War Photographer's Notebook

"Let's go together"

In the concrete house on the edge of the playground, Wei Ran dragged the sledge outside and extended an invitation to Lydia who helped open the door.

"Let's go," Lydia said, offering to help Wei Ran push the empty sledge.

"Sit on it"

Wei Ran pulled the sledge out of the room and stopped, "We don't have to work during the day, so sit on it, at least we can sleep for a while, I'm going back to take back those mouse traps, and when it's almost here, I'll call wake you up."

Hearing this, Lydia hesitated for a moment, and finally sat on the sledge, wrapped herself tightly in a blanket and closed her eyes.

Dragging the sledge, Wei Ran followed the footprints left last night and walked step by step in the direction he came from.

Fortunately, compared to the emergency move before dawn, at least the return journey at this time is in the downwind direction. Sometimes, when he encounters a downhill road, he can stand on the sledge and slide along for a distance of tens of meters.

This small advantage plus the fact that there is only a light-hearted Lydia in the car, undoubtedly made Wei Ran a lot faster.However, before he arrived at the ruins of the nursing home where the mousetrap cages were arranged, heavy snow fell in the sky again.

For a moment, the strong wind and snow enveloped the ruined city, and also woke up Lydia, who was already asleep, and let the two of them watch with their own eyes some pedestrians who were blown down by the wind and snow. Yes, struggling to get up.

"Victor, stop."

Before Lydia finished her sentence, and before Wei Ran, who had already slowed down, stopped completely, she stumbled off the sledge cart and helped a thin middle-aged man like a stick. Not wanting to, she took out the German army chocolate that Qian Wei Ran gave her from her pocket, took out a piece from it, and stuffed it into the middle-aged man's mouth without any hesitation.

Sighing secretly, Wei Ran also stopped the car completely, took out his portable jug, and went to the side of another Leningrad resident who was blown down by the wind, helped his light body up, and let him sit firmly on the sledge , and then brought the jug with the lid off to his mouth, and poured him a sip of thick honey.

Almost at the same time that the honey was flowing into the mouth that hadn't eaten anything decently for a long time, the young man in a leather apron and thick glasses who was supported by Wei Ran's shoulders widened his eyes, and subconsciously took a drink from the jug. Sucked a mouthful of thick honey.

What he didn't expect was that his subconscious action not only sucked out a mouthful of honey, but also Wei Ran had no intention of avoiding it at all.

Tightly pursing his mouth and backing away, the man glanced at Wei Ran, then took out a glasses case from his pocket, and carefully spit out the big mouthful of honey in his mouth into the glasses case.

"What are you doing?" Wei Ran asked puzzled.

"My wife is still hungry, my children are still hungry."

The man wearing glasses said gratefully, "They haven't eaten sweets for a long time, I'm going to leave this mouthful of honey to them, but I still want to thank you for being willing to save me with such a precious thing."

Sighing secretly, Wei Ran took over the dilapidated tin glasses case under the nervous gaze of the other party, and poured a big lump of thick honey into it, and then returned the glasses case to the other party, "Take care Your wife and children, sorry, I can only give you so much."

"Thank you! Thank you!" The man grabbed the glasses case and repeated his heartfelt gratitude over and over again.

"Hurry up and go home." After Wei Ran finished speaking, he walked towards his sledge that was about to be blown by the wind.

A moment later, Lydia also sat on the sledge again, silently letting Wei Ran pull her away into the wind and snow.

Until the two people they helped behind were completely blocked by the wind and snow, Lydia asked abruptly, "Sorry, I will use you to send it."

"It's okay." Wei Ran waved his hands without turning his head, and at the same time accelerated a little.

It took almost half an hour to hurry, and Wei Ran saw the ruins of the bombed building again.

"I'll go back tonight by myself." Lydia said worriedly after leaving the sledge, "Victor, take care of the children."

"You can find me in the basement after you finish your work. I will bury Mrs. Via."

"Don't you wait for us to come together?" Lydia asked subconsciously.

"Don't wait, let's go to work."

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he waved his hands, and watched Lydia, who was hesitant to speak, walk to the distribution office at the end of the street alone, and then went straight to the ruins of the nursing home not far away despite the wind and snow.

From a long distance, he noticed that the surroundings of the nursing home site were also shelled before dawn, but fortunately, the nursing home itself was already a ruin that could not be collapsed anymore, and the surrounding buildings that had already been burned There are no people living here at all, so naturally there will be no casualties.

After wandering around in the surrounding ruins, Wei Ran first installed the half-burned wooden beam that he accidentally found on the sledge truck. By the way, he made sure that there were no other people around, and then carefully took out the Rat trap.

What he didn't expect was that the 13 mouse traps set up here only took one night, and they caught a total of 6 mice of different sizes!

Of course, all of these fat mice that were caught had been frozen to death in the cage due to the low temperature without exception.

Without wasting time at all, Wei Ran took out the German paratrooper knife he had picked up not long ago, and disemboweled the rats as quickly as possible, chopped up the internal organs that had been frozen into lumps of ice, mixed them with honey, and rearranged the rat cage .

Packing all the furry mice that had been cleaned up in small sacks, Wei Ran cleaned up the footprints again, pulled half of the charred wooden beams, and returned to the basement that was still extremely warm before the shelling.

At this time, a thin layer of snow had accumulated in the basement where the skylight was opened, and a small grave was piled up by the fallen bricks and tiles in the open space at the door of the three rooms. At the edge of the bag, two frozen corpses could still be seen.

He clearly remembered that among the two corpses, one was originally placed in a certain room on the third floor, and the other was pulled back by himself with a sledge. The mother of the baby Galina—Fanny Comrade Te.

"crash"

As Wei Ran used the charred wooden beam to pry the gap between the bricks and tiles on the tomb, a pile of bricks still glued together by cement also slid to the foot of the tomb.

"crunch, crunch"

Amidst the teeth-stinging noise made by the scorched wooden beam itself, Wei Ran, who hung almost his entire body on the other end of the wooden beam, felt his body slowly descending, and at the same time another pile of broken bricks It was also pried and rolled to the side.

Leaving aside the wooden beams, Wei Ran moved away bricks and tiles with his bare hands. After working for more than half an hour, he finally dug out the first frozen corpse, and then dug out the second corpse.

He was not in a hurry to carry the two corpses. After he got up and got used to the dizziness of hypoglycemia, he walked into the originally warm basement with the scorched wooden beam and began to slowly pry the more A large collapsed broken wall.

After trying several times to no avail, he finally stopped, and instead supported the broken wall with the wooden beam in his hand, then followed his memory to find Mrs. Via's place, sat down silently, patiently and meticulously, Moving those broken bricks one by one, looking for the buried Mrs. Via.

While he was busy, the time passed by every minute and every second. The cold wind outside the basement became more and more bitter, and the snow became heavier and heavier. Even the inside of the basement was covered with a layer of blown snow.

But from time to time, there are still large and small bricks that are complete or incomplete and are thrown on the white snow. The broken wall that was originally pressed on the ruins, under Wei Ran's many efforts, finally broke down. Give up the position.

"Wow. Wow"

Amidst the soft knocking sound of the falling bricks, Wei Ran dragged out Mrs. Weiya's frozen body with difficulty and caution.

After a rough inspection, he sighed secretly, this kind and poor old woman, her lumbar vertebrae had been broken, and the broken ribs were so soft that they obviously stabbed the internal organs, even her two legs , were all broken bones.

"Why shell the civilians here?"

Wei Ran muttered angrily while helping Mrs. Weiya tidy up the remains. These days, he had already figured out the surrounding situation. There were no factories, power plants, schools in session, or the command post of the Soviet Red Army. Not to mention any decent anti-aircraft shelters.

In other words, except for the innocent and hungry residents, there is no shelling or bombing target at all, but outside the city there are those Germans flying around in the sky, those fascis, they still did it, they still Aim the muzzle here and drop the bomb here.

Wei Ran, who was thinking wildly, couldn't help but paused when he touched Mrs. Weiya's pocket. He hesitated for a while, but he still put his hand into Mrs. Weiya's pocket, and took out a tight bag wrapped in a towel. In fact, there is a small parcel tied with a cross tied with a rope outside.

Inside this thick white towel is a wooden photo frame. A Y-shaped crack has formed in the middle of the glass in the photo frame, but even so, the photo behind the glass is still clearly visible.

In this color photo, which is unusual in this day and age, the silver-haired Mrs. Via sits on a small stool in a crisp Soviet bank uniform.

Beside her, there was an old man of similar age sitting with an accordion in his arms, looking lovingly at Mrs. Weiya who was smiling and happy.

Behind the old couple, behind the stool in the photo, there are five younger men and women lined up.

The two on the far left are almost identical in appearance, both wearing Soviet Red Army uniforms, with whiskers, and cigarettes in their mouths.

On their respective chests, there are rewards such as the Medal of Bravery and the Military Medal, and on their waists, there is a TT33 pistol in a holster, and the one on the right is still hanging on the chest. a telescope.

The third one, who looked younger, was wearing a one-piece flight suit of the Soviet Air Force, with a leather flight cap and goggles on his head. He also had an unclear medal pinned to his chest.

The fourth is a heroic woman, she is wearing a blue policewoman uniform, and a Nagant revolver in a leather holster can still be seen at her waist.

And the last young man, he was wearing a brown plaid suit, a Lenin cap, and a pair of glasses on his face.

On the contrary, he was holding a vodka bottle and a huge chicken leg in his hand. Even his cheeks were swollen, as if there was still something to swallow, so he was called to participate in the shooting of this full A happy family portrait.

Flipping the photo frame to the back, Wei Ran opened the wooden cover at the back, first found a negative in a paper bag, and then found that the back of the photo was written in fluent blue cursive Russian "The anniversary of the October Revolution of 1940, a day to remember and celebrate."

unfortunately
Wei Ran silently took out the British army kettle, put the paper bag containing the negatives into the interlayer of the canvas cover of the kettle, then restored the photo frame to its original shape, rewrapped it with a towel and tied it tightly with a rope, and placed it in Mrs. Via’s in the arms.

Looking up at the gloomy sky and the falling snowflakes outside, Wei Ran unscrewed the lid of the kettle and took a sip of the viscous honey, then put away the jug and dragged Mrs. Via's frozen body with a little effort , wrapped her carefully with the blanket that was dug out together, and then used the broken bricks that were just dug out to lay two layers against the corner of the wall, placed her body and the two outside bodies side by side, and used a paratrooper knife The names of Mrs. Via and Finnett were engraved on two of the relatively complete bricks and placed under their respective necks.

After finishing all this work, Wei Ran sat down and rested for a while, then covered the three corpses with the canvas he brought, and then began to carefully stack bricks on top, and then covered the top with a layer Snow.

When he stopped completely, the snowflakes falling above his head became bigger and bigger, the wind became more and more violent, and even the sky became more and more gloomy.

I don't know who will be buried here next.
Wei Ran touched the fist-wide crack on the wall, worriedly took half of the charred wooden beam, left the completely deserted ruins, and returned to the ruins of the nursing home again.

He checked the surroundings as usual, and after confirming that there was no one there, he pulled out the mouse traps set up in the morning one by one to check.

Unfortunately, maybe the time was too short, or maybe the shelling before dawn scared away the mice here.This time, none of the 13 cages caught a mouse at all.

Silently changed the position of the mouse trap and rearranged it. When Wei Ran returned to the ruins of the building where the basement was located, Lydia, who was wearing a blanket and a Budyonny hat on her head, was already waiting by the side of the road. .

"I saw what you did," Lydia said when she saw Wei Ran.

"Get in the car"

Wei Ran pointed to the sledge behind him, and when the other party sat up, he walked towards the school playground against the cold wind and asked, "Did you get anything today?"

"Black bread"

Lydia paused, and replied as loudly as possible, "Today there is only black bread, and the wind and snow are too strong. I heard from the people in the transport team that apart from many accidents on the road today, the Germans dropped a lot of bombs. There are also several The horse-drawn sleighs got lost, and some arrived with the mules alive but the men frozen to death."

"Is there no good news?" Wei Ran turned around and asked loudly.

"No." The tired Lydia shook her head, "All I heard today was bad news."

"Go home." After Wei Ran finished speaking, he bowed hard and dragged the sledge towards the new shelter.

"Today, Comrade Political Commissar asked me if I should take the children out."

Lydia paused, and seeing that Wei Ran was silent, she continued, "I rejected his suggestion, the situation in Lake Ladoga is too dangerous now, even if the children won't sink into the lake because of the bombs dropped by the Germans It is also possible to freeze to death on the way.”

"When do you plan to let the children leave?" Wei Ran finally asked.

"Wait a minute"

Lydia paused, and tentatively said, "The children just had a full meal yesterday, at least let them eat a few more times, so that they have enough strength to resist the low temperature on the road."

After a pause again, Lydia saw that Wei Ran was silent, and asked in a panic, "Victor, I know this. It's difficult, but"

"Nothing difficult"

Wei Ran responded in a firm tone, "Haven't we already found a stable source of food? The horse hides and offal we brought back last time are enough for us to eat for four or five days. After four or five days, Ke Na and I will also have With enough strength, we can bring back more horse hides and offal from the front line."

Hearing this, Lydia quietly breathed a sigh of relief, and in the bitter cold wind, she softly said "thank you" that Wei Ran didn't hear at all.

After walking against the wind and snow for nearly an hour, as the sky completely darkened, the two of them finally returned to the small concrete house on the edge of the playground with little harvest.

As soon as they entered the door, the two of them felt a little warmth rushing towards their faces, and then saw a set of shelves next to the wall that had obviously been moved up from the basement. The ladle is full of prepared pork skin jelly.

Not only that, even the chimneys extending from the basement are hung with strings of sliced ​​maroon horse livers.And at the position where the chimney was flush with the ground, there were several tin buckets filled with snow, apparently not intending to let any trace of heat go.

A little farther away, Ke Na was holding an enamel kettle, pouring hot water on the horse hides placed in the iron laundry basin, and the older children, headed by Alexander, surrounded the iron basin, holding or Take a can of skins, or a knife, and wait to pluck all the horse hair.

"you are back"

With Wei Ran and Lydia stunned, Ke Na proudly showed off by pointing at the surroundings, "We made enough aspic to last three days, and found some tin buckets and iron basins in the ruins of the school."

"I also found a national flag!" Alexander rushed to say, pointing at the back of Wei Ran and the two of them at the same time.

Turning around subconsciously, the two realized belatedly that there was indeed a big red Soviet flag hanging on the inside of the iron gate.

"We also found this!"

As the young man named Alyosha said, he picked up a slightly shriveled and heavily painted Soviet lunch box from the shelf, and handed it to Wei Ran like a treasure.

After taking the lunch box and opening it, Wei Ran shook his head involuntarily when he saw the contents inside, no wonder he wanted to give this thing to himself. On the tray of the lunch box was a particularly beautiful pipe, a not-so-big brown pipe. A small glass vial, a pitiful little tin funnel, and a small velvet pouch embroidered with sickles and hammers in gold.

Regardless of the pipe, Wei Ran stretched out his hand to pick up the red cloth bag and opened it. What was contained inside turned out to be a silver bosom stove that was extremely exquisite in workmanship, and definitely not cheap.

Gently weighing this bosom stove, which is about the size of a cigarette case in later generations, Wei Ran pulled off the upper cover with a beautiful opening and smelled it, and then he unscrewed the small bottle and smelled it.

Seeing that the bottle was indeed filled with kerosene, Wei Ran tightened the lid again and picked up the tray of the lunch box.

More than half of the space under the tray is filled with shredded tobacco stems for rolling Mohe cigarettes.

In the rest of the space, apart from a stack of cigarette papers that have been cut to a suitable size and can be used to roll Mohe cigarettes, there are also two packs of matches and a steel needle more than ten centimeters long.

Apparently the previous owner of these things enjoyed smoking and seemed to have a penchant for poor quality moho.

