Those who care to will remember that Christmas Eve of the year 1917, in France, was a perfect Christmas card.
When “stand-to” was passed along from dugout to dugout, the boys came up out of their deep dens, muffled and yawning, to find the evening glorious with softly falling snow.
Not a breath of wind disturbed the huge, feathery flakes as they dropped, silently twirling, straight to the ground. And the hideous pale chalk of that mangled Hill 70 region was hidden by a pure blanket that lay like a blessing under the soft evening sky.
Snowballs flew. Like a gang of boys released for recess, the clumsy figures emerging from dugout entrances into the trench scuffled with each other, their half-suppressed shouts rising into the silence. From across the white waste of No Man’s Land, from the German trench, came an interested shout:
“Hi!”
As much as to say: “Hi, you Canadians– don’t you know there is a war on?”
Weaving his way through the trench now rapidly filling with men, came the major, second in command of the battalion, on his regular nightly prowl, to oversee the formality of “stand- to.” the regiment’s awakening.
“Merry Christmas!” cried all the troops to him. He was a jovial favorite. A snowball clanked smartly off his tin hat.
“Merry Christmas, boys, dammit!” called the major.
At the junction of the main communication trench to the rear, the major halted. A dozen of the men were gathered there.
“How about Christmas?” said a corporal. “When do we go out, major, and are we going to celebrate this year?”
“Yes,” replied the major. “It’s all fixed. We will be out in Mazingarbe1 in three or four days, and the Christmas dinner will be held in the big red brick mine building there. Orders were sent back to the quartermaster this evening to have tables and benches got together in readiness, and he has been given leave to go back as far as he likes in search of pigs, turkeys, chickens, and so forth!”
“Jake!” muttered the boys, standing about. “Jake-aloo!2“
“We have the usual gift,” said the major, “of Christmas puddings from the Red Cross. There will be roast pork, roast fowl, vegetables, fruit and nuts. I have spent some of the canteen fund on a supply of bottled beer – Bass’s3…”
“Have you got it? Is it got?” asked the corporal, eagerly.
“The canteen sergeant is sitting up, getting no sleep at all, guarding it. One thousand bottles,” said the major.
“That’s one bottle all around and two for corporals,” said the corporal.
The Promised Dinner
“Go on, sir,” said another dark figure in the falling snow. You got as far as fruit and nuts.”
“Well,” said the major, “then will come Christmas pudding hot, with hot sauce on it.”
“Rum sauce?” asked a voice wistfully.
“No. We are saving the rum for punch made hot with lemons, oranges and red wine.”
“Put a little stout in it, major,” said a thick voice, “and it will have a little more body.”
The voice pronounced it “boady.”)
“The sergeants will be the waiters,” went on the major. “The regimental sergeant-major will be the head waiter, and when the punch is served the officers will come in to the big hall and drink the King’s health with the troops.”
“No officers present during the dinner?” exclaimed another.
“Nary a one. And the band will be present throughout the show to play, they having their dinner afterwards with the sergeants.”
A silence fell. The still snow dropped in noiseless clouds.
“When’s this for?” asked a voice.
“The night after we go out – I hope, four days from now,” said the major. “Well, cheerio, and Merry Christmas, boys!”
“Merry Christmas,” said they all.
And the major, with his runner at his heels, crunched away down the white trench.
“I don’t believe it,” said one of the clumsy figures at the trench junction. “It will be just the same old skilly4.”
“No,” said the corporal. “I was here last Christmas and it certainly went over good. Half a platoon to a table. Turkey, roast pork, potatoes, carrots–no, no, them little cabbages, you know–“
“Brussels sprouts.”
“And pickles, fruit; they had oranges, apples and some tinned fruit,” said the corporal. “The padre had decorated the place, the band kept banging away, everybody was merry and the officers came in at the last – I remember Dunc McNeil made the major take a drink out of his glass.”
Again the boys stood silent, thinking of the prospect.
“Well, said one, suddenly. “It’s Christmas Eve!”
