This is part of
Briane Pagel's holiday blogathon (of doom). Today I'm giving away a free copy of
We Are Now, a book of flash fiction stories (over 65 in all!) written by me, Neil Vogler, and Sean Craven. As a preview of the sheer awesomeness contained therein, this is one of those stories, "Christmas Feast."
An author's note is that this story is based on a story former Scarlet Knight Percival Graves tells the current Scarlet Knight Emma Earl in the final volume of the series--I think. It's about an incident that takes place at Christmas in World War II when Percival was in the British army. This story itself is largely based on the old Snoopy holiday album where Snoopy and the Red Baron share a Christmas together. So now you know...
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Marching through knee-deep
snow in the blistering cold in some godforsaken corner of France is not how I
ever wanted to spend my Christmas. But we got our orders. We’re
supposed to march these German bastards to base so they can ride out the rest
of the war in a prison camp. At this point I envy them for that.
“Why’d we have to get stuck with this shit job?” I
ask.
“Just lucky I guess,” Syd says.
Talking takes too much energy, so we plod on.
It’s starting to get dark when Lucky calls out that he sees a house.
Anyone else said that I’d think they were imagining it, but Lucky once
spotted a German machine gun nest in the pitch dark.
It’s a few minutes before I can see Lucky is right;
there is a farmhouse up ahead. The roof is mostly caved in, as is the
porch, but the walls seem solid enough. Sarge dispatches Reg to make
sure. “Why don’t you make one of the Jerries do it?” Reg says. “Let
the damn roof fall in on them.”
“Get in there, you pillock,” Sarge growls.
Reg grumbles, but he does it. None of us ever
go up against Sarge, not even the lieutenant when he was still with us.
Sarge got a medal in the Great War for defending his trench from a German
attack. Held it all by himself. A man like that you don’t challenge
unless you want to end up in pieces.
We mill about and smoke some of our last fags while
we wait for Reg. The house doesn’t fall in on him. I expected
something bad happened when he came out waving his arms and shouting.
“Sarge, you got to see this!”
“What is it, you damned fool?”
“You’ll see. Come on!” Reg prances
about like a six-year-old who’s got to use the loo.
Syd and I are the last ones into the house.
Even then we don’t get to see much as we have to watch the Jerries.
We keep them in the living room, amongst a bunch of scorched and mildewed
furniture. The Germans don’t do much; they’re just happy like the rest of
us to get out of the snow and wind.
Lucky comes back to give us the word.
“There’s food in here: canned ham, potatoes, and even peaches!
A right proper feast it is.”
I lick my lips as he talks. For the last five
months about all we’ve eaten is the canned shit the Yanks call “food.”
The prospect of ham—even canned—sounds too good to be true.
The news gets better. Finn tears into the
room, armed with a couple of glass bottles. “Look at this! There’s
a whole cellar full of it.”
Wine! That’s even better than canned ham and
peaches. It’s tempting to grab one of the bottles and guzzle it right
then, but I know Sarge would knock me on my ass if I neglected the prisoners to
get drunk.
“What’s all this ruckus about?” Sarge asks.
Finn describes what he’s found. “Leave that down there.”
“But Sarge—”
“Leave it. You and Lucky go out and check
that barn. Make sure no one’s holed up in there.”
Finn and Lucky grumble, but again they obey.
Sarge turns to me. “Percy, you and Syd get these Krauts into the
dining room.”
I don’t know any German, but a jab to the back with
my rifle and some pointing gets them to move in the right direction. Reg
and the rest of the platoon are already in there. They’ve got the food
laid out on the table. There’s ham, potatoes, peaches, preserves, and
even some tinned biscuits. It’s not a lot, but compared to what we’ve had
it’s a banquet.
Sarge addresses the Jerries in their native tongue.
They sit down on the floor in a couple of rows. “Now, lads, get out
some plates. Try to find some that aren’t cracked.” They manage to
find enough plates, trays, and pot lids for the whole platoon. Sarge
clears his throat. “You lot fail your math classes? Get out ten
more plates.”
“Ten? But Sarge, we int going to share with
the Jerries are we?” Reg asks.
“They got to eat like the rest of us.”
“Let them eat the canned shit,” Reg says and others
murmur agreement, including me. This is the first real food we’ve had in
months; why should we share it with the blokes who’ve tried to kill us?
“Now see here. I’m in charge of this outfit
and I say we’re sharing with the prisoners.”
He glares at us, but this time Reg glares back.
There’s a wild look in his eyes I haven’t seen before. “You’re
wrong, Sarge. We shouldn’t have to share anything with these bastards.
If you don’t see that, then maybe you shouldn’t be in charge of this
outfit no more.”
Sarge has Reg doubled over before I even see his
fist move. A second punch and Reg is out cold. Sarge looks around
at the rest of us. “Anyone else want to argue about it?”
Lucky decides to press his luck. “I don’t
mean no disrespect Sarge, but these are the enemy you’re talking about.
Why we got to treat them so good?”
“You lot forget what today is? It’s Christmas
Day, the day when our lord and savior Jesus Christ was born. He’d be
damned ashamed to see this.” Sarge glares at us again. He gestures
at Reg. “Any of you others think different, you’ve got to go through me
first.”
No one else challenges him. We let the
Germans have their share of the food. We even let them have some of the
wine. Maybe it isn’t the biggest Christmas feast I’ve ever eaten, but
it’s the best one I remember.
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One random commenter will receive a free copy of
We Are Now, which includes "Christmas Feast" and many more stories. Of my stories I can say a few others are in this same sappy vein while many others are far more madcap. They involve things like zombies, vampires, dragons, Transformers, gods, God, and Godzilla. If you don't win, you can buy the book from
December House Publishing.
Monday is a Phony Photo of a May-December romance...
