What Happened on the Night of the Twenty-Seventh

 The night of the twenty-seventh was Dick Cheeser’s first night on sentry¹. The night was far gone when he went on duty; in another hour they would stand to. Dick Cheeser had camouflaged² his age when he enlisted³: he was barely eighteen. A wonderfully short time ago he was quite a little boy; now he was in a frontline trench⁴. It hadn’t seemed that things were going to alter like that. Dick Cheeser was a plowboy: long brown furrows⁵ over haughty⁶, magnificent downs seemed to stretch away into the future as far as his mind could see. No narrow outlook either, for the life of nations depends upon those brown furrows. But there are the bigger furrows that Mars makes, the long brown trenches⁷ of war; the life of nations depends on these too; Dick Cheeser had never pictured these. He had heard talk about a big navy and a lot of Dreadnoughts; silly nonsense he called it. What did one want a big navy for? To keep the Germans out, some people said. But the Germans weren’t coming. If they wanted to come, why didn’t they come? Anybody could see that they never did come. Some of Dick Cheeser’s pals⁸ had votes.

 

And so he had never pictured any change from plowing⁹ the great downs; and here was war at last, and here was he. The Corporal showed him where to stand, told him to keep a good lookout¹⁰ and left him.

 

And there was Dick Cheeser alone in the dark with an army in front of him, eighty yards away: and, if all tales were true, a pretty horrible army.

 

The night was awfully¹¹ still. I use the adverb not as Dick Cheeser would have used it. The stillness awed¹² him. There had not been a shell all night. He put his head up over the parapet and waited. Nobody fired at him. He felt that the night was waiting for him. He heard voices going along the trench: some one said it was a black night: the voices died away. A mere¹³ phrase; the night wasn’t black at all, it was grey. Dick Cheeser was staring at it, and the night was staring back at him, and seemed to be threatening him; it was grey, grey as an old cat that they used to have at home, and as artful. Yes, thought Dick Cheeser, it was an artful night; that was what was wrong with it. If shells had come or the Germans, or anything at all, you would know how to take it; but that quiet mist over huge valleys, and stillness! Anything might happen. Dick waited and waited, and the night waited too. He felt they were watching each other, the night and he. He felt that each was crouching¹⁴. His mind slipped back to the woods on hills he knew. He was watching with eyes and ears and imagination to see what would happen in No Man’s Land under that ominous¹⁵ mist: but his mind took a peep for all that at the old woods that he knew. He pictured himself, he and a band of boys, chasing squirrels again in the summer. They used to chase a squirrel from tree to tree, throwing stones, till they tired it: and then they might hit it with a stone: usually not. Sometimes the squirrel would hide, and a boy would have to climb after it. It was great sport, thought Dick Cheeser. What a pity he hadn’t had a catapult in those days, he thought. Somehow the years when he had not had a catapult seemed all to be wasted years. With a catapult one might get the squirrel almost at once, with luck: and what a great thing that would be. All the other boys would come round to look at the squirrel, and to look at the catapult, and ask him how he did it. He wouldn’t have to say much, there would be the squirrel; no boasting would be necessary with the squirrel lying dead. It might spread to other things, even rabbits; almost anything, in fact. He would certainly get a catapult first thing when he got home. A little wind blew in the night, too cold for summer. It blew away, as it were, the summer of Dick’s memories; blew away hills and woods and squirrel. It made for a moment a lane in the mist over No Man’s Land. Dick Cheeser peered down it, but it closed again. “No,” Night seemed to say, “you don’t guess my secret.” And the awful hush¹⁶ intensified¹⁷. “What would they do?” thought the sentry. “What were they planning in all those miles of silence?” Even the Verys were few. When one went up, far hills seemed to sit and brood over the valley: their black shapes seemed to know what would happen in the mist and seemed sworn not to say. The rocket faded, and the hills went back into mystery again, and Dick Cheeser peered level again over the ominous valley.

 

All the dangers and sinister¹⁸ shapes and evil destinies, lurking¹⁹ between the armies in that mist, that the sentry faced that night cannot be told until the history of the war is written by a historian who can see the mind of the soldier. Not a shell fell all night, no German stirred; Dick Cheeser was relieved at “Stand to” and his comrades stood to beside him, and soon it was wide, golden, welcome dawn.

 

And for all the threats of night the thing that happened was one that the lonely sentry had never foreseen: in the hour of his watching Dick Cheeser, though scarcely eighteen, became a full-grown man.

 

1 sentry   

n.哨兵，警卫

参考例句：

• They often stood sentry on snowy nights.他们常常在雪夜放哨。
• The sentry challenged anyone approaching the tent.哨兵查问任一接近帐篷的人。

2 camouflaged   

v.隐蔽( camouflage的过去式和过去分词 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰

参考例句：

• We camouflaged in the bushes and no one saw us. 我们隐藏在灌木丛中没有被人发现。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They camouflaged in bushes. 他们隐蔽在灌木丛中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 enlisted   

adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
• He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 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。

5 furrows   

n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I could tell from the deep furrows in her forehead that she was very disturbed by the news. 从她额头深深的皱纹上，我可以看出她听了这个消息非常不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dirt bike trails crisscrossed the grassy furrows. 越野摩托车的轮迹纵横交错地布满条条草沟。 来自辞典例句

6 haughty   

adj.傲慢的，高傲的

参考例句：

• He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
• They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。

7 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。

8 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

9 plowing   

v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• "There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. "如今有比耕种更重要的事情要做呀，宝贝儿。 来自飘（部分）
• Since his wife's death, he has been plowing a lonely furrow. 从他妻子死后，他一直过着孤独的生活。 来自辞典例句

10 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

11 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

12 awed   

adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The audience was awed into silence by her stunning performance. 观众席上鸦雀无声，人们对他出色的表演感到惊叹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was awed by the huge gorilla. 那只大猩猩使我惊惧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

14 crouching   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
• A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

15 ominous   

adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的

参考例句：

• Those black clouds look ominous for our picnic.那些乌云对我们的野餐来说是个不祥之兆。
• There was an ominous silence at the other end of the phone.电话那头出现了不祥的沉默。

16 hush   

int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静

参考例句：

• A hush fell over the onlookers.旁观者们突然静了下来。
• Do hush up the scandal!不要把这丑事声张出去！

17 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

19 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》