I could make them out in the moonlight, standing silent and alert, in groups of two or three.  Perched on the ledge of earth which raised them to the height of the parapet, they had their eyes wide open in the darkness, looking towards the enemy.  Their loaded rifles were placed in front of them, between two clods of hardened earth.  They neither complained nor uttered a word, but suffered nobly.  They understand that they must.  Ah! where now were the fine tirades of pothouse orators and public meetings?  Where now were the oaths to revolt, the solemn denials and the blasphemies pronounced against the Fatherland?  All was forgotten, wiped out from the records.  If we could have questioned those men who stood there shivering, chilled to the bone, watching over the safety of the country, not one of them, certainly, would have confessed that he was ever one of the renegades of yore.  And yet if one were to search among the bravest, among the most resigned, among the best, thousands of them would be discovered.  Heaven grant that this miracle, wrought by the war, may be prolonged far beyond the days of the struggle, and then we shall not think that our brothers’ blood has been spilt in vain.

We brushed past them, but they did not even turn round.  Eyes, mind, and will were absorbed in the dark mystery of the silent landscape stretching out before them.  But the night, though it was so bright, gave everything a strange appearance; transformed all living things and increased their size; made the stones, the stacks, and the trees move, as it seemed to our weary eyes; cast fitful shadows where there were none; and made us hear murmurs which sounded like the muffled tramp of troops marching cautiously.  Those men watched because they felt that there was always the danger of a surprise attack, of a sudden rush of Teutons who had crawled up through the grass of the fields.  They had piled on their backs empty sacks, blankets, and old rags, for warmth, and wound their mufflers two or three times round their necks; they had taken all possible precautions for carrying out their duty to the very last.  And although our hearts had been hardened by the unprecedented miseries of this war, we were seized with pity and admiration.  Presently one of them turned round and said to us: 

“Hallo!  They are lighting up over there now.”

I jumped up on to the ledge and saw, in fact, lights shining in three different places some way off.  After looking attentively I guessed the meaning of this quite unusual illumination in the rear of the trenches.  The lights came from some large fir-trees, placed there under cover of night, and beautifully lighted up.  With my glasses I could make them out distinctly, and even the figures dancing round them; and we could hear their voices and shouts of merriment.  How well they had arranged the whole thing!  They had even gone as far as to light up their Christmas trees with electricity, so as to prevent our gunners from using them as an easy target.  In fact, every few minutes all the lights on a tree were suddenly put out, and only appeared some minutes afterwards.