KNOCKOUT

We stripped off our shirts and stood bare-chested, with the sun warming our backs. When ordered, we formed a ring around Johann Weber, then Axel Jung stepped into the middle holding a pair of old brown leather boxing gloves in each hand.

He threw them down onto the gravel and turned around, inspecting the boys standing shoulder to shoulder around him. Already some were jostling others, trying to push forward, hoping the group leader would pick them to fight first.

Johann stood with his head bowed as if he didn’t dare look up.

‘Why don’t we have today’s champion up first?’ Axel Jung had to shout to be heard over the boys begging to be chosen, and when I looked away from Johann, I saw that the group leader had his eyes on me. ‘You’ve earned it,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

I must have hesitated without realising because Jung furrowed his brow. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t want to fight?’

‘Course he does.’ Martin put his hand on my back and pushed me into the ring. ‘Go on, Karl.’

‘Yeah, go on, Karl!’ Christoph repeated, and then more of them joined in until most of the boys were chanting my name.

‘Ka-arl! Ka-arl! Ka-arl!’

I looked round at them, feeling their admiration and excitement, then bent over to pick up the gloves. They were a little too big, but Ralf came forward to tie them for me, then he slapped me on the back and wished me luck.

Turning to face Johann Weber, though, I didn’t think I was going to need much luck. He had picked up the gloves and put them on, but his arms were hanging by his sides, the laces trailing past his knees.

Axel Jung held up a hand, signalling for everyone to be quiet. ‘One minute round each,’ he said. ‘Everyone will get a turn.’ Then he stepped back, saying, ‘Begin!’

I took up my boxing stance, left foot in front of right, fists raised in defence, but Johann just stood there.

‘Put up your block!’ Jung shouted at him.

Johann looked up at me and I saw something other than sadness there. Anger, perhaps.

‘Put up your block!’ Jung shouted again. He came forward and took Johann’s wrists in his hands, dragging them up into a boxing defence.

Johann’s eyes narrowed a touch and he snatched his arms away, holding them in place. His lips tightened and the muscles at the side of his jaw bulged.

‘Just hit him,’ Jung said to me as he moved back. ‘Hit him hard.’

I kept my block up and shifted to one side, watching Johann with a strange mix of sympathy and fear. I knew he was upset, and I knew he would be black and blue by the time he had fought everyone, but something was building in him. He stood with his chin tucked under, his fists up and his shoulders heaving as his breathing became heavier and heavier. His face turned red, snot rattled in his nostrils and his eyes clouded over with tears, but he kept his fists up.

Around me, the others watched with interest. ‘Hit him,’ someone shouted from the ring of boys, and suddenly they all found their voices again and began chanting, ‘Hit him! Hit him! Hit him!’

I edged forwards, testing Johann’s reaction, but he did nothing.

The boys continued to shout.

I circled one way, then the other.

‘Hit him! Hit him! Hit him!’

Johann didn’t react to any of my movements. He just stood there, with his hands up, breathing heavily as the tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

‘Hit him! Hit him!’

‘For God’s sake hit him!’ Jung shouted.

That’s when Johann moved. It was as if all of his emotions had reached boiling point and he opened his mouth to let them all out in one go. ‘HIT ME!’ he screamed, then lunged forward as if to attack.

Almost without thinking, I sidestepped and threw a hard straight punch at his jaw. My fist connected with a jarring thud, snapping Johann’s head to one side, and his legs buckled beneath him. He collapsed into the gravel, and for a moment, everything was silent.

I stared down at him, lying there with his eyes closed, then they blinked open and he looked up at me as if he didn’t know where he was.

Around me, the other boys erupted in a volley of whoops and cheers, but all I could do was watch poor Johann Weber. With my teeth, I unfastened the glove on my right hand and shucked it off, offering my hand to help him up.

It was the second time I had knocked Johann Weber to the ground that day, and I didn’t feel good about it at all.

‘What’s this, then?’ Stefan said, almost as soon as I walked into the kitchen.

My brother was four years older than me and we were complete opposites. Me with my uniform and my short hair; him with his long hair and his unruly friends and his terrible attitude. Mama was always telling him he should cut his hair and that his friends would get him into trouble if he wasn’t careful. He’d already been arrested once for fighting with boys from the Hitler Youth.

‘For achievement in the Deutsches Jungvolk?’ He laughed and flicked at the badge pinned to my shirt. ‘How many times did you have to salute to get that? Or did you just have to jump over a few crouching boys?’

‘That’s not a game,’ I said, ‘that’s for fitness.’

‘Ignore him,’ Mama told me. ‘He’s just trying to make you cross.’

I was already feeling cross, though, because Axel Jung had shouted at me for helping Johann to his feet after I’d punched him. He’d said it was weak and made me look bad in front of my friends.

Mama came over and put her arms around me and I half hugged her back.

‘I thought they told you not to be so attached to your parents,’ Stefan said.

‘Ignore him,’ Mama whispered and kissed the top of my head before going back to preparing supper.

‘So what did you learn about today?’ Stefan sat down at the kitchen table and turned so he could drape one arm over the back of the chair and look at me. ‘How to click your heels? How to parade up and down the yard? Or maybe …’ he helped himself to a piece of bread and pointed the corner of it at me, ‘… maybe you learned about something really important like how people with big noses should be—’

‘That’s enough, Stefan,’ Mama scolded him and gave him a stern look before smiling at me. ‘What did you do today, darling?’

I watched Stefan for a moment, the way he slouched in his chair as he chewed the bread, and I wished he wasn’t such a pain. ‘We had war exercises in the morning with the Hitler Youth—’

Stefan tutted.

‘—then we learned about trajectory in class.’ I told her about the miniature field gun, and that we had talked about how to aim it and how we could use a real one on the battlefield.

‘And that’s what you want to do, is it?’ Stefan brushed his hair from his eyes. ‘Bombard the enemy?’

‘Leave him alone, Stefan.’

‘Of course that’s what I want to do,’ I said.

‘Well, they’ve done a good job on you.’ My brother shook his head and looked me up and down, sneering at my uniform – brown shirt, black trousers, black scarf and black hat. ‘Deutsches Jungvolk,’ he taunted. ‘More like an army of half-sized soldiers. The sooner you leave school the better.’

‘Papa’s a soldier,’ I said. ‘Brave and strong, like he should be – fighting for the Führer in Russia, like he should be. I want to be like him. Not like you. I want to be a good German.’

‘You don’t have to wear a uniform to be a good German.’

‘You only left school so you could get out of the Hitler Youth,’ I said. ‘Because you’re a coward.’

‘One of those things is right,’ Stefan said, but he wasn’t bothered by my accusation. ‘D’you know what, though?’ He smiled. ‘Despite everything you just said, and despite what you’re turning into, you’re still my baby brother and I still love you.’ He popped the last bite of bread into his mouth and stood up. ‘You are going to have to pay for it, though. Say it.’

‘Never.’ I took a step back.

‘Say I’m the cleverest and the best.’

‘You’ll have to catch me first.’

‘Easy.’ He grinned.

As I dashed from the kitchen, with Stefan right behind me, I heard Mama calling after us. ‘Be careful, boys! Don’t break anything!’