A Football Match

“On me head, mate!”

Joseph looked round, following the movement of the ball far across the makeshift pitch. It was freezing out here, and the ground was slippery in places. He wasn’t exactly lazy, but he was far from athletic, and he had no intention of running after the ball in this weather. Frost glittered on the few areas of grass that still remained. He shivered.

“Chilly, isn’t it?” Commented a cheerful voice from somewhere nearby. Joseph turned. He had thought himself alone, distanced from the others as he was.

The man beside him was taller than he was by a few inches. He might have been older too, but it was more likely they were of similar ages, and Joseph only saw maturity in the man’s height and bearing. His accent sounded strange to Joseph’s ears, and his clothes showed him to be a member of the other team, although this game was so casual it hardly mattered.

“John Bridges,” said the newcomer, holding out his hand. Joseph shook it hesitantly.

“Joseph Schröder.”

Suddenly, loud cheering burst out on the other side of the pitch. John craned his neck, trying to see past Joseph.

“I say, was that one of yours or one of ours?”

It was quite hard to tell, to be fair. The area they had to play in was hardly the right shape, and there were a number of holes littering the field. Occasionally, and usually with a loud yell, players disappeared from sight unexpectedly, and they’d lost three footballs so far.

“One of ours” he replied, guessing from the reactions of the players.

“Oh, well done, what does that make it? Two all?”

Joseph nodded. He liked John Bridges already. It was almost impossible not to. The man’s cheerful, brusque manner and easy smile made him effortlessly charming, as did his seemingly endless enthusiasm.

John sat down on a nearby wall, and, pulled out a pouch of tobacco.

“Smoke?” He asked Joseph, offering him the first cigarette he rolled. Joseph took it, and sat down on the wall next to the other man, searching in his pocket for matches. John rolled cigarettes swiftly, and Joseph lit both of them from the same match before blowing it out.

“Been here long?” John asked. “I’ve been here since the beginning.”

“I got here just after the start,”

“It looked quite nice when we first got here,”

Joseph looked over the makeshift football pitch again. John was right; when they’d arrived, the field had been, if not perfect, definitely greener than it was now.

“You’re right,” he replied, and then the two men sat in silence for a little longer. Well, perhaps ‘men’ is not the most accurate description. Joseph only really needed to shave once a week, if that, and for all his height and maturity, John still gave the impression of gawkiness from some angles, of limbs which didn’t fit his body. He’d begun to fill out, but his body wasn’t yet what it would grow to be. Then again, they were treated as men and given the responsibilities of men, so what difference did it make that they were still only boys?

Although John seemed happy enough to sit and watch the football game, Joseph was shyer. He desperately tried to think of something to say, so as not to be thought rude or boring, but for a while, conversation evaded him.

A loud groan reached their ears, and across the field, Joseph watched two players start arguing.

“What was that, a foul?” Asked John, almost as if he thought Joseph could see better than he could.

“Probably something like that,” Joseph replied. Squinting, he recognised one of the players involved. Otto, his name was. Joseph might describe him as a friend, for want of a better word, although they weren’t close. He wasn’t the most even-tempered person, so it was hardly surprising this had happened, not even considering the other circumstances. When Joseph voiced this thought, John frowned.

“That’s Charlie he’s arguing with. He’s always getting into fights. The captain’s always threatening him with something or other.” For a minute, John’s cheerful face clouded. “You’d think they would have had enough of fighting,” he said, so quietly Joseph wondered if he’d been meant to hear it.

They were both silent for a minute, an awkward silence compared to the peace they had felt earlier. The atmosphere between them had changed; they had remembered that they were enemies.

For once, it was Joseph who broke it.

“Did you leave anyone special at home?”

John looked up. “No…” he started. It seemed like he was going to say more. “Just my parents,” he finished, apparently deciding not to reveal whatever he was thinking.

Joseph took a small photograph from his pocket. “Anna,” he said, allowing John to see the picture.

“She’s very beautiful,”

“Thank you. Her father says, when I get back -” Joseph trailed off. “When I get back…”

“We were meant to be back by now,” John says. Neither of them meet the others gaze.

Joseph looks up at the darkening sky.

“Yes, we were. Over by Christmas, they said.”

The sun was close to setting. Across the field, Joseph could see that the fight had broken up, and the football match seemed to be over.

“Who won?” John called out to someone passing, someone wearing a uniform which matched his own.

“Three-two to them,” he called back. John stood up.

“Good game,” he said to Joseph, extending his hand. As Joseph shook it, he said “I don’t suppose I’ll see you again,”

Joseph shook his head. No, they probably wouldn’t meet again.

“Well, a merry Christmas to you. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Joseph looked over the field. Now it was no longer covered with the cheerful, noisy scrum of a football match, it seemed lonely and desolate, and the marks and ditches caused by the falling shells of war were now obvious.

“No…it wasn’t so bad.”

“And a happy new year for next week,” John said. Before he turned to walk back over to join the other soldiers, on the other side of no mans land, he added, “and may 1915 bring an end to this ridiculous war.”