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

by Pete Ayrton

  ‘I believe, personally, I mean to say just for myself, generally speaking, I couldn’t really affirm that I have a special predilection for war.’

  ‘Stand at attention!’

  I was already standing at attention.

  ‘Ah, so you’re for peace, are you?’ Now the general’s voice was tinged with surprise and disdain. ‘For peace! Just like some meek little housewife, consecrated to hearth and home, to her kitchen, her bedroom, her flowers, to her flowers, to her sweet little flowers! Is that how it is, lieutenant?’

  ‘No, general.’

  ‘And what kind of peace is it that you desire?’

  ‘A peace…’And inspiration came to my aid. ‘A victorious peace.’

  The general seemed reassured. He asked me a few more routine questions and then asked me to accompany him on a tour of the front line.

  When we were in the trench, at the highest and closest point to the enemy lines, facing Mount Fior, he asked me, ‘How far is it here, between our trenches and the Austrians’?’

  ‘About two hundred fifty meters,’ I replied.

  The general took a long look and said, ‘Here, it’s two hundred thirty meters.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Not probably. Certainly.’

  We had made a solid trench, with rocks and big clods of earth. The men could walk up and down its entire length without being seen. The lookouts observed and shot through loopholes, under cover. The general looked out from the loophole, but he wasn’t satisfied. He had a pile of rocks made at the foot of the parapet and climbed upon them, his eyes behind binoculars. Standing straight up, he was uncovered from his chest to his head.

  ‘General,’ I said, ‘the Austrians have some excellent snipers and it’s dangerous to expose yourself like that.’

  The general didn’t answer me. Standing straight, he kept on looking through his binoculars. Two rifle shots rang out from the enemy line. The bullets whistled past the general. He remained impassive. Two more shots followed the first two, and one of them grazed the trench. Only then, composed and unhurried, did he come down. I looked at him up close. His face displayed arrogant indifference, but his eyes were spinning. They looked like the wheels of a race car.

  The lookout who was on duty just a few steps away from him continued looking out of his loophole. But, attracted by the exceptional show, some soldiers and a corporal from the 12th Company, then on the line, had stopped in the trench, all huddled together next to the general, and they were looking at him, more distrustful than impressed. They no doubt found in the division commander’s overly audacious attitude some very good reasons to ponder, with a certain amount of apprehension, their own fate. The general gazed at his onlookers with satisfaction.

  ‘If you’re not afraid,’he said, turning to the corporal, ‘do what your general just did.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the corporal replied. And leaning his rifle against the trench wall, he climbed up on the pile of rocks.

  Instinctively, I grabbed the corporal by the arm and made him come down.

  ‘The Austrians have been alerted now,’ I said, ‘and they certainly won’t miss on the next shot.’

  With a chilling glance, the general reminded me of the difference in rank that separated me from him. I let go of the corporal’s arm and didn’t say another word.

  ‘But there’s nothing to it,’ said the corporal, and he climbed back up on the pile.

  As soon as he looked out he was greeted by a barrage of rifle fire. The Austrians, roused by his previous apparition, were waiting with their guns pointed. The corporal remained unhurt. Impassive, his arms leaning on the parapet, his chest exposed to enemy fire, he kept his eyes to the front.

  ‘Bravo!’ the general cried. ‘You can get down now.’

  A single shot came from the enemy trench. The corporal fell backward and landed on top of us. I bent over him. The bullet had hit him in the top of the chest, under his collarbone, going in one side and out the other. Blood was coming out of his mouth. His eyes slits, gasping for breath, he murmured, ‘It’s nothing, lieutenant.’

  The general bent over him, too. The soldiers looked at him, hate in their eyes.

  ‘He’s a hero,’ the general commented. ‘A real hero.’

  When he straightened up, his eyes again met mine. Just for a second. In that instant, I recalled having seen those very same eyes, cold and rotating, in the mental hospital of my hometown during a visit we’d made there with our professor of forensic medicine.

  He looked for his change purse and pulled out a silver one-lira coin.

