Six minutes to six, said the clock over the information booth in Grand Central Station. The tall young Army lieutenant who had just come from the direction of the tracks lifted his sunburned face, and his eyes narrowed to note the exact time. His heart was pounding with a beat that shocked him because he could not control it. In six minutes, he would see the woman who had filled such a special place in his life for the past 13 months, the woman he had never seen, yet whose written words had been with him and sustained him unfailingly.
在紐約地鐵中心總站,咨詢處上方的時鐘指向了5點54分。年輕高大的陸軍中尉抬起黝黑的臉龐,瞇著眼睛看上面的時間,一顆心激動得怦怦直跳,6分鐘后,他就要見到那個女人了—在過去的13個月里一直占據著他心靈某個特殊位置的女人。雖然他們素未謀面,但她的信卻一直是他的精神支柱。
Lieutenant Blandford remembered one night in particular, the worst of the fighting, when his plane had been caught in the midst of a pack of Zeros. He had seen the grinning face of one of the enemy pilots. In one of his letters, he had confessed to her that he often felt fear, and only a few days before this battle, he had received her answer: "Of course you fear...all brave men do. Didn't King David know fear? That's why he wrote the 23rd Psalm. Next time you doubt yourself, I want you to hear my voice reciting to you: 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou 1 art 2 with me.'" And he had remembered; he had heard her imagined voice, and it had renewed his strength .
布蘭福德中尉記得那天,戰斗艱苦的時刻,他的飛機被敵機重重包圍。他曾在一封信里對她坦言,他常會感到畏懼。就在戰斗打響的前幾天,他收到了她的回信:“你當然會畏懼……勇士們都會那樣,下次你在不自信時,我希望你能聽到我為你朗誦的聲音:‘啊,是的,盡管我要走過死亡之谷,但我將勇往直前,因為你與我同在。’”他記得,正是那封信使他重新振作。

Now he was going to hear her real voice. Four minutes to six. His face grew sharp.
此時,他就要聽到她真實的聲音了,還有4分鐘就6點了。
A girl passed close to him, and Lieutenant Blandford started. She was wearing a red flower in her suit lapel, but it was a crimson sweet pea, not the little red rose they had agreed upon. Besides, this girl was too young, about 18, whereas Hollis Meynell had frankly told him she was 30. "Well, what of it?" he had answered. "I'm 32." He was 29.
一個女孩走近他,布蘭福德中尉一驚。她戴著一朵花,但不是他們約好的那種紅玫瑰。這個女孩只有18歲左右,而霍麗絲梅內爾告訴過他,她已30歲。“有什么關系呢?”他還回信說,“我32歲”,其實他只有29歲。