War at Sea

Alistair MacLean - H.M.S. ULYSSES

1955

Available online

Review

Vyberte si způsob práce, který vám lépe vyhovuje:
1.  překládejte samostatně, pouze tučně vyznačené části textu (jsou dvě!)
2. Pracujte ve dvojici a přeložte celou ukázku KROMĚ posleních tří odstavců.



Nejpozdější datum odevzdání posledních dvou textů tohtoto semináře (Bradbury, MacLean)
je 10. května 2014.


Jak byste přeložili následující výrazy?
Action Stations
starboard
moderate swell
two cable-lengths away
astern
voice-pipe
knots
Aldis lamps
Asdic
depth-charge L.T.O
destroyer
Gun barrels were already depressing, peering hungrily into the treacherous sea.




 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
příklady odkazů:
http://www.naval-history.net/WW2aaRN-PayTables00Ranks-Badges.htm
http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Uniform/Torpedo_branch.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_ratings_rank_insignia
http://www.acronymfinder.com/Military-and-Government/LTO.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/astern
http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Uniform/Rates_1918.html
http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabel_%28jednotka%29
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astern
https://www.google.cz/search?q=destroyer&client=firefox-a&hs=a1u&rls=org.mozilla:cs:official&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BU9WU7rYBeT17AaQ-4GgDA&ved=0CFUQsAQ&biw=1787&bih=842&dpr=0.9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyer

CHAPTER SEVEN
WEDNESDAY NIGHT

The Ulysses was at dawn Action Stations as the shadowy shapes of the convoy, a bare mile ahead, lifted out of the greying gloom. The great bulk of the Blue Ranger, on the starboard quarter of the convoy, was unmistakable. There was a moderate swell running, but not enough to be uncomfortable: the breeze was light, from the west, the temperature just below zero, the sky chill and cloudless. The time was exactly 0700.

At 0702, the Blue Ranger was torpedoed. The Ulysses was two cable-lengths away, on her starboard quarter: those on the bridge felt the physical shock of the twin explosions, heard them shattering the stillness of the dawn as they saw two searing columns of flame fingering skywards, high above the Blue Ranger's bridge and well aft of it. A second later they heard a signalman shouting something unintelligible, saw him pointing forwards and downwards. It was another torpedo, running astern of the carrier, trailing its evil phosphorescent wake across the heels of the convoy, before spending itself in the darkness of the Arctic.

Vallery was shouting down the voice-pipe, pulling round the Ulysses, still doing upwards of twenty knots, in a madly heeling, skidding turn, to avoid collision with the slewing carrier. Three sets of Aldis lamps and the fighting lights were already stuttering out the "Maintain Position "code signal to ships in the convoy. Marshall, on the phone, was giving the stand-by order to the depth-charge L.T.O.: gun barrels were already depressing, peering hungrily into the treacherous sea. The signal to the Sirrus stopped short, unneeded: the destroyer, a half-seen blue in the darkness, was already knifing its way through the convoy, white water piled high at its bows, headed for the estimated position of the U-boat.

The Ulysses sheered by parallel to the burning carrier, less than 150 feet away; travelling so fast, heeling so heavily and at such close range, it was impossible to gather more than a blurred impression, a tangled, confused memory of heavy black smoke laced with roaring columns of flame, appalling in that near-darkness, of a drunkenly listing flight-deck, of Grummans and Corsairs cartwheeling grotesquely over the edge to splash icy clouds of spray in shocked faces, as the cruiser slewed away; and then the Ulysses was round, heading back south for the kill.

Within a minute, the signal-lamp of tine Vectra, up front with the convoy, started winking. "Contact, Green 70, closing: Contact, Green 70, closing."

"Acknowledge; "Tyndall ordered briefly; The Aldis had barely begun to clack when the Vectra cut through the signal.

"Contacts, repeat contacts. Green 90, Green 90. Closing. Very close. Repeat contacts, contacts."

Tyndall cursed softly.

"Acknowledge. Investigate." He turned to Vallery. "Let's join him, Captain. This is it. Wolf-pack Number One-and in force. No bloody right to be here," he added bitterly. "So much for Admiralty Intelligence!"

The Ulysses was round again, heading for the Vectra. It should have been growing lighter now, but the Blue Ranger, her squadron fuel tanks on fire, a gigantic torch against the eastern horizon, had the curious effect of throwing the surrounding sea into heavy darkness. She lay almost athwart of the flagship's course for the Vectra, looming larger every minute. Tyndall had his night glasses to his eyes, kept on muttering: "The poor bastards, the poor bastards!"

