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That night, for the first time, Glenn knew he had killed.
“Jerrys coming! Jerrys coming!”
The shout awoke him moments before grenades started popping. The rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire quickly followed. Glenn lunged for his weapon. The action was down the trench to his right.
The Germans had used a thick midnight fog to climb out of their trench and rush across the gap at the Allies. The men scrambled for their guns and helmets as grenades exploded at their feet. Suddenly the Germans were at the top of the trench. Through a forty-yard stretch they killed every man from their elevated position, then leaped into the trench on top of the bodies.
At each end of the massacre, Allies and Germans shot and hacked at one another in hand-to-hand combat. Men from both armies, intent on their individual survival, pulled planks, sandbags, and mud from the sides of the trench. Soon the passageway was blocked on both sides of the Germans by bodies and rubble.
The Allies regained order. Machine guns from farther down the Allied trench swept no-man’s-land, ensuring no more Germans could cross the foggy waste.
Crouching in the trench, Glenn heard artillery buzzing close above him, cutting down the soldiers trying to come in support from the reserve trench. The whizzing buzz of a shell rang in his ears, exploding just behind him. He flattened himself against the trench wall as pieces of dirt rained down on his helmet. The man who had been standing next to him a moment ago lay on the trench floor, screaming from shrapnel wounds.
Some sixty German soldiers were struggled to hold the stretch of trench they had taken. For a time they continued their slaughter, using the blockage as protection to shoot at the advancing Allies from both sides of the trench.
Glenn willed himself forward. A French soldier just ahead of him hurled two unpinned grenades over the blockage. One exploded immediately. The second, though a dud, rolled menacingly for a few moments among the feet of the panic-stricken Germans. French and Americans climbed from their trench and rushed at the German position from both sides. The Germans who had taken the Allied trench were quickly overwhelmed.
With an enemy at a distance, a trench is unapproachable except by surprise or far superior numbers. But with an enemy at hand, the low position and lack of retreat routes make a trench no better than a waiting grave. Once the Allies reached the top in numbers, sweeping down with automatic fire and grenades, the Germans had no chance.
Those who could still stand threw down their guns and raised their arms, but the shooting continued. Taking prisoners was a humanitarian luxury of the early days of the war. The Germans tried to scramble up the dirt. The front wall of the trench caved in. Some made it to the top before dying. A handful made it far enough to twist their feet in the barbed wire stretched in front of the trench only to be cut down by fire from both sides. There these would stay, lacking men brave enough to retrieve the bodies. None from the brash German advance lived out the night.
Even as the battle continued, Glenn was called back with his company to dig a new trench, directly behind the old. Having stopped the advance, the Allies were unwilling to fall all the way back to the reserve trench. Once the shooting stopped, the dirt was pushed forward to fill the old trench and bury the bodies. They retrieved as many dog tags of the dead that they could, as well as boards and sandbags to support the new trench. But the first priority of each man was his own survival.
Glenn never felt the exhaustion in his arms through the fighting and the digging that followed. If he had been wounded he wouldn’t have felt that, either. He fought and worked like a machine, not a man.
Before that night, men had surely fallen to his fire, but they were distant and anonymous. But that night he looked men in the eye before firing at point-blank range. There was no doubt that there was no way to separate from the carnage. In the desperate battle there were no people, no faces. The enemy became a poison intent on his life, with his gun as the antidote. He didn’t feel like he had killed men; he had survived a terrible night. He worked frantically through the early-morning hours to hide the bodies in the ground before sunrise revealed their faces.
German fire continued through the night. In the danger of their task, much of their lumber and supplies were left behind in the old, ruined trench. Most of the dead on both sides would be anonymous until the next day’s grim roll call.
When it was done, the Allies had retreated ten yards. The new trench was a poor one. Only six feet deep, with its sides mostly made of bare earth, it offered poor protection. But for survival, it would do until it could be improved.
A gray dawn rose on the desolation. Glenn began to process what had happened. He had learned to kill that night. Would it become easier? He hoped he never grew jaded to it, even though as a soldier he had a job to do in this war. He never wanted to forget that those across from him were men just like himself.
The distance between the trenches was now half what it had been. The Germans had gained nominal yardage, but were no closer to breaking through to march on Paris. Nothing had substantively changed, though three hundred men lost their lives.
