“There’s no gas,” he said and pointed1 to the clear red glow in the east. He tore off his mask, for he hated to have his face concealed2. He sniffed4 the pervading5 anti-gas with satisfaction. He echoed in a tone of wonder, “STILL there is no gas.”
She too emerged from her disfiguring visor. “But are we safe?” she asked.
“Trust me,” he said.
The sky was full of the loud drone of engines, but no aircraft was visible. The evening was full of warm-tinted clouds, and the raiders and the fighting machines were no doubt dodging6 each other above that canopy7. The distant air barrage8 made an undertone to the engine whir, as if an immense rubber ball were being bounced on an equally immense tin tray. The big Rolls–Royce had vanished. Its driver, perhaps, had taken it to some less conspicuous9 position and had not yet returned.
“I find something exhilarating in all this,” said the Lord Paramount10. “I do not see why I should not share the dangers of my people.”
A few other intrepid11 spirits were walking along Whitehall, wearing gas masks of various patterns, and some merely with rags and handkerchiefs to their mouths. Many, like the Lord Paramount, had decided12 that the fear of gas was premature13 and either carried their masks in their hands or attempted no protection. Except for two old-fashioned water carts, there were no vehicles in sight. These water carts were busy spraying a heavy, slowly volatile14 liquid with a sweetish offensive odour that was understood to be an effective antidote15 to most forms of gas poisoning. It gave off a bluish low-lying mist that swirled16 and vanished as it diffused17. A great deal of publicity18 had been given to the anti-gas supply after the East End panic. The supply of illuminating19 gas had been cut off now for some days, and the retorts and mains had been filled with an anti-gas of established efficacy which could be turned on when required from the normal burners. This had the same sweetish smell as the gas sprayed from the carts, and it had proved very reassuring20 to the public when raids occurred.
“Let us walk up Whitehall,” said the Lord Paramount. “I seem to remember an instruction that the car should shelter from observation under the Admiralty arch in case of a raid. We might go up there.”
She nodded.
“You are not nervous?” he asked.
“Beside you!” she glowed.
The car was not under the arch, and they went on into the Square. There seemed to be a lull21 in the unseen manoeuvres overhead. Either the invaders22 had gone altogether or they were too high to be heard or they had silencers for their engines. The only explosions audible were the deep and distant firing of the guns of the outer aircraft zone.
“It is passing over,” said the Lord Paramount. “They must have made off.”
Then he remarked how many people were abroad and how tranquil23 was their bearing. There were numbers visible now. A moment ago they had seemed alone. Men and women were coming out from the station of the tube railway very much as they might have emerged after a shower of rain. There were news-vendors who apparently24 had never left the curb25. “There is something about our English folk,” he said, “magnificently calm. Something dogged. An obstinate26 resistance to excitement. They say little but they just carry on.”
BUT NOW THE AIR WAS SCREAMING!
A moment of blank expectation.
In an instant the whole area was alive with bursting bombs. Four — or was it five?— deafening27 explosions and blinding flashes about them and above them followed one another in close succession, and the ordered pavement before them became like a crater28 in eruption29.
Mr. Parham had seen very little of the more violent side of warfare30. During the first World War a certifiable weakness of the heart and his natural aptitudes31 had made him more serviceable on the home front. And now, peeping out of the eyes of the Lord Paramount, he was astounded32 at the grotesque33 variety of injury to human beings of which explosions are capable. Accustomed to study warfare through patriotic34 war films, he had supposed that there was a distinctive35 dignity about death in battle, that for the most part heroes who were slain36 threw up their arms and fell forward in so seemly a way as to conceal3 anything that might otherwise be derogatory to themselves or painful to the spectator. But these people who were killed in the Square displayed no such delicacy37; perhaps because they were untrained civilians38; they were torn to bits, mixed indifferently with masonry39, and thrown about like rags and footballs and splashes of red mud. An old match seller who had been squatting40 on the stone curb, an old woman in a black bonnet41, leapt up high into the air towards the Lord Paramount, spread out as if she were going to fly over him like a witch, and then incredibly flew to fragments, all her boxes of matches radiating out as though a gigantic foot had kicked right through her body at them. Her bonnet swept his hat off, and a box of matches and some wet stuff hit him. It wasn’t like any sort of decent event. It was pure nightmare — impure42 nightmare. It was an outrage43 on the ancient dignity of war.
And then he realized the column had been hit and was coming down. Almost solemnly it was coming down. It had been erect44 so long, and now, with a kind of rheumatic hesitation45, it bent46 itself like a knee. It seemed to separate slowly into fragments. It seemed as though it were being lowered by invisible cords from the sky. There was even time to say things.
Never had Mrs. Pinchot seen him so magnificent.
He put an arm about her. He had meant to put his hand on her shoulder, but she was little and he embraced her head.
“Stay by me,” he said. He had time to say, “Trust me and trust God. Death cannot touch me until my work is done.”
Nelson turned over and fell stiffly and slantingly. He went, with the air of meeting an engagement, clean through the fa?ade of the big insurance buildings on the Cockspur street side of the Square. About the Master and his secretary the bursting pavement jumped again, as the great masses of the column hit it and leapt upon it and lay still. The Lord Paramount was flung a yard or so, and staggered and got to his feet and saw Mrs. Pinchot on all fours. Then she too was up and running towards him with love and consternation47 in her face.
“You are covered with blood!” she cried. “You are covered with blood.”
“Not mine,” he said and reeled towards the streaming ruins of a fountain basin, and was suddenly sick and sick and sick.
She washed his face with her handkerchief and guided him towards a plateau of still level pavement outside the Golden Cross Hotel.
“It was the weakness of Nelson,” he said — for it was one of his standard remarks on such occasions.
“Nelson!” he repeated, his thoughts going off at a tangent, and he stared up into the empty air. “Good God!”
Hardly twenty feet of the pedestal remained.
And then: “High time we made our way to these new headquarters of Gerson’s. I wonder where that car can be hiding. Where is that car? Ssh! Those must be bombs again, bursting somewhere on the south side. Don’t listen to them.”
He realized that a number of distraught and dishevelled people were looking at him curiously48. They regarded him with a critical expectation. They became suddenly quite numerous. Many of these faces were suspicious and disagreeable.
“I would gladly stay here and help with the wounded,” he said, “but my duty lies elsewhere.”
Men with Red Cross badges had appeared from nowhere and were searching among the wreckage49. Injured people were beginning to crawl and groan50.
“We must commandeer a car,” said the Lord Paramount. “Find some officers and commandeer a car. I must take you out of all this. We must get out of London to the headquarters as soon as possible. My place is there. We must find out where the car has gone. Gerson will know. We had better walk back to the War Office, perhaps, and start from there. Do not be afraid. Keep close to me. . . . Was that another bomb?”
收听单词发音 |
1
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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barrage
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| n.火力网，弹幕 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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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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lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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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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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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aptitudes
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| （学习方面的）才能，资质，天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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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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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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50
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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