FIGHTING IN GALLIPOLI By John Masefield

FIGHTING IN GALLIPOLI
加利波利战役
By John Masefield
约翰·梅斯菲尔德

FIGHTING IN GALLIPOLI, by John Masefield, in his Gallipoli, London, The MacMillan Company, 1916. Reprinted in Chamberlain and Bolton,Progressive Readings in Prose, pp. 256-259.

John Masefield （1878-1967）, English poet laureate （1930）, regarded generally as the greatest living English poet, has also produced prose of unusual merit. Among his outstanding poems are the tragic narrative, “Dauber”; the war poem, “August, 1914”; and the sailor lyrics, “Salt Water Ballads.” His prose includes “Gallipoli” （1916）, an account of the Dardanelles expedition, in which he himself took part; and “The Mainsail Haul,” a group of sea yarns. In this selection from Gallipoli is illustrated Masefield's ability to record events sympathetically and vividly.Gallipoli is a conscious literary effort to celebrate a noble failure in a prose epic surcharged with emotion.

Let the reader imagine himself to be facing three miles of any very rough broken sloping ground known to him, ground for the most part gorse-thyme-and-scrub-covered, being poor soil, but in some places beautiful with flowers （especially “a spiked yellow flower with a whitish leaf”） and on others green from cultivation. Let him say to himself that he and an army of his friends are about to advance up the slope towards the top, and that as they will be advancing in a line, along the whole length of the three miles, he will only see the advance of those comparatively near to him, since folds or dips in the ground will hide the others. Let him, before he advances, look earnestly along the line of the hill, as it shows up clear, in blazing sunlight only a mile from him, to see his tactical objective, one little clump of pines, three hundred yards away, across what seem to be fields. Let him see in the whole length of the hill no single human being, nothing but scrub, earth, a few scattered buildings, of the Levantine type （dirty white with roofs of dirty red） and some patches of dark Scotch pine, growing as the pine loves, on bleak crests. Let him imagine himself to be more weary than he has ever been in his life before, and dirtier than he has ever believed it possible to be, and parched with thirst, nervous, wild-eyed and rather lousy. Let him think that he has not slept for more than a few minutes together for eleven days and nights, and that in all his waking hours he has been fighting for his life, often hand to hand in the dark with a fierce enemy, and that after each fight he has had to dig himself a hole in the ground, often with his hands, and then walk three or four roadless miles to bring up heavy boxes under fire. Let him think, too, that in all those eleven days he has never for an instant been out of the thunder of cannon, that waking or sleeping their devastating crash has been blasting the air across within a mile or two, and this from an artillery so terrible that each discharge beats as it were a wedge of shock between the skull bone and the brain. Let him think, too, that never, for an instant, in all that time, has he been free or even partly free from the peril of death in its most sudden and savage forms, and that hourly in all that time he has seen his friends blown to pieces at his side, or dismembered, or drowned, or driven mad, or stabbed, or sniped by some unseen stalker, or bombed in the dark sap with a handful of dynamite in a beef tin, till their blood is caked upon his clothes and thick upon his face, and that he knows, as he stares at the hill, that in a few moments, more of that dwindling band, already too few, God knows how many too few, for the task to be done, will be gone the same way, and that he himself may reckon that he has done with life, tasted, and spoken and loved his last, and that in a few minutes more may be blasted dead, or lying bleeding in the scrub, with perhaps his face gone and a leg and an arm broken, unable to move but still alive, unable to drive away the flies or screen the ever-dropping rain, in a place where none will find him, or be able to help him, a place where he will die and rot and shrivel, till nothing is left of him but a few rags and a few remnants and a little identification disk flapping on his bones in the wind. Then let him hear the intermittent crash and rattle of the fire augment suddenly and awfully in a roaring, blasting roll, unspeakable and unthinkable, while the air above, that has long been whining and whistling, becomes filled with the scream of shells passing like great cats of death in the air; let him see the slope of the hill vanish in a few moments into the white, yellow and black smokes of great explosions shot with fire, and watch the lines of white puffs marking the hill in streaks where the shrapnel searches a suspected trench; and then, in the height of the tumult, when his brain is shaking in his head, let him pull himself together with his friends, and clamber up out of the trench, to go forward against an invisible enemy, safe in some unseen trench expecting him.
读者可以想象，自己正面对以往见过的任意一条极其难行的坡路，这条三英里长的路上灌木丛生，尽管土地贫瘠，有的地方却开着美丽的金雀花和百里香（尤其还有带穗的黄色花朵配着发白的叶子），还有的地方则是绿色的耕地。他和战友们组成的队伍将排列成行，上坡而行，向山顶挺进。在这漫长的三英里路上，他只能看到身边近处的人，坑洼起伏的地面则将其他人遮挡起来。挺进前，他沿着山路一眼望去，耀眼的阳光之下，行进目标是那样的清晰，看上去也就一英里的距离。那是一簇松树，在三百英尺远的地方，隔着一片似乎是农田的地方与他们相望。他还看到，整条山路荒无人烟，只有灌木丛、土地，和几幢散落的黎凡特式的建筑（脏旧的白屋配着脏旧的红屋顶），还有几片深色的苏格兰松树，在凄冷的山顶上无拘束地蔓延。读者可以想象，自己一生中从未如此精疲力竭，如此肮脏不堪，虱子满身、饥渴中烧，极度恐惧、怒目狰狞。在整整十一天的日日夜夜里，他未曾睡上几分钟，总是在为自己的生命而战，经常在黑暗中同凶残的敌人赤膊相战，每次搏斗后，他都必须徒手挖一个地洞，然后冒着炮火，走三四英里的土路，背上来沉重的弹药箱。读者可以想象，在那十一天里，他无时无刻不处在隆隆炮声中，无论是醒着还是睡着，那毁灭性的巨大爆炸声总会划破一两英里外的天空。那可怕的火炮每次发射产生的震撼力，就如同一把凿子，将人的头盖骨和大脑剥离。读者可以想象，在那段时间里，他无时无刻不在死亡线上挣扎，残酷的死亡随时可能在瞬间夺走他的性命；在那段时间里，他常常看到战友就在自己身边被炸成碎片，或身躯不全，或溺水身亡，或精神失常，或被暗中的跟随者以枪狙杀，或是被暗道里牛肉罐头盒中的炸药炸得鲜血直流，而战友们的血浆溅在他的衣服和脸上，结成厚块。他望着山坡，知道一会儿的工夫，战友们还会如此丧命，队伍还在减员，越来越少——天知道少得是否还能再战。就连他也认为自己已经到了生命的最后时刻，已经最后一次品味了人生、表达了情感、释放了爱意。几分钟之后，他也会被炸死，或者横躺在灌木丛中淌着血，也许脸被炸没、腿被炸断、胳膊被炸掉，欲动不得、欲死不能，轰不走苍蝇也遮不得雨，只在那无人觅处，无人拯救，唯有死去、腐烂、枯干，剩下几片烂布、几块残骸，身份牌在他的尸骨之上随风晃动。读者可以听到，那断断续续的炮火声又突如其来，喧嚣怒吼发出了巨响轰鸣声，那声音难以描述也难以想象；呼啸声不眠不休，响彻天空，炮弹飞梭的尖厉声音划破天空，仿若一只带来死亡的巨大猛兽。读者可以目睹，山坡瞬间消失在白色、黄色、和黑色的战火硝烟中，一股股白色的硝烟在山坡上留下条条痕迹，那是榴霰弹在轰炸可能的战壕。在那一片动乱中，他的大脑似乎也在跟着颤动。这时，他竭尽全力与战友爬出战壕，冒着危险继续向前挺进，那些看不见的敌人正掩藏在某一战壕里等待着他。

