Some Mothers’ Sons

On one special night, Christmas spirit reaches even to the trenches – as well as the families left behind

Thud, thud, thud; it was difficult to see or think in the mist but Mitch was sure it was a sound he knew only too well. Not the thud of shelling this time, but the thud of a football – yes, a football resounding on compacted mud perhaps twenty yards in front of him, out in no man’s land.

The sound transported him back to his beloved Scotland, to carefree days – and his youth that had mysteriously disappeared on that overcrowded rolling troopship that had brought him here, far from everything he knew and loved, all the way to hell.

The noise continued as he drifted back to a time when the world wasn’t mad. To happier days; he and the lads having a kick-about on the cobbles after Kirk, using their rolled-up Sunday best for goalposts.

He longed for a smoke but he was all out of baccy, his Christmas ration owed to at least half his battalion.

His lips were dry and cracked, his mind wandering. He could almost smell a fat capon roasting in the blacked stove oven, taste the neeps and tatties and hear his mother’s happy voice, while his sisters made paper chains and his younger brother, Hamish, made a nuisance of himself teasing the dog.

It was bitter after a frosty, sunny morning. He pulled his greatcoat tighter about him, fantasising about his mother’s chicken soup and dumplings that they always had on Christmas Eve.

The thudding was nearer now and in the close distance a glow, a tiny red glow, burned bright. For a moment, he wondered if he were dead and that the glow was Heaven; he could have sworn he heard a choir of angels somewhere.

Then a new sound brought him back to the moment, as a friendly German voice said, “FroheWeihnachten, Tommy – Merry Christmas!”

From the shadowy gloom a figure appeared; a wisp of smoke curling from the mouth that spoke the greeting, teasing at Mitch’s nostrils. Tobacco…

A man, a boy – about his own age, eighteen, he guessed – held out a roll-up to him. And then the German voice again, only now in perfect English. “Merry Christmas, Tommy. Smoke?” Mitch looked about; to his left he could see Bobby Stewart, to his right Reggie Allan. Lines of friends and foes stood chatting – only tonight, like him, they were just men, lads, boys, talking not killing.

“I am Helmut. You play football, no? You English are good?” He laughed. “But – not as good as we Germans…” The young man smiled a gap-toothed grin, offering the cigarette that now Mitch gratefully accepted.

“I’m from Scotland, laddie – and we Scotsmen invented the game!”

Apile of helmets marked the goalposts, as the players were chosen, the referee picked, and the spectators gathered waiting for the whistle. A large German sergeant had opened a keg of beer as men from both sides shared what they had by way of food from Christmas parcels and any smokes they had left. And there in the icy mist, men were just men; not enemies, not killers, not German nor British, just men.

Back home, May, Mitch’s older sister, all of nineteen years, busied herself patting out potato scones ready for the griddle stone. Marie fixed the last of the paper chains over the mantel as little Hamish sat in the tin bath by the fire, bombing the soap with the wash rag.

Rufus the lurcher looked on as Mother tended to the soup and her nerves.

“He’ll be missing the Christmas broth, will my boy,” she said, her eyes

There in the ICY MIST, men were JUST MEN; not ENEMIES, not killers

misting in the steam from the pan.

May looked across at her mother. The worry had taken its toll on her, lines of anguish clearly visible on her face.

“What if we never see your brother again, May? I…”

May left the scones and put her flour-dusted arms about her mother’s shoulders. The two clung to each other.

“Now, Mother, that’s enough. He’ll be back, you’ll see. Back to drive us all mad with his chatter about football. To drive you mad with his black collars and dusty trousers and muddy feet and…”

The news had been bleak all that week in Alloa; at least three dead from the farm cottages alone. The newsstand

full of the horrors of war, there was nothing she could say or do to ease her mother’s mind, nor her own come to it.

Hamish had stopped bombing the soap and was looking up at his mother and sister, tears threatening in his young eyes, though he had promised his brother that he would be strong.

“The man of the house!” Mitch had told him, what with their father taken two years past.

Hamish sniffed the tears back to where they came from and swallowed hard and resumed his war games in the now lukewarm water. He’d not let his brother down.

Later, the dog snoring and full of giblets, with Hamish tucked up in bed, and the girls sitting by the fire, their mother stood alone in the back yard looking up at the bright stars. She wondered if her Mitch were looking up at the same ones.

In France, the match had ended in a draw and now the men talked and played cards by the light of the stars.

Mitch looked on as Helmut showed him pictures of family; of a cottage and a young girl feeding geese, reminding him so much of home and Scotland.

“This is Greta. We are to be married when she is sixteen. She is beautiful, no?”

The girl reminded him of his sister, Marie, only her hair was blonde.