  ‘Here,’ he said to the corporal. ‘You can drink a glass of wine the first chance you get.’

  The wounded man shook his head in refusal and hid his hands. The general stood there with the lira in his fingers and, after a moment’s hesitation, let it drop onto the corporal. Nobody picked it up.

  The general continued his inspection of the line and when he got to the end of my battalion, he dispensed me from following him.

  I made my way back to the battalion command. The whole line was in an uproar. The news of what had happened had already made it around the entire sector. For their part, the stretcher-bearers who had carried the corporal to the first-aid post had recounted the episode to everyone they ran into. Captain Canevacci was beside himself.

  ‘The people in command of the Italian army are Austrians!’ he exclaimed. ‘Austrians in front of us, Austrians at our backs, Austrians in our midst!’

  Near the battalion command I ran into Lieutenant Colonel Abbati again. That was the name of the officer from the 301st Infantry. He was supposed to go up to the front line with his battalion. He knew about the incident too. I called out to him. He didn’t answer. When he got up close to me, he said, worried, ‘The military art follows its course.’

  He stretched out his arm to unlatch the canteen I was wearing on my belt. I rushed to offer it to him. Looking distracted, a vague look in his eyes, he took it delicately in hand. He held it up to his ear and shook it; it wasn’t empty. He took out the cork and held it up to his lips to drink. But he stopped suddenly, with a look on his face of amazement and disgust, as though he’d seen the head of a snake spring forth from the mouth of the canteen.

  ‘Coffee and water!’ he exclaimed in a tone of compassion. ‘Look, kid, start drinking. Otherwise you’ll end up in the loony bin, too, like your general.’

  EMILIO LUSSU

  YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE NOTHING

  from A Soldier on the Southern Front

  translated by Gregory Conti

  WE CONTINUED OUR PURSUIT the next day. After moving past Croce Sant’Antonio, the advance-guard battalion proceeded through the forest toward the grassy basin of Casara Zebio and Mount Zebio. As it advanced, it appeared more and more probable that the largest part of the enemy force had stopped in the highlands. Their resistance had become tenacious again. It was clear that the last Austrian units, in contact with our patrols, were supported by troops nearby. Given the slowness of our progress, my battalion, once we’d crossed the Val di Nos, remained inactive the whole day, waiting to be called into action.

  The advance-guard 2nd Battalion received orders to stop and dig in. During the night, our battalion replaced it. When we arrived, one trench line had already been dug, hurriedly, on the outer edge of the woods. There were still some fir trees in front of us, but few and far between, as they always are on the edges of high-altitude fir woods. The terrain was still covered with bushes. Further away and higher up, several hundred meters ahead, some rocky mountain peaks loomed among the tops of the last fir trees. We could probably expect the stiffest resistance at their feet.

  At dawn, Captain Canevacci and I were on the line with the 9th Company. We were waiting for the arrival of the machine-gun unit, which had stayed behind. The captain in command of the 9th was keeping watch over the terrain in front of the line with a group of sharpshooters. We were next to him, lying on the ground, behind a mound. Canevacci was looking through his b
inoculars.

  Among the bushes, less than a hundred meters away, an enemy patrol came into view. There were seven of them, walking in single file. Convinced they were nowhere near our line, out of sight, they were proceeding parallel to our trench, walking straight up, rifles in hand, packs on their backs. They were exposed from their knees up. The captain of the 9th gestured to the sharpshooters, gave the order to fire, and the patrol crumbled to the ground.

  ‘Bravo!’ exclaimed Captain Canevacci.

  One of our squads moved out of the trench on all fours. Behind them the entire line had their rifles pointed. The squad disappeared, slithering on their bellies, into the bushes. We were expecting the squad to come back in carrying the fallen, but time was going by. Our men had to advance very cautiously to avoid an ambush. Captain Canevacci was losing patience. The machine-gun unit still hadn’t arrived. What if they’d gotten lost in the forest, in the middle of the other units? To keep from losing more time I went back to look for them.

