“As it’s Christmas, sir, we thought the news might cheer you up.”
“It does, I can tell you!”
“May I be the first to offer my congratulations.”
“Most kind,” Fitz said. “Thank you.” But Captain Davies had already hung up.
After a moment Fitz realized the other officers in the dugout were staring at him in silence. Finally one of them said: “Good news or bad?”
“Good!” said Fitz. “Wonderful, in fact. I have become a father.”
They all shook his hand and slapped his back. Murray got out the whisky bottle, despite the early hour, and they drank the baby’s health. “What’ll he be called?” Murray asked.
“Viscount Aberowen, while I’m alive,” Fitz said, then he realized that Murray was not asking about the baby’s title, but his name. “George, for my father, and William for my grandfather. Bea’s father was Petr Nikolaevich, so perhaps we’ll add those as well.”
Murray seemed amused. “George William Peter Nicholas Fitzherbert, Viscount Aberowen,” he said. “Quite enough names to be going on with!”
Fitz nodded good-humoredly. “Especially as he probably weighs about seven pounds.”
He was bursting with pride and good cheer, and he felt an urge to share his news. “I might go along to the front line,” he said when they had finished their whisky. “Pass out a few cigars to the men.”
He left the dugout and walked along the communication trench. He felt euphoric. There was no gunfire, and the air tasted crisp and clean, except when he passed the latrine. He found himself thinking not about Bea but about Ethel. Had she had her baby yet? Was she happy in her house, having extorted the money from Fitz to buy it? Although he was taken aback by the tough way she had bargained with him, he could not help remembering that it was his child she was carrying. He hoped she would deliver her baby safely, as Bea had.
All such thoughts flew from his mind when he reached the front. As he turned the corner into the frontline trench, he got a shock.
There was no one there.
He walked along the trench, zigzagging around one traverse, then another, and saw no one. It was like a ghost story, or one of those ships found floating undamaged with not a soul aboard.
There had to be an explanation. Had there been an attack that somehow Fitz had not been told about?
It occurred to him to look over the parapet.
This was not to be done casually. Many men were killed on their first day at the front because they took a quick look over the top.
Fitz picked up one of the short-handled spades called entrenching tools. He pushed the blade gradually up over the edge of the parapet. Then he climbed onto the fire step and slowly raised his head until he was looking out through the narrow gap between the parapet and the blade.
What he saw astonished him.
The men were all in the cratered desert of no-man’s-land. But they were not fighting. They were standing around in groups, talking.
There was something odd about their appearance, and after a moment Fitz realized that some of the uniforms were khaki and others field gray.
The men were talking to the enemy.
Fitz dropped the entrenching tool, raised his head fully over the parapet, and stared. There were hundreds of soldiers in no-man’s-land, stretching as far as he could see to left and right, British and Germans intermingled.
What the hell was going on?
He found a trench ladder and scrambled up over the parapet. He marched across the churned earth. The men were showing photographs of their families and sweethearts, offering cigarettes, and trying to communicate, saying things like: “Me Robert, who you?”
He spotted two sergeants, one British and one German, deep in conversation. He tapped the Brit on the shoulder. “You!” he said. “What the devil are you doing?”
The man answered him in the flat guttural accent of the Cardiff docks. “I don’t know how it happened, sir, exactly. Some of the Jerries got up on their parapet, unarmed, and shouted, ‘Happy Christmas,’ then one of our boys done the same, then they started walking towards one another and before you could say chips everyone was doing it.”
“But there’s no one in the trenches!” Fitz said angrily. “Don’t you see this could be a trick?”
The sergeant looked up and down the line. “No, sir, if I’m honest, I can’t say that I do see that,” he said coolly.
The man was right. How could the enemy possibly take advantage of the fact that the frontline forces of both sides had become friends?
The sergeant pointed to the German. “This is Hans Braun, sir,” he said. “Used to be a waiter at the Savoy Hotel in London. Speaks English!”
The German sergeant saluted Fitz. “Glad to make your acquaintance, Major,” he said. “Happy Christmas.” He had less of an accent than the sergeant from Cardiff. He proffered a flask. “Would you care for a drop of schnapps?”
“Good God,” said Fitz, and walked away.
There was nothing he could do. This would have been difficult to stop even with the support of the noncommissioned officers such as that Welsh sergeant. Without their help it was impossible. He decided he had better report the situation to a superior and make it someone else’s problem.
But before he could leave the scene he heard his name called. “Fitz! Fitz! Is that really you?”
The voice was familiar. He turned to see a German approaching. As the man came close, he recognized him. “Von Ulrich?” he said in amazement.
“The very same!” Walter smiled broadly and held out his hand. Automatically Fitz took it. Walter shook hands vigorously. He looked thinner, Fitz thought, and his fair skin was weathered. I suppose I’ve changed too, Fitz thought.
Walter said: “This is amazing-what a coincidence!”
“I’m glad to see you fit and well,” Fitz said. “Though I probably shouldn’t be.”
“Likewise!”
“What are we going to do about this?” Fitz waved a hand at the fraternizing soldiers. “I find it worrying.”
“I agree. When tomorrow comes they may not wish to shoot at their new friends.”
“And then what would we do?”
“We must have a battle soon to get them back to normal. If both sides start shelling in the morning, they’ll soon start to hate each other again.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“And how are you, my old friend?”
Fitz remembered his good news, and brightened. “I’ve become a father,” he said. “Bea has given birth to a boy. Have a cigar.”
They lit up. Walter had been on the eastern front, he revealed. “The Russians are corrupt,” he said with disgust. “The officers sell supplies on the black market and let the infantry go hungry and cold. Half the population of East Prussia are wearing Russian army boots they bought cheap, while the Russian soldiers are barefoot.”
Fitz said he had been in Paris. “Your favorite restaurant, Voisin’s, is still open,” he said.
The men started a football match, Britain versus Germany, piling up their uniform caps for goalposts. “I’ve got to report this,” said Fitz.
“I, too,” said Walter. “But first tell me, how is Lady Maud?”
“Fine, I think.”
“I would most particularly like to be remembered to her.”
Fitz was struck by the emphasis with which Walter uttered this otherwise routine remark. “Of course,” he said. “Any special reason?”
Walter looked away. “Just before I left London… I danced with her at Lady Westhampton’s ball. It was the last civilized thing I did before this verdammten war.”
Walter seemed to be in the grip of emotion. There was a tremor in his voice, and it was highly unusual for him to mix German with English. Perhaps the Christmas atmosphere had got to him too.
