War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1117 Snowy Night's Wine Game and Prison Break

"probably so"

Uncle Sergey looked at the three people sitting in front of him, "Next Monday, which is the 12th, the three of you will follow me to build a canteen in the mine at the northern pier.

You will also bring all the reindeer with you, so remember to prepare enough feed for them in advance.I went to the pier in the north today. There is really nothing there, and the mine is less than 20 meters deep. Andre, who lived in the same dormitory with you, has lost a big toe due to freezing. "

After a short pause, Sergey lowered his voice and said, "Also, if you still have money, you must buy more clothes to keep out the cold. There are no shops there."

After finishing speaking, the old fellow lifted the curtain and walked out of the quiet stone house without waiting for the three of them to say anything.

"Today is Friday," Mesut said in a low voice. "I will probably have to work tomorrow, but I will definitely rest on the weekend. By then, the camp may be full of people."

"So when are we?" Ihor asked, looking at Mesut hesitantly.

"Get ready"

Mesut paused, then continued, "We haven't got the shotgun, the tent, and the crucial candles, so we'll think of a way tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. If it doesn't work, we can only go to the north pier. Hands on the road."

"Are you going to kill Sergei?" Ihor asked viciously.

"If you want to die, you can kill everyone." Mesut snorted coldly, "If we want to escape here alive, we can't kill anyone."

Hearing this, Ihor didn't say anything, but stood up and said, "I'll go to the store to see if I can buy anything useful."

After finishing speaking, the devil prisoner of war had already opened the curtain and walked out of the stone house.

Seeing this, Wei Ran and Mesut also got into the dormitory next door, put on their clothes, and followed them to the store.

This time, the three of them didn't save any money, and exchanged all the tokens in their hands for various things that could be bought.

Wei Ran exchanged the tokens in his hand for a pair of cotton trousers with a layer of wolf fur sewn on the outside, a sweater and a shirt, and they were completely sold out.

In addition to changing the same things, Ihor also changed an extra reindeer skin blanket.

But Mesut, with all his money, bought only a thick aluminum bucket with a lid, and three large bottles of vodka, plus a small bottle of canned oranges, which are rare and rare here, and a small packet of fruit-flavored hard candies.

However, from the way he carefully put these things away, it is clear that he is not going to have a drink with Wei Ran and Ihor to get rid of his worries.

It was another night of silence. When they were woken up by the whistle on Saturday morning, Mesut didn't even have time to eat breakfast, so he called Wei Ran for help, and gave most of the healthy doe deer a head-to-head The antlers were trimmed and the body condition was carefully checked.

On the other hand, Ihor also took advantage of the opportunity of working in the stables to use a small knife made of horseshoes to pry loose the horseshoes of the fastest horses, and adulterated the feed of all the horses. Some dirty snow.

Wei Ran also had his own independent task. He took advantage of the afternoon to go around another stone house next to the store, and then went back to the blacksmith shop, and found two thin steel wires to make Well get ready.

This afternoon, a white-haired wind was blowing in the sky. The large snowflakes caught in the strong wind and the increasingly manic cold wind itself made everyone realize that there might be a snowstorm coming soon.

"This is a rare opportunity"

In the blacksmith's room, Mesut said in a low voice, "Tonight we invite Uncle Panin and Sergey to drink. Before that, we should assemble our sledge."

"I've been waiting for this day for a long time." Ihor clenched his fists excitedly.

"Ihor, you go to watch outside." Mesut said in a low voice, "If someone comes over, at least give us a minute."

"Leave it to me!" Ihor said, and immediately put on his fur hat and got out of the stone house.

"Come and help"

Mesut greeted Wei Ran, opened the wooden boards piled up by the fireplace, and took out all the iron or wooden parts mixed in it.

Some of these parts have already been combined together, and the joints are even reinforced with metal interspaces, especially those birch poles hidden in the corners with a length of three meters. The cross-section is polygonal, and there are thick iron hoops at both ends, and even the birch pole itself is wrapped with an extra layer of glued and extra-strong white canvas.

Under Mesut's command, the two of them assembled the first sleigh in less than half an hour.

This sleigh car is exactly the same as the blueprint that Wei Ran saw in the horse fur notebook, especially the bottom of the sled, the two wooden sleds are 15 centimeters wide and almost as long as the body of the sleigh car. The board is also exceptionally thick and seems to have been waxed.

Even the curved upturned and slightly inward-curved front of the sled car is covered with a thin iron sheet that extends from the bottom of the car to the rear.