  I found them half a kilometer farther back, in contact with the units of the 2nd Battalion. When I saw them, a dramatic scene was being played out; General Leone, alone on his mule, was climbing up a rocky slope between the 2nd Battalion and the machine-gun unit. As the mule was moving along the edge of a steep drop, about sixty-five feet, it stumbled and the general fell to the ground. The mule, unperturbed, kept walking along the edge of the cliff. The general was still hanging on to the reins, with half of his body dangling over the precipice. With each step, the mule yanked its head from side to side, trying to shake him off. At any moment the general might fall off the cliff. There were a lot of soldiers nearby who saw him, but nobody made a move. I could see them all very clearly; some of them winked at each other, smiling.

  Any minute now the mule would free itself of the general. A soldier rushed out from the ranks of the machine-gun unit and threw himself down on the ground in time to save him. Without losing his composure, as though he had trained especially for accidents of this kind, the general remounted his mule, continued on his way, and disappeared. The soldier, back on his feet, looked around, satisfied. He had saved the general.

  When his comrades from the machine-gun unit reached him, I witnessed a savage assault. They mauled him furiously, pummeling him with punches. The soldier fell to the ground on his back. His comrades jumped on top of him.

  ‘Son of a bitch! You miserable bastard!’

  ‘Leave me alone! Help!’

  Punches and kicks slammed into the poor wretch, who was powerless to defend himself.

  ‘Here! Take that! Who paid you to be the imbecile?’

  ‘Help!’

  ‘Save the general! Admit that you were paid by the Austrians!’

  ‘Leave me alone! I didn’t do it on purpose. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.’

  The commander of the machine-gun unit was nowhere to be seen. The beating had gone on too long. Since nobody, neither officers nor NCOs, intervened to stop it, I ran over to them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I shouted in a loud voice.

  My presence surprised everyone. The aggressors dispersed. Only a couple of them remained where they were and stood at attention. I went over to the victim, held out my hand, and helped him up. By the time he was back on his feet, those few who had stayed had disappeared. I was standing there alone with the soldier. He had a black eye and a cheek covered with blood. He’d lost his helmet.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked him. ‘Why did they come after you like that?’

  ‘It’s nothing, lieutenant,’ he muttered under his breath.

  And he turned his frightened gaze right and left, looking for his helmet, but also out of fear of being heard by his comrades.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s nothing? What about the black eye? And the blood on your face? You’re half dead and it’s nothing?’

  Standing at attention, embarrassed, the soldier didn’t respond. I insisted, but he didn’t say another word.

  We were both relieved of our embarrassment by the arrival of the commander of the machine gunners, Lieutenant Ottolenghi, the one who in the battle on Mount Fior, with just one gun still working, had saved the day. We were the same rank, but I was more senior. Without saying even a word to me, he went up to the soldier and yelled at him, ‘You imbecile! Today you dishonored our unit.’

  ‘But what was I supposed to do, lieutenant?’

  ‘What were you supposed to do? You should have done what everybody else did. Nothing. You should have done nothing. And even that was too much. A dumbass like you I don’t even want him in my unit. I’m going to have you thrown out.’

  The soldier had found his helmet and was putting it back on his head.

  ‘What were you supposed to do?’ the lieutenant said again, with disdain. ‘You wanted to do something? Well then, you should have taken your bayonet and cut the reins and made the general fall off the cliff.’

  ‘What?’ the soldier muttered. ‘I should have let the general die?’

  ‘Yes, you cretin, you should have let him die. And if he wasn’t going to die, then – since you wanted to do something no matter what the cost – you should have helped him die. Go back to the unit, and if the rest of them kill you, you’ll have got what you deserve.’

  ‘Look,’ I said to him after the soldier had gone, ‘you’d better take things a little more seriously. In a few hours the whole brigade will know what happened.’

  ‘Whether they know or don’t know makes no difference to me. On the contrary, it’s better if they do know. That way, somebody might just get the idea to take a shot at that vampire.’

