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

by Pete Ayrton

  ‘What you’re doing is cheap and vulgar, Dimitratos.’

  ‘Take it easy, friend. What doesn’t become cheap and vulgar as soon as you tell it the way it really is?’

  ‘Zafiriou was a genuine hero. He proved it in the trenches. You should show some respect…’

  ‘A hero by pre-arrangement, just like all the others who make war their profession. And what about me? I’m a hero too, aren’t I? I even have the War Cross, now that we’re on the subject. But never mind; that’s another story… After all, as soon as we fished your genuine hero out of the latrine with a net, Balafaras of course must have sent one of those “lovely letters” to Mytilene – typewritten. You know, the ones the men have learned by heart, offering the parents “congratulations [Is there any reason for congratulations that you know of?] for the glorious death of your son, who, having demonstrated incomparable gallantry worthy of the best Hellenic traditions, was killed on such-and-such a date, bravely fighting for Faith and Fatherland, against the foe.” As soon as you decide to tell the truth, all this becomes cheap and vulgar. Just imagine, for instance, if he’d written: “Zafiriou died gallantly wrestling with allied Franco-hellenic shit. Unfortunately, he was unable to cry ‘Long live the Fatherland’ at the moment of his glorious demise, because… er… he happened to have a mouthful”!’

  STRATIS MYRIVILIS

  ALIMBERIS CONQUERS HIS FEAR OF SHELLS

  from Life in the Tomb

  translated by Peter Bien

  FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS they’ve been preparing us for the great undertaking. Our entire division, reinforced by two non-divisional regiments of reservists, is going to charge the enemy in order to capture one of their large fortified garrisons. The organization needed for this colossal slaughter – needed until the very moment we receive the signal for it to begin – is proceeding with a system so scientifically refined, down to its last insignificant detail, that it boggles the mind. Every conquest of the human brain in engineering, the sciences, psychology, even in art, has become an instrument to aid, as much as it can, the complete extermination of the human beings across the way, men who are lying in wait just as we are, wrapped in their mud.

  Satanic engines, murderous vapors enclosed in tubes and shells: they poison the air, expunge the vision from one’s eyes, raise suppurated pustules on the lungs. Flame which lays waste whatever it finds before it except tanned leather. Flame which re-ignites automatically by itself after it has been dipped in water and drawn out again into the air. Short, plump torpedoes pregnant with terrible explosive matter. A smaller type which we launch in a kind of tiny trench mortar, using compressed air instead of gunpowder and wick. Incendiary bombs which spill thousands of burning grains out of their bellies when they burst, grains which hop about on their own like devils and can therefore kindle a great number of fires. Thermite bombs capable of developing sufficient heat to melt the breech and barrel of a large-bore cannon, fusing them into a doughish lump of undifferentiated metal. (Once we ignited one inside a steel helmet, which melted and turned to ash in a minute, as though made of cardboard.) Complicated pumps whose nozzles sprinkle fire and death. Masks resembling those worn by sponge-divers. Straps, rubber belts, respirators, chemical apparatuses, electronic mechanisms with microphones that overhear secrets and betray them. Magnificent flares which will ignite like multicolored constellations over thousands of innocent men when they are writhing on the ground, their lungs smashed and their living intestines wriggling between blood-stained clots of mud like flayed serpents.

  But of all these repulsive inventions, the one which sends the ugliest chill up my spine is the trench knife. This simple, plain knife with its wide blade is used by the ‘liquidators’: soldiers who stay behind in a conquered trench in order to ‘mop it up’ while the waves of the assault move forward. What this means is that they slaughter all of the enemy who have remained hidden in dark corners or in the abandoned dugouts, whether from fear or cunning – slaughter them coolly and deliberately, by hand, at close range, like lambs. These liquidators or ‘mop-up men’ (doesn’t their ironic name remind you of municipal street-cleaners or of peaceful bank-clerks?) must put every last one of the laggards to the knife, one by one. If you want to ‘cleanse’ a dugout you start by tossing in a couple of hand-grenades, or you spray it with the flame-thrower. If you have a gas bomb on you, so much the better. This is the burning of the hornet’s nest. You heave one inside and all who are hiding there dart through the entrance, stumbling from suffocation and inflamed eyes. The liquidators are waiting for them outside. They slaughter them and then proceed to the next dugout.

