1914

Chapter V: Where The Snow Lies

Chapter V: Where The Snow Lies [Henry's POV]

//TW: Chapter cleared - No warnings to display //

Author's note: Started writing this in November, see y'all on Christmas! :D

Btw there is German in this chapter but it was through googly transtait and we know how reliable that is /s

Yes I know they weren't in Europe until mid-April 1915 but the Christmas truce is so bloody wholesome and I really wanted to do it so just this one time I bent the rules </3

Btw sorry if parts of it are really good and other parts seem choppy I'm apparently very bad at writing on first hand 🤷‍♀️ I'm working on it!

* = Mini time skip (<1 hour, usually a few minutes or seconds)

*** = Regular time skip (1+ hours, usually a few hours or a skip to the next day)

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December 24th 1914
Christmas Eve

Lies. They're all lies. We were tragically and fatally lied to.

There is no glory here, or adventure, or self heroism. No fun, no smiles or anything like that. The skies were constantly painted grey as winter flooded the land with a depressed dark landscape, the lightly vegetated ground once dawned in horrendous rain and thunderstorms now lightly coated with freezing snow and jarring hail. We hate it here, but there's no going back.

We had awoken to lightning and snow. Another day of the same 'routine' of sitting around and doing nothing I had very quickly grown sick of. We lousily got up and started our routine. It seemed as though it definitely took a tole on Mark; he was hardly grinning is way through the day as a heavy grayscale coated his bright personality. It got quite a bit of getting used to Mark in that state. Hamish wasn't really that different - he and Mark were so similar in so many ways: Same towering height; same straight, pitch black hair; same icy eyes; same crackling sense of humour.

We were oblivious to the horrific details of war on day one here. We were excited through our semi-tour of the landscape, not knowing where we would be just months later. The trench we were in was arguably worse, though. It was dug under an immediate change in plans, with the dirt hand-shovelled and picked in just hours. I was caught off guard when Hamish halted us both.

"Shhh...You hear that?"

Mark and I looked at him in confusion as we both strained our ears to hear for something but there was nothing. That's when I clicked, but Mark didn't.

"Hear what?" Mark looked at him funny. "I don't hear anything."

"Exactly." He finally caught on as we all looked toward the edge of the trench, the view blocked by piled dirt and barbed wire. Not a single gunfire or bombshell explosion could be heard. It was so quiet and still our clouds of hot breath became the distracting element for us.

"Why is it so quiet...?"

I remembered something. I opened by right breast pocket and pulled out a tiny notebook - my journal. I flipped through the pages until I fell on the last entry from yesterday and read the date I had put. Hamish and Mark eagerly watched, trying not to draw attention. If the sargents 'sarges' caught soldiers with journals they often had the journal confiscated. Mark and Hamish both knew this. I read the date on the last entry in the booklet:

'23rd December 1914'

"It's Christmas Eve." I said quietly, but within earshot of both of them. The realisation that this would be our first holiday season away from our families quickly dawned on us. Noises just up the trench caught us off guard. Worried it was the Sarge I quickly slipped the tiny journal into the closest and easiest pocket accessible, which was the giant lower pocket on my large coat. Mark and Hamish tried their best to look preoccupied whilst physically covering for me. It was indeed the Sarge.