“Good-bye. Don’t forget to send me that Hun helmet!”
“All right! Good-bye!”
The train had long ago recovered from the shock of its initial jerk; a long steady grinding noise came up from the carriage wheels, as though they had recovered breath and were getting into their stride for Folkestone, regardless of the growing clatter1 of the South-Eastern rhythm;—if, indeed, so noble a word may be used for the noise made by the wheels as they passed over the rail-joints of this distinguished2 line.
“Don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s people to see you off,” said Terry, whose people had accompanied him in large numbers to Charing3 Cross.
“They will come, though,” remarked Crowley very wisely. 2
“I tried to persuade my people not to come,” said I; “but they think you like it, I suppose. I would certainly rather say good-bye at home, and have no one come to the station.”
And so I started off my experience of “the great adventure” with a “lie direct”: but it does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience.
Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the morning of the 5th of October, 1915: for months we had been together in a reserve battalion4 waiting to go out to the front, and now at last we had received marching orders, and were bound for Folkestone, and thence for France. For which battalion of our regiment5 any or all of us twelve officers were destined6, we had no knowledge whatever; but even the most uncongenial pair of us would, I am sure, have preferred each other’s company to that of complete strangers. I, at any rate, have never in my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms7: unless, indeed, it was on the occasion, ten months before, when I had stood shaking in front of a platoon of twenty men!
The last few days I had gone about feeling as though the news that I was going to the front were printed in large letters round my cap. I felt that people in the railway carriages, and in the streets, were looking at me with an electric interest; and the necessary (and unnecessary!) purchases, as well as the good-byes, were of the kind to make one feel placed upon a pedestal of importance! Now, in 3 company with five other officers in like predicament, I felt already that I had climbed down a step from that pedestal; in fact, the whole experience of the first few days was one of a steady reduction from all-importance to complete insignificance8!
As soon as we had recovered from the silence that followed my remarks upon the disadvantages of prolonged valedictions, we commenced a critical survey of our various properties and accoutrements. Revolvers leapt from brand new holsters; feet were held up to show the ideal trench9-nails; flash lamps and torches, compasses, map-cases, pocket medicine-cases, all were shown with an easy confidence of manner that screened a sinking dread10 of disapprobation. The prismatic compass was regarded rather as a joke by some of us; its use in trench warfare11 was a doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us who in the depths of our martial12 wisdom were half expecting that the Battle of Loos was the prelude13 of an autumn campaign of open-country warfare. There was only one man whose word we took for law in anything, and that was Barrett. He had spent five days in the trenches14 last December; he had then received his commission in our battalion. He was the “man from the front.” And I noticed with secret misgivings15 that he had not removed the badges of rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars upon his shoulder-straps; he had not removed his bright buttons, and substituted for them leather ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets; and in 4 his valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne belt.
“But you never wear Sam Brownes out there,” I said: “all officers now dress as much as possible like the men.”
That was so, we were informed; but officers used to wear them in billets, when they were out of the firing-line.
“Well,” said Crowley, “we could get them sent out, I expect.”
“Yes,” said I; “I expect they would arrive safely.”
But this infantile conversation is not worthy16 of record! Suffice to say we knew nothing about war, and were just beginning to learn that fact!
The first check to our enthusiasm was at Folkestone. We reported to the railway transport officer, whom we then regarded as a little demi-god; he told us to report in time for the boat at a certain hour. This we did, signed our names with a feeling of doing some awful and irrevocable deed, and then were told to wait another three hours: there was no room for us on this boat! We retired17 to an hotel with a feeling that perhaps after all there was no such imperious shouting for our help over in France, such as we had all, I think (save only Barrett, who was cynical18 and pessimistic!) secretly imagined.
Darkness came ere we started. The crossing did not seem long, and I stood up on deck with Barrett most of the time. Two destroyers followed a little 5 astern, one on either side; and there were lights right across the Channel. We were picked out by searchlights more than once, although all lights were forbidden on board. I felt that I was now fair game for the Germans; and it was exciting to think that they would give anything to sink me! At last I was in for “the great adventure.”
