Yo lo pondria, y si no va bien, ya haremos el esfuerzo de traducirlo nosotros mismos :quesi
Y como es un cuento corto...
ANÍMATE!

tu ponlo, k cada uno cuando tenga un ratito lo traduce...

Y si no, siempre puedo traducirlo....

bueno, lo pongo... ya me direis...

The last inoccent man. Chapter 1

The dawn began to rise silently and its light spread between the dark cover of the stars, breathing life into the cold trenches. The front line, merely a vast concentration of tumbled ruins, was momentarily relieved by the fragance of a spring day. Silence and desolation reigned. Apparently there was no sign of life. But here and there the faint glimmer of a fire indicated the presence of life. In the trenches, under the parapet and the barbed wire, the German soldiers began to awake. While the sentries began to return to their beds their mates cleaned their weapons. Once they were revised and ready to fire, they began to cook their cold meals.
At the other side of the battlefield, the British soldiers were gathering forces to attack again. Through patches of low-lying mist, there was not a single sign that revealed any kind of activity in the German lines that were visible. Suddenly the Allied guns began to fire and a fearful roar of heavy guns broke out . An endless rain of shells struck with reverberating thunder on the German lines. Afar off, rockets, red and green and white, iluminated the sky; star shells bursting above the trenches casting their light round, illuminating strange twisted figures standing out against the horizon. To the nostrils of the men nearer to the front came the smell of a develish incense when a greenish fog rose from the ground and began to move along the battlefront. Moving forwards, the fog turned into a yellow mist while hung over the trenches.
The Allied gunfire rose in a furious crescendo shortly before zero hour, when heavy mortars joined the fire. There was a continuous rumble an grumble of bombardment while each explosion threw mountains of mud mixed with flesh and bones to the sky. Meanwhile, under the cover of darkness the assault troops moved into position and cleared the wire in front of the trenches. The officers, with one eye on their synchronized watches, reminded the men of their orders as the weapons were checked. Suddenly, the guns became ominously silent while new ammunition were brought to the lines by the heavy dark trucks.

Lieutnant Tristam Brooke felt transported to a time and place he had never visited before, a world out of what he had previously known. He was young, tall and stately, with a fine firm chiseled head, and ordinary short brown hair. Under the crown of the hair two blue pieces of heaven looked into the empty grey sky. When Tristam reached the front, his first thought was that whatever might be, he would survive. Now he was not so sure. Mixed with theclosely packed men waiting tensely for the attack Tristam could hear the intermingling of English dialects in this odd place at his odd hour. He thought that he was in a strange dream. All of them were caught in somebody’s else nightmare.
The colonel was right behind him, talking to Major Swainson, the second-in-command of the batallion, about the attack that was going to take place.
- It is obvious that some men are going to die, of course... it is also possible that there are going to die many of them. Those who are going to fall will stop the bullets and the shrapnel, so their comrades will go on attacking the enemy trenches - said the colonel. He went on the trenches while addresing to the batallion:
- This old country we love so well... We’ll do our best for her, won’t we, chaps?
Tristam had lowered his grey eyes in embarrassment, looking at his trembling hands. A solitary voice asked “what is the time, sir?”.
“Five forty-five’, Tristam answered, and with his words the whole earth burst into flames with one tremendous roar as hundreds of guns hurled the first round of the barrage. A brief pause, then far in the distance they saw the faint line of fire where the shells were falling. Now the guns began crashing and pounding, keeping the air alive with shells screaming while the line of fire cracked unbrokenly in the distance. Over their heads a succession of explosions in a continuous roar filled the air. It was a continuous noise, repeating itself again and again.
Suddenly, as it hung over them, the tempest of iron and fire changed its voice, filling the air with a vast and agonizing passion and bursting now with groans and sighs, now into shrill screaming and pitiful whimpering, shudering beneath terrible blows, torn by misterious and unearthly whips, vibrating with the solemn pulses of enormous wings. It was poised in the air as a stationary panorama of sound. As the tortured landscape shoudered under the bombardment, brave men checked their weapons and offered up the last prayers.

