War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1123 West Bank
"Squeak!"

Ihor, who had been attacked by a canine for the second time, subconsciously covered his neck with his hand, but it was only when his hand felt the scalding heat that he realized belatedly that the glove on this hand just now It has been blown to pieces with the stick of dynamite stuffed into the snow.

At the same time, he also felt that something seemed to fall out of the sled dog's mouth and land on his chest.

All of this is quick to say, but it happened in an instant.And his body, far quicker than his brain, pulled out a small knife made of horseshoe from his belt, and stabbed the sled dog in the chest again and again while roaring!
When pushing away the motionless dog, although Ihor felt that his right hand seemed to be missing something, under the stimulation of adrenaline, it didn't feel too much pain at all, and picked up the right hand instead. The crutch that Mesut helped him make overnight swung it round in a roar, and hit the back of another sled dog hard!

With this solid impact, the sled dog immediately let out a howl, and at the same time let go of the reindeer's neck.Immediately afterwards, it was trampled on its chest and stomach by two other frightened reindeer.

After yelling at the reindeer with difficulty, Ihor noticed that two and a half fingers had been bitten off his right hand!When it noticed the injury, the severe pain of being late also conveyed to its head.

"what--!"

Ihor clenched his wrist and let out a scream. After looking around, he pressed his injured hand into the snow, and at the same time untied the belt around his waist, strangling his wrist hard to stop the bleeding.

Without waiting for the low temperature to completely paralyze the wound, Ihor stood up with difficulty on crutches, stepped on the knee-high snow, and limped towards the drenched body lying on the shore in the snow, shivering. The young man who was trying to aim the snow-covered SKS semi-automatic rifle at him, trying to pull the trigger with his fingers that were frozen with the trigger guard and gloves.

"Panin?"

When Ihor spoke, he had already sat down next to the opponent, and with his only intact hand, he helped the opponent close the safety of the rifle.

"Sure enough. Sure enough. It's you"

Panin said tremblingly, his whole body was soaked. Although he had just sucked up the excess cold river water with the snow, he couldn't absorb the low temperature. The icing starts to stiffen.

"Yeah, it's me, but I didn't expect it to be you. I thought it would be Mesut and Victor."

Ihor looked at his crippled right hand, then at the reindeer whose throat had been bitten through and couldn't even stand upright at this time, then he untied the enamel jar hanging from his waist, and scooped up a bowl Water slowly poured on the trigger of the SKS semi-automatic rifle.

"Where is he?" Panin asked tremblingly.

"He?" Ihor shook his head, "He left me and ran away."

"you."

When Panin said this, his body began to convulse uncontrollably, but a tear still dripped from the corner of his eye, but even so, he asked tremblingly, "Are you guys planning to run away? "

"Of course." Ihor nodded frankly, without any intention of hiding anything.

"I shouldn't be friends with you." Panin's breath became short, "I shouldn't trust you."

"How can we be friends"

Ihor took out a pack of Soviet cigarettes from his pocket, took out one and lit it for himself, took a deep puff, and slowly sprayed the thick smoke onto Panin's face, "Sorry, Panin, I can't let you Survive. But I will send you back to the labor camp, you will be a hero, and of course, I will be a hero."

"what are you going to do?"

The young Panin asked tremblingly, but there was no trace of fear in his tone—even though he was just an adult.

"No, no, no, I won't do anything, I will patiently wait for you to freeze to death."

Ihor stood up with difficulty on crutches, first took off the SKS semi-automatic rifle and threw it far away, then threw the bodies of the two sled dogs into the blasted ice hole, and relieved little by little. He took down the killed reindeer and pushed it into the ice cave not far away.But he didn't care what Panin, who was trying to take off his clothes, would do.

After finishing all this work, Ihor took out a roll of gauze, and wrapped it tremblingly over the black and blue wound that had been frozen.

While he waited patiently, Panin, who was drenched all over his body, finally lost consciousness due to the low temperature. He only took off half of his clothes and froze into a hard armor.

Until the young guard was completely out of breath, Ihor looked at the crippled palm and sighed regretfully. He couldn't run away until now. If he wanted to live, the only choice left was In order to return to the labor camp, and must return to the labor camp as soon as possible!

Mumbling and cursing, Ihor dragged Panin's body onto the sleigh with difficulty little by little, picked up the semi-automatic rifle with a frozen receiver, and shook the reins to urge the two remaining reindeer He ran in the direction of the labor camp.

Naturally, Wei Ran and Mesut didn't know what happened here. At this time, the two of them had been running for more than half an hour in the direction where they had camped along the sled tracks left by themselves on the frozen river.

In this way, there was already a distance of more than 10 kilometers between them and Ihor who had just murdered Panin, so it was naturally impossible to hear the explosion.

However, Mesut did not return to the camping place. Instead, after seeing the sled prints on the north bank leading from the camp to the river, he immediately turned and got into the dense forest on the south bank.

After entering the forest, Mesut's speed slowed down significantly, and even Wei Ran suspected that he was deliberately killing time—just to let Ihor help attract potential hunters.

