1.This Above All by Eric Knight ( 1897-1943) 《這是頭等大事》譯文

　　Critique: This Above All is a story of great emotional conflict between a girl who knew and loved the England of hunting, cricket, and afternoon tea, and a man who knew and hated the England of slums, mines, starvation, and disease. The author attempted to show what war can mean to a civilian as well as to a front-line soldier.

　　The Story:

　　Home on rest leave, after the disaster of Dunkirk, Clive Briggs went first to Leaford and then to Gosley, both resort towns on the coast of England. At a band concert in Gosley he met Prudence Cathaway, who was stationed nearby with women’s army corps. Prue was of an upper middle-class family and Clive was from the slums, but they were attracted to each other and became lovers the second time they were together.

　　Prue told him of her family. Her grandfather had been a general in the last war and felt unwanted and useless in this one; her father was a doctor, a famous brain specialist. She told him of her aunt Iris, who wanted only to get to America and who pretended that she wanted her children to be safe when it was really for herself she feared. Iris’ brother was in America, buying steel for the British government. Prue also told Clive that she had broken her engagement to a conscientious objector, and because she was ashamed for him she had joined the W.A.A.F.

　　Clive seemed reluctant to talk about himself, other than to say he had been born in the slums. In fact, it was many days before Prue knew he was in the army and had been in the rear-guard action at Dunkirk.

　　When they found that Prue could get a leave which would give them ten days together, they went to Leaford. Most of the time they were quite happy but each time Prue mentioned the War Clive became angry and sullen and seemed to get pleasure from taunting her about her family. Sometimes they quarreled without knowing the reason and were reconciled only because of their desire for each other.

　　During the last five days of their stay, Clive’s friend Monty joined them. Monty was also slum-born. It was Monty who told Prue of Clive’s heroism at Dunkirk. Monty’s story puzzled Prue more than ever. She could understand even less why Clive was so bitter.

　　While they were at Leaford, air raids became frequent. One night during a heavy raid Clive told Prue why he would not go back to the army, why he intended to desert. He told her of his childhood, of his illegitimate birth and of his sordid remembrances of childhood in the slums. He asked her if a country that ignored its poor were worth fighting for. England was still fighting a gentleman’s war, he said, and the leaders were asking the slum boys to win the war and then go back to the mines and the factories and the mills from which they had come. He was through. Prue tried to tell him that he must go back to save himself. She said it was his pride that had brought him up from the filth, and his pride and that of the others like him would change all the conditions of which he had told her. He would not listen to her.

　　At the end of the leave Prue returned to her camp. Clive, true to his word, did not go back to the army at the end of his furlough. He wandered along the coast while trying to decide what he really wanted to do. Once he went into a church and talked with the pastor, but he scoffed when the minister told him that we fight because we have faith in our ability to build a better life than we have had. He accused the minister and all the churches of betraying Christ and His teachings because the rich who support the church must not be told of their sin in neglecting their fellow men. Before he left the church the minister told him that realism and reasoning like his had brought was and hunger and cruelty, and that only faith could restore human dignity and freedom throughout the world.

　　At last Clive tired of running away; there was no place for him to go. Finally he decided to give himself up, to let the army decide for him whether he was wrong, for he was too exhausted to decide his problem for himself. Perhaps Prue and the minister had been right; perhaps faith in himself meant faith in his country and the willingness to die for it.

　　On the train to London, Clive suddenly remembered something Prue had said, a remark which had no meaning at the time. Now he knew she was going to have a baby. He felt that he could not give himself up before he saw Prue and asked her to marry him. He managed to evade the military police in London and call Prue. They arranged to meet at the station in London and to marry as soon as possible. Clive knew at last that he loved Prue, and he was determined that his child would never know the hurt an illegitimate child must always feel.

　　While he was waiting for Prue’s train, a bomb fell on a nearby building. As he tried to help rescue a woman trapped in the basement of the building, the wall collapsed on him. He regained consciousness with Prue sitting beside him in a hospital room. Monty and her father had helped her find him. Prue’s father was honest with her. He had tried to save Clive’s life with an emergency operation, but part of the brain tissue was gone and there was no hope that Clive would live. During one of his periods of consciousness Clive told Prue that he had risked his life to save a strange woman, because he knew at last that he did have faith in himself and his country.

　　Clive died in the night during a heavy bombing raid. Afterward Prue walked along the streets of London and saw the volunteer firemen and the Cockney policemen performing their duties among the wreckage, and she knew why Clive had died. Feeling the child stir within her, she hoped that by sacrifices like Clive’s his child and all children might have the chance to live in a good and free world.