美国国家公共电台 NPR Author Unravels Her Spy Dad's Life, One Secret Mission At A Time

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Keggie Carew's father, Tom Carew, was known as Lawrence of Burma and The Mad Irishman. In her new book "Dadland," we find out why. It's a memoir¹ that combines espionage² and war stories with reflections on parent-child relationships.

When Keggie Carew began writing this book, her father's war days were long behind him. He was losing his memory to dementia. Carew describes a moment she took him to see a play in London.

KEGGIE CAREW: And on the top step, dad trips. And he starts falling all way down the stairs - bump, bump, bump, bump - all the way down to the bottom. And everybody in the theatre foyer just stares and freezes because, you know, it's 85-year-old man tumbling down the stairs. And we all freeze, and then he sits up, dusts himself down, completely unscathed, unbruised, perfectly³ fine. And there's a loud sigh of relief. I mean, what we have just witnessed was him going straight into a parachute roll. His Jedburgh training just clocked in straightaway.

SHAPIRO: Jedburgh training - the Jeds, as they were called, were an elite⁴ secret unit during the Second World War. Keggie Carew's father was trained to lead partisans⁵ in Europe who sabotaged⁶ the Germans. While Carew had heard stories about her father's war years, she was never sure how much to believe. Then she went to a Jed reunion with him and learned more about how they trained. Here she reads from the book.

CAREW: (Reading) By the end of the training, there would be nothing about guerilla warfare⁷ they wouldn't know - how to blow up a train, a tree, a railway line, a road, a canal, a factory, a power station, a dam, a reservoir, high-tension pylons⁸. They had to be able to set a mine, attach a clam⁹, lay tire bursters (ph), throw a grenade by instinct, neutralize¹⁰ a booby trap, prepare an ambush¹¹. There was observation and memory training, intelligence gathering¹², how to conduct surveillance, how to know if you were being followed, reception techniques for receiving airdropped supplies, night parachuting. There were lessons in unarmed combat, silent killing¹³ and survival. They would have to be able to swim with a limpet mine and pitch a lump of plastic explosive into a moving train. I look at Dad quizzically. Silent killing? He shrugs¹⁴ his shoulders.

SHAPIRO: I want to start with something that you write at the very end of this book, which is that you compared the experience of writing this to a pair of trains leaving the station going in different directions. Explain what you mean by that.

CAREW: Well, it was a parallel journey. As my dad was losing his memory, I had set the task of retrieving¹⁵ it. But it was like as his life was sort of going out of the station, I was chasing the train in the other direction.

SHAPIRO: And so the book itself juxtaposes the incredible kind of mundane¹⁶ tragedy of someone who's unable to do the most basic things against the extraordinary exploits of people parachuting out of airplanes and surviving in the jungle on no food. I can only imagine what it was like to live that every day as you were writing.

CAREW: Well, yeah. It was extraordinary. One minute, I would be with a log with nine men that was - had been mined on a road in Tipperary in Ireland. And the next minute, I'd be in the Burmese jungle. And the next minute, I'd be in France. The next minute, I'd be with my dad in the garden. I'd be walking around the corner, and I hear him say to the neighbor, I don't remember you, but I do remember your teeth. They're rather distinctive¹⁷. So when you say mundane, it was never mundane with dad even with dementia. It was - there was really never a dull moment.

SHAPIRO: Do you think that if you had done this excavation¹⁸ of your father's history before his dementia began setting in that it would've been a different experience?

CAREW: Yeah. I think it would've been a very, very different experience. First of all, in a way, I had more freedom because he wasn't there to ask. I had a lot of the very, very colorful anecdotes¹⁹ that I carried about with me since a child. And those were the stories that he told where he'd outwitted some general or done something smart.

But the actual nuts and bolts of it and also the really astonishing stuff was buried in secret files that weren't actually available until the last 15 years. They were all stamped with secrets and hidden away, and you couldn't actually access them. So I think it would have been a very different book, and it wouldn't have had that woven quality that it has where your chronology is replaced by memory so that the memory comes and goes and one moves around from the past into the present and back to front.

SHAPIRO: I think every child, probably, to some extent views their parent as a superhero. Was there a moment in adulthood²⁰ or perhaps even as you were researching this book that it suddenly hit you that these were not just stories, that he actually had done these incredible daring feats²¹ during wartime?

CAREW: Well, I knew he was called Lawrence of Burma and The Mad Irishman because we had these newspaper reports from India from 1945 and, you know, we - I used to take them to school (laughter) show people. And I knew he parachuted out of planes into the jungle. And I knew he was a spy in Burma. But when I really found out, the truth was much more outrageous²². And he was in so much more kind of crucial part of history when the Burmese guerrillas were trying to get their independence, and he was...

SHAPIRO: From the Japanese.

CAREW: ...From the Japanese, and he was working with Aung San Suu Kyi's father who was later assassinated²³. Oh, it was so brilliant. It was much better than I thought. I didn't think I would be writing quite so much about that, but it was so fascinating. I couldn't resist getting really deeply into some of that stuff.

SHAPIRO: What does it mean to you now that he's gone to have this work that you've created that is a tribute to a man who shaped you, created you, influenced you and is no longer with us?

