If there is a Power that looks after the imprisoned and helpless, it was surely working overtime that afternoon. Whether it was due to LeBeau's efforts, their own willpower, or both, the men were happy for the space of that meal. And they left the table, in twos and threes, most of them headed for other barracks and other friends, feeling almost free.
Christmas, after all, is not the only holiday that takes place in late December. The winter solstice has been a time of celebration for most of human history, under as many names are there have been cultures, but all of those feasts and celebrations proclaim that Darkness can never prevail and the Light will return. Be it a star or candelabrum, a sun or a son, one way or another, light, metaphorical, physical, or both, will always overcome, no matter how unlikely that may seem when one is standing in the shadows.
Let it never be said that there isn't something magical about a day like that. Nazi Germany was a very, very dark place.
LeBeau, in the nearly empty room, looked at a stack of dirty plates and unscrubbed pots, and exercised a cook's privilege; he decided that they could wait, and if anyone wanted a clean dish for whatever reason, they could wash it themselves. The plate he had so carefully put aside was still warming on the back of the stove, he picked it up and glanced at Hogan with a question in his eyes.
Hogan nodded. "He's all yours, LeBeau."
"Since the day I arrived," LeBeau agreed, and, just for a moment, he was back in the cooler, so long ago, a seething ragout of rage and loss and fear. There had been no real reason for the stranger in the next cell to throw him a lifeline. He'd done it anyway.
"Be careful," Hogan said seriously. "Don't do anything you'll regret, okay?"
"I will be careful. I must prevent something happening that I would very much regret," LeBeau said seriously.
Hogan managed not to wince. "If you can't, no one can."
LeBeau opened the tunnel entrance, climbing, one-handed, down the ladder with the ease of long practice. He strode down the corridor, balancing a well-filled plate, a bottle of wine, and a considerable load of apprehension. The dim glow of the radio niche, just ahead, was for the first time, more hostile than hopeful.
But he set his teeth and walked in. Newkirk was sitting at the silent radio, head propped on his hand, and eyes fixed on something far away.
The finished jacket hung, with the rest of their civilian wardrobe, from a slightly ramshackle garment rack. It no longer looked like a refugee from a ragbag; aside from a carefully authentic touch or two—a resewn button with a slightly different thread, a slight shininess on the collar betokening long wear—it would not have been out of place in a shop window. It was the sort of thing any free man would have leapt at the chance to wear.
"I have brought your dinner," LeBeau announced, plunking the dish onto the table.
"Appreciate the thought," Newkirk said, making no move to touch it. "But I'm still not in the mood for a celebration."
"Who's celebrating?" LeBeau said. "I bring dinner to Kinch when he is down here, I bring dinner to the Colonel when he is down here, I bring dinner to Baker when he is down here. Three hundred and sixty four days a year, I bring dinner to whoever is down here manning the radio. You are down here on the three hundred and sixty fifth; I bring your dinner." He quirked a wry eyebrow, and produced two tin cups from his pocket. "And I also bring some of our horrible wine, which I am not cruel enough to make anyone drink alone."
Newkirk unbent enough to smile at that. "Now, then, Louie, don't try to fool a connoisseur. This is the batch from three weeks ago, isn't it? Wasn't 'alf bad."
"It wasn't half good, either," LeBeau said, pouring two cups full and pushing one across the table. "À ta santé."
Newkirk took it. "Cheers, mate." They drank. It really was atrocious stuff, even by the famously low standards of prison camp pruno. But somehow, the more of it one had, the better it started to taste. There was probably something very profound in that somewhere.
"Eat," LeBeau said. "Don't let it get cold; not even your poor stunted English sense of taste could possibly complain about this dinner. I outdid myself."
"And you're just so modest about it, too," Newkirk said, lifting the cover from the dish and smiling faintly at the mouth-watering aromas that swirled up to meet him. "I will say, it all looks smashing, Louie. Thanks."
As compliments from Newkirk went, that was about the equivalent of a three-star Michelin review, and LeBeau knew it. He wrapped his hands around his cup with a faint smile of his own, and said, "Letting it get cold will not improve it. Eat, before I give it to Schultz."
"I'm surprised 'e wasn't already in there begging for a taste," Newkirk commented, digging in.
"He was. Le Colonel said that if I was going to feed strays, at least I'd had the sense to pick one that did not shed or mark the furniture."
"Not anymore, 'e don't, anyhow. We'd the devil of a time 'ousebreaking old Schultzie, as I recall."
"Ah, but what a splendid job we made of it," LeBeau said, and refilled their cups.
"Your life did not end, you know," LeBeau said quietly, about three-quarters of the bottle later.
