Woman of the Inner Sea
    内海女人
    By Thomas Keneally

    Excerpt from chapter 16-17

    In near-darkness, under a sky choked – irreparably, you would have thought – by cloud, Kate loaded herself into a truck and sat amongst young women and high school students and beefy family men. The journey seemed to revive everyone, cause chatter and the comparing of damaged hands. Everyone was tired out, but in a feverish insomniac way. The communal efforts against water had put them in ecstasy. When they arrived under the great iron roof, they were eager to work again. They congratulate each other that the sand wasn’t as water-laden and not as heavy to shovel. The sand was in the bag, the dynamite on the verandah. The private investigator Burnside might well be thwarted by creeks run amok. Her life, ignoring the nullity of it, was under startling control. For a woman on the edge of renouncing Myambagh, she felt narcotically static, an utter citizen.
    天上乌云沉沉，地上也看不见什么光亮。你本还想着，这黑暗或许永远也驱不散了吧。凯特摸着黑钻进卡车，周围坐着一堆年轻女人、一群高中生，以及几个有家室的硬汉子。大家都活跃了起来，一路互相闲扯，还伸出手比了比谁伤得更重些。他们的身体其实累的不行，精神上还是极度亢奋。前几番共同抗灾的经历已经把大家的情绪调动起来了。到了铁皮屋顶下，个个都想着快点开干。很幸运，沙子没完全受潮，不会太重太难铲，大家开心地庆贺着。沙子拿袋子装着，在屋顶上就是个定时炸弹。私家侦探伯恩赛德先生可能会被这发了疯的奔流吓退吧。凯特这一生除了虚度，便是受人掌控。真让人吃惊。作为一个快放弃Myambagh的女人，作为一位扎根在此的公民，凯特的心已经麻木了。

    irreparably 谁看了都会觉得天空再无重见之时
    in a feverish insomniac way 却又激动得闭不上眼

    …, the dynamite on the verandah. 沙子装进沙袋里，炸药就放在游廊上
    Her life, ignoring the nullity of it, was under startling control. 她的生活，尽管仍然倍感虚无，却一切尽在掌握。
    For a woman on the edge of renouncing Myambagh, she felt narcotically static, an utter citizen. 之前，她正准备离开迈恩博，现在却感受到一种令人沉醉的安宁，她已经彻底成为了这里的一员。

    An ambulance officer, Maltese crosses on his cap and the shoulders of his shirt! He came round dressing damaged hands more competently than kind Jack. He came to Kate and asked her to stop to the shoveling, and he looked down at her unloosed grip and began to weep.
    马尔他是一名急救医护人员，帽子上和衣服肩部都有红十字标记。他在人群中来回走动，为伤员包扎手部的伤口，似乎比好心的杰克更胜任这份工作。马尔他来到凯特身边，叫她放一放手头的铲子，她不肯。他低头看向她紧握着铲子的手，流泪了。

    An ambulance officer, Maltese crosses on his cap and the shoulders of his shirt! 帽子和衬衫肩膀上都有马耳他十字图案，这是一位救护人员！
    unloosed grip 她松开了紧握的手

    -You are all trying so hard, he stuttered.
    他一字一顿地说：“你太发狠了。”

    stutter 抽泣道/一边流泪一边说

    He felt she had sacrificed her hands for Myambagh. For the integrity of the polis.
    他觉得，凯特为了Myamhagh，为了这座城市的尊严，把手都豁出去了。

    for the intergrity of the polis 为的是能保住这个城

    Jack had by now gone somewhere, out in the dark. Building a levee of sandbags behind or on top of the earth levee. As Jelly had predicted, sandbags were essential to Myambagh.
    杰克还在别的哪个黑暗处帮忙。他们想在原本堤坝的后面或者上面，用沙袋再垒起一道防洪坝。杰利早就预测，沙袋对Myamhagh很重要。

    As Jelly had predicted, sandbags were essential to Myambagh. 和杰利之前说的一样，迈恩博不能没有沙袋。

    Trucks brought new sandbags from the depot where they had been filled, and people stacked them into the wall. Everyone was tired and talking berserkly, and a man who was clearly an army veteran of some kind came down the line saying, it you want them to hold , you’ve to stack them army-wise, one lengthways, and the next crossways. But people could not hold that much artifice in their head. They piled the sandbags up any way they could. Beyond the levee walls topped with bags lay the universal greyness of sky and flood, a sheet of breast –high undimpled foul water, on which little waves moved now and then across the drowned pasture! Myambagh was utterly beset.
    仓库里存了满满当当的新沙袋，他们用卡车把沙袋从仓库运到堤坝，再一袋袋地堆成墙。每个人都累的发慌，嘴皮子管不住似的说啊说。其中有个男人，很明显是个陆军老兵。他走下去一排人说：“要想沙袋堆的稳，得向老兵取取经。你啊，先竖着堆一个，再横着堆一个。”不过这窍门太花里胡哨，大家都没把放心上，还是爱怎么堆就怎么堆。堤坝上堆着沙袋，再往上是一片灰色。灰色的天空，灰色的洪水。洪水直直地冲过来，散发着恶臭，没有什么起伏。牧场被淹了，不时小股的波浪涌过来。Myanhagh彻底沦陷。

    talk berserkly 说话都在喊 army-wise 得用部队里的法子 piled the sandbags up any way they could 尽可能堆高 Beyond the levee walls 在堤墙另一侧
    the universal greyness of sky and flood 一片灰暗的天空与洪水
    a sheet of breast –high undimpled foul water 齐胸高的脏水，没有风吹过，只有…

    Someone cried out and everyone stood still and looked up. Connie and Kate looked up, holding a sandbag between them by its four corners. Amongst the tops of eucalypts a mile away, a new wave could be seen. It was slow and lazy. It travelled fast however. It came sucking up to the lip of the parapet and broke for a moment over it, splashing everyone’s already glistening gumboots.
    有个人大哭起来。所有人就这么站着，抬头看着。康妮和凯特并排扛着一个沙袋，也往上看，手里攥着袋角没放。一英里远处有片桉树，往顶上瞧会看见还有新一轮波浪。它看起来又慢又缓，其实流得飞快，很快便漫上了低矮挡墙，水花四下迸溅，打在大家本就已经浸湿反光的橡胶靴上。

    cry out 大喊 stand still 停住脚步 Amongst the tops of eucalypts a mile away 透过树冠 travel fast 来势汹汹

    Some people began to reinforce the levee with driven-in angle iron spikes and rolls of fencing wire from the stock and station agent’s. They were all for a second the Australian Corps, those five brilliant divisions, rebuffing Ludendorff’s assault in the Easter of 1918. They were connected in heroism to the putteed Digger whose memorial stood above the flood in Lachlan Street.
    有些人开始往堤坝钉角铁，从销售处那儿弄来了几捆钢丝往上缠，想让堤坝更牢固一些。那一刻，他们都成了战士，仿佛回到1918年复活节那天，澳大利亚五支精兵也是如此英勇抵抗德军的攻击。扎着绑腿的士兵战死沙场，他们的纪念碑矗立在血色的拉克兰大街。

    从仓库和车站管理员那弄来了角钢和铁丝网
    division 师 仿佛洪水之上拉克伦街头的纪念碑正是为他们而立。

    Kate had time to see that Jack worked with a much brotherly energy as any other man, though he uttered no particular opinions on the army method of laying sandbags, and at one stage he held his hand up bloodied and he laughed. He had taken a routine wound from the wire and the steel, and if nothing worse happened to him then he was no less fortunate than the others. And even if the town were not saved, they were working lovingly together in a dizziness of exhaustion, in a communal frenzy of love.
    凯特此时能看到杰克埋头苦干，爆发着一个男人该有的力量。听了老兵说的窍门，他没有多说什么，每完成一步，便举起满是鲜血的手发出大笑。他平时接触铁、电线之类的东西，总是受伤。如果没再添什么重伤，他应该和其他人一样，都挺幸运的。就算无法拯救这个镇子，他们也算是在混乱和疲惫之中友爱互助，带着疯狂的热爱一起战斗过。

    have the time to do 还看到 不输任何男人的劲头
    有一次他抬起手来，满手是血，他咧嘴乐了。
    接触钢丝和钢条最容易受这样的伤，就受这点伤的话也不算是命不好。