No Man's Land

by Pete Ayrton

  Lucky had been in the San Francisco earthquake. She must have been sixteen or seventeen then and that would make her almost thirty now. When the earthquake hit San Francisco Lucky was on the fourth floor of a hotel on Market Street. I was entertaining a gentleman friend and when I first felt that thing hit I said to myself Lucky I said that’s an earthquake and you ain’t going to be caught dead with no son-of-abitch on top of you. So I pushed him off and I run right down into the street stark naked and you should of seen the guys stare.

  To talk with Lucky to be with Lucky to lie with Lucky was like finding peace in a heathen country it was like breathing the air of a place you love when you’re sick and dying for a breath of it. To see her smile to hear her bright chatter to watch her bony little fingers fly as they worked the crochet needle with the night noises of Paris a foreign city just outside the window was enough to make anybody feel better and less lonely.

  Paris was a strange city a foreign city a dying city a lively city. It had too much life and too much death and too many ghosts and behind the bars of the cafes too many dead soldiers. Have a drink. Oh Paris is a woman’s town with flowers in her hair. No doubt about it Paris was a wonderful town a woman’s town but it was also a man’s town. Ten thousand doughboys tommies poilus on leave ten thousand a hundred thousand of them. A few days boys a few days and then you go back and each time you go back the chances are more against you than they were the last time. Remember that there is a law of averages so come on dearie turn a trick five francs ten francs two dollars oh boy what’s that an American voice? me for her. What the hell a song in the parlor and a swig of cheap cognac and let’s go because out there in the east the place they call the western front there is a little old guy keeps a book and figures averages all day long and all night long he never makes a mistake. Flor da lee. Flor da lee. God save the king. Come on up honeybunch lonesome wanta try something new parley vous fransays? A gallon of red wine like water and sourdough bread and maybe please god I find an American girl who don’t talk heathen languages. Jig-jig hell that’s not what I want. I want something loud because there is a voice I want to drown out. It’s a voice that doesn’t make any sound but I can’t get away from it.

  Somewhere it is being prepared. Somewhere deep in the heart of Germany the shell is being made. Some German girl is polishing it right now polishing it and cleaning it and fitting the charge into it. It glistens in the factory light and it has a number and the number is mine. I have a date with the shell. We shall meet soon.

  Motor lorries rumbling through the street gathering guys up outside gathering up the late ones saying come on buddy time’s up down to the station and jump on the old box car. Because you’re going back. Back to the little old guy who figures out there the guy who figures all day long and all night long and never makes a mistake. The stars and stripes forever ta-da da-de-um da-de-ah. Try it kid it’s good some guys say it’s got dope in it don’t believe a thing they tell you. Some guys say it dries you out. It’s called absinthe let it filter down in your glass it’s swell. Parley vous parley vous yes sir no sir lonesome honey where’s that American voice? god I’d like to find her. Where’s Jack where’s Bill where’s John gone all gone. Gone west. Taps. Ten thousand dollars for the folks back home. Ten thousand simoleons Jesus. I know a house on Rue Blondel black and white all nations. Americans? Sure anything you want oh god that isn’t what I want what I want’s a long long way off but I’ll take whatever you got. It’s a long way to Tipperary. Lights out.

  Nearer nearer. Some top-heavy canvas-covered German truck is plunging toward France right now. In it are shells and among the shells the one with my number. It’s coming toward the west through the Rhine valley I always wanted to see it through the Black forest I always wanted to see it through the deep deep night coming toward France the shell I shall meet. It’s coming nearer and nearer nothing can stop it not even the hand of god for I have a time set and it has a time set and we shall meet when the time comes.