“Aye, she’s bonny all right!” said Mitch, to Helmut’s delight. “You have a girl in Scotland?” “No – well, just my beautiful mother.” He handed a picture of her to Helmut who agreed that she was indeed beautiful. “And then my sisters, and my wee brother, Hamish and…” Mitch paused, taking the picture of his mother back and placing it in his breast pocket. “There is a girl I like. She works in the shop, and she’s bonny like your lass.” Helmut gave a broad grin. “But have you kissed her?” he questioned – and right at that moment as they shared the last dregs of beer from Mitch’s tin mug, both wondered what war was all about.

In a small farming village near Berlin, Helmut’s mother and father slept under the same starry sky.

His mother dreamed of happier times. Of her handsome blond boy, out in the summer fields tanned and healthy with Greta by his side. She saw his children, not yet conceived; two boys and a girl. She saw Greta pregnant with a fourth child; she saw the love in their eyes.

And then it was Christmas again and Helmut was standing at the door, home from the war, whole and happy back in his mother’s arms. She watched him and his father drinking beer and eating too

much sausage and strudel, heard them singing and laughing and she ached inside in case she never saw that ever again.

Next to her, Helmut’s father sensed his wife’s fear and pulled her closer to him in the blackness. This war was a mistake, everyone said so. No one wanted it, no one saw it coming – well, not out in the countryside where they lived. More important things on men’s minds’ like feeding the livestock, brewing beer, and all manner of hard work.

How he wished generals and politicians were farmers too. Then there would be no wars and Germany would be truly great – without the need to slaughter men and boys just the same as his own countrymen, only from across a small sea, not that far away or very different. Farmers like him; boys not even old enough to be at war. Some of them only sixteen or seventeen, like his brave Helmut.

In the darkness, pictures of death plagued him. But he must put such thoughts from his mind, because for all the years they had been husband and wife Helga always knew what he was thinking and he didn’t want her knowing of these thoughts.

He said a silent prayer to God, to the stars, to the heavens, for peace on Earth and goodwill to all men on this early Christmas morning. Then he prayed again for his face not to show his thoughts and for his son to return safe home where he belonged.

All around the camp, German and British made their way back across no man’s land to their trenches. The only sounds in the blackness were new friends saying their farewells and the patting of backs.

“After the war I will come to Scotland and bring Greta to meet your sisters. I will bring my mother’s strudel for you. And by that time perhaps you will have married the pretty girl from the shop?”

“Aye – you never know – if she’ll have me, that is!”

Suddenly Mitch wished so much that he had kissed her, kissed her until he couldn’t breathe. Wished he’d held her, loved her, married her, and that she was pregnant with his bairn growing in her belly – because now he wondered what would be left of him back in Scotland if he died here in this foreign place. At least his mother would have had a grandchild to ease her grief.

“Goodbye, my English – my Scottish friend!” Helmut corrected himself. “I will see you again one day in Scotland!”

The two hugged and then walked the few yards back to war.

In Alloa his mother woke early. It was not yet light but the black sky had been replaced with a wintry blue haze that bathed the cottage both inside and out. Snow had been falling gently yet steadily throughout the night and early hours, making the world that was hers, still and silent on this Christmas morn.

She bent to place more wood on the

He’d be back; OF COURSE he would. WHY had she ever DOUBTED IT?

fire; it was freezing. It didn’t seem like Christmas with her boy there. She wondered how many thousands of mothers were missing their lads just as she was. No matter what country they hailed from, they were boys, just boys. But she’d not let her other bairns down. Life had to go on.

It was getting lighter as she set the kettle on the fire and from the parlour drifted the sound of excited chatter as Christmas began in earnest.

She looked out of the window and fancied she saw a faint twinkle of a star still there even though the long night had finally fled. And in the near distance – a sound – a sound heaven sent on this Christmas morning. Carol singers and the melody of her Mitch’s favourite carol SilentNight on the pipes drifted into the cottage and into her heart…

He’d be back; of course he would. She wondered why she had ever doubted it.

“Mother, come see – you have presents!” excited voices chimed. And for the first time in a long time she had a feeling that all would be well.

At a small farm in Germany, Helmut’s father walked out to the barn, lantern in hand. How he missed his son, especially at Christmas. Above, the sky was still ink blue with what seemed like a thousand, thousand, stars twinkling Christmas greetings to the world.

He knew his wife was hurting without her boy. Not that she let him see her tears; she was brave and he loved her for it.

In the barn he was greeted by the sounds of new life.

“A fine young beast, you’ll make a prize bull like your father,” he said looking at the calf.

New life in the stable – the smell of straw – the crispness of winter; why he could almost see his boy, all of five years old as he rehearsed the Nativity for his first Christmas at kindergarten, ruddycheeked, strong and smiling. Why, he felt if he reached out he could touch him.

He had to come back – he’d be a father himself soon. He felt the ache in his heart melt away like ice. He would be back, he knew that now. After all there was work to be done here on the farm and a beautiful girl waiting; and it would take more than a war to prevent him returning.

He hugged the calf and patted its mother. He took the gift for his wife from its hiding place under the straw and made his way back to house and to Christmas, 1914.