War Photographer's Notebook

Under the hazy night, on the upper deck of the stern of the whaling ship Nagazuka Maru, more than 20 sailors with shirtless shirts and pig's trotters on their feet also skillfully cooperated to kill the bloody fin whale. When it was disassembled, only the relatively complete head and the huge skeleton of the body were left lying near the winch at the stern, reminding that this was the prey caught by the captain himself.

It was precisely because of the existence of this bloody whale that the celebration location for this night was determined to be in the cabin restaurant. Although the space there was not large, it was enough for all the crew members to sit down.

In the corner of this equally busy restaurant, bottles of beer are buried in a large wooden barrel filled with ice.On the side of the barrel, there were five or six cases of beer and the same amount of recruiting sake.

Like the celebration of the harvest night before the decision to return, the main ingredient of this dinner is still whale meat—the whale meat of the fin whale.

But this time, Hugo and the others learned a lot. In order not to affect their appetite, they also took the initiative to invite Ying to make some Australian-style meat pies for everyone to try in the name of celebration.

Naturally, no one would refuse such a request. For this reason, the first mate who was defeated by Wei Ran generously asked Wei Ran to take out enough beef from the warehouse for everyone to eat, and allocated two extra beef to the three of Hugo. An English-speaking kitchen assistant.

As for Wei Ran, who is good at fishing and being lazy, at this time, he slipped back to their cabin and locked the door under the pretext of trying the camera given by the captain.

Pulling the curtains and turning on the dim lights, Wei Ran took off the American-style gas mask satchel hanging on his shoulder, and first took a look at the Nikon camera that the captain gave him.

This Nikon SP camera uses an extremely rare 50/1.1 large lens. There is no doubt that it is far clearer in low light conditions than the old military flag camera hanging around Wei Ran's neck.

In addition, a practical shutter button heightening accessory and a hard leather case for protecting the body are added.

After some hesitation, Wei Ran loaded the camera with a roll of film—he had a hunch that there were many things worth taking pictures to keep as souvenirs tonight.

Putting the camera on the table, Wei Ran stooped to pick up the mosquito coil placed under the hammock, extinguished the mosquito coil that was about to burn out and poured out the incense ash, and then stuffed it into his satchel.

Putting the satchel on the table, he took off the hammock and folded it up carefully, and stuffed it into the sailor bag together with the blanket. By the way, he also took out the Ithaca 37 trench gun and the Those two canvas ammunition pouches filled with copper-cased shells.

First assemble the shotgun, and load the magazine and the chamber with bullets. He also put the gun and sailor bag on the table, and then took out the original hammock in the cabin from the cabinet and installed it. By the way, I also emptied my own compartment in the cabinet.

Putting the sailor bag, satchel, trench gun and ammunition bag into the cabinet one by one, Wei Ran put the military flag camera in after a short hesitation, locked the cabinet door, turned around and hung the camera presented by the captain on the on the neck.

Before opening the cabin door, he took out the Mauser bayonet, the anti-Japanese broadsword, and the titanium alloy pistol to check in turn. Then he left the cabin and found Hugo and the others who were still busy in the kitchen.

"Change the camera?" Hugo raised his head and glanced at Wei Ran, and asked casually.

"Sent by Captain Fernando." Wei Ran responded indifferently, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Let's smoke a cigarette on the deck"

As Hugo said, he took off his apron, beckoned Waloro and Karan to leave the stuffy kitchen together, and came to an area on the upper deck where the lights couldn't shine.

In the flickering fire, Valoro lit his pipe, and the three Wei Ran lit a cigarette each.

"Victor, when you were visiting the captain's cabin, we discovered a secret when we went to the bathroom to take a shower." Hugo said in a low voice.

"What secret?" Wei Ran looked up at the three of them.

"Those sailors' belt buckles seem to have an oval metal plate on the left hand side."

Hugo frowned and said, "I'm sure, that's the ID card for recruiting nuclear soldiers during World War II."

"Identity card?" Wei Ran raised his eyebrows.

"I'm sure I can't be wrong"

Hugo's tone became more and more affirmative, "I remember very clearly. When I was fighting on the Kokoda Trail, I collected a lot of those things. You must remember those terrible shoes we wore at that time? I often put Those little metal pieces are nailed to the sole to add traction."

"Every sailor has it?" Wei Ran asked with a frown.

"At least it was on the belts of the three cooks and two helpers who were showering with us in the bathroom at the time." Karan hurriedly replied, "I checked it myself. I saw the first mate go in, so I wanted to follow up secretly." Go in and see if you can help Brother Valoro steal the necklace, but unfortunately, it didn't take off the necklace."

