A Battle Cry

The events that changed my life happened on Monday the twenty-third
of March, some years ago. They are written indelibly in my memory. I
will die before I forget them because, however tragic they are, I
choose to remember. It is the least I can do.

"My name is Klaus," he had whispered through his crushed throat. Had he
not spoken his name, I swear I would have dispatched him there and
then.
"Klaus Zimmer," he'd finished.
Although the sound he made was more phlegm than recognisable speech,
you would have thought from his manner that he was introducing himself
at a party.

Far from it.
I was about to kill him.

Why was I doing this? That would be a fair question. Am I an evil
killer, a psychopath? I didn't consider myself that.
I have a wife and three teenage children, my pride and joy. When they
were small, I played with them, read bedtime stories to them, amused
them with silly games. We watched television together in a huddle. My
wife and I love each other and share an indestructible bond of
friendship that has lasted us fifteen years.
But I am trained as a soldier, a member of Her Majesty's armed forces.
Thus, I found myself in this "do or die" situation with our German
friend.

Let me explain a little more.

I had been tasked to search a village that we'd captured after four
bloody days of fighting. I was exhausted, we all were, and I admit that
I was preoccupied with the thought of the hot meal and warm rest that
was waiting for me at our makeshift camp, therefore my patrol was
progressing with haste. It was a mistake, and almost a fatal one.
As I turned around, having given a supposedly deserted house the
once-over, there he was. A German soldier.
He was stood outside the kitchen doorway, a solid chunk of timber in
his hands. From his savage expression I knew he had every intention of
killing me. Call it fate, blind luck, or whatever you will, but I had
been spared thanks to my fortunate timing. I recall my blood running
cold, knowing how close I'd been to dying that morning. It makes me
shiver even now. A fraction longer and my skull would have been
crushed.
Fortunately for me, my instincts were sharp and I did not panic, my
training putting me in good stead. The advantage of surprise now mine,
I leapt headlong at him before he could wind enough power into his
back-swing. He was too slow; I was on him quick as a flash, and the
resulting thump I received across my shoulder and face was just light
enough to leave me sore but intact. I, however, hit him with enough
force to send us both sprawling to the floor, his makeshift club
loosening from his fingers to cartwheel over the tiles with a clatter,
way beyond his reach.
I had never felt so incensed; I hope I never will again. This was a man
who, moments earlier, was preparing to kill me in cold blood, and from
behind like a coward. In a single motion, I'd unsheathed my knife,
yanked his hair in my left hand and scrambled to kneel across his upper
arms. My weight was upon him before he could recover, impeding his
escape. Then I'd pressed the blade against his throat, indenting the
tender skin against his Adam's apple as it bobbed desperately.

And that is when he'd whispered his name.

"Klaus Zimmer."

Why? Why decide to tell me his name, and of all times now?
There was, I think, a period of about a second then where I would still
have slit his throat. I let that second pass, and with it my
hatred.
Until then, Klaus Zimmer wasn't Klaus Zimmer. He was a German soldier,
he was a trained killer and he was content to extinguish my life.
He was a German soldier.
They were all just German soldiers: look the same, speak the same, all
Nazis, all killers, all evil scum. It was our job to save the world, to
stop Hitler's destruction and wipe out the German army.
They weren't people, they were Nazis. And we hated every one of
them.
I remember thinking about that as I sat on top of him, my knife still
pressed to his throat with enough force to draw a trace of blood like a
line of red pen. I remember smelling the sweat of our struggle and
feeling the solid beat of my heart, fuelled by coursing adrenaline and
ancient testosterone urges. I remember the way my breath was heavy,
hissing through my nostrils. And I remember the look of terror upon the
Nazi's - Klaus' - face, as he no longer felt any necessity to be
fearless, to "die like a man".
His life was about to end. It horrified him. It awakened him to
something he had never before realised: that he was mortal.

I think that is why he told me his name.

I felt my muscles relax even as he uttered the words. They say you have
a good and evil side: well, it's true enough. Whereas I had been
desperate to kill this faceless dirty Nazi, I was now polarised. My
body and my heart were relenting against soldier thoughts, thoughts
that told me I must finish my work and butcher him.
I recall clearly wishing that I could do it. A dozen times I had been
in the heat of battle in my short career so far. I had almost certainly
killed more than once, but it had been different somehow.
Once, we had been surprised by a German ambush. They tore down upon our
convoy from the hills, dispensing death in a hail of lead, screaming
like stampeding wild pigs as they killed and killed again with no
visible remorse or emotion. I remember being so terrified that I
thought I would have to stand there and wait to die, my body refusing
to move like road-kill-to-be in the hypnotising glare of
headlights.
I don't know how, but we recovered and fought back. Though in those
circumstances, what choice was there? I was lucky enough to survive the
first assault and, like my comrades, found my weapon and shakily
brought it to bear, firing again and again amidst the dust, the death
and the confusion. It was self-defence. It didn't feel like I was
taking life. I was trying to protect myself, my squad, my country. It
was crazy, sightless fighting, firing into the smoke at anything that
moved and resembled the enemy, not knowing whether it was my round or
the next man's that tore through each German soldier that fell.
I consoled myself in my inability to substantiate any real evidence
that I had killed. And my thoughts would return to my family and how
they had been saved the trauma of a telegram telling them that their
beloved father and husband was rotting in a trench, location
unknown.