The Blue Ranger was almost gone. She lay dead in the water, heeled far over to starboard, ammunition and petrol tanks going up in a constant series of crackling reports. Suddenly, a succession of dull, heavy explosions rumbled over the sea: the entire bridge island structure lurched crazily sideways, held, then slowly, ponderously, deliberately, the whole massive body of it toppled majestically into the glacial darkness of the sea. God only knew how many men perished with it, deep down in the Arctic, trapped in its iron walls. They were the lucky ones.

The Vectra, barely two miles ahead now, was pulling round south in a tight circle. Vallery saw her, altered course to intercept. He heard Bentley shouting something unintelligible from the fore corner of the compass platform. Vallery shook his head, heard him shouting again, his voice desperate with some nameless urgency, his arm pointing frantically over the windscreen, and leapt up beside him.

The sea was on fire. Flat, calm, burdened with hundreds of tons of fuel oil, it was a vast carpet of licking, twisting flames. That much, for a second, and that only, Vallery saw: then with heart-stopping shock, with physically sickening abruptness, he saw something else again: the burning sea was alive with swimming, struggling men. Not a handful, not even dozens, but literally hundreds, soundlessly screaming, agonisingly dying in the barbarous contrariety of drowning and cremation.

"Signal from Vectra, sir." It was Bentley speaking, his voice abnormally matter-of-fact. "'Depth-charging. 3, repeat 3 contacts. Request immediate assistance.'"

Tyndall was at Vallery's side now. He heard Bentley, looked a long second at Vallery, following his sick, fascinated gaze into the sea ahead, For a man in the sea, oil is an evil thing. It clogs his movements, burns his eyes, sears his lungs and tears away his stomach in uncontrollable paroxysms of retching; but oil on fire is a hellish thing, death by torture, a slow, shrieking death by drowning, by burning, by asphyxiation-for the flames devour all the life-giving oxygen on the surface of the sea. And not even in the bitter Arctic is there the merciful extinction by cold, for the insulation of an oil-soaked body stretches a dying man on the rack for eternity, carefully preserves him for the last excruciating refinement of agony.

All this Vallery knew.

He knew, too, that for the Ulysses to stop, starkly outlined against the burning carrier, would have been suicide.

And to come sharply round to starboard, even had there been time and room to clear the struggling, dying men in the sea ahead, would have wasted invaluable minutes, time and to spare for the U-boats ahead to line up firing-tracks on the convoy; and the Ulysses's first responsibility was to the convoy. Again all this Vallery knew. But, at that moment, what weighed most heavily with him was common humanity.

Fine off the port bow, close in to the Blue Ranger, the oil was heaviest, the flames fiercest, the swimmers thickest: Vallery looked back over his shoulder at the Officer of the Watch.

"Port 10!"

"Port 10, sir."

"Midships!"

"Midships, sir."

"Steady as she goes!"

For ten, fifteen seconds the Ulysses held her course, arrowing through the burning sea to the spot where some gregariously atavistic instinct for self-preservation held two hundred men knotted together in a writhing, seething mass, gasping out their lives in hideous agony. For a second a great gout of flame leapt up in the centre of the group, like a giant, incandescent magnesium flare, a flame that burnt the picture into the hearts and minds of the men on the bridge with a permanence and searing clarity that no photographic plate could ever have reproduced: men on fire, human torches beating insanely at the flames that licked, scorched and then incinerated clothes, hair and skin: men flinging themselves almost out of the water, backs arched like tautened bows, grotesque in convulsive crucifixion: men lying dead in the water, insignificant, featureless little oil-stained maunds in an oil-soaked plain: and a handful of fear-maddened men, faces inhumanly contorted, who saw the Ulysses and knew what was coming, as they frantically thrashed their way to a safety that offered only a few more brief seconds of un-speakable agony before they gladly died.

"Starboard 30!" Vallery's voice was low, barely a murmur, but it carried clearly through the shocked silence on the bridge.

"Starboard 30, sir."

For the third time in ten minutes, the Ulysses slewed crazily round in a racing turn. Turning thus, a ship does not follow through the line of the bows cutting the water; there is a pronounced sideways or lateral motion, and the faster and sharper the turn, the more violent the broadside skidding motion, like a car on ice. The side of the Ulysses caught the edge of the group on the port bow : almost on the instant, the entire length of the  swinging hull smashed into the heart of the fire, into the thickest press of dying men.