Newkirk studied his empty plate for a moment, as if trying to read the future in the scattered bones. "That's where you're wrong, Louie," he said. "It ended. I'm not saying it didn't start up again, because it did. You were there when it 'appened. But the bloke I'd been up until that Christmas… 'e died, Louie. Stood there barefoot in the snow, with one working eye, five broken fingers, and a set of shackles so icy cold that they burned, and looked at the barbed wires penning 'im in, and 'e died." He was silent for a while, then, very softly, finished the thought. "It was a bloody long time before I stopped wanting to join 'im."
"I know," LeBeau said. "I knew then, as well. It was… it was frightening."
"Never meant to burden you with that," Newkirk said. "I'm sorry, mate. But I don't 'ave to remind you what it was like. The bullyboys, the beatings, and all the other little fun and games… I still think the only reason they kept me alive was that they knew 'ow badly I wanted someone to end it. But all the Christmas stuff…"
"Oui?"
"It just reminds me of standing there and realizing that they'd brought us to this place so that they could keep on doing all of it over again at their leisure. Forever, or next best thing. I was more scared that I'd 'ave to live than I was that I might die."
"How did I not know this before? This is not our first Christmas in this place," LeBeau asked.
"Why would you know? This is the first Christmas I wasn't otherwise occupied. I never needed to mention it before this, and if everyone 'adn't been so bent on converting Stalag 13's designated Ebenezer Scrooge, I wouldn't've mentioned it now."
"Otherwise occupied? With what?"
"Well, in 1940 I spent Christmas in the cooler. 1941 was the year I 'ad that nasty bug, spent 'alf of December and part of January curled around a 'oney bucket." He snorted. "I was too out of it to remember my own name, let alone the date. In '42 it was the cooler again. And that brings us to now."
"So it does. But we are a team, Pierre. This is what being a team is about. It was not right of you to carry this alone. I wish you had told me of this sooner."
"For what? So you could feel rotten, too, whenever you see mistletoe and 'olly branches? Like the Guv said, Christmas is something the lads look forward to. Even 'ere. Why would I take that away from any of you? Exactly what kind of a bastard do you think I am?"
"A stubborn one, for certain," LeBeau said, shaking his head.
"If not for that train we were supposed to be bombing, I'd've made it my business to draw another visit to the cooler, nice and quiet while you lot kept Christmas 'owever you liked, and then all this unpleasantness could've been avoided. If there was ever a time when me ending up in the cells for whatever reason would raise any eyebrows, that time is long gone. Next year I'll arrange for that; problem averted."
"Next year! Non, mon ami. This war cannot last much longer. It simply cannot."
"They've been telling me that for years, Louie. Years. I don't believe it anymore."
"You must not give up, Pierre! We have come too far for that."
"Who's giving up? I'll do everything I can, as 'ard as I can, for as long as I can, and a bit more after that, just for good measure. We'll win; I don't doubt that. We've got to. But predicting the whens and wherefores of it all? No. The war will end when it ends, and, mate, I'll be right 'ere when it does."
LeBeau bit his lip. "We are volunteers," he said softly.
"Damned right we are," Newkirk answered. "And, one way or the other, I'd be long gone if I didn't know that my job 'ere is probably the only worthwhile thing I'll ever do. I'm proud of it, proud of what we accomplish; never doubt that for a minute. It makes the shackles easier to bear... but they never quite vanish, do they?"
Unlike many of the questions that dotted his speech, that one was not rhetorical. He was genuinely asking a question of the only man who would or could give him an honest answer. LeBeau had been a prisoner for a long time, longer than almost anyone in camp besides Newkirk himself. LeBeau hated it there. Everyone hated it there. It was impossible to not hate it there. But did it gnaw at him the way it obviously did at Newkirk, or was Newkirk the only weakling?
LeBeau took a moment to reflect, to reexamine feelings that he had long ago forced himself to relegate to the background of his life. "No," he said lowly. "No, they never do. But you must remember that this is not forever. Soon we will be free."
"Soon. Sure. From your mouth to God's ear. The empty promises, the platitudes… they only make me feel worse about the whole thing, Louie. They never 'elp none. I'm done with false 'ope. What I've got now is a task and a responsibility. It's better that way."
"No. It's not enough," LeBeau said. "It's not better, and it's not enough."
"It's more than I 'ad a few Christmases ago, mate. It's more than I thought I'd ever 'ave again. I'll take it." Leaning forward, he splashed a bit more plonk into their cups. "I've even got brothers now. That makes it more than enough. And that's all I've got to say on the subject. 'Ere's to a silent night."
LeBeau lifted his cup. "No. Here is to peace on earth, mon pote. Peace on earth, and good will to man."
"Now, that I'll drink to," Newkirk said, with the ghost of a smile, and clinked his dented tin cup against LeBeau's. "Peace on earth, mate. And the sooner the better."
They made the same toast a year later.
In the same place.