Chapter 372: A Tragic Life

In February of every year, the weather in Europe is still very cold. And for people who have lost their houses, this cold is even more bone-chilling.

During the last German strategic bomber raid on London, John and his wife and two children had lost their home. Although the building had not completely collapsed, it was already a veritable dangerous building and was no longer habitable. So now their family of four had no choice but to live in a refugee shelter prepared in an air-raid shelter. The empty air-raid shelter was still very damp and cold. Not far away were several other families, all of whom were familiar with each other. But at this moment, they were all huddled together, shivering from the cold.

During the day, John had gone out and sold his wedding ring, in exchange for a few moldy loaves of bread and a bag of flour. John felt that once Germany bombed London again, the price of food would at least rise again, so he had gritted his teeth and had hoarded some, to avoid his whole family starving at that time.

But to John’s surprise, not long after he had brought this grain back to his new home in the air-raid shelter, some rich gentlemen had appeared in the shelter. They had brought folding beds and some simple furniture. Someone had even brought a radio and chairs. John didn’t know why so many people would suddenly pour into the dark air-raid shelter to live.

Later, after asking, he found out that it was because of the British Navy’s disastrous defeat. The German heavy strategic bomber group had launched an even larger-scale air raid on Manchester, causing nearly 10,000 casualties and also destroying a large area of the city’s buildings. Subsequently, the German carrier-based aircraft had raided the industrial city of Edinburgh yesterday, causing another heavy blow to the British industrial system.

The continuous air raids and bombings had made the rich people of London realize the proximity of the war and had finally made them understand how dangerous the area they were in was. Smart people are smart people at any time. Instead of waiting for the German bombers to visit London again and then to flee in panic with their families into the overcrowded air-raid shelters, it was better to just move in now and find a better spot.

And so, driven by this kind of thinking, many high officials and noble personages had begun to mark out their own territory in the deepest and most solid parts of the air-raid shelters, sending their butlers or servants down first to occupy a place. In this way, the originally damp and cold air-raid shelter had miraculously gained a bit more of a human atmosphere.

What was a little unfortunate was that the expected large-scale bombing had not arrived, which had also left John, who had been temporarily mobilized to act as a firefighter’s assistant, without a job. So John’s family, who had lost their source of income, were not doing well now, and could even be described as tragic.

He looked at his watch, and at the eighty-percent new leather bag in the corner. He helplessly calculated in his mind whether he should find a place to sell these two things tomorrow. And while there was still no trouble, to hoard some more grain for the family in case of need.

But the next day, when he had sold all his valuable possessions and was standing in the place that sold grain with the banknotes in his hand, he really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because what he saw was a grain price ten times that of two days ago, and a long queue of people buying grain that stretched as far as the eye could see.

The German submarines’ strangulation attack on the transport lines had caused a temporary gap in the already strained food supply of the British mainland. This was the direct cause of the grain price increase. And the defeat of the navy had shaken the morale of the entire country. People were hoarding grain in various ways in case of need, which had dug another big hole in the British national grain reserve.

And so the price of grain had risen again and again. If it weren’t for the fear of having nothing to eat, John even had the urge to go home and sell the bag of flour he had. He estimated that he could at least get his wedding ring back, and could even buy two more.

The scene at the recruitment office next door was also abnormally popular. On the one hand, the patriotic enthusiasm of the British people was indeed unparalleled in the world. As soon as they heard that the country was in trouble, they very consciously came to queue up and enlist. The British home army had also expanded from less than 100,000 to a number that even Montgomery was very satisfied with, 300,000, in just a few days.

Although most of the 300,000-strong army had not undergone formal training, the number was there after all, which was much better than the original estimate. This also gave the beleaguered Churchill a lot of relief.

Next to the army recruitment office was the sailor recruitment office. The number of people there was only more, not less, than at the army recruitment office. Britain is an island nation, so there are not a few people in the country who are sailors by profession. Many people have been sailors for generations, and among the older generation, there are even many experienced “old sea captains.”

The country’s predicament had made these old gentlemen, who usually had to use a cane to walk, stand up again. These people were either the young and strong main force of the British Navy during World War I, or the seasoned sailors who had gone to sea for generations. They were not at all concerned about the recruitment office’s intimidation about “the German submarines being incomparably terrifying, and the North Atlantic shipping route being a journey of no return in most cases.” They unhesitatingly swore to serve their country and to become a powerful reserve corps for sailing the seas.

Although the courage and persistence of these patriots had lessened some of the British government and the Royal Navy’s worries about a shortage of crew, the loss of warships and ships was a real and irreparable one. In this terrible consumption of less than 25 days, Britain’s massive, almost astronomical total shipping tonnage had been cut by a full tenth.

Only a few insiders understood how heavy the weight of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves hanging around the necks of the German Navy’s Lütjens and Dönitz was. It was equivalent to millions of tons of sunken British ships. So Raeder had been frequently appearing in the Völkischer Beobachter these past few days, and even that marshal’s baton was so blue it was dazzling.

Of course, all of this was too distant for John. He was now just one of the hundreds of ordinary citizens queuing up in front of the grain sales point. In his hand were the few banknotes he had gotten from selling his watch and leather bag.

What he was thinking about was not the fate of the British Empire’s fleet on the cold North Atlantic, nor the life or death of the tens of thousands of British soldiers on the French mainland. He was just worried about whether there would still be grain when the queue reached him, just worried about whether his wife and children would be cold and huddled together in the dim and cold basement.

He had finally managed to get to the front of the queue, and could vaguely see the window where the grain was being sold, but he also saw an even more desperate scene. A clerk, under the protection of two soldiers, had raised the price of flour written on the blackboard at the entrance by another thirty pence per 100 grams.

The price increase had caused dissatisfaction among the countless citizens who were queuing up behind him. It seemed that a riot was about to break out. The two soldiers were so scared that they quickly took down their rifles, worked the bolts, and chambered a round.

As the angry shouts of the people grew louder and louder, a military officer walked out of the grain sales point. He cleared his throat to the crowd and shouted, “Because the 7,000-ton grain ship Half Moon was sunk by a German submarine in the North Atlantic, this batch of grain can only be sold at an increased price. If you can wait, there will be new grain ships docking next week, and the price will naturally drop! Please everyone, don’t get excited!”

There were still people in the crowd who were excitedly waving their arms, shaking the money in their hands, and cursing loudly, denouncing the injustice and despicableness of this price increase. John did not dare to stand out at a time like this. Besides, he had just made friends with a military officer a few days ago, so he would naturally not go against the army here. So he had no choice but to avoid the man in front who was waving his arms and cursing loudly, and to dodge two steps to the side.

“Crack!” A gunshot. The officer was holding a pistol, its muzzle smoking. And the man in front of John, who had been shouting the loudest, fell backward.

“Anyone who gathers a crowd, incites emotions, and makes a public disturbance will be regarded as a German spy. No interrogation is needed. All will be killed on the spot!” the officer warned sternly. With his gunshot, the two soldiers at the door raised their rifles, and another two soldiers with submachine guns walked out of the grain shop with cold faces.

Two one-hundred-pound notes fluttered down, with two drops of blood on them. They hit John in the face and fell down his chest to his hand. He looked at the corpse at his feet, holding the banknotes in his hand, not daring to put them away, nor willing to throw them away.

Behind him, another woman in the queue stared at the banknotes in his hand. In the end, she did not speak, but bent down and picked up the two ten-pound notes from the corpse of the man at his feet and mixed them with her own money.

No one was shouting anymore, and no one was breaking the rules anymore. In an atmosphere of extreme silence, some people left the long queue and got away from this place of trouble. And more people chose to stay and buy the incomparably precious flour, which was mixed with impurities.

When John carried the two large bags of flour back home, his two children were playing hopscotch on an open space not far from their makeshift bed. And his wife was sitting by a low table, waiting for her man to come back to have dinner together.

“I was lucky today,” John said, putting down the flour. “I was lucky and got two bags of food. The price of grain has gone up again, otherwise there would have been more.”

“Don’t go to dangerous places next time, darling,” John’s wife said with a worried look on her face to her husband.

“I… I didn’t do anything dangerous,” John said, thinking of the man who had fallen to the ground, thinking of that unwilling and twisted pale face, and he explained with a stammer.

“There’s still a small drop of blood on your face that you haven’t wiped clean,” John’s wife said, thinking that her husband had done something crazy, and she advised with some anxiety.

“My God! This damned life, this tragic life!” John quickly explained to his wife. “I didn’t do anything strange! I just… picked up some money from a corpse…”

“Phew…” his wife breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this and smiled apologetically. “This kind of life… when will it ever end?”

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