The Twenty-ninth Division went forward under these conditions on the 6th of May. They dashed on, or crawled, for a few yards at a time, then dropped for a few instants before squirming on again. In such an advance men do not see the battlefield. They see the world as the rabbit sees it, crouching on the ground, just their own little patch. On broken ground like that, full of dips and rises, men may be able to see nothing but perhaps the ridge of a bank ten feet ahead, with the dust flying in spouts all along it, as bullets hit it, some thousand a minute, and looking back or to their flanks they may see no one but perhaps a few men of their own platoon lying tense but expectant, ready for the sign to advance while the bullets pipe over them in a never-ending birdlike croon. They may be shut off by some all-important foot of ground from seeing how they are fronting, from all knowledge of what the next platoon is doing or suffering. It may be quite certain death to peep over that foot of ground in order to find out, and while they wait for a few instants shells may burst in their midst and destroy a half of them. Then the rest nerving themselves, rush up the ridge, and fall in a line dead under machine-gun fire. The supports come up, creeping over their corpses, get past the ridge, into scrub which some shell has set on fire. Men fall wounded in the fire, and the cartridges in their bandoliers explode and slowly kill them. The survivors crawl through the scrub, half-choked, and come out on a field full of flowers tangled three feet high with strong barbed wire. They wait for a while, to try to make out where the enemy is. They may see nothing but the slope of the field running up to a sky line, and a flash of distant sea on a flank, but no sign of any enemy, only the crash of guns and the pipe and croon and spurt of bullets. Gathering themselves together their brave men dash out to cut the wire and are killed; others take their places and are killed; others step out with too great a pride even to stoop, and pull up the supports of the wires and fling them down, and fall dead on top of them, having perhaps cleared a couple of yards. Then a couple of machine guns open on the survivors and kill them all in thirty seconds, with the concentrated fire of a battalion.
五月六日，第二十九师就是在这种条件下向前挺进的。他们快速前冲，或匍匐前进，一次行进几码远，隐藏片刻后继续前移。在这种行军状态下，士兵们看不到整个战场，只能如兔子一般，蹲在地上，仅看到面前的一小片天地。地面断裂，遍地坑洼，人们只能看清前方十英尺处的土岗，那里尘土飞扬，一分钟足有上千发子弹打中土岗。回望两侧，他们只能看到自己队伍的若干人，紧张地等待着前进的号令。子弹在空中呼啸而过，飞鸣声不绝于耳。他们身处的角落看不到任何线索，无法得知前方将面临的情况，也不知后方部队的状况。若想从角落向外观望以弄清形势，便注定是死路一条。他们多停留了一下，这时炮弹却落入他们中间，毁掉了半边队伍。余下的士兵们鼓起勇气，冲上土岗，却在机枪的扫射中倒下了一排。接上来的援兵从那些尸体上爬过去，越过土岗，进入炮弹轰击下燃烧的灌木丛。结果，士兵们又倒在燃烧的火中，他们身上携带的弹药着火爆炸，士兵们慢慢在燃烧中死亡。幸存者爬出灌木丛，被烟火呛得几乎窒息，终于到达一片三英尺高的带铁钉的铁丝网面前，铁丝网上缠满了花朵。他们停下来，试图判断敌人的位置，但只看到倾斜的地面伸向天边，远处一侧的海水闪亮，却不见敌人的踪影，只听到炮击声和子弹的呼啸声。士兵们鼓足勇气，冲上去断开铁丝网而被击毙，接替的人也连续被击毙，还有上来的人铤而走险，腰也不弯地冲上去，拔掉铁丝网的支撑，而倒在扯断的铁丝网上死去，如此扫清了几码远的死亡线。然而，接下来一个营的火力集中起来，在机关枪的扫射下，所有的幸存者在三十秒钟内全部丧命。

