A wind blew hard across the North Sea. The wind didn’t stop at Belgium. It brought flecks of snow to the trenches of northern France.
Albert wore mittens with no fingers. He rested his rifle against the hard-frozen wall of the trench and blew on his hands. ‘It’s cold,’ he said and shuddered.
‘Good thing too,’ Charlie Embleton said.
‘My toes don’t think it’s good,’ the young soldier argued.
‘If the ground wasn’t frozen then you’d be standing in mud. And mud’s worse than ice. You can wrap up against the cold, but mud… what does mud do?’
‘I don’t know. What does mud do?’ Albert asked.
‘It seeps through every seam of your uniform. You get wet as well as cold, and it takes a lot longer to warm up.’
‘So cold is good, eh?’
‘Cold is good. And remember, it’s as cold for Jerry as it is for us.’
Albert slowly raised his head above the edge of the trench and looked through the rows of barbed wire to the German trenches. ‘Is that why they’re quiet?’ he asked.
‘It is.’ Charlie nodded. ‘The Germans don’t have muddy little holes in the ground like us. They have proper underground shelters, cosy and warm. You’ll see when we start attacking in the springtime. We’ll capture one and be snug as rabbits in a burrow.’
‘We have to wait till spring to attack?’ Albert sighed. ‘I’ve been in the army six months now and I’ve never fired a bullet at an enemy.’
‘You’ll see plenty of bullets soon enough. It’s the one you don’t see that’s the dangerous one. That’ll be the one that hits you if you don’t keep your head down.’
Albert ducked back down under the cover of the trench. He stamped his feet and blew on his hands again. ‘They said this war would be over by Christmas. They say that back home a million men have rushed to join the British Army. They’re all worried that the war will finish before they get here!’
Albert shivered inside his khaki uniform. It fitted badly: the jacket was too baggy and let in draughts around the neck and sleeves; tight khaki bandages were wrapped round his legs to keep out mud, but they made those legs look thin enough to snap. A German would see those matchstick legs marching towards him and die laughing. The young man’s large boots and frost-red nose made him look like a sad, brown clown.
He looked down at Charlie. The older man had cropped hair that showed grey where he’d pushed his helmet back. Charlie sat at the entrance to a crude cave dug into the frozen soil. He was trying to boil a kettle over a small fire in a biscuit tin.
‘Tell you what, Albert,’ he said, wiping a dew-drop off the end of his battered nose. ‘We’ll try to keep this war going a bit longer, shall we? Just to give you a bit of excitement?’
‘You can,’ Albert said. ‘I’m due a bit of leave in the New Year. I want to get back home and see my mum! I’ve never had a Christmas away from home before.’
‘When you’ve been in the army as long as I have…’ Charlie said solemnly.
‘Here we go,’ Albert muttered into his cupped hands as he breathed on them for warmth. ‘The Boer War. Next you’ll be telling me you fought for Britain when Julius Caesar invaded.’
‘When you’ve been in the army as long as I have, you’ll forget what a Christmas at home is like!’ Charlie declared.
‘Well, Christmas at home is warmer than it is here, I can tell you,’ the younger man sniffed.
‘I told you, you don’t want it any warmer, son! If it wasn’t for the cold we’d be over our ankles in mud.’
‘You always look on the bright side, don’t you, Charlie?’
‘You have to, son. It could be worse. We could have had orders to attack the German trenches today. Some German sniper could have sent you a little present from the end of his rifle. You could be lying out there in No Man’s Land with a bullet in your brain,’ the older man told him. ‘Though you’d probably be safe, come to think of it. Your brain being such a small target and all.’
‘Ha ha. Very funny, Charlie.’
‘And you’ve got your chocolate and your tobacco and your Christmas card from the king and queen, haven’t you? Your Christmas comforts.’
Ah, yes, Albert thought. The best thing that had happened to him since he joined the army. Maybe the best thing that had happened in his life.