  All this is being instructed by means of lectures, illustrations, realistic mock-ups, and very enlightening theory.

  Last night the captain gathered the whole company together in the large anti-bombardment bunker. He told us that he didn’t want a single coward to be found among our ranks during the attack. One and one only, he said, was enough to spread panic, causing the failure of an operation and the useless deaths of countless comrades. This we all found very reasonable in every respect. Afterwards, however, he rested his eyes on us and, smiling in a kindly manner, issued a request. If there was anyone among us who knew himself to be ‘faint-hearted,’ would he please not hesitate to say so frankly. What mattered was that he declare himself now.

  This made all of us feel rather strange. The great bunker where we had assembled is a complete gallery burrowed six meters beneath the surface. We gather here whenever the enemy begins an all-out bombardment, because the other dugouts cannot withstand the ‘big boys’ for very long whereas this place is an entire fortress. The timbers lining its walls and roof are whole tree-trunks, its ingress a veritable labyrinth; there is a layer of soil five meters thick above it and armor plating inside. Big as it is, however, it holds all two hundred of us only with difficulty. Whenever we remain inside for more than a few hours at a time, the air grows noxious. If the sentries at the door had allowed it, many would have slipped outside during the bombardments to fill their lungs with ‘clean’, cool air at the risk of losing their lives…

  The atmosphere this time was just the same, gathered as we were once more in the great bunker, the cannons howling across the way. During a long interval we did not talk; we just listened to the bursting shells as they barked in the air. The captain’s voice had sounded so calm amid all this uproar in the background that it made one feel almost safe just to be near him. With that ingratiating smile on his rosy lips, he promenaded his gaze upon us and waited to discover whether or not there really was a ‘faint-hearted’ man in our company.

  We all understood perfectly well, yet no one possessed the courage to open his heart and utter the truth. Looking straight ahead because of our embarrassment yet filled with a certain curiosity, we waited. As soon as the slightest murmur or noise was heard, however, we turned with a mass movement and searched about in order to discover who was ready to confess his ‘faint-heartedness’. The unshaven faces gleamed as white as plaster beneath the illumination of the acetylene lamp, a secret fever burning in their sunken eyes. I felt an inner urge to push my way through the crowd and station myself at the captain’s side so that I could face all of my comrades and say to them: ‘Listen, every one of you – does this mean that there isn’t a single brave man among us? We’re two hundred strong here. The captain is looking for one coward; I’m looking for one man of courage – a man brave enough to confess that he is afraid to die. Nobody? Well then, every last one of us is faint-hearted, we’re a lot of cowardly and good-for-nothing liars.’

  At the same time, however, I felt that not even I myself possessed such inner courage. Indeed, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if my lips were being sealed by the War Cross, my tongue being tied in knots by my second stripe.

  Meanwhile, a voice did speak out. It came from the rear of the gallery during those difficult moments we were all experiencing.

  ‘Sir, if you please…’

  A rustling, a stirring. The mass
of soldiers squeezed itself together even tighter than before and opened an aisle down which came a short private with curly hair and squarish shoulders. Vasilios Athanasios Alimberis. Speaking slowly, and searching for the proper expressions, he made the following declaration:

  ‘I respectfully inform you, Captain, that I am faint-hearted, and I earnestly request that I may be left behind when the attack takes place.’

  ‘Do you mean to say you’re afraid?’

