Good Hope Road: A Novel (25 page)

‘I almost raised the alarm,’ Karan tell. ‘Couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were when the Boche first lit them up. Thought they were some diabolical new version of Verey lights.’ There was a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. ‘Then I was afraid that I’d fallen asleep at my post and was dreaming of Diwali back home, when all the state is lit, with mud lamps. And I stand on the ramparts of the fort and look down on to a sea of lights, twinkling under the stars.’ He shake his head. ‘
Tannenbaums
! Blinking Christmas trees at the blooming Front!’

‘Christmas trees,’ James repeat slowly. He grins, and that grin, it grow bigger and bigger, and now I’m grinnin’ too, we all are.

‘
Christmas trees
!’

Not everybody been as pleased by the
tannenbaums
. To many of the
anciens
, them trees an insult. They cuss out the Boche for all those villages of France under enemy occupation this winter, cussin’ at this fake, wartime Christmas show.

‘
Cochons
!’ Gaillard shake his fist at their lines. He turn angrily away and we watch him go, guilty, but not so much that we follow.

We stay here instead, by the lookouts. Just for a while, we want to forget. Forget where we are, forget these torn-up, beat-down fields, leave behind the blood-stink mud. Tonight the air smell of pine and them Christmas candles, they dance, shinin’ and golden. We take them in hungrily, fillin’ eyes and hearts, ’memberin’ past Christmases and filled with thoughts of home.

Ain’t nobody say nothin’, but we all wonderin’ the same thing: if the
salaud
enemy can get their trenches all lit up for Christmas, if they can line them parapets with candles, fill them with such beauty, then maybe, just maybe, them Boche, they ain’t so much
salaud
after all?

Soon after, the singin’ start. Only snatches at first, comin’ from the back trenches of the Boche. It start to move forward, that singin’, from trench to forward trench, with more and more voices joinin’ in. They sing in German and I don’t know none of the words, but I recognise the carol all the same.

‘Silent Night’, the Boche, they singin’ ‘Silent Night’.

Their voices rise and fall from behind them golden Christmas trees. Ain’t a man movin’ in our part of the trenches. We struck dumb as we listen, melody and rhythm washin’ over us. The night is cold, but filled with stars and music. Music, fillin’ in the empty spaces: the gaps in the wire, in this shell-hole earth, in all the terrible things we seen but ain’t got no words to describe, in the ache steady growin’ inside of us, the darkness we try so hard to hide.

A hardenin’ frost sweep in overnight. The next mornin’, we have ourselves a white Christmas, just like James said we would. The rain-slick belts of bobwire all frosted over, shinin’ white in the early sun. There’s bits of ice in the straw all along the floor of the trenches, like beads of glass. These too catch the sun, turnin’ many-coloured in the light that be sweepin’ in from one end of the trenches to the other.

Ain’t no firin’ all mornin’, not from our side or theirs. It awful peaceful and the birds start to fly in. All kinds, so many – red-tailed, sunflower-sided, hook-beaked, all the callin’, singin’ birds we ain’t hardly seen these past months, they suddenly back, the sky thick with their wings.

It’s Christmas mornin’, and I know, I just know that those birds, they know it’s Christmas too.

‘Christmas caroling,’ James say, pointin’ at the birds.

All that mornin’ they there, our visitors, hoppin’ on the parapets, singin’ from the bobwire, flyin’ both to our side and to the Boche trenches. James pull out a tin of nuts from his holiday packages and pass it around. We hold out the nuts and the birds so tame – or hungry – they hop on our fingers and peck from our palms. One – a finch, James say – even allow a stroke or two of my finger across his wings before he fly away, chirp-chirpin’ all the while.

Chevalier, he got that look in his eyes, the same one he get when he talk ’bout his wife. He pull out sheets of notepaper from his sack, and with that Sunday-church look still on his face, sit down to draw.

‘
Bon camarade
!
Bon camarade
!’ The Boche start to call out to us. The French words sound thicker, more rough, in the German accent.

‘
Salauds
!’ Gaillard yell back.

They try again. ‘Let’s all go drink champagne in Paris,’ one of them call in French. This don’t sound too bad a plan to me, but that’s not how the Captain sees it.

‘Not if we get to Berlin first!’ he roar in reply.

‘How about a drink here?’ the Boche try then. ‘Did you like our singin’ last night?’ he continue, without waitin’ for an answer. ‘Why didn’t you sing with us?’

