雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(102)
For other, more powerful wheels were turning: not only Enigma wheels, but tank wheels.
The bluff was called, so the deterrent had failed to work.
戰爭已是箭在弦上，一切阻礙都是徒勞。Yet Hitler had miscalculated, for this time British duty would be done. Parliament kept the government to its word, and there would be war with honour.
希特勒沒有想到，英國這次真的遵守了諾言，對德國宣戰了。
It was much as Back to Methuselah had prophesied in 1920:
這正如《千歲人》在1920年所預言的：And now we are waiting, with monster cannons trained on every city and seaport, and huge aeroplanes ready to spring into the air and drop bombs every one of which will obliterate a whole street,
我們正等待着，巨炮瞄準每一個城市和海港，鐵鳥衝上雲霄向每個人投下炸彈。until one of you gentlemen rises in his helplessness to tell us, who are as helpless as himself, that we are at war again.
一位紳士在無助中站起，對一樣無助的我們說：哦，又打起來了。Yet they were not quite as helpless as they seemed.
不過，他們並沒有看起來那麼無助。At eleven o'clock on 3 September, Alan was back at Cambridge, sitting in his room with Bob, when Chamberlain's voice came over the wireless.
9月3日11點，艾倫回到劍橋，和鮑勃一起坐在房間裏，這時從收音機裏傳出了張伯倫的聲音。His friend Maurice Pryce would soon be giving serious thought to the practical physics of chain reactions.
他的朋友莫里斯·普瑞斯很快就會認真思考鏈式反應的實際物理原理。But Alan had committed himself to the other, logical, secret.
艾倫已經準備好了，即將投入到一個邏輯而機密的事業中，It would do nothing for Poland. But it would connect him with the world, to a degree surpassing the wildest dream.
他將扼住世界的命運，進入一個最狂野的夢境。
