War Photographer's Notebook

"Dang!"

When the last brass shell in the shotgun fell to the floor, the last two crew members in the cabin at the door of the engine room also lay obediently in a pool of blood.

"Crack, click, click"

In the dark cabin, Wei Ran slowly reloaded the trench gun in his hand, then took off the small copper pieces from the four corpses inside and outside the door and put them in his pocket, and finally put on the anti-Japanese sword , seriously cut off four dog heads, picked up the sack again and walked into the engine room.

After some observation, he found the oil pipeline. After placing the sack nearby, he turned around and left. When passing by the warehouse, he cut off the heads of the two guards and took away the small copper pieces belonging to them.

Going back upstairs quickly, Hugo and Valoro were sitting at the door of the stairwell. The former had a cigarette in his mouth, and the latter was smoking his pipe.

"How many have been solved?" Hugo asked in a cloud of mist.

"six"

Wei Ran took a blood-stained cigarette from the other party and lit it, took a sharp puff and asked, "Why did you shoot? How many did you kill?"

"four"

Hugo paused and continued, "The last two found us, and they had whaling guns in their hands."

"What to do next?" Wei Ran asked nonchalantly.

"Of course I ran away"

Hugo gave an answer freely, "But before that, we'd better get rid of these corpses. I just discussed with Valoro, Victor, we plan to keep the captain, first mate, and second mate , the third officer, the chief engineer and the second engineer, creating the illusion that the bosun led the sailors to mutiny."

"How to do it specifically?" Wei Ran asked following the other party's words.

"Sink the bodies of the bosun and the rest of the sailors into the sea."

Hugo paused, and said with a bit of a headache, "I'm going to blow up the turbine, but it's best to blow it up after we go ashore. This can help us divert some attention."

"Let me do this." Wei Ran said first, "I have a solution."

"Then leave it to you"

Hugo was extra straightforward, "Waloro, Karan, and I are in charge of disposing of the corpses. I'm going to throw all the corpses except the captain into the cold storage."

"I have opened the warehouse door"

Wei Ran dipped his cigarette butt in a pool of blood and put it in his pocket to remind, "In addition, I have opened the safe in the captain's cabin in advance, and there is a tin bucket that seems to contain gray amber in the room temperature warehouse."

"There must be a lot of valuable things on those sailors."

Waloro clicked his pipe and said, "We can take them all away. We don't know how long we'll be hiding. We'll definitely need money."

"I'll leave these to you, but remember to wait for me when you kill the captain, I want to take a picture."

Wei Ran pointed to the camera slung under his arm and added in a mocking tone—"Record it with the camera Captain Fernando gave me."

"We'll be waiting for you, Mr. Photographer." Before Hugo finished speaking, he had already stood up grabbing the handrail of the stairs.

Seeing this, Wei Ran also walked towards the cabin where the four of them used to live, "Where will we meet later?"

"Aft Upper Deck"

Hugo added as he walked, "That whale head, since our captain likes to take pictures with the whales he caught with his own hands, we will help him take more pictures."

"See you later," Wei Ran quickened his pace after finishing speaking.

All the way back to the cabin that belonged to them, Wei Ran took out those small copper pieces from his pocket and looked at them, then sighed contentedly, put them into the gas mask satchel, and then took out the tube of film and held it in his palm , put the tattoo of the tiger's mouth on his left hand on his forehead and begged secretly before putting them together in the bag.

Putting the satchel on his shoulder, Wei Ran went back to the engine room familiarly. After some observation, he took out a roll of fishing line bought in Sydney while shopping in the bag, and used it with those touch fuzes, Explosives, propellants, etc. made a tripping mine.

The only special thing is that the fishing line used as the accompanying line passed through the long and narrow gap in the middle of a coil of mosquito coils at the beginning of setting.

In the previous few days of experiments, Wei Ran has already calculated that it would take about eight hours to eight and a half hours to completely burn out such a plate of mosquito coils.This time was long enough for them to get back to shore in the traffic boat with the outboard motor.

Without rushing to light the mosquito coils, Wei Ran once again joined Walloro, Hugo, and Karan who was retching, and first threw the headless corpses of the first officer, second officer, third officer, chief engineer, and first engineer into the tank. In the cold storage of whale meat.Then the rest of the bodies, together with the iron barrels found in the cargo hold that had been used to hold the spermaceti, were all sent to the upper deck at the stern.

