From the Earth to the Moon

by Jules Verne

Once the Gun Club had been founded, it was easy to imagine the results produced by the Americans’ inventive genius. Their cannons took on colossal proportions, and their projectiles reached out beyond all normal limits to cut harmless strollers in half. All these inventions outstripped the timid instruments of European artillery, as the following figures will show.

火炮俱乐部成立后，聚集了无数美国天赋异禀的创造之才，我们不难想象他们会取得什么样的成就。他们发明的火炮体积庞大，落弹的距离都超过了一般的范围，被波及的无辜之人，尸体都难以全存。这所有的发明都远胜于欧洲的鸟枪鸟炮，以下的数字就是很好的佐证。

In the “good old days,” a 36-pound cannon ball would go through 36 horses and 68 men at a distance of 100 yards. The art was still in its infancy. It has come a long way since then. The Rodman cannon, which shot a projectile weighing half a ton to a distance of seven miles, could easily have flattened 150 horses and 300 men. The Gun Club considered testing this, but while the horses raised no objection to the experiment, it was unfortunately impossible to find men willing to take part in it.

以前“天时地利”的时候，一个36磅的炮弹在300英尺外发射，能飞越36匹马和68个人。而这仅仅是炮弹的雏形。这之后又发展了很长一段时间。罗德曼炮在7英里外发射半吨重的炮弹，就能轻而易举地炸毁150匹马和300个人。大炮俱乐部考虑对炮弹进行试验。但不幸的是，尽管马不反抗这试验，也绝无可能找到愿意参加的人。

Be that as it may, these cannons had extremely murderous effects. With each of their shots, combatants fell like wheat before the scythe. Compared to such projectiles what was the famous cannon ball which put twenty-five men out action at Coutras in 1578, or the one that killed forty infantrymen at Zorndorf in 1758, or the Austrian cannon that felled seventy enemy soldiers each time it was fired at Kesseldorf in 1742? What was the amazing gunfire at Jena or Austerlitz, which decided the outcome of the battle? There was real artillery in the Civil War! At the battle of Gettysburg a conical projectile shot from a rifled cannon struck down 173 Confederates, and during the crossing of the Potomac a Rodman ball sent 215 Southerners into an obviously better world. We must also mention the formidable mortar invented by J. T. Maston, distinguished member and permanent secretary of the Gun Club. It was more lethal than any of the others, for it killed 337 people the first time it was fired, though i is true that it did so by bursting.

无论如何，这些大炮有着极其恐怖的杀伤力。每开一炮，战士们便像镰刀下收割的小麦一样倒下。1587年，库特拉战役中那颗著名的炮弹让25个士兵丧失了战斗力；1758年，曹恩道夫战役中那颗炮弹杀死了40个步兵；1742年，在凯撒斯多夫会战中的奥地利大炮，一发炮弹就炸倒了70个敌军战士。那在耶拿或者奥斯特利茨战役中，左右战斗最终结果的那惊人的火炮又是些什么？内战中的才是真真正正的火炮呢！葛底斯堡战役中，一架回旋加农炮投射的一颗圆锥形的炮弹击中了173名南部联邦的士兵，在渡波托马克河时，一颗罗德曼炮弹将215名南方士兵送往了极乐世界。我们还得提一下大炮俱乐部有名的成员、常任秘书马斯顿发明的强大的迫击炮，这可比其他任何火炮的杀伤力都要强，第一回开炮就炸死了337个人，真的是一炸就解决了。

What can we add to these figures, so eloquent in themselves? Nothing. It will therefore be easy to accept the calculation made by the statistician Pitcairn: he divided the number of members in the Gun Club by the number of victims of their cannon balls and found that each member had killed an average of 2,375 and a fraction men.

