Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen

They passed a hotel that had been attacked.Turner wondered, could this be the hotel of his dreams? Nettle was so intent on getting in and dragging out some bedding that they slipped in through a hole in the wall.In the shadows, they chose their way carefully, over obstacles and fallen logs, and found a stairwell.But many of the soldiers, like Nettle, had already lined up at the bottom of the stairs, some struggling to move heavy horsehair mattresses down the stairs.On the landing above—Turner and Nettle could only see boots and shins dangling stiffly—a battle was going on, with loud handcuffs, grunts, and slaps. In the ear, with a shout, several soldiers fell backwards down the stairs, pressing on the people below who were waiting to go up the stairs.The sound of cursing was mixed with laughter, and the fallen people stood up one after another, rubbing their sore limbs and legs.But one soldier did not stand up. He lay on the stairs in pain with his head thrown down, as if in a panic dream, screaming hoarsely, but he could hardly make a sound.Someone brought a lighter to the soldier's face, and people saw him baring his teeth in pain, with some white foam at the corners of his mouth.Some people said that he had a broken back, but no one could do anything.Some soldiers were getting down with blankets and bolsters and stepping over him, while others were jostling to get upstairs.

Turner and Nettle left the hotel, intending to go back inland and walk back to the old woman and her pigs.The electricity supply in Dunkirk must have been cut, but they saw tawny candles and oil lamps leaking around some of the heavily-draped windows.On the other side of the road, some soldiers were knocking on the doors of the residents, but no one was willing to open the door.Turner chose this time to describe to Nettle the kind of place to eat that he had long dreamed of.He had retouched the place to make it clearer, adding French windows opening onto iron balconies, from which an ancient wisteria coiled, and a round table covered with a green A gramophone record player, a Persian blanket to cover the legs of a buggy.The more he described it, the more he believed that the house was nearby.His description is turning it into reality.

Nettle put his front teeth on his lower lip like a friendly rabbit, his face full of bewilderment.When Turner finished, he said, "I know this place. I know the fuckin' there is this place." They stood outside a house that had been bombed, half of the basement was exposed, and looked like a huge cave dwelling from the outside.Nettle grabbed Turner by the clothes, pulled him off the pile of bricks, and led him cautiously across the basement floor into a dark place.Turner knew this wasn't the place he was looking for, but he couldn't resist Nettle's extraordinary determination.There was a little light ahead of them, and then another, and then a third—some smoking soldiers had taken shelter here.

A voice said, "Hi! Go away, we're full." Nettle lit a match and held it up.They saw soldiers all around the floor, sitting against the walls, most already asleep, a few lying in the middle of the floor, but there was room to spare.The match went out, and Nettle sat Turner on the shoulder.As Turner pushed the broken bricks from under his hip, he felt that the shirt was soaked. It might be blood or some other liquid, but it didn't hurt just yet.Nettle wrapped the greatcoat around Turner's shoulders.Turner's feet were no longer supporting the weight of his body, and an ecstasy of relief rose from the soles of his feet, through his knees.He knew that this evening, no matter how disappointed Nettle might be, he would not take another step.The jolt and fatigue of a long day's walking was shifting to the floor, and Turner sat in the pitch-black darkness, feeling the floor tilt and shake beneath him.At this time, it becomes a difficult problem to eat something without causing others to attack.However, to survive, selfishness is always inevitable.Turner hasn't gone to get something to eat yet, his mind is empty.After a while Nettle nudged him awake and slipped a bottle of wine into his hand.Turner put his mouth to the mouth of the bottle, poured the wine into his mouth and drank it.Someone heard his gulp.

"What are you drinking?" "Goat's milk," Nettle said. "It's still hot, let's have some." There was a cough, and then something warm like paste fell on the back of Turner's hand: "You dirty thing, what about you!" A more menacing voice said: "Shut up! I can't sleep." Nettle silently groped for the sausage from his canvas bag, cut it into three pieces, and handed one of them to Turner along with a loaf of bread.Turner lay sprawled on the concrete floor with his legs stretched out, his army coat over his head, which muffled both the sound of his chewing and the smell of the meat.Although the air under the coat was stuffy, and although broken bricks and coarse gravel pressed his cheeks, he began to eat the most delicious meal in his life.Accompanied by the smell of soap on his face, he munched on the bread that smelled like military canvas bags, and devoured the sausage.After the food was eaten, a mass of heat flowed immediately, filling the throat and the entire chest cavity.He thought of the roads he had walked in his life, and as soon as he closed his eyes, the floating asphalt road and his leather boots for walking flickered in his mind.As he chewed his food, for several seconds he drifted unconsciously into dreamland, in another time and space, where a dragee lay warm and comfortable on his tongue, and the sweetness of the almond belonged to another world. international.He heard other people complaining about how cold it was in the basement, and he was glad to be wrapped up in a coat.There was a sense of fatherly smugness in the way he stopped the two corporals when they threw away their greatcoats.