  America expects every man to do his duty France expects every man to do his duty England expects every man to do his duty every doughboy and tommy and poilu and what the hell did they call the Italians? anyhow they’re expected to do their duty too. Lafayette we come and so in Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses row on row check off the rows for the little old guy with the book the little old guy who figures all day long and all night long and never makes a mistake. Oui oui parley vous jig-jig? Sure jig-jig what the hell five francs ten francs who says two dollars two good old American dollars and a glass of corn whiskey? My god this cognac I always thought it was a swell drink I heard so much about it it’s terrible give me corn and what do you think of the prohibitionists? Four million of us gone four million votes I suppose we don’t count they’ll ruin us yet let’s go out and hunt corn good old American corn. Darling honey deary sweet tired lonesome wanta friend take a table take a chair take a bed only don’t take too long there’s lots of guys Paris is full of them so don’t take too long.

  Hidden beneath some gentle rolling hill that is like a woman’s breast on the solid flesh of the land hidden under the hill in some unknown ammunition dump is my shell. It is ready. Hurry boy hurry doughboy don’t be late finish whatever you have to do you haven’t much time left.

  Sing a rag-time jig-jig sing a rag-time mam’selle sing a hot time in the old town tonight. Sing a Joan of Arc and a flor da lee sing a mademoiselle from Armentieres. Sing a Lafayette parley vous fransays. Get up and jump jump mighty fast make the smoke whirl in the air smash the chairs smash the windows tear down the house goddam it move boy move girl put cognac in your joints and turn the lights out and beat the drums and get out of the trenches by christmas and see Paris by night and turn a trick for five francs and oui-oui parley vous hunky-dory corn in my belly and a little old guy with a book who figures all day long and all night long and he figures faster and faster faster and quicker harder and stronger and faster faster faster.

  It will come with a rush and a roar and a shudder. It will come howling and laughing and shrieking and moaning. It will come so fast you can’t help yourself you will stretch out your arms to embrace it. You will feel it before it comes and you will tense yourself for acceptance and the earth which is your eternal bed will tremble at the moment of your union.

  Silence.

  What’s this what’s this oh my god can a man ever get lower can a man ever be less?

  Weariness and gasping convulsive exhaustion. All life dead all life wasted and becoming nothing less than nothing only the germ of nothing. A kind of sickness that comes from shame. A weakness like dying weakness and faintness and a prayer. God give me rest take me away hide me let me die oh god how weary how much already dead how much gone and going oh god hide me and give me peace.

  Dalton Trumbo was born in Montrose, Colorado, in 1905 and died in Los Angeles in 1976. He was one of the highest-paid screenwriters of his time. One of the Hollywood Ten, Trumbo was blacklisted in 1947 after he refused to testify before HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) during the Committee’s investigation of communist influence in Hollywood.

  Trumbo wrote Johnny Got His Gun in 1938; it won a National Book Award in 1939. A powerful anti-war novel, the book provided a rallying-point for opposition to US entry to the Second World War. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Trumbo, as a fellow traveller of the Communist Party, and his publisher, who both supported US entry into the war, decided to suspend publication of the book until the end of the war. A film version directed by Trumbo won the Jury Prize at the 1971 Cannes Festival. A series of flashbacks, the book is a startling mix of domestic scenes and scenes of mad carnage. It ends with a call for class war – ‘we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will win’: the journey on the way has been a staccato blast of emotion and passion.

  WILLA CATHER

  MANGER, AIMER, PAYER

  from One of Ours

  WHEN THE SURVIVORS OF COMPA
NY B are old men, and are telling over their good days, they will say to each other, ‘Oh, that week we spent at Beaufort!’They will close their eyes and see a little village on a low ridge, lost in the forest, overgrown with oak and chestnut and black walnut… buried in autumn colour, the streets drifted deep in autumn leaves, great branches interlacing over the roofs of the houses, wells of cool water that tastes of moss and tree roots. Up and down those streets they will see figures passing; themselves, young and brown and clean-limbed; and comrades, long dead, but still alive in that far-away village. How they will wish they could tramp again, nights on days in the mud and rain, to drag sore feet into their old billets at Beaufort! To sink into those wide feather beds and sleep the round of the clock while the old women washed and dried their clothes for them; to eat rabbit stew and pommes frites in the garden, – rabbit stew made with red wine and chestnuts. Oh, the days that are no more!

