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December 25th 1914, No Man’s Land at the Western Front
Crowley walked across the uneven land, focusing on trying to catch gunshot noises. He must be extremely close to one of the fighting fronts, so the air should be ringing with shooting bangs, screams of pain and terror and all the other sounds accompanying wars.
But it was silent.
Crowley growled as he stepped on the extremely muddy earth and nearly toppled over as his foot sunk into the puddle.
‘Aziraphale’, he growled as he miracled his trousers clean again. The angel really was picking the worst places to meet up at the worst times.
Well, truth be told, Aziraphale didn’t yet know he was going to meet Crowley. One of Crowley’s contacts had told him someone looking like Aziraphale had been spotted around here and Crowley just had to check up on that. The last time they met up around a violent dispute, Aziraphale managed to get himself sentenced to execution and Crowley had had to get him out. Now Aziraphale was strolling around an actual war zone and Crowley had to make sure their past wasn’t repeating itself.
If Aziraphale already had gotten himself into trouble, Crowley could help him out. Humans might not be able to actually kill angels, they could destroy their vessels and Aziraphale was very fond of his current one.
Of course Crowley also didn’t want to risk getting another angel sent down to replace a discorporated Aziraphale. This hypothetical new angel might actually do their job, which would force Crowley to do his too, instead of going for a nice meal with Aziraphale.
So that’s why he now was walking right towards one of the western fronts, expecting to hear and see the typical signs of war. However, there were none.
Crowley stopped to check his surroundings.
No Man’s Land stretched across miles, so maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere? That would make this whole ‘Rescue Aziraphale’-mission a lot more complicated! He had been so certain he took the right path.
Suddenly he could hear a loud mixture of screeching voices.
So there were people here.
He took a step forward in the direction of the voices, then stopped again. These voices didn’t sound like screams of pain or terror. They were way too melodic for that.
Crowley furrowed his brows as he realised he wasn’t hearing people screaming. He was hearing people singing.
Why would people be singing right now? Did one of the sides gain a huge victory? Or was the war over?
With a quick pace Crowley walked towards the singing.
As he got closer, he recognized the singing to be in German. Did the Germans win?
Crowley stopped before he could reach a point from where he could be seen by soldiers.
Obviously, thanks to a little miracle, no human would be able to see him, even here on the front they would just overlook him. However, if he were at a spot where soldiers would be able to see him, he also would be at a distance where he could get hit by bullets meant for the enemy. The Germans might be singing right now, but that didn’t mean the fighting was over. It might be just a distraction to confuse their British enemy.
Crowley put his entire focus on trying to understand what was being sung.
‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht…’
Crowley furrowed his brows again. He was not an expert in this field, but he was very sure this was a German Christmas carol.
‘Hello Crowley. I’m surprised to see you here’, said someone behind him.
Crowley turned around.
‘Angel’, he exclaimed happily at the sight of Aziraphale. He figured Aziraphale was not in immediate danger of discorporation as he wasn’t in handcuffs (again).
‘I hope you do not plan to disturb them right now’, Aziraphale said with a serious tone.
‘Disturb what?’, Crowley asked, ‘How have you been by the way? Here in this war zone?’
‘I’m alright, thank you. I have not been here for long yet’, Aziraphale answered with a friendly smile, before getting serious again, ‘However I am ready to stop you if I have to.’
‘Stop me from what exactly?’, Crowley asked irritated, ‘I have nothing to do with this war. You know that!’
‘I don’t want you to disturb the truce here’, Aziraphale explained.
Crowley turned his head back to where the German singing was coming from. By now from the other side of No Man’s Land an English Christmas carol had been started.
‘A truce? Is that why they are singing?’, Crowley asked. He hadn’t heard about any truces.
‘Yes!’, Aziraphale said happily.
Of course he would be happy about a bunch of soldiers stopping fighting to sing Christmas carols. Crowley couldn’t refrain from his eyes.