The supports come up, and hear about the wire from some wounded man who has crawled back through the scrub. They send back word, “Held up by wire,” and in time the message comes to the telephone which has just been blown to pieces by a shell. Presently when the telephone is repaired, the message reaches the gunners, who fire high-explosive shells on to the wire, and on to the slopes where the machine guns may be hidden. Then the supports go on over the flowers and are met midway by a concentrated fire of shells, shrapnel, machine guns, and rifles. Those who are not killed lie down among the flowers and begin to scrape little heaps of earth with their hands to give protection to their heads. In the light sandy marl this does not take long, though many are blown to pieces or hit in the back as they scrape. As before, they cannot see how the rest of the attack is faring, nor even where the other platoons of the battalion are; they lie scraping in the roots of daffodils and lilies, while bullets sing and shriek a foot or two over their heads. A man peering from his place in the flowers may make out that the man next to him, some three yards away, is dead, and that the man beyond is praying, the man beyond him cursing, and the man beyond him out of his mind from nerves or thirst.
援兵终于上来了，有受伤的士兵经过着火的灌木丛爬了回来，告知前方受到了铁丝网的阻拦，他们发出消息“在铁丝网处受阻”。消息尚未发到，电话就被炮弹炸飞了。电话一修好，炮手便得到消息，开始强力炮击铁丝网，并向有可能埋伏着机关枪的坡路扫射。援兵随即越过花朵缠绕的铁丝网，却又在前进的途中遭到炮弹、榴霰弹、机关枪和步枪集中火力的阻击。未被打死的士兵们躺下藏在花中，用手挖出一点儿小土堆以挡住头部。不消多久，他们便将松散的沙土堆成小堆，但在这期间，仍有不少人被炸成碎片或击中背部。如之前的情况一样，他们看不到炮火的形势，也看不到其他部队在哪儿。他们躺在那儿挖着水仙花、百合花根部的土，子弹从他们的头上方一两英尺高的地方呼啸而过。一个士兵透过花丛向四周窥视，或许在他身旁三码远的地方，一个士兵已经死了，远处另一个正在祈祷，挨着他的另一个士兵正在咒骂，而更远处的一个士兵在紧张和饥渴中已经疯狂。

