The Battle of Harmingsdown: Chapter 16

“Singing?”

“And playing games,” Edmund nodded, with perhaps more pride in his voice than he intended. He hadn’t expected it to work out so well. “Even the guards have unlocked the cells and allowed enemy prisoners to return.”

“Our prisoners?”

“And theirs. Everyone.”

Schtillhart opened her mouth, and then closed it. “Are you telling me, Lieutenant, that not one week after I was made an Acting Colonel and given command over the trenches at Harmingsdown, that my men have stopped fighting and are now singing and playing games with the enemy?”

“Sharing meals, too. I believe their chef was given a surplus of grape-leaves that needed eating.”

Schtillhart’s fist slammed into the desk with the force of a meteor.

“If I may suggest,” Edmund spoke quickly, “that you not behave rashly?”

“Not behave —” Schtillhart gaped. “Their job — their duty is to lay down their lives for king and country in the defense of the realm!”

“The realm isn’t being attacked at the moment.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Schtillhart shoved past Edmund, opened the door, and walked out into the Harmingsdown Truce.

For a fully descriptive explanation of what the Harmingsdown Truce looked like, no less than twenty “war-time reenactments” occur across Europe every winter. While many are little more than local festivals,¹ the South East Regional Fencibles have received awards from numerous historical societies for authenticity. Students of this era in history are strongly encouraged to attend.

For how possible could it be in ink and paper to explain the beauty of what greeted Schtillhart’s eyes? How to explain the wonder that filled Schtillhart’s heart? Edmund, for all the poetry in his soul, could scarce imagine a suitable meter or scansion that could encompass it all, to say nothing of a proper rhyme.

There are no letters or diaries from soldiers that mention games of football, nor collaborative music-hall numbers. Musical instruments were likely not played, nor were choreographed dances performed. Nevertheless, to have lived for months in the brown and diesel-soaked mud, cold and wet, dreaming of home, and hating everything that kept you away…to step out into the winter sunlight and see the soldiers smiling!

Edmund followed Schtillhart, matching pace with the furious Acting Colonel as he stormed through the Trenches. He was heading towards the front, perhaps to argue with the highest ranking officer he could find…but they were passing laughing Majors and jolly Captains without a second glance. Spaniards were mingling with the British freely, their flowing speech lilting around the glottal English like birds through tree branches. The smoke from the trenches was white from cooking, rather than black from machines and gunpowder. British Soldiers swapped their trench-gin with the Spaniards liqor de las trincheras.

Before long, Edmund realized Schtillhart’s pace was shifting. Less the furious marching from before, and more a steadier stride that carried Schtillhart through the soldiers with an ease that brought hope to Edmund’s heart.

Finally, Schtillhart stopped.

“Sir?” Edmund asked.

Schtillhart didn’t answer but turned around on his heel and marched back to his office. When they reached his room, Schtillhart threw himself down at his desk, his head in his hands.

After another pause, Schtillhart leaned his head back.

“On the battlefield, when you face death…death to the left of you, death to the right…that’s when it all leaves you. No more expectations, no more mysteries about who you think you are, or what you believe. It’s just you, all alone, with a rifle in your hand and a saber at your side. That’s when you find out who you are, really. When you know that you’re a man.”

“Who said that?” Edmund asked.

“Tin Jack,” Schtillhart admitted.

Edmund frowned for a moment, trying to work out what Schtillhart was actually asking. “If you know who you are,” he finally asked, “why do you need a war?”

Schtillhart had an answer. Edmund knew Schtillhart had an answer — he saw it flash across his face — but he did not give it. In fact, judging by the look that followed, he did not like his answer at all.

“I have to order the troops back to the fight.”

“Do you? Regulations stipulate that subordinates have discretion on the best method to follow orders.”

“Not when it comes to fighting the war at all!”

“I don’t remember any orders being given to kill Spaniards, sir.” Please, please, let me be right about you!

Schtillhart paused. “Well, no, but…that goes without orders, doesn’t it? We’re given guns, we’re told to attack or defend or…I mean killing the other side, that’s what war is!”

“Is it?”

