The Shadow of War (44 page)

He was already dead. His face was unharmed, save for a small bullet entry hole above his left eyebrow. But the back of his skull was missing, the shoulders of his tunic drenched in blood. He had been at the front for just seven hours after an eighteen-year career with the Indian Army dealing with
civil disturbances and border patrols. Yet again, Harry had no CO and, as its colour serjeant, was temporarily in charge of B Company.

Coming back to a trench after a leave of absence is almost as bad as an extended stay in one. There are the familiar deprivations, filth and lice to deal with but also, at first, the detritus and squalor of other men. The 4th Royal Fusiliers have relieved the Worcesters – good men, heroes of the charge at Gheluvelt – but they are not their own, and it is never the same.

The battalion had been inspected by the King on 3 December, which, apart from the honour, was a major boost to morale as it meant delousing, hot baths, clean shaves, neat haircuts and laundered uniforms. For the first time in many weeks, they looked and felt like proper soldiers. The fusiliers lined up along the Menin Road outside Ypres, but the King kept them waiting for forty-five minutes, in the cold, presumably because he was inspecting several other battalions in different locations. He arrived in a fleet of cars, accompanied by a host of brass hats, and began his inspection immediately. He looked impressive as he walked past in his army greatcoat with its dark-brown fur collar, an added luxury that many men looked at enviously. He nodded appreciatively at the men from time to time. A quick chorus of ‘three cheers for the King' was shouted; then he was gone.

It snowed on the 22nd and the men talked briefly about a white Christmas. But then it thawed, and the mud returned.

Harry and Maurice have agreed to meet first thing on Christmas morning at the section where their two companies adjoin in the trench. Dawn has just broken. Each has an enamel mug of tea in his hand.

‘'Appy Christmas, Mo.'

‘'Appy Christmas to you, mate.'

‘Quiet, ain't it?'

‘Too right, 'specially for your Captain Bovey; 'e's gonna be quiet for a long time.'

‘Silly bugger, I told 'im to keep his noggin' down! Poor sod, 'e'd only just got 'ere. How you gettin' on wiv Captain Marshall?'

‘Oh, 'e's all right, a bit quiet. He's gone off to Brigade, left me in charge, said he'd be back tonight; I reckon he's gawn off to get pissed.' Maurice points in the direction of the German trench. ‘Did you 'ear Fritz singin' carols last night? Sweet, it were. Some of our lads joined in; they was singin' “Silent Night” in Fritz, but our lads could follow it and sang along wiv it.'

‘You need to be careful, Mo. The boys are s'posed be fightin' the fuckers, not singin' Christmas carols wiv 'em.'

‘I know, 'Arry, but it's Christmas.'

‘Bollocks, it's no different from any other day. It's dog eat dog, like it's always been.'

Maurice smiles at his friend, good old 'Arry, just the same.

As the two men swig their tea, they hear a distant voice.

‘Happy Christmas, Tommy!'

The voice, in heavily accented English, is clearly coming from the German trench.

Harry is immediately alert.

‘What the fuck!'

As he throws the dregs of his tea into the bottom of the trench, several young fusiliers come running.

‘Colour Serjeant, it's Fritz! They're shoutin' at us all along the line, in English. One of 'em has a Christmas tree with candles on it. 'E's put it on top of the parapet and is sittin' next to it, large as life. What do we do?'

Harry does not hesitate.

‘Shoot the bugger!'

He rushes towards where the young soldier came from, pursued by Maurice.

‘Fuck a duck! What's goin' on?'

As he runs along, he sees more and more fusiliers sitting on the parapet of the trench.

‘Get your heads down, you stupid fuckers!'

Then he sees a lance corporal from Bermondsey, a good lad he has known for years. He is standing in no-man's-land, in full view of the enemy.

‘'Ere, Sarje, 'ave a butcher's at this.'

He offers Harry his hand to help him up and then helps Maurice up. Maurice smiles, while Harry is open-mouthed.

‘Bugger me with a brass rod up a black mountain!'

Through the milky mist, all along the long line of trenches in both directions, German and British troops are in no-man's-land. There are handshakes, smiles and laughter; there is sign language and exaggerated gestures as men try to communicate with one another. Several Germans can speak English and are in great demand as translators.

Harry is ill at ease and looks around anxiously. He is in temporary command of over 100 men, some of whom are very raw recruits. But he is relieved to see through the mist that among the men who are fraternizing together there are several German and British officers.

‘I've never seen anythin' like it! What d'ya reckon, Mo?'

‘It's a right rum do, I should cocoa! I s'pose we get on wiv it an' shake 'ands wiv a few Fritzes.'

The next hour or so is spent by the men exchanging gifts: beer, wine, cigarettes, chocolate, caps and helmets, badges and insignia. There is also the grisly business of decomposing bodies. Because no-man's-land has been true to its name for many weeks, it is strewn with the corpses of the dead.

