19

The eve of Christmas came without herald. Michael met the sniper just before dusk at Jake’s station below the top of a trench. “Merry Christmas, my friend. In yer ‘gaze,’ I see.” Michael grinned at Jake.

Jake wished Michael a Merry Christmas as they shook hands. “Guess yer right. I’ve made this place kinda like a gaze, all right. Wouldn’t mind a spell huntin’ ducks wing and bill right now. A plump king eider fer Christmas dinner wouldn’t go astray, eh Mike?”

“Not much of a duck hunter, myself. Not much a hunter of anything, come to think of it. Besides, I prefer leg o’ lamb for the Christmas repast. I couldn’t watch Father slaughter the lamb, though.”

“Can’t handle the taste of mutton,” said Jake. “Hates it as much as fried squid.” Michael was going to tell him lamb didn’t taste like mutton, but Jake continued. “But you were an ice hunter, Mike. We met aboard the Stephano at the seal hunt last year. You were a good hunter. If I remember right, your watch did well.”

“Aye, Jake, the sealers in my watch did very well. Killed thousands of seals, I dare say they did. I killed some, too. Not many. I was good at keeping the men in my watch in the thick of the hunt. Spotting the herds from the deck of the Stephano, I took bearings and used my compass to walk straight to them. As you know, down at ice level, distant seals lying flat on the ice pans are hard to find. My men did most of the huntin’. Now here I am, a soldier among soldiers. The greatest hunters of all. Hunters of men.”

Jake ran a hand up over his rifle to wipe the moisture from it. A shroud of fog was settling over the land. Gunfire didn’t sound as sharp as it had before the fog came. Even the artillery sounded dull. The thud of exploding shells was muffled by water droplets. There would be blind shooting now—bored, tired, and frustrated men shooting at sounds. Wounded men who cried out were prime targets for blind shots. Trouble was, though, men shot down in no man’s land moaned in the same language.

“Always loved huntin’ all the seabirds that came around,” Jake said thoughtfully. “Seals, the odd caribou, too, when I got the chance to go with the men up the bay where they roamed. Never considered myself a hunter of men. Guess you’re right, though, me being a sniper. Never knew I could kill a man, either. War changes a man, eh Mike?”

“For sure it does, Jake. None of us will ever be the same. The first man I saw die was out there on the ice. All those sealers from the old Newfoundland, seventy-eight of them perishing like they did, all of them innocent of doing nothing more than trying to keep food on bare tables. Over here, all of us, still innocent, die by the thousands. And no one pays heed.”

Michael was quiet then for a while. A shell screamed overhead and exploded west of them. It was close enough for them to feel the ground vibrate. It dislodged pebbles that ran in a trickle of water down the sides of the trench. The fog created ghost-like images and brought cold with it.

Jake lit the small coal-oil brazier and placed a bully beef tin filled with scummy water on it. Both men held their hands over tiny tendrils of flame licking around the bottom of the tin. The smell of burning coal oil from other braziers drifted down the trench. Up and down the line, soldiers were trying to keep warm.

Jake looked toward the area where he had shot his first Turkish soldier. “I never saw a man die out on the ice. Saw their dead bodies but didn’t see them die. The first man I seen die was in my rifle sights, just along this same trench, it was.” He had killed more after that one. Jake had become a real crack shot and had earned the nickname Crackie.

“You were there when your father died, Jake,” Michael said quietly, knowing the answer.

“Aye, I was there, all right. The two of us fishin’ on the Offer Ground from the punt. The punt leaked a bit, too.” Jake seemed to be evading the subject.

“All punts leak a bit, Jake b’y.” Michael grinned in the fading light.

Jake was lost in thought for a moment before saying, “I was in the fard o’ the punt. He was in the stern. I seen ’im makin’ ready to piss, so I turned me back to ’im. The punt lurched so bad I grabbed the gunnels. I heard a big splash. When I turned around, he was gone. The only sign of ’im was a willum on the water where he went in. I never actually seen ’im die.” He hung his head as if pained by the memory.