Chapter 2

The previous morning, when the batallion was told that they were destined to going up the line that evening, because “a show of some sort was imminent”, Tristam began to feel strange. While he was looking at his eager captain shouting to the platoon, he could not remain silent and, cleaning his pistol, said to his captain:
- You seem to have the death-urge pretty strongly.
- Eh? Eh? -but captain Shandy did not pay attention to him and continued:- We shall survive. The Boche will get what’s coming to him.
- The Boche? - asked Tristam. He had never heard that odd word before.
- The enemy, lieutnant. Another name for the enemy. During the officers’ training course we were taught how to deal with the enemy.
- I see... -answered Tristam, while looking the barrel of his pistol.
During the flamboyant sunset, the men draw ammunition and began their final march up to the trenches. They marched through a hamlet, a mess of ruins where several dead and a disembowelled mule laid, to a shatered country house which was the entrance to the trenches.
Just as the head of the column arrived to the house, they heard an aeroplane above. They saw it big, red and flying very low. In an instant it had dropped a bomb just to the left rear of the column, but the ranks kept absolutely steady. The men didn't even quicken their pace. They continued the march along a high wood where they bivouacked.
When they arrived to the front lines, under the pale sun the front looked more deadly than ever. There stood smashed guns and broken tanks like wrecks in an ocean of shell holes. The ground was covered with bewildering chaos of abandoned equipment - helmets, rifles, entrenching tools, bombs, gas masks, water-bottles, overcoats, cartrigdes. Here and there, occasionally, the equipment of one of the fallen, dumped by the stretcher-bearers or the burying parties. There the utter silence, the desolation, the sense of misery, the regret of the lost comrades, all this sadness was hanging upon the battlefield.

As the zero hour became nearer, the officers gave the order to fix bayonets and to load all rifles. Suddenly captain Shandy began to talk, his nose filled with tears.
- England...O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ heart... -said Shandy, pistol trembling, eyes never leaving his wrist-watch. Then, after a cold rasping sound, six hundred blades flashed in the sunlinght. Now, with five minutes to go, the British infantry waited.- I’m ready to lead my company over some corner of a foreign field, that is for ever England, in a brave assault...
While he was talking, somebody started hiccoughs and kept saying, “Pardon”.
- We’re coming up now to, we’re coming up now to... Wire seems pretty well cut in front... Now, boys -said Shandy. The sweat was stramming off his face when turned to the soldiers to add-, don’t forget: when you get into the Boche trench, you must work your way up and clean out that dugout as you go past... And remember the machine gun nest, which must be put out at all cost.
Then a shell burst in the courtyard of the house they had crossed, and another in the next trenches. To crown all, another shell knocked over the chimney of the house, and bits of mud and plaster fell on their heads. The guns became very active, all calibres strafing all over. But the soldiers did not seem to mind the hellish storm of 5.9" and 8 inch shells, which fell over the German field with a terrifying thunder.
- Old Fritz knows what is coming, I bet... -said a trembling shadow.
- What a lovely morning! - cried captain Shandy.
- Soon it’ll be bloody hell... - answered an unknown voice.
- How minutes to go, sir? - asked Tristam, with his pale face looking down to the muddy ground of the trenches.
- Just under a minute... Now get ready, boys... Keep steady, lads... Five, four, three, two, one... Everybody go! Everybody over! B Company over!

