November 11, 1918
The Western Front: the Moselle River Valley
Vizefeldwebel Hans Schultz stepped aside from the howitzer that he and his unit had just loaded, to avoid being injured as it recoiled. The move was automatic at this point, as was covering his ears, although most of his comrades didn't bother with the latter move. But Schultz was aware that his hearing was not as good as it was before the war, and he wanted to limit the damage for after the war.
After the war. A fairy tale phrase for so long. He risked a quick glance at his watch.
10:57.
Cannons to the right of him, cannons to the left of him, cannons in front of them volleyed and thundered. Schultz and his friends ducked as they heard an all-too-familiar terrifying whine. The incoming shell landed short of them, exploding in No Man's Land, the shock wave showering them with muck but no shrapnel hit them.
"Another!" Leutnant Messer demanded.
Why? Schultz wondered, his eyes meeting Engel's, his best friend in his current unit. Engel shook his head.
They were less than three minutes from the eleventh hour of the day, when the war was supposed to end. The news had come through earlier that morning.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Just two minutes away now.
A lifetime. They could still die in that short space of time.
Or kill others. The Americans on the other side.
Why bother? What would it accomplish? Germany had lost the war already.
But Schultz and these comrades had survived it. Plenty of other comrades and friends from Schultz's infantry and artillery units had not over the last four years. Some were buried in the hastily made cemeteries that dotted the French and Belgian countryside. Others had never been found, literally blown to unrecoverable bits. Still other comrades, not killed outright, had nonetheless left bits of themselves behind in the trenches—blood, limbs, even their minds.
But it was finally, nearly over. The deadline set by the big shots, the ones who decided which men they had never met would live and die, was just minutes away. No territory would be taken today.
Only possible lives.
Why not let every man here on the line, on either side, return home as intact and able bodied as possible?
The guns continued their roar, up and down the trench line, from both sides.
"Move!" Messer shouted.
The habit of obedience was well ingrained, and Schultz and his comrades bent to their task, locating the last shell, loading it, priming the howitzer. They could practically do it in their sleep at this point. Schultz was fairly sure that they had on more than one occasion.
They loaded the big gun, stepped away, and it fired.
"Another!" Messer cried. "We can still get another in!"
"Enough!" Schultz rounded on him, holding out his watch. The final minute was ticking by. "It won't help."
Messer stared at him, eyes white in his mud-spattered face. "They killed Schermer just yesterday. It is our last chance to make them pay."
"They have paid and we have paid and we will all keep paying, forever," Schultz sighed. "It is ending. Let it end."
"Ja," Engel spoke in agreement, supporting Schultz. "Leave off. It is time—and long past time."
Messer stared out across No Man's Land to the enemy's side, shaking, fists clenched. Seconds ticked by as the guns growled up and down the line, but Schultz heard the number dimming, notably less than the fierce barrage of an hour earlier.
Then they died away altogether.
For nearly ten seconds the landscape seemed haunted by echoes, before one final punt sounded, far down the line.
Then silence.
Schultz sighed and bent his head, remembering the past four years: volunteering in 1914 to save his fatherland and have adventures, the first battles he fought in Liège and Ardennes, the endless horror of the Somme, Passchendaele, and the disastrous Spring Offensive just months earlier. He could not understand how he had survived to see this moment of quiet on the battlefield, when so many others had not.
A bird warbled.
Schultz lifted his head in wonderment. How could there come to be a bird here? Where the green of the land had been so blasted and ruined forever by the fire and fury of war?
"Noah's dove," Engel said, putting his hand on Schultz's shoulder.
"Nein, a lark, I think," Schultz replied.
"Ah Schultz, always the literalist," Engel said, tipping his head back to allow the weeping drizzle from the skies to wet his face, then wiping both water and mud away as best he could. "We'll take the dove—or in this case the lark—over the ravens."
Messer stepped back, casting his own face downward and relaxing his hands. "Let us think of Schermer," he said, as Geisler and Kleid stepped up. The five of them formed a little knot around their silent howitzer, arms on each other's shoulders, a gap next to Schultz where Schermer would have stood before yesterday. Schultz put his hand up onto the barrel, still hot from its last firing, but cooling in the chilly air.
They bowed their heads, thinking first of Schermer, and then of all those whom they had known who had fallen before him in the last four years—all who had missed this final moment of defeat.
"We must square away our material," Messer said, "and return to Headquarters. They will sort us out for demobilization—eventually."
"And what then—now that we have lost what we fought for?" Kleid asked.
Messer shrugged then he squared his shoulders. "Germany may have lost the war. But we five are not beaten men. We will go home and live our lives for those like Schermer who did not get the chance. For now, let us pack up."
Home, Schultz thought as he organized rifles and bullets and other gear. To family and friends. To baths and clean sheets and clean clothes. Civilian clothes.
To what kind of job? He'd had no real skills before he joined the army in 1914. Four years of fighting had not qualified him for any job back at home—and other surviving men would also want whatever jobs were available.
I will find work, he thought with determination. I will make things, not destroy them. And somehow, I will try to make things that are beautiful or that will bring joy.
As he followed his comrades back to the support trenches, Schultz listened for the lark again, but it was silent. Mourning, perhaps, those of its kind that had died in the battles? Schultz wondered how many songbirds had died on the battlefields over the years.
Songless, he listened instead to the sound of silence on the Western Front, hearing only the small crunch of his and his comrades' boots against the duckboards and the cold earth, as he walked wearily out of his past into an unknown future, out of the war and into the peace.
Fin
Author's Note: As most of you probably already know, the Armistice was signed one hundred years ago today. I hadn't intended to write this, not really having the time today, but I thought of it last night while going to sleep, wondering what those last moments of the war would have been like, and it wouldn't let me alone. It seemed a fitting time and way to wind up the stories about Schultz that I've written during the centenary commemorations of the Great War. A small thank you and apology to Alfred, Lord Tennyson for a line I couldn't help using.
The sounds of the guns as they ceased in the Moselle Valley were recorded that day for posterity. You can hear that last minute of the war and the beginning of the armistice, along with the bird song (I'm not sure if it was a lark: I'm not good with bird calls), if you look it up on Google. The Smithsonian had a nice link to it that I used. That clip I listened to the other day gave me the structure for this story.
The actual events of the day were far less peaceful in many places along the Western Front than in my imagined story. The British high command tried to retake the city of Mons, which they had lost at the beginning of the war in August 1914: around 2400 British soldiers died that day. One French commander received simultaneous orders that morning: to launch an attack at 9:00 and to cease fire at 11:00. French losses on the final day were approximately 1,170. The retreating Germans suffered about 4,120 casualties. Losses on all sides that day approached eleven thousand dead, wounded, and missing. The war ended that day as bloodily as it had been waged throughout the four years of its duration.
Vizefeldwebel: Sergeant first class. Not as high a rank as Feldwebel (sergeant major), the rank that Schultz holds in the show, but I figured after four years' service he had probably been promoted, and that this might be a logical rank for him to be starting his service from during the second war.
Noah's raven and dove: In Genesis, Chapter 8, Noah sends forth first a raven to see if the flood has abated so that he and his family can leave the ark. The raven doesn't return, so he tries a dove twice: the second time the dove returns with an olive branch or leaf. Ravens, as carrion eaters, have traditionally been associated with battlefields; doves (and olive branches) have long been a symbol for peace. It seemed like a reference that a man of the time might think of.