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Category: Erotica/BDSM Erotica/Gay Fiction
Description: They met as enemies but ended as something a great deal more than friends... On an icy Christmas morning on the Western Front, 1914, British and German soldiers huddled in trenches less than fifty yards apart, away from their homes and families, cold, weary and afraid. But Lt. Glbert Tillsdale and Captain Wilheim von Faulkner will spark more than a Christmas truce as they walk across no man's land to shake hands. They find passion, comfort and pleasure in each other and share a moment of peace that can only be called miraculous. From one of the bestselling authors of eroica writing today. Cover: Sami Hursey
eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/Sizzler,
eBookwise Release Date: January 2012

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [31 KB]
Words: 5528
Reading time: 15-22 min.

"Wake up, sir. Father Christmas brought us some fags."

Gilbert groaned and shifted, appalled at how he'd fallen asleep. Sitting up, wedged into a depression on the northern wall of the trench, covered from head to foot with a blanket. He pushed the edge of the blanket off his helmet and as it cascaded down his shoulder, it cast up a flurry of frost crystals, the nearest thing to snow this morning. His body was a mass of nothing but cold and aches. He pushed himself against the frozen mud wall of the trench and took Frank Cooper's arm when the younger man stepped over to help.

They were all of a year apart, Gilbert Tillsdale and Frank Cooper. A year plus a life; a religion, an education, and a few ranks. Had it not been for the war, they likely would have never met. Now they were brothers born of the same mother -- blood, bullets, mud and cold.

"Here you are then, Lieutenant," Cooper said cheerfully, pressing a package into Gilbert's hand. "Direct from the King, it is. Next time you meet 'im, tell 'im to toss in some porter or gin."

"I'll add a postscript in my next letter to His Majesty," Gilbert said solemnly. The package was a tin box with Princess Mary's visage upon it. He breathed onto his fingers to open it, reflecting on the poor mail delivery at the front. His last letter from home had been written scant days after he'd left the shores of England; his last package contained light handkerchiefs to keep the sun from his neck. They were wrapped around his feet now, the light silk layered under the thick wool of his socks.

How eager he'd been to march off to war! "You'll have those treacherous Huns scampering back to the Rhine before the trees have turned," his uncle Algernon had predicted. So everyone had said and believed as they gathered by the thousands, reported for training and uniforms and assignments. It would be a jolly adventure, the blooding every boy craves upon becoming a man. He would return covered with medals and glory, take up reading maths at University again and postpone, even briefly, that other social gesture expected of him -- the courting and taking of a wife.

There had been some trepidation concerning joining the completely masculine world of the military. School, he'd learned to navigate while still a green lad; aware of his tastes and limitations and the price of discovery. But his school days were filled with boys just as he was, eager for the company of other boys, to share secrets and confidences, to gently hint and boldly touch, to wrestle and pet, quarrel with and romance, to finally, achingly, risk all and embrace...

But this was not school, and no matter how young his brothers in arms might be -- and he was fairly sure Dennis Holden was nowhere near the eighteen he claimed, but closer to sixteen -- they were no mere boys. Neither were they armed with only the evil power to expose him as an invert, a pederast. They were warriors; and officer or not, he could not hazard their scorn or hatred. True also, he'd grown more than fond of them and their company. He would like to remain high in their esteem.

The box finally yielded and he investigated the contents. Indeed, there were cigarettes; he unwrapped them and stuck one between his lips immediately. Frank Cooper struck a lucifer along a supporting piece of timber -- by some Christmas miracle, it lit. Gilbert sucked in the heated smoke gratefully.