Schtillhart blinked, and in violation of seven rules and regulations — to say nothing of at least two centuries of military tradition — he smiled. In his later life, Edmund cherished that smile, as there were many times he would have dearly loved to have seen it again.

Then, the smile was gone again as quickly as it had arrived. “Lieutenant Mauve! Do I have your honest witness account that the last thing Colonel Muggeridge said to us was to ‘keep everything under control?’”

“That is what I remember, sir.”

“Lieutenant Mauve, what were the casualties sustained last night?”

“None, sir.”

“Can you imagine anything more orderly and under control than that?”

Edmund could, but he had learned the art of Military Irony, and so instead said: “No, sir.”

“Then I am reporting officially that, as I have no standing orders to instigate fighting should the fighting cease, I am exercising my right as commander of the Harmingsdown battlefield: Pursuant to Code 5 in the military officer’s handbook, I am duty bound to ‘keep calm and carry on.’ Have I got that wording correctly?”

“Yes, sir.”

A twinkle entered Schtillhart’s eye as his voice became casual again. “You do realize that this is the moment that every officer dreams of? The moment to show initiative, strike when the iron is hot, and make a name for themselves that will outlast the history books? They would speak of me with the same hushed voices they do when speaking of the Trojan Horse. A masterful strategic stroke to make the enemy lay down their weapons, only to cut them down when they are least prepared.”

“Yes,” Edmund nodded. “And you would certainly be promoted. Past Colonel, perhaps.”

“Yes…” Schtillhart’s eyes glazed over. “I could be accepted into the General’s Club.”

Edmund watched as a horrific fascination flew through Schtillhart’s eyes before he shook himself free. “Lieutenant, I am maintaining this piece until I receive orders to do otherwise. As Clerk of the ABCs in Harmingsdown, I order you to sort through any and all messages that are sent to me from HQ. No, scratch that, from anywhere. I want you to look at all my mail and throw out anything I don’t need to see. I trust you to understand what I don’t need to see?”

“Yes, Colonel. Thank you, Colonel.”

---

Edmund had just reached the door to leave, when the heavy thud of Mr. Wickes cane reached his ears. Stepping aside just in time, Edmund avoided colliding with the tempestuous forms of Mr. and Mrs. Wickes as they thundered into Schtillhart’s room.

“What is the meaning of this!” Mr. Wickes firm voice shook as he shouted at Schtillhart. “We step out of our laboratory this morning, fully expecting to see two armies attacking each other, and what do we see? Games, Colonel Schtillhart. Games and frivolity!”

“I have seen the same,” Schtillhart nodded, leaning back in his chair. “It appears the war is, at least in Harmingsdown, having ‘a bit of a break.’”

“It must be stopped at once,” Mrs. Wickes snapped, her fan collapsing on itself like a falling guillotine. “Our gas must be used!”

“Why?” Schtillhart asked.

“Why?” Mr. Wickes stammered. “Why? Don’t you understand…we gave you our formulas under the express expectation that they would be used! You gave orders! Only two days ago, you ordered the trench dug and the grenades thrown!”

“The situation has changed,” Schtillhart shrugged. “No plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, especially.”

“Don’t you realize what we have? These tactical gasses could win the war!”

“What war?” Schtillhart shrugged. “There’s no fighting going on here. And if you should get it into your heads to throw live gas grenades in the general direction of the Spanish trenches — trenches where British soldiers are currently spending their time — I will personally have you arrested and executed for attacking our troops through an unprovoked assault.”

“You selfish cow,” Mrs. Wickes hissed. “If you don’t order the men to start fighting again, immediately, we will send letters. You know what they will say, and who they will be addressed to. You will be revealed. You will be found out.”

“Excuse me.”

In his later years, Edmund made note in one of his few surviving diary pages that one of the most satisfying moments in his entire life was frightening the monsters that had frightened him for so long. Scholars have debated this passage for years, but it is a common belief that this is in reference to this moment.

The Wickes startled as Edmund stepped forward from behind them. “Just to be clear,” he continued, walking around the Wickes to stand behind Schtillhart. “Are you suggesting that if you send ’letters’ to certain persons unnamed, that this will in some manner be detrimental to Colonel Schtillhart?”

