No Man's Land

by Pete Ayrton

  ‘Listen to me, you bunch of rotten, good-for-nothing bastards! Joking’s over. You take it from me! I’ll show you that courts martial weren’t invented for dogs!’

  Then he singled out Fofana, declaring that whoever had made him a corporal had taken stupidity to new limits and would have done better – a hundred times better – if he’d given the red wool stripes to the most half-witted pack mule of the battalion.

  They passed through Pirot, heads bowed. As they went over the bridge on the Nischava, Fouillepot looked up for a moment. Among the little columns of smoke rising from the rooftops, he looked for one in particular. He thought he’d found it. It was there, last night, that… A little tenderness crept into his soul. But it quickly vanished, and the next moment he was brooding bitterly again.

  Occasionally he would revive, just long enough to stamp his heel on invisible enemies or issue more dire threats.

  ‘Amagni!’* spat Kouroué Taraoré in disgust.

  The tirailleurs were in great distress. Would they now have to endure long days of fear and foreboding? The last stage of the journey had been so nice, so easy! And this next one should have been even better.

  How simple it would have been just to wander along peacefully in the gentle warmth of this golden autumn day telling tall stories or singing soothing laments. Instead of which they had the formidable fury of chief warrant officer Fouillepot hanging over their heads! Amagni!

  Crestfallen, Mahmadou Fofana walked on, his face fixed in thought.

  *

  They had left the straight and level main road to follow a hilly, winding country lane through freshly planted fields or stubble, through vineyards and pastures. The countryside was deserted. Here and there, a ploughman could be seen leading his team of huge buffaloes, or some shepherd with his flock.

  Meanwhile Fofana was still deep in thought. Then all of a sudden he jumped, and smacked his forehead. Tirailleurs Mesi Mara and Koroué were walking nearby in grim silence. He waved them over and conferred with them in a low voice for a few moments. All at once they grasped what he was saying and started roaring with laughter, slapping their thighs.

  Fouillepot glared at them like a tiger and started cursing again.

  ‘Listen to me, you, you’ve got some bloody nerve to laugh after what has happened, but God help me you won’t be laughing long, I can promise you that!’

  Fofana dared to interrupt him:

  ‘Chief warrant officer, sir, not bad laugh! We soon find the sheep again.’

  ‘What did you say? “We will find the sheep”?’

  ‘You taking the piss out of me by any chance?’

  Mahmadou spoke with authority, politely and firmly:

  ‘Chief warrant officer, sir. You same time our mother and father: no one think of taking piss out of you. I only say what is sure. This day we will find sheep taken from us by those do “very bad things”.’

  The chief warrant officer knows that Fofana does not tend to speak idly and that he has more than one trick up his sleeve. Yet what he is saying is a bit too much to be true. Find the sheep again? If they were still in Pirot, such a thing might just be possible, but here?

  Still, Fouillepot is intrigued. He waits with curiosity to see what will happen next.

  Mahmadou Fofana, who only a short while ago showed no interest in the outside world, now scans the landscape attentively. The tirailleurs watch what he’s doing surreptitiously and occasionally chuckle to themselves. Only Fouillepot remains puzzled. The country lane is little more than a track. Their convoy has to trek up some tough slopes, then scuttle down steep inclines. And there’s nothing, still nothing, to be seen!

  But now the squad reaches the top of a hill looking down on a narrow valley. A couple of hundred paces below the hilltop, a shepherd is grazing his sheep. Fofana says a few winged words to his men and makes a request to Fouillepot:

  ‘Chief warrant officer, sir, if you say nothing it will be good!’

  Then he leaves the group and approaches the shepherd. The latter stares in utter astonishment at the black herdsmen in blue helmets leading such a huge flock along the path. He is a man with a bushy grey beard. His leather sandals are held on with laces wound round the narrow legs of coarse, wool trousers – true Gallic britches. With his sheepskin jerkin and thick brown serge cap, he resembles a shepherd from an old Nativity scene.

  With a sweeping gesture, Fofana invites him to come over. At first the Serb is a little hesitant. Then he decides to come and meet the black man. The latter starts by trying to reassure him:

  ‘Serbo dobro! Aïdé, Belgrad! Serbo dobro!’