‘They all wanted a truce for Christmas and even though no side has officially agreed to one…’, Aziraphale gestured towards the fighting-free land around them, ‘the soldiers have made their decision.’
Crowley raised his eyebrows.
‘And they did it completely by themselves?’, he asked.
Aziraphale looked at him scandalously. ‘Of course they did! Humans are very much capable to do good deeds by themselves’, he exclaimed.
Crowley looked at him, still not convinced.
‘I mean it’, Aziraphale said quieter, before stepping closer to Crowley to explain, ‘I did come here to maybe help these people a bit to get their peaceful Christmas, but they were already much friendlier to each other when I got here. And I had nothing to do with the singing. But I would still prevent you from disrupting it.’
‘I didn’t come here because of the truce. How can I plan to disrupt something I didn’t know exists?’
That seemed to make Aziraphale believe him.
‘Well, why are you here then?’, he asked Crowley, who just shrugged.
‘Someone told me, they’ve seen someone looking an awful lot like you around here and I wanted to make sure you’re not once again in danger of getting this body of yours killed.’
‘Oh’, Aziraphale said with a smile, ‘thank you. That is very kind of you.’
Crowley groaned at the ‘compliment’. Why couldn’t he have just lied? He was a demon, he didn’t have to tell the truth.
Aziraphale’s attention shifted from Crowley to something behind him. Crowley turned around and saw one of the German soldiers slowly and carefully moving across No Man’s Land towards the British front line.
‘You said the truce isn’t official by any of the governments?’, Crowley asked.
‘It is not’, Aziraphale answered with slight worry in his voice.
The German soldier still walked towards his enemies, who were still singing their Christmas carol.
Crowley just had to suspect that this was all a scheme by the Germans to catch the British off guard. If the truce wasn’t ordered by their governments, none of them had to follow any sets of rules ensuring peace. Either side could easily start a sneak attack.
This sneak attack was apparently about to fail as one of the British soldiers also moved across towards the Germans.
‘Who are you? And what are you doing here?’, suddenly someone asked from their right.
Aziraphale and Crowley turned their heads. A German soldier stood a few feet away from them, a weapon in his hand, but not yet aimed at them.
Aziraphale opened his mouth, most likely to invent some kind of story to explain them being here, but Crowley just snapped his fingers. Miraculously the soldier forgot he ever saw them and left to go back to singing Christmas carols.
Aziraphale looked at Crowley with a bit of distaste.
‘You didn’t have to whip his memory. I would have come up with a perfect explanation.’
‘Your `perfect explanations` in these situations usually get us into even more trouble and I have to make even more people forget us. I took the short cut today’, Crowley answered, turning his attention back on the two soldiers. They were about to meet each other. It was impossible they haven’t seen each other yet, but none of them had started something aggressive.
‘This time my story would not have brought us into any trouble, I already had one planned’, Aziraphale said with only half of his motivation. Crowley shot a quick look over to him and saw that Aziraphale too had his attention fully on the two soldiers. His comment had only been formality.
Crowley turned back to No Man’s Land.
The two soldiers met each other in the middle of this muddy field where many of their comrades had been killed and had killed each other. Still, none of them attacked the other, even though they seemed to be talking and gesturing with each other.
Crowley leaned a bit forward, squeaking his eyes to see what exactly they were doing. It looked like they exchanged something small with each other.
‘They are giving each other Christmas presents’, Aziraphale detected breathlessly.
And they really did!
They exchanged a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of alcohol. Without any violence or aggression from either side, the two soldiers split up and returned to their stations again.
Crowley turned to Aziraphale, seeing him smiling from ear to ear.
‘You didn’t have anything to do with that either?’, Crowley asked suspiciously.
But Aziraphale just shook his head.
‘Well’, Crowley said, not sure what to say.
‘Humans don’t need angels do to good’, Aziraphale said, still smiling, ‘they are cable to do it themselves.’
