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From the novella The Defeated by A Rearick
Flanders, near Maubeuge Dec. 25, 1915
It was all fog this morning the mists filled with frost, a Christmas frost. Beneath his
boots Michael heard the frozen ground crunch. All about him came the sound of men’s hesitant
treading. The Fey would be able to hear their progress from yards away, maybe more. Trying to
catch up to the forefront of the group, Michael saw ahead several of his men walking, their pale
hands over their heads. It was insanity: utterly insanity! Here they all were, moving towards
enemy-lines, desperately peering through the haze all because of what they thought they had
heard the night before on Christmas Eve. Michael picked up his pace, his breath making small
clouds like a steam locomotive. If bullets came he didn’t want to be lagging and let Anderson
get shot on his own, even if Michael had not given the order to be out here.
There had, in fact, been no order: At least none from neither human’s nor Fey’s throat.
At the coming of dawn Private Anderson had suddenly gone up the ladder of the trench in which
he, Michael, and others were huddled, and had stepped out into No Man’s land. Michael, fearing
he was witnessing a Christmas suicide, called out, only to have several others within the trench
follow Anderson’s example. Up and down the line men climbed out and walked forward without
weapons, all under the foolish belief that on this day, they’d not be gunned down.
Midnight before had be quiet, the quiet that only winter nights can achieve. There had
been some artillery fire, but it had been distant and muffled. Michael had returned to the
trenches, early from his Christmas furlough, sad and hurting from his last nights with Araubeth
and Alice. It was more than a year into the great-war and the dispersed Fey had begun to
congregate into protected enclaves. Around these lines of allied forces had been laid out to press
the attack only to find matching strength. One of these had been in the town of Maubeuge within
Flanders. The trench stage of the war had begun.
That night Michael was thinking of the Christmas pageant he was missing in which
Alice and other little angles were all to sing “Silent Night” when from afar he actually heard, yes
there could be no doubt. . .singing. Climbing up the side of the trench’s wall, the young captain
momentarily listened and then turning to Lt. Lazare Ponticelli—ironically speaking French to an
Italian who had joined the French Foreign Legion and was then serving as an advisor in Ypres:
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“Qu’est que c’est?” (What is that?) Ponticelli shrugged, listened for a moment, and then
called further down to Lance Corporal (Obergefreiter) Michael Juergs also assigned to the Black
Watch to advise.
“Was ist das?” The German put his hand to his ear and made a face of enquiry.
“Was ist das!!?” Ponticelli pointed vigorously from where the sound was coming. Now
Jurgs, like Michael, very carefully raised his head above the trench line. Bringing it back
quickly he shouted.
“Jemand singt!” Ponticelli laughed.
“I thought so; it is singing!” He cried back to Michael in English. “The Fey were
singing in German `Stille Nacht!’”
“Really?” Michael breathed “Singing? They know about Christmas? The demons
celebrate Christmas? Oh no!” Around him some of the Tommies were laughing and applauding.
Others joined in adding the well-remembered English translation of “Silent Night.” Then came
calls for more songs.
“Merry Christmas!” suddenly shouted one soldier who jumping up in the air for a
moment and then ducked quickly down to safety. A moment of silence passed and then a
returned cry.
“Ja Ja Frohe Weihnachten!”
“Hey Juergs,” called another who had consumed a bit too much of something. “I think
their German Fey, ask them if they want to quit for a while.” Juergs made a face.
“Dumm·kopf!” But another soldier cried out into the night.
“Hey there, you pale-faced, fairy-vamps, tell you what.” He paused for a hiccup and then
continued: “Tonight we don’t shoot and you don’t shoot. What do you say?” There was
another moment of silence. And then out in the night.
“Ja! Ja! We no shoot! You no shoot. Tonight and tomorrow!” More applause and more
calls for more songs. Someone from the Fey line sang the Scottish ballad 'Annie" which elicited
loud cheers from the Scots of the Black Watch. Then lights began to appear on the Fey side as
different groups set up of all things Christmas trees!
“It resembles the blooming footlights of a theatre!” one old vet gasped. It was like seeing
angels shining upon the frozen surface of Hell.
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“How are they doing that? Is it Fey magic?” But down the line, Juergs, smiling as none
had seen him do before, had pulled up his own Christmas tree which he’d kept hidden for fear of
snipers and lighting its candles added his own beacon to the line which showed the Fey position,
barely fifty yards away. Others made quick to follow his example.