  As soon as Captain Maxey and the wounded men had been started on their long journey to the rear, carried by the prisoners, the whole company turned in and slept for twelve hours – all but Sergeant Hicks, who sat in the house off the square, beside the body of his chum.

  The next day the Americans came to life as if they were new men, just created in a new world. And the people of the town came to life… excitement, change, something to look forward to at last! A new flag, le drapeau étoilé, floated along with the tricolour in the square. At sunset the soldiers stood in formation behind it and sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ with uncovered heads. The old people watched them from the doorways. The Americans were the first to bring ‘Madelon’ to Beaufort. The fact that the village had never heard this song, that the children stood round begging for it, ‘Chantez-vous la Madelon!’ made the soldiers realize how far and how long out of the world these villagers had been. The German occupation was like a deafness which nothing pierced but their own arrogant martial airs.

  Before Claude was out of bed after his first long sleep, a runner arrived from Colonel Scott, notifying him that he was in charge of the Company until further orders. The German prisoners had buried their own dead and dug graves for the Americans before they were sent off to the rear. Claude and David were billeted at the edge of the town, with the woman who had given Captain Maxey his first information, when they marched in yesterday morning. Their hostess told them, at their mid-day breakfast, that the old dame who was shot in the square, and the little girl, were to be buried this afternoon. Claude decided that the Americans might as well have their funeral at the same time. He thought he would ask the priest to say a prayer at the graves, and he and David set off through the brilliant, rustling autumn sunshine to find the Curé’s house. It was next the church, with a high-walled garden behind it. Over the bell-pull in the outer wall was a card on which was written, ‘Tirez fort.’

  The priest himself came out to them, an old man who seemed weak like his doorbell. He stood in his black cap, holding his hands against his breast to keep them from shaking, and looked very old indeed, – broken, hopeless, as if he were sick of this world and done with it. Nowhere in France had Claude seen a face so sad as his. Yes, he would say a prayer. It was better to have Christian burial, and they were far from home, poor fellows! David asked him whether the German rule had been very oppressive, but the old man did not answer clearly, and his hands began to shake so uncontrollably over his cassock that they went away to spare him embarrassment.

  ‘He seems a little gone in the head, don’t you think?’ Claude remarked.

  ‘I suppose the war has used him up. How can he celebrate mass when his hands quiver so?’ As they crossed the church steps, David touched Claude’s arm and pointed into the square. ‘Look, every doughboy has a girl already! Some of them have trotted out fatigue caps! I supposed they’d thrown them all away!’

  Those who had no caps stood with their helmets under their arms, in attitudes of exaggerated gallantry, talking to the women, – who seemed all to have errands abroad. Some of them let the boys carry their baskets. One soldier was giving a delighted little girl a ride on his back.

  After the funeral every man in the Company found some sympathetic woman to talk to about his fallen comrades. All the garden flowers and bead wreaths in Beaufort had been carried out and put on the American graves. When the squad fired over them and the bugle sounded, the girls and their mothers wept. Poor Willy Katz, for instance, could never have had such a funeral in South Omaha.

  The next night the soldiers began teaching the girls to dance the ‘Pas Seul’ and the ‘Fausse Trot.’They had found an old violin in the town; and Oscar, the Swede, scraped away on it. They danced every evening. Claude saw that a good deal was going on, and he lectured his men at parade. But he realized that he might as well scold at the sparrows. Here was a village with several hundred women, and only the grandmothers had husbands. All the men were in the army; hadn’t even been home on leave since the Germans first took the place. The girls had been shut up for four years with young men who incessantly coveted them, and whom they must constantly outwit. The situation had been intolerable – and prolonged. The Americans found themselves in the position of Adam in the garden.

  ‘Did you know, sir,’ said Bert Fuller breathlessly as he overtook Claude in the street after parade, ‘that these lovely girls had to go out in the fields and work, raising things for those dirty pigs to eat? Yes, sir, had to work in the fields, under German sentinels; marched out in the morning and back at night like convicts! It’s sure up to us to give them a good time now.’

