The Ghost of the Trenches Read online

  Then, following a friendly – if confused – interchange of shouts, soldiers on both sides climbed out of their trenches, carrying not guns but spades. After some brief and rather formal handshakes, they set about respectfully burying the dead who had been lying in No Man’s Land for weeks, if not months.

  When he climbed out of his trench, Billy could not resist taking along his new Christmas present. The brown leather caser caught the eye of a German infantryman called Gerhart, who, prior to the war, had played as goalkeeper for Bayern Munich. Straight away, Gerhart suggested a game of fußball.

  Up until that point, the soldiers on both sides had kept their metal helmets on, removing them only briefly for the burials of their dead. Now all the helmets were off, and two pairs of them were placed on the ground to delineate goals.

  Stripped of their protective headwear, this was to the soldiers no longer just a game of football, it was also a game of trust.

  Tommy dribbled down the wing before centring the ball to Billy who was just about to score, when Gerhart screamed, ‘Offside!’ The German seized the ball and booted it downfield to a team member who had a tap in.

  And so the game continued, until the precious ball was accidentally booted into a roll of barbed wire where, with a hissing sound, it expired. With the game brought to a sad and premature end, the two teams shook hands and returned to their respective trenches.

  Just a few minutes later, following a sharp blast from an officer’s whistle, and the crash of a whizz-bang shell, the truce was over and the two sides were at war again.

  Billy’s first shot over the parapet winged Gerhart and he couldn’t resist shouting, ‘That wasn’t offside, was it?’ He knew it was a cheap line, but it created a burst of laughter from both trenches.

  Sadly, this was the last social exchange that those two groups of young men would have for a further four years, for the war raged on until 11 November 1918.

  As for the score in the football match… well, it can be argued that that wasn’t settled for fifty years, until 1966 at Wembley Stadium.

  The First Friendly

  The pitch was all cratered and muddy,

  Home-made ball not really round,

  The goalposts were two pair of rifles

  Stuck bayonet end in the ground.

  The supporters all mixed in together

  And they cheered no matter who scored

  And nobody cared who was winning

  Because footie’s a game, not a war.

  The final whistle was shellfire

  So both sides, scattering, ran

  Back to their own line of trenches

  Each end of No-Man’s Land.

  Kevin McCann

  For my Grandad, Gunner Edward Salter (L3004), Royal Artillery (1914–17), honourably discharged.

  Acknowledgements

  ‘We Must Not Forget’ by George Harrison, © George Harrison 2013, first published here, reproduced by permission of the author.

  ‘Strange Meeting’ by Wilfred Owen (1893–1918).

  ‘The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplin’, song lyrics, traditional.

  ‘It’s A Long, Long Way To Tipperary’ by Jack Judge (1872–1938) and Harry Williams, written in 1912.

  ‘The First Friendly’ by Kevin McCann, text copyright © Kevin McCann, 2010, first published in The World at Our Feet (Macmillan, 2010), reproduced by permission of the author.

  About the Authors

  Taffy Thomas MBE trained as a Literature and Drama teacher at Dudley College of Education. He founded and directed the legendary folk theatre company, Magic Lantern, and the rural community arts company, Charivari. After a stroke, aged just 36, he turned back to storytelling as self-imposed speech therapy.

  Taffy has a repertoire of more than 300 stories and tales collected mainly from traditional oral sources, and is now the most experienced English storyteller. In the 2001 New Year Honours List he was awarded the MBE for services to storytelling and charity. In October 2009 Taffy accepted the honorary position of the first Laureate for Storytelling. He is currently Artistic Director of Tales in Trust, the Northern Centre for Storytelling, in Grasmere. He tours nationally and internationally working in both entertainment and education and is a patron of the Society for Storytelling. In 2013, Taffy was selected as Outstanding Male Storyteller in the British Awards for Storytelling Excellence.

  www.taffythomas.co.uk

  Helen Watts is a writer, editor and publisher. Her experience includes magazine and book publishing, and she has worked for some of the biggest and best publishing houses in the UK, including Scholastic and Heinemann Educational. For ten years, Helen was Editor of the Literacy Time magazine, after which she founded The Literacy Club, through which she published magazines and books including the paperback collection by Taffy Thomas, Taffy’s Coat Tales.

  Helen’s first historical fiction novel for teenagers and young adults, One Day In Oradour (A&C Black) has been nominated for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal for an outstanding book for children. Her second novel for A&C Black, No Stone Unturned, will be published in 2014.

  www.helenwattsauthor.com

  One Day in Oradour

  Helen Watts

  On a hot summer afternoon in 1944, SS troops wiped out an entire French village. 644 men, women and children died that day. Just one child survived. This book tells the story of what happened in Oradour, and imagines what drove both the SS officer who ordered the massacre, and the seven-year-old boy who escaped it.

  £6.99 ISBN 9781408182017

  Nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2014

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing

  Copyright © 2014 A & C Black

  Text copyright © Helen Watts and Taffy Thomas 2014

  This edition published 2014 by

  A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  The right of Helen Watts and Taffy Thomas to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

  eISBN: 978-1-4729-0783-2

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