Title: For This Night, Peace on Earth
Characters: Watson
Rating: K+ for mentions of war and its horrors, nothing really graphic
Summary: The news of the Christmas Truce (see footnotes if you don't know what it was) in the trenches on December 24-25, 1914, filters back through the Allied lines to a small field hospital, and from there to a letter directed toward London. Could be part of my The Written Front series, except that that story is temporarily on hold.
A/N: Dedicated to all my friends, RL and online, who have or have had family in the armed forces. A respectful salute and deepest gratitude to you, and hopefully a small comfort to your families during the holidays. Especially for my dear friend Protector of the Gray Fortress, a Merry Christmas.
[Censored]
December 24, 1914
11:46 p.m.
My Dear Holmes,
I trust that by this time you will have received the small token I was able to send off late last month. You will understand the lack of time and funds I am sure, and accept so small a gift in that knowledge. No doubt you have already dissected the story's conclusion (1) and will be only too happy to expound upon my literary shortcomings in your next missive to me, but do remember it was cogitated between artillery fire and scribbled by lamp-light after the ward here had gone to sleep.
I am only teasing you, my dear fellow, of course; even a literary criticism would be a welcome correspondence from you. These last months have been terrible for all of us, I know; more so for the lads in the trenches than for us, relatively safe as we are behind [censored]. I cannot tell you how much easier your letters – for I know and realize how much you dearly hate to write them, and don't think I do not appreciate the time and effort – make the long and sometimes frightening nights. I have last Tuesday's epistle before me now, though you may go ahead and name me a sentimental old man, and was reading it for the tenth time until taking my pen to return the missive.
You ask if I am well; I am, as much as can be expected. God seems to grant us army doctors immunity to many of the more trivial ailments that can make life in a crowded field hospital absolute misery for those not in graver danger. I have remained happily unscathed, thankfully, and hope to continue that stint of good health.
There are many much worse off than we are; the reports from the trenches are both disheartening and misery-laden. Is it so selfish of me to be somewhat bitterly glad that my age and former injuries prevented me from more field work than occasional ambulance-driving? You mentioned once before I left, Holmes, that I was supposedly an incredibly unselfish man – but I know myself better. It is disheartening to know that one's character can be swayed so by a rainstorm and snowstorm and six inches of mud on the one hand, and clean sheets and only the occasional scream of the dying on the other. Which is the greater hell, I wonder?
But that is quite enough of the depressive tone, my dear Holmes; do forgive my ramblings, but I should not wish to say such things to anyone here as the morale is low enough as it is. A cheerful countenance, however falsified, is all I am ever able to show for the sake of the poor lads and young ladies too who have given their lives or are giving them in this god-forsaken place. We are all quite fortunate tonight.
I am trying to imagine what you are doing right about now, my friend – are you still living with your brother in [censored], for sake of expediency in [censored]? If so, I can imagine he is taking no notice of the Christmas season and you are driving him out of his mind with the most ridiculous assortment of random holiday traditions imaginable. Not because you enjoy the Yuletide – oh no, I remember your Dickensian Scrooge-ishness quite well! – but merely for the sake of being a frustration to his extreme organization. I can very easily see you upsetting a tin of egg-nog over his slippers out of pure 'accidental' mischief, or extinguishing the Yule log and then complaining that the house will have years of bad luck because of its fizzling out. (Possibly because you did something of the same to me many years past!)
Do go easy on him, Holmes; he is not a young man, and I fear for his heart before this war is over. We need him, and you need him. Give him my regards and compliments of the season, will you? As well as to Mrs. Hudson – you are going to telephone her tomorrow, are you not?
Tell me, when next you write, about the city this time of year; for once indulge an old man's foolish nostalgia and do not cut out the poetry. Do they still decorate the shop windows with lights and festive foods, or has the war taken its toll in that area as well? Are the lamps and candles in windows and on trees still burning, or has the rationing decreed that such frivolities are not acceptable in war time? Is there snow on the ground, Holmes? It has only rained and what the boys call "slushed" for days here, a cold and driving snow-rain combination that turns the ground into muck in every direction. I do miss those holiday evenings, either in Baker Street or in Sussex, with only the swirling snow and the wind and your violin – even those atrocious purposely-hackneyed carols – to fill the silences instead of the distant echo of shells and half-living death.
