No Man's Land: Writings From a World at War

by Pete Ayrton

  Before his rifle had time to crack, he put a hand to his throat, said, ‘God, I’m hit; get me to the dressing-station!’ and tumbled back into the trench like a sack of beans.

  Starkie and Captain Dombey alike had forgotten that Turk snipers often went in couples, like snakes. In the scrub of No Man’s Land the sniper’s mate had been waiting his chance to get a shot in. The bullet had ripped through Captain Dombey’s armpit and shoulder muscles, tearing a good big hole, but not low enough to lay him out for good unless gangrene set in.

  He was fifteen stone if an ounce; and though Starkie and three others bore the stretcher that took him to the dressing-station on the beach, it was a rough passage, with the bearers stumbling as they scrambled down the scrubby hills, and Captain Dombey groaning about unlimited doses of C. B. The third time the stretcher was dropped he stopped promising rewards and fairies and kept up a thin blue line of curses. Starkie told him, with reminiscent sorrow, that it wasn’t as bad as C. B., or latrines, or a job in the prison barracks; but then conversation was held up where the track was blocked with a crowd of Gurkhas and Punjabis, bent on slaughtering a goat. The Gurkhas lived on the other side of Mule Gully, sweet-mannered little brown fiends who kept their faces free from whiskers by pulling every hair out of their chins with tiny tweezers.

  The Punjabis were fine, big-bearded fellows, and both the gamest fighters on Gallipoli. You couldn’t shove past them while they were killing meat, for if a soldier’s shadow fell on their food it became unclean, and on Gallipoli nobody wasted provisions. The stretcher was set down, and the corpse and stretcher-bearers both consoled themselves with a drink and a mess of blazing curry dished up with chupattis. Meanwhile, the goat, a gingery old Nanny bleating forlornly about her home and father, was led in to the circle of black watching faces and sacrificed like Iphigenia, the silver sweep of a Gurkha knife cutting her head off in a single blow.

  ‘Lovely ain’t it?’ Starkie said to Captain Dombey, his eyes fixed hungrily on the wicked curved blade of the kukri.

  ‘You get to hell, and hurry me down to the dressing-station!’ querulously responded the gallant captain, and the jolting progress was resumed.

  Down at the dressing-station Captain Dombey first cursed them roundly in several different languages, not all known to the secretariat of the League of Nations, then lifted himself up on his good elbow and grinned at them. ‘So long, boys; I’ll be back in three months – and then look out!’ He disappeared from their view, but kept his word. In three months to the day, the hole in his shoulder more or less satisfactorily plastered up, he was back on Gallipoli and seemed to think more of C. B. than ever.

  At the water-tanks they lapped up as much as their stomachs could hold of lime, benzine, and greyish water. There was never an adequate water-ration on Gallipoli. They thieved a tin of it and started on their way home.

  Captain Smythe met them with a scowl of ungenerous suspicion, Captain Dombey being his especial pal. ‘Been long enough, haven’t you?’ he growled.

  ‘So would you be,’ retorted an exasperated bearer, ‘if you was carrying an elephant on a stretcher six miles!’

  For carrying the elephant they got special rations – Fray Bentos – otherwise bully beef – and Blackwell’s marmalade for their bread issue, which was doled out, one loaf to eight men. The marmalade-tins were used everywhere in the trenches for making steps, walls, and floors, and some of the designs in the little earth dug-outs were really clever. Marmalade was more of a success than cheese. Such a thing as cheese that refrained from crawling was unknown in the trenches, like a pacifist louse, but they got used to it… used to anything.

