But after laughing, everyone fell silent.
Everyone looked at each other, and finally cast their gazes towards the front of their own position.
Because these words also reminded the Saxon soldiers that when they just built the trenches, they also left some comrades’ bodies in front of the enemy position during probing attacks.
Not long after, those two familiar figures—the Scottish Captain wearing a kilt and the exhausted-looking Second Lieutenant Wilson—appeared again beside that broken tree stump.
Seeing them, Morin didn’t talk nonsense either. He adjusted his overcoat collar and walked out with a few officers.
No profound negotiation skills were needed, nor even any formal documents. The two sides quickly reached an agreement.
“Today is Christmas, after all.”
Morin looked at the two enemy officers with dark circles under their eyes and handed over two cigarettes.
“It’s not proper to just let people lie outside like this. Since everyone wants to take a breather, let’s have a ceasefire for another day?”
“I agree.”
The Scottish Captain unceremoniously took the cigarette, cupped his rough large hands against the wind to light it, and took a deep drag: “God wouldn’t want to see us beating each other up in mud pits on His birthday either.”
Thus, an even more absurd but also more heartwarming scene appeared.
Soldiers from both sides walked out of the trenches during the day, then tacitly divided the areas, digging out those stiff and contorted bodies from the mud.
After a simple wipe, they were neatly arranged in freshly dug pits.
A Saxon military doctor who had previously stayed in a monastery stood together with an opposing military chaplain.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis—” (Our Father, who art in heaven—)
The low Latin prayer sounded in the cold wind. This was the sacred language common to the entire Western world, transcending sectarian differences and also the barriers of battle lines.
As the last shovel of dirt was covered, the heaviness pressing on everyone’s heart seemed to be laid to rest along with the dead.
The atmosphere became lively again.
If last night was a tentative contact, then today completely turned into a large-scale mixer.
Not knowing which Scottish barbarian it was, he produced a round object from his pocket like magic.
That thing looked quite shabby. It was made of several layers of worn military uniform fabric tightly wrapping a bladder of some unknown animal inflated with air, barely showing a moldy leathery luster.
“Football?”
The moment this thing landed, it was like a magnet, instantly attracting everyone’s eyeballs.
In these years, whether in the factory districts of Dresden, the shipyards of Glasgow, or even the slums across the ocean…
Football was the most passionate way for workers and poor boys to vent.
“Have a game?”
The Scot provocatively raised an eyebrow and made a kicking motion.
“This is a man’s game, not like you Saxons who only know how to hide in trenches gnawing on sausages.”
“Ha! Big talk!”
A Saxon soldier immediately rolled up his sleeves, turned around, and shouted to the crowd behind him: “Brothers! These guys in skirts want to challenge us on the pitch! Who wants to teach them a lesson?!”
“I’ll do it!”
“Count me in!”
Almost instantly, the originally chatting crowd exploded.
The haze of war was thrown beyond the topmost clouds, and a match of mud and hot blood just began like this.
As the highest-ranking commander of both sides present, Morin naturally became the “head coach” of the Saxon representative team.
He stood on a slightly drier high ground, holding a small notebook temporarily registering the roster, with two rows of eager soldiers standing in front of him.
“Listen, although this is not an official match, it also concerns the face of Saxon men.”
Morin spoke in the serious tone of pre-battle mobilization, his gaze sweeping over those mud-covered faces.
“Instruction Unit, Kahn, Ballack, Lahm… 93rd Infantry Regiment, Klose, Ramelow…”
Reading out this string of names, Morin himself felt incredibly exhilarated.
Although they were just namesakes, if this lineup were placed in later generations, it would be a proper golden age Bundesliga powerhouse configuration. Now he actually gathered them all.
And on the opposite side, that Scottish Captain was also loudly shouting the roster of the Britannian representative team.
Morin pricked up his ears and listened for a while. Good heavens, the opposite side wasn’t sloppy either.
“Southgate! Steady the backline for me! Don’t fucking be like a sieve!”
“Gerrard! When you get the ball, charge forward for me! Do you know how to do that kind of heavy artillery shot? Just like the kind we took earlier!”
“And Owen! Run, you know! Don’t dawdle like a woman! Heskey, go smash away those Saxons!”
Good heavens, Morin complained inwardly, if this were placed a hundred years later, the broadcasting rights for this match would probably be an astronomical price…
With a shrill whistle—blown with a real charge whistle—the match began.
That tattered leather ball rolled around on the muddy frozen ground, and twenty-two overly energetic burly men chased behind like mad dogs.
No referee, no sidelines, and even the goals were just marked by a few stacked overcoats.
But this bunch of people played more devotedly than in a professional league.
Relying on their strong bodies, the Scots took the lead in using long passes and high balls to attack the Saxon defense line.
And that big black guy named Heskey was simply a humanoid tank, charging rampantly, directly knocking the Saxon’s Ramelow two meters away, then rolling in the mud, getting up, and continuing to chase the ball.
“Hey! Foul! That’s definitely a foul!”
“Screw you! Physical confrontation is a part of football. If you’re unhappy, don’t play!”
The “fans” of both sides on the sidelines weren’t idle either, waving hats or helmets, loudly cursing or cheering in various dialects.
