Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11 The days at the army camp started at dawn, when the drummers sounded the wake-up song. Nate chopped wood, dug trenches, and hauled water. By the end of the day, his muscles quivered like pudding. His hands were covered with bloody blisters. At night he'd collapse into his little droopy tent next to Paul's.

第十一章军营里的日子从黎明时分开始，鼓手们奏起了催眠曲。 内特劈柴、挖沟、打水。 一天下来，他的肌肉像布丁一样颤抖。 他的手上满是血淋淋的水泡。 到了晚上，他就瘫倒在保罗旁边的小帐篷里。

At first Nate felt himself under the watchful glare of Captain Marsh. He was the gruff and unsmiling head of the Connecticut 5th, Paul's army company. Captain Marsh made it clear from the start that he had doubts about hiring a boy so young. "This is the army," he'd told Paul. "Not a nursery." Nate's cheeks burned, but he was determined to prove the captain wrong. At the end of the first week, he caught the captain watching him as he helped dig a trench under the roasting sun. "Good work, son," Captain Marsh said, with the flicker of an almost-smile. Nate felt like he'd won a medal. Nate missed Eliza and Theo. But he soon felt at home in the camp. The eighty men of the Connecticut 5th welcomed him. Paul hardly let Nate out of his sight. A few of the other men kept their eyes on Nate, too.

起初，内特觉得自己处于马什船长警惕的目光之下。 他是保罗所在的康涅狄格第五连的队长，性格粗暴，不苟笑不笑。 马什上尉从一开始就明确表示，他对雇用这么年轻的男孩持怀疑态度。 “这是军队，”他告诉保罗。 “不是育婴室。”内特的脸颊火辣辣的，但他决心要证明船长是错的。 第一周快结束的时候，他发现船长正看着他在烈日下帮忙挖沟。 “干得好，孩子。”马什上尉说，脸上闪过一丝微笑。 内特觉得自己赢得了一枚奖牌。 内特想念伊莱莎和西奥。 但他很快就在营地找到了家的感觉。 康涅狄格第5步兵团的80人欢迎他。 保罗几乎不让内特离开他的视线。 其他几个人也盯着内特。

The oldest of the group was Samuel. He was fifty-three — ancient! But he was strong and fast and the best shooter of the group. There was James, the youngest of the soldiers. He came from a rich family — the other men made fun of the silver buckles on his boots. But James wasn't all fancy. He had the loudest burp of the bunch. He was always leaving little gifts in Nate's tent — a pair of wool socks, a tin canteen. He even managed to get Nate a frontier shirt, one of the tie-front shirts most of the men in the army wore with pride. Nate was happy to throw away the rough, stained shirt he'd been wearing for months. Another man who looked after Nate was Martin. He cleaned and bandaged Nate's blistered hands and patched up the holes in the bottom of his boots. Up until a few months ago, Martin had been a slave. His owner had freed him so he could fight in the war. But that same man had refused to free Martin's wife and daughter. Now Martin

这群人中年龄最大的是塞缪尔。 他五十三岁了——太老了!但他又强又快，是队里最好的射手。 还有詹姆斯，他是士兵中最年轻的。 他出身于一个富裕的家庭——其他人都取笑他靴子上的银扣。 但詹姆斯并不全是幻想。 他打嗝的声音是最响亮的。 他总是在内特的帐篷里留下小礼物——一双羊毛袜子，一个锡水壶。 他甚至设法给内特买了一件边疆衬衫，这是军队里大多数男人都自豪地穿着的领口衬衫之一。 内特很高兴扔掉了他穿了几个月的粗糙、脏兮兮的衬衫。 另一个照顾内特的人是马丁。 他清洗并包扎了内特满是水泡的双手，修补了他靴子底部的破洞。 直到几个月前，马丁还是个奴隶。 他的主人释放了他，让他去打仗。 但正是这个人拒绝释放马丁的妻子和女儿。 现在马丁

hoped his meager soldiers' pay would help him save up to buy freedom for his family. There were a few hundred other black soldiers in the army. Many more worked in the camp. They were mostly slaves, sent by their masters to dig trenches and build walls. Watching those men work gave Nate an uneasy feeling — like he'd bitten into something rotten, something he couldn't spit out or swallow. He'd learned more about the Declaration of Independence. It said that all men were created equal. Why didn't that include people like Martin's wife, like those men digging trenches for George Washington, like Eliza and Theo? Trying to answer that question was like looking for buried treasure without a map. Nate searched his mind for an answer, but he couldn't find it anywhere.

希望他微薄的军饷能帮他攒钱为家人买自由。 军队里还有几百名黑人士兵。 更多的人在集中营工作。 他们大多是奴隶，被主人派去挖战壕和修筑城墙。 看着这些人工作，内特感到不安——就像他咬了什么腐烂的东西，他不能吐出或吞咽的东西。 他对《独立宣言》有了更多的了解。 它说人人生而平等。 为什么不包括马丁的妻子，像那些为乔治·华盛顿挖战壕的人，像伊丽莎和西奥? 试图回答这个问题就像在没有地图的情况下寻找宝藏。 内特在脑子里寻找答案，但他哪儿也找不到。

When Nate wasn't busy with his chores, he sometimes watched the men do their practice drills. They'd march through the streets to the different drum songs. Those drums songs weren't for fun. In a noisy battle, the officers couldn't just shout out their orders; their voices would be drowned out by the explosions. It was those different rat, tat, tats that told the men which way to turn, how fast to march, when to load their muskets, and when to shoot. When they were done marching, the men would practice loading their muskets quickly, which seemed to Nate to be the hardest part of being a soldier. One mistake and the musket could blow up your hand. The ammunition came wrapped in little paper packets called cartridges. Inside was a single musket ball and just enough gunpowder for one shot. The men had to tear those packets open with their teeth. And, boy, was it hard to get the muskets to fire right! No wonder Paul almost blew his hand off

当内特不忙于家务时，他有时会看这些人做练习。 他们会在不同的鼓声中穿过街道。 那些鼓声歌不是为了好玩。 在一场嘈杂的战斗中，军官们不能只是大声喊出命令;他们的声音会被爆炸声淹没。 正是这些不同的鼠纹告诉人们该往哪条路走，前进的速度有多快，什么时候给火枪上膛，什么时候开枪。 行军结束后，士兵们会快速练习给火枪上膛，这对内特来说似乎是当兵最难的部分。 一个失误，火枪就可能炸飞你的手。 弹药是用小纸包着的，叫做子弹。 里面只有一颗火枪子弹和只够开一枪的火药。 这些人不得不用牙齿撕开这些包裹。 而且，孩子们，要让滑膛枪正确射击是很困难的!难怪保罗差点把他的手炸掉

when he was learning. Of course, Nate didn't have a musket. But Samuel was determined to teach him how to load and fire one perfectly. He spent hours teaching Nate how to pour in the gunpowder. He showed him the right way to ram the musket ball down the gun's barrel. Samuel couldn't let Nate actually shoot — gunpowder was too precious to waste on an eleven-year-old.

当他在学习的时候。当然，内特没有火枪。 但塞缪尔决心教他如何完美地装弹和射击。 他花了几个小时教内特如何倒火药。 他教他把火枪子弹塞进枪管的正确方法。 塞缪尔不能让内特真的开枪——火药太珍贵了，不能浪费在一个11岁的孩子身上。