Long hours pass, but the air above them never ceases to cry like a live thing with bullets flying. Men are killed or maimed, and the wounded cry for water. Men get up to give them water and are killed. Shells fall at regular intervals along the field. The waiting men count the seconds between the shells to check the precision of the battery's fire. Some of the bursts fling the blossoms and bulbs of flowers into the bodies of men, where they are found long afterwards by the X rays. Bursts and roars of fire on either flank tell of some intense moment in other parts of the line. Every feeling of terror and mental anguish and anxiety goes through the mind of each man there, and is put down by resolve.
漫长的几个小时过去了，然而在他们的上方，子弹飞梭呼啸，尖叫声从未停止。士兵们死的死，残的残，还有受伤的在呼唤着要水。给他们送水的士兵就这样中弹倒地。战场上每隔一段时间，炮弹便如暴风雨般袭来。等候中的士兵们卡着表，来判断炮弹袭击所间隔的时间。炸弹把花朵和花骨朵崩进士兵的尸体内，很长时间之后，人们才通过X光找到了这些尸体。战场两侧，炮火的爆炸声、咆哮声响成一片，可见整个战线其他战场上的鏖战正在白炽化。每一个士兵都在经历着战争的恐怖所带来的精神折磨和痛苦，又靠着信念和决心继续坚持。

The supports come up, they rise with a cheer, and get out of the accursed flowers into a gulley where some men of their regiment are already lying dead. There is a little wood to their front; they make for that, and suddenly come upon a deep and narrow Turk trench full of men. This is their first sight of the enemy. They leap down into the trench and fight hand to hand, kill and are killed, in the long grave already dug. They take the trench, but opening from the trench are saps, which the Turks still hold. Men are shot dead at these saps by Turk sharpshooters cunningly screened within them. Bullets fall in particular places in the trench from snipers hidden in the trees of the wood. The men send back for bombs, others try to find out where the rest of the battalion lies, or send word that from the noise of the fire there must be a battery of machine guns beyond the wood, if the guns would shell it.
援兵赶到了，士兵们跳起来欢呼，从那些可憎的花丛中挣脱出来，跳入一条躺着他们同团战友尸体的沟壑。他们向前方的一小片树林进军，蓦然发现，面前有一条又深又窄的土耳其士兵的战壕，那里满是敌人，这是他们第一次看到了敌人。他们跳入战壕，与敌人赤膊相战，就在这条已经挖好的长长的坟墓里，杀死敌人或被敌人杀死。他们占领了战壕，然而战壕深处还有暗道，土耳其的枪手们狡诈地隐藏在暗道里，将士兵们击毙在那里。隐藏在树林中的狙击手也向战壕四处射击。士兵们向后方请求炸弹支援，其他人则试图找到其余部队的位置，或者发出消息告知，从枪声判断，树林远处肯定有一排机关枪的火力，请求枪击援助。

