Weeds and Wire

 Things had been happening. Divisions were moving. There had been, there was going to be, a stunt¹. A battalion² marched over the hill and sat down by the road. They had left the trenches³ three days march to the north and had come to a new country. The officers pulled their maps out; a mild breeze fluttered them; yesterday had been winter and to-day was spring; but spring in a desolation so complete and far-reaching that you only knew of it by that little wind. It was early March by the calendar, but the wind was blowing out of the gates of April. A platoon commander, feeling that mild wind blowing, forgot his map and began to whistle a tune⁴ that suddenly came to him out of the past with the wind. Out of the past it blew and out of the South, a merry vernal tune of a Southern people. Perhaps only one of those that noticed the tune had ever heard it before. An officer sitting near had heard it sung; it reminded him of a holiday long ago in the South.

 

“Where did you hear that tune?” he asked the platoon commander.

 

“Oh, the hell of a long way from here,” the platoon commander said.

 

He did not remember quite where it was he had heard it, but he remembered a sunny day in France and a hill all dark with pine woods, and a man coming down at evening out of the woods, and down the slope to the village, singing this song. Between the village and the slope there were orchards⁵ in blossom. So that he came with his song for hundreds of yards through orchards. “The hell of a way from here,” he said.

 

For a long while then they sat silent.

 

“It mightn’t have been so very far from here,” said the platoon commander. “It was in France, now I come to think of it. But it was a lovely part of France, all woods and orchards. Nothing like this, thank God.” And he glanced with a tired look at the unutterable desolation.

 

“Where was it?” said the other.

 

“In Picardy,” he said.

 

“Aren’t we in Picardy now?” said his friend.

 

“Are we?” he said.

 

“I don’t know. The maps don’t call it Picardy.”

 

“It was a fine place, anyway,” the platoon commander said. “There seemed always to be a wonderful light on the hills. A kind of short grass grew on them, and it shone in the sun at evening. There were black woods above them. A man used to come out of them singing at evening.”

 

He looked wearily round at the brown desolation of weeds. As far as the two officers could see there was nothing but brown weeds and bits of brown barbed wire. He turned from the desolate⁶ scene back to his reminiscences.

 

“He came singing through the orchards into the village,” he said. “A quaint⁷ old place with queer gables, called Ville-en-Bois.”

 

“Do you know where we are?” said the other.

 

“No, said the platoon commander.”

 

“I thought not,” he said. “Hadn’t you better take a look at the map?”

 

“I suppose so,” said the platoon commander, and he smoothed out his map and wearily got to the business of finding out where he was.

 

“Good Lord!” he said. “Ville-en-Bois!”

 

1 stunt   

n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长

参考例句：

• Lack of the right food may stunt growth.缺乏适当的食物会阻碍发育。
• Right up there is where the big stunt is taking place.那边将会有惊人的表演。

2 battalion   

n.营；部队；大队(的人)

参考例句：

• The town was garrisoned by a battalion.该镇由一营士兵驻守。
• At the end of the drill parade,the battalion fell out.操练之后，队伍解散了。

3 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。

4 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

5 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。

6 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

7 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。