Christmas Truce - Contents:
1. Prologue
2. Chapter One
***
Chapter Two
If one Christmas
tree was a little odd, the sudden appearance of dozens more was downright
extraordinary. They sprung up all along the German line like wildflowers on a
spring day in France, bringing more and more British troops, exhausted though
they were, out of dugouts and up to the fire step to take a look.
The Christmas Eve
sunset was a golden glow, light reflecting off the snow, which had started to
melt in places, and touching the gathering clouds on the distant horizon,
providing a kaleidoscope of rich colour: purple, red and orange. It seemed like
the sky was on fire. It was better that illusion than some nights when it had
seemed as though the horizon, smoke-strewn and violently illuminated by the flash and bang of the big guns.
“A shepherd’s
delight,” Henry remarked to Martin. “That bodes well, don’t you think?”
Martin
wasn’t sure how much he believed in omens anymore. Too much had happened in
this war for that sort of thinking, at least in his own mind. He’d been fairly
superstitious once, but seeing so many men with talismans that they swore would
see them through the war blown to smithereens in front of his eyes had made him
somewhat immune to that sort of thinking.
It had
been widely reported to the troops that Pope Benedict XV had tried hard to engineer
a truce, but his attempts had been soundly rebuffed by warring governments, and
none of the British had been particularly surprised. He could only imagine
that, across the muddy bog that the battlefield had become, the Germans were as
unsurprised. At least officially, there would be no cessation of hostilities.
What happened sector to sector was a different story altogether.
“At
least we won’t get rain,” Martin replied. “That’s something. What’s that, three
nights in a row now that we haven’t been poured on? What a record! You know, Henry,
this war’s starting to spoil us.”
Indeed
it was. Tonight was as beautiful a night as Martin had seen in weeks, with just
a trace amount of wispy cloud drifting out towards the horizon. There hadn’t
been nearly enough spectacular sunsets lately, more grey clouds and rain than
clear skies. He’d seen some here that reminded him of nights on the Yorkshire
moors, where glorious winter sunsets seemed to go on forever, each one more
beautiful than the one before. Now, he was getting truly nostalgic; homesick,
even.
Sadly,
the more Martin thought about Christmas at home, the further away Yorkshire
felt. In the grand scheme of things, the fabled moors weren’t that far removed.
Yet there was nothing here to remind him of the beauty of the endless
undulating green that he knew of home. Here, it was mud and filth, rats the
size of footballs, constant death and misery. The worst sort of landscape he
could imagine. Yet, strangely, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else than
here on the Western Front. This was the great struggle of his time, and he
could not have stomached not being a part of it.
“Well,
that’s something to be thankful for, at least,” Henry commented, to no one in
particular.
For
the first time in far too long, the entire front was quiet. The heavy artillery
had stopped and there wasn’t even the errant crack of a Lee Enfield or Mauser to
be heard. Martin stood, mystified, the silence so strange, and soon the ringing
in his ears – that he hadn’t even known existed until just now, when glorious
nothingness had overtaken the battlefield – and looked around, seeing
orange-red on the distant horizon, and clear skies overhead, a baby blue
colour, darkness just about taking over.
Then: something
stranger. At first, Martin thought his ears were playing tricks. The ringing
had just subsided, for which he was very thankful, but now he could hear the
sound of singing. It was very distant, as though it wasn’t quite even there.
Even after he’d shook each lobe, the choral voices continued, deep and booming,
quite beautiful. If anything, those voices were somehow getting louder.
It
wasn’t until Martin started to look around the trench that he realised he
wasn’t hearing things. There actually was a group of voices singing, and it was
coming from across No Man’s Land, from the German trenches. First the Christmas
tree and now a choir not unlike the baritones that he listened to every year:
fine-voiced volunteers who sung at the local church in the lead-up to
Christmas. Except, these ones had a decided Prussian twinge to them.
