Chapter 21
The third round of fighting at Ypres dragged on for three long months, and like so many other units, the Surrey regiment took heavy casualties.
Tom was dragged in from No Man’s Land, every bit of exposed skin plagued with boils from mustard gas, and Ash received five stitches in her calf from a run-in with a nasty bit of barbed wire, but neither was enough to provide the pair a trip back to Blighty.
Lieutenant Napier, however, was not so lucky. He paid for his ticket home with the loss of his left arm, though Captain Davies assured B Company their lieutenant’s spirits were as high as ever.
“He was only glad he still had one hand with all his digits, so he could put two fingers up to the Germans on his way out,” Davies told them to a round of morose laughter as they imagined Napier flicking the V from his ambulance seat.
By December, his place had been filled with the transfer of one Lieutenant Hawkins.
But the consensus among the Surreys was that the new man fell short in every way.
Along with Hawkins came new orders for a divisional relocation to the Italian Front, where they might expect to see action along the Piave River.
“Christmas in Italy,” TomTom said. “That’ll make a nice warm change.”
The others agreed most wholeheartedly, but not being familiar with the geography of the region, they hadn’t accounted for their proximity to the Alps.
“Just as cold as France,” Cooper complained.
“Cold enough to freeze your bollocks off, anyway,” Blake agreed.
Even in billets, when they weren’t marching or practicing calisthenics for warmth, most of their time was spent huddled together around a fire, dreaming of those long hot days they’d once so cursed.
“Private Ashley,” Merle called, striding over, mail in hand, one afternoon.
“Merle?” she replied.
“You’ve a package,” he said, tossing the wrapped parcel her way.
“Don’t tease. Who’ve you nicked it off?” Rook demanded.
Ash and TomTom laughed, but Private Merle went ashen. “N-no one, Lance Corporal. It says Private Ashley right there on the address.”
“Easy, Private,” Rook soothed, lifting his mug to show he was only joking. “Have a cup of tea.”
He was right though. Ashley could count on one hand the number of parcels she’d received throughout the war, with money tight and postage dear. But, sure enough, the cancellation stamp showed London.
“Secret admirer?” Rook teased.
“My mother, I expect.”
“How’s she settling in with the bakers?” Tom asked.
A month after the Gotha bombers had strafed London, Ash finally received a brief note from her mum.
Their building was condemned, but some of their belongings had been recovered, and more importantly, she and the children had been out for a walk and ducked into the Underground just in time.
With nowhere to go, the Wintters had brought her to live in the spare room above their bakery for the duration.
“She likes it well enough,” Ash told them, turning towards the relative privacy of their hut. “She works the counter so they can stay out of sight, and that seems to have put an end to bricks coming through the window for now.”
“Rook, Merle. Good. You’re both here,” Captain Davies called, approaching their little group.
“Rook, I know you prefer to work alone, but we lost quite a few snipers these past few months. Merle, it turns out, has rather a keen aim. He’s being reassigned to sniper duty, and I’d very much like you to show him the ropes. ”
“Of course, Cap,” Rook said, too resigned to argue.
“Perhaps once he’s trained up, you can resume your lone wolf status.”
Rook shrugged. “Been a long old war, hasn’t it? About time I partnered up.”
Captain Davies regarded him with a slow nod. “Quite,” he agreed, then lifting a hand, invited them to continue on their way. Adding, “Happy Christmas to you all,” he headed off again, leaving Ash a little jealous that her mentor had a new trainee.
“Happy Christmas? Just another day, isn’t it?” TomTom grumbled.
“Doesn’t have to be,” Rook told him. “You fighting fit yet, Ash? We’ll expect all you runners on our side if there’s a football match against the Germans this year.”
“What?” Merle asked with a laugh.
“Football?” Ash repeated as they entered the hut to find Stew and Cooper already relaxing in woolen sweaters.
“Surely you heard about the Christmas Truce of ’14?” Rook said.
Tom and Ashley shook their heads.
“Wasn’t a truce,” Blake argued.
“Were you there?” Rook demanded.
“Wasn’t official,” Blake replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
“What would you call it then? They crept out and we crept out. They drank and we drank. And then we knocked the ball around—one day only. Gave ’em hell, too.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t line you up at dawn and shoot you dead for fraternizing with the enemy,” Blake huffed. “Why d’you think they made a point of barely acknowledging the holidays the last two years?”