Twenty yards past the top of the filled-in trench lay the German soldier who had made it the farthest at the end of the struggle. All the others had been pulled into the mass grave, but this one was too far for safety. Many of the men would later wish they had risked their own lives to bury him. His leg was caught in the barbed wire, his body twisted back toward them by the fire from his own side. His helmet had flown off at the end. His blond hair stuck to the stubble of old grass on the field, caked by his own sweat and blood. His eyes were wide open. His expression captured his final terror. As hard as Glenn tried not to look at those eyes, he couldn’t keep his gaze away. This man’s dead, terrified eyes began to haunt his dreams.
––––––––
The opposing trenches were now only seventy yards apart. Any gunfire was deadly. Grenades were almost in range for a man with a strong arm. Death poured daily into each trench. Neither side made any more vigorous advances, yet daily survival remained a challenge. The new Allied trench was deepened and properly fortified, but it was poor protection from the shell fire.
The nauseating smell of death mingled with the stale odor of dirty men and dry gunpowder. Glenn lost his will to eat in the days after the battle. It was all he could do to force his rations down to avoid malnutrition.
At first when the rain started he was thankful. It dulled the stench. But as it continued for three days, the men began to cough and shiver. They rotated with the companies in the reserve, but there weren’t enough men to give any adequate rest. A new group of Americans arrived which helped a little. It replaced a week’s worth of dead.
On the fourth night, the sky cleared and dropped the first frost onto the ground. The wet dirt caked into dirty ice. The bottom of the trenches didn’t freeze, thanks to the continual stomping of boots. But the tops of the boots themselves often froze until they were plunked into warmer mud. Glenn was among the lucky ones whose boots were starting their first winter. Most of the boots that had already seen a winter or two had sprung holes. Once a man’s socks were wet, there was no way to dry them. The first frostbite of the season slithered into the trenches like mustard gas, hiding in the low spots, an invisible and sinister killer.
Glenn wanted to curse the American soldier who reminded him of the calendar.
“Tonight’s Christmas Eve, boys,” he said, inducing a hateful glare from anyone who could understand. Glenn was initially glad those within earshot were mostly French, but the man had no mercy. “C'est la veille de Noël, hommes!”
The glare he earned from the French soldiers was far worse, not only for the reminder but also for his horrible pronunciation of their beloved language.
Glenn hardly slept on Christmas night. He was glad for the two hours he had been assigned on watch.
He would have gladly forgotten that it was Christmas, but now he spent his watch remembering beautiful Christmases past with his family. Then there were the four Christmases with Dafne. Yes, Elsa was there, too. The last Christmas they’d spent together was two years ago, in Lindenhurst. That year, Elsa gave him a small book of poems by Christina Rossetti. He managed to smile, remembering her embarrassment, and how she’d nervously pointed out a particular poem that contained a line they had talked about the month before. Dafne had sat nearby, laughing at her.
The happy moment warmed his heart as he looked out across the waste before him. He clutched the barrel of his upright rifle in the same spot so the metal remained warm through his gloves. His toes felt very cold, though he was thankful they were dry.
Elsa’s boldness with the gift only struck him in hindsight. At the time he hadn’t thought it through; he’d only felt grateful. Nor had he realized then how that particular poem prophesied how he would feel about those times.
Despite his watch, he allowed himself to briefly close his eyes and remember. Although he tried to recall Christmas in Lindenhurst, the image that came to him was Elsa on the bench at Fort Hamilton the day before he sailed. He remembered how her soft brown eyes had widened in that moment—fearful for him, conveying love, wet with tears.
He wished he had brought the book with him. Still, the poem came back to him easily.
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bittersweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!
Glenn leaned his head down till his helmet touched the barrel of his rifle, squeezing his eyelids shut against the onset of tears.
Each man worked so hard to disguise his own emotions that no one noticed how every man cried a little that night. Dreams of warm fires and lighted trees, the laughter of children and the embraces of loving women couldn’t break through the reality of the cold, the blood and the frostbite. There was no escaping the sickening terror each time an artillery shell whined overhead.
Glenn heard footsteps approaching his post. He looked and saw his friend from Fort Hamilton, Captain Cummings. They had been assigned to the same company.
Glenn smiled. “A little early, aren’t you?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“I feel the same way. I’m glad to have the watch.”
Glenn was also glad for the darkness. He doubted Cummings would be able to see that his eyes were wet from tears. Captain Cummings sat down beside him on the narrow bench.
“How about this?” said Cummings. “A couple of captains, taking the night watch. Pretty soon you and I will each be commanding our own platoon.”
Glenn smiled. “Maybe the French will respect us better for taking our lumps before all the poor sap foot soldiers from back home arrive.
