〜ヒント〜
５月２３日出題分
あまりなじみの無い単語・熟語をちょっと解説。
Seven Years in Tibet :
Escape-2I was not the only POW who wanted to get away. My two best friends, Rolf Magener and Heins von Have, also were engaged in preparing to escape. Both spoke fluent English, and they aimed to work their way through India to the Burma front. Von Have already had escaped two years before with a companion and almost had reached Burma, but was caught just before the frontier. During a second attempt, his friend had a fatal accident. Three or four other internees, it was said, planned to escape. Finally the whole seven of us got together and decided to make a simultaneous breakout on the grounds that successive individual attempts increased the vigilance of the guards, and made it more and more difficult to get away as time went on. If the mass escape succeeded, each of us, once out of the camp, could follow his own route. Peter Aufshnaiter, who this time had as his partner Bruno Treipel, from Salzburg, and two fellows from Berlin, Hans Kopp and Sattler, wished, like me, to escape to Tibet.
Our Zero hour was fixed as 2 P.M. on April 29, 1944. Our plan was to disguise ourselves as a barbed-wire repairing section. Such working parties were a normal sight. The reason for them was that white ants were always busy eating away the numerous posts that supported the wire, and these had to be continually renewed. Working parties consisted of Indians with an English overseer.
POW：この場合は、prisoner of war、つまり戦争捕虜のことです。
Rolf Magener・Heins von Have：共に人名
were engaged in 〜：〜に従事していた
aim：計画する
work：の場合は、（進路を）取る、進む、という意味だと思います
Burma：ビルマ、今のミャンマー
front：前線（ビルマ前線には、主人公たちにとっては味方である日本軍がいます。）
fatal：致死的な
internee：捕虜、抑留者
got together：集まった
make：行なう
simultaneous：同時の
breakout：脱走
on the grounds that：that以下の理由で
successive：連続する
vigilance：警戒
as time went on：後になるにつれ
mass：集団
Peter Aufshnaiter・Bruno Treipel・Hans Kopp・Sattler：いずれも人名
Salzburg：ザルツブルク（オーストリア）
Berlin：ベルリン（ドイツ）
Zero hour：予定開始時刻
disguise ourselves as 〜：〜に変装する
section：この場合は、小隊
were a normal sight：よく見かけた
them：Such working partiesを指します
eat away：どんどん食べる
post：the numerous postsを指します
these：仲間関係、友情関係
overseer：監督官