Groups are formed, comprising men from both sides, who cooperate together in burial parties and undertake the gruesome ordeal of digging pits for their dead comrades. British and German men are alongside one another and prayers are said by parsons and pastors, sometimes together.

The most senior officer in Maurice and Harry's sector is a
captain they can see in the distance, who is in the Black Watch, but there is no one from Brigade to spoil the party.

There are more German officers around, including several Hauptmanns, the equivalent rank to a British captain, and one very tall and imposing major whose uniform looks immaculate and who wears his leather Prussian greatcoat draped jauntily over his shoulders without putting his arms into its sleeves. He is smoking a
Sobranie
Black Russian cigarette from an ivory cigarette holder, the business end of which is carved into an eagle's claw.

Undaunted by his striking appearance, and despite the stern look of the two fierce serjeants either side of him, Harry walks up to the tall German and salutes him.

‘Excuse me, Major, do you speak English?'

‘Of course, Colour Serjeant … ?'

‘Woodruff, sir.'

‘I was at Cambridge before the war, Colour Serjeant Woodruff, where I played football for my college, Pembroke. Do you play football?'

‘Well, I did as a lad, sir, for Upton Park in West Ham, a London team.'

‘It is a very good game, is it not? Would you like a cigarette? And the other serjeant?'

‘Colour Serjeant Tait, sir.'

One of the German's staff serjeants hands around cigarettes from a silver cigarette box.

‘Where are your officers?'

Harry has to think quickly.

‘Er … they're 'avin' a Christmas breakfast at a gaff … sorry, at a 'ouse nearby, sir. They've left us in charge, we're old 'ands, see.'

‘How very civilized.'

‘Sir, will you be here for a while?'

‘I don't think so; I will go back to my billet for lunch soon. Why do you ask?'

Harry looks at Maurice. Sometimes
Cockney rhyming slang
comes in useful, especially in the presence of a German officer who is fluent in Standard English.

‘
His Majesty's pleasure
?'

‘You mean those
little red riding hoods
we put in the
safe and sound
?'

‘You got it, Mo!'

‘Good thinkin'! I'm on.'

The German major looks perplexed.

‘You are confusing me, gentlemen?'

‘Sir, can we be 'onest wiv yer, soldier to soldier?'

‘I would be delighted. Honour among soldiers is a rare commodity these days.'

‘Well, sir, we took an 'elmet an' sword from a German officer who was killed at Herlies in October. We found out he was called Major von Mecklenberg.'

‘A very famous man. I'm sure his sword will be very valuable; you are lucky.'

‘Indeed, sir. But you see, there was an incident later, when another officer, Captain von Tannhausen, who told us who von Mecklenberg was, was killed.' Harry looks down guiltily. ‘Let's just say he shouldn't 'ave died, sir.'

‘I see. So how can I help?'

‘Would you take his sword and helmet back to Major von Mecklenberg's family? It's the least we can do for him and Captain von Tannhausen.'

‘That is very noble of you, Colour Serjeant. I will gladly do it.'

‘But sir, one of us will have to go and get it. And it will take a while.'

‘Not to worry. If I'm not here, one of my serjeants will be. This one is Walter and the other one is Fritz. Yes, he is called Fritz. And you are?'

‘Harry and Maurice, sir.'

‘Very good. How long will you be?'

‘Probably well into the afternoon, sir.'

‘Try to be back before dark, it will make things much easier. By the way, tell your officers when they have finished their Christmas breakfast that I plan to put an end to this, I suppose we should call it a “Christmas truce”, at dawn tomorrow. I will be firing a single shot in the air. Until then, we will honour the ceasefire that has occurred in this sector. I will go to my fellow officer down there and tell him the same.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘No, no, it is a little moment of sanity in a crazy world, so let us treasure it while we can. And thank you for returning von Mecklenberg's belongings. I know his family, they will be very grateful, and I will make sure they know the names of the men who made the gesture.'

‘May we 'ave your name, sir?'

‘I am Count Christian-Günther von Bernstorff. You may have heard of my father, he is the German Ambassador to Washington.'

While Maurice keeps an eye on the no-man's-land truce, Harry takes his trenching tool and rushes to Merris to retrieve the Prussian helmet and sword. Merris is eight miles away, across the border into France. He is able to hitch a couple of lifts but, even so, by the time he gets back to Kemmel, it is mid-afternoon and the light is beginning to fade.

Maurice then leads Harry to where the two German serjeants, Walter and Fritz, are sitting, smoking cigarettes. The two men jump to attention and salute as the Tommies approach them and the formal handover takes place.

Walter tries to speak in English.

‘The major, he say, thanks to you.' He then hands over two bottles of cognac. ‘From the major …' The serjeant hesitates, then looks at his comrade. ‘
Frohe Weihnachten
?'

Fritz translates into English.

‘Happy Christmas.'

Maurice smiles appreciatively.

‘
Fro Vynakten
to you, Fritz!'

The four men shake hands, and Harry and Maurice stroll back to their trench admiring their fine bottles of cognac. They will both have sore heads in the morning.