So slowly, they went south in this forest until it was daylight, and then the two sledge carts turned to the west, and as the sky darkened, they rushed to the river to see off Ihor again.

The two of them didn't know that as long as they walked north along this river for less than two kilometers, it would be the first scene where Ihor killed Panin!

After successfully crossing the frozen river, Mesut turned around and explained to Wei Ran, "The Yenisei River due west is about 60 kilometers away, but this is only a straight line distance, and now we don't have any spare reindeer , so we want to rush to the east bank of the Yenisei River, I am afraid it will take a whole day."

After a short pause, Mesut said seriously, "Victor, if you have an accident, I will abandon you, and if I have an accident, you can also abandon me and run by yourself. On this premise, we will help each other escape. here."

"I have no objection"

Wei Ran said flatly, and at the same time secretly heaved a sigh of relief. It is better for the other party to be so frank and honest than to keep the bad in his heart.

Hearing this, Mesut did not continue to say anything, and the snow-covered coniferous forest fell into silence again.

In the unhurried dragging of the hard-working reindeer, the two sled cars stop and go, extending the sled prints on the ground.

One day later, in the middle of the night, the two sleighs finally reached the east bank of the Yenisei River smoothly.

There was no pause at all and no communication at all. The four reindeer, who had just rested an hour ago, pulled a sleigh cart in twos and pulled a sleigh cart, with a distance of less than 10 meters from each other. With sledge marks and rut marks, the Yenisei River is two kilometers wide.

As the sleigh cart bumped, they were getting closer and closer to the west bank of the Yenisei River. Just as they were about to reach the shore, a sledge pulled by a draft horse rushed towards the south.

Almost subconsciously, Mesut picked up the Winchester lever-action rifle, and Wei Ran even pulled out a mine explosive from his boot to get ready.

Surprisingly, the horse-drawn sledges with a kerosene lamp hanging on the shaft did not stop at all. Even when the driver on the sledge passed behind the two of them, a series of loud chimes sounded. snore.

The two looked at each other, shook the reins vigorously, and rushed to the west bank of the river at the fastest speed regardless of the violent bumps of the sled.

Deliberately running along those intricate sled tracks for less than 5 minutes, Mesut shook the reins, yelled at the reindeer to go northeast, and rushed into the dense forest without sled tracks.

At this time, even Wei Ran couldn't help but look back. After a week of fleeing, they finally came to the bank of the Yenisei River, but the German prisoner of war Mesut in front was just about to start a period of time. A more difficult escape journey!

"There are still 11 days until the end of November."

Wei Ran muttered to himself, and he became more and more curious about how far Mesut could run in the next month or so.

In his wild imagination, the Yenisei River behind him was tightly blocked, and on the snow under the sleigh car, gradually there was only a shared sled mark left by the two cars.

Compared with the east coast, in addition to the same coniferous forests on the west coast, there are many more open spaces without trees growing.Although Wei Ran from later generations has never been here before, he also knows that in summer, these open spaces will become a boundless swamp that breeds big mosquitoes.

Fortunately, it is still winter, so this man-eating swamp, for the two sledges, has also become a highway that appears from time to time in the forest.

Even, if you find a high-definition satellite map of later generations, you can easily see that the distance from Wei Ran's current position to the west for a distance of six to seven hundred kilometers is basically such a terrain.Not only that, but it will also become the largest oil and gas field mining area in the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet era.

Of course, in this era of just five or six years after the end of World War II, there were no oil and gas fields in this desolate land. After the area, in the hundreds of kilometers to the west at the same latitude, there are almost no forest farms and mines.

Until this time, both Wei Ran and Mesut have relaxed somewhat. At least, they don't have to worry about bumping into the labor camps set up by the Soviet Union and other gathering areas.

"You already knew that there are few people here, so you decided to escape from here?"

When the two camped for the second time after crossing the Yenisei River, Wei Ran finally asked Mesut in the same tent his doubts.

At least for now, it's much easier to walk here than he thought. Among other things, the frozen swamps that appeared in large areas were not covered by trees, and even the snow was blown away by the cold wind.

Not only would this allow the sleigh to run faster, but the pack of wolves would also be much smaller. The largest four-legged predator was just a fox.

Obviously, this is definitely Mesut's luck. He definitely knew the situation here, so he chose to start his escape from here.

"Before being transferred to that labor camp"

Mesut handed Wei Ran a cup of hot water and explained, "We were locked up near the gathering area of ​​Panin and Sergey at that time, do you still have an impression?"

"Yes" Wei Ran replied smoothly, and at the same time deliberately guessed randomly, "You didn't come here at that time, did you?"

"I never came"

Mesut took a sip of the hot water and explained without reservation, "But Sergey has been here, he is an excellent hunter, he grew up here, although he has never been to Moscow, but he knows every piece of land here. land.

He told me many things about this land, especially his hunting experience here, and these stories finally made me decide to choose this escape route. "Speaking of this, Mesut sighed, "I don't know what happened to Ihor."

"He will definitely survive, but you, it's hard to say."

Wei Ran muttered to himself, but at the same time, he couldn't help thinking about what kind of danger it would be to take away Mesut's life.

(End of this chapter)