“This Englishman I was talking to was over in France last Christmas, and he told me all about the time they had. Seems queer, but I think it is so. He said almost every fellow in the outer trench had some sort of a Christmas box with fruit-cake and candles, and ‘sweets’ as he calls candies. There they were, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and shaking hands, and laughing, and the snipers’ guns popping away at the Germans a few feet away from them. Pretty soon a white flag went up in the enemies’ trench, and they ran one up, too, and stuck up their heads to see what was what. They didn’t know if it was a ruse or not; but there was a group of Germans sitting on the edge of their trench with their legs down inside ready to jump; and they were calling ‘Merry Christmas, Englishmen!’ as jolly as you please.
“Well, that was all our fellows needed; and they got out of their holes and advanced. But one of their officers went first, a young fellow who was pretty homesick on account of the day, and he went up to a big German officer, and they agreed that there should be a truce for the day, and shook hands on it. So the men came across and met, and tried to talk to each other and learned some words from each other. The Germans had Christmas boxes, too, and they swapped their funny pink frosted cakes for the English fruit-cake, and gave each other cigarette cases and knives for souvenirs.
“Then it came dinner time, and they brought their stuff out on the neutral ground, and ate it together. Then pretty soon they all went back to their own trenches, and commenced singing to each other. The English sang their Christmas carols, old as the hills of England; and the Germans boomed back their songs in their big, deep voices. I tell you, fellows, it must have been queer! Just before dark, the German lieutenant stood up once more, with his white flag, and the English officer went to meet him. The German talked pretty fair English and the men heard what he said.
“‘We have a lot of dead men here to bury,’ he explained. ‘Will you come and help us?’ So the English said yes, and they all came out again and helped to bury the fellows they had shot. Then they all stood together, and the German officer took off his helmet and everybody took off their caps, and the German officer looked down at the graves, and then up, and he said, ‘Hear us, Lieber Gott,’ and the fellow said he must have thought his English was not good enough to pray in; so he said a little prayer in German, but everybody sort of felt as though they understood it, and of course some did. And then he put his helmet back, and shook hands, very straight and stiff with our officer, and said, ‘Auf wiedersehn,’ and turned away. And everybody shook hands and went back to their own trenches, and long after dark they kept calling to each other ‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’
“Well, fellows, that was the end. Next morning they were peppering away at each other, struggling like a lot of dogs to get a throat hold. Seems sort of queer, don’t you think so?
“I don’t believe this could happen now, because they have been fighting so long that they hate each other now. I think at first that they were like dogs that someone sicks into a fight. They do it because they want to be obliging, or because they think they have to mind. They would just as soon stop and wag their tails and go to chasing cats or digging for rabbits together. But they have fought now until the bitterness of it has entered deep. I can’t guess what the end will be. I don’t believe anybody can.
“You had better stir up everybody over there about it, and ‘rustle the requisite’ as Main always said. Everything for field hospital work is badly needed. Seems to me you could send a few hundred dollars of stuff over, well as not. You, Corky, you had better sell that car of yours. You know the Commandant doesn’t half approve of it, and Baxter can give up that motor-boat. You will drown yourself, Baxter, sure as sure! And think how much better you would feel to stay alive, and help a lot of shot-to-bits poor fellows in the bargain.
“Things look so different when you are right on the ground. What they tell me about some of the shot wounds that come to the hospitals makes me wonder if I have enough backbone to stand up under it, when the fighting really commences. I believe I am getting scared!
“The English fellow told me that after the first shot or two you didn’t seem to mind anything; you just went right ahead, and tended to work as though, as he said, it was a May morning in an English lane. I suppose he thought that was about as near Paradise as he could imagine, but the finest place I can think of is—Oh well, fellows, you know. I wish I was close enough to the gang to have you pound me on the back, and to kick that big brute of a Mackilvane for trying to stuff me under the bed. I’d like to hear some of Gregg’s rag-time, and see Mealy Jones try to ride the bay horse.
“But this is the end of my paper, and I’ve got to go back to the hospital. To-morrow I am to be put on regular duty. That’s why I am writing you this long letter. It may be a good while before I write another; so good-bye, old pals. I’ll come back some day if I live.”