“I suppose you’re right.”
“What difference does it make? We’re no safer from the shells out here then we would be behind the line.”
Cummings pointed toward the pair of gas masks hanging from Glenn’s belt.
“Still got ’em both, I see.”
“I don’t want to offend anyone.” Glenn managed a small laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Arguing over whose gas masks worked better, both the French and the British issued their own model to every American soldier.
“Which one did you decide on?” Glenn asked.
“I’m using the French one, but only because it fits better. They’re both lousy. I don’t know if the mustard gas could be any worse than trying to see and shoot in these things.”
Glenn nodded in agreement. “Besides, there aren’t any British in this particular hell-hole of ours.”
Cummings made himself comfortable on the bench and inched closer to Glenn. “Here. I’ve got something I want to share with you,” he pulled a small, paper-wrapped packet from his inside pocket. “Call it a Christmas feast.”
He unwrapped the paper from a sticky block of toffee. One small square had already been cut out. Cummings cut two larger squares with his pocketknife and handed one to Glenn.
“My mother makes this each year. I couldn’t believe it when I opened her package last week and this was in it. I’m surprised they let it through, with everyone starving over here in France.”
Glenn held the sticky lump between his fingers, savoring the sight and smell of the candy. Cummings playfully lifted his chunk and looked at Glenn. “Cheers.” They both bit in. Mrs. Cummings’s toffee was easily the best piece of candy Glenn had ever eaten. Sweet, and sticking between his teeth, it really did feel like a Christmas feast.
Cummings leaned back against the cut dirt behind their bench. “Mom sent me a block of this toffee last year, too, when we were at the base. I didn’t share it with anyone. I savored it slowly, cutting off smaller and smaller pieces until it was gone.” He nudged Glenn with his elbow. “And it isn’t like we were poorly fed at Fort Hamilton.”
Glenn laughed. “We complained enough at the time.”
“If we only knew what we were in for out here.”
“So why did you share it with me this year?”
“Because what I miss now aren’t luxuries like a piece of candy, a nice juicy steak, or a swig of whiskey. What I miss is sharing those things with friends and family. This right here,” he cut off two more pieces of toffee, “is the closest thing to home . . . to family.”
“You’re right.”
Glenn thought again of the last Christmas he had shared with Dafne and Elsa. This little moment of unity with a companion made Christmas feel real this year, too. He placed his hand on Captain Cummings’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Sam.”
“Merry Christmas, Glenn.”
––––––––
The dawn came just like any other dawn, but without gunfire. Glenn thought the Jerrys must have wept too that night. It was a cold, dark morning. Unable to sleep, most of the men rose at first light. A tense silence hovered over the zone. At such times, a loud word spoken in one trench could easily be heard in the other. That morning, few were willing to break the awful silence of their own memories.
When the sound first rose toward them from the German trench, the Allies clutched their rifles with a confused and heightened sensation. Then they relaxed, for this new weapon struck straight to the depths of their hearts. The heavy baritone voice, timid at first, rose in volume as its power swept over the entire landscape. The notes were slow, the vibrato perfect and smooth.
“Stille Nacht. Heil’ge Nacht.
Allis Schläft, einsam wacht.
Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.
Holder Knab’ him lockigen Haar.
Schlafe in himmlischer Rue,
Schlafe in himmlisher Rue.”
The following silence was even heavier than before. No man dared to look at another. Five minutes or more the holy silence lasted before a reply came from a tenor in the Allied trench. Glenn doubted he had ever heard a more beautiful voice.
“Nuit de Paix, Sainte Nuit.
Dans l’etable aucun bruit.
Dans le ciel tout repose en paix.
Mais soudain dans l’air pur et frais.
Le brilliant Coeur des anges
Aux bergers apparaît.”
He paused for a moment before repeating the first verse. The German baritone was only a moment behind him. The two languages melded in the fraternal unity of the music. More voices and a third language entered. The German slipped into a bass line, leading others into the parts they knew from boyhood choirs. Dozens of voices, led by the beauty of the French tenor and the power of the German baritone, slowed in joint reluctance as the last line concluded and the magical peace necessarily ended.
The following silence was broken only by the tears it no longer seemed a shame to cry.
There was no fighting that day—only a lasting stillness and the enchantment of unforgotten music. How could any fire their guns, knowing they might kill one of the two men who had given such an unforgettable gift of peace?
But the next day war resumed with heavy shelling at dawn. The faceless German baritone and the faceless French tenor became soldiers again. None knew whether their heroes lived or died.