 I remember the silence , the eerie sound of silence . Only the guards were on duty . We all went outside the farm buildings and just stood listening . And , of course , thinking of people back home . All I ’ d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing , cracking and whining of bullets in flight , machinegun fire and distant German voices . But there was a dead silence that morning , right across the land as far as you could see . We shouted ‘ Merry Christmas ’ , even though nobody felt merry . The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again . It was a short peace in a terrible war . 