CAREW: Well, it's - in a way, he's been more with us with this book. It's been incredible. It's been a very cathartic²⁴ thing with my family. Actually, we've talked about, you know, the more difficult sides of our life together since this book's come out. And it also, I think, kind of acts as a sort of universal - resonates universally because it's about lots of things that families experience apart - obviously, not that guerilla warfare, jumping out of planes stuff.

SHAPIRO: No (laughter). My family has never experienced that.

CAREW: No. But then lots of other things - family things - you know, the grief, the loss, the love, you know, the dementia side. And, you know, perfect lives are not very interesting, and ours is certainly not that (laughter). So I felt it was a kind of way to reach out in a way like in a - as an everyman or, you know, the experiences that we all have. And, yeah, that's - that was important to me so that it did resonate in that way.

SHAPIRO: Well, Keggie Carew, thanks so much for your time.

CAREW: Thank you very much. It was lovely speaking to you.

SHAPIRO: Keggie Carew's book is called "Dadland."

(SOUNDBITE OF OLD TIME MUSKETRY SONG, "KEPT CLOSE")

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 espionage   

n.间谍行为，谍报活动

参考例句：

• The authorities have arrested several people suspected of espionage.官方已经逮捕了几个涉嫌从事间谍活动的人。
• Neither was there any hint of espionage in Hanley's early life.汉利的早期生活也毫无进行间谍活动的迹象。

3 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

4 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

5 partisans   

游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙

参考例句：

• Every movement has its partisans. 每一运动都有热情的支持者。
• He was rescued by some Italian partisans. 他被几名意大利游击队员所救。

6 sabotaged   

阴谋破坏（某事物）( sabotage的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The main pipeline supplying water was sabotaged by rebels. 供水主管道被叛乱分子蓄意破坏了。
• They had no competition because competitors found their trucks burned and sabotaged. 他们之所以没有竞争对象，那是因为竞争对象老是发现自己的卡车遭火烧或被破坏。 来自教父部分

7 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

8 pylons   

n.（架高压输电线的）电缆塔( pylon的名词复数 )；挂架

参考例句：

• A-form pylons are designed to withstand earthquake forces. A型框架式塔架设计中考虑塔架能够经受地震力的作用。 来自辞典例句
• Who designed the arch bridge with granite-faced pylons at either end? 谁设计在拱桥两端镶有花岗岩的塔门？ 来自互联网

9 clam   

n.蛤，蛤肉

参考例句：

• Yup!I also like clam soup and sea cucumbers.对呀！我还喜欢蛤仔汤和海参。
• The barnacle and the clam are two examples of filter feeders.藤壶和蛤类是滤过觅食者的两种例子。

10 neutralize   

v.使失效、抵消，使中和

参考例句：

• Nothing could neutralize its good effects.没有什么能抵消它所产生的好影响。
• Acids neutralize alkalis and vice versa.酸能使碱中和碱，亦能使酸中和。

11 ambush   

n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击

参考例句：

• Our soldiers lay in ambush in the jungle for the enemy.我方战士埋伏在丛林中等待敌人。
• Four men led by a sergeant lay in ambush at the crossroads.由一名中士率领的四名士兵埋伏在十字路口。

12 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

13 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

14 shrugs   

n.耸肩（以表示冷淡，怀疑等）( shrug的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany shrugs off this criticism. 匈牙利总理久尔恰尼对这个批评不以为然。 来自互联网
• She shrugs expressively and takes a sip of her latte. 她表达地耸肩而且拿她的拿铁的啜饮。 来自互联网

15 retrieving   

n.检索（过程），取还v.取回( retrieve的现在分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息）

参考例句：

• Ignoring all, he searches the ground carefully for any cigarette-end worth retrieving. 没管打锣的说了什么，他留神的在地上找，看有没有值得拾起来的烟头儿。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• Retrieving the nodules from these great depths is no easy task. 从这样的海底深渊中取回结核可不是容易的事情。 来自辞典例句

16 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

17 distinctive   

adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的

参考例句：

• She has a very distinctive way of walking.她走路的样子与别人很不相同。
• This bird has several distinctive features.这个鸟具有几种突出的特征。

18 excavation   

n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地

参考例句：

• The bad weather has hung up the work of excavation.天气不好耽误了挖掘工作。
• The excavation exposed some ancient ruins.这次挖掘暴露出一些古遗迹。

19 anecdotes   

n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• amusing anecdotes about his brief career as an actor 关于他短暂演员生涯的趣闻逸事
• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman. 他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

21 feats   

功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He used to astound his friends with feats of physical endurance. 过去，他表现出来的惊人耐力常让朋友们大吃一惊。
• His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time. 他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。

22 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

23 assassinated   

v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏

参考例句：

• The prime minister was assassinated by extremists. 首相遭极端分子暗杀。
• Then, just two days later, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. 跟着在两天以后，肯尼迪总统在达拉斯被人暗杀。 来自辞典例句

24 cathartic   

adj.宣泄情绪的；n.泻剂

参考例句：

• His laughter was cathartic,an animal yelp that brought tears to his eyes.他哈哈大笑以宣泄情绪，声音如野兽般尖厉，眼泪都笑出来了。
• The drug had a cathartic effect.这药有导泻的作用。