I nodded silently. He had come right to the truth.
The old man went back to the sofa and sat on the table beside it. He took Murdoch's hand, holding it through the blankets. “I want to take him home,” he said.
“I won't allow it,” said Auntie. “But we'll leave you alone with him, if that's all right with Mr. Tuttle. You can have the house to yourselves if Mr. Tuttle will come and spend Christmas with Johnny and me.”
I felt Mr. Tuttle's fingers twitch on my shoulder. “Why, I should like that very much,” he said softly.
We left the old man with his soldier son. Mr. Tuttle went pedaling off to send word for the doctor, and caught up with us again just as we reached the gate to Auntie Ivy's house.
CHAPTER 19
December 24, 1914
Dearest Johnny,
I had to write once more before Christmas, and I hope this reaches you in time. I have no more soldiers to send, as I am dashing this off just hours after my last letter. If it's hard to read, or a bit spotted with water, that's because I'm in such an awful hurry. I will be giving this to an officer who is leaving this very moment for his home near Tunbridge Hill, not five miles from where you are. We will be breaking all the rules to do it, but it's the only way I can think of to get this to you in time. There's something I have to tell you.
There won't be an attack, Johnny. There will be no battle on Christmas.
It's an amazing thing, but the Germans are no longer fighting. All along our line—quite suddenly, really—they stopped shooting at us altogether. Right here where I am it's as quiet as a church. The night is just ending and we're seeing a very lovely sunrise—or a little strip of one anyway. It's red and orange, and the brightest yellow that I think I've ever seen. All those colors, in the black frame of our trench, make it look like a stained-glass window. And outside it's so peaceful, so quiet, that I can hardly believe there was ever a war.
Around midnight we heard voices. German voices. They gave us quite a start, as they seemed horribly close, with the air being so quiet and still. But then they started singing, Johnny. They started singing “Silent Night,” in lovely deep voices, but all in German of course. So we listened to that carol that we all know so well, and the words didn't make any sense. And it made us feel warm and peaceful and—I don't know what else, it's too hard to say. I think it reminded me, without me really knowing it, about being so young— about being a baby—when I couldn't understand the words even in English. And I felt like a baby must feel, as though nothing can hurt him, as though there's nothing but joy in the world.
The German voices rumbled to us across no-man's-land, and we cried to hear them, Johnny, we really did. We stood sniffing and wiping our eyes, looking up at the stars because that song was just so beautiful. So sad. And when it finished, some of our lads started singing the same carol, with the English words. And the Germans listened to us for a while. Then they joined right in, enemies singing the same song, as perfectly as a church choir. The lads who didn't feel right about singing started to hum along, and they made this melodious drone that swelled and rose across all of no-man's-land, this lovely, quiet hymn.
And then, when we'd finished, one of the Germans called across to us in English. “Good night, Tommies,” he said. And someone shouted back, quite gently: “Good night, Fritz.”
And Johnny, we wept like schoolgirls.
Now the day is getting bright, and Christmas is very close. And I know there won't be any fighting, you can rest assured of that.
I still wish I were with you, of course. But at least you don't have to worry about me.
Please don't worry about me.
Love, Dad
Mr. Tuttle held his thumbs to his eyes, his hands cupped across his nose. “Good heavens,” he said, very softly.
We were sitting at the table, the little tree standing in the middle with all its ornaments shining. Auntie Ivy took off her spectacles and set them down beside it, and they looked like a pair of glass balls that had fallen from the fuzzy branches. Then she folded up the letter.
I thought she would put it with the others, in the wooden box on her bookshelves. But she reached across the table and put it into my hand. “I think you should keep this with you,” she said.
“Indeed,” added Mr. Tuttle, with a sniff. “You should want to hang on to that.”
Auntie pressed the page into my palm, then closed my fingers around it. But I let them spring open again; I let the paper fall away. “It isn't true,” I said. I didn't want to hold that letter.
“Whatever do you mean?” said Auntie.
#x201C;It's a story,” I said.
