Christmas Truce
I smile. For the first time in my few weeks here, I smile. I run to look over the steep, mud wall of the trench and through the dirtied barbed wire. Men from both sides of the ravaged field are walking towards each other. Not towards the onslaught which usually comes with an expedition to No-Mans’ Land, but towards each other with open arms.
I hoist myself over the trench wall, I have always expected going over the top to be the last moments of my life. It still could be, but I’m thankful it’s not today. I join my comrades in gradually walking towards the slow moving wall of German soldiers.
Whilst walking I notice something odd: we’re walking across a French field, once cropland, consumed by craters and corpses, and all I can hear is laughter and chatter, as if it is a usual Christmas morning and all are in high spirits; as if we aren’t walking towards the men who had shot and shelled us throughout the previous weeks.
Ultimately we arrive at more or less the centremost point of the hellish grassland. There’s a pause as the two screens of men stand opposite to each other, the silence is swiftly broken by one of my colleagues …show more content…
At first it appears like a pleasant place to live, compared to our pathetic abode. I drop into the trench and find it great, only three feet wide, but with at least eight feet deep and well-crafted of brown sandbags on both sides. There’s no sign of damage from shelling. There’s a sniper’s post, just where I dropped in, a tight square hole, and seats and shelves stocked with bottles of beer, tinned meats, and a handsome helmet hanging on a hook. I’m puzzled as to how anyone could believe this place to be worse than our trench; this is like a paradise in comparison. I then hear scuttling noises: a small group of rats rush past our feet and behind a crate, which is covered in many different kinds of insects. I awaken from my trance and see the German trench for what it really is.
I smile. For the first time in my few weeks here, I smile. I run to look over the steep, mud wall of the trench and through the dirtied barbed wire. Men from both sides of the ravaged field are walking towards each other. Not towards the onslaught which usually comes with an expedition to No-Mans’ Land, but towards each other with open arms.
I hoist myself over the trench wall, I have always expected going over the top to be the last moments of my life. It still could be, but I’m thankful it’s not today. I join my comrades in gradually walking towards the slow moving wall of German soldiers.
Whilst walking I notice something odd: we’re walking across a French field, once cropland, consumed by craters and corpses, and all I can hear is laughter and chatter, as if it is a usual Christmas morning and all are in high spirits; as if we aren’t walking towards the men who had shot and shelled us throughout the previous weeks.
Ultimately we arrive at more or less the centremost point of the hellish grassland. There’s a pause as the two screens of men stand opposite to each other, the silence is swiftly broken by one of my colleagues …show more content…
At first it appears like a pleasant place to live, compared to our pathetic abode. I drop into the trench and find it great, only three feet wide, but with at least eight feet deep and well-crafted of brown sandbags on both sides. There’s no sign of damage from shelling. There’s a sniper’s post, just where I dropped in, a tight square hole, and seats and shelves stocked with bottles of beer, tinned meats, and a handsome helmet hanging on a hook. I’m puzzled as to how anyone could believe this place to be worse than our trench; this is like a paradise in comparison. I then hear scuttling noises: a small group of rats rush past our feet and behind a crate, which is covered in many different kinds of insects. I awaken from my trance and see the German trench for what it really is.