Of course, Nagatsuka Joji, whose limbs and jaw were dislocated, was sent here together, and he was deliberately placed near the remaining head of the whale.

There was no discussion at all, and the four of them tacitly placed one iron barrel after another in front of Nagatsuka Rangji. After cutting a few fist-sized gaps around the iron barrel with an axe, they put some iron barrels into it. Heavy metal objects such as steel cables or wrenches found around.

Finally, they stuffed the stripped headless corpses inside, and carefully bolted the metal cover.

"Pfft!"

In the night, amidst the splashing water, the first oil barrel was hoisted and thrown out of the side of the ship by the joint efforts of Warolo and Hugo, and sank to the bottom of the sea amidst the beam of the flashlight, waves and bubbles.

Looking at each other in satisfaction, Wei Ran walked to Nagatsuka Rangji's side, untied the belt on the other's mouth, took the rag out of his mouth, and then dislocated the other side with a crisp "crack" The jaw returned to its original shape.

Amidst the old devil's screams, Hugo and Valoro had already thrown the second oil barrel out.

"Why?" Nagatsuka asked hoarsely after Joji recovered.

"Isn't the answer in your photo album?"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already thrown two headless corpses with their clothes off into the oil barrel that Karan had just put into a pocket of large bolts, and Karan, whose face was a little pale, also tightly pursed his lips , put the lid on the overstuffed air leaking iron drum, with the help of Wei Ran, and under the silent gaze of Nagatsuka Rangji, he tightened the bolts that locked the lid.

Seeing that Nagatsuka didn't speak again, Wei Ran didn't bother to talk too much nonsense with the other party, he picked up those headless corpses again and again and stuffed them into the oil drum.He didn't even mind chopping off those protruding hands and feet and stuffing them into the gaps in the oil barrel under Karan's horrified gaze.And his bloody and indifferent operation obviously made Nagatsuka Joji recall something.

It took a full two hours to send the boatswain and his sailors to start a one-way underwater sightseeing trip in oil drums.The only thing left on the deck at this time is half a barrel of human heads and piles of tattered clothes.

Put these clothes into the iron bucket and also sealed the lid and put it aside. The four of them had a short rest. Wei Ran's suggestion was also put aside.

Taking advantage of Warolo and the frightened Karan, he began to search for all kinds of valuable and convenient things to take away all over the ship.

However, Hugo and Wei Ran used the chisels they found to dig three holes in the bottom of the boat for three of the only four traffic boats in the ship, which could be the size of bottle caps, and put the iron drums containing clothes into the bottom of the boat. And the iron bucket with the human head tied to the cabin of two of the traffic boats with ropes.

After making sufficient preparations, Hugo ran to the command room, and Wei Ran got into the captain's room again.

In such a short time, the captain's cabin has been turned upside down, all kinds of cabinets and drawers have been turned over, especially on the desk, there are two photo albums, at this time, Karan is gnashing his teeth to read Looking at the photos inside, Valoro was busy packing the banknotes in the safe into the canvas pocket in his hand.

Stepping into the same messy darkroom that had been turned over, Wei Ran was among the garbage all over the floor, and picked up those small objects that were once in the safe into a cloth bag.

"Brother Victor"

Just when Wei Ran was about to leave the room, Karan, who had already been weeping, stopped him.

"What's the matter?" Wei Ran turned to look at Karan with red eyes and asked.

"That captain likes photography, doesn't he?" Karan pointed around, "These photos must be his favorite works, right? Especially those two."

Follow the finger of the other party to look at the two extra photo frames on the wall. They are hung in the prominent photo frames. One photo was taken by Wei Ran, and the photo of Nagatsuka Rangji manipulating the whaling cannon. One was taken by Nagatsuka himself, the moment the whale jumped out of the water.

"You're right." Wei Ran nodded.

"I want to destroy these photos," Karan said, "so that the executioner can lose the most important thing!"

"What do I need to do?" Wei Ran asked cheerfully.

"Can a timing device be made here too?" Karan asked. "I want to burn this place after we leave."

"no problem"

Wei Ran readily agreed, and after some observation, he said, "Go find some kerosene, and then find two thermos pots."

