Is he thinking of the Christmas turkey, brown and crackling in its juice, which has been carefully fattened at the farm at home; of the plum-pudding, aflame with brandy, done to a turn by his bonnie lassie? Is he thinking of the dying embers and the midnight kiss, stolen or given—who knows? No; Tommy is simply thinking of "souvenirs."
Twice already, but in vain, he has searched his crump-hole. He can't find the smallest relic. Creeping under the knife rests, and separating with care the ring of wire which the British call "trench concertina wire," he drags himself on his stomach through the wire system. These iron blackberries catch hold of him and prick him. He likens himself to one of those great trench rats on a poaching foray.
Suddenly his hand falls upon a human form. The body is cold—a corpse! He remembers, a week ago, an evening patrol was caught by our artillery fire, and this is one of them. "No Man's Land" in this sector is not particularly healthy, and grave-diggers are dispensed with. This dried-up corpse was so much part of the landscape that Tommy had not noticed it. He now looks at it with a friendly eye. "Poor old Boche! Poor old lump of souvenirs!" Tommy is a simple fellow. He goes straight for what he wants. He first thought he would take the identity-disc. That would be a fine souvenir; but the corpse has no arms, so he gives up that idea. "D——d artillery that spoils even corpses!" he grumbles, and then feels for the legs. Perhaps the old Boche keeps a knife in his right legging. "Damn again! There is no right leg—nor left either!" If only a sharp breeze were to lift the clouds from the moon, the wide-open eyes of the observers would discover in "No Man's Land" a great lusty Highlander, white as a sheet or as the whitest of white Pierrots.
Suddenly our Highlander is seized with a mixture of horror and rage, added to which there is a feeling of weird pride. The living and the dead have made a ghastly Christmas bet.
Tommy hovers over this wreck of a man. He seizes the Boche's head—of course, the helmet, badges and bandolier have disappeared.
The corpse, as though from the depths of the other world, gives a horrid laugh. Tommy forces his fingers into the grinning mouth, but the jaws shut with a spring—like a mousetrap. False teeth! Tommy, exasperated, seizes the grim trophy.
The bonnie lassie will receive shortly a gold brooch inscribed with her name and Tommy's. She will wear it proudly at church. She will make her friends jealous without anyone ever suspecting the real history of the souvenir. Perhaps it is as well!
Now this is not a Christmas story, but a real fact, which happened on the evening of "Everyman's" Christmas among the outposts before Grandcourt.
Printed in Great Britain by Hayman, Christy and Lilly, Ltd.,
113-117, Farringdon Road, London, E.C.