Lord of the Nutcracker Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

high in the air. I said it was a German barrage, and I made whistling sounds, and booms, as the mud rained down on my men.
    “Whoosh. Bang!” Dirt splattered across the soldiers. The little figures leaned, then fell, as though cowering into the dirt.
    “Quickly, now!” I ran my new soldier up to the front.He twisted through the communication trench as bullets whizzed around him. “Bang, bang!” I shouted, jabbing at the mud. He ducked and carried on, up to the front with the others. I took the drill sergeant and turned him toward my father. “You're here,” he bellowed. “Good show, Private Briggs!”
    I left him there and went away to build my guy. I pestered Auntie Ivy for stockings to make the arms and legs, for string to tie them all together. I crammed them full of branches, then pestered her for clothes.
    “Honestly,” she said. “Will this never stop?
    ” “But I have to dress my guy,” I said.
    She clucked her tongue. “I suppose I might have an old skirt you can have.”
    “A
skirt
?” I cried. “I can't dress my guy in a skirt.
    ” “Can't you pretend that all the men guys are up at the front?”
    “No, Auntie. That wouldn't do.
    ” “All
right,
” she said. “For heaven's sake.” She took me through the house and up the stairs, her enormous shoes clunking like artillery. “I don't know why you can't leave me in peace.”
    We went to the room at the back of the house. It was full of old furniture and a jumble of boxes. In the corner was a steamer trunk, and Auntie Ivy swept away the blankets and the bedsheets piled on top. She flicked the latches open.
    “These were your father's things,” she said. “I suppose you can take what you need.”
    I wanted the most wonderful guy, the biggest and best of any. But the clothes in the chest were the ones myfather had worn as a boy, and they were too small for my overstuffed sacks and stockings. When I finished, I sat and cried. The guy looked like a monster that had suddenly grown from a boy himself, exploding from his shorts and cardigan. The cloth cap balanced like a button on the top of his gigantic head.
    “It's quite grand,” said Auntie Ivy when I showed her.
    “It's silly.” I gave the thing a kick in the chest. “He looks like Tweedledum.”
    It was too late then to take my guy to the village. The next morning it was too chancy, because I should have been in school. So I left him in the potting shed, sprawled among the garden canes, and went back to the marshes.
    The day was cold and drizzly. I walked for miles and never saw a soul, and hours had never seemed longer. Finally, I trekked back to the village and sat on the step at the post office, sheltered from the rain by its overhanging floors.
    As I waited for the school bell, I heard hooves plodding on the road. Around a corner came the postman, rumbling down the street in his one-horse van. He wore a rubber cape folded back across his head, and didn't see me sitting on his bench. He tossed down the big mail-bags that he'd brought from the station, then dragged them to the door. But he stopped when he came up beside me.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Waiting,” I said.
    He was a kindly old geezer. He sat down beside me. “Where's your mother?” he asked.
    “In London,” I said.
    “And your father?
    ” “At the front.
    ” “Oh, you poor child.” He looked close to tears. “Here you are, dressed up like a lord. And you're only a poor little waif.” He patted my knee. “But never you mind. You come in and get warm.”
    “Thank you, sir,” I said.
    The postman had a little office at the back of his building, and we sat in there, between a cast-iron stove and a table that held boxes and pens and a telegraph key. He put a kettle on to boil, then gave me a roast beef sandwich that was wrapped in greasy paper. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked.
    “This morning,” I said. “My auntie made me breakfast.”
    He looked at me, then laughed. “Who's