  One couldn’t walk out of an evening without meeting loitering couples in the dusky streets and lanes. The boys had lost all their bashfulness about trying to speak French. They declared they could get along in France with three verbs, and all, happily, in the first conjugation: manger, aimer, payer, – quite enough! They called Beaufort ‘our town,’ and they were called ‘our Americans.’They were going to come back after the war, and marry the girls, and put in waterworks!

  ‘Chez-moi, sir!’ Bill Gates called to Claude, saluting with a bloody hand, as he stood skinning rabbits before the door of his billet. ‘Bunny casualties are heavy in town this week!’

  ‘You know, Wheeler,’ David remarked one morning as they were shaving, ‘I think Maxey would come back here on one leg if he knew about these excursions into the forest after mushrooms.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to put a stop to them?’

  ‘Not I!’ Claude jerked, setting the corners of his mouth grimly. ‘If the girls, or their people, make complaint to me, I’ll interfere. Not otherwise. I’ve thought the matter over.’

  ‘Oh, the girls—’ David laughed softly. ‘Well, it’s something to acquire a taste for mushrooms. They don’t get them at home, do they?’

  *

  When, after eight days, the Americans had orders to march, there was mourning in every house. On their last night in town, the officers received pressing invitations to the dance in the square. Claude went for a few moments, and looked on. David was dancing every dance, but Hicks was nowhere to be seen. The poor fellow had been out of everything. Claude went over to the church to see whether he might be moping in the graveyard.

  There, as he walked about, Claude stopped to look at a grave that stood off by itself, under a privet hedge, with withered leaves and a little French flag on it. The old woman with whom they stayed had told them the story of this grave.

  The Curé’s niece was buried there. She was the prettiest girl in Beaufort, it seemed, and she had a love affair with a German officer and disgraced the town. He was a young Bavarian, quartered with this same old woman who told them the story, and she said he was a nice boy, handsome and gentle, and used to sit up half the night in the garden with his head in his hands – homesick, lovesick. He was always after this Marie Louise; never pressed her, but was always there, grew up out of the ground under her feet, the old woman said. The girl hated Germans, like all the rest, and flouted him. He was sent to the front. Then he c
ame back, sick and almost deaf, after one of the slaughters at Verdun, and stayed a long while. That spring a story got about that some woman met him at night in the German graveyard. They had taken the land behind the church for their cemetery, and it joined the wall of the Curé’s garden. When the women went out into the fields to plant the crops, Marie Louise used to slip away from the others and meet her Bavarian in the forest. The girls were sure of it now; and they treated her with disdain. But nobody was brave enough to say anything to the Curé. One day, when she was with her Bavarian in the wood, she snatched up his revolver from the ground and shot herself. She was a Frenchwoman at heart, their hostess said.

  ‘And the Bavarian?’ Claude asked David later. The story had become so complicated he could not follow it.

  ‘He justified her, and promptly. He took the same pistol and shot himself through the temples. His orderly, stationed at the edge of the thicket to keep watch, heard the first shot and ran toward them. He saw the officer take up the smoking pistol and turn it on himself. But the Kommandant couldn’t believe that one of his officers had so much feeling. He held an enquête, dragged the girl’s mother and uncle into court, and tried to establish that they were in conspiracy with her to seduce and murder a German officer. The orderly was made to tell the whole story; how and where they began to meet. Though he wasn’t very delicate about the details he divulged, he stuck to his statement that he saw Lieutenant Muller shoot himself with his own hand, and the Kommandant failed to prove his case. The old Curé had known nothing of all this until he heard it aired in the military court. Marie Louise had lived in his house since she was a child, and was like his daughter. He had a stroke or something, and has been like this ever since. The girl’s friends forgave her, and when she was buried off alone by the hedge, they began to take flowers to her grave. The Kommandant put up an affiche on the hedge, forbidding any one to decorate the grave. Apparently, nothing during the German occupation stirred up more feeling than poor Marie Louise.’