As all the minute-hands touched 6, while the officers’ whistles signalled zero hour, a roar was added to the symphony of the guns, which then lengthened their range, as the men scrambled up ladders, doubled through gaps in the wire, and lay down waiting for the line to form up to left and right. Then, they stood up and went forward. The whole front line swarmed through the sandbag breastworks and rushed pell-mell across a hundred yards of open ground, pitted with shell-holes and obstructed by the enemy barbed wire. When the covering barrage lifted at the moment of attack and moved on to the second line of the enemy lines, the German soldiers who had survived in deep dugouts or shell-holes emerged with their machine-guns and poured an unslackening hail into the first wave of attackers.
When the whistles skirled shrilled deadly silver all along the line, the bombardment clamoured out at once. Tristam, his head above the parapet, saw captain Shandy raising from the trenches and, immediately, Shandy was falling back and crashing with his mouth wide open, his body pierced by several bullets.
Tristam rose from the trenches and advanced with his platoon through the mud. Every man walked unhesitatingly through the barbed-wire into the barrage when a machine-gun started to fire. Then, they were surrounded by bursting shells and singing fragments, while above their heads the air whistled and tingled with a stream of bullets, which added their whining to the general pandemonium. Advancing in short rushes the soldiers hurried on, while shrapnel burst came as regularly as clockwork. Far behind, the German lines were bristling with the enemy’s rifles and machine-guns. There were curses and screams, bullets dismally whinging and hundreds of weapons bittlery cracking and spattering. Bodies facing each other in hand-to-hand, falling, firing, like in an old war film. It was slaughter, it was mutual massacre which was impossible to miss.
Then Tristam saw fellows drop lifeless while others began to stagger and limp. The colossal explosions and the terrifying rush of bullets as the enemy machines-guns swept round sent the men flat on their stomachs. The vivid flashes from the British artillery, the stertorous breathing of the soldiers, the dark, hardly identifiable figures prowling around Tristam and the screams of the wounded began to paralyse him. It was a scene to haunt the imagination.
With a supreme effort Tristam broke the magic spell that had fixed their boots to the muddy and batered ground and he began to walk towards the enemy trenches. When he had gone about twenty yards he signalled ‘Forward!’, but no one raised to follow him. Then he shouted to their men:
-You bloody cowards, are you leaving me to go on alone?
His platoon-sergeant, groaning with a broken shoulder, gasped:
-Not cowards, sir. Willing enough. But they are dead, sir. A Boche machine gun caught them as they rose.
In that chaos the scattered survivors of the two leading companies laid in shell-craters close to the German wire, sniping and making the Germans keep their heads down. The other two companies soon followed in support, but they were cut down by machine-gun fire. Tristam was unable to move or to think. He began to wander like in a dream, until he came upon a dead body. Tristam fell, raising an enormous wave of mud, and remained half-buried in it. Then, he recognised the dead. It was corporal Fussell, hit in seventeen places. He found that he had forced his fists into his mouth to stop himsefl crying and attracting more fire to him. Major Swainson came crawling in from the German wire and black blood was ripping from his mouth. In a dark hole, three young soldiers were buried under a mountain of mud with their bellies full of beer and bullets.
The enemy machine-guns fired absolutey point blank but could not quite reach the scattered survivors. Most of them got down in shell holes ten yards beyond the starting point, but eight men were trapped by the enemy fire in a nasty hole, far away from their comrades and too close to the German trenches. They kept on firing for all they were worth until they were killed. Then, for a second, the battlefield rested in peace, until the following wave of attackers broke the silence with a terrifying yell.
An explosion threw Tristam again the wreckage of a tank, were he found the bloated and stinking corpse of a German soldier with his back propped against the burned machine. The German had green face and close-shaven hair. Trembling, Tristam came across two other unforgettable corpses: a man of the Grenadier Guards and one of the German Lehr Regiment had sucedded in bayoneting each other simultaneously. Mingled with the roar of the battle Tristam could hear inhuman cries rising from the throats of the two soldiers, who tried to keep the bowels inside their bodies.
