1-55

 

55.

After those first five weeks, after the close of boot camp, the color sergeants¹ eased up. Ever soslightly. They didn’t shout at us quite so much. They treated us like soldiers.

As such, however, it was time to learn about war. How to make it, how to win it. Some of thisinvolved stupefyingly boring classroom lessons. The better bits involved drills simulating differentways of being killed, or not, depending.

CBRN, they were called. Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear. We practiced putting onprotective gear, pulling it off, cleaning and wiping the poisons and other muck that might bethrown, dropped or sprayed on us. We dug countless³ trenches⁴, donned masks, curled into the fetalposition, rehearsed the Book of Revelation over and over.

One day the color sergeants assembled us outside a redbrick building, which had been turnedinto a CS gas chamber⁵. They ordered us inside, activated⁶ the gas. We took off our gas masks, putthem on again, took them off. If you weren’t quick about it, you got a mouthful, a lungful. But youcouldn’t always be quick, and that was the point, so eventually everyone sucked gas. The exerciseswere supposed to be about war; to me they were about death. The whole leitmotif of Armytraining was death. How to avoid it, but also how to face it, head-on.

It felt natural, therefore, almost inevitable⁷, that they put us on buses and took us to BrookwoodMilitary Cemetery⁸, to stand on graves, to listen as someone read a poem.

“For the Fallen.”

The poem predated the ghastliest wars of the twentieth century, so it still had a trace ofinnocence.

They shall not grow old,

As we that are left grow old…

It was striking how much of our earliest training was intercut, leavened⁹, with poetry. The gloryof dying, the beauty of dying, the necessity of dying, these concepts were pounded into our headsalong with the skills to avoid dying. Sometimes it was explicit¹⁰, but sometimes it was right in ourfaces. Whenever we were herded¹¹ into chapel¹² we’d look up and see etched in stone: Dulce etdecorum est pro² patria mori.

Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.

Words first written by an ancient Roman, an exile, then repurposed by a young British soldierwho’d died for his country. Repurposed ironically, but no one told us that. They certainly weren’tetched ironically into that stone.

Poetry, for me, was slightly preferable to history. And psychology¹³. And military strategy. Iwince just remembering those long hours, those hard chairs in Faraday Hall and Churchill Hall,reading books and memorizing dates, analyzing¹⁴ famous battles, writing essays on the mostesoteric concepts of military strategy. These, for me, were the ultimate trials of Sandhurst.

Given a choice, I’d have taken five more weeks of boot camp.

I fell asleep in Churchill Hall, more than once.

You there, Mr. Wales! You’re sleeping!

We were advised, when feeling sleepy, to jump up, get the blood flowing. But that seemedoverly confrontational¹⁵. By standing¹⁶ you were informing the instructor¹⁷ that he or she was a bore.

What sort of mood would they be in when it came time to mark your next paper?

Weeks ran together. In week nine—or was it ten?—we learned bayoneting. Wintry morning. Afield in Castlemartin, Wales. The color sergeants put on head-splitting punk rock music, fullvolume, to rouse our animal spirits, and then we began running at sandbag dummies¹⁸, bayonetshigh, slashing¹⁹ and shouting: KILL! KILL! KILL!

When the whistles blew, when the drill was “over,” some guys couldn’t turn it off. They keptstabbing and stabbing their dummies. A quick glimpse into the dark side of human nature. Thenwe all laughed and pretended we hadn’t seen what we’d just seen.

Week twelve—or maybe thirteen?—was guns and grenades. I was a good shot. I’d beenshooting rabbits and pigeons and squirrels with a .22 since I was twelve.

But now I got better.

So much better.

 

1 sergeants   

警官( sergeant的名词复数 )； （美国警察）警佐； （英国警察）巡佐； 陆军（或空军）中士

参考例句：

• Platoon sergeants fell their men in on the barrack square. 排长们在营房广场上整顿队伍。
• The recruits were soon licked into shape by the drill sergeants. 新兵不久便被教育班长训练得象样了。

2 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

3 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

4 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

5 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

6 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

7 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

8 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

9 leavened   

adj.加酵母的v.使（面团）发酵( leaven的过去式和过去分词 )；在…中掺入改变的因素

参考例句：

• He leavened his speech with humor. 他在演说中掺了一点幽默。 来自辞典例句
• A small cake of shortened bread leavened with baking powder or soda. 由烤巧克力或可可粉、牛奶和糖制成。 来自互联网

10 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。

11 herded   

群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动

参考例句：

• He herded up his goats. 他把山羊赶拢在一起。
• They herded into the corner. 他们往角落里聚集。

12 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

13 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

14 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

15 confrontational   

adj.挑衅的；对抗的

参考例句：

• Fans love rappers partly because they strike such a confrontational pose. 乐迷热爱这些饶舌艺人一定程度上是因为他们所采取的那种战斗姿态。 来自互联网
• You prefer a non confrontational approach when it comes to resolving disputes. 面对争端，你不喜欢采用对抗性的手段来解决。 来自互联网

16 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

17 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

18 dummies   

n.仿制品( dummy的名词复数 )；橡皮奶头；笨蛋；假传球

参考例句：

• If he dummies up, just try a little persuasion. 如果他不说话，稍微劝劝他就是了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All the articles in the window are dummies. 橱窗里的全部物品都是仿制品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 slashing   

adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• Slashing is the first process in which liquid treatment is involved. 浆纱是液处理的第一过程。 来自辞典例句
• He stopped slashing his horse. 他住了手，不去鞭打他的马了。 来自辞典例句