Chapter 108: A Christmas Story During World War III (4)
At dusk on December 24, 1946, Bath, the hot spring city in southwest England
While the Germans were struggling to rebuild their homes from the ruins and celebrate Christmas, the British were watching their homes irreparably fall into ruins.
Anne Mormont, a 22-year-old former female soldier of the Royal Air Force Women's Volunteer Service, was currently wrapped in a woolen military coat and standing on the third floor balcony of her home in Bath, listening to The bells from the distant church were heard while overlooking the street scene in the dusk.
The red-haired and blue-eyed Anne Mormont is a beauty who is obviously of Scottish descent. She has bright eyes and a turned nose, snow-skinned red lips, and her fiery red hair is tied up high, revealing her slender snow-white neck and delicate cheeks. A few freckles did not ruin her beauty, but added a bit of innocence and playfulness. Standing on the balcony of his apartment at this time, his mouth was slightly open, his eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and there was obviously a trace of sadness and worry in his expression.
Hey, only a month or two has passed. How come the appearance of this city of Bath has become almost unrecognizable to me?
——As a famous tourist city in southwest England, Bath was known as the most beautiful city in England in Victorian novels. Since the beginning of the Georgian Dynasty, Bath has been a popular health resort: because it has the only tourist attraction in the UK. Hot springs: Bath Hot Springs.
As early as the ancient Roman era, the Romans in the British Province built gorgeous hot spring baths here to enjoy the comfort and comfort of hot springs. In the Dark Middle Ages, Bath's thermal baths were once abandoned. However, with the advent of the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, as well as changes in Westerners' concepts of hygiene and cleanliness, Bath, a picturesque hot spring city, once again became a It has become a popular holiday destination for the British rich and powerful. Luxurious villas, apartments and hot spring hotels have sprung up one after another in Bath. Exterior walls and columns made of cream-colored stones, ancient Roman-style marble sculptures, neatly manicured Western gardens, and ancient Roman-style open-air hot spring pools can be seen everywhere in the city. The beautiful scenery on the outskirts of Bath is dotted with many luxurious palace-like manors, which have private hot spring baths for the enjoyment of dignitaries from London.
Even though the British Empire has spent six years in the war, because the tourist city of Bath is neither an industrial town nor a garrison fortress, it has little military value, so it has suffered very few bombings, let alone nuclear explosions. , various landscape architecture and pastoral scenery are still intact.
As a native girl of Bath, Anne Mormont has always been honored and proud of the beautiful scenery of her hometown. But at this moment, in her field of vision, the street scene of Bath, a tourist city, had already changed beyond recognition.
——At least a quarter of the elegant Victorian-style buildings in the city have been burned into blackened ruins, with only a few crumbling walls still standing in the cold wind. The streets that were once clean and flat, dotted with green trees and flower beds, now have a lot of unsightly objects - all kinds of old furniture, useless debris, toppled street stone and bronze statues, and burned statues. The wreckage of cars and carriages, as well as construction debris unearthed from the ruins... citizens used these things to build barricades and stretched barbed wire outside the barricades, turning the city into a huge fortress. The roofs of some buildings were also covered with sandbags and machine guns or mortars were set up, just like the French Paris Commune during the revolutionary era.
Although dusk has fallen, the lights in the city of Bath are still sparse, like ghosts - due to the collapse of the power grid, the street lights in the city have been extinguished for more than a month, and kerosene and candles are also very precious in this cold winter when everything is scarce. As a last resort, no one would be willing to light a lamp. However, the smoke drifting from the kitchen chimneys still gave this dim city some life. Especially now that the light of civilization in Great Britain is gradually extinguishing and falling into the dark age, even this little bit of ordinary life seems extremely precious.
Recalling all the things she saw, heard and experienced when she escaped from London more than half a month ago, Anne Mormont couldn't help but sigh quietly, feeling that the beautiful city of Bath had become ugly. A giant fortress, as long as the neighbors can survive, it’s pretty good...
