Secret Santa

THANK heavens you got here quickly!" The store clerk's voice was strained.

Two weeks before Christmas and someone's made off with the most expensive toy in the store!" Sergeant Donovan frowned.

"A theft? The call to the station was about missing children. Have they been found?" The clerk shrugged his shoulders.

"This train engine -" "The children are my priority. Can you point me towards the office?" The clerk raised his eyes to the glass window that looked over the action on the main floor of one of Vancouver's biggest department stores.

"I'll show you up." As they climbed the stairs, Donovan surveyed the crowded main floor.

Shoppers jostled each other, reaching past to rummage through the merchandise on the laden counters.

You could almost forget there was a war going on.

The shoppers were mostly women. That wasn't unusual. His Rose had done most of the Christmas shopping.

Donovan sighed deeply, as he did every time he thought of Rose, gone too soon, and little May gone even longer, then ran his eyes over the floor again.

The few men were mostly those too old for this war, like himself and the clerk.

One young man sported a brand-new uniform and a wide grin for the pretty girl on his arm.

Another young man in uniform, leaning heavily on a stick, had the haunted look Donovan remembered well from the Great War.

But there was an air of forced gaiety, as if the shoppers were determined to have a good Christmas, despite their worries about loved ones overseas.

As if they were trying to ignore the possibilities that planes might drop bombs on their own harbour, as they had just days ago in Hawaii.

As the clerk ushered Donovan into the office, a woman in a blue coat rushed away from the large window that looked out over the store.

"Thank goodness you're here. They said we could likely spot the children from up here but they're nowhere to be seen!" Donovan gave her a reassuring smile.