  One of New Zealand’s finest poets and writers, Robin Hyde was born Iris Guiver Wilkinson in Cape Town and taken to Wellington before her first birthday. Working in the 1930s as an investigative journalist, Hyde exposed the brutal conditions of New Zealand’s prisons. It was during a visit to Mount Eden prison that she was introduced to Private J. D. Stark, who asked her to write a book about his experiences of the war. Hyde hesitated but in the end decided to take the risk. In a 1935 letter to John Schroder, a journalist on the New Zealand paper then called The Sun, she wrote:

  The book that might have been a nightmare is finished. It is a nightmare, but I think it is a book – Harder, barer and more confident – It’s the story of a soldier – he exists and I know him very well. His queer racial heritage – he is half Red Indian, half Spaniard – has taken him into desperate places; prisons, battles, affairs… I wrote the book because I had to write it when I heard the story, and because it’s an illustration of Walt Whitman’s line – ‘There is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do not believe in man.’*

  On its publication in 1936, the book was recognized by critics as one of the great books of the war. However, it brought Robin Hyde some fame but very little fortune. Unable to face a life of neglect and poverty, she committed suicide in London in 1939.

  *Quoted in D. I. B. Smith’s introduction to the 1986 reprint of Passport to Hell, p. ix.

  W. N. P. BARBELLION

  BEFORE THE WAR I WAS AN INTERESTING INVALID

  from The Journal of a Disappointed Man

  July 31

  This War is so great and terrible that hyperbole is impossible. And yet my gorge rises at those fatuous journalists continually prating about this ‘Greatest War of all time,’ this ‘Great Drama,’ this ‘world catastrophe unparalleled in human history,’ because it is easy to see that they are really more thrilled than shocked by the immensity of the War. They indulge in a vulgar Yankee admiration for the Big Thing. Why call this shameful Filth by high sounding phrases – as if it were a tragedy from Euripides? We ought to hush it up, not brag about it, to mention it with a blush instead of spurting it out brazen-faced.

  Mr Garvin, for example, positively gloats over the War each week in the Observer: ‘Last week was one of those pivotal occasions on which destiny seems to swing’ – and so on every week, you can hear him, historical glutton smacking his lips with an offensive relish.

  For my part, I never seem to be in the same mind about the War twice following. Sometimes I am wonder struck and make out a list of all the amazing events I have lived to see since August 1914, and sometimes and more often I am swollen with contempt for its colossal imbecility. And sometimes I am swept away with admiration for all the heroism of the War, or by some particularly noble self-sacrifice, and think it is really all worthwhile. Then – and more frequently – I remember that this War has let loose on the world not only barbarities, butcheries and crimes, but lies, lies, lies – hypocrisies, deceits, ignoble desires for self-aggrandizement, self-preservation such as no one before ever dreamed existed in embryo in the heart of human beings.

  The War rings the changes on all the emotions. It twangs all my strings in turn and occasionally all at once, so that I scarcely know how to react or what to think. You see, here am I, a compulsory spectator, and all I can do is to reflect. A Zeppelin brought down in flames that lit up all London – now that makes me want to write like Mr Garvin. But a Foreign Correspondent’s eager discussion of ‘Italy’s aspirations in the Trentino,’ how Russia insists on a large slice of Turkey, and so forth, makes me splutter. How insufferably childish to be slicing up the earth’s surface! How immeasureably ‘above the battle’ I am at times. What a prig you will say I am when I sneer at such contemptible little devilries as the Boches’ trick of sending over a little note, ‘Warsaw is fallen,’ into our trenches, or as ours in reply: ‘Gorizia!’

  ‘There is no difference in principle between the case of a man who loses a limb in the service of his country and that of the man who loses his reason, both have an obvious claim to the grateful recognition of the State.’ – A morning paper.

  A jejune comment like this makes me grin like a gargoyle! Hark to the fellow – this leader-writer over his cup of tea. But it is a lesson to show how easily and quickly we have all adapted ourselves to the W
ar. The War is everything: it is noble, filthy, great, petty, degrading, inspiring, ridiculous, glorious, mad, bad, hopeless yet full of hope. I don’t know what to think about it.

  August 13

  I hate elderly women who mention their legs, it makes me shudder.

  I had two amusing conversations this morning, one with a jealous old man of 70 summers who, in spite of his age, is jealous – I can find no other term – of me in spite of mine, and the other with a social climber. I always tell the first of any of my little successes and regularly hand him all my memoirs as they appear, to which he as regularly protests that he reads very little now. ‘Oh! never mind,’ I always answer gaily, ‘you take it and read it going down in the train – it will amuse you.’ He submits but is always silent next time I see him – a little, admonitory silence. Or, I mention I am giving an address at——, and he says ‘Oom,’ and at once begins his reminiscences, which I have heard many times before, and am sometimes tempted to correct him when, his memory failing, he leaves out an essential portion of his story. Thus do crabbed age and boastful youth tantalise one another.