这些数字有着这么强的说服力，我们还能说什么呢？没什么可说的，因此统计学家皮特凯恩的计算就很容易被接受了：这人把火炮俱乐部的成员按照他们发明的大炮杀死的人数来划分，然后发现平均下来每位成员都杀了两千三百七十五点几个人。

From this figure it is clear that the aims of that learned society were the destruction of the human race for philanthropical reasons and the improvement of war weapons, regarded as instruments of civilization. It was an assemblage of Angels of Death who at the same time were thoroughly decent men.

从这些数字来看，这个学术性团体是以用博爱为出发点的毁灭人类为目标，还将其改良的战争武器视为人类文明的工具。这是一群集天使与死神于一身的天才们。

It must be added that these dauntless Yankees did not confine themselves to theory: they also acquired direct, practical experience. Among them were officers of all ranks, from lieutenants to generals, soldiers of all ages, some who had just begun their military career and others who had grown old over their gun carriages. Many fell on the field of battle, and their names were inscribed on the Gun Club’s Honor roll. Most of those who came back bore the marks of their unquestionable valor. Crutches, wooden legs, artificial arms with iron hooks at the wrist, rubber jaws, silver skulls, platinum noses—nothing was lacking in the collection. The aforementioned Pitcairn calculated that in the Gun Club there was not quite one arm for every four men and only one leg for every three.

必须补充的是，这些无畏的美国人并不桎梏于理论，他们还亲身投入实际的试验当中。在他们当中有各级军官，从中尉到将军，有各个年龄段的士兵，一些人刚刚开始自己的军事生涯，一些人在他们的炮架上老去。许多人在战场上倒下，他们的名字被刻在火炮俱乐部的光荣榜上。生还归来的大部分人都有着有毋庸置疑的标志，勇敢。拐杖，木制的腿，假臂，手腕上的铁钩子，橡胶下颌，银色的头骨，白金鼻子，没有没说到的地方了。还是皮特凯恩这个人算了一下，火炮俱乐部中每四个人都分不到一条完整的胳膊，每三个人才分的到一条腿。

But these valiant artillerymen paid little heed to such trifles, and they felt rightfully proud when a battle report showed the number of casualties to be ten times as great as the number of projectiles used.

但是那些勇敢的火炮发明家对这样的小事毫不上心，当战报上伤亡数字是火炮发射量的十倍不止时，他们还引以为豪。

One day, however, one sad and wretched day, the survivors of the war made peace. The shooting gradually died down; the mortars felt silent; muzzled howitzers and drooping cannons were taken back to their arsenals; cannon balls were piled up in parks; bloody memories faded; cotton grew magnificently in abundantly fertilized fields; mourning clothes and the grief they represented began to wear thin, and the Gun Club was plunged in idle boredom.

然而有一天，一个伤感，冷清的一天，战争的幸存者停战求和了。炮轰渐渐平息，迫击炮沉默了，钳制榴弹炮和加农炮被带回了他们的军械库，炮弹堆积在厂里的空地上，记忆中的鲜血逐渐消散，肥沃的土地上长着茂盛的棉花，丧服和他们脸上的悲痛开始逐渐消失，火炮俱乐部也无所事事。

A few relentless workers still made ballistic calculations and went on dreaming of gigantic, incomparable projectiles. But without opportunities for practical application these theories were meaningless, and so the rooms of the Gun Club became deserted, the servants dozed in the antechambers, the newspapers gathered dust on the tables, sounds of snoring came from the dark corners, and the members, once so noisy, now reduced to silence by a disastrous peace, lethargically abandoned themselves to visions of a platonic artillery.

一些无情的工人依然在做着弹道计算，并继续幻想着威力巨大无比的炮弹。但是，如果没有实际应用的机会，这些理论就是毫无意义的，所以大炮俱乐部的房间变得愈加冷清，佣人在前厅打着瞌睡，满是灰尘的报纸堆在桌子上，从黑暗的角落里传来鼾鼻声，昔日的同僚们是多么的热闹啊，现在全都因为这与祸患无异的和平而逐渐沉默，逐渐没入黄粱梦般的制炮学的美梦中去了。