This wasn't the same.

"Klaus Zimmer."

In my hesitation, as I listened to his simple words, I looked at his
face and knew that I was a coward. I was comfortable with killing him
when he was no-one. I didn't want to believe it, but it was true - had
I killed him then, I would not have looked at him. To look into a man's
eyes and then take his life is a torment that can burden you forever,
and I have known men who have faced that and been destroyed by
it.
I remember thinking, If you are going to kill this man, you can damn
well look him in the face and do it.
The knife stayed at his throat, I don't know why. Perhaps I thought he
might kill me still, had I released him. Perhaps I thought I might find
my hatred once more and slit his throat anyway. Perhaps I was afraid
that the boys might turn up and witness my dishonour.

Then I found myself saying, without thinking, "Klaus, do you have a
wife?"

I saw him watch my mouth, watch the shapes I was making, trying to
interpret them and form them into German. Then he recognised my
words.
His head tried to move, to nod. I could hear the back of his skull
scraping on the irregular tiles beneath. He whispered again.

"Yes. A wife. I have a girl and a boy. Kinder. Children."

I nodded in return.
I imagined Klaus Zimmer playing with his happy children. I imagined
Klaus Zimmer sitting at home, somewhere in Germany, holding his wife in
a tender moment.
It might have been a lie. Maybe there was no wife, no happy children.
But who was I to say? Whatever the truth, a Mother and Father had
conceived him, brought him to life, nurtured him, loved him, watched
him grow. They had seen him take a first stumbling step, seen him
tearfully off to a first school day, stood proudly at his
wedding.
His Mother had brought him into this world. I was about to take that
away. I was the opposite of everything a Mother is. Not creation but
destruction, pain instead of hope, spite rather than kindness.
That moment was my awakening. I felt shameful, not worthy of life, and
I think Klaus saw it in my eyes, in the almost imperceptible welling of
a tear that I no longer cared existed.
Part of me knew Klaus Zimmer. All of me trusted him, for no reason I
can give except that somehow I knew I could. When we looked at each
other, something human had joined us together, a bond between
strangers, between the most bitter enemies. So I climbed to my feet and
threw my knife into the corner of the room. Crazy, I think to myself
sometimes. He might have killed me. But it was about the passion of the
moment and I cannot possibly judge those actions.
Then I had put out my arm, which might have confirmed that seemingly
impossible truth to Klaus, that I was to give him his life. Or rather,
I was not to take it away. He took my hand and stood unsteadily too,
then we looked at each other once more and smiled at the same unspoken
thought.

"Go home, Klaus Zimmer," I said, softly, and whether he understood the
English, he knew what I meant.
He left the house and didn't look back, didn't turn to check whether
I'd found my pistol and was about to shoot him in the back. He trusted
me as I trusted him.

Someone else shot Klaus as he ran to reach the safety of the
trees.

"Nazi bastard," I heard someone shout as the gunfire still echoed
around the empty farmhouses, around my head.

I cried out then like my own brother had died. I sobbed shamelessly,
running out into the village square, hoping that I would be mistaken,
that it would be one of those other nameless, faceless German soldiers.
It wasn't.

The rest was mostly a blur. I recall running through knee-length grass
to reach Klaus and seeing the red stain erupting from his back to soak
the earth. I remember too my fury as I held back the others, those that
wanted to kick him or steal something from his pockets even as he
gasped his last breath.
And finally, I remember kneeling by Klaus, the morning dew mixing with
his blood to soak the knees of my trousers. I prayed that he could
still hear me in his dying moments and whispered to him, "Klaus, it
wasn't me, my friend. Es war nicht mich, Mein Freund."

The episode haunts me to this day, when the bustle of daily life is no
more and I retire to my room. As daylight fades like the cinema
spotlights, my eyes close and the projector plays the main feature
against my eyelids, the colour lucid, the sound sharp and vivid as the
day it was recorded. I watch it every night, even though the ending is
terribly sad and it always brings me to tears. It is a very moving
piece.

Sometimes I think of Klaus' family, whomever they may be. Years ago, I
considered finding them, telling them the truth of the day they lost
their father, their husband. I never did though.
I feel shame; for myself, for the soldier that killed him, for everyone
who calls themselves human yet is prepared to take innocent life.
However, I take a little comfort because Klaus gave me something that
day that I will never lose, though the cost of that gift was his life.
That makes it priceless to me.

And what was that gift?

If you talk to someone old, you may see it for yourself. When you
become old, you may see it for yourself too.
The elderly know how precious life is. Most people reach seventy before
they realise it, when youth is gone and darkness approaches like a
steam train heading into a tunnel - a tunnel with no exit. They know
how unimportant the little things are, like missing a bus or arguing
about whose turn it is to wash up. And you may see something else in
their eyes too; the sorrow that comes from realising that if only
they'd known forty years earlier, they would have taken a very
different route in life.

And when Klaus told me his name, I was thirty years old.
I thank Klaus for something which he had no intention of giving to
me.

I saved myself forty wasted years, and I am a better man.