War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 10 The Tragedy in the Highlands
In the dark night, Oleg was lifted up to the second floor by the old electrician Sergey and the firefighter Valerito. After bypassing the grenade fixed at the other end of the rope, he immediately walked along The small half of the stairs climbed all the way up to the third floor, put the sniper rifle on the corner of the broken wall, and aimed it in the direction of the destination that Wei Ran and others were about to go to.

On the first floor, Lieutenant Lev and Wei Ran, led by the firefighters Gorshi and Valery, and the old electrician Sergey, crawled in the dark to the place where another building collapsed in the distance. ruins.

Under the cover of night, their forward speed is much faster than during the day, but even so, they need to be extremely careful, because according to Gorshi, even at night, there will be German patrols around here from time to time go through.So much so that when they arrived at their destination, at least an hour had passed.

"It's almost here," Gorshi said, pointing to a piece of red brick ruins. "This should be the location of the paint shop. It used to be a beautiful two-story brick building."

"Go ahead"

Before Lieutenant Lev could finish his sentence, he had already bent down to pick up a few bricks that were still stuck together, and moved them lightly to the side.Seeing this, the rest of the people immediately stepped forward to help, and quietly cleaned up the grave-like building debris.

While everyone was busy moving, a high-spirited gun barrel gradually emerged from the stacked bricks, followed by the front of the tank, and then the small half of the turret.

When the east was gradually showing its fish belly, when the sound of rumbling guns came from the German artillery positions hundreds of meters away and the Volga River farther away, the concrete pillars pressing on the cockpit hatch were finally pushed away by everyone. to the side.

"The next step is to see if it can be activated." Lieutenant Lev lifted the heavy hatch while speaking.

"Hopefully we survive"

Firefighter Gorshi dug out a can of paint from under the chassis of the tank and pried it open. He directly dipped his hand into it and left a bright red handprint on the turret. "Comrade reporter, if we don't come back alive, If you can survive, I hope you can find this tank after the war, let everyone know my name, of course, it would be even better if we can be included in Pravda.”

“This method is good”

The old electrician Sergey also climbed onto the tank, dipped his hand into the paint can, and then slapped the turret, "Although I don't have to follow you, I also want to be in the newspaper."

"In this case, everyone leave a fingerprint."

While Lieutenant Lev was speaking, he and firefighter Valery slapped the paint-stained palms on the turret in no particular order.

On the other hand, Wei Ran was already stunned in place at this time, the four bright red palm prints on the turret of this T-34 tank had gradually overlapped with the tank in his memory!
So it turned out to be like this!
"Victor, you should also leave a fingerprint," Lieutenant Lev, who had already entered the tank turret, suggested while putting the radio headset on his head.

"Oh! Good!" Wei Ran came back to his senses, reached out and dipped his hand into the paint can, and slapped it hard on the turret of the tank!

"It's almost dawn, and it's time for us to go, Gorshi, start the tank." Lieutenant Lev said while holding the edge of the turret hatch.

"and many more!"

Wei Ran carelessly wiped the paint on his hands on his pants, "Let me take a picture of you all! It won't take much time."

"This is my first time taking pictures." The old electrician Sergey quickly climbed up the turret and supported the gun barrel to stand upright.

Seeing Lieutenant Lev nodding his head, Wei Ran quickly took out his camera, took a photo of each of them after some fiddling, and took a group photo of the four of them with the tank.

"I'll put you under the clock tower." Lieutenant Lev pointed to the end of his field of vision and said, "You should be able to see us there, and the command depends on you."

Before Lev finished speaking, the tank started smoothly, and under the driving of the firefighter Gorshi, it drove out of the ruins that buried the rear half of the vehicle almost violently!
Amidst the creaking sound of the tracks, the T-34 tank with five bright red handprints printed on the side of the turret bypassed the ruins of the building and drove straight towards the German artillery position!On the way, Wei Ran and the old electrician Sergey jumped off the tank and ran to the half of the bell tower.

This is the only commanding height where you can see the German artillery positions, but at the same time, it is also within the direct range of the German artillery.There are even five German soldiers stationed in this clock tower!It's just that they didn't intend to do the mental calculation, and they were all sent back to their hometown by the old electrician Sergey with a submachine gun as soon as they opened the door.

The two climbed all the way to the highest point along the spiral staircase. Wei Ran handed over the defensive work and the grenades to the old electrician, while he himself followed the wall and looked at the speeding tanks outside.

However, just as he was about to say something into the microphone, an exceptionally clear shutter sound entered his ears, and then the intense white light occupied his entire field of vision!

When his vision returned to normal, Wei Ran stared blankly at the familiar studio, then sat down on the cold floor, and let out a long breath of relief.

There was a soft "crash" sound, and a cowhide notebook quietly appeared, spread on the floor in front of it, and automatically turned to the second page.

On this page, the T-34 that was originally sketched with a metal quill has become a black and white photo. Beside this photo, there is even an ordinary long paper bag.