Just like Turner and Nettle just now, a group of soldiers came in for cover again, and they struck match after match.Turner was hostile towards them, annoyed by their sprawling south-west English accents.Like everyone else in the basement, he wanted to tell them to fuck off.However, they found a spot slightly away from his feet.A whiff of brandy wafted over, and Turner resented them all the more.They were cleaning up the sleeping quarters, making a lot of noise.At this time, a voice along the wall shouted: "Damn bumpkins!" One of the new soldiers staggered towards the direction of the voice.It seemed that a fight was about to break out in a moment.But the darkness and the sleepy protests of the people kept the peace.

Before long, there was only the sound of steady breathing and snoring in the basement.The floor beneath Turner still seemed to be tilting, and then changed to the rhythm of a firm marching step.Once again, Turner felt that some memories in his head were tormenting him. He was burning so badly that he had no strength at all, and he couldn't sleep at all.He fished out a small bundle of her letters from under his coat.I'm waiting for you.return.These words were not without meaning, but they did not move him at this time.One person waiting for another is like an addition equation, as if there is no emotion in it-it couldn't be more clear.wait.To put it simply, one person does nothing, let the time pass, and the other slowly moves closer.Waiting was a heavy word, and Turner felt it pressing against him, as heavy as a thick coat.Everyone's waiting in the basement, everyone's waiting on the beach.She was waiting too, yes, but so what? He tried to imagine the voice of her saying this, but what he heard in the beating heartbeat was his own voice, and he couldn't even recall show her face.Turner forced himself to think about this new situation, which was supposed to cheer him up, because the intricacies were gone, the urgency was gone, and Briony was willing to change her testimony, she would rewrite In the past, the wronged person was rehabilitated.But what is guilt in this day and age? This question is meaningless.Everyone is guilty and everyone is innocent.No one will be saved by one change of testimony, because there are not enough people, not enough pen and paper, not enough peace and patience to record all the witness statements to gather the truth.And the witnesses are guilty too.People are witnessing all kinds of crimes committed by each other all day long.You didn't kill today? But how many deaths did you let go? Here, in this basement, we'll shut up about it, and sleep to forget it, Briony.Turner thought of Briony's name with the taste of sweet almonds in his mouth.The name was so bizarre that it seemed unreliable, and he wondered if he remembered it correctly.The name Cecilia feels the same way.Had he always taken it for granted that these names were weird before? Even that question hardly lingered in his mind for long.He had so much unfinished business here in France that it seemed reasonable to him to postpone his return to England, even though his bags—bizarre, heavy ones—were packed.If you leave them here and go back, no one will notice them.That's the hidden baggage.He had to go back, had to find the boy from that tree.He'd been there before, he'd gone back to that place, found the twins under a tree and nobody else, picked up Pierrot on his back, picked up Jackson, and walked across the park.Two boys weigh so much! He loves Cecilia, loves the twins, loves success, loves the light of dawn and the incredible, shimmering mist of dawn.But what a group of people greeted him! Although Turner was used to this kind of thing at this time, and felt that it was the same as everyday food, but at that time, before he was numb and turned into a common man , when numbness was still a novelty, when everything was just beginning, he could feel it strongly.Back then, Cecilia ran all the way through the gravel to the open police car door and said to him: Oh, when I was in love with you, / I was innocent and brave.This scene made him worry.So he'd go back the way he came, all the way they'd done retreating, through the dry, demoralizing patches of swamp, around the savage Sergeant on the bridge , passing the bomb-destroyed village, follow the ribbon-like road—it stretches through miles of rolling farmland—watch out for the trail on the left next to the village, come to the opposite side of the shoe store, and go on for two miles , crossed barbed wire, walked through forests and fields, and came to stay at the brothers' farm for a night. The next day, in the golden morning light, relying on the guidance of a compass, hurried through the dotted land. The majestic land of little hollows, criss-crossing brooks, swarms of flowering and honeying bees, up the sloping sidewalk, to the sad farmhouse by the railroad, to the tree.Pick up pieces of charred gingham and shreds of boy's pajamas from the ooze, and put him, the poor, pale boy down, and give him a decent funeral.What a handsome boy.Let him, the guilty man, bury the innocent child and let no one alter the evidence.But where was Mace, who was going to help him dig the grave? That brave Corporal Ruffy Mace.Turner couldn't leave because there was more unfinished business, and because he had to find Mais.But first he had to walk all those miles back north to the field where the farmer and his dog were still walking behind the plow.He had to ask the Flemish woman and her son if he was responsible for their deaths? Sometimes, in whimsical fits of self-blame, one man has too much to take on.The woman would probably say no - the Flemish would not hold him responsible for anything.She'd say: You tried everything to help us, but you just couldn't get us across that field.You carry the twins, not us, no.No, you are not guilty.No.

