**It is Christmas Eve in the trench. A light powdering of snow covers most things. We see a sad, balding Christmas tree in the corner, prettily hung with bullets in place of baubles. Instead of a fairy, it appears to be adorned with a dead rat dressed in a tutu. CAPTAIN EDMUND BLACKADDER saunters in, in as close as he gets to high spirits and not entirely sober.**
BLACKADDER (singing): Away in the trenches, no crib for a bed,
The Captain Blackadder laid down his sweet head
The French and the Germans looked down and they saw
A drunken Blackadder passed out on the floor...
He stops singing as he notices LIEUTENANT GEORGE slumped at the table in utter dejection. A half-full bottle of whisky is on the table, with a glass.
BLACKADDER: (a good deal more sober) George, what are you doing?
GEORGE: (slurred) I'm getting drunk, Cap. I'm getting drunk because I'm so damn useless and hopeless at every bloody thing I do.
BLACKADDER: Well, can't argue with you there, George. Frankly, you're about as useful as a contraceptive shop in the Vatican. But be that as it may, we are currently witnessing thousands of our men getting blown to bits every day because General Microbrain Melchett under the guidance of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Complete And Utter Idiot Haig, appears to be incapable of grasping the fact that when men advance over no-man's-land towards German machine-guns, they die. So the fact that you need a ten-page illustrated instruction pamphlet in order to put your own trousers on in the morning is somewhat placed into perspective. Incompetence and idiocy hold sway around here George, and you fit in as happily as a Frenchman who has just bought a house between a restaurant and a bordello.
Anyway, what's brought all this on?
GEORGE: (dully) Look at what the men gave me for Christmas. **He hands over a torn-open envelope**
**BLACKADDER opens the envelope and pulls out a wad of banknotes. He whistles**
BLACKADDER: You get - what have we got here - five hundred francs in cold hard cash for a Christmas present and you're MISERABLE? Now George, I know your family is richer than a roasted peacock stuffed with caviar and truffles and basted in unicorn fat, but if you're looking for sympathy over this one...
GEORGE: **still staring down into his glass of whisky** Read what they wrote on the card.
**BLACKADDER extracts the Christmas card from the envelope.**
BLACKADDER: (reading aloud) Happy Christmas Lieutenant George...use this to...get yourself down...to the village...and get yourself a girl...at last. **He chuckles** Well, that's a bit...
**BLACKADDER trails off, as it becomes apparent that this is no laughing matter for GEORGE, who is now looking straight at BLACKADDER, wearing a crestfallen expression.**
BLACKADDER: (rather nonplussed) George, you're not honestly going to be upset at a silly joke like that?
**GEORGE mutters something inaudible**
BLACKADDER: What?
GEORGE: I said it WASN'T a joke.
BLACKADDER: (still looking nonplussed) George, is my alcohol-sodden brain misleading me here or are you saying that you've never had a girl in your entire life thus far?
GEORGE: Not misleading you, Sir.
BLACKADDER: But...weren't you engaged to that girl, what's her name now, Hermione Fladging-Bullhurst-Mimblethorne?
GEORGE: Ah, the lovely Hermione. Very pretty but a dashed strange girl, very odd indeed. Went out to Jamaica with her people, and I barely heard a word from her for nine months. Then got a letter from her the other week and of all the queer things, she has a new baby brother! Quite the surprise it seems. Swarthy little blighter he is, too. Must be all that tropical sun.
BLACKADDER: Yes, well quite. **He thinks for a moment.**
BLACKADDER: But George, surely there were girls around in your village? I mean, your sister's friends...
GEORGE: Well, to be quite honest, Cap, I think they mostly thought I was rather...well, a bit of a duffer. Old Annabel Cholmondoley-Featherstonehaugh used to ask me to help her practice for the Pony Club trials though. I'd lie down and she'd use me as a jump. Not much of a rider though. In fact, I still have the scars. **He rubs his belly reflectively**
GEORGE: And not many girls at Cambridge. Odd, bespectacled creatures mostly, kept themselves to themselves. Knew a couple of Girton girls called Julia and Ernestine. Frowsty old things they were, rooming together with no company except their cats Naomi and Ruth. Wore the most terrible brown tweed suits and holidayed in the Greek islands. I remember old Strangely-Brown telling them 'You'll never find husbands if you don't smarten up a little'. For some unaccountable reason they found that very funny. And I was only up at Cambridge a term before I joined up.
