"Heavens!" he muttered. "We can't do it."
"Of course we can't; and we can't quit."
"Not without being wiped out," he agreed.
"Exactly. I wonder what it'll feel like, having a Turco bayonet in one's stomach."
"Rupert," said Monty suddenly, "we've had a bad jar, and we're getting morbid. Cheer up. Muddly old Britain will get us out of this mess. And now we're jolly well going to make all we can out of this Christmas. It'll certainly be the most piquant of our lives. Adams!"
"Sir?" Monty's batman appeared at the dug-out door in answer to the call.
"Get your entrenching tool. We're going to dig up a little fir for a Christmas tree."
So we spent the next days making our Christmas preparations, determined to keep the feast. We decorated the sand-bag cabin—oh, yes! Over the pictures of our people, pinned to the sand-bag walls, we placed sprigs of a small-leaf holly that grew on the Peninsula. We planted the little fir in a disused petrol-tin, and, after a visit to the canteen, decorated it with boxes of Turkish delight, sticks of chocolate, packets of chewing-gum, oranges, lemons, soap, and bits of Government candles. It was a Christmas tree of some distinction. And mistletoe? No, we couldn't find any mistletoe, but then, as Monty said, it would have no point on Gallipoli, there being no—just so; when we should be home again for Christmas of next year, we would claim an extra kiss for 1915.
"Pest! Rupert," exclaimed Monty, "we've forgotten to send any Christmas cards. To work at once!"
We sat down at the tiny table and cut notepaper into elegant shapes, sticking on it little bits of Turkish heather, and printing beneath: "A Slice of Turkey" (which we thought a very happy jest); "Heather from Invaded Enemy Territory. Are we downhearted? NO! Are we going to win? YES!"