For most of them, it was just extinction, swift and glad and merciful. The tremendous concussion and pressure waves crushed the life out of them, thrust them deep down into the blessed oblivion of drowning, thrust them down and sucked them back into the thrashing vortex of the four great screws.

On board the Ulysses, men for whom death and destruction had become the stuff of existence, to be accepted with the callousness and jesting indifference that alone kept them sane-these men clenched impotent fists, mouthed meaningless, useless curses over and over again and wept heedlessly like little children. They wept as pitiful, charred faces, turned up towards the Ulysses and alight with joy and hope, petrified into incredulous staring horror, as realisation dawned and the water closed over them; as hate-filled men screamed insane invective, both arms raised aloft, shaking fists white-knuckled through the dripping oil as the Ulysses trampled them under: as a couple of young boys were sucked into the maelstrom of the propellers, still giving the thumbs-up sign: as a particularly shocking case, who looked as if he had been barbecued on a spit and had no right to be alive, lifted a scorified hand to the blackened hole that had been his mouth, flung to the bridge a kiss in token of endless gratitude ; and wept, oddly, most of all, at the inevitable humorist who lifted his fur cap high above his head and bowed gravely and deeply, his face into the water as he died.

Suddenly, mercifully, the sea was empty. The air was strangely still and quiet, heavy with the sickening stench of charred flesh and burning Diesel, and the Ulysses's stern was swinging wildly almost under the black pall overhanging the Blue Ranger amidships, when the shells struck her.

The shells-three 3.7s-came from the Blue Ranger. Certainly, no living gun-crews manned these 3.7s-the heat must have ignited the bridge fuses in the cartridge cases. The first shell exploded harmlessly against the armour-plating: the second wrecked the bosun's store, fortunately empty: the third penetrated No. 3 Low Power Room via the deck. There were nine men in there-an officer, seven ratings and Chief-Torpedo Gunner's Mate Noyes. In that confined space, death was instantaneous.

Only seconds later a heavy rumbling explosion blew out a great hole along the waterline of the Blue Ranger and she fell slowly, wearily right over on her starboard side, her flight-deck vertical to the water, as if content to die now that, dying, she had lashed out at the ship that had destroyed her crew.

On the bridge, Vallery still stood on the yeoman's platform, leaning over the starred, opaque Windscreen. His head hung down, his eyes were shut and he was retching desperately, the gushing blood-arterial blood-ominously bright and scarlet in the erubescent glare of the sinking carrier. Tyndall stood there helplessly beside him, not knowing what to do, his mind numbed and sick. Suddenly, he was brushed unceremoniously aside by the Surgeon-Commander, who pushed a white towel to Vallery's mouth and led him gently below. Old Brooks, everyone knew, should have been at his Action Stations position in the Sick Bay: no one dared say anything.

Carrington straightened the Ulysses out on course, while he waited for Turner to move up from the after Director tower to take over the bridge. In three minutes the cruiser was up with the Vectra, methodically quartering for a lost contact. Twice the ships regained contact, twice they dropped heavy patterns. A heavy oil slick rose to the surface: possibly a kill, probably a ruse, but in any event, neither ship could remain to investigate further. The convoy was two miles ahead now, and only the Stirling and Viking were there for its protection-a wholly inadequate cover and powerless to save the convoy from any determined attack.

It was the Blue Ranger that saved FR77. In these high latitudes, dawn comes slowly, interminably: even so, it was more than half-ligljt, and the merchant ships, line ahead through that very gentle swell, lifted clear and sharp against a cloudless horizon, a U-boat Commander's dream-or would have been, had he been able to see them. But, by this time, the convoy was completely obscured from the wolf-pack lying to the south: the light westerly wind carried the heavy black smoke from the blazing carrier along the southern flank of the convoy, at sea level, the perfect smoke-screen, dense, impenetrable. Why the U-boats had departed from their almost invariable practice of launching dawn attacks from the north, so as to have their targets between themselves and the sunrise, could only be guessed. Tactical surprise, probably, but whatever the reason it was the saving of the convoy. Within an hour, the thrashing screws of the convoy had left the wolf-pack far behind-and FR77, having slipped the pack, was far too fast to be overtaken again.

Aboard the flagship, the W.T. transmitter was chattering out a coded signal to London. There was little point, Tyndall had decided, in maintaining radio silence now; the enemy knew their position to a mile.

