War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1113 The Slogan at the Mine Entrance
On the edge of the second pier covered with snow, Wei Ran carefully dug up the first tombstone, which was mostly buried by snow, with an engineering shovel.

The width of this tombstone, which seems to be chiseled from iron ore, is only about 30 centimeters, but its height is more than [-] centimeters.

On the top of this tombstone, there is still a five-pointed star engraved, but perhaps because of the passage of time, this five-pointed star has been mottled, leaving only a faint outline.

Below the five-pointed star, the words "Worker XXX" can still be vaguely seen.The second tombstone was cleared out, and the content carved on it was not much different.

Undeterred, they cleaned them out one by one. When the sixth tombstone was reached, the five-pointed star on it turned into the symbol of a sickle and hammer. Not only were the titles and names of people chiseled in Russian on the tombstone, but there was also an extra Chiseled in Japanese.

That’s not to mention, on one side of the tombstone, there is also a bilingual engraving in Japanese and Russian, “April 1954, repatriated by party member Alexander (Igarashi Junpei) to his hometown with his ashes.”

Looking at Sui Sui, Wei Ran dug out a buried tombstone from the snow. The content carved on it was similar to the one just now. The only difference was the person who brought the ashes back to his hometown and the time. It's just changed.

Sui Sui said, "I just counted, and there are 27 tombstones here."

"Let's clear out all the tombstones and have a look." Wei Ran thought for a while and said, "Take a photo of the content on each tombstone."

"I'll get the camera," Sui Sui said, then got up and walked to the truck not far away.

Tightening his gloves, Wei Ran cleared out all the other tombstones buried in the snow, and checked them one by one.

Although the handwriting on the tombstone was mottled, he still found two special tombstones inside.

On one of the tombstones, the owner of the tombstone is precisely the warehouse guard Panin Yaxin mentioned by Diane.

According to the brief information on the tombstone, the young guard was born in 1933 and died in 1951.In other words, when he died, he was only seventeen or eighteen years old.

On the other tombstone, the owner of the tombstone is Second Lieutenant Mesut Gotze, the German veterinarian Wei Ran was looking for on this trip.

What Wei Ran didn't expect was that besides "veterinary doctor and blacksmith", this Mesut had such a special label as "a party member in prison".On the side of the tombstone, the word "missing" was engraved in Russian.

"I found it." Wei Ran waved to Suisui who was taking pictures of the tombstone.

Hearing this, the latter immediately ran over with the camera in his hand, pointing the lens at the tombstone that had been filled with snow.

"Prisoner party member?"

Sui Sui looked at Wei Ran suspiciously after taking the photo, and said without thinking, "Did you get double-turtle?"

"Where are you going?"

Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded, and explained while clearing out the back of the two tombstones next to each other, "In the situation you mentioned, you must be expelled from the party before you can serve your sentence. , became a party member."

"A well-behaved activist?" Sui Sui said subconsciously.

"Almost." Wei Ran, who was still busy clearing the snow, nodded, but he had more doubts in his heart.

"You don't mean to dig up these two graves, do you?" Sui Sui asked curiously after taking the photo.

"This place has probably been dug up"

As Wei Ran spoke, he pried up a rusty pickaxe from the frozen ground with an engineering shovel.

Just by looking at the bright orange rubber handle that remains on this pickaxe, it's definitely not going to last very long.

Looking at Sui Sui, Wei Ran continued to clear the snow on the ground, and gradually, a shallow pit that was only half a meter wide and less than two meters long came into view.

Putting on the pickaxe he dug out just now, Wei Ran tried to smash the frozen ground, but unfortunately, the pickaxe hit with all his strength, but only a white spot the size of a fingernail was left on the ground.

"Are you really going to dig it?" Sui Sui frowned and asked, obviously not agreeing with this act of digging a grave.

"How about we dig up those devils' graves?" Wei Ran asked, throwing away the pickaxe in his hand.

"Okay!" Sui Sui, who was still frowning just now, nodded enthusiastically before she had time to think about it.

"When I said nothing"

Wei Ran patted the stains off his gloves, and looked behind the tombstone of the warehouse guard named Panin.Fortunately, there is no trace of being dug here.

He also wouldn't dig it here, and there was no need to dig it up—after all, it wasn't necessary for him to come here.

"So what do we do next?" Suho asked as she stuffed the camera into her bag.

"Boss, maybe you should come here and have a look." Just when Wei Ran was about to speak, Anfisa, who was holding an AK12 in his hand, pointed at the girl who was being led by her sister to dig a hole in the snow next to her. Beria.

Hearing this, Wei Ran and Sui Sui walked over quickly.After such a short time, Beria was already on the knee-deep snow, like a small bulldozer, digging a ditch that could be three to four meters long and as wide as its body.

Undoubtedly, standing in the trench dug out by the dog is more comfortable than standing on the soft snow, but on one of the grounds, which was scraped by Anfeiya's snowshoes, there is a A section of rusty railroad track, and a section of sleepers under the railroad track that is still intact.

"Why are there railroad tracks here?"

Wei Ran and Sui Sui subconsciously looked at both ends of the railroad tracks. The excavated railroad track was only half a meter long. One end pointed to the shore of the pier, while the other pointed to the back of the pier. , a logging road that is not considered spacious.

He took a few steps in this direction, and when Wei Ran scraped away a lump of raised snow with his engineering shovel, what was revealed was a rusty mine cart.

"Isn't this a lumberyard?"

"It's a logging camp, but both open pit and underground mines require a lot of wood."