‘We’d rather die than sing with you,’ Gaillard shout.

‘Well,’ the voice cheerfully reply, ‘your singin’ would probably be the death of us anyway.’

Gaillard chuckle at this and we grinnin’ too. The Captain’s mouth twitches – he as fond of a good joke as anyone – as he draw hisself to his full height and spit on the floor of the trench.

‘
Salauds
!’ he exclaim, but we can see it more for show than anythin’ else.

The Boche ain’t done yet. ’Bout an hour later, they tie a white cloth to a rifle and wave it above their parapet. At first, we think it a bird. That cloth, it rise higher, above the
tannenbaums
, high enough that there ain’t no mistakin’ the signal now for anythin’ but a truce. As we watch, a Boche climb out over the parapet, wavin’ that flag.

We watch as he make his way through the Boche wire and across No Man’s Land. The birds fly up a bit as he come close to them, then settle back down as he pass.

Gaillard speak German and is sent to meet the Boche halfway, at the wire. We got rifles trained on that Boche and at their trenches, ready for the first sign of a trap.

The two stand there talkin’ a right long time. The Boche reach inside his coat and the Captain’s shoulders go stiff with alarm. All the Boche do though, is hand over a package. They talk some more, Gaillard and he, and then each make his way back, pushin’ through the birds.

‘
Alors
?’ demand the Captain as Gaillard get back in. ‘What did they want?’

‘To wish us a happy Christmas,’ Gaillard shake his head and hand over the package. ‘They wish us a merry Christmas, with two bottles of their best
Liebfraumilch
.

‘They also want a truce for all of today,’ he continue, ‘so that we can bury the dead from the past months that are still lying out there. A truce,’ he repeat to the Captain, spreadin’ his paws.

Urgent communiqués are sent to headquarters, and orders come back just as fast: we to go ahead with the truce, so that the dead can be attended to. We to remain on our guard and ‘exercise full caution at all times’.

Sure feel odd, to climb up the ladder on to open ground. James, he stumble, right hisself. I know it ain’t from the ice on the frozen field, but from our legs that feel like jelly, off balance from the strangeness of it all. The shell holes trimmed in white, like the edges of an ice rink, or salt along the rim of some frou-frou, dolled-up drink. The birds fly around us as we walk, so close that their wings brush our hands. Here now, the dead. So many together, thick as driftwood on a beach. I reach for my gris-gris.

‘You don’t need that,’ James say quietly.

How he know ’bout my lucky charm, I can’t say. He ain’t never said nothin’ ’bout it before. I snatch my hand from my pocket, embarrassed.

‘There’s nothing left of these men,’ he go on, almost to hisself. ‘Not the good, nor bad, nor anythin’ to fear.’ There’s a look on his face I can’t figure out as he work his shovel into the frozen ground. ‘Nothing left of them here,’ he repeat. ‘They’re long gone.’

It shame me that the Yankee thinks me ’fraid. I dig the blade of my shovel hard into the ground, hard as I can, harder than him, as if to show him he got it all wrong. I wrassle with the frozen earth, and as I dig and push, I look, really look, at the dead all around. I see their broken bodies, so still, so empty and somethin’ catch in my chest at the waste of it all.

James is right. Ain’t nothin’ here of men, just bodies starin’ with cold glass eyes.

The sound of shovels against the icy earth, and song, so much birdsong. Ain’t nothin’ left of these men. Now there only this – white ice and blue sky, and singin’ fire-winged birds.

We collect tags and boots, sortin’ through the dead. The ammunition, each side has agreed, gotta stay in the sector where it found. The Captain right pleased with the arrangement, the Boche being better supplied than us.

We slowly comin’ up on the Boche as we move across the field; they close enough now that we can make out their faces. This is the first of the enemy we’ve actually seen. In this part of the sector, our trenches lie close enough that we hear the sounds of their reveille each mornin’, near enough that we can smell their breakfast cookin’. We hear them shufflin’ ’bout, listenin’ for the smallest movement from their side, weapons ready. Still, even after all these months at the Front, most of us ain’t never seen a livin’, breathin’ Boche up close. Just one more thing ’bout this crazy, mixed-up war.

Six-foot tall giants, they been sayin’ of them in our trenches. Fierce, real fierce. Blonde, with arms thick as tree trunks.

