War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1001
At the southernmost tip of the island, Wei Ran and Hawkes walked forward little by little through the clear sea water that submerged their knees. From time to time, Wei Ran, who was walking in the front, would take out his binoculars and lift it up to look ahead .

"Victor, haven't you seen Evans yet?" Hawkes asked with his hands on his knees.

"saw"

Wei Ran pointed to the distance, handed the telescope to the other party and said with a smile, "It's not far away, and I know why he called us to help."

"Why?" Hawkes asked subconsciously, but at the same time he took over the telescope and looked in the direction of Wei Ran's finger.

Soon, he found the answer himself.

With the help of binoculars, he could clearly see that Captain Evans was sitting on a reef protruding from the sea in the distance at this time, and beside him, there was a large red and white object!

"That life raft?!" Hawkes said in surprise.

"right"

Wei Ran quickened his pace while speaking, "There are many good things that can be used on that life raft. It must have been pushed here by the waves after the high tide last night."

"The Great Chief has come a long way"

Hawks turned his head and looked behind him. At this time, they were at least three kilometers away from the small island behind them, but the distance between them and Captain Evans was at least more than one kilometer away.

"I guess he must have expected it a long time ago." Wei Ran said admiringly, "Maybe he went for the life raft or the lost thermos."

"Why?" Hawkes asked puzzled.

"This morning, before the chief set off, he deliberately used a telescope to look at the direction where we ran aground yesterday." Wei Ran said after a pause, "So I guess he must be looking for the life raft."

"The more you say that, the more I regret not being able to serve on the Johnston." Hawks said quickly.

"The Hall is also good." Wei Ran said seriously, "She is also a heroic destroyer."

"Our captain must be very happy to hear you say that."

Hawks showed a simple and honest smile, followed by a sigh, "I don't know how many people on our ship survived."

"Although I can't answer your question, I can assure you that you will survive." Wei Ran said confidently.

"I hope so"

Hawkes bent down and picked up the sea water to wash his face, then changed the subject and said, "The water here is getting shallow again."

"It's because the underwater reef has risen, let's speed up, the great chief will suffer from heat stroke later."

"That's right!" Hawks nodded in agreement, and followed Wei Ran to quicken his pace.

Although Captain Evans had already prepared for the discovery of the life raft, when Wei Ran and the two really came close, they still opened their mouths and widened their eyes.

At this time, Captain Evans, with an umbrella cloth wrapped around his face and the sunglasses that Wei Ran gave him, was indeed sitting on a reef about one meter above the sea.

But under his feet, there was a sea turtle that was the size of a washbasin and was constantly struggling!
What's even more exaggerated is that at this moment, Captain Evans was actually holding an oyster that had been pried open, and was putting it into his mouth!
"You are finally here"

Captain Evans threw away the oyster shells in his hand, swallowed the oyster meat in two or three bites, pointed to his feet and said, "Which one of you brought a knife?"

"I brought it!"

Wei Ran and Hawkes said in unison, the difference is only that the former took out a paratrooper knife, while the latter took out a bigger jackknife.

"Whoever it is, kill it quickly, this guy's strength is too great, my feet are going numb."

Evans said and pointed to the reef under his buttocks, "In addition, there are a lot of oysters growing here, Victor, how about you prying them off? Then we can have a full meal."

"no problem"

Wei Ran came over to help hold the turtle, looked at the rope connecting the life raft and the reef and asked, "Great chief, don't we take this life raft back?"

"Leave it here until those two pilots are dealt with"

Captain Evans said while removing the gas cylinders and manual pumps from the life raft, "But we have to take these two back and hide them, so that even if the life raft is discovered by them, don't even think about it." fix it."

"Is there much damage?" Wei Ran asked a key question.

“Not too big”

Evans compared a size of ten centimeters at most with his hands, "I checked it, and there is only such a big damage, but I am worried that Mr. Akira has hidden the repair tools, patches and glue of the life raft. After all I haven't seen anything like that since we commandeered this life raft."

Before he finished his words, Hawks stabbed the turtle in the neck. Suddenly, the smelly blood filled the sea water, but soon, the turtle was carried by Hawkes to the reef. Then, he poured the water from his kettle into Evans's, and immediately moved to the edge of the wound, letting go of his fingers holding the wound, and sucked the stinky blood.

"What are you going to use it for?" Seeing that he was no longer needed, Wei Ran simply asked while using the gravity knife to shovel the oysters on the reef.

"It can be used for fishing," Hawkes said confidently.

"I'll leave it to you here"

Evans took a sip of coconut-flavored fresh water, tightened the lid of the kettle and said, "I'll keep going and see if I can find our thermos and the missing weapon."

"You guessed that the weapon was washed here too?" Wei Ran asked subconsciously.

"very likely"

Evans pointed to the direction where everyone was stranded yesterday and said, "Yesterday I made a special observation. The main circulation port of this lagoon is over there, and you must remember that your life jacket and Huobi are also in the sailor bag with weapons." Where's Max's lifebuoy?"

"Remember, you insisted on asking us to put it in." Hawkes, who was busy collecting the turtle's blood, immediately responded.

"I observed Mr. Akira when he threatened us with a gun"

Evans twirled the two mustaches that were carefully trimmed last night and said, "There are traces of chopping on the side of our traffic boat, which happens to be where the simple mast is tied."

"So the mast was artificially lost"

Wei Ran immediately reacted, "The masts are made of wood pulp, so they must float on the sea and be pushed here by the waves?"

“What a smart lad”

Evans patted Wei Ran on the shoulder, "I will definitely go back before it gets dark or before the sky changes. If we can find weapons, we should consider how to get out of here."

"Just rely on this?" Hawkes pointed to the shriveled life raft that was mostly submerged in the water.

