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That first wartime Christmas Marie danced in a ballroom festooned with greenery, swirling carefree with a string of proud young officers, and her only fear was that victory would come before she had completed her training. At midnight a sunbronzed officer who had danced with her twice already claimed her for a third, improper, dance, and contrived to end in the French window festooned with mistletoe. So Marie kissed him, because it was wartime and she could be rash, but she kept proper silence about her training. Only later she noticed that he too had said nothing of his service.
Marie strolled with her young airman under the mistletoe-laden old apple tree three times before he noticed the plant and stopped. She had feared she'd chosen badly, that he had only a theoretical interest in her despite his pretty manners, but now he looked up at the paired leaves and at Marie, and reached for her with something of the same fierce enthusiasm he had hitherto only shown for his aeroplane. It was quick, impetuous, obviously his first. The perfect spy had no heart, she had been told. She was a little afraid she might not be a perfect spy.
Whatever Algy said, Biggles had heard of this before, had even been invited to participate, but now he wanted not only to participate but to initiate, to press his own lips to that mocking, ironical mouth and hold that lithe body against his.
The mass of green above them might not have been mistletoe; it looked close enough, and Biggles never let an opportunity go past.
When Erich pulled away, breathless and bright-eyed and holding Biggles's gun, he said, "One feels that may have been an error in judgment."
"Was it?" said Biggles. Overhead came the purr of an engine.
"No."
She spoke gently. They were both worn and broken; kindness was all she had.
Erich gave a grave nod. "I have no right even to ask, I have no future to share with you."
"It's not that," Marie said. She pulled his head down, kissed his cheek. "I'd make a terrible wife."
Mistletoe could neither be eaten nor burnt, a parasite on a dying tree. Perhaps that was why it grew still in the wreckage of their country. But they both noticed its brave green above them, and Erich managed to laugh, and she kissed him again, for luck.
Erich did not need to rest, but Bigglesworth insisted, pulling him down to sit at his side. Around them all was white, brown, and green, the only colours their lurid yellow stripes. Erich sat rigidly upright; Bigglesworth lounged back against a treetrunk; neither of them were at ease. Erich held the pistol ready in his hand, watching the bushes, but all he saw moving was a thrush in a clump of mistletoe.
"I won't be retaken."
Bigglesworth looked at the bird, at Erich's death-grip on the weapon, and laid a hand very gently on Erich's shoulder. "You're with me now."
They were singing carols as they put up decorations, warm soprano and Erich's surprising light tenor, and Biggles stood in the doorway unnoticed, watching. To have them both here, both safe and at peace, made his heart overflow.
Then he joined them, reaching up to tie his fresh-cut greenery to the chandelier. Erich took it from him and did the job, as if Biggles had not recovered months ago, and Marie touched his cheek and exclaimed that he was cold. Biggles had never been defeated; now he surrendered, wrapping an arm about each lithe waist as he was ruthlessly kissed.