As consciousness returned, Templar Knight Gerard de Chartres suffered in a suffocating heat with an overwhelming, smoke-filled stench that he had always imagined hell would be like, and a heavy maw of darkness and pressure smothered him as it relentlessly tightened around him. His body was wracked with searing pain in so many places that he could not fix on any one part of his being that was not in agony. He was sure that his eyes were open, but he could see almost nothing through the oppressive mass burying him, and with his vision restricted by the dim light filtering through the film of blood veiling his left eye.
It was then that he began to focus on the hellish moans and cries from everywhere close around him. It was a grief-laden, soul-piercing, mournful sound so profoundly deep that it added yet another layer of terror to his torment. He struggled with the belief that his God, Whom he loved and served with his very life, would send him to this terrible place of eternal agony and torment into which he had just awakened.
With all his strength, de Chartres frantically pushed away the pressure holding him down in this evil pit and staggered to his feet. Now bathed in the full light of day, he wiped the crusted blood from his face with the back of his left hand. As he opened his eyes, he saw that the force that had been pinning him to the ground and burying him was a pile of his comrades slain in the battle. He gazed down to see their familiar faces staring back at him with the lifeless, wide-open eyes of death.
The sound of his pounding heartbeat filled his head, overpowering all else. Soon, it began to diminish, and he heard voices nearby. Shaking his head as if to clear it and regain his awareness, de Chartres looked around him.
The battle of Hattin was over. The hellscape he witnessed was littered with thousands of tangled and torn bodies as far as he could see in the thick pall of smoke blending with the copper smell of blood that seemed to permeate everything.
The sound he had heard was from a band of a dozen or so Muslim soldiers who were busy impaling wounded Templars with their vicious blades as they traveled from one injured victim to another.
“Stop!” de Chartres barked out with some difficulty, while attempting to raise his sword still gripped in his right hand. But he could not. His right arm had been so extensively wounded that he could not lift it. So, as quickly as he had the strength to manage, he transferred the heavy steel blade into his left hand and lifted it with some difficulty.
The Muslim soldiers looked in his direction, then began to hurry to meet him with their own smaller but lithe swords raised in the ready position.
De Chartres could hear them shouting as they approached. He was determined that in the few seconds standing between him and eternity, he would at least swing his weapon one more time in defense of the helpless, as he raised it unsteadily into the attack position, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side.
But before he was within reach of their steel, a sharp voice cried out from behind them, causing the band of Muslim soldiers to stop in their tracks and lower their swords, just 10 paces from him.
The group quickly parted, allowing entrance to a man garbed in ornate Muslim military dress with a golden turban and a flowing, tan silk sash tied around his waist. With some obvious authority, he briskly walked to de Chartres and stopped just out of sword range. The man kept his weapon sheathed.
Stopping, he stared at the Templar for a long moment, sizing up his condition. He could see that the Templar’s right arm was useless as blood dripped steadily from his dangling fingers onto the bodies of his fellow Templars. His skin was as palled as a butchered sheep, and his body swayed unsteadily. He was astonished that the Templar could even remain standing at all.
Then he said, “I am Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb. But your people call me Saladin. And what is your name?”
De Chartres was at first startled to be standing before the legendary Muslim fighter, Saladin. “I am Gerard de Chartres,” he answered with as strong a voice as he could manage. With his blood loss, his vision was tunneling, and he felt the webs of encroaching death slowly overtaking his mind.
“I watched you stand, uncovering your body from your fellow warriors and brandishing your sword to fight a dozen of your enemies. I had to introduce myself and hear your story. But I don’t think you are going to have any time left to tell it,” Saladin stated matter-of-factly.
“I will tell you my story, your excellency,” de Chartres replied defiantly.
“It will be interesting to hear a story from a corpse holding a sword in the wrong hand,” Saladin mused, and his soldiers began to laugh.
“Silence!” the Sultan snapped. “Do not laugh in the face of such courage. You must listen carefully and learn.” He turned back to the Templar. “So, de Chartres, I await your story with great interest. Carry on.”
“I am here because I love you,” de Chartres admitted frankly. “And so did these men you have killed by your swords,” he added, nodding with respect to his fallen comrades at his feet.
Again, the soldiers laughed loudly.
Their Sultan turned to them and said with rigid features, “All of you will be assigned to grave digging and burial duty for a fortnight for your blatant disobedience and arrogant stupidity.”
Their collective expressions turned very serious after receiving the news.
“Now listen for the words of wisdom and learn from a man with courage, for even an infidel can know this honor bestowed by Allah on any whom He chooses.”
Then Saladin turned back to the quickly fading Templar who was barely able to stand before him.
“Are you delirious, Templar, or did you just say that you were here because you and your fellow poor soldiers of Christ love us? That is, if the rumors of your title are true.”
“Yes,” de Chartres confessed, swaying with the effort of remaining on his feet.
“You are delirious and you are quite mad,” Saladin declared with a derisive smile.
“It is commanded so by our Jesus the Christ in our Holy Book,” de Chartres rejoined with confidence.
Saladin considered this and finally nodded. “He is a great prophet, and I have heard rumors of this. But it cannot be true in this life, and especially on the battlefield.”
“Then why do we Templars not scream or shout in battle? Why do we swing our swords in silence?” de Chartres persisted.
Saladin paused, considering, then replied, “I have heard many suggestions for this strange behavior. Are you saying that you fight in silence because you are slaying those whom you love?”
“It is so, your excellency,” de Chartres admitted, as he swayed, finally succumbed to his weakness, and fell to his knees, propping himself up on his sword, and looking up at Saladin.
Saladin looked down at this odd, courageous, devoted Templar Knight in his last minute of life.
De Chartres gazed back at the Sultan with a face lined not in pain, but framed in perfect peace, in a supernatural tranquility the Sultan had never witnessed on the battlefield ever before. De Chartres regarded him with clear, heroic eyes that looked for all the world as though he were actually staring at him with love.
This caught Saladin so totally off guard that he actually took a step back. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed his lips again and shook his head slowly in absolute incomprehension.
Saladin stepped forward, knelt beside this Templar Knight in deep, authentic respect, and withdrew his sword. He solemnly proclaimed, “If I had but 50 warriors like you, I could conquer the world.“
De Chartres gazed back at him unflinchingly, features reflecting a selfless purity that burned through Saladin’s soul.
“I’m sending you home now, Templar de Chartres, to join your brothers who are lying around you.”
De Chartres smiled gently at Sultan Saladin and nodded. Then he said simply, “Thank you,” and closed his eyes just before the silver swath of Saladin’s blade removed his head.
A single moment later, he opened his eyes once again. He was still kneeling, but now he was looking into the most Holy Face of His beloved Savior and Lord Master, Jesus, Who said to him with a smile, “Welcome home, good and faithful servant.”
That very day – 4 July 1187 – de Chartres gathered in worship and dined at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb with his Lord and the more than 10,000 Templars and Crusaders who also lost their earthly lives on the Hattin battlefield. In the end, they all quickly discovered, just as their Jesus had assured them, that their former lives had not all been about whether or not they lost or won any battle. Instead, it was about the eternity they had gained by their courage, integrity, and the authentic love that they shared together for their Lord Master.
It was also about the rare and very surprising love and respect that was extended to their enemies as well. It was simply the small, temporal sacrifice of honor for their Lord Master in an obedience they freely gave in brief lives they could never keep, in exchange for this eternal reward that they could never lose.