“I’m sorry, Jake. He wasn’t good to you, was he?”

“Wasn’t good to anyone, far as I could see. Hard to my mother. Harder to me. Beat me, mostly around my head. He hated my red hair!” Jake ran a hand through his hair as if still feeling the hurt. “He cussed me, too. Called me red-headed bastard, stun son of a bitch, most every day. Swore on me ’cause I stuttered. Swore on me fer the pure pleasure of it, seemed like. He used to tell me, when I was a baby, me mother picked me up and put me back not kissed. Said I’d never be kissed. That hurt.

“He was right about Mother. She never once hugged or kissed me. Never even waved me off to this war. She believed I pushed Pop over the side of the punt, too. That hurt a lot.” Another shell whistled overhead. Jake looked up and followed the noise until it fell to ground and exploded farther away with a muffled whump.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Jake.”

Jake looked at Michael before answering. ”Oh, ’tis all right, Mike b’y. She was wrong. I believe she knows that now. I pity her, mostly.”

“Love her?”

“She never gave me the chance to. I am loved, though. Kissed and hugged, too, I have been, many times.” Jake grinned at Michael. “My father was wrong. Lize loves me.”

“Your girlfriend.” Michael knew she was.

“Yep. Eliza. Lize, I calls her most of the time. Prettiest girl you ever saw. Said she’d look fer me every night from our place above the tickle. She loves my hair colour, too. Says it’s the colour of fir boughs burning!” Both men laughed. It was a soft, pleasant sound that shut out the war around them for a rare moment.

“Only saw one other redhead other than me.” Jake stopped laughing and continued. “’Twas that day on the ice when Ol’ Man Kean, captain o’ the Stephano, ordered the sealers from the Newfoundland, his own son’s ship, over the side without givin’ ’em time fer a mug-up. You remember?”

“I’ll never forget that day,” Michael declared.

“You remember when the sealers were leavin’ and that feller among them, the one with the red hair, spoke to me?”

“Oh, the fish culler. Redjack, we call him.”

“That’s the man! The Culler! The only red hair I ever saw outside of me own. Like lookin’ in a mirror, it was. I wonders about it a lot.”

“Oh, ’tis only your first sight of another redhead you were seeing, Jake b’y. ’Twas his hair you was dwelling on, nothing more,” Michael assured him. In an attempt at steering the conversation farther away from hair colour, he said, “No one will cuss you for stuttering anymore, eh Jake?”

“No, sir. It appears me tongue has straightened out. Not one stammer since the day I shot my first man. Strange, that is. How do you figure it?”

“Not sure, Jake b’y. But based on what you’ve told me about it before, cursing on the man you shot because he had killed one of your mates and then stammering aloud ‘you son of a bitch before you pulled the trigger, the same way your father cursed you, probably has a physiological explanation I am unable to give you.”

Michael didn’t tell Jake that maybe, mentally, he was shooting at the man who forever abused him, his father. Jake seemed to accept Michael’s explanation.

Looking westward, Jake asked quietly, “Anyone waiting above a tickle for you, Mike?”

Michael was taken aback at first. “I—well . . . no there is not, Jake. Well, no one who will look out over a tickle for me. Just my dear mother. She’ll wait and watch from her window above the harbour. Like all mothers who wait for their boys to come home, I expect.” He didn’t notice the wistful look Jake gave him. They shook hands warmly, wished Merry Christmas one to the other again, and parted.

Jake’s question plagued Michael all that Christmas Eve night. There was a lull in the fighting. Everyone said the eve of the birth of the Prince of Peace was the cause. This night was recognized by as many on the far side of the trenches as the near.

He knew Jake was asking if he had a sweetheart waiting. Michael hadn’t told him that the sweetheart who would surely have waited for him had died this very night many years ago. That while he wished his friend a Merry Christmas on this night, the consummate celebration of Christian birth, it was also a night of mourning for Michael.