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Before the outbreak of World War III and the nuclear explosion in London, Anne Mormont was recruited into the Women's Voluntary Service and originally worked as a telephone operator in the communications office of a Royal Air Force airfield near Dover. When she enlisted in the army, the Battle of Britain between Nazi Germany and the British Empire had long ended. After that, although the Soviet Red Army and the British Expeditionary Force fought fiercely on the European continent, they rarely bombed the British mainland.
Therefore, as a woman who does not have to fly a plane herself, her job at RAF Dover, although quite heavy and hard, is not very dangerous, and she can also enjoy special treatment as a soldier, which is very dignified and honorable - —At least Anne Mormont herself thinks so.
However, in late autumn of this year, with the official outbreak of World War III, everything she knew was destroyed.
——London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Oxford, Liverpool, Belfast... Every familiar place name was wiped out under the mushroom cloud of the Soviet atomic bomb. Whenever I hear the sad news on the radio that a city has been destroyed, a girl in the women's volunteer service team who was born in that city will cry for pain, and even faint from grief.
On the other hand, although the boys of the Royal Air Force tried their best, they still could not prevent the Soviet strategic bomber groups from roaring in again and again, gradually turning the country into a radioactive wasteland. In the end, even the Royal Air Force Base in Dover itself, was also destroyed.
——Although the Soviets did not include Dover on the list of nuclear explosions, as an important place to guard the strait and the first barrier for the British to prevent the invasion of the European continent, this city and its military airport are still It became the key target of the Soviet strategic bomber group.
So, on that nightmarish night, from dusk to early morning, the air was filled with rumbling thunder. Before hiding in the air-raid shelter, Anne Mormont saw with her own eyes the terrifying shock wave that directly tore brick walls, tore off wires, snapped street lamps, and shattered the glass of the entire row of buildings into pieces, like a burst of crystal rain. The building where he worked also collapsed in the explosion. There were also dense fireballs rising in the air force base, throwing countless debris and burning debris into the air, and then splashed everywhere, scattered on the roofs of surrounding houses and streets, and raised more flames and smoke. In the fire and smoke, people running around screamed and shouted like crazy, but their voices could hardly be heard.
When the bombing came to an end and the people who had narrowly escaped escaped from the air-raid shelters again, Anne Mormont discovered that the air force base where she worked had been completely changed beyond recognition, as if the doomsday was coming. There are ruins and rubble everywhere. The oil depot and ammunition depot were ignited into a sea of fire, and thick black smoke enveloped the entire base. The runway was not only bombed as if it had been plowed, but also countless small time bombs were dropped, which exploded twice from time to time... The survivors ran around shouting, and the wounded cried and wailed. The scene was really horrible to watch.
In the following days, although the survivors of the base tried to repair the runway, Soviet bombers repeatedly visited and dropped bombs and even poison gas bombs over and over again, which not only reduced the number of living people in the base, but also slowed down the repairs. It can never catch up with the destruction. Moreover, as early as the first bombing, the hangars, ammunition depots and oil depots were all destroyed. Even if the airport was repaired, it would be of no avail, so work had to be gradually stopped.
Next, as more and more nuclear bombs fell on the British mainland, social order became more and more chaotic, and the domestic communication network quickly collapsed. Naturally, Anne Mormont, the telephone operator, had nothing to do. After Prime Minister Churchill moved the government to Belfast, communication between Dover Airport and higher authorities was completely cut off, and everyone had an ominous premonition of impending disaster and doomsday.
As a young and beautiful girl, like ordinary people, Anne Mormont's first reaction in this situation is to go home.
However, the way home was not easy. The more than two hundred kilometers from Dover to Bath was only half a day's journey by train in peacetime. But in today's time when nuclear explosions are everywhere and the country is collapsing, for a weak woman to travel such a long distance alone is almost no less than a desperate adventure.
However, it is obviously more dangerous to continue to stay in Dover. Not to mention being the first line of defense of the strait, if there is an enemy invasion from the European continent, Dover will definitely become the first landing place - Anne Mo Ermon really didn't dare to hope that he could survive being tortured to death in the prisoner of war camp; just the sight of the colonial soldiers around him who had turned into bandits and bandits, and the Soviet aerial bombs that fell from time to time above his head, were enough to scare people.
