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The Splendid Traveller
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 A traveller threw his cloak over his shoulder and came down slopes of gold in El Dorado. From incredible heights he came. He came from where the peaks of the pure gold mountain shone a little red with the sunset; from crag to crag of gold he stepped down slowly. Sheer out of romance he came through the golden evening.
 
It was only an incident of every day; the sun had set or was setting, the air turned chill, and a battalion’s bugles1 were playing “Retreat” when this knightly2 stranger, a British aëroplane, dipped, and went homeward over the infantry3. That beautiful evening call, and the golden cloud bank towering, and that adventurer coming home in the cold, happening all together, revealed in a flash the fact (which hours of thinking sometimes will not bring) that we live in such a period of romance as the troubadours would have envied.
 
He came, that British airman, over the border, sheer over No Man’s Land and the heads of the enemy and the mysterious land behind, snatching the secrets that the enemy would conceal4. Either he had defeated the German airmen who would have stopped his going, or they had not dared to try. Who knows what he had done? He had been abroad and was coming home in the evening, as he did every day.
 
Even when all its romance has been sifted5 from an age (as the centuries sift) and set apart from the trivial, and when all has been stored by the poets; even then what has any of them more romantic than these adventurers in the evening air, coming home in the twilight6 with the black shells bursting below?
 
The infantry look up with the same vague wonder with which children look at dragon flies; sometimes they do not look at all, for all that comes in France has its part with the wonder of a terrible story as well as with the incidents of the day, incidents that recur7 year in and year out, too often for us to notice them. If a part of the moon were to fall off in the sky and come tumbling to earth, the comment on the lips of the imperturbable8 British watchers that have seen so much would be, “Hullo, what is Jerry up to now?”
 
And so the British aëroplane glides9 home in the evening, and the light fades from the air, and what is left of the poplars grows dark against the sky, and what is left of the houses grows more mournful in the gloaming, and night comes, and with it the sounds of thunder, for the airman has given his message to the artillery10. It is as though Hermes had gone abroad sailing upon his sandals, and had found some bad land below those winged feet wherein men did evil and kept not the laws of gods or men; and he had brought this message back and the gods were angry.
 
For the wars we fight to-day are not like other wars, and the wonders of them are unlike other wonders. If we do not see in them the saga11 and epic12, how shall we tell of them?
 
England
 
“And then we used to have sausages,” said the Sergeant13.
 
“And mashed14?” said the Private.
 
“Yes,” said the Sergeant, “and beer. And then we used to go home. It was grand in the evenings. We used to go along a lane that was full of them wild roses. And then we come to the road where the houses were. They all had their bit of a garden, every house.”
 
“Nice, I calls it, a garden,” the Private said.
 
“Yes,” said the Sergeant, “they all had their garden. It came right down to the road. Wooden palings: none of that there wire.”
 
“I hates wire,” said the Private.
 
“They didn’t have none of it,” the N. C. O. went on. “The gardens came right down to the road, looking lovely. Old Billy Weeks he had them tall pale-blue flowers in his garden nearly as high as a man.”
 
“Hollyhocks?” said the Private.
 
“No, they wasn’t hollyhocks. Lovely they were. We used to stop and look at them, going by every evening. He had a path up the middle of his garden paved with red tiles, Billy Weeks had; and these tall blue flowers growing the whole way along it, both sides like. They was a wonder. Twenty gardens there must have been, counting them all; but none to touch Billy Weeks with his pale-blue flowers. There was an old windmill away to the left. Then there were the swifts sailing by overhead and screeching15: just about as high again as the houses. Lord, how them birds did fly. And there was the other young fellows, what were not out walking, standing16 about by the roadside, just doing nothing at all. One of them had a flute17: Jim Booker, he was. Those were great days. The bats used to come out, flutter, flutter, flutter; and then there’d be a star or two; and the smoke from the chimneys going all grey; and a little cold wind going up and down like the bats; and all the colour going out of things; and the woods looking all strange, and a wonderful quiet in them, and a mist coming up from the stream. It’s a queer time that. It’s always about that time, the way I see it: the end of the evening in the long days, and a star or two, and me and my girl going home.
 
“Wouldn’t you like to talk about things for a bit the way you remember them?”
 
“Oh, no, Sergeant,” said the other, “you go on. You do bring it all back so.”
 
“I used to bring her home,” the Sergeant said, “to her father’s house. Her father was keeper there, and they had a house in the wood. A fine house with queer old tiles on it, and a lot of large friendly dogs. I knew them all by name, same as they knew me. I used to walk home then along the side of the wood. The owls18 would be about; you could hear them yelling. They’d float out of the wood like, sometimes: all large and white.”
 
“I knows them,” said the Private.
 
“I saw a fox once so close I could nearly touch him, walking like he was on velvet19. He just slipped out of the wood.”
 
“Cunning old brute,” said the Private.
 
“That’s the time to be out,” said the Sergeant. “Ten o’clock on a summer’s night, and the night full of noises, not many of them, but what there is, strange, and coming from a great way off, through the quiet, with nothing to stop them. Dogs barking, owls hooting20, an old cart; and then just once a sound that you couldn’t account for at all, not anyhow. I’ve heard sounds on nights like that that nobody ‘ud think you’d heard, nothing like the flute that young Booker had, nothing like anything on earth.”
 
“I know,” said the Private.
 