“This doesn’t concern you, Lieutenant,” Mrs. Schtillhart’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“I’m afraid it does,” Edmund clasped his hands in front of him. “If your behavior constitutes harm or detriment to the highest ranking military officer in charge of a region or theatre of operations, such behavior could be considered offering aid or succor to the opposing army. In a time of war, this would be considered a treasonous act and punishable by no less than fifty years in prison, and no more than hanging.”

The Wickes stared for a moment, the fury burning behind their eyes. “Is this so?” Mr. Wickes spat out through his clenched jaw. “We have a contract to invent and provide weapons to the Army, and in return the Army has promised us materials and manpower sufficient to test these weapons in an active warzone.” He turned to Schtillhart. “It is your duty to provide us with one, Colonel, or you are shirking your responsibilities as a soldier. It is hardly treason to inform the Board of Generals about that.”

“Interesting point,” Edmund nodded as he pulled a letter from his vest pocket. “Doubly so, because there is also a clause regarding the ownership of said inventions and their designs. I think it’s perfectly clear that you retain the rights to your inventions only insofar as you agree to give his Majesty’s Army first shot at purchasing them. Now, there is a Capitán Compasantos on the other side, whom I went to school with, and it seems a Mr. Florethmorales has been selling the Spanish inventions and technologies that were invented by you.”

The amused confidence that exuded from Schtillhart vanished in an instant to be replaced with burning anger. He stood up, his eyes a burning cold to match the Wickes’s. “Is this true?”

“No matter how clever or fiendish the plot, / you’ll never confound me with all that I’ve got. / You’ll think you are winning while I just abide, / and then spring my trap once you have stepped inside.

“A complete lie,” Mr. Wickes sniffed. “You can’t trust anything these tapas-eaters say.”

“Nevertheless,” Edmund shrugged, “if it’s true, it’s a clear violation of your contract. More than enough to warrant dismissal from his Majesty’s Army.”

“I agree,” Schtillhart leaned forward over her desk. “Colonel Wickes and Colonel Wickes, you will both present yourselves to the Royal Military Police to be imprisoned until such time as your guilt or innocence can be ascertained. Your warehouse will be seized, your inventions and papers claimed, and all military assets returned to storage. If you wish for a civilian lawyer, you can damn well provide your own. Have I made myself clear?”

“This is…/preposterous!/” Mr. Wickes blurted, waving his cane about like a conductor. “You cannot seize private property! Our Laboratory contains trade secrets that are ours by Mercantile right!”

“You are members of the military,” Schtillhart pressed forward, “and therefore you have no mercantile rights of any kind. Unless, of course, you are claiming to be civilians, in which case you are currently in a Militarized Warzone which places you under our responsibility as possible enemy spies.”

In later years, during the cold winter months when age and threadbare clothing sharpened the chill in Edmund’s bones, he warmed himself with the memory of the looks on the Wickes faces. The hate was still there, burning brighter than it ever had before, but it was tempered — shaded, even — by their complete and total helplessness.

Slowly, with the regalness displayed only by the unsuspecting who have fallen from grace, the Wickes turned and left the room. It is possible that the Wickes might have done a great deal to inconvenience, if not outright thwart Edmund and Schtillhart’s efforts to maintain the Harmingsdown Truce, had Edmund not known very well what happens when the wealthy and powerful are threatened.

As such, Ung was waiting for the Wickes outside, and after a frank and spirited discussion about what was about to happen, the Wickes were locked in the Harmingsdown trenches’ prison on suspicion of treachery and charges of attempting to assault a Sergeant with a cane as thick as a horse-post.

---

It wasn’t a perfect solution by any means. Holding the Wickes was one thing, but eventually the Military would want to know why two of their supposedly best inventors had been arrested. There would need to be tribunals, committees, hearings, and some semblance of justice, or else why arrest them at all?