At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a dismal19 quay20 and in a drizzling21 rain to interview an irritated and sleepy railway transport officer. After a long, long queue had been safely negociated we were given tickets to ——; and then again we had to wait quite an hour on the platform. Some of our party were excited at their first visit to a foreign soil; but their enthusiasm abated22 when at the buffet23 they were charged exorbitant24 prices and their English money was rejected as “dam fool money.”
Then there came a long jerky journey through the night in a crowded carriage. (As I am out for confessions25, I will here state that I did not think this could be an ordinary passenger train, and I wondered vaguely26 who these men and women were who got in and out of other carriages!) At étaples there was a still longer wait, and a still longer queue; but, fortunately, my signature had not lengthened27. I remember sitting tired and dazed on the top of a valise, and asking Barrett what the time was.
“Three forty-five!”
“What a time to arrive!” I replied. But in war 6 three forty-five is as good a time as any other, I was soon to discover.
We walked to a camp a mile distant from the station; our arrival seemed quite unlooked for, and a quartermaster-sergeant had to be procured28, by the officer who was our guide, in order to gain access to the tent that contained the blanket stores. Wearily, at close on five o’clock, we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell-tent.
It must have been about 10 a.m. on the 6th when we turned out and found ourselves in a sandy country; behind us was a small ridge29, crowned by a belt of fir trees; the sun was well up and shone warm on the face as we washed and shaved in the open. The feeling of camp was exhilarating, and I was in good spirits.
But two blows immediately damped my ardour most effectively. When I learned that I was posted to our first battalion, and I alone of all of us twelve, the thought of my arrival among the regulars, with no experience, and not even an acquaintance, far less a friend, was distinctly chilling! To add to my discomfiture30 there befell a second misfortune: my valise was nowhere to be seen!
Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly occupied in searching for my valise, but to no purpose whatever. I did not see it until ten days later, when by some miracle it appeared again! I can hardly convey the sense of depression these two facts cast over me the next few days; the interest and novelty 7 of my experiences made me forget for short periods, but always there would return the thought of my arrival alone into a line regiment, and with the humiliating necessity of borrowing at once. Unknown and inexperienced I could not help being; but as a fool who lost all his property the first day, I should not cut a brilliant figure!
We obtained breakfast at an estaminet by the station; omelettes, rolls and butter, and café noir. I bought a French newspaper, and thought how finely my French would improve under this daily necessity; but I soon found that one could get the Paris edition of the Daily Mail, and my French is still as sketchy31 as ever! I remember watching the French children and the French women at the doors of the houses, and wondering what they thought of this war on their own soil; I knew that the wild enthusiasms of a year ago had died down; I did not expect the shouting and singing, the souvenir-hunting, and the generous impulses that greeted our troops a year ago; but I felt so vividly32 myself the fact that between me and the Germans lay only a living wall of my own countrymen, that I could not help thinking these urchins33 and women must feel it too! The very way in which they swept the doorsteps seemed to me worth noting at the moment.
In the course of my wild peregrinations over the camp in search of my valise, I came upon a group of Tommies undergoing instruction in the machine-gun. Arrested by a familiar voice, I recognised as instructor34 8 a man I had known very well at Cambridge! He recognised me at the same moment, and in a few seconds we parted, after an invitation from him to dinner that evening; he was on “lines of communication” work, he told me.
Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at the apparent permanence of his abode35; shelves, made out of boxes; novels, an army list, magazines, maps; bed, washstand, candlesticks, a chair; baccy, and whisky and soda36! It was all so snug37 and comfortable. I was soon to find myself accumulating a very similar collection in billets six miles behind the firing-line, and taking most of it into the trenches! I remember being impressed by the statement that the cannonade had been heard day after day since the 25th, and still more impressed by references to “the plans of the Staff!”
I left étaples early on the morning of the 7th, after receiving instructions, and a railway warrant for “Chocques,” from a one-armed major of the Gordons. Of our original twelve only Terry and Crowley remained with me; with a young Scot, we had a grey-upholstered first-class carriage to ourselves.