“A lovely story,” said Mr. Tuttle.
“But not true.” I pushed the letter across the table. It bounced off the Christmas tree's wooden tub and sat spinning beside it. “Dad doesn't sing songs with the Germans.”
Poor Mr. Tuttle looked rather stunned. But Auntie Ivy knew what I meant. She said, “How dare you question your father?”
I got up and ran to the door.
As I pulled on my boots, I heard Auntie talking. “He thinks his father is trying to spare him the horrors.” I grabbed my coat and went out to the garden.
Christmas Eve was ending. I put my hands to my face and made a slot that I stared through, up at the sky. It was as brown and bleak as the mud; no stained-glass windows for me, only a filthy, splattered pane. I turned as I walked, down from the door, under the tree, and its spidery branches appeared between my hands like spreading cracks on the window of clouds. Then I stumbled, and fell to my knees, looking down at the nutcracker men.
For a whole day I hadn't touched them, yet I was sure they had moved. They stood in a double row, leaning back with their painted faces turned up to watch the sky. For a whole day they hadn't fought, and then Dad's letter had come, in an afternoon post that no one had expected.
“The Germans are no longer fighting.”
It seemed impossible, but absolutely true. My wooden soldiers had stopped the war. They had brought a truce, like the one that had come to the Greeks and the Trojans when every man there had prayed for peace.
But then I remembered the billiards table, and the horseshoe pitch that I knew didn't exist. And if Dad had invented those, he must have invented the carol.
In Cliffe, the church bells started ringing. They bonged and bonged as I stared down at my nutcracker men, at the others my father had made. Could he really have given them souls?
The bells were ringing the chimes when the door opened and closed behind me. Mr. Tuttle came quietly out to the garden. “The service is starting,” he said.
“Do you go to church?” I asked.
“Not very often.” He walked past me and crossed, in a step, the no-man's-land between my trenches. In another he was standing behind the British lines, astride my wooden aeroplane. He stooped and picked it up.
“I don't know what to think anymore,” I said.
“About what?” he asked.
“Anything.” The bells rang through their chorus, both discordant and lovely. “I was so excited at first. With the war.”
“We all were,” said Mr. Tuttle.
“But I hate it already. And it's just going to go on and on.”
Mr. Tuttle flicked the little propeller. It made a humming sound.
“And what if it's one of those that last a hundred years?”
“I doubt that's the case, Johnny,” he said. “We're getting better at fighting wars. We've got them running like machines now: faster, more efficient.”
“I wish we'd get better at not fighting them,” I said.
“That's a fine thought,” said Mr. Tuttle.
The bells stopped ringing, their last tingles of sound seeming to linger on. “I think Auntie would like to go to church,” I said.
“Would she?”
I nodded. “We haven't been there before.” “I'll show you the way,” said Mr. Tuttle.
He carried the aeroplane into the house, and in the doorway he star
ted to fly it. His arm zoomed up and down; his doughy lips made engine noises, a bomb whistling down and bursting. Then he blushed and gave me the toy. I set it on the table, beside the little Christmas tree.
We walked to the church, and Storey Sims's black horse was still harnessed to its wagon. Mr. Tuttle said it was the strangest thing he'd ever done to pass his house and see light inside. “I'd rather thought it was a lonely house, but it looks quite cheery,” he said. Auntie Ivy said she'd always liked it, that she'd wished sometimes that she lived there. Then she laughed, embarrassed, and the sound of it tingled in the air like the last of the bells.
The church was ancient and cold. We found room in the first pew, and Mr. Tuttle—in a whisper—told me I was sitting where Normans had sat, where knights and their ladies had sat, where Dickens himself might have sat. We stood and sang carols, then knelt and prayed for the soldiers.
“We ask God to keep them safe,” said the minister. “We ask that He lay His hand on their heads, each and every one, and bestow upon them His ever-loving mercy.”
My eyes were closed. I saw that huge white hand forming in the clouds, running first down the British line, and then down the Germans'. He would bless them all, I thought; they were all the same to Him.
