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Just our luck to be in the front line on Christmas Eve. And a colder, wetter, filthier Christmas Eve I had never known, nor hope to again.

"Ruddy perishing perishing ruddy...." Barrie muttered. He'd been trying to strike a match for the last five minutes, but the box was damp.

"Here." I handed him my Ronson.

"Is this my present? Thanks, Lieutenant!" He lit his smoke and took a deep pull.

"It most certainly is not, my lad! Give that back!"

He held the lighter above his head, making me jump for it as he dodged. Then he slipped off the duckboard, landing knee-deep in mud, and dropped my precious Ronson into the mire.

When Captain ffox strolled up, Barrie was wet to the crotch and we were glaring at each other.

"Evening," said the Captain, his shrewd eyes taking everything in as usual. "Foul night, isn't it? Barrie, go and find some dry puttees. I'll keep watch with Pinch for a spell."

"Thank you, Sir." Barrie scuttled off.

ffox and I stood and smoked in silence. The Captain always knew when you just wanted a bit of peace and quiet.

"Guns have stopped," I said at last.

The Captain swivelled his black ears. "Listen! You can hear the church bells."

I cocked my head. Faintly, through the French dusk, I caught the sound of chimes from the village five miles distant. Funny to think of all those Frenchies going about their business while we were stuck in a trench. The noise took me back to when I was a pup, my big brother Robby pulling me behind him on his sledge to sing our carols and gaze at the crib in the Minster. Then we'd go home to eat crumpets in front of the fire and hang our stockings up...but Robby was in the Navy now and I, curse my luck, I was here.

I must have whimpered a little, because the Captain put his paw on my shoulder. I touched my chin to his wrist to show him he was part of my pack; I suppose I was feeling a bit sentimental.

"Ay ay! Is this gentleman molesting you?"

Barrie was back, dry-shod. ffox and I whipped apart, and I glowered at Barrie. If I were the Captain I wouldn't put up with that sort of cheek, but whenever I brought it up with ffox he just said Barrie was the salt of the earth. "Sweepings of the gutter, more like," I'd reply, and the Captain would give me that foxy grin of his.

"Remember the Christmas truce?" Barrie asked. We nodded. In that first year of the war, at the Christmas we'd all thought it would be over by, Germans and Tommies had mingled in No Man's Land, played football and exchanged presents. Two bitter years later, we'd been expressly forbidden to fraternise with the enemy. We all had a feeling that anyone who tried would get his bloody head blown off - evens on which side did it, too.

"Dare you," said Barrie, reading my thoughts. "Wonder if they've got any good grub over there?"

"I doubt it, poor devils," ffox said. "I hear they're starving in Germany to send enough food to the Front."

The Jerry front line at this point was just half a mile across No Man's Land from our own, close enough that we could hear them talking sometimes, but it was a treacherous mess of mines, craters and barbed wire and a target for shells and snipers. I pricked up my ears hoping to hear the bells again, but the wind had shifted and was blowing from the German Lines.

Faint but clear, a single voice was singing. I couldn't make out the words, though I could tell they were foreign. Barrie was listening too - silently, for a wonder - and ffox...ffox strained forward, quivering, all the fur on his neck raised up.

"Do you know the song, Sir?" I asked, wondering whatever the matter could be.

"It's called 'Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling'," he answered softly, "it means 'ring, little bell, ring'."

"I didn't know you spoke Kraut, Sir," Barrie said.

"There's a lot you don't know, my son," I told him. ffox put a finger to his lips and we hushed.

"I learned German, and that song, as a boy. I had a German penfriend and I spent Christmas with him one year. I'll never forget how magical it was - so many candles, a great tall fir tree, and the beautiful singing. 'Stille Nacht' - that's 'Silent Night', it's a German song - 'Tannenbaum', 'O du fröhliche'...Benno Bosch, his name was. He was a wonderful singer; soloist in his church choir. I wonder what..."

The Captain tailed off. That sort of wondering wouldn't do, in wartime, least of all about a Jerry.

Across the way, the voice began another verse.

"It sounds exactly like Benno!" ffox said, and I could tell he was talking to himself, not us. "It can't be. Oh, hang it all!"

He lifted his muzzle and joined in, softly at first, then gathering strength and harmonising with the foreign voice across the mud and wire. The rest of the platoon gathered round, all agog, to watch their commanding officer belting out a German carol. He shook with the effort, one paw on his diaphragm.

"Kling, Glöckchen, kling!" he finished, and I saw tears in ffox's eyes as the echo faded.

I clapped without thinking, and the rest of the platoon joined in. More applause, not from one pair of paws alone, drifted over to us from the German lines, and a voice called "Very good, Tommi! Sehr gut!"

"It is Benno!" exclaimed the Captain, his eyes bright and wild. He mounted the firestep, cupped his paws around his mouth and bawled across No Man's Land: "Ist das Benno Bosch?"

"Potz Blitz! Bentley?" came the reply. "Ach du Lieber!"

"Fröhe Weihnachten, Benno!"

"Merry Christmas!"

The Captain turned and smiled at us, a smile that went the whole length of his muzzle. "I think this calls for a whisky ration," he said. "Pater sent me a bottle for Christmas. Back in a tick." He disappeared into his dugout, his brush bouncing behind him. Beats me how he always kept his tail so clean out here.

I'd been watching the Captain's face while he sang - the longing in it - and a plan had formed in my mind. A pretty barmy plan, but it could work.

"'Ere, do you think this Benno was only a friend? The Cap seems very keen on him," Barrie whispered to me.

"Does it matter? Barrie, I need your help. We're going to get the Captain a Christmas present."