"If you don't believe me, you can go to the bathroom and take a shower."

Valoro raised his pipes towards the sailors on the distant deck who had slaughtered the whales and cleaned the deck, "They seem to be going to take a shower soon."

After taking two puffs of cigarette butts, Wei Ran took off the camera around his neck and handed it to Karan, "hold it for me, I'll be back soon."

"We'll be waiting for you here," Hugo said before Karan could speak.

Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded lightly, deliberately lagging behind the sailors by a certain distance, dawdling for a while and then got into the bathroom full of laughter.

Picking up a pair of trousers with a belt casually, Wei Ran immediately noticed that, as the three of them said, the left hand side of the belt buckle was wearing a particularly strong leather belt.On the inside of the belt, the leather ring is actually worn with a polished oval metal piece.

Wei Ran knew that this kind of small copper plate with personal information existed before World War II, and it also had an official name called "recognition ticket" or "recognition card".Of course, at least during World War II, this thing was worn with a rope and hung diagonally under the armpit, and only some officers would hang it around the waist.

He changed a pair of trousers and looked at it. On the belt of this trousers, there was also such a leather ring near the belt buckle, and a metal piece was also fixed on the leather ring.The words "Fukuyama Hideaki, Warrant Officer, and Pao Liu" are written on the copper plate in three vertical columns.

He continued to check the metal piece on the waistband of the third pair of trousers, but there were words like "He Lai Zhaozhi, Ji Yi, Guang [-]" written on it.

Without continuing to look, Wei Ran quietly left the bathroom, quickened his pace and joined Hugo and others who were still waiting for him in the shadow of the deck.

"See?" Karan asked first.

"I see." Wei Ran nodded, and while taking the camera from the other party, he looked at Hugo.

"The first mate once killed the native soldiers of the Waroro tribe"

Hugo thought about it and said, "Then what about the other sailors? If they used to be nuclear soldiers, why did they all say that they were Japanese immigrants who immigrated to Brazil before the war? What are they hiding?"

"What do you want to do?" Wei Ran asked while lowering his head and fiddling with the camera in his hand.

"Don't drink tonight"

Hugo answered the question, "When they get drunk, let's find a way to get the necklace."

"How far is it from the land?" Valoro asked abruptly.

"Definitely less than 40 kilometers." Hugo gave an affirmative answer, "Otherwise, we would not be able to see the lights of the land, and we would not be able to see the land at all during the day."

"So we can return to land with this small boat?" Waloro asked, pointing to the traffic boat hanging on the railing of the deck not far away.

This less than 10-meter-long traffic boat has an outboard engine at the stern, and there are some first-aid supplies and some life jackets in the cabin.

“Nice weather tonight”

Hugo looked up at the stars all over the sky, and still gave an answer that was not what he asked, then looked back at Valoro and asked, "What do you want to do?"

"I'm going to kill the first mate," Valoro said bluntly, obviously, he still didn't give up.

"Wait until they drink too much and see if there is a chance"

Hugo gave an ambiguous response, "Let's go, we should go back to the kitchen and continue working."

"Are we really going to kill people?" Karan asked in a panic.

"You also killed someone," Hugo said in a low voice, "Waloruo helped us dispose of the body, so we have to help him."

"I'm not afraid!" Karan retorted dissatisfied.

Following the three of them into the cabin, Wei Ran did not enter the kitchen, but instead entered the dining room. With a new camera hanging around his neck, he took a picture full of smiling faces of the sailors who were decorating the dining room.

After two hours of preparation, the ghost sailors, including Captain Fernando, all changed into Japanese-style kimonos and rattling clogs, and a corner of the restaurant was hung with colorful lights. Cheerful devil songs also began to play on the record players of the early years.

In contrast, the four of Wei Ran were still wearing wear-resistant jeans and crumpled shirts—they didn’t bring much luggage when they boarded the boat, and they didn’t expect to have the opportunity to attend the party.

Fortunately, at this time, most of the sailors were focused on the photo of the whale killed by Captain Fernando that Wei Ran took for him and the photo of the whale jumping out of the water that Captain Fernando took. They didn't pay attention at all. He was not the same as them, especially the four temporary workers with different skin colors.

In this slightly neglected atmosphere, the atmosphere in the restaurant became more and more lively, and the smell of alcohol, food and second-hand smoke in the air became stronger.

"It's about to start, it's about to end"

Wei Ran picked up a piece of meat pie and took a hard bite, muttering indistinctly while chewing, his eyes, which were crazier than drunk, also showed alcohol far more than that in this stale air. Looking forward to a stronger flavor.