Then we got to our feet, in a great stamping and a rumble of coughs. And I sang “Silent Night” with Auntie Ivy piping away on my left and Mr. Tuttle humming on my other side. And I looked up at the altar, higher to the stained-glass windows that someone had made when England was young. They were dark shapes, just holes in the stones. But as we sang they started to glow, the moon coming out for a moment. And red light, and yellow, fell through the church, and I felt as though nothing could hurt me. I felt as a baby must feel.
The moon was hidden when we left for home, as though it hadn't come out at all. Cliffe seemed small and pretty, like a toy village come to life. As we walked through it the rain started, gently but chill as ice. The night was so cold that Auntie Ivy had to reach across me and put her hand into Mr. Tuttle's pocket just to keep it warm.
I didn't go in when they did. I said I had to see to my soldiers, and though Auntie Ivy said she wished I didn't, Mr. Tuttle said a little while wouldn't hurt, and he'd come out and fetch me when tea was made. So I crouched by myself in the garden as Christmas Eve ended, and I brought all the nutcracker men out of their trenches. I brought all the British out of theirs, all the Frenchmen too. And I stood them together in no-man's-land, though one was missing because I couldn't find General Cedric.
When Mr. Tuttle came out, I had them in a big bunch with the old broken model of my father right in the middle. The sleeping soldier, who couldn't stand up by himself, leaned on a nutcracker man. And the nutcracker men mingled in with the Frenchmen. And Fatty Dienst stood next to Dad, beside a messman with his pots.
“What are they doing?” asked Mr. Tuttle.
“They're praying for peace,” I said. “Like the Trojans and the Greeks.”
He nodded, his hands in his pockets. “Is that what you're hoping for?”
“Oh, I don't know if it matters,” I said. “They might only be wooden men.”
“With their own little truce in the garden, you mean?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“That's good enough,” he told me.
Then we went inside, and I smelled the pudding boiling. I heard the chatter of its lid as it boiled in the pot, cooking for Christmas dinner. And I saw that the tree had been moved, from the table to a stool, and there was a small pile of presents below it.
“Are those for me?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Auntie Ivy. “Your mother sent them some time ago. There's a card to go with them.”
“Can you read it now?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” she said. “Only heathens open gifts on Christmas Eve.”
CHAPTER 20
December 24, 1914
My dear little Johnny,
I must be the luckiest woman in the world to have you for a son. All the women here at Woolwich are forever talking about their children and what little horrors they are. I tell them about you, and they say that mine must be an angel. They're right, you know.
But it's funny, Johnny. I'm so lucky but oh soooo miserable. I didn't think I would ever, ever, EVER spend a Christmas without you.
The work at the arsenal never stops. But I'm helping the war, and we all have to make our sacrifices. I know how brave you are, and I'm sure you'll understand.
Well, I hope you're having a merry Christmas in Kent. I hope you have sunshine and snow, and a chance to go sleighing. Most of all, I hope that we're all together again next year.
I miss you and your father very, very much.
Love,
Mum
“Well, she's almost right,” said Auntie Ivy, passing the card to me. “At least we have sunshine.”
“And it's sort of snowy,” I said.
The ground had frozen, and the frost was thick and white. It glowed so bright in the morning sun that I had to squint to see it. And a layer of ice covered the trees, turning every branch into clusters of diamonds, each little twig into a sparkling, feathery frond.
I looked at the card, at its picture of a huge old sleigh pulled by horses with ribbons and bells. Then I opened the presents that Mum had sent: red mittens dangling tassels; a mechanical bear that rode on a bicycle; the Boys Own Annual.
I opened them all in a hurry, kneeling on the floor as Mr. Tuttle and Auntie watched from their chairs. Then I thought of Mum with her hands going yellow, picking the presents out from a shop, wrapping them up to send me. I thought of Dad in his trench, with no-man's-land a big frosty field, with the sun on his face, and his beard all icy. And I started to cry because they were so far away.