So, Anne Mormont tried her best to get a pistol and more than 30 rounds of ammunition. She also found an unowned pickup truck, collected some biscuits, cans and wine, and managed to steal it from the still burning oil depot. A barrel of oil was produced, and then, on the day Queen Elizabeth II announced the unconditional surrender broadcast, Anne Mormont and three other girls from the Women's Volunteer Service left the Dover Air Force Base and hit the road together. .
Next, she entered a wild land - England, which had experienced multiple nuclear explosions and was abandoned by the Queen and the Cabinet at the same time!
England, once the brightest beacon of the civilized world, has now become a barbaric world where all civilization and order have disappeared, leaving only boundless vast land. In this land, people wander around in search of communities that have long since ceased to exist. There is no government in any sense, either central or local. There were no means of obtaining information - newspapers and magazines, railways and roads, telephones and telegraphs, all had been destroyed in the war, and the post office could no longer deliver letters. The frightened people had no means of communication, only contradictory rumors spread by word of mouth. The radio occasionally worked, but the signal was always vague and mostly in a foreign language.
The banks have disappeared, but that's okay because money has no use in these dark ages. The shops were also closed because there was nothing for sale. Whether in cities or villages, all production activities have stopped. Even if the factories and enterprises that once existed have not been destroyed, they have nothing to do because the upstream and downstream industrial chains have been interrupted. And the workers had no place to get food. Law and order were gone as the police and judges disappeared. Right and wrong become meaningless. Everyone was left to fend for themselves, disregarding legal ownership rights; indeed, even legal ownership rights themselves disappeared. Property only belongs to those who are strong enough and those who are willing to risk their lives to keep it. Men armed with weapons wandered the streets, snatching what they wanted and killing those unlucky enough to fall into their hands. Regardless of class or age, women are willing to sell their bodies for food and shelter. There is no propriety, justice, integrity, no ethics, only survival above all else.
What makes people even more horrified is that even this scene is not the most terrifying. What is even more terrifying is that there are not even these seemingly evil and chaotic scenes - there is no sight of the dark and thin little girl crying. You can't hear the trembling old woman moaning in pain, and you can't see the hungry baby with a pale face. Among the charred rubble and ruins, there was only deathly silence and solemnity. Entire villages and towns were brutally massacred.
Therefore, along the way, they saw countless burning or dead villages and towns. The roads were full of war refugees who had lost their homes in bombings and nuclear explosions and were wandering around. Since the government of the British Empire has basically collapsed, no one can provide them with the minimum relief. Driven by hunger and cold, many of the refugees have turned into thieves, pretending to be honest and waiting on the road. As soon as the pedestrians relaxed their vigilance, they would take out weapons hidden in their clothes to kill and steal goods. There are still quite a few disintegrated troops who have simply blocked cars and robbed villages in an open and honest manner... All law and order have become a decoration, and the entire country seems to have completely fallen into the hands of thugs and hooligans. They smashed stones at shops, robbed goods, killed people in the streets, raped homes, set fires, and mutilated corpses and destroyed traces of their bodies. They committed crimes everywhere, but no one came to control or suppress them. The victims lying in a pool of blood did not receive any treatment.
By the time the red-haired girl Anne Mormont finally returned to her hometown of Bath, which had changed beyond recognition after three days and nights of horrific adventure, her pistol had run out of bullets, and her three Among the female companions, an unfortunate girl died on the way.
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Compared to all the chaos and tragedy Anne Mormont saw on her way home, the situation in the tourist city of Bath was quite lucky.
——Although the Soviet strategic bomber group also dropped a poison gas bomb on Bath in late November, killing hundreds of citizens, it at least did not reduce the city to ruins. As for Anne Mormont's parents and her house in her hometown, they were all unharmed during the bombing.
Of course, even so, Bath's running water, electricity and gas supplies were definitely gone, so many frail old people froze to death in the severe winter, and some people contracted dysentery because of unclean drinking water. But when other big cities in the UK were successively reduced to radioactive ruins by atomic bombs, and small towns were reduced to ghosts under the impact of defeated troops and starving people, Bath, which was able to keep its city appearance intact, was already like a paradise in comparison.