  To the social climber I said slyly:

  ‘You seem to move in a very distinguished entourage during your week ends.’

  He smiled a little self-consciously, hesitated a moment and then said:

  ‘Oh! I have a few nice friends, you know.’

  Now I am sorry, but though I scrutinised this lickspittle and arch belly-truck rider very closely, I am quite unable to say whether that smile and unwonted diffidence meant simple pleasure at the now certain knowledge that I was duly impressed, or whether it was genuine confusion at the thought that he had perhaps been overdoing it.

  Curiously enough, all bores of whatever kind make a dead set at me. I am always a ready listener and my thrusts are always gentle. Hence the pyramids! I constantly act as phlebotomist to the vanity of the young and to the anecdotage of the senile and senescent.

  August 13

  …I stood by his chair and looked down at him, and surveyed carefuliy the top of his head, neck, and collar, and with admirable restraint and calm, considered my most reasonable contempt of him. In perfect silence, we remained thus, while I looked down at a sore spot in the centre of his calvarium which he scratches occasionally, and toyed with the fine flower of my scorn… But it is a dangerous license to take. One never knows…

  Equilibrium Restored

  To clear away the cobwebs and to purge my soul of evil thoughts and bitter feelings, went for a walk this evening over the uplands. Among the stubble, I sat down for a while with my back against the corn pook and listened to the Partridges calling. Then wandered around the edge of this upland field with the wind in my face and a shower of delicious, fresh rain pattering down on the leaves and dry earth. Then into a wood among tall forest Beeches and a few giant Larches where I rested again and heard a Woodpecker tapping out its message aloft.

  This ramble in beautiful B——shire country restored my mental and spiritual poise. I came home serene and perfectly balanced – my equilibrium was something like the just perceptible oscillation of tall Larch-tree tops on the heights of a cliff and the sea below with a just perceptible swell of a calm and perfect June day. I felt exquisite – superb. I could have walked all the way home on a tight rope.

  September 2

  Just recently, I have been going fairly strong. I get frequent colds and sometimes show unpleasant nerve symptoms, but I take a course of arsenic and strychnine every month or so in tabloid form, and this helps me over bad patches.

  Under the beatific influence of more comfortable health, the rare flower of my ambition has raised its head once more: my brain has bubbled with projects. To wit:

  An investigation of the Balancers in Larval Urodeles.

  The Present Parlous State of Systematic Zoology (for ‘Science Progress’).

  The Anatomy of the Psocidae.

  Etc.

  The strength of my ambition at any given moment is the measure of my state of health. It must really be an extraordinarily tenacious thing to have hung on thro’ all my recent experiences. Considerately enough this great Crab lets go of my big toe when I am sunk low in health, yet pinches devilishly hard as now when I am well.

  A Bad Listener

  When I begin to speak, T—— will sometimes interrupt with his loud, rasping voice. I usually submit to this from sheer lack of lung power or I may have a sore throat. But occasionally after the fifth or sixth interruption I lose my equanimity and refuse to give him ground. I keep straight on with what I intended to say, only in a louder voice; he assumes a voice louder still, but not to be denied, I pile Pelion on Ossa and finally overwhelm him in a thunder of sound. For example:

  ‘The other day’ – I begin quietly collecting my thoughts to tell the story in detail, ‘I went to the—’

  ‘Ah! you must come and see my pictures—’ he breaks in; but I go on and he goes on and as I talk, I catch phrases: ‘St. Peters ‘or ‘Michael Angelo’ or ‘Botticelli’ in wondrous antiphon with my own ‘British Museum’ and ‘I saw there,’ ‘two Syracusan,’ ‘tetradrachms,’ until very likely I reach the end of my sentence before he does his, or perhaps his rasp drives my remarks out of my head. But that makes no difference, for rather than give in I go on improvising in a louder and louder voice when suddenly, at length made aware of the fact that I am talking too, he stops! leaving me bellowing nonsense at the top of my voice, thus: ‘and I much admired these Syracusan tetradrachms, very charming indeed, I like them, the Syracusan tetradrachms I mean you know, and it will be good to go again and see them (louder) if possible and the weather keeps dry (louder) and the moon and the stars keep in their courses, if the slugs on the thorn (loudest)—’ he stops, hears the last few words of my remarks, pretends to be appreciative but wonders what in Heaven’s name I can have been talking about.