  He went on talking, still indignant. He stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a coin, tossed it into the air, and said to me, ‘Heads or tails?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Heads!’ he shouted.

  It was tails.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he went on. ‘Tails. If it had been heads… if it had been heads…’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘If it had been heads… Well! Let’s leave it for the next time.’

  As the machine-gun unit was joining the battalion, the squad from 9th Company was coming back to the trench, dragging the bodies of the fallen patrol. Six were dead, one was still alive. Their corporal was one of the dead. From their papers we determined they were Bosnians. The two captains were satisfied. Especially Canevacci, who was hoping they could obtain some useful information by interrogating the survivor. He had him taken to the first-aid station and immediately informed the division command, where an interpreter was on staff.

  The six dead men were lying on the ground, one next to the other. We contemplated them, deep in thought. Sooner or later, for us, too, the time would come. But Captain Canevacci was too pleased. He stopped next to the body of the corporal and said to him, ‘Hey! My friend, if you had learned how to command a patrol you wouldn’t be here right now. When you’re out on patrol, the commander, first of all, has to see…’

  He was interrupted by the captain of the 9th. With a finger on his mouth and a thin thread of a voice, he invited him to keep quiet. In front of us, from the same direction in which the patrol had fallen, but closer, there was a sound, like the buzzing of people having an argument. The captain looked to the front. The sharpshooters aimed their rifles. The battalion commander and I also kept quiet and made our way silently up to the line to have a look.

  The sound was coming from the trunk of a big fir tree, illuminated in patches by the sunlight shining through the treetops. Two squirrels were jumping along the trunk, a few meters off the ground. Quick and nimble, they chased each other, hid, chased each other again, and hid again. Short little shrieks, like uncontainable laughter, marked their encounters each time they launched themselves with little hops from opposite sides of the trunk, the one against the other. And every time they stopped themselves in a circle of sunlight on the trunk, they stood straight up on their hind legs and, using their paws like hands, appeared to be offering each other c
ompliments, caresses, and congratulations. The sunlight shone brightly on their white bellies and the tufts of their tails, which stood straight up like two brushes.

  One of the sharpshooters looked over at the captain of the 9th and muttered,

  ‘Shall we shoot?’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ the captain answered in surprise. ‘They’re so cute.’

  Captain Canevacci went back over to the line of dead bodies.

  ‘The patrol commander must see and not be seen…,’ he said, continuing his sermon to the Bosnian corporal.

  EMILIO LUSSU

  THE AUSTRIAN OFFICER LIT A CIGARETTE

  from A Soldier on the Southern Front

  translated by Gregory Conti

  THERE WAS NO MORE TALK of new assaults. Calm seemed to have settled in over the valley for a good long time. On one side and the other, positions were reinforced. The pioneers worked through the night. The little 37mm cannon continued to pester us, still invisible. Whole days went by without it firing a shot, then, out of the blue, it would open fire on a loophole and wound one of our lookouts.

  My battalion was still on the line and we were waiting for the relief battalion to replace us. I wanted to be able to give precise instructions to the commander of the unit that would be taking our place. Day and night, I had a special observation detail on duty, in the hope that the flash of the cannon shot or the movements of its crew might give away its position.

  The night before the change of battalions, since the observation details hadn’t produced any results, I decided to go on observation myself, accompanied by a corporal. The corporal had gone out frequently on patrol and had a good feel for the terrain. The moonlight was shining through the trees and, whenever the occasional rocket whizzed by, the sudden flash of light made it look like the forest was moving. You couldn’t always tell if it was an illusion. It might well have been men moving around out there and not just trees that, because of the speed of the light from the rockets passing through their limbs, looked like they were moving. The two of us had gone out from the far left end of our company, at the point where our trenches were closest to the enemy trenches. Moving on all fours, we took cover behind a bush, about ten meters beyond our line and thirty or so meters from the Austrian line. There was a slight depression between our trenches and the bush, and it crowned a rise in the terrain dominating the trench in front of it.