“All right,” exclaimed the corporal, recalling his duty. “Get back to your places; here comes the Captain.”
And, except for the spotless coverlet over all that desolate world in which they dwelt, the men went back to the old routine of standing in the trench in lonely pairs, one man up on the firestep5, gazing silently to the east, his partner down in the trench, stamping his feet, hunching his shoulders, and moodily waiting his turn to mount the fire step above.
But the snow, Christmas Eve, seventeen, was enough of a marvel in France, where they have slush, which they called neige – and that precisely describes it – to create an illusion of the Christmas spirit in the hearts of some seventy-five thousand Canadians manning the trenches and the guns, the Vickers and the Stokes, the telephone wires and the supply dumps in their little section of the Great War.
Captain Brings Disturbing News
The captain commanding the company, with his sergeant major, came through the trench. He met the officer of the platoon, and they stood listening.
“Quiet as a church,” said the lieutenant. “No patrols to-night, of course.”
“Yes. One,” replied the captain.
“What! On that white snow? Surely not,” exclaimed the lieutenant. “It couldn’t be done.”
“It’s got to be done,” said the captain. “You know that little concrete box they found, out from Horse Alley?”
“It can’t be done,” said the lieutenant, doggedly.
“There’s a listening set there, they believe.”
“A listening set?”
“The scout officer was out near it last night. He heard talking and sounds as of some one adjusting some sort of an instrument. They think it is some new type of listening set for intercepting either our wire messages or actually overhearing conversations in the trench. Anyway, they are going out to get it to-night.”
“They? Oh, that’s different.”
“Yes,” said the captain. “But we’ve got to give them a covering patrol.”
“Oh, but it’s folly! On this snow? They will be barn door targets.”
“They can sneak up the old trench, right to the concrete shanty. All we need is a couple of men out on the flanks.”
“And they,” said the lieutenant, “will be brought in flat, with their heels dragging. I know that game. For Heaven’s sake!”
“You provide four men to stand by for orders from the scout officer,” said the captain, in his official voice, starting to move off.
“Oh, say….” began the lieutenant. Then he stood alone in the white trench, stabbing his stick into the snow.
The hours wore on. Not a shell disturbed the silence of that Christmas card night. Not a rifle cracked. Faint sounds of singing could be heard far back in the German lines. A couple. of young officers from battalion headquarters returned the singing, as they moved, boisterously, from company headquarters to company headquarters in the maze of the battalion’s trenches, paying Christmas visits to the officers of the companies.
But so spread-out was Christmas in France, there was little evidence of it that might in any of the numerous deep caves in which the thousand soldiers of the battalion lived. Christmas parcels, mailed by loving folks at home in November, kept arriving in batches all through December. And as fast as they came, with their contents of cake, tinned and bottled dainties, shirts, gloves, sleeping caps, they were opened and their prizes disposed of. A few of the boys had saved bits of cake, bottles of peanut butter or pickles, for Christmas Day.
The Proposed Patrol
The men on watch in the trenches may have spent their loneliness dreaming somewhat grimly of other Christmas eves. Those down in the dugouts awaiting their turn on top, for the most part slept huddled in dirty blankets on the bare, damp boards of the dugout floor, in the dim, guttering light of a candle.
At midnight, a slim, quiet young officer from headquarters, known as scout or intelligence officer, the master of maps, the searcher of mysteries, the commander of patrols that required more expert knowledge than the ordinary company patrols could apply, appeared in the front line trench. He had two men with him, members of the battalion scout section, specialists in the job of securing information.
The scout officer sought out the captain of the company, and a messenger was sent to bring the platoon lieutenant with the four men he had been ordered to detail for covering patrol. They all assembled in the captain’s dugout, around the rough table lighted by candles set in empty bottles.