And right below the photo, the metal quill left a row of horizontal and vertical Chinese characters in the crackling sound of "唰唰唰":
Tragedy in the Highlands
Lieutenant Lev, firefighter Vasily, and firefighter Gorshi were captured by the German army due to the broken track of the tank after completing their tasks. They were shot dead in the early morning of September 1942, 9. After the Battle of Stalingrad, the three were posthumously awarded Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad, Order of the Patriotic War 29nd Class.

Electrician Sergey used radio to command the tank to destroy two German tanks, one tank destroyer, and seven artillery pieces, killing nine German soldiers, and then detonated a grenade to commit suicide.After the Battle of Stalingrad, he was posthumously awarded the Partisan Medal of the Great Patriotic War First Class.

The sniper Oleg killed 14 German soldiers. By the end of the battle, 21 Stalingrad orphans were rescued and 8 were wounded.After the Battle of Stalingrad, he was awarded the Partisan Medal of the Great Patriotic War 1943nd Class. On October 10, 20, died in the unknown wilderness during the Battle of Kyiv.

The T-34 tank, at the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, was repaired and sent to the battlefield. On March 1943, 3, it was discarded in the unnamed woodland on the banks of the Don River due to a gearbox failure.

After writing this, the metal quill started a new line, listing the certificate numbers of the medals and medals each person received in detail.

While he was waiting, the metal quill wrote again in a new line: When the photographer picked up the gun, his camera may still have the last justice and kindness.But what is recorded on the film will always be the cruelest moments of the war.

Just when Wei Ran finished reading the last word, the page with the photo attached and the words written on it also turned a page automatically.What made his hair stand on end in horror was that there was a slowly rotating blood-red swirl on the back of this light yellow paper!And in the center of this vortex, there is still something floating ups and downs!
And the metal quill that has been suspended continues to write under the blood-red vortex as if no one else is there: Camera or bayonet, there is always a photographer's weapon. The former records the most real war, and the latter creates the bloodiest killing. .

With a sound of "clang", this metal quill, which seemed to have entered the sage's time, fell heavily on the floor and did not move again.

After hesitating for a moment, Wei Ran took a deep breath, and slowly stretched his hand towards the blood-red vortex that occupied half a sheet of paper on the page, and slowly pulled out a slender Mauser bayonet from inside.What is quite special is that on the gauntlet of this bayonet, there is also an extra thick oval WWII German soldier's badge.

Holding the nearly 40 cm long bayonet and carefully looking it over, Wei Ran tried to send it back to the slowly rotating blood-red vortex again.The next scene made him widen his eyes again, the bayonet can actually be put back!

Carefully erecting the page, Wei Ran looked back and forth between the front and the back, he really couldn't figure out how this thin piece of paper could fit such a long bayonet into it.Even his attempt to close the notebook was unaffected at all!

I'm so afraid that Soviet black technology doesn't really exist?

Wei Ran, who came back to his senses, suddenly remembered something, and hurried to the workbench next to the wall, and turned on the monitor of the studio from the desktop computer in the farthest corner.

He was slightly relieved by the replay of the monitoring screen, which only recorded that after he finished calling Professor Alexis, the phone slipped and hit his big toe, and then he sat down on the floor. A cowhide notebook, which never appeared in the camera from the beginning to the end.

And the most important thing is that less than a minute has passed since he finished the phone call and checked the surveillance, and even most of the time in the picture is him sitting on the floor in a daze!
But to be cautious, he deleted the whole day's monitoring records and unplugged the power. Anyway, he was the only one watching this thing. Not only did Professor Alexei not care at all, he didn't even have the password to access the monitoring.

After cleaning up the last bit of suspicious evidence, Wei Ran picked up the notebook that was still lying on the floor. After turning to the second page, he looked at the blood-red swirl on the back. After confirming that it was still there, he turned back to the front. From the paper bag next to the black and white T-34 photo, I took out several developed negatives.

Turn on the switch of the copy board again and put these negatives on it. Wei Ran held up a magnifying glass to observe carefully one by one. These negatives were just taken by himself. In it, Oleg embraced a family portrait and a sniper rifle in his ruined home. There are photos of the old man sitting on a chair with a lame leg and playing the piano, and there are also single and group photos taken of Lieutenant Lev and others after they dug up the tank.

And what was recorded in the last negative was the picture he saw at the last moment, standing on the highest point of the dilapidated clock tower, preparing to use the radio to command the tank to fight.

In the footage captured by this negative, most of the city has been turned into ruins. At the corner, the Volga River with floating corpses and ferries reflects the sparkling sun that has just risen above the horizon.In the center of the photo, the T-34 tank, like the main character, rushed towards the artillery position directly in front of it, and between the artillery and the tank, there were two German tanks coming in the opposite direction.

Around them, the German soldiers holding guns were frozen at the moment of running, and some artillerymen rushed to the howitzers with high-spirited barrels.

"Slap" Wei Ran turned off the power of the copy board, threw the magnifying glass aside, leaned back on the chair tiredly and closed his eyes.

Although less than ten minutes had passed in the world that belonged to him, in the world that did not belong to him seventy or eighty years ago, that difficult day was longer than a century.

(End of this chapter)