Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

"We had to keep running because we were so close to the road." The woman answered something, but he didn't understand.They stumbled and ran towards the center of the field again.Turner felt the pain in his body like fire.The boy was in his arms, and the woman seemed to be pulling back again, trying to take her son back.At this time, there were already hundreds of people in the field, and they all tried their best to run to the distant woods.Hearing the roar of the bombs, everyone curled up on the ground, but the woman was not alert to the potential danger at all, so he had to pull her down again, this time they pressed their faces into the newly plowed soil.The whistle of the bombs became more and more sharp, and the woman shouted loudly, as if praying for something.That's when he realized she wasn't speaking French.The bomb exploded on the far side of the road, about a hundred and fifty yards away.But at this moment the first plane turned towards the village again, lowered its altitude and began to straf.The boy was too scared to cry, and his mother refused to stand up.Turner pointed to the bombers skimming over the roof.They are on its flight track.There was no time to argue, but she didn't want to move.He jumped into the furrow and hid.The sound of machine-gun fire in the plowed fields and the roar of engines passed them by.A wounded soldier is yelling.Turner stood up, but the woman refused to take his hand.She sat on the ground, hugged her son tightly, talked to him in Flemish, and kept soothing him.She must be saying everything will be fine, Mom assures you.Turner could not understand a word of Flemish.But it doesn't matter if you don't understand, because she simply turns a blind eye to him.The boy was staring blankly at him over his mother's shoulder.

Turner took a step back, then broke into a run.He staggered across the furrow as the bombing resumed.The loam stuck to his boots.Only in nightmares do feet feel so heavy.A bomb fell on the road leading to the center of the village, where the van was parked.There was a whistling sound one after another, and when the bomb fell, he had no time to get down.The force of the explosion threw him a few feet away, leaving him face down on the dirt.After waking up, he found that his mouth, nose, and ears were full of sludge.He tried to spit out his mouth, but it was dry and devoid of saliva; he tried to dig with his fingers, but it got worse.He joked about dirt and joked about dirty fingers.He blew the dirt off his nose.His nose was black and gagged.Woods are nearby, and there may be streams, waterfalls, and lakes.He imagined the scene of heaven.When the roar of a diving Stuka bomber was louder and louder again, he tried to identify the direction of the sound.To clear the air-raid siren? His mind seemed blocked, too.He could not swallow, breathe freely, or think.When he saw the farmer and the dog still waiting patiently under the tree, his brain recovered and he remembered everything.He turned and looked back.The place where the woman and her son were just now has become a bomb crater.He looked at it and thought he knew it was a matter of time.That's why he had to leave them behind.His mission is to stay alive, though he forgets why.He continued walking toward the woods.

He walked a few steps and came to a forest.With his back to a young birch tree, he sat among the young bushes beneath the larger tree.All he could think about was water.There were more than 200 people hiding in the woods, including several wounded who struggled to get in.Not far away, a civilian was crying in pain.Turner stood up and took a few steps forward.The new leaves only whetted his thirst for water.The bombardment continued on the road and over the village.He pushed aside the fallen leaves on the ground and dug up the ground with his helmet.The soil was wet, but no water seeped into the hole even after digging to a depth of eighteen inches.So he sat down, thinking about the water, and trying to wipe the mud off his tongue with his sleeve.Whenever a Stuka plane swooped down, he couldn't help feeling tense and curled up, although every time he thought he had no strength.Towards the end, the enemy returned and fired upon the woods, but in vain except to shake the leaves and branches of the canopy.Then the plane left.What followed was an unprecedented silence over the fields, woods and villages, not even the chirping of birds.After a while, the all-clear siren sounded from the side of the road, but no one moved.He remembered the last time.Due to repeated terrorist attacks, they were in a trance and panicked.Whenever the plane swooped down, people trembled and hid in corners one after another, at the mercy of death.If death does not come, they have to go through the ordeal again and again, and the fear does not abate.For the survivors, the end of the Stukas meant paralysis after a stroke, after another stroke.Then sergeants and junior officers would run up and kick the soldiers and order them to stand up.But they were exhausted and broke.

Just like that, he sat there blankly like everyone else.He did the same during the first bombing, when he was outside a village whose name he could no longer recall.These French villages have Belgian names.He was separated from the unit, and, to make matters worse, as an infantryman, he lost his rifle.How many days ago was that? I don't know.He checked the mud-filled revolver, unloaded it, and tossed it casually into the bushes.After a while, there was a sound behind him, and a hand was placed on his shoulder. "Here, here you are. A present from Green Howard's." Corporal Mais handed him a water bottle—the owner had died in battle.The water bottle was almost full, so he took a swig to rinse his mouth first, but it was a waste.He drank the sludge along with the rest of the water.

"Mace, you are an angel." The corporal held out a hand and pulled him up. "It's time to go. I hear the Belgians are all rout. Maybe our Eastern Front will be cut off. There are still miles to go." As they were walking back across the fields, they met Nettle.He was holding a bottle of wine and an Armor bar.So the three of them passed on the delicacy. "It's delicious," Turner said, taking a swig. "Useless Frenchman." The farmer and his sheepdog are back behind the plow.The three soldiers advanced towards the crater.There was a strong smell of Kodak explosives.The pit looked like a perfectly symmetrical inverted cone, with smooth edges that seemed to have been carefully screened and raked.There was no sign of a human being here, not a scrap of clothing or shredded shoe.Both mother and child evaporated.He stopped to find out, but the corporals, eager to hurry, pushed him on, and soon they joined the stragglers on the road.The road ahead is much easier.Minesweeper engineers drove bulldozers into the village to clear traffic obstacles.In front, the raging fuel smoke billowed, as if a fiery father stood in the mountains and rivers.Bombers buzzing at high altitudes formed two airflows in the sky, one to attack the target and the other to return from the target.It seemed to Turner that he might be heading for the slaughterhouse.But everyone was going there, and he had no other way.The road they were walking would take them to the left of the clouds, east of Dunkirk, and the border of Belgium.

"Bradence," he said, remembering the name from the map. "I love how the name sounds," Nettle said. Some had blisters on their feet that could barely walk; others were barefoot.A soldier with a wound and bleeding from his chest was lying in an old cart being pushed by his companions.A sergeant was leading a cart-horse, and on his back was an officer, unconscious or dead, bound at the wrists and feet with ropes.Some soldiers rode bicycles, most walked in twos and threes.A signalman from the Highland Light Infantry arrived on a Harley-Davidson, his bleeding legs hanging limply, and a man with thickly bandaged arms in the back seat helped him pedal.Thick coats were thrown away everywhere along the way because they felt too hot to carry them with them.Turner had persuaded the corporals not to throw away their coats.

After walking for an hour, they heard a rhythmic pounding behind them, like the ticking of a great clock.They turned and looked back.At first glance, a horizontal door seemed to come towards them along the road.In fact, this is a neatly lined up Welsh guards, with guns slung across their shoulders, led by a second lieutenant.They walked in unison as they passed, their eyes staring straight ahead, their arms held high.The lagging soldiers stood by the side of the road and let them pass first.Although these are cynical times, no one dares to hiss in disapproval.This display of discipline and cohesion is a shame.As the guards thumped away, the rest of the crowd was relieved.They recalled the scene just now and began to continue their hard journey.

The scene ahead seemed familiar, and the things on the road were exactly the same, only in greater numbers: vehicles, craters, debris, corpses.As he was crossing the fields, he suddenly smelled the sea, the smell of the sea carried in the breeze across the flat, muddy land.Crowds of people flowing in the same direction with the same purpose, the self-important and constant flow of air traffic, the cloudy clouds that indicated their destination, brought back some long-forgotten childhood pleasures in his tired and hyperactive mind, Like a carnival or a sporting event – ​​it all comes together on this occasion.In memory, his father carried him up the mountain, marching toward the attractive place, toward the moving place.Although these memories are somewhat blurred, he still misses his father's shoulders now.His memory of his missing father was too little.A bow tie, a particular smell, and a vague image of brooding and irascible.Did he evade military service during the Great War? Did he change his name and die somewhere near here? Maybe he survived.Grace firmly believes that he did not join the army because of cowardice and deceit, but she has reasons to hate him.Here, almost everyone's father remembers his experiences in the north of France, or is buried there.He wanted to have such a father, living or dead.Long ago, before the war, before he went to Wandsworth, he had been free to make his own life, his own story, with the help of Jack Tallis from afar.Now he finally understands how self-righteous and illusory this is.Without a foundation, everything is in vain.He wanted to have a father, and because of that, he wanted to be one.Having witnessed so much death, how common, how natural it is to want a child.This is a common wish of man, and therefore he wants children all the more.When the wounded scream, you dream of owning a tiny house, living an ordinary life, starting a family.People around are walking silently, thinking about their own concerns, planning their own lives, and making their own decisions.If I could get out of my current fate... they would never have thought that on the way to Dunkirk, they would imagine children out of thin air, and then become flesh and blood again.He'll find Cecilia.Her address was in the letter in his pocket, next to the poem.In the desert of the soul/Let the fountain of healing flow forth.He also wants to find his father.The Salvation Army in Christianity is good at finding lost people.The Salvation Army, a very nice name.He's going to find his father, or track down his deceased father's past -- either way, he's going to be his father's son.