"It's too loud, sir." A low voice came, and Turner's hot face felt the air mixed with the voice. Behind Corporal Nettle's head was a large dark blue sky, and the black edges of the blasted ceiling in the basement seemed to be etched into the sky, jagged in shape. "Noisy? What was I doing just now?" "You woke up everybody by yelling 'no'. One of these guys got a little annoyed." Turner tried to raise his head, but found he couldn't.Corporal Nettle struck a match. "Gosh, you look fucking scary. Here, get some water." Nettle lifted Turner's head and held the jug to his mouth.

The water smelled like metal.After he finished drinking, the feeling of exhaustion hit him like a boundless billow.He has traveled all over the land of Dunkirk, but now he is caught in this weary ocean.In order not to alert Nettle, he tried not to reveal his true feelings.His words sounded reasonable. "You see, I've decided to stay. There are things I need to deal with." Nettle wiped Turner's forehead with a dirty hand.He brought his face, his anxious and slovenly face, so close to Turner's that Turner had no idea why Nettle would think it necessary. Nettle said, "Sir, can you hear me? Are you listening? About an hour ago, I went out for convenience, and guess what I saw? I saw the Marine Corps coming down the road, calling for officers to be selected. The mobilization order. They disembarked from the ship and were marshalling. The ship's headed back. We're going home, man. There's a Marine lieutenant here at Barforth who'll take us there at seven. So, well Get some sleep and stop yelling."

At that time, Turner was in a sea of ​​exhaustion, and all he wanted to do was sleep, and he wanted to sleep for a thousand hours.Although the water I drank just now was a bit disgusting, it had a hypnotic effect, and the news that Nettle had just given and his low comforting voice also helped sleep.Sleep just got easier.They will line up on the road outside and head for the beach.Form a square to the right.Order will prevail.In Cambridge, the benefits of good order of march are not taught, and Cambridge people worship free-spirited, independent people-poets.But, do poets know what a narrow escape is? Do they know how large groups of soldiers escape? No one rushes out of the line, no one rushes onto the boat, there is no first-come-first-serve rule, and no one does it for himself The creed of heaven and earth.There was no sound of leather boots as they walked across the sand to the sea, and pairs of willing hands stabilized the side of the ship in the stormy waves as they boarded the boat.However, what Turner sank into at this moment was a calm sea, because he himself was also in a calm state of mind, so of course he saw how wonderful it was that she was waiting for him.To hell with arithmetic! The words "I'm waiting for you" are the most important words, and it is because of them that he survived.It was a common way of saying that she would reject all other men.only you. "Come back." He remembered stepping on the gravel through the thin soles, and he could feel it now, and he remembered the cold handcuffs on his wrists.He remembered that he and the detective stopped by the car and turned toward the sound of her footsteps.How could he forget that green dress, he remembered it clearly framing her hips, he remembered it restraining her running, he remembered it showing her beautiful shoulders, shoulders whiter than mist.He was not surprised that the police allowed them to talk.He didn't even think about it.He and Cecilia were in no man's land.She said that when she believed in him, trusted him, and loved him, she would never let herself cry.He just told her he wouldn't forget it all.By saying that, he was trying to tell her how much he appreciated her, especially then, especially now.She then put a finger on the handcuffs and said she wasn't ashamed and there was nothing to be ashamed of.She grabbed the corner of the lapel of his suit, shook it slightly, and said, "I'm waiting for you. Come back." This sentence came from her heart, and time will prove her sincerity.After she finished saying that, the police pushed him into the car, she couldn't control herself anymore, she was about to cry, she spoke quickly, she said that everything that happened between them was their business, It's their private business.Of course, she was referring to the scene in the library.It's theirs and no one can take it away. "That's our secret," she yelled, in front of all of them, just before the car door slammed shut.

"I won't say a word," he said, though Nettle's head had long since disappeared before Turner's eyes. "Wake me up before seven. I promise, you won't hear a word from me again."