Thankfully, the gears of the Military ground slowly, and by the time Muggeridge returned to Harmingsdown — now a Brigadier, because even the most stalwart Britannians are more likely to believe some paperwork was mislaid, rather than believe an upper-class man was, in fact, not deserving of a promotion — almost a full month had passed.

A lot had occurred in that month. Letters had been sent home. Pictographs had been made. News had spread up and down the trenches, and the commanding officers of several neighboring regions had finally broken through their British need to pretend they knew what was going on, and sent their own letters asking if this unofficial truce was in any way official.

Edmund had intercepted every letter, every request, every demand, and answered with the tact and panache that could only come from the best trained Moulde in decades. He danced circles around the naysayers with subtle suggestion, soothed the brows of the concerned with unsaid implication, and thanked everyone who even dared to suggest the truce was, at the very least, new and interesting.

Colonel Schtillhart and Coronel Nicolo de Torrent met on the third day of the fourth week, sharing a stew-pot meal and a bottle of wine with a handful of lucky soldiers from both sides. They talked about their families, friends, and plans for after the war was over. All reports suggest that Colonel Schtillhart spoke quite verbosely, while de Torrent kept mostly to grunts of agreement and periodic exclamations of delight.²

Edmund even had the chance to meet Capitán Compasantos that night and shake his hand. Edmund barely remembered him, and it was clear that Compasantos himself didn’t recognize Edmund in the slightest, but both men were gentlemen and thus spoke as if old friends.

It wasn’t just Harmingsdown, either. The neighboring regions had already developed their own truces; each less casual and easily maintained as Harmingsdown, but stable nonetheless. All along the front, soldiers were escalating their passive resistances to their Officer’s orders and opting instead to embrace their fellow soldiers, no matter which side they were on. Even across the channel there were rumors of peace breaking out all across the front.

By the time Brigadier Muggeridge returned, the soldiers had cemented friendships that would last for years. It is expected that the Great Migration that occurred two years later between England and Spain is due in part to the Harmingsdown Truce. This, of course, was neither obvious at the time nor part of the Brigadier’s concern. Brigadier Muggeridge was concerned about one thing and one thing only.

“Where is Major Schtillhart?”

Edmund turned to see the fuming form of Brigadier Muggeridge, his now-purple-topped shako wobbling on his quivering head. “I believe Acting Colonel Schtillhart is in your office, Brigadier,” he said with the care of a man talking down a raging lion. “If you like, I can go and fetch —”

“None of that!” the Brigadier barked. “What the devil’s been going on here?”

Edmund sagged as he realized Muggeridge had looked at the two kinds of Generals and decided to aim for the harsh and brusque type. He guessed it wouldn’t last too long before he found the other kind more his speed, but until then, Edmund had to deal with him.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Edmund lied. “Acting Colonel Schtillhart has been keeping the Harmingsdown trenches under control to —”

“Don’t play games with me, Lieutenant,” Muggeridge snapped. “The soldiers aren’t fighting!”

“That’s true, sir.” There was no denying it. Not while two of his fellow soldiers were passing a ball back and forth with a Spanish soldier right behind him.

“I gave explicit orders, Lieutenant! Explicit.”

“We heard them, sir.”

“You did?” Brigadier Muggeridge balked at Edmund’s admission. “Well, there you are, then! And why didn’t you report Schtillhart’s insubordination immediately, might I ask?”

“If you’ll recall,” Edmund cleared his throat, “you exact order was to ‘keep things under control.’ As far as I can tell, things are perfectly under —”

“Hornswaggle!” Muggeridge shouted. “Where are the Wickes? Have they finished their great invention yet?

“I’m afraid peace broke out before they had the chance, sir, and are currently under lock and key.”

Brigadier Muggeridge opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, choked on his rage, and then tugged hard on his jacket hem in the sure sign of a man preparing to “set things right.”

“Right! First thing’s first: I want every available soldier who doesn’t want to be put before a firing squad present in front of the Colonel’s…I mean the Brigadier’s residence in less than five minutes! Is that clear, Lieutenant?”

It took less than four. Word travels fast among soldiers, especially when it is made clear that the commanding officer is angry and liable to punish first and ask questions never.