“I never told any one before, because they wouldn’t believe you. But it doesn’t matter now. There’d be a light in the window to guide me when I got home. I’d walk up through the flowers of our garden. We had a lovely garden. Wonderful white and strange the flowers looked of a nighttime.”
 
“You bring it all back wonderful,” said the Private.
 
“It’s a great thing to have lived,” said the Sergeant.
 
“Yes, Sergeant,” said the other, “I wouldn’t have missed it, not for anything.”
 
For five days the barrage21 had rained down behind them: they were utterly22 cut off and had no hope of rescue: their food was done, and they did not know where they were.

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1 bugles 67a03de6e21575ba3e57a73ed68d55d3     
妙脆角,一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食; 号角( bugle的名词复数 ); 喇叭; 匍匐筋骨草; (装饰女服用的)柱状玻璃(或塑料)小珠
参考例句:
  • Blow, bugles, blow, set the wild echoes flying. "响起来,号角,响起来,让激昂的回声在空中震荡"。
  • We hear the silver voices of heroic bugles. 我们听到了那清亮的号角。
2 knightly knightly     
adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地
参考例句:
  • He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. 他谱写英雄短歌并着手编写不少记叙巫术和骑士历险的故事。
  • If you wear knight costumes, you will certainly have a knightly manner. 身着骑士装,令您具有骑士风度。
3 infantry CbLzf     
n.[总称]步兵(部队)
参考例句:
  • The infantry were equipped with flame throwers.步兵都装备有喷火器。
  • We have less infantry than the enemy.我们的步兵比敌人少。
4 conceal DpYzt     
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽
参考例句:
  • He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方,他只好隐瞒身份。
  • He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。
5 sifted 9e99ff7bb86944100bb6d7c842e48f39     
v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 );筛滤;细查;详审
参考例句:
  • She sifted through her papers to find the lost letter. 她仔细在文件中寻找那封丢失的信。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter. 她用蓟筛筛蓟。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 twilight gKizf     
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期
参考例句:
  • Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
  • Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。
7 recur wCqyG     
vi.复发,重现,再发生
参考例句:
  • Economic crises recur periodically.经济危机周期性地发生。
  • Of course,many problems recur at various periods.当然,有许多问题会在不同的时期反复提出。
8 imperturbable dcQzG     
adj.镇静的
参考例句:
  • Thomas,of course,was cool and aloof and imperturbable.当然,托马斯沉着、冷漠,不易激动。
  • Edward was a model of good temper and his equanimity imperturbable.爱德华是个典型的好性子,他总是沉着镇定。
9 glides 31de940e5df0febeda159e69e005a0c9     
n.滑行( glide的名词复数 );滑音;音渡;过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔
参考例句:
  • The new dance consists of a series of glides. 这种新舞蹈中有一连串的滑步。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The stately swan glides gracefully on the pond. 天鹅在池面上优美地游动。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 artillery 5vmzA     
n.(军)火炮,大炮;炮兵(部队)
参考例句:
  • This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
  • The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。
11 saga aCez4     
n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事,英雄传奇
参考例句:
  • The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle.飞行19中队的传说或许是有关百慕大三角最重复的故事。
  • The novel depicts the saga of a family.小说描绘了一个家族的传奇故事。
12 epic ui5zz     
n.史诗,叙事诗;adj.史诗般的,壮丽的
参考例句:
  • I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗,而写了这个小故事。
  • They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。
13 sergeant REQzz     
n.警官,中士
参考例句:
  • His elder brother is a sergeant.他哥哥是个警官。
  • How many stripes are there on the sleeve of a sergeant?陆军中士的袖子上有多少条纹?
14 mashed Jotz5Y     
a.捣烂的
参考例句:
  • two scoops of mashed potato 两勺土豆泥
  • Just one scoop of mashed potato for me, please. 请给我盛一勺土豆泥。
15 screeching 8bf34b298a2d512e9b6787a29dc6c5f0     
v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 );发出粗而刺耳的声音;高叫
参考例句:
  • Monkeys were screeching in the trees. 猴子在树上吱吱地叫着。
  • the unedifying sight of the two party leaders screeching at each other 两党党魁狺狺对吠的讨厌情景
16 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
17 flute hj9xH     
n.长笛;v.吹笛
参考例句:
  • He took out his flute, and blew at it.他拿出笛子吹了起来。
  • There is an extensive repertoire of music written for the flute.有很多供长笛演奏的曲目。
18 owls 7b4601ac7f6fe54f86669548acc46286     
n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • 'Clumsy fellows,'said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.' “这些笨蛋,”我说,“他们大概还醉得像死猪一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
  • The great majority of barn owls are reared in captivity. 大多数仓鸮都是笼养的。 来自辞典例句
19 velvet 5gqyO     
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的
参考例句:
  • This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
  • The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。
20 hooting f69e3a288345bbea0b49ddc2fbe5fdc6     
(使)作汽笛声响,作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 ); 倒好儿; 倒彩
参考例句:
  • He had the audience hooting with laughter . 他令观众哄堂大笑。
  • The owl was hooting. 猫头鹰在叫。
21 barrage JuezH     
n.火力网,弹幕
参考例句:
  • The attack jumped off under cover of a barrage.进攻在炮火的掩护下开始了。
  • The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。
22 utterly ZfpzM1     
adv.完全地,绝对地
参考例句:
  • Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民,把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
  • I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。


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