“Horse Alley,” said the scout officer, when all were gathered, “as you know, continues on out from our front line into No Man’s Land, but there it peters out, neglected and fallen in. We have found, as you also know, a mysterious concrete hut, about the size of a piano, out in that old trench. Some of you have been close to it. Last night, with these two scouts here, I got within a few feet of it. There were Germans talking in it, and sounds as if they were handling or adjusting some sort of instrument. We have now been ordered to raid that box. It will be simple. Such wire as there is in front of it can be got over with a piece of matting I have up in the trench. The actual raiding will be done by myself and my two scouts here. But we want to prevent anybody coming up the old trench from the German end, and catching us in the act. There may be – there will likely be – a couple of Heinies in their bit of the old trench, guarding whoever is in the concrete box. You will have to handle them.”
“How?” asked the lieutenant, “do you expect us to work in this white snow? We will show up like ink spots on a table cloth.”
“It is unfortunate,” said the scout officer. “We will be down in the old trench. You will have to get out on the sides, for we can’t use bombs in there. The door of the box is towards the Germans, and bombs would hit us as we work at that door. It will have to be a rifle and bayonet job.”
“Well, to be frank,” said the lieutenant, “I don’t see why we can’t put it off one night; for this snow will ten chances to one be gone tomorrow.”
“And again, it might last for a week,” said the scout officer.
One of the four men brought by the lieutenant, a comical, good-natured farmer by the name of Adair, begged pardon and asked if he might speak.
“Well, excuse me sir,” said he, “but if one man was able to hide himself, what I mean is, camouflage himself, couldn’t he do all the covering necessary for you scouts to do your job?”
“I had thought of camouflage,” said the scout officer. “But I was unable to get a thing.”
Private Adair’s Camouflage
“Well now,” said Adair, reddening and embarrassed, “I have a thing that would cover me from head to foot in white, and if I could get out there on the snow, beside that old trench, I could prevent anybody coming out to disturb you, and nobody could see me, and one man could do it as well as five.”
“What have you got, Adair?” asked the lieutenant.
“Well, sir, it’s just a thing I have; I’d rather not say, sir. But if you think one man, all in white, could get up there and do it, while I’ll do it.”
The scout officer sat thinking.
“All in white?” he said to Adair. “Head and all?”
“I can tie ordinary bandages around my head and boots and rifle,” said Adair.
“Of course!” cried the scout officer. By jove, I believe one man could do it, if he were not visible on the snow. I only counted on two, if it hadn’t been for the snow I admit it is a tough job, out there in the white.”
“May I go and get ready?” asked Adair.
“We’ll meet you in the trench in ten minutes,” said the scout officer, “and see if it will work.”
The group sat making their plans, agreeing that, in perfect silence, the scout officer would himself go first up the old trench, and if there were any signs of Germans on the watch he would rush the box, his two scouts with him, perhaps throw one bomb beyond the box, in doing so, and then swarm around or over it, loot it of whatever it contained, while the covering party would be responsible that nobody got out from the German end to disturb him. It was only to take a moment.
Then they went upstairs. And with two uproariously laughing companions stood Adair, a ghostly figure in snow-white from head to feet. The only dark spot on him was a slit where hist eyes showed.
“Ordinary shell dressing bandages on my head, feet, legs, hands and rifle,” said he in a muffled voice. “The rest is unmentionable.”
His companions chuckled.
“Great!” said the scout officer.
“Let me go out,” said Adair, through the bandages over his mouth, “and look the ground over. If you don’t hear any sound in ten minutes come on out to the trench. I will be up on top, near the box, and when you approach make a sound, and then if there are any watchers to shoot I will do the shooting.”
“You can be seen against the skyline,” warned the officer.
“It’s a gully in front,” replied Adair.
“Look out for our wire,” admonished the scout officer.
And without another word the ghostly figure, with a boost from his two companions, climbed softly over the parapet beside Horse Alley, and stooping over marched straight for Hunland.
“Hope it works,” said the lieutenant, stiffly. The moments passed. Not a sound came from in front. The scout officer was standing up, looking over the top.
“I’ve lost him,” he said. “Can’t see a sign of him.”
