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.