  Then he shows him his pipe and makes a sign to suggest that he doesn’t have anything to light it with. The other man eventually understands. He hunts in his pocket and pulls out an old flint and wick lighter which he prepares to strike. The corporal asks him to wait, looks for his tobacco pouch and starts filling his pipe, slowly and carefully.

  Whatever he does, this damned shepherd had better not turn round! And so, to be sure he doesn’t, Fofana starts waving his arms about:

  ‘Pirot dobro!’

  *

  Pirot is such a beautiful town!… The man does his best to imitate him approvingly, indicating that he knows the town and pointing out the direction in which it lies with his arm.

  Ah! Pirot dobro!

  Meanwhile, the tirailleurs carry on shepherding their flock. They have now gone past the Serb and Fofana.

  The latter keeps a furtive eye on their progress. Suddenly his face lights up. Driven quickly off the track, Fouillepot’s sheep are heading for the Serb’s flock, who glance up at the newcomers and then return to grazing. The two flocks are now very close to each other.

  ‘Ah! Pirot dobro! Serbo dobro!’

  Mahmadou indicates to the shepherd that now is the right moment to strike his lighter then takes the long, smouldering wick in his hand, lights his pipe, and happily puffs away on it. Smiling broadly, he offers his pouch. The Serb accepts a pinch of tobacco which he puts in his mouth.

  ‘Aïdé Belgrad!… Dobro dan!’

  Fofana shakes the shepherd’s hand and walks off.

  *

  Then the Serb turns round and stands stupefied. Where have his sheep gone? On the open slope running down to the little brook, all he can see is one flock, one single flock that the Blacks are hurriedly driving off without looking back.

  He cannot believe his eyes, but what has happened is all too clear! They are taking his sheep! There is a lump in his throat, he wants to shout but he’s choked with fear… Then he rushes after them and in a few seconds catches up with Fouillepot, who is bringing up the rear:

  ‘Gospodine! Gospodine!’

  The Serb gesticulates helplessly. His sheep are there. He raises his open hands five times in succession. He had fifty sheep! But the chief warrant officer shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head. What does he want? He doesn’t understand! And he urges the column to speed up. Come on, let’s go! Be off with you! We’re in a hurry!

  *

  After a few minutes they come to a wooden bridge under which flows a trickle of clear water. On either side meadows of short grass spread their green carpet. It is a spot which seems to invite you to call a halt, take a break. And besides, it is time for lunch. Fouillepot orders them to stop. Only then does he give some attention to the supplicant Serb whose complaints have intensified.

  The chief warrant officer, who now seems to have grasped the reason, explains to him in his turn that his flock consists of four hundred and seven animals. Like the Serb, he uses lots of gestures, then with his finger he traces the numbers in the dust of the track.

  ‘Corporal Mahmadou Fofana,’ he orders in a ringing voice, ‘make gap in hedge by track with your machete!’

  The order is executed in the twinkling of an eye.

  ‘Corporal Mahmadou Fofana, make sheep go through gap!’

  With a mischievous grin, the corporal passes the order down to the men.

  ‘One, two, three,
four…’ begins Fouillepot, and carries on counting the sheep one by one as they go through the gap in the hedge.

  ‘407!’ shouts the chief warrant officer. ‘No more! Stop there! Hell! Are we honest or are we not? And as for you, Serbo dobro, old pal, take back your property, take away your flock!’

  *

  The Serb, who has followed every stage of the operation with great anxiety, feels a surge of joy when Fouillepot indicates, with a magnanimous gesture, that he may leave with the little flock that remains on the track.

  But alas! The poor devil quickly realises that the numbers don’t add up. He starts complaining again, waving his arms about, counting on his fingers. He had fifty sheep, not thirty-five.

  So Fouillepot softens his tone:

  ‘Listen, my old Serbski pal, I really feel for you. I can imagine myself in your place. Obviously, it is all very distressing, and, oh, if it was just up to me… but that’s my problem, I’m all heart. So, no, that’s the situation, I’m afraid. Nothing I can do. I have to hang on to my four hundred and seven sheep. I haven’t kept any more than that. So…?’

