"No man's land" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away, in full marching order within 40 minutes from the time the order was received. On May 28th, the Brigade moved forward north of the Auja, in reserve for the attack by the 7th Indian Division, but this movement was merely intended to capture a few enemy posts in order to narrow "no man's land," and thus bring ourselves into closer touch with the enemy. The Brigade remained "standing-by" at half an hour's notice until the evening of the 30th, when it returned ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... is such a madcap," she said. "How shall we keep him from getting up to mischief in No Man's Land precisely ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... This whole countryside is a ruined waste—villages destroyed, weeds overgrowing everything; and no inhabitants except troops. It was strange to walk over the old trench systems and the broad green band between them (still thickly strewn with barbed wire) that used to be No Man's Land. One thought of the Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans who sat for so long in those trenches, peering at each other furtively from time to time, each doing all he could to kill the enemy, and from time to time raiding one another's ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... sq km note: includes West Bank, Latrun Salient, and the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea, but excludes Mt. Scopus; East Jerusalem and Jerusalem No Man's Land are also included only as a means of depicting the entire area occupied by Israel in 1967 water: 220 sq ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... them or build ships themselves; and the Germans then turned from the task of destroying the British Navy to that of destroying the commerce on which we depended for subsistence, from the hope of securing the command of the sea for themselves to that of turning it into a "no man's land," a desert which no allied or ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... Drummond, the brisk and cheerful young man whom demobilisation has left unemployed and whose perfectly natural susceptibility to the attractiveness of a young woman leads him into adventures as desperate as any in No Man's Land. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... giant oak which looked as if half a dozen Calibans might have been pegged in its knotty entrails—this one tree, the grandfather of the forest, we thought we had saved. It stood a little apart,—it shadowed no man's land,—it shut the broiling sun from nobody's windows, so we hoped it might be allowed to die a natural death. But one unlucky day, a family fresh from "the 'hio" removed into a house which stood at no great distance from this relic of primeval grandeur. These people were but little indebted to fortune, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and I donned my rain-coat; I buckled my helmet tight. I remember you watched me, Billy, as I took my cane in my hand; I vaulted over the sandbags into the pitchy night, Into the pitted valley that served us as No Man's Land. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Chelsea. 'Is pal got sniped an' Fritzie took 'is shoes. They're awrful short o' shoes. Kippers, 'e s'ys, 'I'll not l'y down me rifle till I plunk[4] a German and get 'is shoes.' Two d'ys arfter 'e comes crawlin' back through No Man's Land and the color sergeant arsks 'im did 'e carry out 'is resolootion. 'Yes,' s'ys 'e, 'but blimy, I 'ad to plunk seven Germans before I could get a pair o' clods to fit me.' 'E was usin' 'is pal's strength too besides 'is ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... British. There was less artillery work on either side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the "Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... not long after the barrage began before the Germans began to throw star shells. These were for the purpose of lighting up No Man's Land. They are thrown to a height of several hundred feet, and as they slowly descend, they burn a brilliant white light. These added to the brilliancy of the fireworks. The object of the Germans in ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... has all this to do with our relation as employer and employee in the Mill? What effect would Mary have had on you over there if she had gone to you with 'Oh, Charlie dear, you mustn't go out in that dreadful No Man's Land to-night. It is so dirty and wet and cold. Remember that you are an officer, Charlie dear, and ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... interrupting green, nor were cattle to be seen dotting the distance, nor moving objects at all, nor any bird in the soundless air. The last gate was shut by the Virginian, who looked back at the pleasant trees of the ranch, and then followed on in single file across the alkali of No Man's Land. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... was sitting on a grocery box in No Man's Land, laughing so hard that his sides ached. Their banter seemed a kind of tonic to him. And it was when he laughed and seemed so simple and childlike and so much one of them, that ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... girls would not be along yet. For the first time it occurred to me that I should be homesick for that river after I left it. The sandbars, with their clean white beaches and their little groves of willows and cottonwood seedlings, were a sort of No Man's Land, little newly created worlds that belonged to the Black Hawk boys. Charley Harling and I had hunted through these woods, fished from the fallen logs, until I knew every inch of the river shores and had a friendly feeling for every bar ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... in torrents over the great battlefield, as Hal Paine and Chester Crawford, taking advantage of the inky blackness of the night, crept from the shelter of the American trenches that faced the enemy across "No Man's Land." ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... claim to reunion through the absorption of all sects in the Anglican communion. It has so shifted from its former position that it has openly expressed in the Bishops' manifesto the desire to place itself on some "no man's land" where all the dissident Churches may ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... And to me he added in a murmured whisper, "He's afraid. He was blown up in a mine in No Man's Land between the trenches at Christmas-time in 1914. ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... foresight of the antagonist, who needs only narrow his positions to narrations of facts and events, in our judgment of which we are not aided by the analogy of previous and succeeding experience, to deprive you of the opportunity of skirmishing thus on No Man's land. But this is Skelton's ruling passion, sometimes his strength—too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe: or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and exclusively ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... moving on the caterpillar system of traction used for heavy guns were to crawl across No Man's Land, enfilade the enemy front line with quick-firing and machine guns, and hurl bombs on such of the works and emplacements as they did not ram to pieces,—thus a confidential adjutant, who seemed to think he had admitted me into the inner circle of knowledge ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... was not only the men who went "over the top" to assault enemy positions who ran great risks. Scouts, snipers, patrols, working parties, all took their lives in their hands every time they ventured into No Man's Land, and even those who were engaged in essential work behind the lines were far from being safe from death or wounds. On the morning of June 7th, 1917, before dawn had broken, I was out with a working party. Suddenly, overhead, sounded the ominous ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... furrows of old fields; with them in the desolation of No Man's Land; and with them amid the indescribable miseries and gory horrors of the battlefield. With them with the sweetest ministry, trained in the art of service, white-souled, brave, tender-hearted men and women ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... degrees, thirty minutes, there thrust up a portion of Texas which had no law at all, nor had it any until a very recent day, being known under the title of "No Man's Land." Yet on to the westward, toward free California, lay a vast but supposedly valueless region where cotton surely would not grow, that rich country now known as Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. This region, late gained by war from ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... don't know when you've got her. You see her here, there, with her fair hair on top, then—off! Nobody about. And you know, she doesn't know what danger is; marching about, sometimes, almost in the front line, and she's been seen knocking about in No Man's Land. She's queer." ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... six of the enemy I do not know, but he was the first man to reach the German wire, they tell me, and he brought in two wounded men from No Man's Land. ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... Pen, who had been posted at one of the loop-holes as a listening sentry, looked out to see what lay in front of him. But the most that could be seen were the long and winding earth embankments that marked the lines of the German entrenchments, and between, on "no man's land," a maze of barbed wire entanglements. No living human being was in sight, but, at one place, crumpled up, partly sustained by meshes of wire, there was a ragged heap, the sight of which sent a chill to the boy's heart. It required no second glance ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... chaps of that sort anything, mister," he said, giving Neale a sly wink. "Them of my turn of life look on all gamekeepers and policemen as their natural enemies. They'd both of 'em turn me out o' this if they could!—only they know they can't. For some reason or other Ellersdeane Hollow is No Man's Land—and therefore mine. And so—I wasn't going to say anything ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the kingdom was even more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To the endemic troubles of succession and alternating alliances and wars with foreign powers were added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no man's land as regards religion; it was where the Eastern and Western Churches met, and consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it is now, intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia and became ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... of the place. For not only did it supply a convenient receiving house for smuggled goods, but a convenient rendezvous for the more lawless characters of the neighbourhood—a back-of-beyond and No Man's Land where the devil could, with impunity, have things very much his own way. In the intervals of more serious business, the vaults and cellars of Tandy's frequently resounded to the agonies and brutal ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... delivered at the same moment, and sent in wave after wave of infantry in desperate efforts to regain their lost positions. In the words of an eyewitness, the Germans fought like cornered rats among the shell holes and wire incumbrances of "No man's Land," where the struggle raged, bomb and bayonet being the principal weapons. As the Canadian bayonet did its deadly work, in some of the bitterest fighting of the war, the German officers tried in vain to rally ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... was very dark now except for glimmer of stars through lacy, slow-drifting clouds,—there was no wind. Later there would be a waning moon! Much of every waking life is a dream, and her dreams were of the No Man's Land of the desert,—the waterless trail from which she had been rescued ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... place, when I was a boy, I pushed through a fringe of beeches that made a complete screen between me and the world, and I came to a glade called No Man's Land. I climbed beyond it, and I was surprised and glad, because from the ridge of that glade I saw the sea. To this ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... takes in solid matters, upon which, apparently, it feeds, thus exhibiting the most characteristic feature of animality. Is this a plant; or is it an animal? Is it both; or is it neither? Some decide in favour of the last supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of biological No Man's Land [100] for all these questionable forms. But, as it is admittedly impossible to draw any distinct boundary line between this no man's land and the vegetable world on the one hand, or the animal, on the other, it appears to me that this proceeding merely ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Spanish