The first half ended, and the score was fixed at 3 to 3.
Kahn, the commander of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the instruction unit, acted as the goalkeeper. Although he saved several certain goals, he couldn’t withstand that little guy named Owen on the opposite side being too agile, drilling around the defensive line like a loach…
During the halftime break, Morin looked at the panting players, an emotion called “itching skills” scratching wildly in his chest.
Before transmigration, he was a “fast winger” with pretty good technical skills.
Now watching this bunch of guys kicking blindly on the pitch, he really couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Hey, you there—”
Morin called a midfield soldier who could no longer run, pulled out an unopened chocolate from his pocket, and stuffed it into his hand.
“Rest a while, I’ll sub for you in the second half.”
As soon as that Saxon soldier saw the chocolate in his hand, he was instantly so happy he couldn’t find north, and gave up his position without a word.
When Morin took off his overcoat, rolled up his sleeves, and ran into the center of the pitch, the eyes of the Scottish Captain and Second Lieutenant Wilson opposite went round.
“Damn it, that Saxon Lieutenant Colonel took the field!”
The Scottish Captain tossed the hip flask in his hand to a soldier beside him, taking off his jacket while running onto the pitch.
“Wilson! Don’t just stand there! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! We can openly slide-tackle a Lieutenant Colonel!”
“Coming!”
Second Lieutenant Wilson also roared excitedly and charged in following him.
The style of the second half changed abruptly.
This was no longer just a football match; it simply became a special operation to “encircle and annihilate the Lieutenant Colonel.”
As long as Morin got the ball, at least three people from the opposite side would pounce on him like hungry wolves.
Especially those two officers, their tackles were incredibly dirty, completely aiming to take him down.
But who was Morin? Before transmigration, he was nicknamed “The Little Cristiano Ronaldo of the Army Academy.”
“Ballack, Klose! Press forward for me!”
Morin shouted commands in Saxon while shielding the ball.
“Both wings fly together! Stretch the defense line!”
He did a step-over in the mud, faked past the pouncing Second Lieutenant Wilson, and then backheeled the ball to the advancing Ballack.
In the instant Ballack attracted all defensive attention, Morin slipped into the penalty area like a ghost.
“Pass it back!”
“Bang!”
Ballack reacted extremely fast, and the passing route was tricky. The ball flew back to Morin’s feet in the mud as if it had eyes.
Facing the fiercely pouncing Scottish Captain, Morin didn’t meet him head-on but nimbly flicked the ball with his toe.
The ball chipped over the Captain’s large red beard, also over the goalkeeper’s fingers, and rolled leisurely into the goal marked by two steel helmets.
6 to 5!
“We won!”
The cheers emitted by the Saxon soldiers simply almost overturned the sky.
Morin was lifted up by the excited Saxon soldiers and tossed high into the air. That exhilarating feeling was even more refreshing than winning a battle.
After the match ended, no one wanted to return to those cold, damp dirt pits immediately.
Everyone sat in twos and threes on the muddy ground full of footprints, panting heavily, enjoying this rare peace after the adrenaline faded.
Morin sat cross-legged on a rock, next to those two “enemy” officers who were as tired as dead dogs.
“You’re too ruthless, Your Excellency Lieutenant Colonel.”
The Scottish Captain rubbed his bruised calf, saying unhappily: “That dribble just now was simply humiliating me.”
“There can never be too much deception in war, Captain, and who told you two to stare at me and tackle?”
Morin picked up his military canteen, took a gulp, and sighed comfortably.
“To be honest, you Scots really have a knack for playing football. I appreciate that desperate vigor…”
“Of course. If we Highlanders didn’t know how to fight desperately, we would have long been swallowed up by those Britannian lords without even bones left.”
Once the topic opened, it was like a flooding river breaching a dam.
Morin also took advantage of the opportunity communicating with the opposing officers to obtain a lot of information about Britannia.
For example, the Scots were currently divided into two factions. One faction strongly supported Queen Victoria’s rule, while the other faction disdained the identity of Britannians…
And these people were also basically concentrated and sent to the battlefield.
The soldiers of the North American Legion, as second-class citizens of the colonies, hoped to obtain that “first-class citizen” certificate by joining the army and fighting.
Because only in this way could their families buy houses in the mainland, and their children go to good schools without being called “colonial bastards.”
Morin looked at these two men who had just been making dirty tackles against him on the pitch, and the sense of absurdity in his heart grew stronger.
For the ambitions of others, for so-called identity, this group of people had to slaughter each other in this mud pit…
The warring parties just chatted in No Man’s Land for most of the day, until senior Britannian officers arrived at the second trench for inspection, discovered this situation, and urgently halted this “collaboration with the enemy” behavior.
What Morin and the Saxon soldiers didn’t know was that the Scottish and North American Legion officers who proactively proposed the ceasefire were immediately relieved of their duties and sent to the rear court-martial to await sentencing.
Other soldiers also received the strictest orders: except for attacking, they were forbidden to step out of the trenches even half a step.
Otherwise, it would be treated as treason and they could be shot on the spot.
This war, after a brief flicker of human brilliance, returned to its original state.