The men we see ain’t no giants. They thin, and some wearin’ glasses, the sort you see on bankers and accountants and such back home. The same half-nervous, half-curious looks on their faces, as I figure there must be on our own. We look at each other, look away, keep diggin’, look again. We keep on workin’, gettin’ closer and closer, and now there a Boche right by me.

‘
Camarade
,’ he say, shy like.

I ain’t want to be talkin’ to no bastard Boche, so I act like I ain’t heard. Then, seein’ as it Christmas and all, I figure I should at least nod in reply.

‘
Sénégalais
?’ he ask.

‘Senegalese? I ain’t no Senegalese,’ I say hotly. ‘I’m a Yank! America,’ I say to him, ‘America!’

His eyes go wide at that, and he stare at me as if I just say that I’m straight from kingdom come. He grin, and then damned if he don’t say: ‘Jack Johnson.’

Jack Johnson! My mouth just ’bout fallen wide open at that.
Jack Johnson
, the Boche just said! He got his fists up now, as if he in a boxing ring. ‘America,’ he say again. ‘Jack Johnson!’

We get to talkin’ after that, whatever little we can, given he only know a few words of French, and I ain’t speak no German at all.

‘Hans Fitschen,’ he introduce hisself.

He shows me a picture of his home, near Munich, he say. I tell him I come from the bayou, but he has trouble sayin’ the word Louisiana.

‘America!’ he say once more.

To our surprise, the other side, they ain’t that different from us at all. We been tryin’ our best to kill them. Now here we are, face to face, and findin’ that they just men, men like us, tired of the mud and the wet, grumblin’ ’bout the food, cussin’ them fat-cat generals who don’t seem to know much of anythin’ at all.

Just regular men, with mothers and homes, heart-sickened by these killin’ fields and the war.

Chevalier pull out his drawings from that mornin’, of us feedin’ the birds. The Boche crowd around, exclaimin’ and pointin’. One of them start to clap. Chevalier smile shy like, offer him one of the drawings. The Boche, he don’t understand at first. Chevalier push the sheet of paper at him, and he take it then, grinnin’ and noddin’, and reachin’ into his coat, he hand over a pack of precious cigarettes.

Suddenly men rushin’, slippin’ in both directions across No Man’s Land, hurryin’ back to their trenches for what gifts they can find. Cigars, tobacco, a couple of
tannenbaums
, bread, wine, all these pass hands; when there ain’t nothin’ left to give, men exchange buttons from their coats.

All afternoon it last, this Christmas back and forth. When all the dead taken care of, orders come for the truce to end. Hans Fitschen, he seek me out, bringin’ a buddy along. The other Boche, he speak a bit of English, and translate for Hans: ‘When the war is done, Hans will be comin’ to America.’

Hans push his glasses up his nose and beams. ‘America!’ he say, and hold out his hand.

‘You do that,’ I reply, shakin’ his hand. ‘You do that, and tell you what, maybe we’ll go watch the Champ together.’

The evenin’ sun be blood red. The birds, they all flown away, sudden as they came, but the Boche gone and lit their
tannenbaums
for another night. Our trenches still buzzin’ from all the goin’s-on of today. I look at them lit-up parapets of the Boche from the fire step and wonder if it the same there, with them.

‘Not so bad, are they, up close?’ I say to James.

‘No,’ he say slowly, ‘they’re not. One of them said to me that they’ve been scared witless by the Legion all this while. Six feet tall, they heard the legionnaires were. Tempers of madmen, and legs thick as tree trunks.’

I grin. ‘Hans Fitschen movin’ to America,’ I inform him. ‘After the war. We goin’ to watch some great boxin’ together. Do you think . . .’ I ask. ‘The war – it can’t . . .’ It feel unlucky to say the words out loud, so I don’t.

He know though, what I’m thinkin’. Everybody of us thinkin’ the same. Those Boche we met today, they just like us, keen to be done with this crazy war, to wrap it up so we can all go home.

James and I, we stand there in the cold, starin’ at those golden
tannenbaums
. Both thinkin’, hopin’, that maybe, just maybe, the war, it ain’t goin’ to last much longer after all.

Word come from headquarters later that evenin’. A French artillery attack planned for tonight. Seein’ as it Christmas though, the attack gonna begin late, at 23:00 hours, which be midnight in Berlin, and so, 26 December there.

James frown. ‘It will still be Christmas
here
,’ he point out, but this fact, the brass, in their wisdom, gone and forgot.

WASHINGTON DC

1932