“O Lord, stop the war, stop it, stop it,” she prays every night and every morning.
There are to be no carols this Christmas, but special services are to be held in the camp on Christmas Day, and a great Lutheran preacher is coming to conduct them.
On Christmas Eve Mona is carrying a bowl of oats to a young bull she has put out on the mountain, when she hears the singing of a hymn in the prison chapel and she stops to listen. It must be the prisoner-choir practising for to-morrow’s service, and it must be Oskar who is playing the harmonium.
“Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott....”
The language is unknown to her, but the tune is familiar; she used to sing it herself when she was in the choir of the Wesleyan Chapel:
“A sure stronghold our God is still....”
The same hymn, the same religion, the same God, the same Saviour, and yet.... How wicked! How stupid!
On Christmas morning Mona has finished her work in the dairy when she hears the far-off sound of the church bells in Peel, and looking out over the camp she sees groups of the prisoners (Oskar among them) making their way to the prison chapel.
Suddenly, as she thinks, a new thought comes to her. If it is the same religion, why shouldn’t she go to the service? If the guard will permit her to pass, why shouldn’t she?
Almost before she is aware of what she is doing she has run upstairs, changed into her chapel clothes, and is crossing the avenue towards the gate of the Third Compound.