http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_3fc89051010143no.htmlMonday, Oct. 26, 1942 （1942年10月26日）
THE DESPERATE URGENCY OF FLIGHT （绝望境地逃难急）
TIME'S Correspondent Theodore H. White last week cabled from Chungking this dispatch on starvation in China:
《时代》记者白修德上周从重庆发回有关发生在中国的饥饿状况的电讯。
Twenty or more thousand square miles in northern Honan Province are clutched in the grip of hunger. Men and women are eating the bark of trees and grass roots; swollen-bellied children are being sold for grain. Thousands have already died, hundreds of thousands are failing, ten millions face the slow winter-long agony of starvation. Causes: 1) the Japanese, who destroyed the rice before they retreated; 2) the gods, who sent no rain for the wheat.
北方河南省2万平方英里的土地陷入饥饿困境中。男男女女们正在啃树皮嚼草根过活，肚皮肿胀的孩子们正在被用来换取食物。成千上万的人已经死亡，数十万人虚弱不堪，上千万人在漫长的冬季中面临着饥饿的煎熬。造成这一切的缘由：1）日本人，他们在撤退时毁坏了庄稼；2）老天爷，天不下雨，地无甘霖。
Honan Province is shaped like a sloppy rectangle and is bounded on the northeast by the Japanese army, which also occupies one-third of its area. Seventy counties are left free in Honan. The 35 counties crowded close against the Japanese in the northeast pocket are being withered by the worst civilian disaster in China since the outbreak of war. Refugees crossing the Chinese lines from Shantung report worse conditions there than in Honan. The refugees drift along in a stupor of hunger and despair, having no destination, but only the desperate urgency of flight.
河南省形如一个凌乱的长方形，东北部被日军隔离，他们还占领了三分之一的区域。河南省剩下75个县属于国统区。在日本人占领下，紧密拥挤在东北部区域里的35个县，由于自战争爆发以来最严重的百姓灾难而日益凋敝。穿越中国控制线的山东难民报告说，那儿的情形比河南还要糟。难民在饥饿绝望中四处漂泊，漫无目的，仅仅是绝望境地逃难急。
Missionary E. P. Ashcraft wrote from Chengchow in September: "At the mission a few days ago six children were tied to a tree by their parents so they would not follow them as they went in search of food. One mother with a baby and two older children, tired from the long search for food, sat down to rest under the tree. She sent the two older children to the village ahead to beg a little food. When they returned the mother had died of starvation and the baby was still trying to nurse at her breast. These are just a few authentic reports which come to us. Children are being sold, I mean larger ones, both boys and girls, for less than ten dollars."
传教士E. P. Ashcraft发自郑州的9月来信写道：“几天前就在教堂所在地，有6个孩子被他们的父母绑在树干上，这样父母俩人出去寻觅食物时孩子们就无法跟随他们。有一位母亲怀抱婴儿和两个大一点儿的孩子，长时间寻找食物让她劳累不堪，所以坐在一棵树下休息。她打发两个大孩子去前面的村子里讨要一点儿食物。当孩子们回来时，他们的母亲已经饿死，而那个婴儿还在噙着母亲的乳头尽力嘬奶。这些仅仅是我们收到的为数不多的真实报告。孩子们正在被叫卖出售，我指的是大一点儿的，既有男孩子也有女孩子，一个不到10块钱。”
Catholic Bishop Paul Yu-pin returned to Chungking last week from a tour of the stricken areas. In Loyang he saw bundles of leaves being sold to refugees for food, a dollar a bunch. Children's bellies were bloated and distended with such Foodstuffs. Sometimes starving families collect all remnants of food in their homes, eat their last meal and then commit suicide. While the Bishop was visiting one village, a farmer gathered his family round him, fed them their last full meal and then told them he had poisoned the food they had just eaten.
天主教主教Paul Yu-pin对受灾区巡视后上周回到重庆。在洛阳，他看到成捆的树叶被当做食物出售给难民，一块钱一捆。孩子们的肚子因为吃了这种食物而变得膨胀臃肿。有时，陷入饥饿的家庭搜集家中所有余下的食物，家人吃完最后一餐后自杀身亡。这位主教在走访一个村子时，一个农民把全家聚集在他身边，供给他们最后一顿饱饭，而后告诉这些家人他已经在他们刚刚吃过的食物中下毒。
At nighttime missionaries rove the roads picking up waifs. They are afraid to collect children publicly for fear of increasing the abandonment of children on mission doorsteps. Other missionaries report an alarming increase of armed assaults on roads as hunger-mad peasants seek food. Farmers are starting to kill farm animals for meat.
