cry softly, burying her face on my arm, and thus she fell asleep. Chapter 2 Toward morning, I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the time that I had lain awake for days, instead of hours. When I finally opened my eyes, it was daylight, and the girl's hair was in my face, and she was breathing normally. I thanked God for that. She had turned her head during the night so that as I opened my eyes I saw her face not an inch from mine, my lips almost touching hers. It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned around a few times and lay down again, and the girl opened her eyes and looked into mine. Hers went very wide at first, and then slowly comprehension came to her, and she smiled. "You have been very good to me," she said, as I helped her to rise, though if the truth were known I was more in need of assistance than she; the circulation all along my left side seeming to be paralyzed entirely. "You have been very good to me." And that was the only mention she ever made of it; yet I know that she was thankful and that only reserve prevented her from referring to what, to say the least, was an embarrassing situation, however unavoidable. Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight toward us, and after a time we made out the squat lines of a tug—one of those fearless exponents of England's supremacy of the sea that tows sailing ships into French and English ports. I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above my head. Nobs stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncoming boat. "They see us," she said at last. "There is a man answering your signal." She was right. A lump came into my throat—for her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon. She could not have lived through another night upon the Channel; she might not have lived through the coming day. The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope. Willing hands dragged us to the deck, Nobs scrambling nimbly aboard without assistance. The rough men were gentle as mothers with the girl. Plying us both with questions they hustled her to the captain's cabin and me to the boiler-room. They told the girl to take off her wet clothes and throw them outside the door that they might be dried, and then to slip into the captain's bunk and get warm. They didn't have to tell me to strip after I once got into the warmth of the boiler-room. In a jiffy, my clothes hung about where they might dry most quickly, and I myself was absorbing, through every pore, the welcome heat of the stifling compartment. They brought us hot soup and coffee, and then those who were not on duty sat around and helped me damn the Kaiser and his brood. As soon as our clothes were dry, they bade us don them, as the chances were always more than fair in those waters that we should run into trouble with the enemy, as I was only too well aware. What with the warmth and the feeling of safety for the girl, and the knowledge that a little rest and food would quickly overcome the effects of her experiences of the past dismal hours, I was feeling more content than I had experienced since those three whistle-blasts had shattered the peace of my world the previous afternoon. But peace upon the Channel has been but a transitory thing since August, 1914. It proved itself such that morning, for I had scarce gotten into my dry clothes and taken the girl's apparel to the captain's cabin when an order was shouted down into the engine-room for full speed ahead, and an instant later I heard the dull boom of a gun. In a moment I was up on deck to see an enemy submarine about two hundred yards off our port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and our skipper had ignored the order; but now she had her gun trained on us, and the second shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerent tug-captain that it was time to obey. Once again an order went down to the engine-room, and the tug reduced speed. The U-boat ceased firing and ordered the tug to come about and approach. Our momentum had carried us a little beyond the enemy craft, but we were turning now on the arc of a circle that would bring us alongside her. As I stood watching the maneuver and wondering what was to become of us, I felt something touch my elbow and turned to see the girl standing at my side. She looked up into my face with a rueful expression. "They seem bent on our destruction," she said, "and it looks like the same boat that sunk us yesterday." "It is," I replied. "I know her well. I helped design her and took her out on her first run." The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise and disappointment. "I thought you were an American," she said. "I had no idea you were a—a—" "Nor am I," I replied. "Americans have been building submarines for all nations for many years. I wish, though, that we had gone bankrupt, my father and I, before ever we turned out that Frankenstein of a thing." We were approaching the U-boat at half speed now, and I could almost distinguish the features of the men upon her deck. A sailor stepped to my side and slipped something hard and cold into my hand. I did not have to look at it to know that it was a heavy pistol. "Tyke 'er an' use 'er," was all he said. Our bow was pointed straight toward the U-boat now as I heard word passed to the engine for full speed ahead. I instantly grasped the brazen effrontery of the plucky English skipper—he was going to ram five hundreds tons of U-boat in the face of her trained gun. I could scarce repress a cheer. At first the boches didn't seem to grasp his intention. Evidently they thought they were witnessing an exhibition of poor seamanship, and they yelled their warnings to the tug to reduce speed and throw the helm hard to port. 百度翻譯字數限制為5000字, "cry"及其後面沒有被翻譯! 輕輕地哭，把臉埋在我的胳膊上，她就這樣睡著了。 第2章 快到早晨的時候，我一定是睡著了，儘管在我看來，我已經醒了好幾天，而不是幾個小時了。當我終於睜開眼睛時，天已經亮了，女孩的頭髮在我臉上，她呼吸正常。我為此感謝上帝。她在夜裡把頭轉過來，當我睜開眼睛時，我看到她的臉離我不到一英寸，我的嘴唇幾乎碰到了她。 是諾布斯最後吵醒了她。他站起來，伸了伸懶腰，轉了幾圈又躺了下來，女孩睜開眼睛看著我的眼睛。她開始很寬，然後慢慢地理解了她，她笑了。 「你對我很好，」我扶她站起來時，她說，不過如果知道真相，我比她更需要幫助；我左側的血液迴圈似乎完全癱瘓了你對我很好。」這是她唯一提到過的事，但我知道她很感激，而且她只會含蓄地說，這是一個尷尬的局面，儘管是不可避免的。 天亮後不久，我們看到濃煙直沖我們而來，過了一會兒，我們劃出了一艘拖船的粗線條，這艘拖船是英國海上霸主地位的無畏宣導者之一，它把帆船拖進法國和英國的港口。我站在橫檔上，把濕漉漉的外套舉過頭頂。Nobs站在另一個上面吠叫。女孩坐在我腳邊，眼睛緊盯著迎面而來的船的甲板。」「他們看見我們了，」她最後說有個男人在接你的訊號。「她是對的。一個腫塊進了我的喉嚨是為了她而不是為了我。她得救了，而且還不算太快。她不可能在英吉利海峽度過另一個夜晚；她也不可能度過即將到來的一天。 拖船靠近我們，甲板上的一個人扔給我們一根繩子。自願的手把我們拖到甲板上，諾布們在沒有幫助的情況下敏捷地爬上船。那些粗野的男人像母親一樣溫柔地對待女孩。他們向我們兩個提出問題，把她推到船長的小屋，把我推到鍋爐房。他們叫那女孩脫下濕衣服，扔到門外晾乾，然後溜進船長的鋪位取暖。當我走進溫暖的鍋爐房後，他們不必告訴我脫光衣服。轉眼間，我的衣服就掛在最容易晾乾的地方，我自己也透過每一個毛孔，吸收著令人窒息的車廂裡溫暖的空氣。他們給我們端來熱湯和咖啡，然後那些不值班的人圍坐在一起，幫我詛咒凱撒和他的孩子們。 我們的衣服一幹，他們就叫我們穿上，因為在那些水裡，我們遇到敵人麻煩的機會總是非常公平的，我非常清楚這一點。有了這個女孩的溫暖和安全感，有了一點休息和食物會很快克服她過去悲慘時光的影響的知識，我感到比以前更滿足了，因為前一天下午那三次哨聲打破了我世界的平靜。 但自1914年8月以來，海峽上的和平只不過是暫時的。那天早上就證明了這一點，因為我還沒穿上幹衣服，就把靚女的衣服帶到船長的船艙裡，就有人向機艙裡喊了一聲全速前進的命令，不一會兒，我就聽到了槍聲。不一會兒，我在甲板上看到一艘敵方潛艇在離我們左舷船頭大約200碼的地方。她示意我們停下來，我們的船長無視命令；但現在她把槍對準了我們，第二槍擦傷了船艙，警告交戰的拖輪船長該服從命令了。又一次，一個命令傳到了機艙，拖船減速了。潛艇停止射擊，命令拖船駛近。我們的衝力使我們稍稍超越了敵機，但我們現在正朝著一個弧形轉彎，將我們帶到她身邊。當我站在那裡看著這個動作，想知道我們會變成什麼樣子的時候，我覺得有什麼東西碰到了我的胳膊肘，轉過身來，看到那個女孩站在我身邊。她抬起頭看著我的臉，帶著一種懊悔的表情。」「他們似乎一心想毀滅我們，」她說，「看起來就像昨天把我們擊沉的那艘船。」 「是的，」我回答說我很瞭解她。我幫她設計，第一次帶她出去跑。」 那女孩從我身邊退了回來，帶著一點驚訝和失望的感歎「我以為你是美國人，」她說我不知道你是-a-a- 「我也不是，」我回答說多年來，美國人一直在為所有國家建造潛艇。不過，我真希望我和我的父親，在我們變成弗蘭肯斯坦之前，我們已經破產了。」cally to keep the nextcar from following our bad example. The man at the gate wore a matching uniform. As we approached him, the throngs of tourists passed,crowding the sidewalks, staring curiously at the pushy, flashy Porsche. The guard stepped into the middle of the street. Alice angled the car carefully before she came to a fullstop. The sun beat against my window, and she was in shadow.！