**He sighs in reminiscence**
I was so excited. Just like in the classics. Achilles and Patroclus. Imagined myself striding out into no-man's-land with my weapon cocked and my uniform tight and shiny, raring to smoke the Hun out of his hole and tackle him in his trenches. Adventure and derring-do, blood and sweat and manly glory. Then a mortal wound, and dying on the field of battle, in the arms of my weeping comrade. Marvellous.
**As GEORGE speaks, BLACKADDER listens with interest, looking more and more thoughtful with each word.**
GEORGE: And then I joined and I was having such a ripping time I hardly thought about girls at all. Up at the crack of dawn for icy showers with clean-limbed wholesome chaps, cold porridge with rat droppings in it, parade drill, marching behind a suave and devilishly handsome Captain...
**GEORGE trails off, aghast at what he has just said. BLACKADDER looks as though he has been hit over the head with a large, heavy object. GEORGE's face crumples.**
GEORGE: (wailing) Oh, what have I done? I'm an idiot and a fool and I might as well just blow my own stupid head off before you do it for me!
**GEORGE lunges and grabs BLACKADDER's service pistol from its holster. Before BLACKADDER can react, GEORGE has the barrel of the gun in his mouth.**
BLACKADDER: George, NO! Stop it!
**In close-up, we see GEORGE's finger tighten fractionally on the trigger.**
BLACKADDER: Lieutenant, did I grant you permission to commit suicide?
GEORGE: (still with the barrel of the gun in his mouth) Ermishuh uh ummit ooh-ih-eye, Ur?
BLACKADDER: Permission NOT granted, Lieutenant. I am ordering you to put the gun down.
**GEORGE puts the gun on the table and bursts into long, dramatic, shuddery sobs. BLACKADDER picks his gun up, returning it to the holster.**
GEORGE: But Captain Blackadder, what else can I do? Falling in love with a superior officer must be a court-martial offence, or I'm an anteater's armpit! They'll throw me out of the army in disgrace, Sir, so I might as well put a bally bullet in my bloody brain while I still can!
**GEORGE makes another grab for BLACKADDER's pistol. This time, however, BLACKADDER reacts quickly. There is a scuffling moment of confusion as BLACKADDER grabs GEORGE's hands to stop him getting the gun...somehow he, BLACKADDER ends up holding GEORGE's hands over his own groin. There is a very pregnant pause as both men become aware of the situation.**
BLACKADDER: Ah. Yes. I see. Erm.
GEORGE: Sir?
**GEORGE's usual expression of puzzled eagerness is amplified ten-fold.**
BLACKADDER: (musingly) You do realise, George, that we'd have to keep this extremely quiet, don't you?
GEORGE: (eagerly) Oh yes Sir. Top-hole hush-hush. Not a soul to know. Not even General Melchett, Sir.
BLACKADDER: *Especially* not General Melchett, George. He'd have us shot at dawn before you could say 'Get over that bed with your trousers down, you gorgeous hunk of well-muscled man-flesh'.
**Assuming it is an order, GEORGE scurries to obey.**
BLACKADDER: George, what are you doing? **He walks over to GEORGE.** As I was saying, we are going to have to keep things very...**he places a hand on each of GEORGE's shoulders**...very...**he kisses GEORGE gently on the lips** VERY...discreet.
GEORGE: (slightly muffled) Understood, Sir.
**They kiss again. And again. And again...**
**...Until the distant strains of singing are heard.**
GEORGE: Can you hear that?
**They break off and listen, still in each other's arms. The carol is 'Silent Night' and clasped together, they listen to it until a voice interrupts them...**
BALDRICK: (unseen but very excited) Sir! Sir! Come on out! We're having a truce with the Germans!
**BLACKADDER and GEORGE spring apart. Just in time because BALDRICK dashes in, barely able to contain himself.**
BALDRICK: Come on, Captain Blackadder! They've brought us some schnapps and sausages and we're going to have a football match! Oh hello George, I didn't realise you were here too!
GEORGE: Yes...yes...I was just er...having a little drink with the Captain. So, a truce you say? That's...great news. We'll be right there.