Then Tristam cried, as if his soul had been stolen by a ghostly devil and, throwing away his pistol, he run back to his lines. Sick with horror he went across country, up and down shell holes, and through mud and blood, and landed back where he had started. He had got back somehow and was beginning to feel better when a German shell dropped right in the trench where he was laying.
He raised unhurt, in a great stroke of luck, but at his side he could see a dying soldier, who muttered:
- Something... hit me in the back...and knocked me over... but I’m right now, sir.
Then he tried to rise, but Tristam did not allow him to do it.
- Steady, old boy. Just lie there quietly for a bit - Tristam cheked his wound and, after some hesitation, he continued:- I’m going to have you taken away, down to the dresing station, old boy.
“It is not a fatal injury, hopefully”, the soldier thought. But an aching pain began to take his strenght away, stabbing his back with a cold finger. He began to talk again, but hardly above a whisper:
- Lieutenant... Could we have a light? It’s... it’s so frightfully cold and dark.
- Sure! I’ll bring you a candle. Stand still and don’t move, old boy.
Then, when Tristam began to rise, an enormous yell was raised by thousands of unknown voices, while the weapons began to became silent.
- The war is over! - shouted a soldier. Then, more and more voices began to repeat the same cry in an endless chain through the trenches and the battlefield.
Tristam saw sanitary squads moving over the battlefield finishing off the wounded with pistol shots and recovering the dead. Then a red-tabbed major came. It was a very military-looking major complete with monocle. Without passion, he paused a second at the side of the dying soldier, whose heart was nearer to stop, and continued towards the end of the trenches while slapping his flank with a leather-bound baton. Then, he realised that Tristam was there and, turning to him, he said.
- Come on, officer. The E.S is over.
- What’s an E.S., sir?
- Extermination Session. That’s what the new battles are called.
- But... it was... it was murder! Those poor, wretched...
- Really? they weren’t exactly defenseless, were they? Beware of clichés... They were well trained and they died gloriously, believing they were dying in a great cause. And, you known, they really were. Besides, they’re going to be useful in another way....
The major began to turn to go away, but he could see that Tristam had not understand a single word.He sighed, and began to explain.
- There is too much people in our world, you know. Actually, the war was designed to solve that problem. It’s a way to trim the population of such anti-social elements. We’ve to got a war: Not because anybody wants it, of course, but because there is an army. Armies are for wars and wars are for armies. That’s only plain common sense. And they... -he added, pointing at the dead-, they are useful. They’re going to be turned into bully-beef. So, with the enormous amount of meat we had picked during the war I think that we’re going to get ride of battles and campaigns for a very long time... - then, with a slow movement of his baton, he added:- That’s all, lieutenant. Dismiss.
Then, turning to the working parties, the major shouted widly:
- Come on! Hurry, men, take the dead before the ghouls came!
Tristam felt very puzzled by the last comment, and the fact was reflected in his face. It was so obvious that the major even felt surprised.
- Oh, dear God! Haven’t you heard anything about them? Really? Well, between the lines a group of half-crazed deserters from all the armies had harbored underground in abandoned trenches and caves, emerging at night to pillage corpses and gather food and drink. Have you ever seen these bearded figures, shambling in rags and patched uniforms, that went out of their lairs after each of the interminable chekmate battles to rob us of the dying, to plunder and to kill? Has no one ever warned you not to go singly, but only in strong parties? Old boy, are you sure that you have been in the trenches?
The major left alone Tristam, who was absolutely paralized. He stood alone in the trenches during a long while. Then, with a sigh, he began to walk towards the horizon. The sun was slowly sinking. In the front line, relieved by the fragance of a spring day, silence and desolation reigned. Afar off, rockets, red and green and white, iluminated the sky; star shells bursting above the trenches casting their light round, illuminating a cloud of dark smoke expanding and drifting away. Slowly its wrestling vapors took the form of a enormous grinnig skull. Then, with a gradual gesture of acquiescence, it dissolved into nothingness.