"There are still so many trees on the island, we always have a way."

Evans also patted Hawks on the shoulder, "Take the meat back as soon as possible, I'm leaving."

"Bring this," Wei Ran said, and untied a kettle filled with boiled water from his waist and handed it to the other party.

"Thank you"

Captain Evans took the kettle happily, and continued to walk on the reef and the sandy beaches that appeared from time to time, looking for the lost thermos and crucial weapons.

On the side of the life raft, Wei Ran also skidded off all the oysters he could see, and put the turtle meat cut by Hawkes into the gas-proof bread that was emptied before departure.

Finally, each of them tied the manual pump and the gas cylinder to their backs with ropes. Wei Ran used the washbasin-sized turtle shell to carry the inedible turtle internal organs, and followed Hawkes to the lonely island. .

While the two of them harvested a lot, at the northernmost end of the island, Akira and his nephew Jiro also shared the seafood and all the soup in the helmet.

Throwing a piece of the drug into his mouth, Akira unscrewed the water bottle and took a few mouthfuls of rainwater before asking, "Jiro, haven't you found our life raft yet?"

"no"

Jiro poured the last sip of water from his own water bottle into his stomach, first licked away the last drop of water that he didn't want to drop with the tip of his tongue, and then said, "I suspect it has been carried into the sea by the waves .”

"Without that life raft, how can we reunite with our family?" Akira sighed a little irritably, and at the same time handed his water bottle to Jiro.

"Thank you"

Jiro quickly took the water bottle, raised his neck and took a few big gulps, and then said, "But that life raft has leaked, even if we find it."

"yes"

Akira looked at the sparkling sea outside the woods, "Even if we find it, what's the use, well, now is not the time to complain, Jiro, hurry up and prepare dinner! Get some firewood by the way, our bonfire will burn." It's about to go out."

"I, I know."

Jiro returned the water bottle to the other party, picked up the pistol and machete that were placed between the two of them, then put on his own sun hat woven from palm leaves, turned and walked into the woods, looking for any Something to eat.

Throughout the afternoon of this day, Wei Ran and Hawks not only brought back enough sea turtle meat to fill everyone's stomachs, but the former even used the only set of lunch boxes to use the inedible fat and viscera of sea turtles, as well as a sprout The coconut meat taken out of the old coconut, boiled out enough fat to fill the canning bottle that Hawkes picked up yesterday.

Naturally, this full jar of oil is not for food, but for the little sunscreen left to treat everyone's chapped lips and sunburned skin.

In addition, he also used hot water to get all the little fat left in his British army kettle and poured it into the steel helmet that served as a cooking pot, which added a little flavor to their turtle broth .

When he was making dinner and ointment alone, Hawkes also, with the help of Stirling, took advantage of the time before the high tide, not far from the junction of the beach and the sea, dug a trap for fishing, and put The stinking turtle blood and the viscera that even Wei Ran didn't want were poured in.

Attracted by the smell of blood, some unknown small fish were attracted into the trap, completely unaware that while they were eating those internal organs, these small miscellaneous fish also became bait to attract big fish.

However, compared to their abundant harvest, as the sun went down, Jiro's only harvest this afternoon was a wound on his face by an unknown plant, but he only found two germinated coconuts and A few hermit crabs no bigger than a matchbox.

In the shadow of a tree more than 200 meters away from his uncle Akira, Jiro shook his thirsty throat, hesitated for a moment, and finally couldn't help splitting a coconut with a machete, and wolfed down the coconut meat inside. He and Yebao stuffed them all into his mouth.

Finally, he looked at the small and poor hermit crabs in the canvas pocket. He licked his lips unsatisfied, found some dry wooden sticks from around and lit them, and threw all the hermit crabs into it.

Amid the sound of water vapor, the hermit crabs that tried to escape from the fire pit again and again but were pushed back by the machete finally stopped crawling and gradually turned an attractive red color.

Sniffing hard, Jiro couldn't wait to pick up a hermit crab filled with seafood fragrance with two small wooden sticks prepared in advance, and blew it, and then bit into it.

Just as he grinned his teeth from the heat, he couldn't help chewing the crab meat without the shell.Evans also returned to the camp at the southernmost tip of the island in the evening glow, and before he sat down, he took a large steel cup of steaming turtle meat from Hawkes!
"Because the seasoning is not enough, we only put some sea water and coconut meat as usual."

While Hawks was speaking, Sterling also opened the closed lunch box, pointed to the still steaming oysters inside and said, "I only started cooking when I saw you coming back soon, although we haven't eaten yet, But I can already smell the unique sweetness of oysters, which is exactly the same as the ones I ate in Hawaii."

“And my hot tea”

Wei Ran pointed to the life raft cylinder buried by the campfire, "When I went to collect firewood in the afternoon, I found a jasmine flower not far away, and it happened to be blooming, so I simply brought back some flowers and leaves for tea. Believe me, it tastes really good."

"It's a better life than on the Johnston"

Sitting on Wei Ran's small bed made of wooden sticks, Evans squeezed a piece of turtle meat from his steel cup and stuffed it into his mouth. While chewing, he joked, "I don't even want to leave here."

"If there are a few beautiful girls on this island, I don't want to leave here." Sterling also joked.

"Victor also promised that when we return to Hawaii alive, he will take me to a strip club to see Nako, a white woman." Hawks smacked his lips in anticipation.

Unsurprisingly, when the topic of women was discussed again, everyone's exhaustion was miraculously swept away.

It's just that when the topic about women accidentally turned to their respective families.Among the four people present, except for Wei Ran, the other three couldn't help but sighed, and their faces also showed a little more sadness.

(End of this chapter)