Henry heard
it, too, and he turned to Martin, a disbelieving look on his face. “I say, is
that – “
Martin
nodded. “Carols,” he finished, his ears picking up the tune very clearly now.
“I think so, yes. If I’m not mistaken, that’s Good King Wenceslas.”
“What
on earth is going on over there?” Henry wondered.
“It
appears the Germans are taking the Christmas celebrations a step further,”
Martin replied. “I don’t mind listening to those fellows sing. They’re rather
strong-voiced, aren’t they?”
“Wonderful
singers. My old man did say that if there was one thing the German could do
well, other than eat and drink, of course, it’s singing. Do you sing, Martin?”
Laughing
at the suggestion and at a growing memory, Martin shook his head. “Once or
twice, I’ve been known to recite a few bars, when drunk, mind you, and even my
fellows, drunk though they were, threatened to kill me if I continued. I prefer
to listen.”
Henry
nodded. “Back in my younger days, I was in the church’s choir. I haven’t sung
for some time – since before the war, I mean. It hasn’t seemed like the thing
to do.”
“Well,
they’re doing it now, over there, the Jerries,” Martin observed. “So, now seems
as good a time as any. Do you know Silent
Night, Henry?”
“Everyone
knows that one!”
“So
find some of the lads! I think Sykes and Barstow and maybe even Corporal Elton,
the demolitions man, are up for a bit of a sing-along at the best of times. I’m
sure they’ll join you, if given the chance. Let’s show the Jerries that we’re
just as good as they are when it comes to raising a tune, eh? I’d help” – here,
Martin grinned – “but it might scare them off and ruin the whole war!”
It
didn’t take long to organise. There were enthusiastic voices who were happy to
show off their voices to celebrate the season, to show the enemy that British
men could just as eloquently sing the Christmas carols and, also, to keep war,
for the departure of the sun had precipitated a plummet in temperature, to
right on or just below freezing. It was cold enough that men quickly found that
the water in their canteens had frozen solid.
Not
able to sing, Martin stood next to the hastily-formed choir, listening to their
voices, ringing clear and crisply in the night sky, drowning out the German
serenade, and he wondered what the enemy were making of events. He couldn’t
work out if they’d started singing as a way to draw their combatants – the
British – into something similar, though he supposed that it really didn’t
matter. Whilst the opposing armies were singing against each other rather than
firing artillery, rifles and machine guns, Martin was quite content.
But
Sergeant Danson wasn’t, the senior non-commissioned officer in the platoon
rounding the corner from the next bay, his face as red as a tomato. “What the
hell is going on here?” he thundered. “You will stop this! Stop it at this
instant – this – this singing!”
“Let
them be, Sergeant Danson,” Martin instructed. “That’s an order. We’re just
keeping them company…and it’s keeping us ruddy warm, too, I might add!”
“Sir,
how many times have I respectfully instructed
you not to encourage the enemy with this celebration?” Danson’s hands were on
his hips, and he was all but glaring at Martin. “It isn’t the done thing, sir.”
Martin
turned to look at the man, struggling to keep an unprofessional smile from his
face as he remembered Henry’s assertion that Danson would likely end up with
coal in his stocking this year. “When was the last time you were engaged in a
war against the Germans on Christmas Eve, Sergeant Danson?”
“It’s
the principle, sir. We shouldn’t be fraternising with these men.”
“Sergeant,
if it is a choice between fraternisation – as you call it – and having their
heavy artillery shell our trenches as a way of ushering in Christmas Day, well,
then, I’m quite happy to let this fraternisation go on for as long as the
Germans are of a mind to indulge in it. Furthermore, you have made your point
and your protest is noted, but I am your commanding officer, Sergeant, and I
would appreciate no further lessons in warfare. What is happening is happening,
and until I see a situation through which the enemy might seek to gain some
advantage, I am of a mind to let it continue.”
Ever
the professional soldier, Danson understood the order. “Permission to retire to
my dugout, sir.”
“Granted.”