THE END.

Algunos comentarios post parto....

Si no se entiende, lo traduzco sin problemas, en serio.

Si alguien nota que está inspirado en Graves, Sassoon, Owen y un montón más que seguro que me olvido, pues si, para que negarlo. La literatura de la I Guerra Mundial va camino de ser mi especialidad de doctorado. Es de hace dos o tres años, pero la cosa ya me viene casi desde el primer semestre de mi primer año de mi odisea universitaria. Culpa de Sara Martín Alegre -que yo sepa, no somos familia, pero nos llevamos muy bien-, una de las magnificas profesoras que andan sueltas por este mundo tan particular que es la UAB.

Bueno, aqui os dejo una historia que hice hoy, durante una de las clases.

VIDA FUTURA

Me llamo Marcos y tengo 30 años, estamos en el año 2090, casi ya no queda nada. Apenas quedan árboles, apenas quedan bosques y nosotros somos los culpables de esta situación, si nosotros, la especie humana. Destruimos los bosques para crear ciudades mas grandes, para fabricar papel, y no nos dimos cuenta de lo que estábamos destruyendo. Queríamos tenerlo todo, y no nos importaba lo que pasase si nosotros conseguíamos sentirnos felices.
Todavía recuerdo aquellos días en los que yo era pequeño, y mi abuelo me contaba como era todo cuando lo era, y como había sido antes de su nacimiento. Aquel mundo que el me reflejaba, debía de ser un mundo maravilloso, con todos los bosques que había, y todos los animalillos que por allí corrían. El casi no llego a conocer, toda esa maravilla, cuando el nació allá por el 2005, el mundo ya estaba muy deteriorado.
No se como hemos podido llegar a esta situación, sin darnos cuenta de lo que hacíamos. Ahora, hay muchas zonas del mundo en las que ya no se puede habitar. Los polos poco a poco se han ido deshaciendo, y todavía continúan en esa situación, muchas partes del mundo están inundadas por esta causa y muchos animales perdieron su hábitat por todo lo que nosotros hicimos.
Según me contaron, hubo una vez que se intento hacer algo para evitar esto, había gente que proponía que los gases lanzados a la atmósfera, fuesen en menor cantidad, pero según parece, algunos no hicieron caso y los aumentaron.
Eso que mis antepasados llamaban capa de ozono, debía ser algo muy bueno, pero es algo de lo que yo no puedo hablar ya que apenas la conozco. Aquel pequeño agujero que tenia en el siglo pasado ahora es demasiado grande, y los rayos del sol llegan a la tierra quemando como si de fuego se tratase. Ahora, cuando sales a la calle, gracias a ello has de ir con cuidado para evitar los rayos del sol durante el día, e incluso hay horas a las que ni siquiera puedes salir, por el calor que hace fuera y por miedo a quemarte.
Creo que a pesar de que mi abuelo, ya empezase a conocer el mundo deteriorado, debía ser un mundo más feliz de los que es ahora, algo de lo que se supone que tendríamos que haber cuidado.
Los niños ahora ya no van a los parques, por que hay lugares en las calles en los que ya casi ni se puede respirar. Apenas hay sitios para depositar, todos nuestros desperdicios, y hay gente que los deja en cualquier parte.
Según me contaba mi abuelo, antes había pueblos a los que ibas cuando querías separarte un poco de la ciudad pero, ahora ya no queda nada de ellos, algunas grandes constructoras, los destruyeron para hacer nuevas ciudades y agrandar otras.
En mi forma de ver, el mundo es mucho mas infeliz de lo que era antes, y al ritmo en el que lo estamos destruyendo, no se durante cuanto tiempo podremos continuar viviendo en la tierra. Por nuestra culpa, se extinguieron muchas especies, tal vez, nosotros seamos los próximos.
Esta claro, que nuestros antepasados, no se dieron cuenta de la herencia que nos estaban dejando a nosotros. No supieron ver el daño, que le estaban haciendo a nuestro planeta. Pero quizás, haya llegado el momento, de que nosotros intentemos evitar que el mundo se siga deteriorando, por el bien de los que nos sigan aunque, me parece que ya hemos llegado demasiado tarde.

anuska mu xulo tu relato me ha gusta do muxoooooo

muy xulos los relatos el de pedro me ha encantado y el de anuska tambien :quesi :quesi :quesi :quesi

bonito relato Anuska...a ver si todos reflexionamos un poco con él!! :quesi :quesi

Muy bueno Anuska.Espero q la gente recapacite al leerlo :quesi