Chapter 75, The Fall of Melbourne (Part 2)
Corporal Downey, who had not obtained any medicine and was very hungry, slowly walked out of the hospital that had been turned into a death camp with his head hanging down. Then, even more tragically, he discovered that the troops he belonged to had already left without knowing it. What happened? To put it simply, he fell behind!
Therefore, Corporal Downey had no choice but to step on foot-deep sewage and walk on the dilapidated streets of Melbourne. All he saw along the road were deserted ruins and ruins. There was almost no truly complete building or sight. A few moving figures - Melbourne, which once had a population of nearly one million before the war, now has only a few hundreds of thousands of citizens left, and they usually hide in dark cellars, not daring to go out for a walk.
When the war just broke out a few years ago, white Australian ladies would sit curiously on the top of a mountain or on a rooftop, holding small parasols in their hands, watching the explosions of planes, warships and artillery shells in the distance. But soon, when aerial bombs began to fall around them, they all learned to escape into the cellar, squatting down in dark corners covered with cobwebs and dead rats, covering their ears with their hands and shivering.
Then, their houses were reduced to rubble in the air raids. Although fire walls and fire trenches were opened, large areas of the houses were still destined to be burned down in each air raid. They can only continue to live in the house that was burned down and become smaller and smaller, enduring the miserable days.
However, although most of the neighborhoods are desolate and deserted, like ghost lands, there are still a few lively places in such a large city.
For example, the street near the dock was bustling with people, like a collapsed anthill. From a long distance away, you could hear a loud noise rolling in like a roaring wave. Looking closer, citizens and soldiers from various countries were running up and down the streets in panic, while unattended children sat on the roadside and howled. The streets were crowded with vehicles loaded with soldiers and cargo, as well as large carts piled with luggage and furniture, with children on top.
In the gaps between the congested traffic, many unkempt women and little girls were running around blindly with their dirty skirts lifted up, while chanting, "The Japanese are coming! The Japanese are coming!" as if As if to beat the rhythm of their steps.
Then, at the next moment, the hungry Corporal Downey discovered an exciting scene. Large groups of women hurried from somewhere carrying baskets. The baskets in their hands were filled with biscuits, cans and wine bottle; few A few young guys came slowly with cigarettes in their mouths, dragging bags of corn flour and wheat flour; there was also an old man who was struggling to push a bag of potatoes in a wheelbarrow. He was staggered by the crowd, but still Struggling to move forward. Everyone was running nervously, shouting, and dragging bags, bags, and boxes of food in their hands... Such a lot of food has not been available in the Melbourne market where supplies are scarce for a long time. People have seen it.
The crowd, which was originally as numb as walking zombies, was soon stimulated by these unknown foods and became commotion, and began to fight and fight with each other for these foods. The women with their hands full of big and small bags screamed helplessly, trying to keep the harvest in their hands, but they were knocked to the ground mercilessly and then looted... In the chaos, a certain place filled with The bag of dried peas burst open, and the round dried peas were scattered on the street and rolled in a large area. On the spot, at least dozens of people slipped on their soles and fell into a messy pile of meat on top of meat.
Corporal Downey, who was looking at this inexplicably, spent a while and was punched twice in the chest by an unknown guy before he finally found out what happened - it turned out that the federal government's strategic material reserve was at the dock. Next to it, there is a large amount of American aid supplies that were rushed over not long ago. Although the government moved some food, fuel, and clothing before the transfer, there was still a lot of leftover items that had no time to move away. The soldiers who finally retreated refused the government's order to burn the remaining supplies, but opened the warehouse door and allowed the citizens who had not yet fled to take it away...
So, Corporal Downey, who was also starving, immediately rushed over, pushed his way through the crowd, and then did not squeeze into the warehouse. He just bent down and grabbed some food in the courtyard full of debris. Things, he hurriedly withdrew. But despite this, he still felt as if he had fought a big battle. His whole body was so tired that he was dizzy and out of breath. His stomach was also very uncomfortable, and his bones felt as if they were being squeezed to the point of breaking.
Corporal Downey sat down on the front steps of a ruined building, holding his head in his hands, letting his breathing gradually slow down, and then he checked what he had just harvested: a bottle of beer, a box of trampled military chocolates, and A piece of fat bacon... He wolfed down the military chocolate and drank the bottle of beer. Feeling that his strength had recovered a little, he stuffed the last piece of fat bacon into his backpack and got up to look for the ferry to Shank Point.