garrison of ten men was the sole custodian of law and order on the island. Up and down the river was scattered a lawless population of freebooters, who were equally ready to raid a border plantation or to raise the Jolly Roger on some piratical cruise. To this No Man's Land—fertile recruiting ground for all manner of filibustering expeditions—General Matthews and Colonel McKee had betaken themselves in the spring of 1811, bearing some explicit instructions from President Madison but also some very pronounced ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... dominion this was in? and they told me this was a kind of border that might be called No Man's Land; being part of the Great Karakathy, or Grand Tartary; but that, however, it was reckoned to China; that there was no care taken here to preserve it from the inroads of thieves; and therefore it was reckoned the worst desert in the whole march, though we were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... in the trenches. They seemed to be well fed and comfortable. At the time we were there there was no actual fighting, of course, but an occasional shot rang out across "no man's land," when sentries on either side thought they saw a chance to do execution. The ground between Reims and the battle line is a complete network of these trenches, and years will be required to level it again after the war ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... islet only a few rods in extent, but densely wooded with spruce and blue-gum. The general shape of the rock was that of a lady's thimble; hence the name. Rather a picturesque object in the seascape, but, of course, utterly valueless except for occasional picnic uses—a bit of No Man's Land whose purpose in the economy of nature had hitherto remained ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... hunters who carried in their kits the compass, the "land-stealer." Usually the surveying hunter was a borderer; and on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated gusto. Private citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, regardless of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land and staked out their claims. In the very year when disaster turned the Boone party back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had marked ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... be supposed that the whole of the time was spent in scouting and fighting. Between the armies lay a band of no man's land. Here, as elsewhere, the people of the country were divided in their opinions, but generally made very little display of these, whatever they might be. It is true that, as a rule, non-combatants were but little interfered with; still, a warm and open display ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... is the Polly," answered Jim. "You won't find a finer craft between this and 'No man's land,' if you know where ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... very few since, have equalled M'Kinnon in that trying position. When the 3rd Lanark Rifle Volunteers started the dribbling game on the old drill ground at Govanhill, or rather when that small burgh was "No Man's Land," M'Kinnon was one of its most active players. It is in connection with his membership of the Queen's Park that I wish to recall incidents in his career. In 1874 I made my way over to the South-Side Park to witness ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... up the street, where the lights were few and far between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung over the place-as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public bath; for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes itself. I haven't the slightest doubt ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... Above No Man's Land an occasional shell was bursting, by whose light he could dimly see the American lines, eight kilometers away. He crept along in the shadows, lying still whenever a soldier passed near him. When morning came, he crawled ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... bearers advance is only equalled by the waiters in old-established London Clubs when they bring in one of their choicest wines. The thing on the stretcher looks horribly like some of the forever silent people you have seen in No Man's Land. A pair of boots you see, a British Warm flung across the body and an arm dragging. A screen is put round a bed; the next sight you have of him is a weary face lying on a white pillow. Soon the chap in the bed next to him ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... quite recently on the road while he was en route to the coast with his theatrical company and enjoyed a pleasant chat with him. He knew me and recalled many incidents of the old days and happenings in "no man's land." ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... People of No Man's Land Calm they lie, With a stare and vacant smile At the vacant sky. Over them swept the battle, And stirred them not. Armies passed over, beyond them. They ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... lionize him, "there wasn't much credit in what I did. I'm even sorry I did it, for my foolishness sent me to the hospital an' put me out o' the war. But there was Tom McChesney, lyin' out there in No Man's Land, with a bullet in his chest an' moanin' for water. Tom was a good chum o' mine, an' I was mad when I saw him fall—jest as the Boches was drivin' us back to our trenches. I know'd the poor cuss was in misery, an' I know'd what I'd expect a chum o' ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... came forth, and a volley of shots was poured from the ranch house toward the spot from whence the arrows had come. A volley from the cattlemen penetrated the walls of the house. Whitey trembled for Injun, out there in No Man's Land. He need not have trembled, for that young person was safely crouching behind ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... true that the archaic quality, the pseudo-classicism of this pastoral seems at first artificial. "It has only so much of rustic nature as suits a graceful urban fancy." Arcadia is a no man's land, so far from our desires that we cannot picture it even in imagination; but to one who knows how sincere was the enthusiasm of the Renaissance for Greek ideals as well as for modes of expression, how classicism had come to be understood as a synonym for perfection in form whether ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney |
