"We need not courage, but howitzers." Henry. Clayton swung the pickaxe in his hand with great force, and the thick cyan bricks were smashed to pieces.

"Stop complaining, Clayton. It's our fate, only God knows what's going on in the minds of those officers, and we can only obediently follow their baton. ”

Sergeant Hugo. Gerald was a veteran of World War I, but he was almost in his thirties at that time, and now the old leathersmith who is over fifty years old has been re-recruited by the army, and as a soldier with combat experience, he has taken on the responsibility of a subordinate commander.

But having said that, when the old cobbler really stood in this position, he found that he was really not the material to be a non-commissioned officer. Because in the face of these young soldiers who were like himself back then, he couldn't harden his heart no matter what, so everyone in the infantry battalion knew that there was a good old sergeant in C Company, which attracted the envy of the soldiers of other companies for C Company, why they had such good luck, while the non-commissioned officers in his company were all bull terriers in military uniforms.

The only one who was unhappy was the commander of C Company, who hoped that he would have a tough non-commissioned officer who could assert his authority and assist him in command. Unexpectedly, the person assigned to him turned out to be a good gentleman, but in the face of an old sergeant with gray hair in his fifties, he could only put forward his own suggestions euphemistically, and the final result was of course conceivable. In the end, it was the company commander who gave in, and it did not affect the training and operation of the troops anyway. The company commander completely abandoned the ideological transformation of Sergeant Gerald.

The infantry battalion of C Company, which served as the permanent guard of the Dover Fortress, suffered heavy losses in German shelling. Due to the disrepair of the interior of the fortress, the structure is also too old. The original soldiers' quarters were very poorly ventilated and living conditions, so after the end of World War I, there was no longer a large-scale garrison here, and most of the infantry stationed there lived in the barracks on the west side of the fortress, a two-story dormitory building with long red bricks and green tiles, and the barracks was located on the top of a mound, and the army spent a lot of effort to shovel out a flat land on the top of the mound. It can overlook the harbor of Dover, with a wide field of vision, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it does not want to become an excellent target for German artillery.

The battalion headquarters and most of the battalion's infantry were buried under the rubble in the shelling that night. Of the four infantry companies, only Company C remained, and the platoon led by Sergeant Gerald was fortunate to survive unscathed, even with its equipment intact.

The reason was that the next day it was the turn of the platoon to change guards with the fort guards, and the soldiers of the platoon packed up their personal luggage and utensils overnight. I just loaded all my belongings onto the truck. German shells hit the fortress of Dover. The old sergeant, who had been in the Somme River before, knew the severity of the large-caliber artillery bombardment, so he hurriedly informed the company commander while gathering the whole platoon of soldiers and began to move down the mountain. In the end, his judgment saved the entire company, and only a few unlucky people from the top and bottom of C Company who panicked and refused to leave the barracks died in the ensuing shelling, and the rest of the men survived the long night in the drainage canal under the mound.

Now, as a rare fully formed force, Company C was deployed to the forefront of the city's defensive circle, and they were ordered to defend an area about three blocks in size. The frontal defense line is two kilometers long, and the whole company of C Company has only one hundred and seven people, including the logistics personnel. But it's not that exaggerated. In fact, they only need to defend three key intersections, because the defense area is densely covered with buildings and walls, so they only need to arrange some observation posts to guard. Gerald served as the acting platoon leader and was responsible for the defense of one of the intersections.

The fifteen-foot-wide road is the only way to the hilly area outside the city, and the intersection is directly opposite a 90-foot-high dirt slope that leads to Folkestone. This was a battleground for the Germans, and once the Germans began to attack, the defensive line of C Company would be the first target, and Sergeant Gerald knew very well what terrible the pressure on the troops defending at such a strategic point would be, and he was not sure about holding back the German attack.

He didn't believe what the lieutenant colonel of the regiment said that the Germans had already suffered heavy losses in the previous battles, and that as long as they persisted in fighting and showed the courage of the English, the Germans would surely return with a feather and the final victory would belong to the British Empire. He didn't know how many such big words he had heard in the French battlefield back then, and the guy who believed in the of the officer was still lying in the fields of France.

But in any case, the preparations had to be made, and the old cobbler led one of his platoons and began to fortify the fortifications, and he was ready to build a plausible blocking position on the basis of the hastily completed blockade wall. Finally there was no shortage of materials and manpower, and a number of citizen volunteers and police forces joined their ranks, and the strength of the number of people was reflected here, and the outline of a barricade began to slowly take shape on the original pile of rubble.

"Henry! Henry! A young soldier stood under the barricade and shouted at Clayton.

"Oh! Hell, don't scream so loudly, I'm not deaf. Clayton smashed his pickaxe into the rubble and jumped off the barricade.

"How are these few?" Clayton frowned and took the canvas bag from the soldier's hand, the cylindrical bag was half empty, Clayton reached out and rummaged through it a few times, and found that it contained only three round drums.

"Dad, we were only given three spare drums, plus the original seven, we only have ten drums to use, which is not enough to fight." Clayton shouted at the sergeant on top of the barricade who was directing his soldiers to reinforce the sandbag bunker.

"We have a loader, I'll give you three people to help load the load, and we still have the bullets." Gerald replied loudly.

"But we ......," the Heavy was about to say his word, when suddenly the lookout post on the roof behind him exclaimed loudly.

"Attention, there are people on the mountain, O my God! There are a lot of people! ”

The Heavy hurriedly climbed up the barricade in three steps and two steps, his hands blocking the glare of the oncoming sunlight. Looking towards the hill two hundred meters away.

"Oh my God." Stunned by what he saw, Clayton took off the steel helmet from his head and rubbed his eyes vigorously with the back of his hand.

At this time, a long line of figures appeared on the hill directly opposite the street. They sped over the top of the slope and began to run down the gentle slope towards the British position. At first there were dozens of people, then hundreds, and finally a dense crowd of innumerable people appeared, like a flood bursting its banks, and like a frightened herd of beasts, with meaningless cries in their mouths. Colliding and pushing and pulling, rushing towards Gerald's position.

"It's our people! It's the British Army! The lookout shouted loudly. Clayton turned his head to look at the observation post on the top of the building, all of them with eyes. There's no need to scream like that.

What appeared in front of me was indeed a British soldier, and it was definitely not a German fake, because the Germans, no matter how skillfully disguised they were, could not show the essence of the British rout, the miserable appearance of a lost dog whose backbone was broken.

Gerald had lost his composure. He was indeed frightened by the image in front of him. Even on the battlefields of World War I. He had never seen anything like this, he had seen French soldiers running fast, and he had seen Germans fleeing in disarray, but he had never seen a British unit become as frantic as the men in front of him.

Indeed, these people have gone mad, or at least seem to be mad. These people in front of them have completely lost the courage of soldiers, and they are now just a group of ordinary people who want to flee for their lives. The army has lost its structure and organization, and the internal class hierarchy has collapsed. There is absolutely no difference between officers and soldiers at this time.

The soldiers threw away everything they thought would endanger their lives, and most were left with only one military uniform left in their bodies. They threw away weapons and ammunition packs. Because those heavy equipment not only cannot stop the enemy's pursuit, but also consumes their precious physical strength and slows down their escape. Belts and belts are also useless things, and you can't breathe well with them, and maintaining a rhythm of breathing is a thing that must be taken care of, because you don't know when the enemy will stop, and you will have a long way to run. The helmet is a complete burden, useless except to block the view and compress the cervical vertebrae, and if the German bullets really find you, it will make no difference whether there is this iron pot or not.

So the soldiers fled, unloading their equipment, and soon most of them were bare-handed, but the effect was remarkable, and the speed of the light escape was indeed greatly improved, and the German infantry was gradually left behind, which made the British rout more aggressive. Run up the hills, run into the ditches, run into the fields, run in the direction of Dover. This is the experience of the officers and men of the 5th and 6th Infantry Divisions along the way, and they found that only the road leading to Dover was that there were no Germans, and in the rest of the place there were always some vicious devils, who did not seem to be ready to take prisoners, but directly used strings of tracer bullets to force you to continue to run wild.

The German armoured training battalions and grenadiers were like the strictest of sports instructors, and they unhurriedly stood behind the British rout, and together with the paratroopers and infantry units along the surrounding roads, drove the British towards the city of Dover. The soldiers who stopped to surrender were intimidated and shot at them, making them think that the Germans were determined to kill them all, and the subsequent news made the routs even more frightened, and the rate of flight increased again.

They showed the Germans the enormous potential of the human body on this night, and the perseverance of the Englishmen in order to survive was awe-inspiring to the fact that they were able to maintain their excitement and run frantically after exhausting a group of pursuers.

Some of the soldiers, who were too weak to continue running, simply lay down on the road, and fatigue and despair made them stop the Germans from giving them a shot to end the nightmare. The Germans did not do anything to them, but simply dragged them to the side of the road, and then the British soldiers, tired like dead dogs, were thrown into the back of the truck. From a distance, it seemed that they were collecting corpses, and the British, in addition to cursing the inhuman Germans, continued to squeeze the last of their adrenaline in their bodies, and moved towards their only hope for survival, the port of Dover.

The two infantry divisions had more than 8,000 soldiers left at this time, and the night's escape had brought them to the brink of collapse, both physically and mentally, and the damage caused by the night was too heavy. Now they only have Dover in their eyes, and they decide they just need to run into the city. They will be saved.

I don't know when it started, but there was some exciting news in the team, Dover had guns, cannons and tanks. There were strong batteries and barracks, there were plenty of supplies, food and drink were not worried, as long as you got there, you didn't have to worry about anything, it was a fortress that would never fall, and it was impossible for the Germans to capture it.

This may be a lie told by an officer when he cheers up his subordinates, and Wangmei quenches his thirst, but it has become a fact. It became the hope of all British soldiers. In fact, the most dangerous rumors have not yet spread, and some people claim that there are ships in the port of Dover, and a large number of ships are parked in the port of Dover. Enough to transport them all away.

After a crazy seven-hour marathon, the rout finally made it to the outside of Dover. The Germans made way for them, and the routers unwittingly followed the path left by the Germans. Rushed to the city of Dover. Although the number of people is not tens of thousands. But in this small area, it is still as boundless as the tide of the sea.

At this point, no one could stop them from escaping, not the Germans, not the British. The barricades and positions that had been set up with great difficulty were torn down and destroyed, and the officers and soldiers who tried to stop were trampled into pulp by the frenzied crowd. The rout swarmed through the openings of the city like a pool of mercury, and the roads were crowded with figures in tawny uniforms.

They have reached their destination, but they don't know where to go. With the loss of organization, no one knows where to end. The soldiers only knew that moving forward, and moving forward was the way to survive. The city of Dover is in turmoil. The local garrison had no idea how to deal with the current situation. The outer defenses had been completely torn apart, and the original defenders had retreated into the city by these routs. The crowd was so destructive that they even overturned several Vickers tanks in their way with their bare hands, dragged the tankers out of the tanks and beat them up.

At this time, the chest of each of these defeated soldiers was full of tyranny, and the humiliation and hurt inflicted on them by the Germans made them want to find a way to vent it at any time, and any spark falling would cause a prairie fire.

So, this spark fell, and the commander of the 1st Panzer Division, Major General Evans, led his division headquarters guard platoon to block the way of the rout. The division commander, who had just been promoted to general, had already changed into the general uniform of his dreams and was wearing his full set of medals. Evans stood in the back seat of his officer's convertible car, a delicate whip in one hand and a holster at his waist in the other. He stared contemptuously at the group of embarrassed defeated troops in front of him, and he didn't know when he didn't like these two infantry divisions, perhaps because of the relationship between the command, he was subconsciously full of disgust for the officers and men of these two infantry divisions.

"What do you want, your officers? What about your commanders? Have your commander come out to me. Do you still look like a British soldier? Look at you like this, you are not even as good as street hooligans. What about the weapons in your hands? You cowards! See what you've all done? ”

Evans waved his horsewhip and frothed at the rout in front of him. Perhaps the glaring red general's collar badge and the crown on his shoulder played a role, and the soldiers in the front row began to slowly retreat, these are highly trained regular soldiers, who have been instilled with the idea of hierarchical obedience, and they will still be afraid of the general subconsciously.

But the next moment Evans made an unforgivable mistake, and he pulled out the pistol in his waist.

"You cowards, set me right now, I should shoot you all! Wait, you're all going to court-martial! Now call your officers out and immediately return to their respective units, and whoever disobeys the order......" With Evans threatening, his platoon of guards also began to raise their guns and aim at the rout in front of them.

"Let's fight! They're going to shoot us all! I don't know who roared in the crowd, as if a hidden valve had been opened, and the resentment of the British rout broke out completely.

These soldiers were not all bare-handed at this time, and the city defenders along the road provided them with a lot of weapons, usually obtained after knocking over and stepping on the ground, and these weapons used to resist the invaders became tools of the compatriots at this time.

It was not known which side of the clash was the first to strike, as all the witnesses present were killed in the subsequent fire. Major General Evans was not spared, and when the Germans found his body, they didn't recognize what it was, but they found a major general's epaulette hanging from a piece of cloth wrapped around the body, and it turned out to be a British Army general. (To be continued......)