Tyndall smiled grimly as he thought of the rejoicing in the German Naval High Command at the news that FR77 was without any air cover whatsoever; as a starter, they could expect Charlie within the hour.

The signal read: "Admiral, 14 A.C.S.: To D.N.C., London. Rendezvoused FR77 1030 yesterday. Weather conditions extreme. Severe damage to Carriers: Defender, Wrestler unserviceable, returning base under escort: Blue Ranger torpedoed 0702, sunk 0730 today: Convoy Escorts now Ulysses, Stirling, Sirrus, Vectra, Viking: no minesweepers--Eager to base, minesweeper from Hvalfjord failed rendezvous: Urgently require air support: Can you detach carrier battle squadron: Alternatively, permission return base. Please advise immediately."

The wording of the message, Tyndall pondered, could have been improved. Especially the bit at the end-probably sounded sufficiently like a threat to infuriate old Starr, who would only see in it pusillanimous confirmation of his conviction of the Ulysses's-and Tyndall's-unfitness for the job... Besides, for almost two years now-since long before the sinking of the Hood by the Bismarck-it had been Admiralty policy not to break up the Home Fleet squadrons by detaching capital ships or carriers. Old battleships, too slow for modern inter-naval surface action-vessels such as the Ramillies and the Malaya-were used for selected Arctic convoys : with that exception, the official strategy was based on keeping the Home Fleet intact, containing the German Grand Fleet – and risking the convoys...

Ray Bradbury

V capse najdete bohatý výběr povídek Raye Bradburyho. Čtěte, ptejte se, vybírejte; název zvolené povídky a jména překladatele (či překladatelské dvojice) vložte do komentáře k tomuto blogu.

Mezi řádky

Ernest Hemingway

ONE READER WRITES (1933)

She sat at the table in her bedroom with a newspaper folded open before her and only stopping to look out of the window at the snow which was falling and melting on the roofs as it fell. She wrote this letter, writing it steadily with no necessity to cross out or rewrite anything.

Roanoke, Virginia February 6th, 1933

Dear Doctor,

May I write you for some very important advice — I have a decision to make and don’t know just whom to trust most, I dare not ask my parents — and so I come to you — and only because I need not see you, can I confide in you even. Now here is the situation — I married a man in U.S. service in 1929 and that same year he was sent to China, Shanghai — he stayed three years — and came home — he was discharged from the service some few months ago — and went to his mother’s home in Helena, Arkansas. He wrote for me to come home — I went, and found he is taking a course of injections and I naturally ask, and found he is being treated for I don’t know how to spell the word but it sounds like this ‘sifilus* — Do you know what I mean — now tell me will it ever be safe for me to live with him again — I did not come in close contact with him at any time since his return from China. He assures me he will be OK after this doctor finishes with him — Do you think it right — I often heard my Father say one could well wish themselves dead if once they became a victim of that malady — I believe my Father but want to believe my Husband most — Please, please tell me what to do—I have a daughter born while her Father was in China— Thanking you and trusting wholly in your advice I am

and signed her name.

Maybe he can tell me what’s right to do, she said to herself. Maybe he can tell me. In the picture in the paper he looks like he’d know. He looks smart, all right. Every day he tells somebody what to do. He ought to know. I want to do whatever is right. It’s such a long time though. It’s a long time. And it’s been a long time. My Christ, it’s been a long time. He had to go wherever they sent him, I know, but I don’t know what he had to get it for. Oh, I wish to Christ he wouldn’t have got it. I don’t care what he did to get it. But I wish to Christ he hadn’t ever got it. It does seem like he didn’t have to have got it. I don’t know what to do. I wish to Christ he hadn’t got any kind of malady. I don’t know why he had to get a malady.

Facebook!

I překladatelské perly a jejich fanoušci už mají svou stránku na facebooku. Přidejte se!

 Veronika Klučinová 14 březen v 10:09 titulky k jedné detektivce, mrtvola leží v baru na záchodcích. "Kdo ji našel?" "Manažer. Lidé si chvíli stěžovali, že byl John mimo provoz."

 Juli Minaříková 8 březen v 10:06 Taky dám k dobru dva klenoty z fanouškovských titulků k jednomu britskému seriálu - chápu, že tyhle překlady jsou většinou k dispozici prakticky ihned a jejich autory tlačí čas, ale občas to jsou opravdu perly. Jedna klasická: "Leave her alone!" -> "Nechte ji o samotě!" A pak jedna, která se mi opravdu vryla do paměti : "It's driving you mad" -> "Proto řídíš jako šílená."

