Chapter Seventy-Five: The Fall of Melbourne (Part II)

Colonel Donnie, who had no medicine and was hungry, slumped his head and slowly walked out of the hospital that had been turned into a waiting camp, and then found even more tragic that his unit had gone nowhere—in short, he had fallen behind!

As a result, Corporal Downey had to walk through the dilapidated streets of Melbourne, where all he saw were deserted and uninhabited ruins, and there was hardly a truly intact building to be found, and there were few active figures in sight - Melbourne, which had a population of nearly one million before the war, now has only a few hundred thousand citizens left, and they usually hide in the dark cellars, and they dare not go out easily. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

When the war broke out a few years ago, white ladies and ladies in Australia would sit curiously on the top of a hill or on the rooftop, holding a small parasol in their hands, watching the fires of planes, warships and shells explode in the distance. But soon, as the aerial bombs began to fall and burst around them, they learned to run away from the cellars, crouching in dark corners covered with cobwebs and dead rats, shivering with their hands over their ears.

Then, their homes were reduced to rubble in the air raids – despite firewalls and fire ditches, each of which was still destined to burn down large swathes of the house. They can only continue to live in houses that have been burned down and become smaller and smaller, and endure miserable days.

However, although most of the neighborhoods are desolate and empty, like ghost lands, there are still a few lively places in such a large city.

For example, the street near the pier was bustling, like a collapsed anthill, and from a long distance, you could hear an earth-shattering noise rolling in like angry waves. Up close, citizens and soldiers of various countries are running down the streets in panic, and unattended children are sitting on the side of the road howling. The streets were crowded with vehicles laden with soldiers and goods, as well as large carts full of luggage and furniture, with small children sitting on top.

In the gap between the traffic jams, many unkempt women and little girls, while lifting their dirty skirts and running around blindly, muttered, "The Japanese devil is coming!" The Japs are coming! "It's as if they're beating their steps.

Then, in the next moment, a hungry Corporal Donnie spotted an exciting scene. A large crowd of women hurried from somewhere with baskets in their hands, filled with biscuits, cans, and bottles; A handful of young lads walked slowly with cigarettes in their mouths and bags of corn and wheat flour; There was also an old man who struggled to push a bag of potatoes in a wheelbarrow, and was staggered by the crowd, but still struggled to move forward. Everyone was running and shouting nervously, dragging bags, bags, and boxes of food in their hands...... This amount of food has not been seen in the undersupplied city of Melbourne for a long, long time.

The crowd, who were originally as numb as the walking dead, were soon stimulated by the food that came from nowhere, and began to fight and fight with each other for the food. The women, who were carrying large bags in their hands, screamed helplessly, trying to hold on to their gains, only to be mercilessly knocked to the ground and ransacked...... In the midst of the chaos, a bag full of dried peas cracked, and the round dried peas rolled down the street, causing at least dozens of people to slip on the soles of their feet and fall into piles of flesh on top of each other.

It took a long time for Corporal Donnie, who was puzzled, and at the same time was punched twice in the chest by an unknown guy, to find out what was going on - it turned out that the federal government's strategic material reserve was next to the dock, which was stockpiling a large amount of American aid that had been rushed in not long ago. Although the government removed some of the food, fuel and kimono before the transfer, there was still a lot left that could not be shipped in time. The last soldiers to retreat refused the government's order to burn the remaining supplies, and instead opened the warehouse doors for the citizens who had not yet fled......

So, Corporal Donnie, who was also hungry, rushed over at once, pushed left and right through the crowd, and then did not squeeze into the warehouse, but in the courtyard full of debris, casually bent down to touch something to eat, and hurriedly withdrew. But Rao was like this, he still felt as if he had fought a big battle, he was so tired that he was dizzy and panting, his stomach was also very uncomfortable, and his bones seemed to be squeezed to the point of breaking.

Downey sat down on the steps of the main entrance to the wreckage of a building, his head in his hands, letting his breath soothe before checking the harvest: a bottle of beer, a box of trampled military chocolates, and a piece of fatty bacon...... He devoured the military chocolate, drank the bottle of beer, felt a little stronger, stuffed the last piece of fat bacon into his backpack, and got up to look for the ferry to Shank's Point.

Today, however, Melbourne's docks are empty, with no ships, no warships, not even a small sampan, just a few charred hulls full of holes - yachts blown up by Japanese planes on the shore. 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 paddle, ready to paddle fifty kilometers across the sea in this thing......

Hey, that's crazy, isn't it? Port Phillip Bay is much wider than the Strait of Dover, which separates England and France.

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Fortunately, although the sea route across Port Phillip Bay was no longer possible because no ships could be found, the land road out of the city was not cut off for the time being. Corporal Downey soon found a team of dusty, exhausted New Zealand soldiers. They had about a battalion of men, and they were all bearded. Filthy fellows, with guns slung over their shoulders, walked briskly at marching pace. Behind them were rolling artillery wagons, pulled by scrawny mules, and ragraged military trucks staggering through the messy procession, kicking up suffocating clouds of dust.

After some conversation, Corporal Downey learned that the New Zealand soldiers had also been withdrawn from the Western Front and were preparing to move to the last position at Cape Shank via the coastal road east of Melbourne...... Because of their retreat, the Japanese had just captured the last safe haven on the west coast of Phillip Bay, and if the Japanese had transported torpedo boats into the harbor by rail, just as the Turkish sultan in the fifteenth century had pulled his warships across the land and into the Golden Horn to attack Constantinople, the transports and refugee ships that had been shuttling through the harbor would have been slaughtered like prey!

As a result, the evacuation across Port Phillip Bay by sea has now been disrupted, and the only way to get out of Melbourne to Cape Shank is to take the land route.

Fortunately, after some negotiation and pleading, the New Zealand battalion commander was kind enough to agree with Corporal Downey to retreat with them to Cape Shank, and seeing that his arm was wounded, he called a military doctor to re-bandage him and make room for him in the truck.

In this way, Corporal Donnie, who had fallen behind, got into the New Zealander's truck with a look of joy and gratitude, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. However, not long after, before the New Zealand motorized rifle battalion could leave the city, he faintly heard an ominous roar in the distance...... This made him feel strange, because the Japanese plane had not yet appeared in the sky overhead.

Suddenly, a deafening explosion sounded not far away, and he felt as if his entire vision had been torn apart by a huge flame, and he himself was swept off the truck by the air wave, rolling on the ground dazedly. Then one deafening explosion after another continued to be heard, and the whole world turned into a hell of noise and flames, and Corporal Donnie was almost stunned on the spot, and finally managed to get up with difficulty.

Then he saw several houses not far away erupt into bright tongues of fire, rising high into the air, reflecting the evening sky a terrible crimson, and large clouds of black smoke swirling like clouds hanging over the flames. The dazzling sparks burst into the sky in torrents, then slowly and lazily drifted down, igniting more houses and filling the oncoming wind with heat and scorching.

Seeing this, Corporal Donnie jumped up violently, his heart pounding, "...... My God! This is...... The Japanese came in? ”

“…… No, it was the Australians themselves who planted time bombs in the ammunition depot in Melbourne! ”

The New Zealand battalion commander looked gloomily at his team that had been blown up by the "street bombs", and said with a dark face, "...... But according to the plan, it shouldn't explode until tomorrow! It must have been those idiots who had set the wrong time...... Damn it! If you don't want to be burned to death, run! ”

Thus, the scorching hot wind, the collapsed buildings in the firelight, and the crowd running wildly became the last memories of Corporal Downey for Melbourne.

-- In the middle of the night on the sixth day of the Allied withdrawal, the burning city of Melbourne was finally occupied by a Japanese reconnaissance force......

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ps: Taiwanese capitalists with a human touch have found experts to advocate that employees should be allowed to work 72 hours of overtime every month without compensation, saying that this is good for health, and Taiwan is still a single day off every week, which is equivalent to working overtime for more than an hour a day without a day off for the whole month - it is really full of conscience! President President Tsai appreciated this! She has complained all day long that there are too many holidays and too high benefits, and it is estimated that the living standards of the Taiwanese people in the future will quickly be on par with the British Empire in Marx's era. It would be even more fun if one day an expert jumped out and preached that the great people of Taiwan should not use electricity, sleep or eat.

In addition, the privatization of Taiwan's electric power has begun, and it is expected that it will soon be necessary to generate electricity with love, or slap yourself in the mouth, and reopen the nuclear power plant.