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Soon after the Battle of the Marne, both sides began to dig trenches.
The heat of September turned into the cold, depressing rain of October. The stalemate at the eastern end of the line spread irresistibly west, like a paralysis creeping through the body of a dying man.
The decisive battle of the autumn was over the Belgian town of Ypres, at the westernmost end of the line, twenty miles from the sea. The Germans attacked fiercely in an all-out attempt to turn the flank of the British force. The fighting raged for four weeks. Unlike all previous battles this one was static, with both sides hiding in trenches from each other's artillery and coming out only for suicidal sorties against the enemy's machine guns. In the end the British were saved by reinforcements, including a corps of brown-faced Indians shivering in their tropical uniforms. When it was over, seventy-five thousand British soldiers had died, and the Expeditionary Force was broken; but the Allies had completed a defensive barricade from the Swiss border to the English Channel, and the invading Germans had been stopped.
On December 24 Fitz was at British headquarters in the town of St. -Omer, not far from Calais, in a gloomy frame of mind. He remembered how glibly he and others had told the men they would be home for Christmas. Now it looked as if the war could go on for a year or even more. The opposing armies sat in their trenches day after day, eating bad food, getting dysentery and trench foot and lice, and desultorily killing the rats that thrived on the dead bodies littering no-man's-land. It had once seemed very clear to Fitz why Britain had to go to war, but he could no longer remember the reasons.
That day the rain stopped and the weather turned cold. Sir John sent a message to all units warning that the enemy was contemplating a Christmas attack. This was entirely imaginary, Fitz knew: there was no supporting intelligence. The truth was that Sir John did not want the men to relax their vigilance on Christmas Day.
Every soldier was to receive a gift from Princess Mary, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the king and queen. It was an embossed brass box containing tobacco and cigarettes, a picture of the princess, and a Christmas card from the king. There were different gifts for nonsmokers, Sikhs, and nurses, all of whom would get chocolate or candy instead of tobacco. Fitz helped distribute the boxes to the Welsh Rifles. At the end of the day, too late to return to the relative comfort of St. -Omer, he found himself at the headquarters of the Fourth Battalion, a damp dugout a quarter of a mile behind the front line, reading a Sherlock Holmes story and smoking the small, thin cigars he had taken to. They were not as good as his panatelas, but these days he hardly ever got time to smoke a big cigar. He was with Murray, who had been promoted to captain after Ypres. Fitz had not been promoted: Hervey was keeping his promise.
Soon after nightfall he was surprised to hear scattered rifle fire. It turned out that the men had seen lights and thought the enemy were trying a sneak attack. In fact the lights were colored lanterns with which the Germans were decorating their parapet.
Murray, who had been on the front line for a while, talked about the Indian troops defending the next sector. "Poor sods arrived in their summer uniforms, because someone told them the war would be over before the weather turned cold," he said. "But I'll tell you something, Fitz: your darkie soldier is an ingenious blighter. You know we've been asking the War Office to give us trench mortars like the ones the Germans have, that lob a grenade over the parapet? Well, the Indians have made their own out of odd pieces of cast-iron pipe. Looks like a bit of bodged plumbing in a pub toilet, but it works!"
In the morning there was a freezing fog and the ground underfoot was hard. Fitz and Murray gave out the princess's gifts at first light. Some of the men were huddled around braziers, trying to get warm, but they said they were grateful for the frost, which was better than the mud, especially for those suffering from trench foot. Some spoke to one another in Welsh, Fitz noticed, although they always used English with officers.
The German line, four hundred yards away, was hidden by a morning mist the same color as the German uniforms, a faded silver-blue called field gray. Fitz heard faint music: the Germans were singing carols. Fitz was not very musical, but he thought he recognized "Silent Night. "
He returned to the dugout for a grim breakfast of stale bread and tinned ham with the other officers. Afterward he stepped outside to smoke. He had never been quite so miserable in all his life. He thought of the breakfast that was being served at that moment in Ty Gwyn: hot sausages, fresh eggs, deviled kidneys, smoky kippers, buttered toast, and fragrant coffee with cream in it. He longed for clean underwear, a crisply ironed shirt, and a soft wool suit. He wanted to sit by the blazing coal fire in the morning room with nothing better to do than read the stupid jokes in Punch magazine.
Murray followed him out of the dugout and said: "You're wanted on the telephone, Major. It's headquarters. "
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 frow
n 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!"