Rytmus a rým

Překládání písňových textů je možná snazší, než se zprvu může zdát. Probuďte svou fantazii! :)

Vyberte si jednu z následujících písní a pokuste se napsat k melodii český text. Tentokrát nám nejde o překlad! Obsah může být jakýkoli, jediným kritériem je zpívatelnost hotového textu.
Věnujte nejprve pozornost identifikaci přízvučných dob v hudbě, pak do rytmické struktury zasazujte text. Neváhejte zachycovat víc nápadů, později z nich vyberete ty nejlepší.


Queen - Princess of the Universe
Simon&Garfunkel - The Boxer
Peter, Paul and Mary - Cruel War


Queen - Princess of the Universe

Here we are, born to be kings
We're the princes of the universe
Here we belong, fighting to survive
In a world with the darkest powers

Hey...
And here we are
We're the princes of the universe
Here we belong, fighting for survival
We've come to be the rulers of you all

Oh!
I am immortal
I have inside me blood of kings (Yeah, yeah!)
I have no rival
No man can be my equal
Take me to the future of you all

Born to be kings, princes of the universe
Fighting and free, got your world in my hand
I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand
We were born to be princes of the universe

No man could understand
My power is in my own hands
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
People talk about you
People say you've had your day
I'm a man that will go far
Fly the moon and reach for the stars
With my sword and head held high
Got to pass the test first time, yeah
I know that people talk about me
I hear it every day
But I can prove them wrong 'cause I'm right first time
Yeah yeah

Alright, let's go, let's go
Haha!
Yeah...watch this man fly
Bring on the girls
C'mon C'mon C'mon!

Here we are (here we are)
Born to be kings, we're princes of the universe
Here will we belong

Born to be kings, princes of the universe
Fighting and free, got your world in my hand
I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand
We were born to be princes of the universe




Simon And Garfunkel – The Boxer 

I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie ...

Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie la lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

Lie la lie ...



Peter, Paul & Mary – Cruel War 

The Cruel War is raging, Johnny has to fight
I want to be with him from morning to night.
I want to be with him, it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Tomorrow is Sunday, Monday is the day
That your Captain will call you and you must obey.
Your captain will call you it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

I'll tie back my hair, men's clothing I'll put on,
I'll pass as your comrade, as we march along.
I'll pass as your comrade, no one will ever know.
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, I fear you are unkind
I love you far better than all of mankind.
I love you far better than words can e're express
Won't you let me go with you?
Yes, my love, yes.

Yes, My Love, Yes.
Sarah Emma Edmons and her story

Hra na absurdno

Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Tlachapoud
Je svačvečer. Lysperní jezeleni
se vírně vrtáčejí v mokřavě.
Vetchaří hadroušci jsou roztruchleni
a selvy syští tesknoskuhravě.

Wiki
Audio
Video

---------------------------------------------------
Absurdno je v dětské literatuře někdy přijímáno s rozpaky. Jaké byly vaše první pocity při čtení Alenky v říši divů a za zrcadlem? V kolika letech jste knihu četli poprvé? Jak se váš postoj proměňuje?

I dospělí si mohou někdy hrát. zapomeňme protentokrát na gramatická pravidla; vaším úkolem je vybrat si libovolné dvě sloky z básně Jabberwocky (nemusí následovat po sobě) a převést je do češtiny tak, aby vyvolávaly u čtenáře stejné pocity jako originál. Odpoutejte svou fantazii, hrejte si se slovy, experimentujte!




Lewis Carroll: Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


2. Anglosaská tradice

Tato říkanka založená na nonsensu je možná starší, než vypadá. Autora se mi objevit nepodařilo, očividně však text existuje v mnoha verzích a podobách.
1. Přečtěte si různé verze (nebo tady), zvykněte si na rytmus textu i opozit.
2. Pokuste se  - nikoli přeložit, ale vytvořit českou podobu!


    One bright morning in the middle of the night,
    Two dead boys got up to fight.
    Back-to-back they faced one another,
    Drew their swords and shot each other.
    One was blind and the other couldn't see,
    So they chose a dummy for a referee.
    A blind man went to see fair play,
    A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"
    A deaf policeman heard the noise,
    And came and killed those two dead boys.
    A paralyzed donkey walking by,
    Kicked the copper in the eye,
    Sent him through a rubber wall,
    Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.
    (If you don't believe this lie is true,
    Ask the blind man -- he saw it too!) 

