No Man's Land

“Conjunctions.”

“That’s why some wanker shot Ferdinand.”

“Well not directly, obviously. But it’s the little things, y’see. Everything’s so big now, we forget ’em.”

Another shell hits, and a great whump of earth goes up. We duck our heads and it rattles on our helmet-pots. Flenk and Roper go right on chatting.

“You take that poem Sarge keeps quoting, right? Theirs not to reason why—”

“Theirs but to do or die.”

“Exactly, but that’s not how it goes! It’s theirs but to do and die, that’s the whole bloody point. Single word changes everything.”

I miss colors. The only color in the trench is dirt. The only weather is smoke. Sometimes I like to see the shells come down, because of the red.

“Here, lad.” Flenk nudges me. “You’re always quiet, you must have some deep thoughts in there. You reckon a word can make a war?”

“. . .Mum says it takes two to quarrel.”

“Ha! You hear that, Rope, the boy’s a genius. There it is: one man says yes and the other no, and next thing—”

Sarge’s voice: “Here they come!”

*

This war is grey fire. There is no warmth here, no light: only ruin, only ash. Crouching behind twisted wires and mud, striking men down with poisoned air—I’m a schoolteacher, no warrior, but nonetheless I feel the weight of ancestral shame.

In a better century, as a skinny, squinting boy, I stood up to Dietrich and the others—even when they beat me and tore my books. Maria, my friend, had chased the hens all morning for her slice of chocolate cake, and they would have stolen it from her. I couldn’t let them do it, though I couldn’t fight very well. I made believe I was Wotan, charging down the serpent’s throat to undefeated death. And I swear I would do the same now, for the glory of my country; but Maria waits, and I have promised her children when I come home.

“Hey Professor! Where’s your bayonet?”

“It is, ah—in my pack, I believe.”

“Well, quit mooning about and fix it on! The sun’s almost down.”

“Yes, Gefreiter.”

A charge: one of my two great dreams! But the other, a life with my love, is greater. Perhaps it is too much to hope for both.

The cold dead sun goes to its grave in the west. We fix bayonets, and our rifles are a spectral thicket in the rising shadow. I have never been so afraid. Then Gefreiter Holst paces to the front of the line. Draws his saber, slowly.

And roars: “Charge!”

And we roar in answer, my comrades and I. Up the ladder, over the lip, into the no man’s land. I did not know I could howl so loudly, run so fast. My puny muscles take the fear and turn it into rage. For my country, for my wife, for the children I will father, I will crush these English pigs. I am strength, I am honor. I am Germany!

Machine gun fire: a scythe in a wheatfield. In the flare-light, for an instant, I see Holst’s chest explode—then I’m blinded by the splattering pulp of his lungs. I don’t stop running, mustn’t, can’t.

The shells keep falling, ours or theirs, it doesn't matter. When I see the crater before my feet, I’m already falling.

*

Mum says the Germans are people just like us. Flenk and Roper say they’re monsters. I wonder who’s right.

The flares keep going up, and the 16-pounders. No man’s land is lit up like a purple nightmare, and the Germans are coming through the flak and the barbed wire like nighttime creatures that can’t feel pain. I’m a good shot, but it’s so hard to aim right now. Just keep steady. Keep shooting, don’t stop shooting.

Then Roper’s voice: “Yeah, run back to your Kaiser, ya poltroons!”

They’ve stopped. They’re retreating. But no time to think—Sarge is shouting, “After ’em, lads! After ’em!”

Scrambling up over the lip of the trench. Sprinting out into the smoldering mud. Monsters, poltroons. Filthy Germans, I’ll kill them all myself!

Oh God, too fast—too dark—falling—

Oh God, a German—lunging—I fire one shot—

*

He falls from the sky.

Dazed by the plunge into the crater, I’m just getting to my feet when he comes hurtling towards me, backlit: black angel, red devil. I drive my blade through his heart as he shoots me in the throat. He’s just a boy. I hear my own gurgling voice: “Maria.”

And his: “Mama.”

I settle to the earth, weightless, and we stand facing each other in the solemn light. The war-strife is faint around us, the sound of a wireless in another room. Shyly, he smiles. “I’m Danny.”

I find myself smiling back. “Gunter.”

“What do we do now, d’you think?” he asks. I don’t speak English, but I understand.

“Not sure, but—” I point. The sun has barely set, but a golden luminescence is growing in the east.

He nods, and I put a hand on his shoulder. We rise from the crater, side by side.