  The captain asked this in a tone of near-astonishment, as though actually insulted that such a declaration should be heard in his company. Alimberis answered, more boldly now, a confessional tone entering his heavy, boorish speech:

  ‘That’s what I mean, Captain. Yes, afraid. I’m a carpenter, just a simple carpenter, you understand. I’m still single, because I have my old mother and four sisters to support – a hopeless business to be sure. I haven’t even been able to marry off the oldest yet. They sold our little farm, the only thing our father left us when he died, and for the time being they’re eating up the proceeds. I’ve got them on my mind day and night; I can’t think of anything else. Tell me, what will become of five women with no means of support, if the war lasts much longer?… In my whole life I’ve never quarreled with a single soul. I don’t have the courage to kill. Every time I hear a shell, I feel like I’m giving up the ghost. I shiver; you’d think I was freezing. I might faint at the sight of blood. But work – nothing but the best. Give me all you like; I’m at your service, with pleasure! I can run a lathe. Hand me some wood and I’ll turn you out the most ingenious things you’ve ever seen, absolutely first class… Please forgive me, Captain, for making bold to tell you all this. You see, I’ve spoken as in the confessional. We all know you to be a man of good heart. That’s why I said to myself, Let’s tell him the whole truth, seeing that he’s ordered us to, and he’ll forgive me.’

  Vasilios Athanasios Alimberis spoke these words and then fell silent. He had remained at rigid attention the whole time, motionless except for his fluttering eyelids. Behind his coarse pronunciation I felt that I heard the muted, tender tones of another voice which had died. Yes, what I heard was the painful lamentation of Gighandis – the only difference being that he, lacking Alimberis’s extreme simplicity and possessing an ego whose multifarious weaknesses had been cultivated to an incredible degree, would never have yielded up the unpardonable truth about himself to so many people.

  No one knew what would happen next. Alimberis remained at attention. His innocent eyes, fixed directly upon the captain, were awaiting some response which assuredly would be crucial for his life. All the rest of us were awaiting that response too, since very likely it would have repercussions for others as well. Outside, the cannonade was still bellowing away maniacally. The captain grimaced, deep in thought. His hands were behind his back and he was thinking – but he certainly was not thinking pleasant thoughts. Ugly wrinkles creased his ruddy features and a flash of harsh cruelty passed across his eyes as he slowly lifted his gaze from Alimberis’s feet and paraded it gradually up his entire body until it halted inside the carpenter’s eyes. This stare into the eyes lasted just a moment. Then the captain smiled courteously (Alimberis returned the smile, mirror-like), motioned the soldier to stand at ease, and commanded: ‘Sergeant Pavlelis!’

  ‘Here, Captain.’

  ‘You will accompany the second patrol when it leaves. You will take four men from your platoon and convey Private Alimberis through the exit boyau to the second row of barbed wire. There you will bind him to the steel post which stands to the right of the entanglement’s ingress, where he shall remain – in order to grow accustomed to shellfire – until I send someone to bring him back.’ (Then, as though by way of explanation:) ‘It’s just a question of habituation, this. Getting it out of one’s system, that’s all. Then you’re not afraid any more.’

  The captain’s very first words had turned Alimberis pale as wax. Now he held out his hands and cast terrified glances first at the captain, then at Sergeant Pavlelis, after which he began to stammer rapidly and in great confusion, his eyes filled with tears:

  ‘You couldn’t do that. Captain, Sir… I respectfully inform you… no, you wouldn’t do that to me, Sir… you’ll take pity.’

  ‘But it’s not anything you need be frightened about, as you seem to think,’ said the captain. ‘You won’t get the slightest scratch, I assure you. The place is hidden behind some bushes, quite aside from the fact that our friends happen to be pounding us on the left flank just now. I’m trying to help you get it out of your system, don’t you see? Tomorrow, never fear, you’ll come back to us a real champ. Greece has lots of good carpenters. Well, now they’ve all got to become good soldiers… And there’s no call, if you please, for snivelling and tears. Men at war, Private Alimberis, do not cry!’

  Alimberis wiped his eyes with his huge hands and answered:

  ‘I’m crying for myself, Captain, and I’m crying for five women too…’

  Late that night, Sergeant Pavlelis presented himself at the captain’s dugout, his hand raised in salute.

  ‘Your orders have been carried out, Sir.’

