No Man's Land

NO MAN'S LAND

PETE AYRTON
was born in London in 1943. After studying and briefly teaching philosophy, a period of left-wing tourism in France and Italy led to his learning to read and converse in these languages, and to take part in the intense, opaque discourses of Marxism. A period of work as translator led to a job as editor with Pluto Press and to his founding in 1986 of Serpent's Tail. Two first world war classics published by Serpent's Tail, Frederic Manning's
Her Privates We
and Gabriel Chevallier's
Fear
, are included in
No Man's Land
.

NO MAN'S LAND

WRITINGS FROM A WORLD AT WAR

CHOSEN AND INTRODUCED
BY PETE AYRTON

A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library on request

The right of Pete Ayrton to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Pete Ayrton 2014

For copyright details of the selected writings see
Permissions
on pp 550–1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2014 by Serpent's Tail, an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

3
A
Exmouth House

Pine Street

London
ECIR OJH

www.serpentstail.com

eISBN 978 1 84765 922 4

This book is dedicated to Susan Sontag, who made sure I never forgot that words have no borders

 

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction • Pete Ayrton

Henri Barbusse • ‘The Vision', from
Under Fire
, translated by Robin Buss

Mulk Raj Anand • ‘Marseille', from
Across the Black Waters

Ernst Jünger • ‘Rajputs', from
War Diary 1914–1918
, translated by Martin Chalmers

D. H. Lawrence • ‘The Nightmare', from
Kangaroo

Siegfried Sassoon • ‘Done All That was Expected of It'
and
‘That Necessary Faculty for Trench Warfare', from
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Vera Brittain • ‘Destiny was Not Willing'
and
‘I Thank You, Sister', from
Testament of Youth

Helen Zenna Smith • ‘Liquid Fire'
and
‘The Beauty of Men Who are Whole', from
Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War

William Baylebridge • ‘The Apocalypse of Pat McCullough: The Sergeant's Tale', from
An Anzac Muster

Robin Hyde • ‘Dawn's Angel', from
Passport to Hell

W. N. P. Barbellion • ‘Before the War I was an Interesting Invalid', from
The Journal of a Disappointed Man

Mary Borden • ‘The Square'
,
‘The Beach'
,
‘Conspiracy'
and
‘In the Operating Room', from
The Forbidden Zone

Emilio Lussu • ‘A Real Hero'
,
‘You Should Have Done Nothing'
and
‘The Austrian Officer Lit a Cigarette', from
A Soldier on the Southern Front
, translated by Gregory Conti

Carlo Emilio Gadda • ‘The Battle of the Isonzo', from
Journals of War & Prison
, translated by Cristina Viti

Prežihov Voranc • ‘At Doberdob', from
Doberdob
, translated by Ana Jelnikar and Stephen Watts

Wyndham Lewis • ‘The Romance of War'
and
‘Political Education under Fire', from
Blasting and Bombardiering

Richard Aldington • ‘Cannon-fodder'
and
‘A Timeless Confusion', from
Death of a Hero

A.T. Fitzroy • ‘Beethoven and Bach', from
Despised and Rejected

William Faulkner • ‘Crevasse', from
These 13

Frederic Manning • ‘Cushy avec Mademoiselle', from
Her Privates We

Stratis Myrivilis • ‘Animals'
,
‘Anchorites of Lust'
,
‘How Zafiriou Died'
,
‘Alimberis Conquers His Fear of Shells'
and
‘Gas', from
Life in the Tomb
, translated by Peter Bien

Raymond Escholier • ‘Sheep', from
Mahmadou Fofana
, translated by Malcolm Imrie

Robert Musil • ‘The Blackbird', from
Posthumous Papers of a Living Author
, translated by Peter Wortsman

Liviu Rebreanu • ‘To the Romanian Front'
and
‘We'll See What You Do There…', from
The Forest of the Hanged
, translated by A. V. Wise

Jaroslav Hašek • ‘Švejk Goes to the War'
and
‘From Hatvan towards the Galician Frontier', from
The Good Soldier Å vejk
, translated by Cecil Parrott

Miroslav Krleža • ‘Hut 5B', from
The Croatian God Mars
, translated by Celia Hawkesworth

Miloš Crnjanski • ‘My Good Galician Forests', from
Diary about Čarnojević
, translated by Celia Hawkesworth

Viktor Shklovsky • ‘The Democratic Principle of Discussion', from
A Sentimental Journey
, translated by Richard Sheldon

Gabriel Chevallier • ‘I Was Afraid', from
Fear
, translated by Malcolm Imrie

Jules Romains • ‘Jerphanion Writes to His Wife', from
The Prelude to Verdun
, translated by Warre B. Wells

Jean Giono • ‘Julia Remembers'
,
‘The Salt of the Earth'
,
‘News from Joseph'
and
‘Joseph's Left Hand', from
To the Slaughterhouse
, translated by Norman Glass

Louis-Ferdinand Céline • ‘In Ten Thousand Years, This War will be Utterly Forgotten', from
Journey to the End of the Night
, translated by Ralph Manheim

Isaac Babel • ‘Papa Marescot's Family', from
On the Field of Honour
, translated by Peter Constantine

Dalton Trumbo • ‘A Date with the Shell', from
Johnny Got His Gun

Willa Cather • ‘Manger, Aimer, Payer', from
One of Ours

Irene Rathbone • ‘Who Dies if England Lives?', from
We That Were Young

Rose Macaulay • ‘Evening at Violette', from
Non-Combatants and Others

Josep Pla • ‘Veritable Equine Items of Dentistry', from
The Grey Notebook
, translated by Peter Bush

A. P. Herbert • ‘One of the Bravest Men I Ever Knew', from
The Secret Battle

Vahan Totovents • ‘Infidels and Curs', from
Scenes from an Armenian Childhood
, translated by Mischa Kudian

Ömer Seyfettin • ‘Why Didn't He Get Rich?', translated by Izzy Finkel

James Hanley • ‘I Surrender, Camerade', from
The German Prisoner

Theodor Plievier • ‘Mutiny!', from
The Kaiser's Coolies
, translated by Martin Chalmers

Arnold Zweig • ‘Snow', from
The Case of Sergeant Grischa
, translated by Eric Sutton

Edlef Köppen • ‘Cavalry Charge', from
Military Communiqué
, translated by Martin Chalmers

Joseph Roth • ‘My Son is Dead!', from
The Radetzky March
, translated by Michael Hofmann

John Galsworthy • ‘The Gibbet', from
Forsytes, Pendyces and Others

Erich Maria Remarque • ‘Sweet Dreams Though the Guns are Booming', ‘The Dead Man's Room' and ‘He Fell in October', from
All Quiet on the Western Front
, translated by Brian Murdoch

Permissions

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS