War Photographer's Notebook

On the afternoon of arriving at this small island, many young people who had had enough to eat, drink and play were also carefully arranged by Olga’s mother, Aunt Yana, to live in the row not far from the river. In the log cabin that is open to the outside world.

Because of the relationship between latitude and climate, even though it is only the first ten days of September, the temperature is definitely not high after the sun goes down.

Because of this, the crackling and sleep-inducing fireplaces were lit early in these wooden houses.Of course, at least for the girl Suisui, even without the white noise and warm temperature from the burning fireplace, the three big cups of draft beer and the small half cup of Aunt Yana’s self-brewed fruit wine are enough to make her unconscious. fell asleep.

It was Wei Ran who slept on the same bed with her. Although he drank a large bottle of vodka with Jima and old Ivan, he still suffered from insomnia.

In the blink of an eye, the next morning, Ivan woke up many young people who were still sleeping soundly by beating on the stainless steel milk pot.

Walking out of the room sleepily, Wei Ran, who was yawning, and Sui Sui, who was dragged up in a daze, shivered.

At this time, the sky outside the wooden house was not bright yet, not to mention the sun, even the distant horizon was just a little bright.

Picking up the phone and looking at the time, Wei Ran and Sui Sui couldn't help grinning, it's not even five o'clock, and it's also thanks to the fact that everyone went to bed earlier because they drank for a long time yesterday, otherwise they wouldn't even Eight hours of sleep may be difficult to guarantee.

"What's wrong? Could it be that the Germans are calling again?" Maya, who was sleeping in the same room with Sui Xin, opened the door and asked in a daze.

"You sound more like a historian than Victor"

Mrs. Yana smiled and praised, then pointed to the insulated lunch boxes and several large thermos pots on the long table outside the room and said, "Everyone, wash your face and wake up, we are leaving soon .”

"Let's go? Where are you going?" Jima, who also lived in the same room by himself, yawned and asked.

"Of course I put you in an oil drum before dawn"

"And thrown into the deepest part of Lake Ladoga"

Olena, who didn't know when she got up, helped her sister add something, and at the same time let Dahlia help her take off the apron she was wearing.

Seeing that these people obviously intended to keep it a secret, they simply stopped wasting time, brushed their teeth, washed their faces as quickly as possible, and changed into thick and warm clothes.

When they, under the leadership of Olena, took the insulated lunch box prepared by Mrs. Yana to the small pier diagonally opposite the wooden house, accompanied by the roar of the engine, Ivan also took his precious patrol boat from the small boat alone. The pier on the south side of the island drove over and stopped firmly at the berth.

This time, it was rare for Ivan not to send Wei Ran and Jima. Instead, he personally drove the fishing boat converted from a patrol boat along the Neva River to the north, carrying many young people to Lake Ladoga. direction.

After less than half an hour of sailing, a small island appeared right in front of the channel. At the same time, Sui Sui also pointed to the faintly visible building on the small island, and asked loudly amidst the noise of the engine, "What about that?" Is it Little Walnut Fort?"

"Yes!" Olena replied loudly. "The little walnuts that Peter the Great took back from the Swedes! But we won't go to them until we get back!"

"I haven't been there yet!" Sui Sui replied expectantly.

In the conversation between the two girls, this slightly noisy fishing boat also officially entered Lake Ladoga from the side of Shlisselburg that they had just talked about.

"that direction"

When the patrol boat left Shlisselburg behind, Teacher Daria raised her finger and pointed to the north direction, and asked Wei Ran, "There is a small port about 20 kilometers away in a straight line, called Ossinowitz ,have you heard of it?"

Seeing the girls represented by Sui Sui and the ignorant bastard Jima all looking at him, Wei Ran nodded and then sighed. Although it was his first time here, as a historian, How could he not know about that slightly remote port?
"Know"

After a short pause, Wei Ran continued, "The Port of Osinovitz, the starting point of the Ladoga Lake Life Road, is also the end of the Life Road. Thanks to her, Leningrad, which was besieged for 872 days, was able to climb out of hell. come out."

"When I go back, I'll take you there to have a look." Dalia said calmly.

"If possible, why not go to Cobona first?" Wei Ran made a commemorative request.

Hearing this, Dalia smiled and nodded, "Then go to Cobona first."

"Where is Kobona?" Jima subconsciously asked Maya, who was also nominally a graduate of war history.

"Another end point and starting point of the road of life" Sui Sui almost subconsciously helped Maya give the answer.

Immediately afterwards, the girl explained with a smile, "My father and my mother first met on the cruiser Aurora in Petersburg. After they got married, the first place my father took my mother to was Ossinowitz, the second place is Kobona."

After a short pause, Sui Sui added, "I heard from my father that my grandfather was from Leningrad, and he fled to Kobona from the port of Osinovitz with other children at that time. Then they were adopted and raised."

"Your grandfather was from Petersburg?" Sisters Olga and Olena looked at Sui Sui in surprise.

"He died very early"

Sui Sui held Wei Ran's arm and said, "My father said that when my grandfather passed away, he just started working. Of course, he lost his job not long after."

"Because the Soviet Union disintegrated," everyone on the deck murmured silently in their hearts.

During the chat about the two heroic ports, this patrol boat with a little black smoke also drove to the center of Lake Ladoga, and turned off the engine before the rising sun jumped out of the water, which is regarded as a gift for everyone who appreciates the sunrise Provides a quiet environment.

Not long after, the orange-red still tentatively popped out of the top of the head, easily dyeing the surrounding sparkling lake into a beautiful golden red.

"It's worth getting up early." Lola, who was standing behind her sister, couldn't help but yawned after finishing speaking.

“It's really worth it”

While Sui Xin, who was sitting in a wheelchair, spoke, she also opened the insulated lunch box that had been placed on her lap.

Her wheelchair was firmly fixed to the railings of the deck with locks by the Ivans themselves before departure, which not only allowed her to sit securely enough, but also made her the first to notice that the railings on these railings There were actually foldable small wooden table boards half a meter square, and a small wooden bench that was also foldable and almost the same size.

After she lifted the small table and fixed it with the help of Yana, the rest of the people also reacted and opened the small table that can be stretched out of the railing and the folding bench that can only be unfolded inward and sat down. With interest, I opened the breakfast that Aunt Yana helped to prepare.

"These tables, chairs and benches were designed by us." Olena showed off with a little satisfaction, "How does it feel to use it?"

"It must be very comfortable in summer," Sui Sui said first.

"While it's sturdy, I'm still a little concerned that I'm going to fall."

While talking, Lola helped herself to sit on the folding bench, and carefully put her feet on the metal pedals welded to the railing.

"Don't worry! It will never fall."

As Olga said, she stretched out her hand and pulled out a webbing belt similar to an airplane seat belt from the side of the bench, and helped Korava fix her waist.

"What about winter?" Jima asked subconsciously.

"Of course winter is hiding by the warm fireplace"

Ivan, who came out of the cab with an insulated lunch box, said as a matter of course, "The wind here is very strong in winter, no one will sail in that season, and my boat will go ashore at that time."

"So you only do summer and fall business?"

As Sui Suo asked, she picked up a corner of Bollinger cake from the opened lunch box, dipped it in jam, and stuffed it into her mouth immediately after asking.

"That's why we're going to buy that expensive, scary house"

Ivan accepted the conversation with a smile, listening to what he meant, as if the ticket for that house could allow him to recover the high cost of buying a house.

Of course, considering who is telling the truth and who is a dog's "occupational disease", at least Wei Ran, Jima and sister Katenka, who are watching the scenery, didn't take each other's reasons seriously at all.

Sitting in rows along the railing of the deck, enjoying the sunrise while having breakfast, the fishing boat also sailed towards the port of Cobona.

In the following day, old Ivan drove his broken fishing boat and took them to the small town of Osinovec along the track of the road of life on the ice after visiting the port of Kobona. I visited the Life Way Museum in this town.

Finally, after spending half a day in Little Walnut Castle, the group returned to the small island in the middle of the river along the Neva River before the sun set.

After this day of wandering, not only did not help Wei Ran to strengthen his confidence, but it made him retreat even more, especially the text and picture records he saw in the Road of Life Museum made him more afraid The tragic story behind that instrument.

Of course, even putting aside these emotions, he would not investigate on this island.After all, the K content on this island is really too high, and he is really not sure how to keep the secret of the metal book in front of so many "similar".

On the other hand, for this matter, Sui Sui, a layman, was obviously more concerned than Wei Ran, so shortly after returning, he ran into the exhibition hall holding Anfeiya with one hand and Olga with the other, and surrounded Looking at the still unlocked booth, trying to find out something in advance through their own strength.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?"

While Sui Sui and the others were still tinkering with the musical instrument, Wei Ran also sat down by the bonfire that had just been lit, and asked Olena who was using a piece of sculpture clay to carve a bust of Maya.

"Tomorrow we will go fishing in Lake Ladoga, and we will visit some islands by the way."

Olena changed her posture slightly and replied, "Of course, if you have no interest in fishing, you can also take my family's fishing boat along the Neva River to Lake Onega, and then visit my house. The only disadvantage is that the voyage is limited. More than 500 kilometers, even if we set off in the morning, we will arrive in the afternoon.”

"It's up to you to decide"

Wei Ran paused, then turned his head to look at old Ivan who was also sitting by the campfire and chatting with Jima, "But tomorrow I plan to go to the archives in the city, so can you send me back?"

"Go to the archives?" Old Ivan was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized, "Are you going to start the investigation of that musical instrument now?"

"Tomorrow is Teacher's Day"

Wei Ran smiled and glanced at Teacher Dalia who was busy preparing dinner with Yana not far away, turned around and said with a smile, "In case I can find something, I just give it to Dalia as a teacher's day gift." Miss Leah."

"If you found something in just one day, wouldn't it look like we are stupid?" Olena, who was really busy, obviously didn't believe that Wei Ran could find something so quickly.

"What if I can find out?" Wei Ran asked deliberately with a confident look.

"Then."

"Olena"

Maya, who was working as a model, smiled and reminded, "Don't blame me for not reminding you, you'd better not bet against Victor on this kind of thing."

"Why?" Olena stopped what she was doing and asked in confusion.

"I share a teacher with this guy, that mean old guy named Kajik."

Maya said gloatingly, "About a few months ago, Mr. Kajik said more than once, 'I bet that bastard Victor couldn't find any useful information'."

"And then?" Old Ivan asked with a smile.

"Then he almost lost his new car to Aunt Daria." Before Maya finished speaking, everyone looked at Daria who was busy.

"That's true." Dahlia smiled and gave an affirmative answer. "In order to prevent him from being beaten to death by his wife, I didn't want his car."

"That Georgian girl doesn't have a very good temper." Yana didn't know what to think of, and there was more pity in her tone.

"Okay, I bet"

Olena gritted her teeth, and said while turning the carving knife flexibly between her fingers, "How about it! If you can investigate something in only one day, I will help you carve a full-length portrait." Bar!"

I can still breathe, what's the use of that shit.
Wei Ran grinned and muttered something in Chinese that the rest of the people couldn't understand, but after seeing the smiling teacher Dalia holding a table knife out of the corner of his eye, the expression on his face immediately changed to Lost the exaggerated appearance of "I made a lot of money".

"Since you are so confident in winning the bet with Olena"

While talking, old Ivan poured Wei Ran a glass of vodka, "I'll send you to the city tomorrow morning."

"Do you need our help?" Jima asked kindly, holding a cup.

"Just help"

While speaking, Wei Ran raised his finger and pointed to the exhibition hall not far away, "If possible, I plan to take that necklace and that pistol with me tomorrow, at least they didn't appear on the stolen list, right?"

"Do you need bullets?" Teacher Dalia asked casually.

"Forget about the bullets." Wei Ran quickly waved his hand, "I'm not old Ivan, and I don't need bullets at all to investigate this kind of thing."

"I can't use it either!"

Old Ivan grumbled angrily, and unsurprisingly, the people around him laughed unabashedly.

In the blink of an eye, it was the morning of the third day after landing on Fish Island. Before the sun jumped out of the horizon, Wei Ran, who was sleepy, was woken up by Ivan. He took a golf cart to the pier on the south side of the island, and took a The boat sailed in the direction of Petersburg.

"Victor, can you really find something in just one day?"

In the cab full of noise, the old Ivan who was leaning against the door frame asked loudly to Wei Ran who was in charge of driving the boat to deliver himself.

"how could I know?"

Wei Ran responded loudly to the other party. The reason why he started the investigation in such a hurry was that after knowing that it was inevitable, he was worried that the longer the delay, the less courage he would have.

As for the refusal
Wei Ran sighed secretly, no matter Dalia, Sui Sui or even Lola, in their eyes, this is just a survey about musical instruments, for Wei Ran in their eyes, this is really a small matter There is no need to say no to "little effort".

"What are you going to do?" Old Ivan changed his mind without giving up, "Do you need me to help you?"

"How about helping me put the quarter horse in an oil drum and throw it into Lake Ladoga?" Wei Ran asked jokingly.

"I will think about it carefully!" Old Ivan laughed and gave a reply.

During the chatter between the two, the patrol boat slowly stopped at the pier full of sightseeing boats almost at the same time as the sun jumped out of the horizon.

Saying goodbye to the old Ivan who left by boat, Wei Ran weighed in the car keys he got from Jima last night, found the half-new Iveco Big Bread in the parking lot, and drove straight into it. city ​​of Petersburg.

Randomly found the parking lot of a large supermarket and parked the car, Wei Ran turned around and got into the spacious compartment at the back, put down the seat, found a comfortable position and began to catch up on sleep.

When he was woken up by the alarm clock, the supermarket outside the car window was already open for business, and there were several family cars parked around this Iveco.

Yawning and stretching, Wei Ran immediately opened the car door, went straight into the supermarket and started shopping.

In less than an hour, he walked back pushing a full shopping cart.

After moving all the things he bought into the car, Wei Ran locked the car door, blocked the car window with the sunshade he just purchased, and immediately took out three oil drums, water jugs, and wine jugs from the metal book And a food box containing only mailbox authenticators and an antique trench lighter from the North African desert.

Taking a deep breath, Wei Ran first opened the oil drum still containing hot cocoa to have a look, and then put it back into the metal book first.

Immediately afterwards, he opened the oil barrel specially for fuel and filled it with the kerosene he had just purchased.As for the third oil barrel, he filled it to the brim with bottles of honey.

Taking the two oil barrels back into the metal book, Wei Ran picked up the British Army P44 jug and the portable flagon and filled them with honey, and then filled the food box with pieces of chocolate with the highest calories per unit.

Adhering to the idea of ​​just in case it could be used, he put a few extra tin cans of condensed milk with the packaging removed in the kitchen utensils basket obtained from Savage Mountain, and filled up fuel for such as oil lamps and oil stoves, This somewhat suppressed the uneasiness in my heart.

"I don't know how much I can use"

Wei Ran muttered to himself worriedly, and left the parking lot with the removed food packaging and the few remaining commodities. He found a restaurant that had just opened and had a good meal to fill his stomach. After wandering aimlessly for a while, I found a hotel not far from the former residence of Shostakovich, which was about to be sold.

After checking the room habitually, he locked the door and closed the curtains, and took out the small TK pistol he had found with Bayanqin from his backpack.

The reason why he chose this pistol instead of the bayanqin was because since he had "cooperated" with the metal book so many times, he had already figured out that this broken book seemed only interested in things with the attribute of "military weapons". , the bayanqin probably has nothing to do with this attribute.

It's just that whether the bayanqin and the TK pistol just happen to fit together, or both have special meanings, so it's just a gamble at the moment.

For Wei Ran, this little gamble was nothing more than a negligible risk compared to the defense of Leningrad itself.

do you want to go
Wei Ran stared blankly at the pistol lying quietly on the table. After some hesitation, he finally made up his mind and took out the metal book through gritted teeth.

As the saying goes, long-term pain is worse than short-term pain. If you continue to consume so much, it is no different from the last rooster slaughtered in the vegetable market. It is nothing more than scaring yourself to death. Instead of doing this, it is better to fight while you still have the courage. .As for the teacher's day gift, that's just a poor excuse.

After waiting for a while, amidst the palpitating sound of rubbing the pen tip, a sketch pattern appeared on the pale yellow paper.

In this black-and-white image, a woman so skinny enough to be described as terrifying is sitting at a table playing a bayan on her lap.But her eyes were looking out of the window.The sunlight coming in from the window just cast a parallelogram-shaped light spot on the table beside her.

In the bright spot, a plate can be vaguely seen. On the plate, there is a piece of black bread, a piece of dried fish, and a small TK pistol within reach.

grunt
Wei Ran, who was obviously full just now, swallowed subconsciously, and couldn't help recalling the horrible experience of being so hungry in the Pacific Ocean that his soul seemed to go out of his body.

Just by looking at the picture drawn by the metal quill, he was extremely sure that the woman in the picture was probably experiencing the same unbearable and crazy hunger that he was in the Pacific Ocean back then.

But gradually, as the metal quill continued to swipe, he saw an even more terrifying scene at the bottom of the picture.

It was a small hand reaching into the camera from the lower right corner as if trying to catch the ray of sunlight, but there was no sense of strength at all.Not only was this little hand so thin that there was hardly any sensuality, even the skin that should have been immature was drooping loosely like an old man.

But the most important thing is that there is still a circle of teeth marks on the tiger's mouth of that hand. The circle seems to be left to resist hunger. It can't bite through the skin at all but leaves a deep circle of marks Tooth marks!

A child. Why is it a child again?
Amidst Wei Ran's almost maddened painful ravings, the metal quill also ruthlessly wrote lines of cold words.