‘Guess what, 'Arry.'

‘What?'

‘You missed a big international match today.'

‘How d'yer mean?'

‘We played the Fritzes at football.'

‘I 'ope we beat 'em?'

‘Nah, but we might 'ave if you'd played. We lost 2-1. They 'ad some good lads. Shame, innit? We'll be shootin' the buggers tomorra.'

As he said he would, at first light the next morning, Major Count Christian-Günther von Bernstorff ordered Walter, his staff serjeant, to fire a single round into the still air. As its echo reverberated across the dreary landscape of Flanders, men on both sides knew that the Christmas truce of 1914 was over.

A brief moment of sanity, and a few expressions of friendship and common humanity, will soon be forgotten as the hatred and carnage resume.

The year on the Western Front ends with a forbidding line of barbed wire and trenches running from the North Sea to the Alps. To establish its meaningless position, over 600,000 men have died. Over 300,000 young Frenchmen are dead, as are 240,000 Germans, not counting another 140,000 on the Eastern Front. Belgian dead number 30,000 as do the number of British dead, all of them experienced veterans of Britain's elite professional army. Yet more horrifyingly, these statistics are only the beginning. Slaughter on an even greater scale is yet to come.

Of the 402 miles of the Western Front, the noble Belgian Army holds the northern 22 miles and the indomitable French Army guards 360 miles to the south. In between, the scant remnants of the glorious BEF form a bulwark of just 20 miles, but it is a vital sector that protects the northern flank of Paris and one that will soon expand. With the Allies digging in deeper and deeper, and more and more elaborately, only yards from where their German enemies are doing exactly the same, the future looks even more desolate than the terrors of the previous five months.

The horrors of 1914 and the extraordinary toll of the dead would surely have persuaded sane men that enough was enough and that reason should prevail.

But wars do not make men more sane, they make them more savage. And the Great War produced savagery on a scale never seen before.

Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Commander-in-Chief, knew in November 1914 that the German High Command's Schlieffen Plan, to strike a quick-fire killer blow to the French, had failed. In
addition, the increasing ordeals on the Eastern Front against the Russians were drawing more and more men and materiel away from the west. The two circumstances led him to a profound conclusion: the German cause would, ultimately, be doomed. His homeland would, slowly and inexorably, be bled to death. He advised the Kaiser to sue for peace, but was ignored.

So the Great War will go on. The year 1915 will see the first Zeppelin raids on London and the east coast, and more Royal Navy ships will be destroyed by German U-boats. The passenger ship, RMS
Lusitania
, will be sunk in controversial circumstances off the Irish coast, creating uproar in the USA. It will bring the catastrophe of the Dardanelles Campaign and humiliation for Winston Churchill, as he is made the scapegoat for this sorry episode. Asquith will remove him as Lord of the Admiralty, but offer him the insignificant role of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

His political career will appear to be over, and the press will rejoice in the fact. Clemmie will later say that she thought he would die of grief. Churchill will resign from the Asquith government in November and go to the Western Front, where on New Year's Day 1916, he will become Lieutenant-Colonel Winston Churchill, Commanding Officer, 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers.

Although Herbert Asquith will continue as Prime Minister, his grip on power will be significantly weakened, caused by the crisis of a catastrophic shortage of shells and the fallout from the Dardanelles debacle. He will form a new coalition government with the Conservative Party. Arthur Balfour will be given the Admiralty, replacing Churchill. Lord Kitchener, popular with the public, but increasingly unpopular with the Cabinet and the army, will be stripped of his powers over munitions, which will be given to a new ministry under David Lloyd George. Lloyd George will emerge as Prime Minister-in-Waiting.

In the country, pre-war tensions over social deprivation, votes for working-class men, women's suffrage and Irish Home Rule will
surface again as the social, economic and political impacts of the war begin to hit Britain hard. Lloyd George's new Ministry of Munitions will bring all weapons production under government control and thousands of women will flock into the weapons factories – the Munitionettes – but at wages much lower than men's rates. The Ministry of Agriculture will launch the Women's Land Army – the Land Girls – to help with food production, with the slogan: ‘God speed the plough and the woman who drives it.' Women will also begin to move into every sector of industry in vast numbers, including welders, machine operators, stokers, riveters, clerks and civil servants, signalling the beginning of the end of domestic service and fundamental changes in trade unionism.

It will be the year when the new revulsions of flame-throwers and poison gas will be added to mankind's awful catalogue of the instruments of death. There will be a Spring Offensive and an Autumn Offensive, leading to more carnage at the Second Battle of Ypres, and the battles of Neuve-Chapelle, Festubert and Loos.

The Great War will escalate to every continent and the tally of the wounded, missing and dead will add more and more digits. At the end of the year, other than the arithmetic of death, little will have changed on the battlefield.

Another Christmas will pass in abject misery. But, this time, there will be no Christmas truce; hatred will have extinguished all hope of peace.