), like the soil of an atomised town (словно почва города, испытавшего ядерный удар: «атомизированного города»). One could not walk there with safety for a long while (человек не мог ходить там в безопасности в течение долгого времени). While he sat there (пока он сидел там), looking at his hands and saying nothing (глядя на свои руки и ничего не говоря), I fetched a precious bottle of whisky out of a cupboard (я принес драгоценную бутылку виски из шкафа;
cupboard — буфет, сервант, горка, шкаф /часто расположенный в углу комнаты или в нише, с полками, для хранения посуды, книг и т. п./) and poured out two large doubles (и налил два больших двойных). "Go on (давайте)," I said, "drink that (выпейте это)," and he obeyed me as though I were his doctor (и он послушался меня, словно я был его доктором). I poured him out another (я налил ему еще один: «другой»).
distinguish [dIs'tINwIS], position [pq'zIS(q)n], agent ['eIG(q)nt], bother ['bODq], similar ['sImIlq], secret ['si:krIt], screw [skru:], connection [kq'nekS(q)n], relief [rI'lIf], experience [Ik'spIqrIqns], simultaneous ["sIm(q)l'teInIqs], cupboard ['kAbqd], pour [pO:], double [dAbl], obey [q'beI]
"Just wait," I said. For some reason Harry Lime had grown careless: he may have realised that we suspected him and got rattled. He held a quite distinguished position and a man like that is the more easily rattled. We put one of our agents as an orderly in the British Military Hospital: we knew by this time the name of our go-between, but we had never succeeded in getting the line right back to the source. Anyway I am not going to bother the reader now, as I bothered Martins then, with all the stages—the long tussle to win the confidence of the go-between—a man called Harbin. At last we had the screws on Harbin, and we twisted them until he squealed. This kind of police work is very similar to secret service work: you look for a double agent whom you can really control, and Harbin was the man for us. But even he only led us as far as Kurtz.
"Kurtz," Martins exclaimed. "But why haven't you pulled him in?"
"Zero hour is almost here," I said.
Kurtz was a great step forward, for Kurtz was in direct communication with Lime—he had a small outside job in connection with relief work. With Kurtz, Lime sometimes put things on paper—if he was pressed. I showed Martins the Photostat of a note. "Can you identify that?"
"It's Harry's hand." He read it through. "I don't see anything wrong."
"No, but now read this note from Harbin to Kurtz —which we dictated. Look at the date. This is the result."