The Destructors
《破坏者》
Graham Greene（格林）
It was on the eve of August Bank Holiday that the latest recruit became the leader of the Wormsley Common Gang. No one was surprid except Mike, but Mike at the age of nine was surprid by everything. 'If you don't shut your mouth,' somebody once said to him, 'you'll get a frog down it.' After that Mike kept his teeth tightly clamped except when the surpri was too great.
The new recruit had been with the gang since the beginning of the summer holidays, and there were possibilities about his brooding silence that all recognized. He never wasted a word even to tell his name until that was required of him by the rules. When he said 'Trevor' it was a statement of fact, not as it would have been with the others a statement of shame or defiance. Nor did anyone laugh except Mike, who finding himlf without support and me
eting the dark gaze of the newcomer opened his mouth and was quiet again. There was every reason why T., as he was afterwards referred to, should have been an object of mockery - there was his name (and they substituted the initial becau otherwi they had no excu not to laugh at it), the fact that his father, a former architect and prent clerk, had 'come down in the world' and that his mother considered herlf better than the neighbours. What but an odd quality of danger, of the unpredictable, established him in the gang without any ignoble ceremony of initiation?
The gang met every morning in an impromptu car-park, the site of the last bomb of the first blitz. The leader, who was known as Blackie, claimed to have heard it fall, and no one was preci enough in his dates to point out that he would have been one year old and fast asleep on the down platform of Wormsley Common Underground Station. On one side of the car-park leant the first occupied hou, No. 3, of the shattered Northwood Terrace - literally leant, for it had suffered from the blast of the bomb and the side walls were supported on wooden struts. A smaller bomb and incendiaries had fallen beyond, so that the hou stuck up like a jagged tooth and carried on the further wall relics of its neig
hbour, a dado, the remains of a fireplace. T., who words were almost confined to voting 'Yes' or 'No' to the plan of operations propod each day by Blackie, once startled the whole gang by saying broodingly, 'Wren built that hou, father says.'
'Who's Wren?'
血战台儿庄观后感
'The man who built St Paul's.'
'Who cares?' Blackie said. 'It's only Old Miry's.'
技能补贴Old Miry - who real name was Thomas - had once been a builder and decorator. He lived alone in the crippled hou, doing for himlf: once a week you could e him coming back across the common with bread and vegetables, and once as the boys played in the car-park he put his head over the smashed wall of his garden and looked at them.
鱼字旁'Been to the lav,' one of the boys said, for it was common knowledge that since the bombs fell something had gone wrong with the pipes of the hou and Old Miry was to红细胞分布宽度变异系数偏高
o mean to spend money on the property. He could do the redecorating himlf at cost price, but he had never learnt plumbing. The lav was a wooden shed at the bottom of the narrow garden with a star-shaped hole in the door: it had escaped the blast which had smashed the hou next door and sucked out the window-frames of No. 3.
那个早晨梦到买衣服
The next time the gang became aware of Mr Thomas was more surprising. Blackie, Mike and a thin yellow boy, who for some reason was called by his surname Summers, met him on the common coming back from the market. Mr Thomas stopped them. He said glumly, 'You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?'
Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had responsibilities. 'Suppo we are?' he said ambiguously.
'I got some chocolates,' Mr Thomas said. 'Don't like 'em mylf. Here you are. Not enough to go round, I don't suppo. There never is,' he added with sombre conviction. He handed over three packets of Smarties.
The gang was puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. 'Bet someone dropped them and he picked 'em up,' somebody suggested.
'Pinched 'em and then got in a bleeding funk,' another thought aloud.汤类大全
三生集团'It's a bribe,' Summers said. 'He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall.'
'We'll show him we don't take bribes,' Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no sign from Mr Thomas.
Next day T. astonished them all. He was late at the rendezvous, and the voting for that day's exploit took place without him. At Blackie's suggestion the gang was to disper in pairs, take bus at random and e how many free rides could be snatched from unwary conductors (the operation was to be carried out in pairs to avoid cheating). They were drawing lots for their companions when T. arrived.
'Where you been, T.?' Blackie asked. 'You can't vote now. You know the rules.'
'I've been there,' T. said. He looked at the ground, as though he had thoughts to hide.