  *

  …So, we do not know how things would have turned out had Mahmadou Fofana not intervened. Mahmadou, who has observed the scene with keen interest, feels how perfectly satisfied Fouillepot would be if only this troublemaker would disappear.

  And so the corporal moves purposefully towards the Serb’s little flock and pretends to start driving it down on to the pasture with the other one.

  The unfortunate shepherd can sense catastrophe looming. Ah, what good does it do to protest, to stand up for yourself? With rapid strides he rejoins his flock and scurries off with them, not looking back, as if behind him stands some celestial archangel brandishing a fiery sword ready to turn him into a statue of stone or salt.

  ‘Bon voyage!’ Fouillepot calls out, seeing him vanish into the distance.

  A faint smile lingers on his lips. And then, as if someone was listening who would take it as a mark of his absolute honesty and sincerity, he declares:

  ‘He’s a good one, that, with his sheep! Is it my fault if he’s lost them? What the hell does he want me to do about it? I’m not God, am I? I’m not God!’

  Raymond Escholier was born in Paris in 1882; he died in Nîmes in 1971. He enlisted in 1914 and fought at the Marne and at Verdun, which he reported on for L’Echo de Paris. In 1917, he joined the Tirailleurs Sénégalais and fought on the Macedonian front in the battles of Kravitza and Vetremick against the Bulgarians. His novel Mahmadou Fofana is based on real soldiers Escholier fought alongside. In his war diaries, he wrote: ‘By which right, in the name of the so-called benefits of civilisation that we bring them, do we ask Africans to give up their lives for values that have nothing to do with them?’ Not surprisingly, the African soldiers portrayed in the book are well aware how random their route to the front has been. The Tirailleurs Sénégalais fought heroically in the First World War on the Western Front, in the Dardanelles, in Morocco, as well as on the Macedonian front. Their casualty rates were extremely high – 30,000 killed out of a total of 200,000 troops. They also fought with great valour in the Second World War and were then used by the French to help repress nationalist uprisings in Algeria, Morocco and Indochina. The last unit of the Tirailleurs was disbanded in 1964. Unavailable for many years, Mahmadou Fofana has recently been republished and rediscovered in France.

  *A very rough brandy (trans.).

  *Dobropol, now Dobro Pole in the Republic of Macedonia, was the site of a decisive battle on 15 September 1918 at the end of the long Serbian campaign. French and Serbian troops defeated the Bulgarians who had occupied the town since 1915 and who as a result signed an armistice and withdrew from the war. Eg˘ri Palanka (then in Bulgaria) is now Kriva Palanka (in Macedonia). The story of the missing sheep that follows here takes place in towns and villages around the Serbia/Bulgaria border, so that Tsaribrod, where the sheep were collected, then in Bulgaria, is now Dimitrovgrad in Serbia, and Zaïtchar, where they were eventually delivered, is now Zaječar in Serbia. Pirot, where the sheep went missing, is still Pirot and still in Serbia. And, despite an awful lot of historical cartographical research, I still have no idea where Grechowatz was, or is! (trans.)

  *John, like most of the other tirailleurs sénégalais in this novel (who despite the name given to them in the French army did not only come from Senegal but also from other French colonies in West Africa and sometimes other parts of Africa too), speaks a very simplified French adaptation of the Bambara language which was used as a kind of Esperanto in the army, and given the rather racist name petit-nègre. My English version is partly based on a guide for white French officers published in 1916 called Le français tel que le parlent nos tirailleurs sénégalais (trans.).

  *‘golden isles’ here probably refers specifically to the little Île d’Or just off the coast at Saint-Raphaël and to the four Îles d’Hyères, also known as the Îles d’Or, just to the west (trans.).

  *Amagni is the general word for ‘bad’ in Bambara (trans.).

  ROBERT MUSIL

  THE BLACKBIRD

  from Posthumous Papers of a Living Author

  translated by Peter Wortsman

  PLEASE BE ASSURED then that my reason is still the equal of your enlightened mind.

