An attempt was made after a little to sort out the confusion of units that had resulted from the advance, the Stonewalls being collected together as far as possible, and odd bunches of Anzacs and Highlanders and Fusiliers sent off in the direction of their appointed rallying-places. The work was made more difficult by the recommencing of a slow and methodical bombardment by the German guns and the reluctance3 of the men to move from their cover for no other purpose than to go and find cover again in another part of the line. Scattered4 amongst craters5 and broken trenches7 as the Stonewalls were, even after they were more or less collected together, it was hard to make any real estimate of the casualties, and yet it was plain enough to all that the battalion8 had lost heavily. As odd men and groups dribbled9 in, Kentucky and Pug questioned them eagerly for any news of Larry, and at last heard a confused story from a stretcher-bearer of a party of Stonewalls that had been cut off, had held a portion of trench6 against a German bombing attack, and had been wiped out in process of the defense10. Larry, their informant was almost sure, was one of the casualties,246 but he could not say whether killed, slightly or seriously wounded.
“Wish I knowed ’e wasn’t hurt too bad,” said Pug. “Rotten luck if ’e is.”
“Anyhow,” said Kentucky, “we two have been mighty11 lucky to come through it all so far, with nothing more than your arm scratch between us.”
“Touch wood,” said Pug warningly. “Don’t go boastin’ without touchin’ wood.”
Kentucky, who stood smoking with his hands buried deep in his pockets, laughed at his earnest tone. But his laugh died, and he and Pug glanced up apprehensively12 as they heard the thin, distant wail13 of an approaching shell change and deepen to the roaring tempest of heart and soul-shaking noise that means a dangerously close burst.
“Down, Pug,” cried Kentucky sharply, and on the same instant both flung themselves flat in the bottom of their shelter. Both felt and heard the rending14 concussion15, the shattering crash of the burst, were sensible of the stunning16 shock, a sensation of hurtling and falling, of ... empty blackness and nothingness.
Kentucky recovered himself first. He felt numbed17 all over except in his left side and arm, which pricked18 sharply and pulsed with pain at247 a movement. He opened his eyes slowly with a vague idea that he had been lying there for hours, and it was with intense amazement19 that he saw the black smoke of the burst still writhing20 and thinning against the sky, heard voices calling and asking was any one hurt, who was hit, did it catch any one. He called an answer feebly at first, then more strongly, and then as memory came back with a rush, loud and sharp, “Pug! are you there, Pug? Pug!” One or two men came groping and fumbling21 to him through the smoke, but he would not let them lift or touch him until they had searched for Pug. “He was just beside me,” he said eagerly. “He can’t be hurt badly. Do hunt for him, boys. It’s poor old Pug. Oh, Pug!”
“H’lo, Kentuck ... you there?” came feebly back. With a wrench22 Kentucky was on his knees, staggered to his feet, and running to the voice. “Pug,” he said, stooping over the huddled23 figure. “You’re not hurt bad, are you, Pug, boy?” With clothing torn to rags, smeared24 and dripping with blood, with one leg twisted horribly under him, with a red cut gaping25 deep over one eye, Pug looked up and grinned weakly. “Orright,” he said; “I’m ... orright. But I tole you, Kentuck ... I tole you to touch wood.”
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A couple of stretcher-bearers hurried along, and when the damages were assessed it was found that Pug was badly hurt, with one leg smashed, with a score of minor26 wounds, of which one in the side and one in the breast might be serious. Kentucky had a broken hand, torn arm, lacerated shoulder, and a heavily bruised27 set of ribs28. So Pug was lifted on to a stretcher, and Kentucky, asserting stoutly29 that he could walk and that there was no need to waste a precious stretcher on carrying him, had his wounds bandaged and started out alongside the bearers who carried Pug. The going was bad, and the unavoidable jolting30 and jerking as the bearers stumbled over the rough ground must have been sheer agony to the man on the stretcher. But no groan31 or whimper came from Pug’s tight lips, that he opened only to encourage Kentucky to keep on, to tell him it wouldn’t be far now, to ask the bearers to go slow to give Kentucky a chance to keep up. But it was no time or place to go slow. The shells were still screaming and bursting over and about the ground they were crossing, gusts32 of rifle bullets or lonely whimpering ones still whistled and hummed past. A fold in the ground brought them cover presently from the bullets, but not from the shells, and249 the bearers pushed doggedly33 on. Kentucky kept up with difficulty, for he was feeling weak and spent, and it was with a sigh of relief that he saw the bearers halt and put the stretcher down. “How do you feel, Pug?” he asked. “Bit sore,” said Pug with sturdy cheerfulness. “But it’s nothin’ too bad. But I wish we was outer this. We both got Blighty ones, Kentuck, an’ we’ll go ’ome together. Now we’re on the way ’ome, I’d hate to have another of them shells drop on us, and put us out for good, mebbe.”