Behind the upturned tail of the sleigh, in addition to a small step on which a person can stand and two extra-strong handrails, there is a wooden box. Potential carpentry tools, plus a pair of skis and poles, plus a pair of snowshoes.

It can also be seen from these details that Mesut has been preparing for this escape for a long time.

"We carried it outside and put it under the dormitory."

Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded silently, and after the other party blew out the kerosene lamp, he and he lifted the exquisitely crafted sleigh and walked out of the stone house, taking advantage of the sky to stuff it under the suspended floor of the dormitory.

Glancing at Ihor, who was on guard at the door, Wei Ran and Mesut didn't dare to delay, and then assembled another sleigh cart with the same shape at the fastest speed.And carried it into the shadows under the dormitory floor.

Fortunately, maybe Mesut, a veterinarian who is a part-time blacksmith and part-time carpenter, is too diligent. Even if the people around saw it, they were not curious, as if they had long been accustomed to this kind of thing.

After assembling the two sleigh carts, Mesut didn't even forget to take out a few wooden stakes from the trash can, and cleverly raised the pile of wooden boards, which had become much shorter, to its original height.

The two of them had finished their work, and the whistle sounded outside, representing dinner.However, due to the intensifying white hair wind, the whistle sound became extremely erratic.

When Wei Ran called back the dinner for the three of them, Ihor also invited Panin over, and on the temporary table built with wooden boards, three bottles of vodka with the lids unscrewed and a bottle of extraordinarily precious Cans, and even the center of the table, with a handful of hard fruit candies.

"Are you planning to celebrate your birthday again?" Panin sat down with his lunch box and asked in surprise.

"We're going to work in the mines on Monday"

Mesut smiled and explained, "So we plan to treat you and Papa Sergey to have a drink. Also, where is Papa Sergey? Why didn't he come?"

"He can't come tonight"

Paning unscrewed a hard fruit candy and stuffed it into his mouth while saying, "He took Marina to the north pier to deliver meals in the afternoon. Looking at the weather like this, he probably won't come back."

"It's a pity"

As Mesut said, he had already filled the enamel jar in front of Panin with vodka, "In this case, you can only drink it for him and the vodka."

"This is really a tough job." Before the young Panin finished speaking, he had already picked up his cup and took a sip.

"Come on, let's have a toast together!" Mesut said, winking at Wei Ran and Ihor.

Seeing this, Wei Ran and the two immediately sat down, picked up the enamel cup, and touched Panin who had just put down the cup.

"For the first cup, let us toast the blizzard descended by the shaman god." Wei Ran made a toast that Panin could not and would not refuse.

"Cheers!" Panin didn't finish his sentence, and brought the enamel stick that hadn't been placed on the table to his mouth again, and took a second sip of vodka.

"For the second cup, let's toast to Papa Sergey and our friend Panin." Ihor followed up.

"Cheers!" Panin followed suit and drank the third glass of wine.

"The Third Cup"

Mesut filled the glasses of the three in turn and said, "Let's respect friendship, Panin, how long have we known each other?"

"I remember that you and Victor were sent here in the winter of '49. Ihor was earlier, and he worked here in '48." Panin burped, "At that time I'm not a militiaman yet."

"We didn't work here then"

Ihor shivered subconsciously, "I remember the mining field before, the environment there was too bad, many of my friends died there, many of them were frozen to death. I was frozen there I lost three toes. If Mesut hadn't bandaged my wounds, I probably wouldn't have survived that winter."

"Yeah, I remember that too"

Panin took a sip of the wine, and while scooping up a spoonful of stewed fish with potatoes and stuffing it into his mouth, he said vaguely, "It used to be the forest of our tribe, Sergey, Marina and I also Haven't been back for two years."

"What's the situation there now?" Mesut asked while filling Panin's glass. "I don't even know where the camp is."

"On the west bank of the Yenisei River, 70 kilometers from Dudinka."

Panin said subconsciously, "A lot of coal was dug there, but many people died. Some people from our tribe stayed to help manage the coal mine, and some came here."

"Do you want to go back there?"

While Mesut was speaking, he scooped out a few slices of oranges from the small canning jar with a spoon, and put them into Panin's wine glass together with some sweet and greasy soup, "Try it, this is our new discovery. The way you drink it, the citrus flavor is stronger and sweet."

"It's really extravagant to drink like this. I've never eaten canned oranges."

As Panin said, he picked up the wine glass and took another big sip, but unfortunately, although he drank one-third of this sip, the few petals of oranges sank into the bottom of the glass, so the only thing he tasted was the fruit with Just the sweetness of orange.

However, due to the temptation of the few petals of oranges in the glass, the young Panin obviously had the urge to drink the whole glass of wine.