  ‘My orders?’

  ‘Concerning Private Alimberis. We bound him to the post at the ingress to the second row of barbed wire, just as you commanded.’

  ‘How did he behave? Did he offer any resistance?’

  ‘None at all. He just kept pleading with us, blubbering away. He said he’d die if we left him alone out there in the darkness with all those rockets. I felt sorry for him, to tell you the truth. Every shell that passes overhead makes him jump clear out of his skin.’

  *

  Who knows what tragedy unfolded out there at the ingress to the second row of barbed wire, during the night. The darkness was so thick, probably even God himself was unable to witness it.

  Two men went out at dawn to bring Alimberis back. They found him completely calm. His arms, bound at the elbows behind the post, were bloody from the rope and the barbed wire. He was leaning back against the post, his head resting on his left shoulder. When they released him he sat down on the ground and studied his hands, first the palms then the backs. Next, he commenced to cut off his buttons one by one and to pull out the threads ever so slowly with his fingernails, whistling softly all the while He performed this task with the utmost care. The soldiers, who still had not understood, kept telling him: ‘Let’s get a move on before daylight comes and you get us in trouble. You can do your mending in your dugout. Looks like they’ve really made a man out of you at last.’ Alimberis seemed not to hear. Bending down in the half-darkness, they saw him close at hand, clearly, and only then did they understand. They grasped him beneath the armpits. With one in front dragging and the other in back pushing, they got him into the exit boyau and brought him from there to the trench. He whistled the whole way. Afterwards, he continued to whistle, always unraveling his clothes. When he finally gave this up his lips remained puckered in the same position, as though still whistling. Today, he was sent to the hospital. To arrive there you have to negotiate an exposed pass, a section which the enemy bombards if even so much as an ant attempts to cross it. With great difficulty they got him to crouch over and make a run for it. The shells that raced shrieking over his head were unable to instil either fear or interest into his tormented spirit, which had already died. It had been taken out there to the exit at the second row of barbed wire one terrible night during the bombardment, and killed. Why? Because he had dared to let this spirit reveal its true condition.

  I feel no love for my captain any longer. I can only pity him – or can I?

  STRATIS MYRIVILIS

  GAS

  from Life in the Tomb

  translated by Peter Bien

  FROM ALL APPEARANCES they’ve caught wind across the way of the great undertaking which we are organizing in our front lines and in the supply stations behind us. For three days now, enemy planes have been operating over our positions with admirable bravery and daring.
In all the raids the sky fills with little cotton-like clouds which sprout everywhere and follow behind each enemy aircraft like a flock of lambs. These are the shells from our anti-aircraft batteries bursting high in the blue sky. Occasionally, one of the metallic war-birds is brought down. Three mornings ago a lone German bomber engaged seven allied fighters above our lines. It escaped intact after downing an English plane, which fell from the top of the sky, howling as it descended (as though in pain) and trailing a comet of pitch-black smoke behind it. The pilot’s body worked loose and fell straight downward like some kind of black thing, whereas the airplane kept burning and weeping until it crashed a mile away. On another day two German planes came and trained their sights on a huge observation-balloon which hovered in the air like a colossal yellow kidney, permanently moored to a small humpish mountain. A bullet found it, igniting the hydrogen inside, and the observer who was in its basket plunged to the ground out of a majestic fire whose flaming tongue licked the heavens, fluttered for a moment like a sheet of gold, and then abruptly died out. The observer was a young French major. He lived for a short time, and with his last breaths he begged his Command to tell his brother, who was serving in France, not to remain in the forces any longer but to go and stay with their mother. Of her four sons, this brother was the only one left.

  *

  The offensive is now the one great topic of conversation in the trenches. Apparently the hour is approaching. And apparently the enemy are fully expecting us. These last few days their artillery batteries have been literally maniacal in their attempt to eradicate our trenches – especially in the mornings, when the whole universe seems to be falling apart. The men have come to display a melancholy fatalism when they discuss the impending events. Everyone knows that he is bound to play a part, like it or not.