fruitcake from the box, broke it in half and handed one piece to the doctor. She broke her half into thirds at the same time as he did the same.
"Colonel? Louis?"
"Peter? Andrew?"
Each man took a piece of the fruitcake. They all ate it, including LeBeau, who made a face as he swallowed. He and Colonel Hogan were not fond of fruitcake.
Newkirk poured brandy into five mugs and apple cider into Doktor Falke's.
The others rose from their places and waited.
Colonel Hogan looked at his radioman. "Kinch?"
Taking a deep breath and drawing Doktor Falke's hand through his arm, he raised his mug.
"To Lieutenant and Mrs. Thomas Harris. To my sister Jessica and her husband Tom. May they have a long and happy life together." And may he always cherish her as I do, he added silently.
Everyone raised their mugs and drank. Suddenly Doktor Falke gasped and began to choke.
Sergeant Kinchloe quickly dropped his mug, wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her tight against his chest and repeatedly pushed his interlocked fists into her diaphragm until she gasped, spluttered, wheezed and finally drew in a clear breath.
Colonel Hogan grabbed the mug from her hand before she spilled its contents over her skirt.
"Andrew J. Carter! What did you put into my Apfelsaft?" Doktor Falke fumed at the grinning young man.
Colonel Hogan sniffed the liquid in the doctor's tin mug, tasted it and handed it to Kinchloe. "About a fifth of brandy. Wouldn't you say so?"
Kinch sniffed, tasted and nodded. "About that much, sir. Maybe a little more."
Carter laughed, dancing backward, away from her. "It wasn't me, Doktor! It was Newkirk!"
The doctor's angry eyes swung to the Englishman. "Well really, angel!" he said. "How can you toast a bridal couple with apple juice?"
Doktor Falke struggled, broke free of Sergeant Kinchloe's restraining arm and hurled herself at Newkirk. The Englishman quickly retreated into the emergency tunnel. She charged after him, Carter at her heels.
"Kinch! Colonel! LeBeau! Hold her back! She's a flippin' tigress!"
Kinchloe raised an eyebrow. Colonel Hogan replied with a smile and a slight shake of the head. He extended his mug. The sergeant poured into it half the contents of Doktor Falke's mug.
"I can't guarantee the tunnel will hold up, sir, if they keep rough housing in it."
"Just the usual sounds of children fighting at Christmas, Kinch."
LeBeau smiled beatifically. "It does warm the heart, mon Colonél."
"And it's to be expected, Colonel." Kinch laughed. "After all, you are Papa Bear."
Colonel Hogan rolled his eyes. "My cubs. What did I ever do to deserve them? At least you two are full grown adults."
Colonel Hogan raised his mug in salute: first to Sergeant Kinchloe, then to Corporal LeBeau, and lastly to the sounds of laughter and scuffling in the tunnel.