**BLACKADDER picks up the bottle of whisky from the table and passes it to BALDRICK.**
BLACKADDER: Here, Baldrick, you might as well take this for the Germans.
**He walks over to the bunks and pulls out a bottle. The first of many.**
BLACKADDER: Along with the rest of the case that George seems to have stashed under his mattress.
**As he speaks, BLACKADDER pulls out bottles of whisky and hands them to BALDRICK.**
BLACKADDER: George, I thought I gave strict orders that all alcohol received this Christmas was to be handed in to me under...under the new instructions from Headquarters?
GEORGE: (self-righteously) Well, I'm not the one who's been hiding a bottle of gin in the first-aid box labelled Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion!
BLACKADDER: George...that IS Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion.
GEORGE: Oh! You know, I was wondering why my vision was a bit blurred the other week. Anyway, have we got anything else to take out?
BALDRICK: Well, you know how Rosie the big rat had her babies last week? I've been milking her and I've made some lovely cheese...
BLACKADDER: Baldrick, NO, this is supposed to be a truce! Save it for next week when we'll be trying to kill each other instead. Then you can lob it into their trenches with impunity.
BALDRICK: Yes, Sir.
**He disappears.**
BLACKADDER: Well, George, shall we go to the party?
GEORGE: Yes Sir. There's just one thing...
BLACKADDER: Yes?
GEORGE: I thought you liked...*girls*.
BLACKADDER: Well, can *you* see any woman within five hundred miles of this place with the exception of Madame Bernadette de la Bouche, who is fifty-seven years old and has a collection of venereal diseases that rivals the Pasteur Institute?
And besides, I like *you*. Why else would I keep you back from last week's mission 'Operation Venture Into No-Man's-Land In Broad Daylight With Microscopic Chance Of Survival'?
GEORGE: You said you did that because I was a bumbling bloody fool, Sir.
BLACKADDER: (thoughtful) Well, that too.
**Party sounds are heard outside - drinking, laughing, shouting, multilingual singing, vomiting.**
BLACKADDER: But we really ought to go now, before the only thing left to drink is that bottle of Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion.
**BLACKADDER pauses. A beat, then he gently brushes a kiss across GEORGE's lips.**
BLACKADDER: Happy Christmas, Lieutenant.
**BLACKADDER disappears. GEORGE stands still for a moment, a small smile on his face, then follows BLACKADDER out to the party.**
BLACKADDER (singing): Away in the trenches, no crib for a bed,
The Captain Blackadder laid down his sweet head
The French and the Germans looked down and they saw
A drunken Blackadder passed out on the floor...
He stops singing as he notices LIEUTENANT GEORGE slumped at the table in utter dejection. A half-full bottle of whisky is on the table, with a glass.
BLACKADDER: (a good deal more sober) George, what are you doing?
GEORGE: (slurred) I'm getting drunk, Cap. I'm getting drunk because I'm so damn useless and hopeless at every bloody thing I do.
BLACKADDER: Well, can't argue with you there, George. Frankly, you're about as useful as a contraceptive shop in the Vatican. But be that as it may, we are currently witnessing thousands of our men getting blown to bits every day because General Microbrain Melchett under the guidance of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Complete And Utter Idiot Haig, appears to be incapable of grasping the fact that when men advance over no-man's-land towards German machine-guns, they die. So the fact that you need a ten-page illustrated instruction pamphlet in order to put your own trousers on in the morning is somewhat placed into perspective. Incompetence and idiocy hold sway around here George, and you fit in as happily as a Frenchman who has just bought a house between a restaurant and a bordello.
Anyway, what's brought all this on?
GEORGE: (dully) Look at what the men gave me for Christmas. **He hands over a torn-open envelope**
**BLACKADDER opens the envelope and pulls out a wad of banknotes. He whistles**
BLACKADDER: You get - what have we got here - five hundred francs in cold hard cash for a Christmas present and you're MISERABLE? Now George, I know your family is richer than a roasted peacock stuffed with caviar and truffles and basted in unicorn fat, but if you're looking for sympathy over this one...
GEORGE: **still staring down into his glass of whisky** Read what they wrote on the card.
**BLACKADDER extracts the Christmas card from the envelope.**
BLACKADDER: (reading aloud) Happy Christmas Lieutenant George...use this to...get yourself down...to the village...and get yourself a girl...at last. **He chuckles** Well, that's a bit...
