Everything was very still; there was none of the intolerable fuss and clatter of barrack life at all hours of the day and night. It was so peaceful that he was just about to doze again when a distant clock began to strike. It was the familiar clock of Saint George's Church, along Mulcaster Road, a hundred yards or so away, and it told the hour of seven.
Two or three minutes later bells began to ring. It was Christmas morning; they were proclaiming peace on earth and good will towards men. How rum they sounded! Yet as he lay motionless in that bed, with a slow succession of deeply harmonious breaths near by, he wished harm to no man, not even to the Boche. Peace on earth and good will towards men ... yes, and women! Then it was, just in that pulse of time, the inspiration came to him to make Christmas morning memorable.
The idea was very simple. He would steal out of bed without harm to the slumbers of Melia, slip on his clothes in the dark, go downstairs, light the kitchen fire, boil the kettle and presently bring her a cup of tea. Never before had it occurred to him to pay her such a delicate attention, but this morning he appeared to have a new mind and a new heart; somehow, this morning he was seeing things with other eyes.
Without disturbing her he was able to carry out his plan. But twenty minutes later when he returned to the room with a cup of tea on a small tray, Melia was awake and wondering what the time was.
"Needn't get up yet," he said. "I've lit the fire. Happy Christmas to you!" Then he handed her the tea.
She seemed much surprised and just for a moment a little embarrassed. But she drank the tea gratefully, yet wondering all the time what had made him bring it to her. Then she announced her intention of getting up, but he bade her lie quiet as it was Christmas morning and he was well able to cook the breakfast.
Quite a pretty passage of arms developed between them on the subject, but in the end she prevailed in spite of his protests, and came downstairs to deal in person with the vital matter of the bacon and eggs.
Somehow their half playful contention made a good beginning to the day. And, take it altogether, it was quite the best they had ever known in that ill-starred house. There had been times when week had followed week of such hostility that they had hardly exchanged a look or a word, times in fact of soul-destroying antipathy in which they almost loathed the sight of one another. But there was nothing of that now. So much had happened in three short months of separation that there were a hundred things to talk about; both of them seemed to be living in a different world.