Crowley rolled his eyes.
‘Then why are you down here?’
‘To stop you from tempting them into doing something bad, of course’, Aziraphale answered.
‘Well, I didn’t start this war. None of us did’, Crowley reminded him, ‘they were very good at doing this themselves too.’
Now it was Aziraphale who didn’t know what to say. He turned back to No Man’s Land. They stood there for a few minutes in silence until Aziraphale started talking:
‘It wasn’t’ them who started this’, he gestured to the soldiers’ stations.
‘No’, Crowley agreed, ‘the people who started it are still at home. But most of those here still volunteered to fight.’
‘Now they volunteered to start a truce without official permission’, Aziraphale said.
‘Brave of them. Could get them into big trouble back home’, Crowley said.
‘It won’t’, Aziraphale answered and this time Crowley didn’t have to ask. He knew that Aziraphale would miracle that to be true.
They spent the rest of this day that way. Watching these soldiers, hundreds and thousands of them, celebrating Christmas, both alone with their troops and together with their enemies. First they just met each other on No Man’s Land to give each other gifts. A while later they started to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades. They even celebrated some of the burials together.
That was something Crowley found a bit tasteless maybe. It was not completely unlikely that one of the soldiers buried had been killed by one of the enemies attending. But he didn’t share this thought as Aziraphale had watched the burials with a soft smile on his face and Crowley didn’t want to ruin the mood.
Even later that day, Crowley had miracled them two chairs, two glasses and a bottle of wine. If he hadn’t also miricaled them invisible, they would’ve probably looked incredibly out of place. Both of them sitting in comfortable chairs, sipping wine in the middle of No Man’s Land, watching the weirdest game of soccer.
Some soldiers of both sides had come together and were kicking some kind of can all across the land. They were way too many players, there were no proper goals to kick the can in, but they were having fun.
‘How long do you think this truce will last, angel?’, Crowley asked.
Aziraphale shrugged. ‘Hopefully long.’
‘Ngk. The war isn’t over yet’, Crowley said.
‘It’s not going to be for a while’, Aziraphale sighed and emptied his glass.
‘But the truce is not over yet either’, Crowley said, trying to lift the mood again.
‘They might start fighting again tomorrow or next year’, Aziraphale said with a low voice, clearly deep in thought, ‘it’s not an official truce, there are no rules.’
‘Well’, Crowley said, filling Aziraphale’s glass again, ‘you’re are here, so the truce will probably last longer, won’t it.’
Aziraphale smiled slightly. ‘I might have a miracle or two in mind, yes!’, than Aziraphale shot Crowley a quick look, ‘However, Heaven didn’t allow me to intervene with this war as long as I don’t have a reason.’
‘Though’, Crowley replied. He remembered Heaven’s bureaucracy. It wasn’t too different from Hell’s.
Aziraphale stilled looked at Crowley, who turned to him.
‘What?’, he asked irritated.
‘Well, a demon trying to tempt soldiers into ending the truce would be a good reason for me to intervene’, Aziraphale said slowly with a smile and raised his brows conspiratorial.
‘Ngk’, Crowley groaned.
‘You wouldn’t really have to do anything’, Aziraphale quickly said, ‘you just have to make your plans clear to me.’
Crowley closed his eyes and sighed in defeat.
‘Fine, maybe I will go down there later and tell the soldiers how easy a surprise attack would be right now’, he said.
Aziraphale clapped his hands excitingly. ‘Than I will have no choice but to do a little miracle to stop you and safe these poor humans.’
‘Yeah’, Crowley answered, ‘I will leave you with no other options’, he smirked, ‘But first I’m interested in how this soccer game will end.’ A sentence he has never said before and would never say again.
‘Than I also have to stay, I’m afraid’, Aziraphale said, filling both of their glasses again, ‘I can’t leave you out of my sight under these circumstances.’
‘Real shame’, Crowley answered sarcastically.
They clinked glasses.