Humanity

My body shook and my arm ached. I could taste the dirt in my mouth and feel the wet uncomfortable mud soaking through my pants, working its way through my underwear as well. My lips were dry, my head ached, and all around, nothing but noise and battle. My eyes were stinging from the smoke. The smell of blood and metal filled the air. And despite all the commotion, despite the ache in my muscles, I sat as still as a rock.

My shaking finger played with the trigger of my revolver. My hand ached. My fingers were frozen. All I wanted to do was relax. And yet, any slight movement, any slight flinch, and it could be my last. I felt Death’s breath on the back of my neck as I sat frozen in this dismal, stinking hell.

Opposite me sat a German boy, barely eighteen years old. He was scared and trembling, just like me. His uniform was covered in mud, his muscles clearly aching, just like me. And in his right hand, he held a pistol, frozen finger hovering the trigger, just like me.

The two of us stared at each other as bullets whizzed overhead, explosives exploding around us with irregular regularity. In that moment the war didn’t matter. Churchill didn’t matter, neither did Hitler. England, Germany, the British Army, the German war machine – all was forgotten. In that moment, all that existed was two men, scared and pointing guns at each other. If one fired, the other would too. If one tried to escape, they would be killed out of fear. One small move by either party and death was mutually assured. Just as Death breathed down my neck, the German Death sat by his side too, waiting, anticipating who would blink first.

He didn’t speak English. I didn’t speak German. There was no diplomacy, no compromise to be had. Soon, very soon, someone would make a move. And when that happened, someone would die. Was it going to be him? Was it going to be me? Was it going to be both?

My heart beat hard in my chest. I could see the sweat on his brow as he shook with fear. His eyes were begging, pleading with me not to shoot. He was only a boy, barely out of school, he hadn’t yet had a life. No chance yet to marry a girl, have a family, or live life as an adult. Despite the cultural differences, body language was unmistakeable. His eyes screamed, Please, please give me that chance! Please, please let me live!

And I thought about my wife and son at home. I hadn’t seen my son for eight months now and it hurt more and more every day. When I left he was barely out of the cradle, and during my time overseas, he’d grown his first tooth, taken his first steps, and was even learning to talk. But I had yet to experience any of this for myself, outside of the neatly written notes kept in my jacket pocket, my only connection to my wife. I longed to be with her, I longed to hold my son again, and I longed to be home. And as I looked back at the German boy, I knew he understood my plea back to him. He understood my fear and my longing. He understood my desire to go home. And he understood all of this because, as we sat there in deadlock, we were as one, feeling the same things, thinking the same things, and both wishing, praying, that we were anywhere else but here.

I didn’t want to kill him. And it was clear by his body language that he didn’t want to kill me. I swallowed what little saliva I could muster in my mouth. He shifted his weight slightly to relieve an aching muscle. And on went the tension as our two weapons pointed at each other’s hearts, shaky fingers millimetres away from ending each other’s life.

I frowned. Why were we even here, sitting in this mud and squalor, battle raging around us? I used to believe so deeply in the cause. I firmly believed that we were here to help people escape the shackles of fascism and lead them to a better life. But seeing the death and destruction firsthand, and so many boys, just like this one here, cut down by bullets or limbs torn off by explosives, it seemed so futile. Was it worth all of this death? Was it worth the lives of so many? British propaganda had painted Hitler as the Devil himself, but from what I’d seen, our side was causing death and misery, just the same as the enemy. Was death and destruction justified because we thought we were the good guys? I supposed only time would tell.

The German boy tilted his head slightly. Tell me about it, I imagined him thinking with that motion. From my perspective, we are the good guys. We were told of the evils of the Jew, and our enemies rising in the west. We went to Austria, to Poland, to France, all to liberate the people suffering from economic hardship, and to show them the better, German way. I volunteered to fight for my cause because I was proud of my nation, and I knew we could spread a better way of living to the world. Like you, all I wanted to do was to help people live a better life, and save them from their poverty and misery. I thought we were doing good in the world.

I tensed and untensed my arm, trying hard to relieve the cramp in my muscle as I tried my best to hold my gun steady. I nodded slightly, understanding the point I’d imagined him to be making. I let myself smile a little. War is so easy when you fight your enemy from afar, I thought back at him. You shoot your gun, you blow up your bombs, and despite the noise, the screams, the injured, it disconnects you from the humanity of it all. But here, sitting so close to the enemy, staring into each other’s eyes, you realise that we’re all just human. British, German, French, Russian, Jewish… At the end of the day we bleed the same, we cry the same, we die the same. War is so much harder when it becomes personal and you stop seeing your foe as nothing but a monster. When you start seeing your enemy as human, it makes it so much harder to kill.

And that’s why neither of us have pulled the trigger, I imagined the German boy answering back. He took a deep shaky breath. Fighting up there, we’re all just nameless, faceless targets. Down here, in this hole, we are as one – feeling the same, thinking the same, fearing the same. I can’t shoot you because right now you are me. And you can’t shoot me because right now I am you.

And as we sat there in the wet uncomfortable mud, I knew what I imagined him to say was right. I could put myself inside his shoes, and see what he saw – me sitting there, pointing a gun at his chest. I saw me, an enemy, but at the same time another human being, and yet with no understanding of German, no compromise could be reached. Though I was in my late twenties, there was still so much I wanted to do, and in his place, I could see it in my eyes. The dreams, the hopes, the fears, the longing for home. And as him, I felt his own longing for home - for Germany, for his home country, and for whichever town or city he came from. I felt him miss his family, his friends, and dreams of a life barely lived. And I could feel his gun, held in his shaking hand, cold and waiting, his finger hovering the trigger. And I knew, placing myself in his shoes, that he knew, that I knew, that we couldn’t keep this up much longer. One of us was going to move soon.

BOOM! Together we jumped as an explosion tore through the lip of the hole to the right. Mud and water rained over us as we both moved, taking advantage of the distraction. I lowered my gun and he did the same and we both scrambled for the top of the hole. He reached the top first and turned back. With fear in his eyes, he held out his hand and heaved me to the top.

BANG! Blood sprayed from his chest as his eyes grew wide with surprise and with shock. He coughed once, blood spraying from his mouth as he fell to his knees. I hurried to kneel at his side as he collapsed completely to the ground.

His body shook violently as he looked at me with fear. He knew it was over, he knew he was done. His eyes wept at the dreams unfulfilled, the longing for home, and the life barely lived. I grabbed his hand and held it in mine. I offered him what little comfort I could as he convulsed some more. And suddenly, with one last breath he looked me in the eye and the final thing I saw was the question to haunt me forever: Why?

*

As I sit here now, body old and weak, I still think back to that day. I sit at memorials, I go through life, and every day I still see that boy. The fear in his eyes, the longing of home, and the humanity in his soul. I sit here now, alive and well, almost eighty-six, because of that single day, the fleeting few minutes when a young German boy saw the humanity in me and made the decision not to pull his trigger. I was able to see my son grow up and have kids of his own, one of which is now seven months pregnant - my first great-grandchild on the way.

When the young German boy died, it was like I died with him – I felt his fear, his pain, his confusion. Because for that brief moment, I was him, just as he was me, and despite our language barrier, we understood each other completely. It was a bond I’ve never shared again – not with my wife, not with my son, not anyone. Since that day, I’ve felt a part of him left in me, and through me, while I lived my life, he got to live it too, experiencing all of those things he never got to. And every day I work to make him proud of me, proud of us, as I live my best life to honour his memory, making sure he didn’t die in vain.