In the train I commenced my first letter home; and I should here like to state that the reason for the inclusion in these first chapters of a good many extracts from letters is that they do really represent my first vague, rather disconnected, impressions, and are therefore truer than any more coherent 9 account I might now give. First impressions of people, houses, places, are always interesting; I hope that the reader will not find these without interest, even though he may find them at times lacking in style.
To face page 9
MAP I.
“I am now in the train. We are passing level-crossings guarded by horn-blowing women; the train is strolling leisurely38 along over grass-grown tracks, and stopping at platformless stations. It is very hot. At midday I shall be about ten miles from the firing-line, and I expect the cannonade will be pretty audible. I feel strangely indifferent to things now, though I have the feeling that all this will be stamped indelibly on my memory.” How well I remember the thrill of excitement when I found the name Chocques on my map, quite close to the firing-fine! And as we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C. and cavalry39 camps, and talked to Tommies guarding the line, saw aeroplanes, and yes! a captive balloon, excitement grew still greater! At last we reached Chocques, and the railway transport officer calmly informed us that we had another four miles to go. He brilliantly suggested walking. But an A.S.C. lorry was there, and in we climbed, only to be ejected by the corporal! Eventually we tramped to Béthune with very full packs in a hot sun.
Walking gave us opportunity for observation; and that road was worth seeing to those who had not seen it before. There were convoys40 of A.S.C. lorries, drawn41 up (or “parked”) in twenties or 10 thirties alongside the road, each with its mystical marking, a scarlet42 shell, a green shamrock, etc., painted on its side; Red Cross ambulances passed, impelling43 one to turn back and look in them, sometimes containing stretcher-cases (feet only visible), or sitting cases with bandaged head or arm in sling44. Then there were motor-cars with Staff officers; motor-cars with youthful officers in immaculate Sam Brownes and “slacks”; and as we drew nearer Béthune, we saw canteens with Tommies standing45 and lounging outside, small squads46 of men, English notices, and boards with painted inscriptions47, such as BILLETS.
Officers—2
Men—30 or H.Q.
117th Inf. Bde. and in the distance loomed48 the square tower of the cathedral, which I thought then to be a decapitated spire49.
And so we came into the bustle50 of a French city.
I had never heard of Béthune before. As the crow flies it is about five to six miles from the front trenches. The shops were doing a roaring trade, and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting51 auto-strop razors, stationers offering “Tommy’s writing-pad,” and tailors showing English officers’ uniforms in their windows, besides all the goods of a large and populous52 town. We were very hungry and tired, and fate directed us to the famous tea-shop, where, at dainty tables, amid crowds of officers, we obtained 11 an English tea! I was astounded53; so were we all. To think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that I might not be able to replace for months! Here was everything to hand. Were we really within six miles of the Germans? Yet officers were discussing “the hot time we had yesterday”; while “we only came out this morning,” or “they whizz-banged us pretty badly last night,” were remarks from officers redolent of bath and the hairdresser! Buttons brilliantly polished, boots shining like advertisements, swagger-canes, and immaculate collars, gave the strangest first impression of “active service” to us, with our leather equipment, packs, leather buttons, and trench boots!
“Old Barrett was right about the Sam Brownes,” I said to Terry, vainly trying to look at my ease.
“Let’s look at your map,” he answered. Then, after a moment:
“Oh, we’re not far from the La Bassée Canal. I’ve heard of that often enough!”
“So have I,” I replied. “Is La Bassée ours or theirs?”
“Ours, of course”; but he borrowed the map again to make sure!