"I'm going!" Karan said, and ran out of the room.

"Did you make it so bloody on purpose?" Waloro, who had been silent just now, asked in a low voice until Karan ran out of the room.

"Aren't you too?" Wei Ran threw the topic back.

Valoro smiled, "I just don't want Karan to think that killing people is a beautiful thing, so make it a little bloodier and let him have more nightmares for a few days, it's better than turning him into a demon like in the photo Much better."

Valoro sat on the safe and lit the pipe that was originally pinned to his waist, "We all survived that war. We all know that war is so cruel. It's just that we and our partners met very unfortunately. It's just a more cruel enemy.

But all we need is revenge. Revenge is not something to enjoy, and it will not bring happiness at all. It is just something we have to do. "

Speaking of which, Valoro casually tossed something to Wei Ran, "Leave it for you as a souvenir! Victor, my friend, no matter who you lost, I hope you can calm down, Even if it is for more perfect revenge, you should calm down."

"They deserve to be killed"

Wei Ran responded with a hoarse voice, and then looked at the object thrown by the other party.This is a string of necklaces, a string of necklaces pierced with the upper beak of a blue bird of paradise, a string of necklaces that were hanging around the neck of the first mate not long ago!
"Don't you know how to give away the necklaces of your tribe?" Wei Ran asked jokingly.

"You beat the first mate, so it should be your prize."

Waloro clicked his pipe and said, "And the original owner of this necklace is gone, and he has no family left. Even if I bring this necklace back to the tribe, I don't know who to give it to."

"I'll keep it well," Wei Ran said, hanging this string of starched necklaces around his neck.

"Hope it blesses you and may it keep you calm."

After Valoro finished speaking, he took the initiative to change the subject, raised his finger to a cabinet that he had pried open and asked, "Victor, how about helping me choose a camera? I want to try to be a photographer too. There are many beautiful sights around my tribe."

"You want to be a photographer?" Wei Ran looked at Valoro in surprise.

"I have to take something with me as a souvenir, right?" Valoro spread his hands, showing a particularly conspicuous set of white teeth with a smile.

Hearing this, Wei Ran stepped to the edge of the pried open cabinet.There are quite a lot of things here. In addition to various types of cameras, there are also many lenses in different categories.

After looking it over, he pulled out a brown hard leather bag that looked square and square, and the Leica logo was branded on the bag.

Opening the leather bag, in addition to a silver Leica M3, there are several lenses and accessories such as a light meter, and a greeting card to congratulate Nagatsuka Joji on his 45th birthday.

However, just like the "48th birthday gift" Nagatsuka gave him not long ago, this Leica also has no traces of use, and even he suspects that the boxy leather bag may not have been opened several times.

"Let it be"

Wei Ran buckled the leather camera bag and handed it to Valoro, "There is nothing more suitable than this set of Leica, it is a very good machine."

"Then let it be." Waloro said with satisfaction after gesticulating, "it just fits into my bag."

"The rest of the cameras and lenses can also be taken away." Wei Ran pointed to the cabinet behind him and said, "These cameras and lenses are worth a lot of money."

"Looks like we can run a photo studio when we go back"

As Valoro said, he had already picked up the canvas bag that contained a lot of cash, and at Wei Ran's suggestion, wrapped the cameras and lenses in torn blankets and put them in.

He had just finished his work here when Karan also ran over with a bucket of kerosene for the boat lights and two thermoses.

After some observation, Wei Ran filled two thermoses with kerosene, hung one of them with a fishing line, and tied a coil of mosquito coils. I bought some leftover propellant from the engine room and matches I found in the room.

Karan is definitely a smart young man, he just read it once, and then figured out the principle, he took another thermos filled with kerosene to the darkroom, and tied it to the drying rope directly above the room The same arrangement was made above.

Seeing this, Wei Ran sighed secretly, he already knew why later generations could not find that crucial negative.

Before Karan personally arranged the timed arson device that could be ignited at any time, Wei Ran took the inconspicuous cloth bag alone, returned to the poop deck, sat cross-legged in front of Nagatsuka Rangji, and put the fire in the cloth bag. All the things were taken out and placed on the blood-stained deck.

Just as Karan was about to burn the captain's cabin, Wei Ran also wanted to destroy his most cherished things in front of Nagatsuka Rangji - as punishment.