Pohádka

A. A. Milne
Winnie-The-Pooh - Chapter 3
...IN WHICH POOH AND PIGLET GO HUNTING AND NEARLY CATCH A WOOZLE
THE Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the
beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle
of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had:
"TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he
said it was his grandfather's name, and had been in the family for a long time.
Christopher Robin said you couldn't be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said
yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers
Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two
names in case he lost one--Trespassers after an uncle, and William after
Trespassers.
"I've got two names," said Christopher Robin carelessly.
"Well, there you are, that proves it," said Piglet.
One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his
house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking
round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called
to him, he just went on walking.
"Hallo!" said Piglet, "what are you doing?"
"Hunting," said Pooh.
"Hunting what?"
"Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.
"Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer
"That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?"
"What do you think you'll answer?"
"I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "Now,
look there." He pointed to the ground in front of him. "What do you see there?"
"Tracks," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little squeak of excitement. "Oh,
Pooh! Do you think it's a--a--a Woozle?"
"It may be," said Pooh. "Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You never can
tell with paw- marks."
With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him for a
minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was
bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way.
"What's the matter?" asked Piglet.
"It's a very funny thing," said Bear, "but there seem to be two animals now.
This--whatever-it-was--has been joined by another--whatever-it-is--
and the two of them are now proceeding in company. Would you mind coming with
me, Piglet, in case they turn out to be Hostile Animals?"
Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had nothing to
do until Friday, and would be delighted to come, in case it really was a Woozle.
"You mean, in case it really is two Woozles," said Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet
said that anyhow he had nothing to do until Friday. So off they went together.
There was a small spinney of larch trees just here, and it seemed as if the two
Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this spinney; so round
this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them; Piglet passing the time by telling
Pooh what his Grandfather Trespassers W had done to Remove Stiffness after
Tracking, and how his Grandfather Trespassers W had suffered in his later years
from Shortness of Breath, and other matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what
a Grandfather was like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after
now, and, if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home and keep it, and
what Christopher Robin would say. And still the tracks went on in front of
them....
Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly in front of him. "Look!"
"What?" said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show that he hadn't been
frightened, he jumped up and down once or twice more in an exercising sort of
way.
"The tracks!" said Pooh. "A third animal has joined the other two!" "Pooh!"
cried Piglet "Do you think it is another Woozle?"
"No," said Pooh, "because it makes different marks. It is either Two Woozles and
one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it
is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them."
So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three animals in
front of them were of Hostile Intent. And Piglet wished very much that his
Grandfather T. W. were there, instead of elsewhere, and Pooh thought how nice it
would be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly but quite accidentally, and only
because he liked Christopher Robin so much. And then, all of a sudden,
Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again, and licked the tip of his nose in a cooling
manner, for he was feeling more hot and anxious than ever in his life before.
There were four animals in front of them!
"Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, and one,
as it was, Wizzle. Another Woozle has joined them!"
And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other here,
getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every now and then,
the tracks of four sets of paws.
"I think," said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, and found
that it brought very little comfort, "I think that I have just remembered
something. I have just remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and
sha'n't be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back and do
it now."
FACE="Arial"> "We'll do it this afternoon, and I'll come with you," said Pooh.
"It isn't the sort of thing you can do in the afternoon," said Piglet quickly.
"It's a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in the morning, and,
if possible, between the hours of What would you say the time was?"
"About twelve," said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the sun.
"Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, really, dear
old Pooh, if you'll excuse me-- What's that."
Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the whistle again, he looked up
into the branches of a big oak-tree, and then he saw a friend of his.
"It's Christopher Robin," he said.
"Ah, then you'll be all right," said Piglet.
"You'll be quite safe with him. Good-bye," and he trotted off home as quickly as
he could, very glad to be Out of All Danger again.
Christopher Robin came slowly down his tree.
"Silly old Bear," he said, "what were you doing? First you went round the
spinney twice by yourself, and then Piglet ran after you and you went round
again together, and then you were just going round a fourth time"
"Wait a moment," said Winnie-the-Pooh, holding up his paw.
He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he could think. Then he
fitted his paw into one of the Tracks . . . and then he scratched his nose
twice, and stood up.
"Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"I see now," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and I am a Bear of No Brain at
All."
"You're the Best Bear in All the World," said Christopher Robin soothingly.
"Am I?" said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly.
"Anyhow," he said, "it is nearly Luncheon Time."
So he went home for it.