Refreshed, but feeling strangely “out” of everything, we eventually found our way to the town major. Here my letter continues:
“I was told an orderly was coming in the evening to conduct me to the trenches, to my battalion! Suddenly, however, we were told to go off—seven of 12 us in the same division—to our brigades in a motor-lorry. So we are packed off. I said good-bye to Crowley and Terry. This was about 7 p.m. We went rattling54 along till within a short distance of our front trenches. There was a lot of cannonading going on around and behind us, and star-shells bursting continuously, with Crystal-Palace-firework pops; we could hear rifles cracking too. At length we got to where the lorry could go no further, and we halted for a long time at a place where the houses were all ruins and the roofs like spiders’-webs, with the white glare of the shells silhouetting55 them against the sky. The houses had been shelled yesterday, but last night no shells were coming our way at all. My feelings were exactly like they are in a storm—the nearer and bigger the flashes and bangs the more I hoped the next would be really big and really near.” Of course, all this cannonade was our artillery56; at the time we were quite muddled57 up as to what it all was! The snarling58 bangs were the 18-pounders quite close to us, about one thousand yards behind our front line; the cracking bullets were spent bullets, though it sounded to us as if they were from a trench about twenty yards in front of us! Nothing is more confusing at first than the different sounds of the different guns. I think several of us would have been ready to say we had been under shell-fire that night! The “star-shells” should be more accurately59 described as “flares” or “rockets.” But to continue my letter: 13
“Well, the next few hours were a strange mixture of sensations. We could nowhere find our brigades, and after ten hours in the lorry we landed here at a place sixteen miles back from the firing line; here our division had been located by a signaller, whom we had consulted when we stopped by the cross-roads! We were left by the lorry at 5.0 a.m. at a field ambulance station ‘close to H.Q.,’ where we slept wearily till 8.0, to awake and find ourselves miles from our division, which is really, I believe, quite near where we had been in the firing-line! Now we are sitting in a big old chateau60 awaiting a telephone-message; we are in a dining-room, walls peeling, and arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! It is a jolly day: sun, and the smell of autumn.” I shall not forget that long ride. I was at the back, and could see out; innumerable villages we passed; innumerable mistakes we made; innumerable stops, innumerable enquiries! But always there was the throbbing61 engine while we halted, and the bump and rattle62 as we plunged63 through the night. Eight officers and seven valises, I think we were; one or two were reduced to grumbling64; several were asleep; a few, like myself, were awake, but all absolutely tired out. It was too uncomfortable to rest, cramped65 up among bulky valises and all sorts of sprawling66 limbs! Once, at about four o’clock, we halted at a house with a light in the window, and found a miner just going off to work. An old woman brewed67 some very black coffee, and we hungrily 14 devoured68 bits of bread and butter, coffee, and cognac; while the old woman, fat and smiling, gabbled incessantly69 at us! A strange weird70 picture we must have made, some of us in kilts and bonnets71, standing half-awake in the flickering72 candle-light.
We were at the Chateau all the morning. “The R.A.M.C. fellows were very decent to us; gave us breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and tinned jam) and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread and butter, and beer). These were eaten off the dining-room table in style. I explored the Chateau during the morning; just a big ordinary empty house inside; outside, it is white plaster, with steep slate73 roofs, and a few ornamental74 turrets75. The garden is mostly taken up with lines of picketed76 horses; outside the orchards77 and enclosures the country is bare and flat; it is a mining district, and pyramids of slag78 stand up all over the plain.”
I cannot do better than continue quoting from these first letters of mine; of course, I did not mention places by name:
“Well, at 2.0 p.m. the same old lorry and corporal turned up and took us back to Béthune. I gather he got considerable ‘strafing’ for last night’s performance, although I think he was not given clear enough instructions. Then, with seven other officers, we were sent off again in daylight, and dropped by twos and threes at our various Brigade Headquarters. Our “Brigade H.Q.” was in one of the few houses left standing. Here I reported, and was 15 told that an orderly would take me to my battalion transport. In half an hour the orderly arrived on a bicycle, and by 6.0 p.m. I was only half a mile from our transport. We were walking along, when suddenly there was a scream like a rocket, followed by a big bang, and the sound of splinters falling all about. I expected to see people jump into ditches; but they stood calmly in the street, women and all, and watched, while several shells (whizz-bangs, I believe)”—No, dear innocence79, High-explosive Shrapnel—“burst just near the road about a hundred yards ahead. We were four miles back from the firing-line. It was just the ‘evening hate,’ I expect. It didn’t last long. Just near us was one of our own batteries firing intermittently80.”
