One which, almost within seconds of Pat’s head touching the pillow, was about to prove even more so. Eventful, indeed, beyond one’s wildest dreams, perhaps—the tiny crimson glow which slowly became apparent, expanding until it illuminated the entire room with a phosphorescence best described as immense! It was as if the diminutive musician had been consumed by a conflagration ignited from within yet utterly disproportionate to his size! Pat could barely conceal his excitement as he clutched the covers and leaped up in bed. For his best friend of all time was actually speaking now—addressing him! With litde lips that moved up and down, and small, perfectly formed wooden teeth through which emerged the words, “You know what we’re going to have to do, Pat, don’t you?”
Initially, the toy’s appointed custodian was so taken aback that his reply was litde more than a dry, inaudible husk of sound anonymously lodged at the back of his throat. But soon, through a supreme effort on his part, this formed itself into the word “What?” a tingling beginning at the base of his spine as soon as the completed sentence—phlegmatically delivered by the miniature military man—”We’re going to have to kill him” reached his ears.
Pat’s heart began to beat with great rapidity. Counterpane tassels were attacked with some fierceness.
“But how, litde tin soldier? You’re just a peaceful litde drummer boy! Surely it would be impossible for you to kill someone!” he pleaded.
The litde drummer boy nodded.
“Yes it is, Pat,” he said. “But I’ve seen it done so often I really think I could be of some help in that area!”
Pat’s eyes brightened as the moon’s light glanced off them.
“You could?” he said.
The military man/toy nodded again, with a renewed enthusiasm that was unmistakable.
“Yes! I could keep watch and if you got frightened I could encourage you to keep going, saying, ‘Do it now, Pat! Do it!’ and so on.”
Pat clutched the coverlets close to his chest.
“Oh, litde tin soldier! Little drummer boy! No!”
“And play the drum so you’d keep going until the deed was done!”
“Tin soldier! It’s impossible! I can’t! I simply can’t!”
The miniature percussionist’s voice was low and tender.
“I saw your mother crying today,” he said, adding ominously, “again.”
Pat plunged his head into the pillow.
“I hate him!” he wept bitterly. “I hate my father!”
“He punched her in the stomach. I saw him!”
“Why! Why does he do such things?” howled Pat.
“I saw him make her crawl around on all fours with a potato in her mouth. It was terrible!”
“No! Please tell me it’s not true!”
“He made her call him general. ‘Call me general!’ he said. ‘General, Pat!’”
“He’s not a general!” squealed Pat, leaping up in the bed. “He’s only a stupid old captain!”
It was but moments later that a familiar, booming voice rang out across the landing.
“What the hell’s going on, waking up the whole house on a Christmas night!”
The door of the bedroom shot open and Pat found himself confronted by a slavering hulk in a dressing gown. Stabbing its index finger fiercely in the direction of the small, brightly colored figure now clutched tightly to Pat’s chest.
“Give me that thing!” snapped Pat’s father.
The painted metal figure spun in the air, smacking against the wall and making a heartrending ping noise as it did so.
Quite which mistake Captain McNab had made that night he was never to know, Pat found himself reflecting now, all these years later, as he stared, glitter-eyed, into the heart of the library fire. And not without the hint of a smile, either! What he had not realized, of course, and possibly was incapable of doing, was that following the perpetration of such a heinous act, the effect on his son could not but be inevitable. And so it was to prove, for now Pat—why he simply didn’t care what happened! “As a matter of fact,” he recollected now, “it was as if my father couldn’t have done me a better favor! Bestowed on me at last my own personal and private Christmas! Belonging to me and the only person who mattered to me in the entire universe—the Little Drummer Boy!”
Which indeed did appear to be the case, for subsequent to that incident, Pat and his six-inch-high companion appeared to be having the time of their lives! Rarely a night went by now but they’d discuss it and with a grin so wicked coming to that shining litde enamel face you would think that everything they were saying was every bit as real as if it were happening.