A Walk to the Trenches

 To stand at the beginning of a road is always wonderful; for on all roads before they end experience lies, sometimes adventure. And a trench¹, even as a road, has its beginnings somewhere. In the heart of a very strange country you find them suddenly. A trench may begin in the ruins of a house, may run up out of a ditch; may be cut into a rise of ground sheltered under a hill, and is built in many ways by many men. As to who is the best builder of trenches² there can be little doubt, and any British soldier would probably admit that for painstaking³ work and excellence⁴ of construction there are few to rival Von Hindenburg. His Hindenburg line is a model of neatness and comfort, and it would be only a very ungrateful British soldier who would deny it.

 

You come to the trenches out of strangely wasted lands, you come perhaps to a wood in an agony of contortions⁵, black, branchless, sepulchral⁶ trees, and then no more trees at all. The country after that is still called Picardy or Belgium, still has its old name on the map as though it smiled there yet, sheltering cities and hamlet and radiant with orchards⁷ and gardens, but the country named Belgium—or whatever it be—is all gone away, and there stretches for miles instead one of the world’s great deserts, a thing to take its place no longer with smiling lands, but with Sahara, Gobi, Kalahari, and the Karoo; not to be thought of as Picardy, but more suitably to be named the Desert of Wilhelm. Through these sad lands one goes to come to the trenches. Overhead floats until it is chased away an aëroplane with little black crosses, that you can scarcely see at his respectful height, peering to see what more harm may be done in the desolation and ruin. Little flashes sparkle near him, white puffs⁸ spread out round the flashes: and he goes, and our airmen go away after him; black puffs break out round our airmen. Up in the sky you hear a faint tap-tapping. They have got their machine guns working.

 

You see many things there that are unusual in deserts: a good road, a railway, perhaps a motor bus; you see what was obviously once a village, and hear English songs, but no one who has not seen it can imagine the country in which the trenches lie, unless he bear a desert clearly in mind, a desert that has moved from its place on the map by some enchantment⁹ of wizardry, and come down on a smiling country. Would it not be glorious to be a Kaiser and be able to do things like that?

 

Past all manner of men, past no trees, no hedges, no fields, but only one field from skyline to skyline that has been harrowed by war, one goes with companions that this event in our history has drawn¹⁰ from all parts of the earth. On that road you may hear all in one walk where is the best place to get lunch in the City; you may hear how they laid a drag for some Irish pack, and what the Master said; you may hear a farmer lamenting¹¹ over the harm that rhinoceroses¹² do to his coffee crop; you may hear Shakespeare quoted and La vie Parisienne.

 

In the village you see a lot of German orders, with their silly notes of exclamation¹³ after them, written up on notice boards among the ruins. Ruins and German orders. That turning movement of Von Kluck’s near Paris in 1914 was a mistake. Had he not done it we might have had ruins and German orders everywhere. And yet Von Kluck may comfort himself with the thought that it is not by his mistakes that Destiny shapes the world: such a nightmare as a world-wide German domination can have had no place amongst the scheme of things.

 

Beyond the village the batteries are thick. A great howitzer near the road lifts its huge muzzle¹⁴ slowly, fires and goes down again, and lifts again and fires. It is as though Polyphemus had lifted his huge shape slowly, leisurely¹⁵, from the hillside where he was sitting, and hurled¹⁶ the mountain top, and sat down again. If he is firing pretty regularly you are sure to get the blast of one of them as you go by, and it can be a very strong wind indeed. One’s horse, if one is riding, does not very much like it, but I have seen horses far more frightened by a puddle¹⁷ on the road when coming home from hunting in the evening: one 12-inch howitzer more or less in France calls for no great attention from man or beast.

 

And so we come in sight of the support trenches where we are to dwell for a week before we go on for another mile over the hills, where the black fountains are rising.

 

1 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

2 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

3 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

4 excellence   

n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德

参考例句：

• His art has reached a high degree of excellence.他的艺术已达到炉火纯青的地步。
• My performance is far below excellence.我的表演离优秀还差得远呢。

5 contortions   

n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Trimeris' compound, called T-20, blocks the final structural contortions from taking place. T-20是特里米瑞斯公司生产的化合物。它能阻止分子最终结构折叠的发生。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 癌症与艾滋病
• The guard was laughing at his contortions. 那个警卫看到他那难受劲儿感到好笑。 来自英汉文学

6 sepulchral   

adj.坟墓的，阴深的

参考例句：

• He made his way along the sepulchral corridors.他沿着阴森森的走廊走着。
• There was a rather sepulchral atmosphere in the room.房间里有一种颇为阴沉的气氛。

7 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

8 puffs   

n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• We sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his. 我们坐在那里，轮番抽着他那支野里野气的烟斗。 来自辞典例句
• Puffs of steam and smoke came from the engine. 一股股蒸汽和烟雾从那火车头里冒出来。 来自辞典例句

9 enchantment   

n.迷惑，妖术，魅力

参考例句：

• The beauty of the scene filled us with enchantment.风景的秀丽令我们陶醉。
• The countryside lay as under some dread enchantment.乡村好像躺在某种可怖的魔法之下。

10 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

11 lamenting   

adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Katydids were lamenting fall's approach. 蝈蝈儿正为秋天临近而哀鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Lamenting because the papers hadn't been destroyed and the money kept. 她正在吃后悔药呢，后悔自己没有毁了那张字条，把钱昧下来！ 来自英汉文学 - 败坏赫德莱堡

12 rhinoceroses   

n.钱，钞票( rhino的名词复数 )；犀牛(=rhinoceros)；犀牛( rhinoceros的名词复数 )；脸皮和犀牛皮一样厚

参考例句：

• Rhinoceroses and dragons for once will let us walk in peace. 犀牛与龙安歇，让我们能平静地行走。 来自互联网
• Although the rhinoceroses are very heavy, they can run very fast. 犀牛虽然体型笨重，但仍能以相当快的速度行走或奔跑。 来自互联网

13 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

14 muzzle   

n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默

参考例句：

• He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth.他把手枪的枪口放在牙齿中间。
• The President wanted to muzzle the press.总统企图遏制新闻自由。

15 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

16 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 puddle   

n.(雨)水坑，泥潭

参考例句：

• The boy hopped the mud puddle and ran down the walk.这个男孩跳过泥坑，沿着人行道跑了。
• She tripped over and landed in a puddle.她绊了一下，跌在水坑里。