"I'm not sure if the moxa will help, but I'm guessing that armpit will at least keep one of you warm."

Kona said that she had put down the enamel pot in her hand, and said while cleaning the hair on the horse hide, "We found these things in a collapsed office this morning, and we also found a buried office table, of course we have burned at least a third of that table."

"I can't use these things"

As Wei Ran said, he had already used a small funnel to add kerosene to the bosom furnace, lit it with a lighter, and handed it to Lydia.

Before the girl could say anything, Wei Ran had already picked up the pipe, looked at the carvings on it and said, "Give those Mohe cigarettes to Comrade Matvey, he will be happy to take them with you." His little actors come here to perform for children."

"Can he still come here to perform for us?" Alexander and Alyosha asked the same question in surprise.

"It will come, I promise."

As Wei Ran said, he threw the pipe into the lunch box, fastened the tray and the lid again, and handed it to Alyosha, "Young man, put it away, next time Uncle Matvey comes to perform for us." When the time comes, you will give it to him yourself!"

"Okay!" Alyosha said, holding the special "performance fee" tightly in his arms.

"It's your turn. How's your harvest today?" Cora also didn't give Lydia, who was holding a bosom furnace, a chance to speak.

"I caught 6 mice"

Wei Ran pretended to show off and took off the sack hanging from his waist, and poured out all the rats that had their internal organs cleaned up, "Today we can cook a big pot of broth."

"I brought back the bread"

Lydia sighed secretly, first glanced at Wei Ran gratefully, then put away the bosom that had started to heat up, then untied the sack, and took out two yuan from it with a trace of guilt. Half of brown bread.

Ke Na opened her mouth, wisely, she didn't ask why there was no milk today, instead she called them to go to the basement first, and then urged Alexander to help him go to the basement to bring up a bucket of hot water to deal with the mice.

Under the arrangement of this clever little girl, the children also got busy again.

Not long after, an enamel pot was set up on the cast iron stove that was continuously providing warmth in the basement. In this pot, chopped rat meat, a quarter of dried fish, and Some pieces of fat sausage thrown in under Wei Ran's suggestion.

Before the broth in the pot boiled, Lydia played the bayan skillfully, and Ke Na led the children to sing "Hey!Little Apple".

Maybe it was because the music was cheerful enough, or maybe it was because the children had finally managed to fill their stomachs recently so they gained some strength. In this pre-dinner concert, the voices of the children were finally no longer so weak.

Not only the children, but even Ke Na, who didn't even have the strength to finish a song, not only sang the whole song today, but also gave the beginning to Alexander and other older children's favorite song "Night at the Harbor".

While the children were singing the second song together, Ke Na also sat down beside Wei Ran, lowered her voice and asked, "Victor, I have three things to ask you."

"What's the matter?" Wei Ran asked, looking at Ke Na's thin face that was glowing red from the fire.

"When are we going to bury Mrs. Weiya?" Ke Na asked the first question almost in Wei Ran's ear.

"I have already buried her today, so I buried her in the original basement, Lydia saw it." Wei Ran replied in a low voice.

"You should have let me go"

Kona paused, and continued to ask, "Second thing, Victor, is there something wrong with the rationing today? When are we going to the front line to get some food?"

"Let's finish eating what we brought back first." Wei Ran selectively answered one of the questions, "What's the last question?"

"There are several horse stomach bags in the offal we brought back. I have cleaned those things, but how do we eat them? I have never eaten any animal stomachs. Although my mother is a good cook, she has never cooked. Stomach, and on top of that, our seasoning is just some coarse salt."

"Leave these small problems to me"

Wei Ran vaguely responded to the last question, "Okay, shouldn't it be time to bring down the pork skin jelly you made? I'm already hungry."

"I'll take it right away!"

Before she could finish her sentence, Ke Na stood up while leaning against the wall, and ran towards the concrete stairs leading to the surface with slightly fluffy steps.

"Tonight should be the second time I'm full, and it's starting to develop in a good direction."

Wei Ran muttered something to himself, and then began to think, he has been here for nearly a week, after all, he should complete one of the requirements of the return mission and take a group photo for everyone every week.