Chapter I: Front Matter

THE FORBIDDEN ZONE

_Other works by Mary Borden_

THE ROMANTIC WOMAN
JANE--OUR STRANGER
THREE PILGRIMS AND A TINKER
FOUR O’CLOCK
JERICHO SANDS
FLAMINGO
JEHOVAH’S DAY

SOLITUDE

_The zone at Thiepval, near the Somme, in 1916_

_From the Drypoint by_

PERCY SMITH

THE FORBIDDEN ZONE

BY

MARY BORDEN

_To the Poilus
who came that way in
1914-1918_

WILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD.,
_London_

_Published 1929_

CONTENTS

_Part One_

THE NORTH

_Page_

1 BELGIUM 1

2 BOMBARDMENT 5

3 THE CAPTIVE BALLOON 11

4 THE SQUARE 13

5 SENTINELS 17

6 THE REGIMENT 21

7 THE BEACH 42

8 MOONLIGHT 51

9 ENFANT DE MALHEUR. A story 66

10 ROSA. A story 93

_Part Two_

THE SOMME

_Hospital Sketches_

1 THE CITY IN THE DESERT 109

2 CONSPIRACY 117

3 PARAPHERNALIA 123

4 IN THE OPERATING ROOM 127

5 BLIND. A story 136

6 THE PRIEST AND THE RABBI. A story 160

7 THE TWO GUNNERS. A story 167

POEMS

1 THE HILL 175

2 THE SONG OF THE MUD 179

3 WHERE IS JEHOVAH? 183

4 THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT 189

5 UNIDENTIFIED 193

THE PREFACE

_I have not invented anything in this book. The sketches and poems were written between 1914 and 1918, during four years of hospital work with the French Army. The five stories I have written recently from memory; they recount true episodes that I cannot forget._

_I have called the collection of fragments “The Forbidden Zone” because the strip of land immediately behind the zone of fire where I was stationed went by that name in the French Army. We were moved up and down inside it; our hospital unit was shifted from Flanders to the Somme, then to Champagne, and then back again to Belgium, but we never left “La Zone Interdite.”_

_To those who find these impressions confused, I would say that they are fragments of a great confusion. Any attempt to reduce them to order would require artifice on my part and would falsify them. To those on the other hand who find them unbearably plain, I would say that I have blurred the bare horror of facts and softened the reality in spite of myself, not because I wished to do so, but because I was incapable of a nearer approach to the truth._

_I have dared to dedicate these pages to the Poilus who passed through our hands during the war, because I believe they would recognise the dimmed reality reflected in these pictures. But the book is not meant for them. They know, not only everything that is contained in it, but all the rest that can never be written._

_The Author._