I outlined my idea. When I'd finished, Barrie placed one finger next to his temple and screwed it back and forth. "You're barking mad," he said. "Get it? Barking! Beagle! Oh...go on then, Lieutenant. You'll be the death of me one way or another."

We sloshed up the trench to the Aid Post, where the medical officer was only too glad to lend us a stretcher and a couple of Red Cross armbands.

It was slightly less risky to be above ground as a stretcher-bearer - both sides were pleased to see you - but accidents and trigger-happy bastards happen, and we covered the ground at a trot.

As we approached the German trench, I called out "Does anyone speak English?"

"Yes, of course." A young wolf with grey-brown fur poked his head over the parapet and beckoned to us. "Come, come! Keep down, keep down!"

"Are you Bosch?" Barrie asked.

"I thought to you Tommies we were all Boche!" He grinned and I realised he had made a joke.

"We are here to take you to Cap - to Bentley," I said, indicating the stretcher. He looked at it, and us, his eyes went wide, and his grin got broader.

"You are two brave mad buggers, nicht war?"

"Bet he learned that word from the Captain," Barrie muttered.

Bosch was a brave mad bugger too. He climbed out of the trench, lay on the stretcher and let us cover him in a blanket and carry him back to our front line.

Young Robinson was on sentry duty. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull when he saw us in our Red Cross finery, and when he copped the contents of our stretcher I thought he'd faint.

We jumped down into the trench, the three of us, and pulled the stretcher down after. ffox was standing with a bottle in his paw, serving out the precious whisky. He almost dropped the bottle, recovered and pushed it at Robinson so he could wrap both arms around our visitor.

"Benno!"

"Bentley!"

The wolf struggled free and held Bentley at arm's length, paws on his shoulders, so he could study him. The pair of them looked fit to start wagging their tails like a couple of dogs. Then they hugged again, and laughed, and thumped each other on the back.

"Your men are a credit to you," Bosch said at last, turning to us. A patch of cream fur started under his chin and disappeared into the collar of his greatcoat.

"They're a good bunch," ffox agreed. He spoke quietly, but I could hear the pride in his voice. "Won't you eat with us? Not much of a Christmas dinner, I'm afraid! Not like your people laid on in Cologne."

Dinner wasn't much to speak of: canned beef stew with dumplings, a hunk of bread and that mucky jam that was supposed to be plum and apple. No plum and no apple I've ever eaten, I can tell you. We got a double rum ration, though, on top of the whisky, and we were all feeling merry and warm. We talked about anything bar the War - family Christmases long past, snowball fights, singing carols door-to-door with rewards of mince pies and mulled cider. Sometimes Bosch and ffox talked quietly together; sometimes they just sat and smiled at each other.

Barrie brought out his mouth organ, and Bosch and the Captain sang all the Christmas songs they knew, German and English, the men joining in where they could.

The last carol was 'Silent Night'. I knew Bosch was singing different words, but it didn't matter as his voice soared and swooped in the descant.

We'd got very fond of our tame Boche and we didn't want to let him go, but when the village church chimed out midnight he sighed and stood up.

"And now it is Christmas Day," he said, "and I must go on a journey, led by a star. Thank you all, and merry Christmas."

We filled his greatcoat pockets with souvenirs - tins of cheese and chocolate, sixpences, lucky mascots, a flask Robinson had made from a German shell casing. As Barrie and I carried our burden back through No Man's Land we could hear the men still wishing Bosch a Merry Christmas.

His comrades were waiting for him. He rolled off the stretcher and into the trench, and began speaking excitedly in German, handing out the goodies from his pockets. Then he turned and reached up to us, clasping our paws in his.

"Thank you a thousand times," he said. "I am so grateful for seeing my old friend again, and to know he does not hate me."

"That's all right, old cock," said Barrie in a strange. strangled voice. I could only nod. Bosch slipped a paw inside his greatcoat, then pressed something small into mine. I knew from the feel that it must be a lighter.

"Thank you, Sir," I said. "What is 'thank you' in German?" I wished I'd asked the Captain before we left.

"Danke schön."

"Then - danke shern. And good night!"

"Bitte sehr. Auf wiedersehen!"

We set off back at a fair clip, now our stretcher was empty. The rain had stopped and the stars were clear and bright, so big in the sky you felt you could reach out and grab them.

"What a rum night," Barrie said, "and I don't just mean the rum!"

I opened my mouth to agree, and something slammed into my shoulder. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, my face in the mud, I couldn't see, my back was on fire, my paws were ice, and I knew I'd copped one.

"Barrie!" I tried to yell, but my voice wouldn't work and I could taste mud and blood. My ears sang, and not half as nicely as Bosch and the Captain. Then nothing.

I woke in the trench, leaning against the wall, with the Captain dribbling rum into my mouth.

"Welcome back, Pinch," he said. How's the shoulder?"

"Hurts," I said. I flexed my fingers; it sent ripples of pain up my arm, but at least I could move them.

"Bloody snipers. Probably one of ours. Barrie brought you in, you know,"

"Barrie did?"

"Under fire. Shouldn't wonder if there wasn't a medal in it. That'll be a nice Christmas present for him! Think you can walk?" He offered me his paw.

I staggered to my feet, leaning on the Captain as he put an arm round my waist. I was shivering with cold and shock, though the rum was starting to help.

"You can thank Barrie at the Aid Post. He's gone to return the stretcher," ffox added. "After they've dressed your wound you'll be off to the Casualty Clearing Station, and after that a couple of weeks in Blighty, if I'm not mistaken."

Blighty? Home! My tail began to wag and a festive warmth spread through me. Never mind medals - now this was a Christmas present and a half!