Embedded Files
Written by: Selma Toeller
Western Front, Dec 24th, 1914
A thick raindrop splashed onto my page. I cursed under my breath. The ink quickly dissolved into a murky gray, creating a fat smudge on the cream-colored page. I looked up at the sky, heavy rain clouds clustered in menacing numbers. I’d only managed to write one sentence, somehow I felt the clouds seemed to mock me. I tapped my pen impatiently on my knee, hoping that maybe it could help me put pen to paper. Nothing. It must have been close to ten o’clock at night. My head was spinning. I closed my eyes, the darkness was oddly comforting. I squeezed my eyes tighter hoping that maybe I would fall asleep. I was wide awake. I listened to the slow, rhythmic lub-dub of my heart, as faint artillery fire thundered in the distance. I tried to think of home, of my sisters, the warmth of my mother’s embrace and of my father’s wisdom when he was still here. I wondered what they would be doing this Christmas Eve. But every time I thought of home, a thick knot seemed to form in my throat, my chest tightened as I swallowed. I tried to count my heartbeats to distract myself, I counted seventeen before I lost track. I opened my eyes. Something was different. At first I couldn’t tell what it was, but I knew it could only mean danger. Everything here meant danger. I scrambled from the little nook I had crafted next to the sandbags, over to where a small group of men had gathered. Their faces projected a look I could not decipher.
“What’s going on?” I asked, with the slightest hint of panic in my voice.
“Look!” One of them exclaimed, pointing up over the edge of the trench wall. Then I noticed it, the eerie quiet that had swept across the No Man’s Land like fog. I listened closely, but as much as I forced myself to hear something, I heard nothing. It was like music to my ears, as if a choir of angels had begun to sing. It was the moment we had all been longing for, a moment of quiet. A moment of peace. I felt fear rise up inside me as I slowly peered over the edge of the trench wall. I recalled the memories of the many moments where I had peered over the trench wall out into No Man’s Land, my rifle positioned in the mud, my finger on the trigger ready to fire as shrapnel flew at me from left and right. The rat-tat-tat-tat of machine guns all around me, the gut wrenching screams shrouded me. I squinted through the eyepiece of my rifle and focused my gaze on the green-grey figure in the distance, his rifle pointed at me. A rush of cold flew over me. In these moments I always swear to feel death. He is always near, like a dark cloud hovering above you. He will come for you and he will show no mercy. His cold, bony grip on your shoulder, tightening with every second that passes. It is only him that wins. I pull the trigger. The figure falls back violently. Trembling, I release my finger from the trigger, my insides empty and numb. I tried to block this memory from my mind as I savoured this blissful moment of silence, where all I could hear was my own breathing and heartbeat. I braced my forearms on the base of the trench as I slowly pulled myself upward so that my chest was at the base of the trench. I squinted into the darkness. There,far out in the vastness of No Man’s Land I could make out a figure, then two, then three. Instinctively, my hand fastened around my rifle. I loosened my grip, however, all of a sudden I could hear singing coming from the now throng of figures coming towards us. As the figures came closer I began to make out the recognizable melody of Silent Night. One by one, we joined in the singing, our words clashed but the melody remained the same. The trenches, a place of darkness and death, seemed to fill with harmonious singing. It was like a lucid dream. Soon, they were close enough to be able to see their faces. They were only meters away from the barbed wire and anti-landing spikes. Most were young like me, their faces sunken and shriveled.
“Don’t shoot!” one man shouted, raising his hand in surrender. In his other hand, he held a miniature Christmas tree, decorated elegantly with little ornaments and garlands. I scanned the crowd, none of them carried weapons. I looked at the men around me. Some looked bewildered and confused, while some looked frightened and uncertain. I looked back at the group of men in No Man’s Land. Their faces looked the same. Slowly, I lifted one leg over the base of the trench, then the other. Once I had two free hands, I raised them in surrender, I took a step forward, then another, and another. I looked back at the trench below me. Some had begun to follow my example. I kept walking toward the crowd.
