Christmas Eve was fast approaching in London, and John had decided to go out and meet it. Alone he had wandered the streets in search of a fine Christmas tree. The cold was bitter and the wind felt like ice, and over all of it hung the spectre of the Great War and the blood-soaked trenches. It would be a sombre Christmas, for it was hard to raise a glass when all your fellows had died in combat; hard to rejoice at the sight of all those bandaged faces in the stations, at the sight of the men who limped, or who’d lost eyes or limbs, loping disfigured along the grey pavements, living memories of the terrible Battle of the Marne. The sight of the widows and the orphans, and the fear that drove them to desperation. The sight of famine, of misery, and of mornings without hope. But John would not be cowed, and the woody scent of the winter pine brought a flood of memories upon him. He thought of his mother waiting to decorate the tree with him. Christmas was about family, after all.
John recalled that singular day, one he would never forget for anything in the world: Christmas 1914, over there across the Channel. The artillery fire and the grenades had ceased. In the trenches the men breathed in black, acrid smoke as they trudged through the cold, muddy labyrinth. Fear gnawed at their stomachs, and bitter alcohol made their heads swim. Their eyes watered at the dust and the animal stench of bodies. The deafening explosions that shook their eardrums left a low, buzzing drone. Each moment of silence signalled catastrophe to come; a moment of repose that augured the worst. But on that day, a miracle had occurred. As night fell, silence descended upon the frozen earth. The sky was clear, and the moon and the stars emerged beyond the white wisps of smoke. The silence lingered, strange and haunting. Then it was broken by a German voice: “Merry Christmas!” From the other side of No-man’s Land, they responded in kind. The British, Belgian, German and French soldiers crossed the trenches. It was there that they made their solemn pact, declaring that no shots would be fired until midnight the next night. No detonations would shatter the silent night. Communal burial ceremonies were held, and prisoners exchanged, and many gathered to sing Christmas carols in one of the most memorable images of the truce.
On that night, John had seen a German officer, perhaps a lieutenant, going around in search of buttons for his collection. They were round and polished, smooth as pebbles. The lieutenant offered John two of his own, which he had ripped off in a flash with a tearful smile. With a line of thread and some knots, the Christmas tree in No-man’s Land was decorated with a handful of treasures gathered from the trenches. Tonight, as his mother looked on tenderly, John would hang his collection of buttons on the tree; a splendid new tradition to mark an imperishable memory.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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