  September 3

  This is the sort of remark I like to make: Someone says to me: ‘You are a pessimist.’

  ‘Ah! well,’ I say, looking infernally deep, ‘pessimism is a good policy; it’s like having your cake and eating it at the same time.’

  Chorus: ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if the future turns out badly you can say, “I told you so,” to your own satisfaction, and if all is well, why you share everyone else’s satisfaction.’

  Or I say: ‘No I can’t swim; and I don’t want to!’

  Chorus: ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is too dangerous.’

  Chorus: ‘Why?’

  The Infernally Wise Youth: ‘For several reasons. If you are a swimmer you are likely to be oftener near water and oftener in danger than a non-swimmer. Further, as soon as you can swim even only a little, then as an honourable man, it behoves you to plunge in at once to save a drowning person, whereas, if you couldn’t swim it would be merely tempting Providence.’

  Isn’t it sickening?

  A Jolt

  Yesterday the wind was taken out of my sails. Racing along with spinnaker and jib, feeling pretty fit and quite excited over some interesting ectoparasites just collected on some Tinamous, I suddenly shot into a menacing dead calm: that stiflingly still atmosphere which precedes a Typhoon. That is to say, my eye caught the title of an enormous quarto memoir in the Trans. Roy. Soc., Edinburgh:The Histology of——.

  I was browsing in the library at the time when this hit me like a carelessly handled gaff straight in the face. I almost ran away to my room.

  *

  My Pink Form just received amazes me! To be a soldier? C’est incroyable, ma foi! The possibility even is distracting! To send me a notice requesting me to prepare myself for killing men! Why I should feel no more astonished to receive a War Office injunction under dire penalties to perform miracles, to move mountains, to raise from the dead: My reply would be: ‘I cannot.’ I should sit still and watch the whole universe pass to its destruction rather than raise a hand to knife a fellow. This may be poor, anaemic; but there it is, a positive fact.

 
*

  There are moments when I have awful misgivings:Is this blessed Journal worthwhile? I really don’t know, and that’s the harassing fact of the matter. If only I were sure of myself, if only I were capable of an impartial view! But I am too fond of myself to be able to see myself objectively. I wish I knew for certain what I am and how much I am worth. There are such possibilities about the situation: it may turn out tremendously, or else explode in a soap bubble. It is the torture of Tantalus to be so uncertain. I should be relieved to know even the worst. I would almost gladly burn my MSS. in the pleasure of having my curiosity satisfied. I go from the nadir of disappointment to the zenith of hope and back several times a week, and all the time I am additionally harassed by the perfect consciousness that it is all petty and pusillanimous to desire to be known and appreciated, that my ambition is a morbid diathesis of the mind. I am not such a fool either as not to see that there is but little satisfaction in posthumous fame, and I am not such a fool as not to realise that all fame is fleeting, and that the whole world itself is passing away.

  *

  I smile with sardonic amusement when I reflect how the War has changed my status. Before the War I was an interesting invalid. Now I am a lucky dog. Then, I was a star turn in tragedy; now I am drowned and ignored in an overcrowded chorus. No valetudinarian was ever more unpleasantly jostled out of his self-compassion. It is difficult to accustom myself to the new role all at once: I had begun to lose the faculty for sympathising in others’ griefs. It is hard to have to realise that in all this slaughter, my own superfluous life has become negligible and scarcely anyone’s concern but my own. In this colossal sauve-qui-peut which is developing, who can stay to consider a useless mouth? Am I not a comfortable parasite? And, God forgive me, an Egotist to boot?