“Could it all be over sir?” A baby faced soldier looked at Michael with aching hope.
Michael shook his head but patted the boy’s back, as he climbed down into the trench and, sitting
on a box, buried his face in the insides of his coat. Had Aurabeth been right? Had he sacrificed
everything, his marriage and child, for a lie? Were they just humans after all? He had to know.
Thus, the next day, when Private Alfred Anderson, had gone over the wall—not in despair as he
had first feared—but to finally see the faces of those he’d been shooting at, Michael had
helplessly followed.
Before them the mist had begun to clear in the morning sun. The weather, so foul for the
last several days, was dry and calm although cold. But Michael had never minded the cold. They
were now far enough from their own lines that the mists through bright had engulfed them so
they seemed to be actually within the clouds. From the front there came a voice, young with a
German accent:
"I am a lieutenant, Gentlemen, my life is in your hands. I'm outside the trench and
walking towards you. Would one of your officers please meet me half way?" And then before
them, materializing almost like magic, came five men wearing the black cloth of the Fey rather
than the German gray but with German insignias and the traditional Pickelhauben helmets.
Michael made one more desperate run and pressed Alfred out of what he feared might be the line
of fire. He staggered to a halt before the lieutenant.
“I am Captain Michael Warren,” he panted, “Presently serving with the Black Watch here
in Flanders.” The pale, aristocratic looking young man—well he looked young—gave Michael a
precise salute with a click of his heel.
“I am Lieutenant Otto Gruenberg serving with the Fey 11th Bavarian Infantry Division,
presently defending the subterranean enclave near Maubeuge.” Lowering his salute, Gruenberg
smiled and then extended his gloved hand to Michael. “Merry Christmas Captain.” For a
moment Michael gazed at the hand; fraternizing with the enemy was a court-marshal offense.
But it was Christmas, Christmas. Araubeth had said they had embraced the beliefs of humanity
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and perhaps even his own faith. He grasped the gloved hand. Somewhere a cock crowed the
coming of morning.
“Some say,” he murmured “that ever 'gainst that season comes / Wherein our Savior’s
birth is celebrated, / The bird of dawning singeth all night long: / And then, they say, no spirit
dares stir abroad;/ The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,/ No fairy takes, nor witch
hath power to charm,/ So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.” The Fey lieutenant raised his
eyebrow:
“So have I heard,” he quoted back “and do in part believe it,” The German Fey then
smiled broadly. “Hamlet, Act One, scene one?”i
“Yes.”
“Well, we have no intention of taking anything except perhaps a break, and we are
hoping that you will refrain from striking.” It was Michael’s decision, none outranked him here.
“Why not? Neither of our sides are moving now; a day won’t make a difference to the
war effort.”
Private Anderson who had been standing in fearful expectancy now raised his hands.
“It’s on lads! No shooting today!” There followed a general howling of joy, and the two lines of
soldiers closed in on one another, hands out grasping and shouting and waving back at their own
lines calling for the others to come forward. The captain and lieutenant walked over to the side
and turned to watch the mingling of troops. Gruenberg pulled out a golden cigarette box and
offered one to Michael who took it, although he did not smoke.
“I mean no offense” Michael said, “but I am clueless how to use one of these.”
“Really? Well, my English fellow-conspirator in crime, you are missing one of the great
pleasure of manhood. Here, allow me: Taking off his glove, Gruenberg snapped his fingers and
there appeared a small spark which ignited into a small flame. Michael put what appeared to be
the sucking end of the cigarette in his mouth and bowed his head to allow the light. He dragged
a bit and fell immediately to coughing.
“One of the great pleasure of manhood? Strikes me as the perfect way to end manhood.”
“It grows on you; trust me.” Michael put the cigarette back into his mouth and took only
the smallest of pulls, choosing rather to smell the Tabaco rather than breath it.
“Trust; this whole situation is an insane outbreak of trust. Grief! Are they playing
soccer?”
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“Why yes, I think they are.” Michael again looked at his counterpart.
“May I ask your age Otto?”
“I’m twenty-three.”
“Not centuries?”
“What? No, we don’t live that long. Who have you been talking to?”
“Many people; I’ve got all sorts of voices in my head. Most of them are shouting at one
another. I had no idea your kind even celebrated Christmas.”