They pushed on again, for the light was failing, and although the moon was already up, the half-light made the broken ground more difficult than ever to traverse. Pug had fallen silent, and one of the bearers, noticing the gripped lips and pain-twisted face, called to the other man and put the stretcher down and fumbled34 out a pill. “Swallow that,” he said, and put it between Pug’s lips; “an’ that’s the last one I have.” He daubed a ghastly blue cross on Pug’s cheek to show he had been given an opiate, and then they went on again.
They crept slowly across the ground where the Germans had made one of their counter-attacks, and the price they had paid in it was plain to250 be seen in the piled heaps of dead that lay sprawled35 on the open and huddled anyhow in the holes and ditches. There were hundreds upon hundreds in that one patch of ground alone, and Kentucky wondered vaguely36 how many such patches there were throughout the battlefield. The stretcher-bearers were busy with the wounded, who in places still remained with the dead, and sound German prisoners under ridiculously slender guards were carrying in stretchers with badly wounded Germans or helping37 less severely38 wounded ones to walk back to the British rear. A little further on they crossed what had been a portion of trench held by the Germans and from which they appeared to have been driven by shell and mortar39 fire. Here there were no wounded, and of the many dead the most had been literally40 blown to pieces, or, flung bodily from their shelters, lay broken and buried under tumbled heaps of earth. Half a dozen Germans in long, flapping coats and heavy steel “coal-scuttle” helmets worked silently, searching the gruesome débris for any living wounded; and beyond them stood a solitary41 British soldier on guard over them, leaning on his bayoneted rifle and watching them. Far to the rear the flashes of the British guns lit the251 darkening sky with vivid, flickering42 gleams that came and went incessantly43, like the play of summer lightning. It brought to Kentucky, trudging44 beside the stretcher, the swift memory of lines from a great poem that he had learned as a child and long since forgotten—the Battle Hymn45 of his own country. In his mind he quoted them now with sudden realization46 of the exactness of their fitting to the scene before him—“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling47 out the vintage where the grapes of wrath48 are stored, He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on.” Here surely in these broken dead, in the silent, dejected prisoners, in the very earth she had seized and that now had been wrested49 from her, was Germany’s vintage, the tramplings out of the grapes of a wrath long stored, the smitten50 of the swift sword that flashed unloosed at last in the gun-fire lightning at play across the sky.
For the rest of the way that he walked back to the First Aid Post the words of the verse kept running over in his pain-numbed and weary mind—”... where the grapes of wrath are stored;252 trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath ...” over and over again.
And when at last they came to the trench that led to the underground dressing-station just as the guns had waked again to a fresh spasm51 of fury that set the sky ablaze52 with their flashes and the air roaring to their deep, rolling thunders, Kentucky’s mind went back to where the great shells would be falling, pictured to him the flaming fires, the rending, shattering crashes, the tearing whirlwinds of destruction, that would be devastating53 the German lines. “Grapes of wrath,” he whispered. “God, yes—bitter grapes of wrath.” And in his fancy the guns caught up the word from his mouth, and tossed it shouting in long-drawn, shaking thunder: “Wrath—wrath—wrath!”
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1
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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2
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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3
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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4
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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5
craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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6
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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7
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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8
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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9
dribbled
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| v.流口水( dribble的过去式和过去分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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10
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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11
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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12
apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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13
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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14
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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15
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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16
stunning
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| adj.极好的；使人晕倒的 | |
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17
numbed
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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19
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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20
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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21
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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22
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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23
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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24
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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25
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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26
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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27
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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28
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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29
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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30
jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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31
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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32
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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33
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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34
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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35
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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36
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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37
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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38
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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39
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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40
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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41
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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42
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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43
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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44
trudging
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的现在分词形式） | |
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45
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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46
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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47
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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48
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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49
wrested
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| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
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50
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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51
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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52
ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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53
devastating
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| adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的 | |
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