**BLACKADDER trails off, as it becomes apparent that this is no laughing matter for GEORGE, who is now looking straight at BLACKADDER, wearing a crestfallen expression.**
BLACKADDER: (rather nonplussed) George, you're not honestly going to be upset at a silly joke like that?
**GEORGE mutters something inaudible**
BLACKADDER: What?
GEORGE: I said it WASN'T a joke.
BLACKADDER: (still looking nonplussed) George, is my alcohol-sodden brain misleading me here or are you saying that you've never had a girl in your entire life thus far?
GEORGE: Not misleading you, Sir.
BLACKADDER: But...weren't you engaged to that girl, what's her name now, Hermione Fladging-Bullhurst-Mimblethorne?
GEORGE: Ah, the lovely Hermione. Very pretty but a dashed strange girl, very odd indeed. Went out to Jamaica with her people, and I barely heard a word from her for nine months. Then got a letter from her the other week and of all the queer things, she has a new baby brother! Quite the surprise it seems. Swarthy little blighter he is, too. Must be all that tropical sun.
BLACKADDER: Yes, well quite. **He thinks for a moment.**
BLACKADDER: But George, surely there were girls around in your village? I mean, your sister's friends...
GEORGE: Well, to be quite honest, Cap, I think they mostly thought I was rather...well, a bit of a duffer. Old Annabel Cholmondoley-Featherstonehaugh used to ask me to help her practice for the Pony Club trials though. I'd lie down and she'd use me as a jump. Not much of a rider though. In fact, I still have the scars. **He rubs his belly reflectively**
GEORGE: And not many girls at Cambridge. Odd, bespectacled creatures mostly, kept themselves to themselves. Knew a couple of Girton girls called Julia and Ernestine. Frowsty old things they were, rooming together with no company except their cats Naomi and Ruth. Wore the most terrible brown tweed suits and holidayed in the Greek islands. I remember old Strangely-Brown telling them 'You'll never find husbands if you don't smarten up a little'. For some unaccountable reason they found that very funny. And I was only up at Cambridge a term before I joined up.
**He sighs in reminiscence**
I was so excited. Just like in the classics. Achilles and Patroclus. Imagined myself striding out into no-man's-land with my weapon cocked and my uniform tight and shiny, raring to smoke the Hun out of his hole and tackle him in his trenches. Adventure and derring-do, blood and sweat and manly glory. Then a mortal wound, and dying on the field of battle, in the arms of my weeping comrade. Marvellous.
**As GEORGE speaks, BLACKADDER listens with interest, looking more and more thoughtful with each word.**
GEORGE: And then I joined and I was having such a ripping time I hardly thought about girls at all. Up at the crack of dawn for icy showers with clean-limbed wholesome chaps, cold porridge with rat droppings in it, parade drill, marching behind a suave and devilishly handsome Captain...
**GEORGE trails off, aghast at what he has just said. BLACKADDER looks as though he has been hit over the head with a large, heavy object. GEORGE's face crumples.**
GEORGE: (wailing) Oh, what have I done? I'm an idiot and a fool and I might as well just blow my own stupid head off before you do it for me!
**GEORGE lunges and grabs BLACKADDER's service pistol from its holster. Before BLACKADDER can react, GEORGE has the barrel of the gun in his mouth.**
BLACKADDER: George, NO! Stop it!
**In close-up, we see GEORGE's finger tighten fractionally on the trigger.**
BLACKADDER: Lieutenant, did I grant you permission to commit suicide?
GEORGE: (still with the barrel of the gun in his mouth) Ermishuh uh ummit ooh-ih-eye, Ur?
BLACKADDER: Permission NOT granted, Lieutenant. I am ordering you to put the gun down.
**GEORGE puts the gun on the table and bursts into long, dramatic, shuddery sobs. BLACKADDER picks his gun up, returning it to the holster.**
GEORGE: But Captain Blackadder, what else can I do? Falling in love with a superior officer must be a court-martial offence, or I'm an anteater's armpit! They'll throw me out of the army in disgrace, Sir, so I might as well put a bally bullet in my bloody brain while I still can!