Strangely enough, though – tonight, all is indeed calm, as the carol so sweetly states should be on Christmas Eve. I can hear no sounds of combat, though they have slowed considerably in the last few days, and no one is crying for my attention in the ward outside. One of the nurses put up a scraggly, rather pathetic bough of a bedraggled tree (not evergreen, but it is still a tree bough) she found outside somewhere, and they have decorated it with a garland made of bandages and topped with a bow made of the same. You may laugh, but when one has not seen any decorations save military ones for so long even that trifle is all the world.
If I close my eyes, Holmes, I could, just for a moment, imagine myself back in England, the way things were before the world decided to embark on this mass homicide it seems intent upon. Peace, for a few moments anyway, truly does seem to be remaining on earth.
If only it were truth, not an illusion.
They said when we left that we would be home by Christmas; we knew, you and I and your brother at least, that that was never to be. I can only hope that next Christmas will see a safer world, or at least the beginning of a pathway that will lead to one.
I will add more to this tomorrow, my dear fellow; it is nearly midnight, and I did promise the lads in the ward that I would regale them with a story of one of your cases, as a Christmas gift. Shall I tell them of that one holiday we spent trapped in the London sewer system, chasing after that gang of forgers, and you took a tumble into a rather undesirable location containing undesirable elements?
Yes, I thought not.
Ah, there is the clock, midnight at last. A very Happy Christmas to you, Holmes, and many of them.
More tomorrow.
~JW
--
December 25, 1914
11:08 a.m.
Holmes,
I must tell you of the events of last night. Not here in [censored], but apparently in the trenches. Perhaps there is hope for us all, after all – and while many of the officials involved are considerably unhappy with the state of events, I for one am pleased to see that humanity may not have been entirely stamped out by this horror of horrors that is sweeping the countries of this Continent.
Apparently, last night and into this morning (it may still be in effect, if some general has not stopped it), a sort of unofficial truce was called in the trench line between our boys and the German soldiers. Exchanging Christmas carols and trading smallish gifts, even by one account a football match between the forces – can you possibly believe that, Holmes? British soldiers and French as well, attempting and failing miserably to sing Stille Nacht, and returning good-natured insults from their German opponents about the quality of the song? One of the field nurses even informed me that she heard from a patient just brought in with a case of frostbite that the Germans and the Allies had even agreed to allow soldiers into the No Man's Land to bury their dead, who have been lying there for several days now in the rain and snow.
I can hardly believe the tale, but enough gossip has filtered back through our lines to make it rather credible. Holmes, the peace was so real that for the first time our lads could light off their cigarettes without fear of being shot by the German snipers the instant the match flickered.
This truce, however temporary, evidently is meeting with strong disapproval from some of the higher officials in the ranks – but life in the trenches is vastly different from that behind the line of defense, and that tends to be forgotten many a time. I suppose they have a point; if this war is to end, which from the progress recently (namely nil) does not look likely in the near future, then fraternizing with the enemy is not a course of action that will advance that end.
But I for one cannot regard the incidents with anything but hope, and a quiet sort of gladness. After the horrors we have seen and heard of, even a two-day cease-fire might make the difference in hundreds of men living when they would have died – in not making dozens of women widows over one Christmas Eve, or children fatherless in the one night where there was always meant to be peace on earth.
Perhaps, after all, there is hope for humanity – if not for us, then for our children or their children. We must hold onto that, I know.
Do not worry about me, my dear Holmes. I am quite content to know that every day which passes is one closer to ending this war, and that each man is one more which I might prevent from becoming a casualty in it. There is no higher calling, and I went and remain willingly.
Thank you again for your recent missive, and if you can stand to sit still for long enough and not drive your brother further from his sanity then do write again soon. Please do try to enjoy your holidays, though it may be after the New Year when you read this as the post is quite unreliable and the censors slower than ever.
If it is not past the New Year, then think of me when you hear Auld Lang Syne, and remember that nothing – not even a world-wide war – lasts forever.
Until then, I remain,
Yours most sincerely,
John Watson
Royal Army Medical Corps
(1) Publication dates for The Valley of Fear were September 1914-May 1915, when they ceased altogether until His Last Bow in 1917. I've a feeling LAST would have been too volatile a tale to not be censored being sent through the post; therefore I went with VALL being finished and sent off as a present to Holmes.
(2) This is indeed a true story; one that has been told, embellished, and exaggerated many times over but true nonetheless. Silent Night by Stanley Weintraub, is an amazing account of the Christmas Truce, and in my opinion the most accurately-researched that I've seen. You should read it, if you're any student of WWI history at all.
Other references I used for my research here include "Christmas in the Trenches, 1914," Eyewitness to History, www. eyewitnesstohistory .com (2006) and "The Christmas Truce," www .firstworldwar .com / features/ christmastruce .htm.