Wei Ran explained with a smile, "At least the Soviet Union was very frugal at the end of World War II, so before mining the ore, the logging camp was built first. The felled trees can not only support the initial infrastructure construction of the mine, but also will not be wasted. The only thing that needs to be paid for these precious woods is the time of the prisoners in the labor camp."

"The time of a prisoner of war is worthless," Anfeya murmured subconsciously, "just as worthless as life."

"That's right"

Wei Ran nodded, "Let's go back to the car and look along that logging road to see what we find."

The three girls naturally wouldn't object, among other things, at least the inside of the car was much warmer than the outside.

Soon, the three vehicles separated and drove out along the logging road.

After driving four to 500 meters with difficulty, there was an open space less than [-] meters square in front of him.

In the center of this open space, there is a dark hole sloping to the ground.

Although most of the entrance of the cave was buried by snow, the planks and beams used to support the cave can still be seen, as well as the abandoned mine carts inside the cave.

Of course, the brown bear crawling out of the mine was obviously more dangerous than the mine itself, which had been mined for an unknown amount of time.

"Ugh-"

The brown bear let out a threatening roar, and then, like a mountain of meat, rushed towards the leading truck!

"We can't take a bite out of our Monsoon tires!"

Sui Sui, who was in charge of driving, shouted in panic, not only the tires could not bear the teeth of this brown bear, but such a big bear slapped its paw on the car body, even if the sheet metal of the car body could hold it, the double-layer insulated car glass I can't bear it either!

Not to mention, even if their car was aiming at the entrance of the mine at this time, they had to back up first even if they wanted to avoid the bear. The traffic is stuck!
Even if they weren't blocked by their cars, no matter how fast the backing speed was, how could it compare to the running speed of a brown bear whose anger was at its peak when it was woken up in hibernation!

"parking!"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already pushed open the skylight above his head, pulled away Beria who had started baring his teeth and growling, and leaned his upper body out of the car window holding the double-barreled shotgun.

And Sui Sui, who had unconditional trust in Wei Ran, stomped on the brakes hard without even thinking about it.

"boom!"

Before Wei Ran could shoot, they parked the car in the other two trucks on both sides of the mine, one after the other. The targets fired a burst each.In almost overlapping gunshots, the two bullets crossed and hit the brown bear behind the ear.

"Plop!" With a muffled sound, the brown bear instantly straightened its limbs, and the entire huge body fell to the ground under the momentum of inertia, and finally rolled and stopped slowly in the middle of the monster truck driven by Sui Sui. Less than two meters ahead.

"call--"

Still firmly pressing on the brakes, Sui Sui, who had stood up while holding onto the steering wheel, heaved a long sigh of relief, and sat down on the driver's seat again.Wei Ran waited for a while to see that the brown bear stopped moving, and then closed the safety of the shotgun.Retracted the car and closed the sunroof.

He comforted Sui Sui, who was pale with fright, and then kicked Beria, who had been scratching the door and wanted to go out to fight, tied his leash to the armrest of the seat back, and then Wei Ran opened the car door walked out.

A little earlier than him, the Katenka sisters also came over with their weapons.One of the two sisters pointed their gun at the entrance of the mine, and the other cautiously poked the brown bear in the eye with the muzzle. Seeing that it didn't respond, they asked, "Are you all right?"

"She was taken aback"

Wei Ran glanced at Sui Sui in the monster truck, and then said, "Thanks to you two sisters, you have good marksmanship."

"This is also the first time we have shot such a big prey." Anfeya pointed her gun at the entrance of the mine and said without looking back, "Shall we go to the mine to have a look?"

"Is this edible?" Anfisa asked, pointing at the brown bear that hadn't cooled down yet, "Is it delicious?"

Before Wei Ran could answer the questions of the two sisters, Sui Sui also got out of the carriage, and looked at the brown bear with bleeding from the corner of its mouth and ears in shock, first hugged Wei Ran, and then hugged sister Katenka respectively. After hugging her, I couldn't stop thanking her.

"So is this edible?" Anfisa deliberately changed the subject and asked.

"It should be possible."

Sui Sui said uncertainly, but at the same time glanced at Wei Ran, who was relatively the best cook among the four.

"Try and you'll know"

Wei Ran signaled the three girls to step back, "Let's let it dry for a while, and wait for the fleas on it to freeze to death."

Hearing that there were fleas, the three girls retreated a full distance of two or three meters, as if that little flea was more terrifying than this huge adult brown bear.

"Keep an eye on Beria, don't let it get too close, or all the fleas will go to it."

As Wei Ran said, he was already holding a shotgun, and walked alone towards the dark mine more than 20 meters away along the beast path that the brown bear had crushed.

Standing at the entrance of the mine and looking in, Wei Ran frowned.

The entrance of this mine is not small. If the reinforcement boards, the thick pillars, and the surrounding stones are removed, the diameter can be nearly three meters, but when the beam of the flashlight shines in, he finds that, The depth inside this mine is only less than 10 meters.

As for the 10 meters behind, I don't know whether it has collapsed or been blown up artificially, and it has already been tightly blocked.

At the end of the surviving 10-meter mine, you can still see a hot spring bear nest piled up with pine needles, weeds, etc., and around this nest, which looks like a big bed, there are still a lot of broken bones and broken beasts. "kitchen waste" such as leather and feathers.

As far as the harvest is concerned, on a thick wooden board used for reinforcement on the side of the mine, you can still see a row of Japanese slogans written in red lacquer-work hard to increase production, and strive for repatriation places to go home.

"Cut down trees and dig mines, these prisoners of war are living a very prosperous life."

Wei Ran muttered to himself, knowing that there were no useful clues to be found in this wilderness, he turned and walked in the direction of the truck.

(End of this chapter)