Watching the crusty South African veteran depart, Martin decided that if there
was a more unhappy man about the sudden Christmas cheer blossoming across the
Western Front than Danson was, he had yet to show himself.
Soon,
as the two groups of singers dueled back and forth in the most pleasant fight
of the war thus far, Martin, who stood on the fire step and watched activities
across No Man’s Land through a periscope, saw dozens of flickering candles
appearing, their tiny flames moving in time with the weak breeze. When the
British weren’t singing, Martin could hear the Germans, still singing songs,
though they were mostly in their native tongue now, and he could only pick up
on their cheerfulness and hope, rather than each word they sung.
A moon
came out, and it brightened the sky. Distantly, over the British trenches to
the south, a flare went off, a very festive combination of colours, red and
green, shooting high into the sky, turning night into day for a very quick few
moments, before the light faded. Whether it was someone’s idea of a joke or
not, Martin wasn’t quite sure. He normally hated the flares, shot up to try and
identify trench raids. When they burst high over No Man’s Land, the raiding
party would freeze, playing dead as best they could, knowing that there would
be curious German eyes watching, and that one movement in the sudden
illumination would result in a torrent of machine gun fire, which Martin knew
entirely too much about.
On
this occasion, as the singing continued and the guns continued to stay silent,
the flare faded without incident, and Martin rubbed his hands together, trying
his best to keep the bitter cold at bay. Behind him, men came back and forth,
sometimes literally having to drag their limbs through the squelching mud,
which never seemed to disappear. There were some, like Danson, who seemed to be
able to move effortlessly through it, as though it was a hard track. Others
struggled mightily, and Martin fell somewhere in between.
The
British carollers finished a rousing rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and there was silence across the
battlefield. Enough silence, in fact, that a very German voice could be heard
calling out, “Merry Christmas, English!”
“Merry
Christmas, Fritz,” one of the privates down from Martin called back. “I hope
Father Christmas comes and visits!”
Through
the periscope, Martin saw a new addition to what was fast becoming quite a
Christmas wonderland. “They’ve got candles out now,” he said to Henry. “Looks
rather beautiful, I must admit.”
In the
continued silence, the German voice was at it again: “You sing well…for
Englishmen!” The gentle taunt was delivered and then came laughter.
“As do
you, for bloody Jerries,” Henry replied with a bark of delighted laughter.
Shortly
thereafter, the carols began again, both sides singing robustly, as if trying
to outdo the other. Martin moved a little way down the trench, to the shallow
dugout that he’d fashioned upon arriving in this sector nearly six weeks
before. It barely allowed him to curl up into something approaching the foetal
position, and even then it was very cramped, but it was certainly better than
standing ankle – sometimes, knee – deep in mud.
On the
front line, Martin’s his life consisted of three regular places now: his
dugout, the fire step and the captain’s bunker, which was Buckingham Palace
compared, dug into the reverse wall, underground, with wooden planking holding
it up. But Martin had a less-than-irrational fear of being caught in the dugout
as it was shelled, and being buried alive, so he frequented it as little as
possible.
With
the voices of Henry’s carollers in his ear, Martin curled up as best he could,
the blanket that he’d laid down now so dirty itself that it had almost become
on with the earth. Nothing stayed clean here for very long: uniforms, hair, fingernails,
everything got dirty and quickly, and there was no return, not whilst a man
remained in the line. There wasn’t nearly enough warm water – hard to boil when
it was raining, and whilst artillery rained – so en went without washing, thus
promoting all sorts of disease, everything from dreaded trench foot to nits.
The
slop that the Army passed off for rations was absolutely putrid, so stomach
diseases were prevalent, as was general malnourishment. At least his dugout was
dry and relatively free of anything unpleasant. It was as much of a miracle as
Martin had gotten used to hoping for. No guns, no barked orders from Sergeant
Danson…nothing but peaceful singing and, beyond that, blessed silence.
He was
asleep in moments.
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