They walked all afternoon, and finally, a mile ahead, they saw the bridge across the Bergferner Canal.Grayish-yellow smoke billowed from the surrounding fields.At this moment, looking up, there is no farmhouse or barn along the way.A smell of carrion mixed with smoke came towards them-hundreds of horses lay dead in the field, piled up in a pile.Not far away, piles of uniforms and blankets were smoldering.A muscular private first class with a sledgehammer was smashing typewriters and mimeographs.Two ambulances were parked on the side of the road with their back doors open, and the groans and shouts of the wounded could be heard from inside.One of the wounded yelled over and over again, not a cry of pain, but an angry cry: "Water, I want water!" Like everyone else, Turner walked on.

The crowd gathered together again.In front of the canal bridge is a junction.On the way along the canal a convoy of three-ton wagons was approaching the junction from the direction of Dunkirk, and the military police were trying to lead them into the field beyond where the horses were.But the army swarmed across the road, forcing the convoy to stop.Drivers leaned on their horns, cursing loudly.The crowd was getting more and more crowded, and the people in the truck got impatient and climbed down from the rear compartment one after another.Suddenly someone shouted, "Hurry up and take cover!" Before people had time to look around, the hill of uniforms exploded, and dark green pieces of serge floated down like snowflakes.Closer, an artillery unit was smashing rifle sights and bolts with hammers.Turner noticed that one of the soldiers was crying as he smashed his howitzer.At the entrance to the field, a priest and his clerk were dousing boxes of prayer books and Bibles with petrol.Soldiers walked across the fields to a dump in the Navy, Army and Air Force snack bar, looking for cigarettes and liquor.When someone cheered, more than a dozen people came running from the road to join the search.There is a group of people sitting in front of the farm gate, trying on new shoes.A soldier with paralyzed cheeks pushed a box of pink and white marshmallows past Turner.A hundred yards away, the rubbish heap of Wellington boots, gas masks and cloaks was set ablaze, enveloping the people heading for the bridge in acrid smoke.The convoy finally began to move, turning into the largest area south of the canal.Military police, like county fair stewards, are directing the stops, arranging them in rows.The wagon joined the half-tracked vehicle, light motorcycle, tracked small armored car, and portable kitchen.As usual, the disabling solution was simple - a bullet in the radiator, the engine started, and eventually it jammed.

The bridge is manned by the Cold Creek Guard.Two piles of sandbags, neatly stacked, blocked the road and were used to mount machine guns.The soldiers, with smooth beards and indifferent eyes, silently watched the procrastinating and chaotic crowd passing by.On the other side of the canal, a neat path of white-painted stones leads to a small shed, which is the clerical room.On the far bank of the river, the guards dug trenches in east and west directions according to the area they assigned themselves.The houses built along the river have long been requisitioned, the roof tiles have been pierced, and sandbags have been piled up on the window sills to mount machine guns.A menacing sergeant maintains order on the bridge.He was escorting a lieutenant onto a motorcycle.No traffic of any kind is allowed on the bridge.A man carrying a cage of parrots was sent away from crossing the bridge.The sergeant also removed some soldiers from the bridge to build a defensive belt.He yelled and drank much more imposingly than the poor major.A small detachment, slowly growing in number, stood sullenly and idly by the clerical room.When Turner and the two corporals were still away from the bridge, they saw the scene in front of them at the same time. "Damn it, they're going to give you a hard time, man," Mais said to Turner. "Poor, damned infantryman. If you want to go home to the mother-in-law, you'll be limping between us."