“Well, that's a fine thing,” snapped Auntie. “Crying on Christmas Day. What a shameful thing to do.”
But Mr. Tuttle understood. “Now, Ivy,” he said, gently. “You must not have been a child who was sent away for Christmas.” He was all rumply from sleeping in his armchair, and he smoothed his wrinkled sleeves. “I remember very well my first Christmas in a boarding school. In all my years, I've never felt so miserable as that.”
“Oh dear,” said Auntie Ivy.
“I'm sorry, Hubert.”
I giggled; I'd never heard his proper name before. “Enough of that,” he said, pretending to be stern. And then to Auntie Ivy, “I think Johnny should be sent to the pantry.”
“Yes, I think he should too,” said Auntie.
They were smiling at each other, their heads tilted, like a pair of pigeons. “Off you go, then,” said Mr. Tuttle.
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh, one never knows,” he said, as though Christmas had made him giddy.
I wound up my bear and sent him rattling across the floor. Then I got up and went to the pantry. And there was a bicycle standing inside.
It was red and silver, with a basket on the front. I wheeled it out, knowing better than to ride it through the house.
“That's from Mr. Tuttle and I,” said Auntie.
“Tuttle and me,” the old schoolteacher said.
I was grinning. “It's super!” I cried.
Auntie Ivy stood up and hugged me. “Now go outside and amuse yourself for a while. We're all going to walk to Mr. Tuttle's and see how Murdoch is faring.”
“Can I take my bicycle out?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You'd break your neck before you passed the gate.”
Mr. Tuttle walked with me to the door. He put his hand on my back. “Merry Christmas, Johnny,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” I told him.
I thought he wanted to hug me but was too shy to do it. His hand ran up my back as I stooped to get my boots. It rubbed on my head; then his fingertips scraped through my hair, as though he held on as long as he could.
“This isn't likely the last wartime Christmas,” he said. “You might be here for quite a long time, Johnny.”
&
nbsp; “I've thought of that,” I said.
“You won't see your father for a while. And I'm sorry for you, I really am. But while you're here; only while you're here—” He coughed. “Well, you see, I think I'll be staying in Cliffe. And a boy should have someone he can go to with his troubles.”
“I already do,” I said.
He looked at me and slowly smiled. “Oh, Johnny, thank you,” he said.
I wished he wasn't so shy. But I could see that he wasn't going to hug me, so I flapped my hands and said, “I'd better go out.” And he opened the door, with a huge grin on his face.
The frost crunched under my boots. The sun glared on the ice, on the trees and the wall, and the fields of Kent looked like carpets of jewels. Even the wooden soldiers were covered with frost, all of them sparkling below me.
On the porch was the box that my mother had sent, its top torn open. I dragged it down, across the garden, under the tree with its diamond branches. And I started packing away my Tommies and my nutcracker men.
They had frozen together, as though the British soldiers were embracing the Germans, as though they'd huddled for warmth in the cold. In France, the battle might have started; it might have finished then. But I didn't think I would ever play at war again.
The soldiers bounced into the empty box, then knocked against each other. I put them all together, Fatty Dienst and all my Germans, the dog-faced man and the messman and the drum and trumpet players. I found General Cedric, looking cold and alone, and put him in as well. But my little broken dad I kept aside; I thought I'd stand him by my bed, and just wait for the day he came home.
I dragged the box back to the house, and no one asked me why. Mr. Tuttle was putting on his old gray overcoat. He had only one arm in its sleeve, and with his other he was helping Auntie Ivy, holding her crimson jacket. I left my box in the hall, and together we all set off for Mr. Tuttle's house.
It was almost noon when we got there. The sky was clouding over, but the weather stayed bitterly cold. Storey Sims's black horse was the only thing in all the world not covered with frost. It stood, with ice at its nostrils, like a great lump of coal in the middle of a whitewashed floor. The wagon glittered with ice: its wheels were like frozen Catherine wheels; even the reins sparkled with frost.
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