However, the docks in Melbourne are now empty. There are no ships, no warships, not even a small sampan, only a few charred hulls full of holes - those were destroyed by Japanese planes on the shore. destroyed yacht. In addition, he was almost stunned to see an old man put a wooden bathtub into the sea, and then jumped on it with a wooden oar, preparing to row across fifty kilometers of sea with this thing...
Hey hey, this is too crazy! Port Phillip Bay is much wider than the Strait of Dover that separates Britain and France!
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Fortunately, although the sea route across Port Phillip Bay has been blocked because no ships can be found, the land road out of the city has not been cut off for the time being. Corporal Downey soon found a group of dusty and exhausted New Zealand soldiers. There was about a battalion of them, all bearded and dirty guys. They had guns slung over their shoulders and walked quickly at a marching pace. Behind them were rolling artillery carriages, pulled by skinny mules, and military trucks covered with torn canvases, swaying among the messy ranks, kicking up clouds of suffocating dust.
After some conversation, Corporal Downey learned that these New Zealand soldiers had also been withdrawn from the Western Front battlefield and were preparing to move to the final position at Shank Point via the coastal road east of Melbourne... Because of their retreat, the Japanese had just The port of Gilang on the west coast of Phillip Bay has been captured. The final safe haven in the film is no longer safe. If the Japanese military uses railways to transport torpedo boats into the harbor, just like the Turkish Sultan in the fifteenth century pulled warships across the land and into the Golden Horn to attack Constantinople, then the shuttle will Transport ships and refugee ships in the harbor will be slaughtered like prey!
Therefore, the sea evacuation across Port Phillip Bay has been interrupted. If you want to escape Melbourne to Shank Point, you can only take the land route.
Fortunately, after some negotiations and prayers, the leading New Zealand battalion commander kindly agreed to Corporal Downey to evacuate to Shank Point with them, and when he saw that his arm was injured, he called a military doctor to treat him. The inflammation was re-bandaged and a place was made for him in the truck.
In this way, Corporal Downey, who had fallen behind, got into the New Zealander's truck with a look of joy and gratitude on his face, and finally breathed a little sigh of relief. However, not long after, before the New Zealand motorized infantry battalion had time to leave the city, he vaguely heard an ominous roar from the distance... This made him feel very strange, because there was no sound in the sky above him yet. Japanese planes appeared.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion sounded not far away. He felt as if his entire field of vision was torn apart by huge flames, and he himself was thrown off the truck by the air waves, rolling dizzy on the ground. Then there were deafening explosions one after another, and the whole world turned into a hell full of noise and flames. Corporal Downey was almost stunned on the spot, and finally got up with difficulty.
Then, he saw several houses not far away spitting out bright tongues of flame, rising high into the air, reflecting the evening sky into a terrifying crimson, and large groups of black. The smoke swirled and hung over the flames like cloud billows. The dazzling sparks formed into torrents and jumped into the sky, and then drifted down slowly and lazily, igniting more houses and filling the oncoming wind with burning heat and scorching stench.
Corporal Downey jumped up when he saw this, his heart pounding, "...God! Is this...the Japanese coming in?"
"...No, it was the Australians who did it themselves. They installed time bombs in the ammunition depot in Melbourne!"
The New Zealand battalion commander looked melancholy at his team that was torn apart by the "street bomb", and said with a dark face, "...But according to the plan, it shouldn't detonate until tomorrow! It must be that You set the wrong time for an idiot... Damn it! If you don’t want to be burned to death, just run!”
As a result, the hot wind full of burning stench, the collapsed buildings in the flames and the panic-stricken crowds became Corporal Downey's last memories of Melbourne.
——In the middle of the night on the sixth day of the Allied evacuation operation, burning Melbourne was finally occupied by a Japanese reconnaissance force...
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PS: The humane Taiwanese capitalists have found experts to advocate that employees should be allowed to work 72 hours of unpaid overtime every month, saying that this is good for health. However, Taiwan currently still has one day off per week, which is equivalent to working overtime for more than an hour every day without a day off for a whole month - —It is indeed full of conscience! President Tsai appreciates this very much! She has been complaining all day long about too many holidays and too high benefits. It is estimated that the living standards of Taiwanese people will quickly become in line with the British Empire in the Marxist era. It would be even more fun if one day some experts jumped out and advocated that the great Taiwanese people should not use electricity, sleep or eat. In addition, Taiwan's electricity privatization has begun, and it is expected that it will soon use love to generate electricity, or slap itself in the face and restart nuclear power plants.