Warsaw, December 24, 1939.

Seryosha felt that it was a miracle that he had survived until now, and what was even more miraculous was that Seryosha had two old acquaintances from the same village who had survived - Grigory had been wounded once, but was soon sent back to the front by the military hospital, and as a result, he was miraculously assigned to another unit with Seryosha Mishka, who had remained at the front line.

"You know," Mishkara pulled the blanket over her, "it's Christmas Eve." ”

"Are you stupid?" Grigory, who was guarding the machine gun, immediately shouted angrily, "Christmas is still more than a month." ”

"You're stupid, the Germans don't use the same calendar as we do, no, the calendar used in all of Europe is different from ours, we use the Julian calendar, and the people use the Gregorian calendar. Tomorrow is Christmas, and ours is in January according to the calendar. ”

"." Grigory muttered, but did not continue to refute Mishka, which Seryosha knew showed that Grigory had been persuaded by Mishka.

"I don't know if there will be any activity on the Germans' side." Seryosha joined the conversation, "Maybe they'll have a bigger dinner tonight or something." ”

Mishka shrugged his shoulders and said, "Who knows, didn't the German prisoner say that the supply situation on the German side is not much better than ours, and their transportation capacity has to be handed over to ammunition and oil, as well as various equipment, so they can only eat compressed dry food like us." ”

"And coffee that tastes bad to death." Seryosha shook his head, he thought of the German military instant coffee he had recently gotten from the scout who had gone to scratch his tongue, and when he saw that the packaging was so tall that he thought it was something good, he happily brewed it with some hot water, but it was so bad that he almost didn't vomit. Mishka took a sip at the time, and then exclaimed, "I'd rather drink mud than drink this thing."

Seryosha's words were immediately echoed by Mishka: "Yes, that coffee is really hard to drink. ”

At this moment the rumbling of the cannon rang out, and all those lying near them immediately came to their senses, and pricked up their ears to listen to the sound in the sky—and soon everyone realized that the cannon was not aimed at them, and they all wilted like deflated balls, and reverted to the appearance of staggering.

"The artillerymen really don't stop." Mishkara pulled the blanket that covered his body, although the fighting people were resistant to the frost, they still needed blankets to keep warm, and if it weren't for the fear of the fire attracting mortar shelling from the Germans, the Russian soldiers would definitely have raised the fire too.

The rumbling of cannon fire lasted for more than ten minutes, and the night fell silent again.

Then, white snowflakes fell.

The so-called white Christmas is romantic when you are with your loved ones on the bustling streets in peacetime. In the ruined city of Warsaw, the flying snowflakes are nothing but painful.

", it's snowing again." Grigory said.

"Be content, we are at least guarding a building with few holes, and those who are guarding the place where there is not even a roof are really unlucky, and can only rely on the dog holes they dig to escape the heavy snow."

Gregory did not speak, but continued to lie down next to the machine gun and observe the positions of the Germans. Seryosha had a sizable square between them and the Germans, and the only bunkers in the square were the fountains and statues that had been blown to pieces, and the previous days of fighting had left the whole square full of corpses, and both sides found it impossible to rush through the square, even with the support of chariots.

Gregory and the others were stationed on the second floor, and the anti-tank artillery team deployed on the first floor had already killed three tanks, and the black wreckage of the German tank was now paralyzed on the side of the square by the Germans, and the black shell was now almost covered with white snow, and it looked like there were three tumors growing in the snow.

"The Germans only need to drive a few more chariots," said Grigory, not without concern, "to block half of the square, and then they may be able to rush to this side." ”

"Maybe that's exactly what they're going to do, maybe not, what does that have to do with us?" As soon as Mishka finished speaking, Grigory raised a hand.

"Quiet, I hear voices from the German position."

Mishka and Seryosha both closed their mouths and pricked up their ears to listen, as did the others around them who had been listening to their chat.

Soon everyone heard what Grigory had said, not because everyone was quiet, but because the Germans were getting louder and louder - in fact, there was no one in the whole building talking in the first place, and everyone was too cold to speak.

The Germans are singing.

"It's a Christmas hymn." Seryosha whispered.

Although Russians and Germans belong to different language families, both Christmas carols are in the same tune, which can be heard even if the language is not understood.

Everyone in the building listened quietly, and when the Germans sang it a second time, someone couldn't help but sing along.

For a moment, two armies, who were planning to kill each other, sang Christmas carols in the same tune in a completely different language across a square full of wreckage and corpses.