After ten full minutes of perfect stillness the scout officer, and his two scouts, with pistols drawn and cocked in their hands, and their roll of matting slung between them, slipped quietly into that piece of Horse Alley which, shallow and broken down, rambled across No Man’s Land to the Germans. A few feet behind followed the lieutenant and his three men.
Grandma Makes Him a Hero
Horse Alley twists, changing direction about every fifteen feet. At the last turn. of all, before coming upon the mysterious concrete box, the lieutenant stamped smartly on the frozen earth.
Instantly, ahead and a little to the right, a shot rang out. And instantly, from the same place, another.
And bending low the scout officer and his two men rounded the curve on the full jump. They had feared a sentry would have been peering over the top of the concrete box, as he had been the night before. That was but one of the chances of a scout officer’s life. But there was no opposition as the three flung, with practised swiftness, their piece of cocoanut matting across a tangle of wire this side of the box. In another instant they were upon and around the concrete box, where, on the far side, they found a little door, letting into the concrete. There, half out of it, was a German, clutching frantically in his arms a square box that seemed to be infinitely precious. Meantime a rifle, somewhere up above and to the right, continued to crack. And muffled shouts and cries came from the direction of the German trench.
“Ah,” said the scout officer, tapping the bended German on the cap with his pistol, “that little box is what we want. Up! Over! See, follow this man. I’ll carry your little box.”
Inside was another German, waiting his turn to get out. In his tight grasp were sundry ear phones and wires, coils and a flat leather case.
“Come out,” said the scout officer. “Make it snappy. I guess you speak English.”
And indeed the German seems to. With the long black nose of the scout officer’s pistol touching his teeth, the second German handed over his armful of gear to the waiting scout and clambered heavily after his comrade over the concrete box towards the Canadian lines.
The scout officer was bending down to take a quick survey of the interior of the box when a voice above him said:
“You had better get back now, there’s a bombing squad coming out.”
Looking up, he saw the ghostly form of Adair standing on the edge of the trench. And at that moment, a German bomb, with its unmistakable rending crash, burst out somewhere on the side.
“Where I was,” said Adair, stepping into the box, “but not where I is.”
He and the lieutenant scurried back down Horse Alley to the waiting group of the lieutenant and his three men.
“Coming down with bombs. Give ’em a few yourself and then come back in,” said the scout officer to the, lieutenant.
A mighty racket of conflicting bombs disturbed the beautiful quiet of that Christmas Eve. But not for long. The Germans found their cave deserted, a couple of dead sentries lying near it, shot through the head by an unseen foe, their two precious engineers with their more precious instruments spirited away. When the news reached High Command, back about fifteen miles, they ordered their guns to fire a little hate. So Christmas morning found a number of large, round, black and grey smears on the pure white garment of the snow.
Adair was the hero of the day.
“The credit,” said Adair, to the officers who were pouring him a friendly libation, “goes to my dear old grandmother, her affection for her soldier grandson, and her total ignorance of a soldier’s life. Her Christmas box first filled me with alarm, then fright, then shame. I hid what it contained in the very bottom of my packsack, wondering how to get rid of it. Now it has been the means of me being a hero. Dear old grandmother!”
And Adair was one of the feature performers at the Christmas banquet of the regiment, four nights later, in the mine building of Mazingarbe, when, amidst a storm of cheers and waving of steaming mugs, he rose on top of a table to make a speech, clad in a snow-white flannel night shirt.
Editor’s Notes: This is another variation of the night shirt story that was also written about in 1929 that was covered here.
- Mazingarbe is a is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais area of France. ↩︎
- Jake and Jake-aloo is a slang term that means something is excellent or great. ↩︎
- Bass is a popular brand of beer from Britain. ↩︎
- Skilly is slang for a thin porridge or soup (usually oatmeal and water flavored with meat). ↩︎
- A fire step was built into each trench, cut into its wall some two or three feet from the trench floor. It’s purpose was to enable each occupant of the trench to peer over the side of the trench through the parapet into No Man’s Land in the direction of the enemy trench line. ↩︎
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