"You can taste the taste with two slices of oranges," Mesut said, digging out two slices of oranges again, but this time they brought them directly to Panin's mouth.

"let me taste"

As Panin said, he ate the orange in the spoon in one gulp, and at the same time, Ihor filled his glass with vodka again.

Under the persuasion of these three ghost spirits and prisoners of war with ulterior motives, Panin drank a small half bottle of vodka without waiting to fill his stomach.

Seeing that the amount was almost up, the three of them stopped persuading him to drink, and instead began to invite him to eat and eat vegetables, and raised their glasses every now and then.

After eating such a meal for more than an hour, the sky outside has completely darkened, and the howling wind has become more terrifying.Outside the small window, there was no sign of human activity at all.

Seeing this, Mesut winked at Wei Ran and Ihor, "It's getting late, you two, send Panin back, he's still on duty tonight, so don't drink too much. "

"I almost forgot about it"

Ihor helped Panin up as he spoke, and at the same time asked with concern, "Panin, can you still walk by yourself?"

"Yes, of course!"

Panin, whose face was flushed from drinking, had already stood up while speaking, and Ihor still helped him out.

"Remember what we need"

Mesut pressed against Wei Ran's ear and reminded again, "Candles are the most important, followed by tents, shotguns, bullets and animal skins, but don't touch Panin's weapons, and pay close attention to Ihor, don't let He killed Panin."

"I know" Wei Ran said, he got out of the room and caught up with Ihor and Panin.

The two worked together to send the drunken Panin back to the store, and Ihor pretended to help add firewood to the fireplace, while at the same time winking at Wei Ran.

Resisting the urge to goug out the devil's mung bean eyes, Wei Ran easily pried open the iron-clad wooden door leading to the warehouse, and walked in with the kerosene lamp from the store.

There are far fewer things in this warehouse than he imagined, but fortunately, he found a large package of the most important candles on one of the shelves.

Put this thing into his pocket first, after Wei Ran searched for a while, although he couldn't find the tent, he found several tanned wolf skins, fox skins, a heavy bear skin, and a bundle of Rubberized tarpaulin and some bundles of rope.

Knowing that this was an escape and not a shopping mall, Wei Ran only took away a few relatively light wolf and fox skins, and then moved the bundle of canvas and those ropes out of the warehouse one by one.

Finally, after searching in this warehouse, he finally found a dragoon rifle that looked very old, and the only two boxes of ammunition.

Putting the bullets into his pocket, Wei Ran fumbled for a while, then filled an unknown Soviet military kettle with kerosene and hung it on his waist, and took a pair of over-the-knee moccasin boots and two pairs of goggles , then walked out of the warehouse and locked the warehouse door.

Throwing the rifle to Yihor, Wei Ran picked up the rolls of animal skins, blew out the kerosene lamp and walked out of the shop first.Immediately afterwards, Ihor also carried the roll of canvas on his shoulders, and chased after him with a few bundles of ropes in his hand. He also helped close the door of the shop.

Taking advantage of the shadow of the building, I carefully returned to the door of the stone house. At this time, Mesut had already put a lot of supplies on the two sledges.

"Have you got it all?" Mesut, who was hiding under the floor of the dormitory, asked in a low voice.

"I didn't get the tent, but I found a bundle of canvas." Wei Ran replied close to the other party's ear, "I found the rest."

"Let's go!" Mesut said, and was the first to push the sled to the deer enclosure not far away.

Under his leadership, Wei Ran also pushed a sleigh cart to follow, while Ihor ran towards the stables not far away after putting the supplies on the sleigh cart.
Against the wind and snow, Wei Ran and the two of them put two female reindeer with clipped antlers on each sleigh with difficulty, and then tied three female reindeer to the back of the sleigh.

Not to mention, before setting off, Mesut broke through the railing of the deer enclosure in the depths of the forest, and Ihor released the three draft horses from the stable.

"go!"

As Mesut put on his goggles, he was the first to yell at the reindeer and rush into the vast forest.

"Let's catch up!"

As Ihor said, he had jumped onto the reindeer sleigh that Wei Ran yelled at, but he didn't know that if the metal book hadn't stopped him, he would have been kicked down with a knife across his neck.

Silently putting away the Finnish knife that subconsciously slipped out of his cuff, Wei Ran lightly shook the leather reins, and urged the two strong reindeer to catch up with Mesut, who was running ahead with brisk hooves.

Soon, under the cover of the blizzard and night, the two sledge vehicles disappeared into the depths of the boundless coniferous forest together with the reindeer who had lost their fences.

(End of this chapter)