Soon, friendly troops on both sides were infected and joined the chorus.

In the quiet of the battlefield, only the singing of gratitude and prayers for the future echoed, and one could not help but feel that time had been reversed, and a beautiful phantom called peace appeared in the minds of the soldiers on both sides at the same time, with a temperature completely different from the bitter cold of the surroundings.

The chorus of the two sides continued until midnight on the 24th, when it gradually ended.

**

The next day, Seryosha was awakened by Mishka's exclamations.

"The Germans are coming!"

Seryosha's brain was still a mess, but his body had already reacted quickly, and he grabbed the gun and threw himself into his position without the command of his brain. It was only then that his consciousness fully awakened and he began to process the images captured by his eyes. He saw a German officer crossing the square with a white flag.

"Brothers of the Russian army, on behalf of the German army, I propose a truce for half a day!" The officer spoke a smooth Russian.

Seryosha turned his head to look at his two fellow villagers, and found that the two of them were also confused, and even Mishka, who usually gave the impression of being smart, looked very confused.

At this time the others were in an uproar, and Seryosha hurriedly turned his attention to the outside of the building, and he saw the commander of the building's defense forces, Captain Ivanov, walking towards the German officer.

After talking for a while, they shook each other's hands.

While the German officer turned to walk towards his own line, the captain turned around and shouted to the Russian soldiers in the building, "The Germans want to clean up the battlefield, recover the corpses, and exchange prisoners." So don't shoot later, and we'll send someone to bring back our brother's body. Whoever wants to go, go downstairs and gather by himself. ”

Twenty minutes later, hundreds of unarmed soldiers from both sides appeared in the square, walking towards each other with nervous steps.

Seryosha noticed that there was a German soldier about his own age walking across from him, and he looked terribly nervous.

Mishka gently poked Seryosha in the waist and whispered: "Take it easy, your expression is about to scare the Germans." ”

Seryosha squeezed out a smile, and the German on the other side returned him with a smile that was dull and twisted from nervousness.

Finally, the people on both sides came face to face.

Seryosha stretched out his hand: "My name is Seryosha." ”

The German obviously didn't understand, but he obviously guessed what Seryosha meant, so he took Seryosha's hand and said, "I practice from the bottom of my heart." ”

After shaking hands, the two sides began to clean up the battlefield, at first the two sides just did their own things, but I don't know who got up, the two sides began to help each other, and soon, the corpses were almost cleaned up, and the idle soldiers began to gesture with their hands, communicating with difficulty, and even exchanging some gadgets with each other.

Seryosha traded his vodka for a tiny little lighter, and he traded his cigarette for a little German cigarette to try it out, while Mishka didn't know what to exchange for what the Germans called "spicy strips".

"It tastes pretty good." Mishka chewed on the spicy strips, nodding as she went.

Immediately after that, someone made a ball out of nowhere, so a ball game started in the square full of craters, because there were no rules, the two sides hula went up and each went up to play the ball with 20 people, and the other hundreds of people were around to watch hotly, and the whole square was full of young people's laughter.

The German officers who had come to communicate at the beginning stood with the Russian captains together, watching the young men run with their hands on their chests, chasing the balls, and with a generous smile on their faces that was not satisfied with their officer status.

But at this moment, the distant cannon sound rang out again.

The young people who were still running in the square stopped and looked up in the direction from which the cannon was fired, and the cheerful smiles on their faces quickly faded.

The sound of artillery made them suddenly realize that the war was still going on and that peace was not coming.

The moment they realized this, everyone's faces were filled with loss.

Seryosha walked up to the nearest German and stretched out his hand, and the German did not hesitate to shake Seryosha's hand back.

"Kill your aunt. (Russian transliteration)" Seryosha said.

The German was stunned for a moment, then lamely imitated Seryosha's pronunciation and responded in Russian: "Kill your eldest mother." ”

Seryosha nodded, let go of his hand and was about to turn around, but at this time the Germans "fed", Seryosha stopped and looked back at the Germans.

The Germans took out a large piece and stuffed it into Seryosha's hands.

"Chocolate." He still speaks German, but Seryosha knows what chocolate is.

"Thank you." Seryosha didn't know how to respond for a while, and finally threw out the only Chinese sentence he knew.

The German smiled at him, then put on his steel helmet and turned around.

Seryosha also turned around and followed the brigade towards the defending building.

The famous Christmas truce, and so ended.