In the dark it was like summer lightning,

 

在黑暗中，这情况真像夏天的闪电，只是夜里阴凉，

but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.

可没有夏天风雨欲来前的那种闷热。

Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors.

有时在黑暗中，我们听得见部队从窗下走过的声响，还有摩托牵引车拖着大炮经过的响声。

There was much traffic at night,

夜里交通频繁，

and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men,

路上有许多驮着弹药箱的驴子，运送士兵的灰色卡车，

and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic.

还有一种卡车，装的东西用帆布盖住，开起来缓慢一点。

There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors,

白天也有用牵引车拖着走的重炮，

the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors.

长炮管用青翠的树枝遮住，牵引车本身也盖上青翠多叶的树枝和葡萄藤。

To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river.

朝北我们望得见山谷后边有一座栗树树林，林子后边，在河的这一边，另有一道高山。

There was fighting for that mountain too,

那座山峰也有争夺战，

but it was not successful,

不过不顺手，

and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain.

而当秋天一到，秋雨连绵，栗树上的叶子都掉了下来，就只剩下赤裸裸的树枝和被雨打成黑黝黝的树干。

The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet，

葡萄园中的枝叶也很稀疏光秃；

and brown and dead with the autumn,

乡间样样东西都是湿漉漉的，都是褐色的，触目秋意萧索。

there were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes;

河上罩雾，山间盘云，卡车在路上溅泥浆，士兵披肩淋湿，身上尽是烂泥；

their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of belts,

他们的来福枪也是湿的，每人身前的皮带上挂有两个灰皮子弹盒，

gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men,

里面满装着一排排又长又窄的六点五毫米口径的子弹，在披肩下高高突出，

passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.

当他们在路上走过时，乍一看，好像是些怀孕六月的妇人。