Rook opened his mouth to argue, but Ash could see as plain as day that Blake was hungry for a similar truce. “I got mail!” she shouted to keep them from quarreling with each other any further.
Inside the box, she found an assortment of delightful pastries, more sweets than she could eat in a whole entire year. And nestled in among them, a small loaf of plain brown bread. A perfect gift. Frau Wintter knew her well.
Ash could almost hear her friends’ mouths watering as they snuck glances between each other and the box. When she held it out to them, Tom eyed the Franzbrotchen first, but then his better angels got the best of him, and he reached for the bread instead.
“Anything but that,” she said, swiping the loaf away.
Maybe it was uncharitable, but it wouldn’t mean as much to the rest of them.
Nothing tasted of home like plain brown bread.
It smelled better than any old thing in the world ever had or ever could.
Probably better than God’s own heaven, if Ashley had to guess.
She took a tiny bite, not even aware she was crying until a tear tickled the tip of her nose and splashed down onto the bread.
“Desiderium,” Rook said, nodding with compassion as he handed back her parcel, lighter now than when it first arrived. Then he lifted his own pastry in salute and took a bite.
Ashley didn’t know what desiderium meant, but if it was anything like the profound longing that threatened to tug her heart in four different directions so it was apt to burst, then Rook was dead on.
“Christmas dinner,” Tom said around his pastry. “What d’you reckon this year?”
Ashley’s honest guess was Maconochie stew with some extra stale bread and plum jam, but she didn’t want to spoil his fantasizing. “Perhaps they’ll bring some fresh game from the mountains.”
“Back home, it’ll be goose and charades,” he said.
“We could do charades,” Ash suggested.
“Tradition, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never actually played,” she admitted. “We go to church and light a penny candle while the choir rehearses the carol service. Then we skip the service and roast nuts in the fire.”
“Chestnuts. Mercy, Ash. Why’d you have to mention those?” Stew moaned. “I could eat about a hundred all by myself.”
“No you couldn’t, cause I’d fight you for them,” TomTom said.
“We would sit, side by side, while Mum read A Christmas Carol out loud,” Ash told them, and it made her smile to think of it.
“We toast the Yule log,” Stew said. “And sing songs by the fire. My gran makes up the black bun and my uncles bring out the whisky,” he added with a wink that suggested the whisky bottle didn’t go back in that night.
Ash laughed, picturing Stew’s coal-miner uncles dancing and singing, drunk as lords on the dram.
“We go to the panto,” Blake told them. “And then have pudding and wassail.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a Christmas pudding…” Merle murmured.
“We usually have hen,” Ash told them. “Stuffed with raisins and bread and apples and every delicious herb we can find.” It seemed a marvel how her mum could make so little stretch so far at Christmastime.
Tom’s stomach made a loud gurgle of protest.
“Careful, mate,” Cooper said. “You’ll make TomTom break into his iron ration.”
“I’m famished, is all,” he moaned, and Max barked as if to agree. “That’s right, girl,” Tom told her. “Why, what do you eat?” he asked Coop.
“Not about the food for me, is it? It’s the game. We’re always playing, if not Christmas then Boxing Day. Lucky if I get a proper meal at all.”
“Surely someone feeds you,” Rook interjected, and Cooper grinned.
“Course they do. What about you, sniper? What traditions does the Rook household keep?”
Rook paused before answering, steeling himself and choosing his words carefully. “Nothing really. Usually I’d sing with the choir or play the organ for the service. Nearly always someone invites me round to tea. Suppose my tradition is sharing other people’s.”
Ash felt a certain sort of way about those words.
Rook hadn’t chosen to be orphaned and without a family, and she was glad there were people in his life to fill in.
She wondered where her brother was, if he was living, and whether he would spend his day alone longing for chestnuts and Dickens and home.
They moved into the forward line the night before Christmas Eve and spent the whole next day bombarding the Germans with a savagery usually reserved for the lead up to a push.
A retaliatory shell landed very near where they were lining up for evening rations, and everyone ducked and lurched like a ship being tossed upon the sea.
“Come on Fritz! Don’t bother to knock,” one of the more recent recruits yelled across No Man’s Land.
“Can’t we even stop for Christmas?” Ash moaned to no one in particular.
“It isn’t Christmas,” their new Lieutenant Hawkins sneered. “Not for you. It’s just another day. There’ll be no fraternizing with the enemy this year.”