Tale 12 - Master of No Man's Land

The Master of No Man's Land

When the last dynasty has fallen and the last empire passed away, when
man himself has gone, there will probably still remain the swede.[The
rutabaga or Swedish turnip.]

There grew a swede in No Man's Land by Croisille near the Somme, and
it had grown there for a long while free from man.

It grew as you never saw a swede grow before. It grew tall and strong
and weedy. It lifted its green head and gazed round over No Man's
Land. Yes, man was gone, and it was the day of the swede.

The storms were tremendous. Sometimes pieces of iron sang through its
leaves. But man was gone and it was the day of the swede.

A man used to come there once, a great French farmer, an oppressor of
swedes. Legends were told of him and his herd of cattle, dark
traditions that passed down vegetable generations. It was somehow
known in those fields that the man ate swedes.

And now his house was gone and he would come no more.

The storms were terrible, but they were better than man. The swede
nodded to his companions: the years of freedom had come.

They had always known among them that these years would come. Man had
not been there always, but there had always been swedes. He would go
some day, suddenly, as he came. That was the faith of the swedes. And
when the trees went the swede believed that the day was come. When
hundreds of little weeds arrived that were never allowed before, and
grew unchecked, he knew it.

After that he grew without any care, in sunlight, moonlight and rain;
grew abundantly and luxuriantly in the freedom, and increased in
arrogance till he felt himself greater than man. And indeed in those
leaden storms that sang often over his foliage all living things
seemed equal.

There was little that the Germans left when they retreated from the
Somme that was higher than this swede. He grew the tallest thing for
miles and miles. He dominated the waste. Two cats slunk by him from a
shattered farm: he towered above them contemptuously.

A partridge ran by him once, far, far below his lofty leaves. The
night winds mourning in No Man's Land seemed to sing for him alone.

It was surely the hour of the swede. For him, it seemed, was No Man's
Land. And there I met him one night by the light of a German rocket
and brought him back to our company to cook.

Read next: Tale 13 - Weeds and Wire

Read previous: Tale 11 - Two Degrees of Envy

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