“He’s unarmed!” one of the men exclaimed as I came closer.
Soon, the only thing separating us was a bit of barbed wire twined between the anti-landing spikes. I looked at the man in front of me, he had dusty blond hair and soft green eyes. Slowly I reached out a trembling hand between the barbed wire. He did the same. I gave him a soft smile as we shook hands, his hands were raw and frostbitten.
“Hans,” he said, bringing his hand to his chest. “William,” I said, giving him a soft smile. I looked down at his frostbitten hands.
“Here,” I said, handing him a thin shred of fabric. It was next to nothing, but he held it like it was the most precious gift as he thanked me.
“Here”, he said, handing me a flask. I grinned as I brought the flask to my lips, the liquid warming me inside and out.
I looked behind me. More and more men were emerging from the trenches, and soon there were hundreds of us, British and German, standing in the middle of No Man’s Land fraternizing, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries. Some even collected the bodies of their fallen comrades, which was otherwise impossible due to the dangers of crossfire. At one point, someone had emerged with wire cutters, and soon the wires were broken and we were able to cross into each other’s sides.
“My family,” said Hans as he showed me a faded picture of a woman and a young boy and girl.
“Beautiful,” I smiled, bringing the photograph to his chest. “Keep them close,” I said. A gentle smile grew across his face as he nodded. Seeing his smile brought me back to the memories of my own family. I had a photograph that I had received in a letter, but lost it in a recent flash flood in the trenches. It was the only physical memory I had of them. Now they only exist in my imagination. It was later that night that a ball appeared. A real football! We played like school boys until dawn and a light blanket of snow had covered No Man’s Land, giving a once hostile place a rather ethereal look. We had no nets, and only the mud as our field. There were no teams. We played as if we’d been close friends our whole lives. It was hard for me to imagine that just a few hours ago the sight of the other would have been enough to ensue panic and that tomorrow we would return to slaughtering each other. I erased that thought from my mind. Tonight we are just men. Tomorrow we are enemies. But tomorrow was close. Close like death. I shuddered as the wind picked up, the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon. It was going to be cold today. I looked behind me at the cold barren trenches. The mud had frozen solid, allowing the wooden planks that lined parts of the ground to settle. A thin layer of snow covered the inside. I knew what awaited me, it wouldn’t be long until the atrocities of war would resume. But one thing I knew for sure is that the human spirit, despite everything, would continue to live within us, the faint light in our desiccated and exhausted bodies. The light that lived in all of us and that could shine in even the most darkest of places.
The Christmas Truce of 1914, was a series of unofficial ceasefires that occurred along the Western Front, around Christmas of 1914, which began about five months into the First World War. In the weeks leading up to December 25th, French, German, and British soldiers crossed into No Man’s Land (a desolate area between two enemy trench systems) to exchange seasonal greetings, food, or even to collect the bodies of the fallen.
Sources:
Trench Warfare. (n.d.). National WWI Museum and Memorial. https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/trench-warfare#:~:text=Trenches%20in%20WWI%20were%20constructed,in%20the%20Online%20Collections%20Database.
Imperial War Museums. (n.d.). The real story of the Christmas truce. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-real-story-of-the-christmas-truce
Janssen, A. B. &. V., & Janssen, A. B. &. V. (2024, December 10). WWI’s Christmas Truce: When Fighting Paused for the Holiday. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/news/christmas-truce-1914-world-war-i-soldier-accounts
Ramsay, A. (2019, December 23). Annetta Ramsay: We could use a repeat of Christmas truce of 1914. Denton Record-Chronicle. https://dentonrc.com/opinion/columnists/annetta-ramsay-we-could-use-a-repeat-of-christmas-truce-of-1914/article_0d0600bb-7598-56b9-a6ff-8d3a94d501de.html
Baxter, K. (2021, December 25). How soccer brought a WWI Christmas truce to the Western front - Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/story/2021-12-24/christmas-truce-soccer-world-war-germany-britain-adolf-hitler
Wikipedia contributors. (2024b, December 25). Christmas truce. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
Page updated
Report abuse