Fall of Giants

Fitz was surprised. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to locate him. He hoped it was not on account of some quarrel that had flared up between the French and the British while he had been handing out Christmas presents. With a worried frown he ducked inside and picked up the field telephone. “Fitzherbert.”

“Good morning, Major,” said a voice he did not recognize. “Captain Davies here. You don’t know me, but I’ve been asked to pass you a message from home.”

From home? Fitz hoped it was not bad news. “Very kind of you, Captain,” he said. “What does the message say?”

“Your wife has given birth to a bouncing baby boy, sir. Mother and son are both doing fine.”

“Oh!” Fitz sat down suddenly on a box. The baby was not due yet-it must be a week or two early. Premature babies were vulnerable. But the message said he was in good health. And so was Bea.

Fitz had a son, and the earldom had an heir.

“Are you there, Major?” said Captain Davies.

“Yes, yes,” said Fitz. “Just a bit shocked. It’s early.”

“As it’s Christmas, sir, we thought the news might cheer you up.”

“It does, I can tell you!”

“May I be the first to offer my congratulations.”

“Most kind,” Fitz said. “Thank you.” But Captain Davies had already hung up.

After a moment Fitz realized the other officers in the dugout were staring at him in silence. Finally one of them said: “Good news or bad?”

“Good!” said Fitz. “Wonderful, in fact. I have become a father.”

They all shook his hand and slapped his back. Murray got out the whisky bottle, despite the early hour, and they drank the baby’s health. “What’ll he be called?” Murray asked.

“Viscount Aberowen, while I’m alive,” Fitz said, then he realized that Murray was not asking about the baby’s title, but his name. “George, for my father, and William for my grandfather. Bea’s father was Petr Nikolaevich, so perhaps we’ll add those as well.”

Murray seemed amused. “George William Peter Nicholas Fitzherbert, Viscount Aberowen,” he said. “Quite enough names to be going on with!”

Fitz nodded good-humoredly. “Especially as he probably weighs about seven pounds.”

He was bursting with pride and good cheer, and he felt an urge to share his news. “I might go along to the front line,” he said when they had finished their whisky. “Pass out a few cigars to the men.”

He left the dugout and walked along the communication trench. He felt euphoric. There was no gunfire, and the air tasted crisp and clean, except when he passed the latrine. He found himself thinking not about Bea but about Ethel. Had she had her baby yet? Was she happy in her house, having extorted the money from Fitz to buy it? Although he was taken aback by the tough way she had bargained with him, he could not help remembering that it was his child she was carrying. He hoped she would deliver her baby safely, as Bea had.

All such thoughts flew from his mind when he reached the front. As he turned the corner into the frontline trench, he got a shock.

There was no one there.

He walked along the trench, zigzagging around one traverse, then another, and saw no one. It was like a ghost story, or one of those ships found floating undamaged with not a soul aboard.

There had to be an explanation. Had there been an attack that somehow Fitz had not been told about?

It occurred to him to look over the parapet.

This was not to be done casually. Many men were killed on their first day at the front because they took a quick look over the top.

Fitz picked up one of the short-handled spades called entrenching tools. He pushed the blade gradually up over the edge of the parapet. Then he climbed onto the fire step and slowly raised his head until he was looking out through the narrow gap between the parapet and the blade.

What he saw astonished him.

The men were all in the cratered desert of no-man’s-land. But they were not fighting. They were standing around in groups, talking.

There was something odd about their appearance, and after a moment Fitz realized that some of the uniforms were khaki and others field gray.

The men were talking to the enemy.

Fitz dropped the entrenching tool, raised his head fully over the parapet, and stared. There were hundreds of soldiers in no-man’s-land, stretching as far as he could see to left and right, British and Germans intermingled.

What the hell was going on?

He found a trench ladder and scrambled up over the parapet. He marched across the churned earth. The men were showing photographs of their families and sweethearts, offering cigarettes, and trying to communicate, saying things like: “Me Robert, who you?”

He spotted two sergeants, one British and one German, deep in conversation. He tapped the Brit on the shoulder. “You!” he said. “What the devil are you doing?”