However, as the whole of Britain is gradually falling into the dark ages of hell mode, Bath, a small inland city, is not immune. Just two days before Anne Mormont returned home, a group of black soldiers who came from nowhere suddenly broke into Bath, killing people, setting fires, and looting wantonly... Fortunately, like most towns in Britain, this place At that time, a battalion of the National Guard had been formed in the city of Bath. Under the command of a 70-year-old retired army major general who had fought in World War I and the Boer War, the Bath Self-Defense Battalion fought fiercely all night with the invading mutinous rebels. Although they paid the price of hundreds of casualties, dozens of houses were burned down. , but finally repelled the black troops and kept most of the urban area safe.
Later, as the domestic situation became increasingly chaotic, news of various broken troops and armed gangs attacking towns and massacring residents came one after another. In order to prevent the bandits from attacking again, the municipal authorities of Bath organized citizens across the city to collect and collect information on the spot. With the materials, the barricades surrounding the city were urgently built within a week, and the red-haired girl Anne Mormont who returned to her hometown naturally also contributed. After the barricade was completed, although it looked ugly and incompatible with the original Victorian style of the hot spring city of Bath, it could give the citizens a sense of security - which was more precious than anything else in the chaotic dark ages.
In short, by the end of December, with England having been abandoned by its rulers, the city of Bath seemed to have become a small independent kingdom. Although there is no water, electricity or gas like other cities, and pound notes cannot buy anything in the city, the citizens still have a daily ration of two hundred grams of bread, instead of having to eat one meal without worrying about the next day. Where is the bread? Having a house that can protect you from the wind and rain, instead of having to hide in the wilderness; being able to sleep peacefully on your bed at home without worrying about dying in your sleep - in hell mode England, this is already a luxury .
So, when Christmas Eve was coming, Anne looked down at the barricade at the end of the street worriedly for a while, put a smile on her face as much as possible, walked off the balcony of her home, and went to the kitchen to help her mother prepare for the night. Christmas dinner for guests.
More than half an hour later, with the last twilight of the setting sun, groups of guests began to visit one after another to attend the Christmas party held by the Mormont family. Among them are Dr. Wallace's family next door, Reverend Wishart's family two streets away, Mr. Salmond, who originally lived on a farm outside Bath, but now fled to the city to seek refuge with relatives and friends... all of them, men and women. There were no less than twenty people, old and young, from all walks of life. However, they basically all have one thing in common, that is, most of them, like the Mormont family, have Scottish red hair.
——Because Scotland declared independence not long ago and shamefully betrayed the British Empire, the Scots living in England today cannot help but receive more or less rejection. The situation in the city of Bath is relatively good. In some particularly conservative and isolated small villages and towns, there are even cases where Scots who have settled for many years are driven out to fend for themselves... Faced with such a situation, living in the city of Bath is The Scots, facing increasingly worrying and hostile looks, could not help but begin to strengthen contact and hug each other for warmth.
Therefore, in order to whitewash the peace, the City Hall of Bath City announced that it would hold a Christmas celebration at the Abbey Church in the city center, inviting all the gentlemen and ladies in the city to participate. But the Scots, who were unwilling to look away, would rather gather in the Mormont family's living room to celebrate their own Christmas.
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Because today is Christmas, Anne Mormont's mother, Mrs. Mellon, not only prepared a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, but also lit up the fireplace in a luxurious manner, lit three candles on the long table in the living room, and took out the treasures from her collection. A can of Spam, a can of American powdered eggs and a few apples.
And the guests visiting tonight also know that in these damn days, every household's food reserves are very tight, and pound banknotes have become waste paper, and there is nowhere to buy food. The host's family wants to get It's really not easy to prepare a decent Christmas dinner to entertain so many people, so when I came to Mormont's house, I brought more or less some food with me. For example, Dr. Wallace brought a piece of corned beef and half a pound of candy, Reverend Weishart brought a basket of potatoes and onions grown in his garden, and Mr. Salmond brought two A bottle of whiskey and a bottle of beer... Finally a table of food and wine was put together, so that the Mormont family was not in a position to entertain guests with rat meat...