“Oh yes, it’s one of our most treasured times.”
“Ours too.”
“I know; our elder records say we learned of the Prince of Peace from you. Some monk
lost amidst the Swiss mountains.” There was a shout as one young man slid in the snow to stop a
make-shift ball trying to pass between two German helmets.
“Nice save! Nice save!” Michael clapped his gloved hands together and absent mindedly
pulled on the cigarette only to fall coughing again. At the other end of the field the British
goalie tried manfully to halt a new kick only to have it skid inside of the British helmets. “That’s
all right Stevens! Up you go now!” Michael noted that no one was shifting into the state of “the
quickening.” They were holding themselves in check. We’re all holding our breath, he thought.
“This won’t last.” Gruenberg ground out his finished cigarette in the snow. “They’ll be
orders soon. You and I might even be relieved of our commands and thrown into the stockade.”
“I know, this isn’t an Armistice; this is a truce. Just for a little while, but it’s for
Christmas. It had a hard beginning at home, but I will always remember that we spent it this
way.”
“It’s pretty wide spread up and down the line; may last several days. I suppose they’ll
call it Christmas Truce of 1915.ii
“Or `The Great Insubordination.’” The two officers watched until the soccer game
ended. The Fey won; 5 to 3. But then the mists had risen and up and down the lines on both
sides were signs erected which said things like “We No Shot; You No Shoot” and “Merry
Christmas!” Michael faced his companion and bowed slightly.
“Lieutenant Otto Gruenberg, it’s been a great pleasure.”
“Captain Michael Warren, the same! Merry Christmas!”
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“Frohe Weihnachten!” The two men saluted to one another and turned to their appointed
lines, but before they had gotten far Michael heard his name called.
“Captain Warren! This is for you for when those voices are shouting at you.” Gruenberg
flung something which sparkled in the icy, sun lit air. Michael caught it with both hands. It was
the golden cigarette case with the Fey Family crest and the German cross.
“One of the great pleasure of manhood Captain.” Michael never learned to smoke, but he
kept that box near his heart long after the war was over. He hoped he could return it one day but
he never saw Lieutenant Otto Gruenberg again. In most parts of the line the truce ended with the
officer’s saluting one another and returning to their posts. However, Michael learned later in a
letter from Anderson, which had been forwarded to him many times, that the young—tragically
young for the fey—lieutenant had died in action only a week after their encounter, shot by a
British officer who felt the “armistice” had gone on long enough.
Prof. Koku found him in his office weeping as if he had lost a beloved brother and from
then on he awkwardly smoked one of Otto’s cigarettes on Christmas Eve.
Hamlet, Act One, scene one, lines 181-189: In Shakespeare’s play, the soldier Marcellus has just shown the
scholar and doubting Horatio, Prince Hamlet’s best friend, the manifestation of Hamlet’s dead father, the king.
Horatio who but moments before had said to the testimonies of the guards “Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.” (line 39).
Now faced with a marvel, he must, like Michael, adjust all his assumption to a new reality.
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ii
The Christmas Truce of 1914: Probably one of the most amazing. magical and almost mythic moments in World
War I was the spontaneous cease-fire between German, French, Belgium, and English soldiers on the Western front.
It actually started with the Germans singing “Stille Nacht” and lighting Christmas trees since their positions allowed
them access to some pine forests. British snipers shot at them until they realized what they were. Except for the
overt Fey elements, all that is described in The Defeated, including the brutal ending, is supported by multiple
sources. It was widespread and actually lasted in some places for more than a week. "It is the last expression of that
19th-century world of manners and morals, where the opponent was a gentleman," says Modris Eksteins, a cultural
historian at the University of Toronto, who has written on the truce. "As the war goes on, the enemy becomes
increasingly abstract. You don't exchange courtesies with an abstraction.” Alfred Anderson was the last British
survivor of the historical war who remembered the truce. Lazare Ponticelli was the oldest survivor recognized by
France who truly was an Italian who served in the French Foreign Legion. And Michael Juergs wrote the Germanic
account of the Christmas True. The one major difference between Michael’s experience and that of our history is
that the first truce took place in 1914 nine months after the war had started. However, since the first year of
Michael’s war involved worldwide discovery and purgation of the Fey, the experience of trench warfare did not
occur until a year later.