Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16 2 HOURS LATER Nate opened his eyes. Where was he? He seemed to be inside a big, deep hole. There was dirt and grass everywhere, even in his mouth. He must be in his grave! He'd been buried alive! He sat up, coughing and gasping.

第十六章两个小时后内特睁开了眼睛。 他在哪里?他好像在一个又大又深的洞里。 到处都是泥土和草，甚至在他的嘴里。 他一定已经进坟墓了!他被活埋了!他坐起来，咳嗽着，喘着气。

No. This hole was not a grave. And Nate was still alive. Explosions and the smell of gunpowder smoke helped clear his mind. And he remembered. The Redcoat attack. Samuel. Hessians charging over the hill. That grunting soldier with his bayonet. The explosion. It must have been a shell… one of those new exploding cannonballs. It had blasted this crater in the ground. Somehow Nate had tumbled inside it. Nate struggled to his feet and checked himself from head to toe. His pants were ripped. The cut on his face was oozing blood. He felt like he'd been run over by a horse wagon. But amazingly, he was in one piece. He spat the dirt from his mouth and turned around, then reeled back in fear. There was a hand — a bloody hand — hanging over the edge of the crater. Nate crept closer until he could see that the hand was attached to a man — the Hessian.

不。这个洞不是坟墓。 内特还活着。爆炸声和火药烟雾的味道帮助他清醒了头脑。 他记起来了。英军进攻。 撒母耳。黑森人冲过山头。 那个拿着刺刀嘟囔着的士兵。 爆炸。肯定是炮弹，一种新型的爆炸炮弹。 它炸开了地面上的这个火山口。 不知怎么的，内特倒在了里面。 内特挣扎着站起来，从头到脚克制着自己。 他的裤子破了。他脸上的伤口在流血。 他觉得自己好像被一辆马车碾过了。 但令人惊讶的是，他完好无损。 他把嘴里的泥土吐了出来，转过身来，然后害怕地向后摇晃。 有一只手——一只血淋淋的手——悬在火山口的边缘。 内特蹑手蹑脚地靠近，直到他看到那只手被一个人抓住了——黑森人。

The soldier was splayed out on his back, with one leg twisted in a way it shouldn't be. His silver cap was next to him, the musket and bayonet near his feet. His eyes were opened wide, unblinking. He was dead. Nate wanted to turn away, but he couldn't. The Hessian's eyes seemed to grab hold of Nate's, forcing him to look. He was very young, Nate could see, around Paul's age. He didn't look like a bloodthirsty killer anymore. He looked like someone's son, an older brother. Nate stood there until finally a cannon blast from somewhere very close jolted him out of his trance. The battle was still raging. He felt like he'd woken up from one nightmare, only to be locked inside a new one. Cannons and musket fire seemed to be crackling on both sides of him. The air was thick with smoke. What had happened to Paul and the men? How would Nate get back to the fort on Brooklyn

那个士兵仰面朝天，一条腿扭曲得不应该是这样。 他的银帽子放在身边，火枪和刺刀放在脚边。 他的眼睛睁得大大的，一眨也不眨。 他死了。内特想转身离开，但他做不到。 黑森人的眼睛似乎抓住了内特的眼睛，迫使他看。 内特看得出来，他很年轻，和保罗差不多大。 他不再像个嗜血的杀手了。 他看起来像某人的儿子，一个哥哥。 内特站在那里，直到最后从很近的地方传来一声炮响，才把他从恍惚中惊醒。 战斗仍在激烈进行。 他觉得自己好像刚从一场噩梦中醒来，却又被锁在了另一场噩梦中。 大炮和火枪似乎在他两侧噼啪作响。 空气中弥漫着浓烟。 保罗和那些人发生了什么事? 内特要怎么回布鲁克林的堡垒

Heights? That's what Captain Marsh had told him to do. But how? He couldn't just stroll through the woods. There were Redcoats and Hessians everywhere. Nate might not be a real soldier, but he sure looked like one. He was tall for his age. He was wearing the frontier shirt that James had given him. He looked like any young American soldier, desperate to escape. Terrifying thoughts screamed through his mind. He'd be shot! Crushed by a cannonball! He'd be caught and locked away in a rat-filled British prison. The men had told terrible stories about how the British treated their American prisoners. They crammed them into filthy basements or old, rotting ships. Most men died slowly of starvation or fevers. Paul said he'd rather get shot on the battlefield than starve to death in a British prison. Nate started to shake. He looked at the big hole in the ground. Maybe he should just climb back

