A Christmas Fable

The moon shone brightly that night, though there was a cruel frost. Sharp shadows darted between the trees, and the snow crunched under the two pairs of boots; if you listened carefully, you would hear the creak of ropes and the whisper of sledges, too, over the deep, even snow.

It was the night after Christmas, and Captain Wednesday had found a mission. He was the logistics officer for the entire Fourth Battalion, and that very evening he had dropped his hand heavily on the shoulder of a private who was smearing some grease-pencil marks around one corner of the huge glass-covered campaign map.

“Private. There—” the Captain indicated a small red square on the map. “Who is that?”

“Who, sir?”

“The artillery—there, near Font-Ste-Agnes.”

“One sec.” The private consulted the clipboard beside him. “It’s the Eleventh Field Battery, sir. They moved up last Tuesday, sir, on account of—”

“That’s fine, private,” said the Captain. He removed his hand—it trembled. “Carry on. Thank you.” The private saluted and left the Captain alone in the room.

Wednesday strode down the corridor and up the stairs to the communications room to send his message, but he knew already that he was right. The Eleventh Field Battery had not been fed. They had been missed.

It happens now and again. Armies know that their men march—and fight, and sleep, and polish their boots, and clean their rifles—on their stomachs. But in the midst of a German offensive, an army can forget. An entire regiment could sit idle for days just because some colonel or other has forgotten that they are there.

Captain Wednesday, though, in all his months as chief logistics officer, from the day they landed in Normandy to this winter’s night in Holland, had never forgotten anyone before. In a few minutes, a note was brought down to his desk, where he was trying to concentrate on the quartermaster’s weekly report; no, the Eleventh had not been fed since the twenty-fourth. What was more, there was no rum left to give them.

The Captain sent a dispatch rider to town with fifty francs to find a couple of bottles of rum, the money coming from what the quartermaster called the “ready fund”. In the meantime, he set about to find an available truck and hayboxes to hold food for eighty or so men.

He also organized a detail to boil some potatoes and stew. This had not been easy. “Pardon, sir, but that’s a four-man job just now. We’re not ready,” the mess sergeant explained when Wednesday asked for what he needed.

“I’m sure your men can manage it.” Wednesday began to feel angry—why couldn’t the sergeant see—

“Pardon, sir, but the problem is, we haven’t got the men. It’s six now, they start in an hour for tomorrow morning, and losing four men for at least the first hour, well... I only got six men, sir, self included.”

“Is anyone off tonight?”

“Well, Paige is, sir. But—confidentially, sir—even with him, we’ve really only got six men.”

“Problem man?”

“Oh, not like that, sir. Just—not a very good cook.”

Wednesday mused for a moment. “Right. Tell Paige to report to me, sergeant, and get your men on it.” Then he paused uncomfortably. “I know you can get it done. Somehow.” Rather lame, he had thought to himself.

“Yessir,” the sergeant said, his jaw set. But he surprised Wednesday by filling the hayboxes with hot stew in short order. Meanwhile, the dispatch rider returned.