Red Light

by tallsunshine12

Night-time on the desert. The stars were low, the desert was vast and soundless except for a softly soughing wind, and the hills were distant gray shapes in the light of the half-moon. The jeeps were parked off to one side, together, almost as if conferring with one another about their adventures of the day.

Then a sweet, soft voice cut the night air, the only sound for miles around. Even Tully, on guard duty, heard it and felt lulled by it. His heart softened as he thought of the rugged British commando who rode with him and fought 'side by side' with him against the German convoys. It was Doc's voice rendering an old English carol. Tonight was December 25th.

"The holly and the ivy," Moffitt sang. "When they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown." He paused to remember the rest of the song. "O, the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer, the playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir."

"I didn't know you could sing like that, Moffitt," said Troy, with a soft wet gleam in his eye. "It takes me back."

"My mother sang in the choir at church and sometimes still does," said the Englishman. "I learned the lyrics from her."

"I've got a picture of a five-foot Doc tagging along after his mom to church," said Hitch, laughing. "And he's only three!"

"I was never five feet, Hitch. A fortnight after I was born, I was already six feet."

Moffitt was a genuine 'second-story' man, Troy often thought.

"A fortnight?" asked the leader of the long range desert rats.

"Two weeks."

"Wait, let me get this straight," said Hitch, one of a pair of jeep drivers for the Rat Patrol; the other, Tully Pettigrew, was on watch at the top of the sand hill, while the other three enjoyed the warmth and ambiance of a crackling fire. "You're saying you were six feet tall two weeks after you were born?"

"I believe that's what I said," said Moffitt, trying not to smile.

"But there's no way a tiny baby can grow that fast," said Hitch. "No way!"

Now Troy had to laugh outright. "He means it as a joke, Hitch. Only a joke."

"No, Troy," said Jack Moffitt, with utter seriousness. "I was the talk of Chipping Wycombe. I really was as tall as six feet in the two weeks directly after I was born. My mother, you see, had had my father build a high cradle for me!"

Now it was Troy's turn to look perplexed. "You don't say," he said, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"Well, this was fun," said the English sergeant, putting down his tea mug, "but I'm on guard duty next. I better go and relieve Tully before he freezes."

"You do that," said the still-perplexed Troy. "Remind me to tell you a tall tale of my own someday, Moffitt," he called as the tall, lanky Brit extended himself off the sandy ground with the view of striding up the hill and relieving Tully.

"I'll look forward to that," he said, turning back and smiling brightly, just before grabbing a tommy gun from its jeep holster. After that, he struggled up the sandy prominence.

"Doc sure has a way with the truth, hasn't he, Sarge?" asked Hitch.

"Yeah, but that's why I keep him on. He can lie like that to the Germans and they'd believe every word."

The two men's chuckles and laughter met Tully as he was coming down from the sand hill at one side of their night camp.

"Did I miss anything? I heard Doc singing."

"You'll have to ask him someday," said Hitch to his fellow driver, "just how tall he was two weeks after he was born."

"Tall?"

"Tall!" Troy and Hitch said together, then Troy quieted down suddenly. At times, he became like that, a listening expression freezing his face. "Do you hear that?"

"What is it, Sarge?" asked Tully, throwing his gun into its holster at the side of the jeep, and then sitting down and pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Man! It's cold tonight!" He shivered for effect.

"Sounds like bells," Troy said, turning about. "Coming from over there," he pointed to another hill at the edge of camp, opposite the hill on which Moffitt was now on watch.

"I hear it, too," said Tully, sipping the hot liquid slowly. He swallowed and said, "Reminds me of harness bells. We used to have an old horse like that. Maybe Doc's doing it."

He looked up the hill on his right but, sure enough, there was a very quiet Moffitt, staring out at the desert, sitting with his weapon across his knees and unmoving.

"Maybe it's reindeer!" Hitch offered. "It is Christmas."

"Hitch," said Troy. "You have more than your fair share of imagination."

"They only come on Christmas Eve," said Tully. "Whoever heard of delivering presents on Christmas night itself? At my house, we'd already torn into everything and broken it by then."

Getting on his feet, Troy said, "I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I hear bells! Moffitt!"

The Englishman turned and waved. "Troy?" he called. "What is it?"

"Are you ringing any kind of bells?"

Moffitt smiled. "No, I just started hearing them, too. What can they be?"

"Bells, I said—you sure it's not you doing that?"

"I don't have a single bell on me, Troy!" Moffitt hollered down. "They're coming from across the way."

"I'm going to find out what it is!" said Troy, stomping off up the opposite hill. Once he was at the top looking across the sands, he saw nothing, nothing but stars twinkling and that half-moon in the sky. "I could have sworn I heard bells!"

He was turning to the go back down to the fire and maybe catch some sleep before his turn at guard duty, when he happened to look up to the far left of the sky. There he saw a blinking red light, blinking on and off, on and off.

"Who'd have a plane out here tonight?" he asked himself lowly. "With only one light, too?"

He couldn't figure where that blinking red light emanated from, but he was sure it was from a plane. That was the only explanation.

"A blinking red light," he murmured. "Reindeer, indeed!"

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