  Then, two years later, I found myself in a tight fix, at the dead angle of a battle in the south Tyrol, a line that wound its way from the bloody trenches of the Cima di Vezzena all the way to Lake Caldonazzo. There, like a wave of sunshine, the battle line dove deep into the valley, skirting two hills with beautiful names, and surfaced again on the other side, only to lose itself in the stillness of the mountains.

  It was October; the thinly-manned trenches were covered with leaves, the lake shimmered a silent blue, the hills lay there like huge withered wreaths; like funeral wreaths, I often thought to myself without even a shudder of fear. Halting and divided, the valley spilled around them; but beyond the edge of our occupied zone, it fled such sweet diffusion and drove like the blast of a trombone: brown, broad and heroic out into the hostile distance.

  At night, we pushed ahead to an advanced position, so prone now in the valley that they could have wiped us out with an avalanche of stones from above; but instead, they slowly roasted us on steady artillery fire. The morning after such a night all our faces had a strange expression that took hours to wear off. Our eyes were enlarged, and our heads tilted every which way on the multitude of shoulders, like a lawn that had just been trampled on. Yet on every one of those nights I poked my head up over the edge of the trench many times, and cautiously turned to look back over my shoulder like a lover: and I saw the Brenta Mountains light blue, as if formed out of stiff-pleated glass, silhouetted against the night sky. And on such nights the stars were like silver foil cutouts glimmering, fat as glazed cookies; and the sky stayed blue all night; and the thin virginal moon crescent lay on her back, now silvery, now golden, basking in the splendor. You must try to imagine just how beautiful it was: for such beauty exists only in the face of danger. And then sometimes I could stand it no longer, and giddy with joy and longing, I crept out for a little nightcrawl around, all the way to the golden-green blackness of the trees, so enchantingly colorful and black, the like of which you’ve never seen.

  But things were different during the day; the atmosphere was so easygoing that you could have gone horseback riding around the main camp. It’s only when you have the time to sit back and think and to feel terror that you first learn the true meaning of danger. Every day claims its victims, a regular weekly average of so-and-so many out of a hundred, and already the divisional general staff officers are predicting the results as impersonally as an insurance company. You do it too, by the way. Instinctively you know the odds and feel insured, although not exactly under the best of terms. It is a function of the curious calm that you feel, living under constant crossfire. Let me add the following, though, so that you don’t paint a false picture of my circumstances. It does indeed
happen that you suddenly feel driven to search for a particular familiar face, one that you remember seeing several days ago; but it’s not there anymore. A face like that can upset you more than it should, and hang for a long time in the air like a candle’s afterglow. And so your fear of death has diminished, though you are far more susceptible to all sorts of strange upsets. It is as if the fear of one’s demise, which evidently lies on top of man forever like a stone, were suddenly to have been rolled back, and in the uncertain proximity of death an unaccountable inner freedom blossoms forth.

  Once during that time an enemy plane appeared in the sky over our quiet encampment. This did not happen often, for the mountains with their narrow gaps between fortified peaks could only be hazarded at high altitudes. We stood at that very moment on the summit of one of those funereal hills, and all of a sudden a machine-gun barrage spotted the sky with little white clouds of shrapnel, like a nimble powder puff. It was a cheerful sight, almost endearing. And to top it off, the sun shone through the tricolored wings of the plane as it flew high overhead, as though through a stained-glass church window, or through colored crepe paper. The only missing ingredient was some music by Mozart. I couldn’t help thinking, by the way, that we stood around like a crowd of spectators at the races, placing our bets. And one of us even said: Better take cover! But nobody it seems was in the mood to dive like a field mouse into a hole. At that instant I heard a distant ringing drawing closer to my ecstatically upturned face. Of course, it could also have happened the other way around, that I first heard the ringing and only then became conscious of the impending danger; but I knew immediately: It’s an aerial dart. These were pointed iron rods no thicker than a pencil lead that planes dropped from above in those days. And if they struck you in the skull, they came out through the soles of your feet, but they didn’t hit very often, and so were soon discarded. And though this was my first aerial dart – bombs and machine-gun fire sound altogether different – I knew right away what it was. I was excited, and a second later I already felt that strange, unlikely intuition: It’s going to hit!