The Americans went through every village in march step, colours flying, the band playing, “to show that the morale2 was high,” as the officers said. Claude trudged3 on the outside of the column, — now at the front of his company, now at the rear, — wearing a stoical countenance4, afraid of betraying his satisfaction in the men, the weather, the country.
They were bound for the big show, and on every hand were reassuring5 signs: long lines of gaunt, dead trees, charred6 and torn; big holes gashed7 out in fields and hillsides, already half concealed8 by new undergrowth; winding9 depressions in the earth, bodies of wrecked10 motor-trucks and automobiles11 lying along the road, and everywhere endless straggling lines of rusty12 barbed-wire, that seemed to have been put there by chance, — with no purpose at all.
“Begins to look like we’re getting in, Lieutenant13,” said Sergeant14 Hicks, smiling behind his salute15.
Claude nodded and passed forward.
“Well, we can’t arrive any too soon for us, boys?” The Sergeant looked over his shoulder, and they grinned, their teeth flashing white in their red, perspiring16 faces. Claude didn’t wonder that everybody along the route, even the babies, came out to see them; he thought they were the finest sight in the world. This was the first day they had worn their tin hats; Gerhardt had shown them how to stuff grass and leaves inside to keep their heads cool. When they fell into fours, and the band struck up as they approached a town, Bert Fuller, the boy from Pleasantville on the Platte, who had blubbered on the voyage over, was guide right, and whenever Claude passed him his face seemed to say, “You won’t get anything on me in a hurry, Lieutenant!”
They made camp early in the afternoon, on a hill covered with half-burned pines. Claude took Bert and Dell Able and Oscar the Swede, and set off to make a survey and report the terrain17.
Behind the hill, under the burned edge of the wood, they found an abandoned farmhouse18 and what seemed to be a clean well.
It had a solid stone curb19 about it, and a wooden bucket hanging by a rusty wire. When the boys splashed the bucket about, the water sent up a pure, cool breath. But they were wise boys, and knew where dead Prussians most loved to hide. Even the straw in the stable they regarded with suspicion, and thought it would be just as well not to bed anybody there.
Swinging on to the right to make their circuit, they got into mud; a low field where the drain ditches had been neglected and had overflowed20. There they came upon a pitiful group of humanity, bemired. A woman, ill and wretched looking, sat on a fallen log at the end of the marsh21, a baby in her lap and three children hanging about her. She was far gone in consumption; one had only to listen to her breathing and to look at her white, perspiring face to feel how weak she was. Draggled, mud to the knees, she was trying to nurse her baby, half hidden under an old black shawl. She didn’t look like a tramp woman, but like one who had once been able to take proper care of herself, and she was still young. The children were tired and discouraged. One little boy wore a clumsy blue jacket, made from a French army coat. The other wore a battered22 American Stetson that came down over his ears. He carried, in his two arms, a pink celluloid clock. They all looked up and waited for the soldiers to do something.
Claude approached the woman, and touching23 the rim24 of his helmet, began: “Bonjour, Madame. Qu’est que c’est?”
She tried to speak, but went off into a spasm25 of coughing, only able to gasp26, “‘Toinette, ‘Toinette!”
‘Toinette stepped quickly forward. She was about eleven, and seemed to be the captain of the party. A bold, hard little face with a long chin, straight black hair tied with rags, uneasy, crafty27 eyes; she looked much less gentle and more experienced than her mother. She began to explain, and she was very clever at making herself understood. She was used to talking to foreign soldiers, — spoke28 slowly, with emphasis and ingenious gestures.
She, too, had been reconnoitering. She had discovered the empty farmhouse and was trying to get her party there for the night. How did they come here? Oh, they were refugees. They had been staying with people thirty kilometers from here. They were trying to get back to their own village. Her mother was very sick, presque morte and she wanted to go home to die. They had heard people were still living there; an old aunt was living in their own cellar, — and so could they if they once got there. The point was, and she made it over and over, that her mother wished to die chez elle, comprenez-vous? They had no papers, and the French soldiers would never let them pass, but now that the Americans were here they hoped to get through; the Americans were said to be toujours gentils.
While she talked in her shrill29, clicking voice, the baby began to howl, dissatisfied with its nourishment30. The little girl shrugged31. “Il est toujours en colère,” she muttered. The woman turned it around with difficulty — it seemed a big, heavy baby, but white and sickly — and gave it the other breast. It began sucking her noisily, rooting and sputtering32 as if it were famished33. It was too painful, it was almost indecent, to see this exhausted34 woman trying to feed her baby. Claude beckoned35 his men away to one side, and taking the little girl by the hand drew her after them.
“Il faut que votre mère-se reposer,” he told her, with the grave caesural pause which he always made in the middle of a French sentence. She understood him. No distortion of her native tongue surprised or perplexed36 her. She was accustomed to being addressed in all persons, numbers, genders37, tenses; by Germans, English, Americans. She only listened to hear whether the voice was kind, and with men in this uniform it usually was kind.
Had they anything to eat? “Vous avez quelque chose à manger?”
“Rien. Rien du tout38.”
Wasn’t her mother “trop malade à marcher?”
She shrugged; Monsieur could see for himself.
And her father?
He was dead; “mort à la Marne, en quatorze.”
“At the Marne?” Claude repeated, glancing in perplexity at the nursing baby. Her sharp eyes followed his, and she instantly divined his doubt. “The baby?” she said quickly. “Oh, the baby is not my brother, he is a Boche.”
For a moment Claude did not understand. She repeated her explanation impatiently, something disdainful and sinister39 in her metallic40 little voice. A slow blush mounted to his forehead.
He pushed her toward her mother, “Attendez là.”
“I guess we’ll have to get them over to that farmhouse,” he told the men. He repeated what he had got of the child’s story. When he came to her laconic41 statement about the baby, they looked at each other. Bert Fuller was afraid he might cry again, so he kept muttering, “By God, if we’d a-got here sooner, by God if we had!” as they ran back along the ditch.
Dell and Oscar made a chair of their crossed hands and carried the woman, she was no great weight. Bert picked up the little boy with the pink clock; “Come along, little frog, your legs ain’t long enough.”
Claude walked behind, holding the screaming baby stiffly in his arms. How was it possible for a baby to have such definite personality, he asked himself, and how was it possible to dislike a baby so much? He hated it for its square, tow-thatched head and bloodless ears, and carried it with loathing42 . . . no wonder it cried! When it got nothing by screaming and stiffening43, however, it suddenly grew quiet; regarded him with pale blue eyes, and tried to make itself comfortable against his khaki coat. It put out a grimy little fist and took hold of one of his buttons. “Kamerad, eh?” he muttered, glaring at the infant. “Cut it out!”
Before they had their own supper that night, the boys carried hot food and blankets down to their family.
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收听单词发音
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1
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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gashed
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| v.划伤，割破( gash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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16
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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17
terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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29
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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30
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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32
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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33
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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37
genders
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| n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分 | |
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38
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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40
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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41
laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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42
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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43
stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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