山庄吗?这就是马什船长叫他做的。 但如何?他不能就这么在树林里溜达。 到处都是英国士兵和黑森人。 内特也许不是一个真正的士兵，但他看起来确实像个士兵。 就他的年龄而言，他是高的。他穿着詹姆斯送给他的那件衬衫。 他看起来和任何一个年轻的美国士兵一样，渴望逃跑。 可怕的想法在他的脑海里尖叫。 他会被枪毙的!被炮弹压碎了!他会被抓起来关进一个老鼠遍地的英国监狱。 这些人讲述了英国人如何对待他们的美国囚犯的可怕故事。 他们把他们塞进肮脏的地下室或破旧的船上。 大多数人死于饥饿或发烧。 保罗说他宁愿在战场上中弹也不愿饿死在英国监狱里。 内特开始发抖。他看着地上的那个大洞。 也许他应该爬回去

down and curl up into a ball. What else could he do? And then, once again, his mind flashed to the pirate Slash O'Shea. He remembered a story Papa had told him, about a time Slash was in London. He'd been working as a pirate for a few years. He'd come ashore to hand out gold coins to poor kids on the streets. A policeman spotted Slash and started to chase him. Slash managed to duck into a tavern. Inside was a man wearing a fancy blue velvet coat and a top hat. Slash dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of gold coins. He slapped them on the table in front of the man. "For your coat and hat!" A minute later, Slash was strolling out of the tavern in that fancy outfit. He strolled right past a group of policemen, tipping his hat like a gentleman. Slash escaped from London that night, and was soon back at sea.

趴下，蜷成一个球。 他还能做什么呢?然后，他的脑海里又一次闪过海盗Slash O'Shea。 他想起了爸爸给他讲过的一个故事，是关于有一次Slash在伦敦。 他当海盗已经好几年了。 他上岸给街上的穷孩子分发金币。 一名警察发现了Slash并开始追赶他。 斯莱士躲进了一家酒馆。 里面有一个男人，穿着一件漂亮的蓝色天鹅绒外套，戴着一顶大礼帽。 斯莱士把手伸进口袋，掏出一把金币。 他把它们啪地一声放在那人面前的桌子上。 “为了你的外套和帽子!”一分钟后，Slash穿着那套华丽的衣服从酒馆里出来了。 他从一群警察面前溜达而过，像个绅士一样脱帽致意。 那天晚上，Slash逃离了伦敦，很快又回到了海上。

Nate looked at the Hessian, lying on the ground, and he knew what to do. He knelt down and unbuttoned the brass buttons of the green coat. It was wrong to steal from a dead man. But this dead man had tried to kill him. Nate carefully slipped the coat off the man's body. He shook it out and tried it on. It hung down past Nate's knees. But Nate could easily fix that. He shrugged it off, and used the Hessian's razor-sharp bayonet to help him tear off the bottom of the coat. He tried it on again. Better. Next he put on the helmet. He had to push it back so it didn't cover his eyes. Finally he picked up the Hessian's musket and bayonet and put it over his shoulder. Nate stood there, too scared to move. He just had to get out of the woods and across the field to the fort. It was only about a mile from here, Nate guessed. If he walked quickly, he'd be back inside the fort in fifteen minutes.

内特看着躺在地上的黑森人，他知道该怎么做了。 他跪下来，解开绿上衣的铜扣。 偷死人的东西是不对的。 但这个死人曾试图杀死他。 内特小心翼翼地把外套从那人身上脱下来。 他抖了抖衣服，试穿了一下。 它垂到内特的膝盖上。 但内特很容易搞定。 他耸耸肩，用黑森人锋利的刺刀帮他撕下了上衣的下摆。 他又试了一次。更好。 接着他戴上了头盔。 他不得不把它推回去，这样它就不会遮住他的眼睛。 最后，他拿起黑森人的火枪和刺刀，扛在肩上。 内特站在那里，吓得不敢动。 他只需要走出树林，穿过田野来到堡垒。 离这里只有一英里，内特猜。 如果他走得快，十五分钟内就能回到堡垒。