Chapter 31
On Christmas Eve, three figures walked furtively in the starry dark to the field behind the camp.
Their collective breath formed a cloud over them, while the snow on the ground absorbed the light of the moon and returned it in a soft glow.
The three figures stood together by the barbed wire, and one of them took out his harmonica to give them the note.
And although there was singing in the prison camp, the huts on this side of the camp grew unnaturally quiet and gradually, on the other side of the fence, prisoners appeared like black shapes out of the darkness, outlined against the dim lights of the hut to listen to them sing.
And for this unseen audience the three sang wholeheartedly with sweetness and warmth, and had a quick discussion towards the end about whether they ought to sing ‘Silent Night’ in the circumstances or not.
But they felt it would be asking for trouble, and they ended with ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ instead.
They hurried off home just as the guards appeared. They heard the prisoners clapping in the dark.