夜幕低垂，传教士们扫视路边，接走无家可归的流浪儿。他们不敢公开收养孩子，因为担心那样一来教堂台阶上的丢弃儿童就会增加。其他传教士报告说，随着饿得发狂的农民四处寻觅吃的，路上的武装袭击惊人地越来越多。农民开始屠宰农用牲畜，以取得肉食。
From the 20,000-sq.-mile blighted area, refugees are streaming in hundreds of thousands along two main routes: the Lunghai railway and the trail of the old Peking-Hankow railway. The Government has placed a free train daily for refugee disposal along the Lunghai railway, which is carrying out 1,500 people every 24 hours. But the jammed cars, stuffed with clinging, clambering people, are evacuating only a portion of the stricken hordes. Four or five thousand people daily are setting out on the westward march along the line.
从2万平方英里的受灾区域中，几十万难民沿着两条主干线蜂拥而来：一条是陇海铁路，另一条是老平汉铁路。陇海铁路线上，政府已经安排了每天一班火车用于难民输送，由此每隔24小时可以运载1,500人。然而，拥挤不堪的车厢，充满了紧紧依附、攀爬的人们，仅仅在撤离受灾人群中的一部分。每天四五千人，则沿着铁路线徒步向西进发。
The flat and usually fertile plains of Honan are periodically visited by famine, but the last great famine, in 1927, was alleviated by rushing food supplies down railways from Manchuria. The railways and Manchuria are both in Japanese hands now, and all other roads within Honan have been cut in ribbons by the Chinese to prevent a Japanese advance.
平坦而通常富饶的河南平原周期性遭受到饥荒袭扰，但发生在1927年的上一次大饥荒由于得到了满洲里沿铁路线火速南下的食品供应而缓解。如今，铁路线和满洲里全都掌握在日本人手里，而且河南境内的所有其它道路都被中国人切割撕烂，以此阻挡日本人的前进步伐。
Unless farmers get seed grain within the next two weeks, it will be too late to plant the winter wheat and next spring there will be no harvest either. The Chinese Government is rushing 1,000,000 piculs of seed grain from Shensi Province and the same amount from Anhwei. It is also urging farmers not to eat seed grain, but to plant it, assuring them that supplies for their relief are being rushed.
农民除非在未来2周内得到小麦种子，否则就会因为错失农时而无法播种冬小麦，由此明年春季亦无收成。中国政府正在火速从陕西省调运100万担小麦种子，同时从安徽省调集同等数量。政府也要求农民不要把小麦种子吃掉，而是要赶紧播种；同时向他们保证，救助粮食正在迅速调运。
The Government has appropriated $10,000,000 Chinese for direct relief and ordered the Food Ministry to rush seed grain to the threatened areas. United China Relief appropriated $400,000 Chinese in August, $1,200,000 in September and $3,000,000 so far in October. The main relief agency is the Farmer's Bank, which has appropriated $40,000,000 for relief projects such as well-digging and irrigation.
政府已经拨款1千万用于直接救助，同时命令农业部将麦种快速运送到受灾地区。全国救济总署8月份拨款40万，9月份拨款120万，10月份迄今拨款300万。主要救济机构当属农民银行，现已拨付4千万用于诸如挖井和灌溉等救济项目。
However swift the decision in Chungking, all relief measures are bound by the slowness of the ancient Chinese countryside. The bone-piercing cold of the Honan winter is approaching. Already cholera is reported. The gaunt, hungering peasants cannot understand the administrative difficulties of their relief. For them this is only anger-heaviness which, according to folklore, is visited on earth for the misdoings of people.
无论重庆的决策来得多么快捷，所有救济措施全都受限于古老中国农村的慢腾腾节拍。河南刺骨的寒冬正在逼近。已经有霍乱发生的报道。憔悴不堪、饥饿难忍的农民无法理解救济工作中的行政困境；按照民间传说，对于他们来说这仅仅因为人们做错事导致天公发怒，降罪于人间。