Presently, before the bombs come, bombs begin to drop among them from the Turks. Creeping up, the men catch them in their hands before they explode and fling them back so that they burst among the Turks. Some have their hands blown off, other their heads, in doing this, but the bloody game of catch goes on till no Turks are left in the sap, only a few wounded groaning men who slowly bleed to death there. After long hours, the supports come up and a storm of high explosives searches the little wood, and then with a cheer the remnant goes forward out of the trench into the darkness of the pines. Fire opens on them from snipers in the trees and from machine guns everywhere; they drop and die, and the survivors see no enemy, only their friends falling and a place where no living thing can pass. Men find themselves suddenly alone, with all their friends dead, and no enemy in sight, but the rush of bullets filling the air. They go back to the trench, not afraid, but in a kind of maze, and as they take stock and count their strength there comes the roar of the Turkish war cry, the drumlike proclamation of the faith, and the Turks come at them with the bayonet. Then that lonely remnant of a platoon stands to it with rapid fire, and the machine gun rattles like a motor cycle, and some ribald or silly song goes up, and the Turks fail to get home, but die or waver and retreat and are themselves charged as they turn. It is evening now; the day has passed in long hours of deep experience, and the men have made two hundred yards. They send back for supports and orders, link up, if they are lucky, with some other part of their battalion, whose adventures, fifty yards away, have been as intense, but wholly different, and prepare the Turk trench for the night. Presently word reaches them from some far-away H. Q. （some dugout five hundred yards back, in what seems, by comparison, like peaceful England） that there are no supports, and that the orders are to hold the line at all costs and prepare for a fresh advance on the morrow. Darkness falls, and ammunition and water come up, and the stretcher bearers hunt for the wounded by the groans, while the Turks search the entire field with shell to kill the supports which are not there. Some of the men in the trench creep out to their front, and are killed there as they fix a wire entanglement. The survivors make ready for the Turk attack, certain soon to come. There is no thought of sleep; it is too cold for sleep; the men shiver as they stare into the night;they take the coats of the dead, and try to get a little warmth. There is no moon and the rain begins. The marl at the bottom of the trench is soon a sticky mud, and the one dry patch is continually being sniped. A few exhausted ones fall not into sleep but into nervous dreams, full of twitches and cries, like dogs' nightmares, and away at sea some ship opens with her great guns at an unseen target up the hill. The terrific crashes shake the air; someone sees a movement in the grass and fires;others start up and fire. The whole irregular line starts up and fires, the machine guns rattle, the officers curse, and the guns behind, expecting an attack, send shells into the woods. Then slowly the fire drops and dies, and stray Turks, creeping up, fling bombs into the trench.
然而，未等到己方炸弹的援助，土耳其人的炸弹就向他们袭来。士兵们爬起来，用手抓住尚未引爆的炸弹，反向扔回土耳其人的队伍。有的士兵手被炸掉，有的头被炸飞，但这种逮住炸弹扔回敌营的血的游戏一直进行着，最终炸光了暗道里的土耳其人，仅剩下几个被炸伤的在暗道里呻吟流血，慢慢死去。过了很久，援兵终于到达，炮火开始连续轰炸小树林。战壕里余下的士兵们喊着冲进前方黑暗的松树林，却遭到林中狙击手的袭击，四处都是机关枪的扫射。士兵们倒的倒，死的死，而幸存者看不到敌人，只见到战友们倒下，前方无人生还。士兵们突然感到孤立无援，只见战友们的死去，不见敌人的踪影，而空中子弹喧嚣。他们于是返回战壕，不是出于恐惧，而是因为混乱。当他们清点力量的时候，突然响起土耳其人撕破天空的疯狂呐喊、震撼天际的铿锵誓言，随后土耳其人端着刺刀冲向他们。仅剩下的一个排的士兵们迅猛反击，机关枪像飞驰的摩托车般突突作响，连续开火。土耳其人发出咒骂声和怪叫声，但是，他们绝路一条，有的死，有的仓皇撤退，却在转身中被自己人打死。傍晚时分到来，胆战心惊的白天终于过去了，士兵们向前推进了两百码的距离。他们请求援助和指令，如果幸运的话，还能够与同营的其他队伍取得联系，并在土耳其人的战壕里准备过夜。在五十码开外的地方，同营的那些队伍也经历了不同的紧张战斗。很快，他们接到远处司令部的命令（司令部在大概五百码以外的掩体内，相对而言，如同祥和的英格兰一样安全平静），告知没有增援，仍要不惜一切代价守住阵地，准备次日新的一轮挺进。夜幕降临，弹药和水送了上来，抬担架的人通过呻吟声寻找受伤的士兵。此时，土耳其人炮击整个战场，以阻杀实不存在的增援。有的士兵爬出战壕，露出半身，拉起防护的铁丝网，却中弹倒下。剩余的幸存者做好准备，抵抗即将到来的土耳其人的再次进攻。士兵们没有睡意，寒冷中也不可能入睡，只有瞪着夜空瑟瑟发抖，从尸体上剥下衣服御寒。漆黑的天上没有月亮，又下起了雨，战壕里的沙土变成了泥浆，只有枪弹连续击中的小块地方是干燥的。几个身心俱疲的士兵坠入梦乡却噩梦连连，不断抽搐着发出神经质的叫喊，仿佛做噩梦的狗儿。远处海面上的行船，对着山上看不清的目标开炮，那爆炸声撼动了周遭的空气。有人看到草中有动，开枪射击，其他人便跟着射击。整个战壕陆陆续续开火，机关枪展开扫射，士兵们叫骂着，后方则向着树林开火，以防敌人从背面进攻。慢慢地，枪声衰竭，土耳其散兵们爬了上来，向战壕投掷炸弹。

（苗菊　译）