“Alright, listen up you lot!” the Brigadier bellowed, his voice echoing over their heads like cannon fire. “I don’t know what’s been happening since I’ve been gone, but I’m a Brigadier now, so let’s get a few things straight! You are soldiers in his Majesty’s army and that means a few things! It means you don’t put down your rifles when you like. It means you don’t totter off for a nip and a kip whenever the mood strikes you. It means you man the trenches! It means you fight his Majesty’s enemies! It means you bloody well follow orders, right? And if that doesn’t suit you, if you think you’d rather play ball, or share stories of your family, or sing songs, than you can damn well get yourselves court-marshaled and shove of home!”

“But if you’re Britanians,” Muggeridge’s fist thumped over his heart, “if you believe that you are one of the finest and most shining examples of mankind, ready to bring victory to the land of your fathers, and your fathers’ fathers, and your fathers’ fathers’ fathers; if you are true and loyal subjects to King Willhelm and his royal crown; if you believe as I do, that a world with Britannia at the forefront, guiding the ship of state with a firm and steady hand, with a military, economic, and religious empire that spans the globe is worth fighting for, then pick up your rifles where they lie, and strike a blow for King, for Country, and for the world!”

It wasn’t a bad speech, really. It hit all the important notes and was expressed with a firm and unyielding passion that was sadly rare among the upper-class officers of the army. No, the failing of the speech wasn’t the speech itself, but in Brigadier Muggeridge’s fundamental failure to understand his audience.

To a man, every soldier who was standing silently and listening politely to the Brigadier’s speech didn’t move a muscle.

“Come on then!” Muggeridge shouted, and that was really the end of it. Any sincerity of passion that had been conveyed through is extempore speech fled at the General’s plea. Really, Edmund wondered, if a sincere and passionate speech about king and country couldn’t get them to pick up their guns, what good was a “pretty please” afterwards?

“Right,” Muggeridge spat, turning on his heel and almost running into Acting Colonel Schtillhart.

For a moment, the world held its breath, as the two soldiers stared at each other. Neither moved a muscle, both daring the other to blink.

“This is your last chance,” Brigadier Muggeridge shouted after a pause. “If you don’t pick up your weapons and get to fighting, I will personally ensure that each and every one of you is arrested for showing cowardice in the face of the enemy! You’ll all be stripped of your rank, your honor, and we’ll get real soldiers in here to fight the war like real men! Who are willing to fight for victory!”

Edmund held his breath.

No one moved.

Without another word, Brigadier Muggeridge spun around, and pushed past Colonel Schtillhart into the residence. Silence settled over the trenches. A distant bird called out, claiming its territory against invaders. An ironic overture, Edmund thought, for what was to come.

“I don’t know what victory means,” Colonel Schtillhart said, stepping forward towards the rank and file. “I suppose it means something different to different people.”

“For Generals,” he gestured behind him, “and other officers, it means medals. Honor. Glory. A place in the history books where your name will be forever remembered as the Man who Changed History.” He paused, looking at the ground. “That’s what it meant to me. I admit it. I thought I would go home with a medal on my chest and…” he shook his head. “But these things come at a price. There are those who think victory looks a lot like peace. By that measure, I think we’ve got a pretty good victory here at Harmingsdown already, and we did it without guns and artillery and gas. We did it because we decided that those who think victory looks like piles of dead bodies are wrong.”

Edmund closed his eyes, and breathed deeply as the soldiers began to cheer. Now, if he was really lucky…

The soldiers fell silent as Brigadier Muggeridge stepped out of the Officer’s Quarters. In his hand, he held the letter Edmund had left for him. He hadn’t forged it, though he had been prepared to. It had arrived via telegraph not two days ago, just before the Brigadier was scheduled to return. It was perfect timing that Edmund could not have planned, and only barely prepared for.

The Brigadier looked up from the letter, his chastened face filled with firm embarrassment and not a little fear. Patiently and politely, the soldiers waited as he lifted the letter in the air and cleared his throat.

“By order of the King, and with advice from the Board of Generals, The Treaty of Leyon was signed five days ago. The Great War is officially over.”