Colonel Sassenach looked like quite the dandy in his brown uniform.
“We dinna practice Christmas here,” I told him, “It hae been banned by law since the days of the Lord Protector, has it not?”
The Sassenach fixed me with a hard look through his eye glass, and then snorted like a bull. “We know you Scots,” he barked. “The truth isn’t in you. We’ve seen you down here, don’t think we haven’t.”
That I could believe. The great Royal Flying Corps bombing range was to the north, and in the moonlight we could sometimes make out the silver airships on their bombing runs, their great propellors turning slowly and silently. If we hadn’t seen see them, we soon enough heard them; the bombs going off in the magnesium flare-light.
“I’ll nae stand here and be called a liar,” It seemed he was barely listening.
“You there!” he was shouting to his flying boys. “Stoke that fire higher, or I’ll have the skin off your backs!” They were shoveling the very peat straight from the bank and into their steam monstrosity, which sat there malevolently breathing its hot white breath across our fields.
I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was auld Jamie, the FitzWilliam himself. I should have known he’d be there, and from the smell of his breath he’d been fortifying himself in the pub. “See here, Stewart,” he breathed at me. “Hae them cease this infernal racket! A man canna think wi’ all that commotion!”
“Quiet man!” shouted the Colonel, who was clearly the shouty sort. “We’ll be demonstrating when we have a full head of steam up, and then we’ll see which of us is bloody ‘infernal.’”
I held Jamie back, thereby saving his life and paying back a debt the Stewarts have owed the FitzWilliams since Culloden, as that colonel had the light of murder in his eye. But the old man had a point. “Beggin yer Lordship’s pardon,” says I, holding the FitzWilliam tight, “But what is the purpose of yon device?”
The colonel opened his mouth to answer, but across the field came the call, “Steam’s up!” The colonel fixed me with a triumphant glare, and told me, “I’ll show you, Jock, my lad. Bring up the target!” This last he had for a couple of his men. They trotted off and returned with a simple wreath woven of holly. “A symbol of your papist backsliding,” the colonel barked, fetching the wreath a great wallop with his crop. “Watch this!”
Airmen clambered onto the great bronze beast, and with a whistle’s scream and a belch of steam it trundled under way. Chitterering mechanical arms calculated frantically, as madly as the crew could punch and feed Hollerith cards into it. The beast blindly trundled a few feet forward, then its pneumatic tyres turned one way, then the other. Slowly it rolled up to the wreath and stopped just short of it. An arm extended outward, and attached to the arm was a hose, and through the hose gushed a fluid that reduced the holly to smoking ash in nothing flat.
“Aqua regia,” barked the colonel. I hae nearly forgotten him. “It seeks out your papist symbols and it instructs you to obey the law! There will be no Christmas here, and next year none in all of Scotland!”
“I canna see them using yon beastie in Ireland,” muttered Jamie, but from the lack of fight in him I hae seen that he was as fashed as I.
The Colonel watched his beast with the pride of a father in his eye. “All your little tricks and secret symbols—we’ve got them coded,” he barked. “The crew just puts in what they see and where it is. The engine decides the rest. No thinking! No judgements! No rest! So long as we have steam, we can stamp out your papist heresies as fast as you can commit them!”
“Aye,” said I, pulling the FitzWilliam awae with me as I left. “And we’ll be thanking you for the lessons, m’Lord.”
It was when we were out of sight that I had time to think. In truth, apart from our wee kirk, there was little of the Christmas to be seen in our village. Catholic we might be, but daft we were not, the FitzWilliam and those like him excepted. But what manner of thing that beast hae been told were papist wasna known to us. “That bluidy thing,” I swore. “‘Twill bring us nae guid at all I am thinking, Jamey.”
“I hae been thinking as much meself, Charlie,” he said, which I misdoubted. But, again, the FitzWilliam hae been known to think his best when he was in his cups. It was hard to know what his best was, as Jamey was fond of his whiskey. “I hae been thinking that ye should leave yer door open for a wee moment, and then be a bit slow to answer any alarums this e’en, me laddie. Do ye think ye can do that?”
I had to think well on that. I am the constable, after all, and there was a great deal that could not be put past the sassenach were I not. “Slow I’ll be, Jamey,” I promised, “But I’ll not neglect my duties.”
“Fair enou’,” Jamie said. “Fair enou’. Now unlock yer door, close yer eyes and count to a hundred, and dinna look in yer toolbox after.”
Count I did. Look I dinna.
There was no bombing that night, for which we were grateful, but then again the RFC hae no interest in our gratitude. There was a bit of ruckus toward dawn, but all I know of it was that Burd Mary slipped into my hut and then into my bed, saying, “Shhh, Charlie, I been here all night.” Well, she had not been, but when dawn come I’d hae sworn she’d been there since the auld Queen had died.
RFC troopers had us out from our huts in the morn, to hae us looking on their beastie in action, and it had to be said that most of the village looked impressed. The beastie gleamed in the dawning sun, and she inhaled a cart of peat and exhaled billows of steam. Auld Jamie seemed the only one who was not abashed at the sight.
Set up in our square, such as it was, was the manger with baby Jesus. I will nae say I hae not seen such in our kirk, but with the Sassenach crawling about the curate hae had the sense not ta hae such this year. “Start,” ordered the Colonel, and the airmen clinging to the beastie started their elaborate dance with their cards and such.
The beastie reared its head, belched another cloud of steam and headed toward the town, her whistle screaming as a banshee and a half. The air navvies aboard her punched their cards and fed them in as fast as the machine would accept them, and with little or no hesitation it trundled forward relentlessly. I felt Burd Mar’s hand fasten to my arm, and as the beastie bore down her grip got harder, and our Mary was a burd who could grip well indeed.
It were nae far indeed from the first of the houses before her screaming note began to change. Her keepers started to jump free and run for cover, and as they did the town folk melted awae to their sod huts or places safer or at least more interesting, although what could be more interesting was nae for me to say. Burd Mary and I barely made it back to my own place afore the boiler cut loose with a rumble that we were told was heard in Aberdeen.
We were in nae hurry to return after that, but curiosity, it is said, hae killed the cat, and so we couldna stop ourselves. There was nae but twisted bronze and steaming debris left of the beastie, and the Colonel was red in the face and screaming at any airman who made the mistake of coming in his view. “What was it, you lackwits?” he was roaring. “What have you done?”
The FitzWilliam had found his way to our sides in all the fuss as Burd Mary still clung to my arm, with nae objection from me. “Do ye know aught of this, FitzWilliam,” asked I. It was expected of me, of course.
“Nae a thing,” auld Jamey said. “If someone hae wired the safety valve shut, they hae not mentioned the same to me.”
We watched the excitement, the three of us, for a few moments more. “Ye hae brought my pliers back,” I asked the FitzWilliam, once we hae had our fill o’ thinking the Sassenach a band of fools.
“Aye,” he said, and pressed them into my hand. “Ye should nae hae lost them in the first place, I am thinking, Charley.”
“Aye,” said I.
This story is part of this week’s Krampus Christmas Carnival. Check out the announcement of the carnival and visit some of the other sites that are participating!