**GEORGE makes another grab for BLACKADDER's pistol. This time, however, BLACKADDER reacts quickly. There is a scuffling moment of confusion as BLACKADDER grabs GEORGE's hands to stop him getting the gun...somehow he, BLACKADDER ends up holding GEORGE's hands over his own groin. There is a very pregnant pause as both men become aware of the situation.**
BLACKADDER: Ah. Yes. I see. Erm.
GEORGE: Sir?
**GEORGE's usual expression of puzzled eagerness is amplified ten-fold.**
BLACKADDER: (musingly) You do realise, George, that we'd have to keep this extremely quiet, don't you?
GEORGE: (eagerly) Oh yes Sir. Top-hole hush-hush. Not a soul to know. Not even General Melchett, Sir.
BLACKADDER: *Especially* not General Melchett, George. He'd have us shot at dawn before you could say 'Get over that bed with your trousers down, you gorgeous hunk of well-muscled man-flesh'.
**Assuming it is an order, GEORGE scurries to obey.**
BLACKADDER: George, what are you doing? **He walks over to GEORGE.** As I was saying, we are going to have to keep things very...**he places a hand on each of GEORGE's shoulders**...very...**he kisses GEORGE gently on the lips** VERY...discreet.
GEORGE: (slightly muffled) Understood, Sir.
**They kiss again. And again. And again...**
**...Until the distant strains of singing are heard.**
GEORGE: Can you hear that?
**They break off and listen, still in each other's arms. The carol is 'Silent Night' and clasped together, they listen to it until a voice interrupts them...**
BALDRICK: (unseen but very excited) Sir! Sir! Come on out! We're having a truce with the Germans!
**BLACKADDER and GEORGE spring apart. Just in time because BALDRICK dashes in, barely able to contain himself.**
BALDRICK: Come on, Captain Blackadder! They've brought us some schnapps and sausages and we're going to have a football match! Oh hello George, I didn't realise you were here too!
GEORGE: Yes...yes...I was just er...having a little drink with the Captain. So, a truce you say? That's...great news. We'll be right there.
**BLACKADDER picks up the bottle of whisky from the table and passes it to BALDRICK.**
BLACKADDER: Here, Baldrick, you might as well take this for the Germans.
**He walks over to the bunks and pulls out a bottle. The first of many.**
BLACKADDER: Along with the rest of the case that George seems to have stashed under his mattress.
**As he speaks, BLACKADDER pulls out bottles of whisky and hands them to BALDRICK.**
BLACKADDER: George, I thought I gave strict orders that all alcohol received this Christmas was to be handed in to me under...under the new instructions from Headquarters?
GEORGE: (self-righteously) Well, I'm not the one who's been hiding a bottle of gin in the first-aid box labelled Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion!
BLACKADDER: George...that IS Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion.
GEORGE: Oh! You know, I was wondering why my vision was a bit blurred the other week. Anyway, have we got anything else to take out?
BALDRICK: Well, you know how Rosie the big rat had her babies last week? I've been milking her and I've made some lovely cheese...
BLACKADDER: Baldrick, NO, this is supposed to be a truce! Save it for next week when we'll be trying to kill each other instead. Then you can lob it into their trenches with impunity.
BALDRICK: Yes, Sir.
**He disappears.**
BLACKADDER: Well, George, shall we go to the party?
GEORGE: Yes Sir. There's just one thing...
BLACKADDER: Yes?
GEORGE: I thought you liked...*girls*.
BLACKADDER: Well, can *you* see any woman within five hundred miles of this place with the exception of Madame Bernadette de la Bouche, who is fifty-seven years old and has a collection of venereal diseases that rivals the Pasteur Institute?
And besides, I like *you*. Why else would I keep you back from last week's mission 'Operation Venture Into No-Man's-Land In Broad Daylight With Microscopic Chance Of Survival'?
GEORGE: You said you did that because I was a bumbling bloody fool, Sir.
BLACKADDER: (thoughtful) Well, that too.
**Party sounds are heard outside - drinking, laughing, shouting, multilingual singing, vomiting.**
BLACKADDER: But we really ought to go now, before the only thing left to drink is that bottle of Nurse MacGreedy's Surgical Bruise Lotion.
**BLACKADDER pauses. A beat, then he gently brushes a kiss across GEORGE's lips.**
BLACKADDER: Happy Christmas, Lieutenant.
**BLACKADDER disappears. GEORGE stands still for a moment, a small smile on his face, then follows BLACKADDER out to the party.**