All in all, under the dim flickering candlelight, with the meager and shabby food and wine on the table, everyone exchanged glasses for several rounds, and couldn't help but feel a little tipsy, and started chatting one after another - some people sighed at the fact that they, the Scots, It is becoming more and more unpopular in the city of Bath, and God knows how it will change in the future. What has happened? Some people complain that there is a lack of medical treatment and medicine in the city, and it is extremely difficult to get a few aspirin; some people are worried about the uncertain future of the country and do not know when order can be restored; some people recall the burned houses and the killed relatives , couldn’t help but burst into tears in public...
Seeing that what was supposed to be a joyful and festive Christmas party was about to turn into a meeting of weeping complaints, Pastor Weishart, who was good at smoothing things over, quickly stepped forward to liven up the atmosphere, walked to the piano in the corner of the room, and with the help of weak candlelight, The music was played skillfully - first a few lively and joyful folk ditties, and then the traditional British evening party repertoire, the world-class famous song "Auld Lang Syne".
So, with the help of the slight drunkenness and the rare warmth, everyone stood up from the table and sang loudly with various voices:
"...How can we forget our old friends and not miss them in our hearts? How can we forget our old friends? Friendship lasts forever!
Long live friendship! Friends, long live friendship! Raise a toast and drink together, singing the praises of everlasting friendship.
We used to wander around the green hills of our hometown all day long. We have also gone through many hardships and wandered around.
Long live friendship! Friends, long live friendship! Raise a toast and drink together, singing the praises of everlasting friendship.
We also paddled happily on the green waves all day long. But now they have separated and are separated by vast oceans.
Long live friendship! Friends, long live friendship! Raise a glass and drink, and sing the praises of everlasting friendship together..."
Among the reverberating songs, some people recalled the beautiful peaceful years before the war, and some people missed their relatives and friends who were still alive... However, before the song was finished, a loud noise suddenly came from outside. Come and break the silence of Christmas Eve. Then, the singing and piano playing in the Mormont family's living room suddenly stopped. Everyone whispered in surprise and looked around, looking for the source of the sound.
"...What is this sound? Whose gas pipe burst? No, hasn't the gas stopped long ago?"
"...I feel like it sounds more like...no way! Is there someone firing a cannon nearby?!"
However, Pastor Weishart, who was playing the piano, frowned and seemed to remember something. He took his hands away from the keys, took out a pocket watch from his pocket and looked at it. Then he stood up and announced to everyone, " ...Everyone, please be quiet and don’t be afraid. I remember people from the city hall seemed to have said that fireworks might be set off at the Christmas celebration at Abbey Church tonight. Although it is a little early, it may be set off in advance. ! ”
After hearing this seemingly reasonable explanation, everyone nodded and sat down again. However, before Pastor Weishart could play the music again, a huge metal object suddenly broke through the window from the outside with the sound of howling wind, splashing a piece of glass shards, and then landed on the ground that had just left. The red-haired girl Anne Mormont came into the kitchen with a basin of hot soup, and the soup basin was overturned on the spot, splashing all over her body and face.
When everyone came to their senses, they turned around and looked closely, and suddenly saw a cannonball stuck on the pine floor. The front half of the shell had penetrated under the floor, and the back half of the shell was still exposed... But for some reason it didn't explode. At this time Like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand.
As they watched the unexploded bomb that broke through the window on Christmas Eve, the expressions of everyone in the living room were quite exciting for a moment.
Before he finished speaking, Pastor Weishart was stunned.
The red-haired girl Anne Mormont, who was splashed with hot soup, was stunned.
The other guests present were also stunned.
Because, except for the word stunned, there seems to be no other word that can describe their hearts that are almost collapsed at this moment.
——Santa Claus is here! There really is no more exciting Christmas gift than this!
Of course, the next moment, hysterical and crazy screams rang out in this originally happy living room. "...Damn it! It's really a shelling! Everyone, get down quickly... No! Run away quickly, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-"