This was my first experience of being under fire. I hadn’t the least idea what to do. The textbooks, I believe, said “Throw yourself on the ground.” I therefore looked at my orderly; but he was ducking behind his bicycle, which I am sure is not recommended by any manual of military training! I ducked behind nothing, copying him. This all took place in the middle of the road. But when I saw women opening the doors of their houses and standing calmly looking at the shells, ducking seemed out of the question; so we both stood and watched the bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, thinking I must show some sort of a lead, suggested that we should proceed. But my orderly, wiser by experience, suggested waiting to see if another salvo 16 were forthcoming. After ten minutes, however, it was clear that the Germans had finished, and we resumed our journey in peace.
My letter continues: “At the transport I had a very comfortable billet. The quartermaster and two other new officers and myself had supper in an upstairs room. The quartermaster seemed very pessimistic, and told us a lot about our losses. We turned in at ten o’clock, and I slept well. It was ‘very quiet’; that is to say, only intermittent81 bangs such as have continued ever since the beginning of the war, and will continue to the end thereof!
“October 9th. This morning a cart took us at nine o’clock to within about a mile of the firing-line, putting us down at the corner of a street that has been renamed ‘H—— Street.’ The country was dead flat; the houses everywhere in ruins, though some were untouched and still inhabited. Thence an orderly conducted us to H.Q., where we reported to the Adjutant and the C.O. (who is quite young by the way); they were in the ground-floor room of a house, to which we came all the way from H—— Street along a communication trench about seven feet deep. These trenches were originally dug by the French, I believe. I was told I was posted to ‘D’ Company, so another orderly took me back practically to H—— Street, which must be six or seven hundred yards behind the firing-line. ‘D’ is in reserve; I am attached to it for the present. 17 There are two other officers in it, Davidson and Symons. Both have only just joined.”
So at last I was fairly lodged82 in my battalion. I had been directed, dumped, shaken, and carried, in a kindly83, yet to me most amazingly haphazard84, way to my destination, and there I found myself quite unexpected, but immediately attached somewhere until I should sort myself out a little and find my feet. I had a servant called Smith. In the afternoon I went with Davidson to supervise a working party, which was engaged in paving a communication trench with tiles from the neighbouring houses. In the evening I set to and wrote letters. I will close this chapter with yet one more quotation85:
“Now I am in the ground-room of one of the few standing houses in H—— Street. Next door is a big ‘école des filles,’ which I am quite surprised to find empty! Really the way the people go about their work here is amazing. Still, I suppose to carry on a girls’ school half a mile from the Boche is just beyond the capacity of even their indifference86! I’ve already got quite used to the noise. There are two guns just about forty yards away, that keep on firing with a terrific bang! I can see the flashes just behind me. I think the noise would worry you, if you heard these blaring bangs at the end of the back garden, which is just about the distance this battery is from me! We are messing here in this room; half a table has been propped87 up, and three chairs discovered and patched up for us. All the 18 windows facing the enemy have been blocked up with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night. If the house is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty yards away. Orders have not yet come, but I believe we go back to billets to-morrow.
A free issue of ‘Glory Boys’ cigarettes has just arrived: two packets for each officer and man. Please don’t forget to send my Sam Browne belt.”
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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qualms
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insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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drizzling
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| 下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的现在分词 ) | |
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abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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exorbitant
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confessions
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vaguely
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lengthened
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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sketchy
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| adj.写生的，写生风格的，概略的 | |
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vividly
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urchins
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instructor
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| n.指导者，教员，教练 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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convoys
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| n.（有护航的）船队( convoy的名词复数 )；车队；护航（队）；护送队 | |
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41
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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43
impelling
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| adj.迫使性的，强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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44
sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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squads
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| n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍 | |
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47
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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48
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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49
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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50
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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53
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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54
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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55
silhouetting
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| 使呈现影子（silhouette的现在分词形式） | |
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56
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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61
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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62
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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71
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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72
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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73
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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76
picketed
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| 用尖桩围住（picket的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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77
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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78
slag
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| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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81
intermittent
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| adj.间歇的，断断续续的 | |
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82
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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83
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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84
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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85
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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86
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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87
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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