War Photographer's Notebook

In the narrow and drafty cabin, the struggling navigator, the two machine gunners who had not had time to introduce themselves, and the long-dead radio operator pushed out the tail hatch one by one.

Without the weight of four to five hundred kilograms, Weiran did not stop and continued to throw away the drums filled with bullets and anything that seemed of little use in the cabin. He also asked Yuri from time to time. The situation of the aircraft.

Although the condition of the aircraft was not optimistic, fortunately, after every firefighting call, I could always hear Julian's response in the earphones with his thin voice.

However, just when he could vaguely see the outline of the French coastline through the porthole window, the remaining engine of the plane also stalled, and the flight altitude at this time had dropped to less than 2000 meters.

"Victor, let's parachute. Our plane has no power. It can't fly to land."

In the communication headset, Julian's voice was still cold and arrogant, "There seems to be a sea hotel on the starboard side. I have flown the plane upstream of the hotel. As long as you can open the parachute smoothly, you can definitely climb up after landing." Go up."

"Are you going to stay?" Wei Ran asked, holding the microphone switch at his throat.

"You jump first, I want to maintain the flying posture." Julian answered naturally.

"Is the hatch open?"

After Wei Ran finished speaking, he took off his earphones and opened his seat belt. He put the camera back into the metal book as quickly as possible, and then quickly climbed back into the cockpit.

Sure enough, Julian, who was still controlling the attitude of the plane, didn't open the canopy at all. He was now struggling to even stand up.

Without plugging in the communication headset to communicate with the other party at all, Wei Ran tried his best to help the other party open the upper left canopy, then held the joystick and shouted into the other party's ear, "You get out first!"

"You go first! I have a way!" Julian shouted calmly.

"The special code is tough!"

Wei Ran cursed and muttered something in Chinese that the other party didn't understand, and quickly climbed out of the cabin by stepping on the edge of the other party's seat, leaning out his upper body against the biting cold wind.

Before he could prepare himself to avoid hitting the diagonal antenna and tail fin behind the fuselage, Julian controlled the plane and began to roll nearly 180 degrees to the left, easily "toppling" the satellite out. !

Before even opening the parachute, Wei Ran also saw that Julian had "fallen" himself out.

There are two brushes.
Wei Ran breathed a sigh of relief. He waited until Julian above his head successfully opened the parachute, and then he opened the parachute bag he had been carrying on his back.

Under the vast night, two white parachutes floated slowly in the wind. Above their heads, the He111 bomber that had lost all its passengers also rolled and plunged into the cold English Channel, disappearing in the blink of an eye. without a trace.

As the distance to the sea gradually narrowed, Wei Ran gradually saw clearly that there was indeed a rescue buoy with a red cross painted on it and lights on, which looked particularly conspicuous.

However, as he floated closer and closer, he gradually discovered that something was wrong with this rescue buoy.

What's wrong is that it is the same as what later generations saw. On its watchtower, the crucial mast is missing, and in the window of the watchtower, there is an extremely bright oil lamp hanging.

Are there other pilots there? Isn’t this the one from later generations?

Wei Ran, who was still floating in the air, muttered to himself, and at the same time he took off the steel helmet and flying cap on his head, and threw them out together with the heavy gloves.

Using the last moment, he took off the paratrooper's knife pinned to his thigh, shook off the blade, and was ready to cut the parachute rope at any time. At the same time, he did not forget to take one last look in the direction of the rescue buoy.

"crash"

Almost as soon as his feet touched the cold water, he untied the parachute bag on his body as quickly as possible. At the same time, he used the momentum of the downward plunge to avoid the extremely dangerous parachute behind him in the water, and at the same time also He kicked off his heavy flying boots filled with sea water.

"Whoa!"

When he surfaced again, he just happened to see Julian fall into the water, and saw his parachute spread out on the sea like a drop of thick milk in the water, and finally turned into a floating ball. Jellyfish.

"broken!"

After waiting for a while and seeing that the other party did not surface, Wei Ran immediately dived into the water as quickly as possible, helped the injured Julian take off his parachute and flying boots, and helped him cut the parachute rope wrapped around his neck. Pulled him out of the water from behind.

"How is the situation?" Wei Ran shouted and asked while putting away his paratrooper knife.

"Ahem! It's okay!"

Julian breathed heavily after coughing, "Let me go, I can swim by myself."

"You are so capable, why don't you just park the plane on the buoy?"

Wei Ran mocked the other party but did not let go. Instead, he grabbed the other party's belt and led him to swim to the rescue buoy less than a hundred meters away.

Compared with later generations, at the edge of the rescue buoy deck, there was not only a rope hanging from the top of the ladder for people to climb up and down, but also an orange-red rubber raft tied to the bottom of the ladder.

"I'll go up first and drag you up later." Wei Ran said, hanging the buckle on the rope on Julian's belt.

The latter opened his mouth, but in the end he did not continue to show off. He just grabbed the ladder with his left hand and stepped on the ladder with his uninjured right foot.

After climbing up to the buoy deck in a few moments, Wei Ran did not rush to pull Julian up. Instead, he cautiously opened the door and looked inside the buoy.

Under the dim light, he could clearly see that directly under the ladder that went straight up and down, there was a person who seemed to be unconscious lying on the floor that was slightly glimmering under the light.

"Is there anyone in there?"

Wei Ran shouted inside, but when he saw no one else responded, and the one lying on the floor showed no reaction, he used a rope to pull Julian up. He continued to pull with the rope and put him into the rescue buoy.

When the other party stood firm, Wei Ran shivered and got into the watchtower, closing the iron door behind him to block the cold sea breeze outside.

It was only at this time that he clearly heard a loudspeaker with a hissing noise in the cabin directly below, playing Mustache's impassioned and inflammatory speech.

Shivering, Wei Ran glanced at the sea outside the window, then climbed down the ladder and got into the rescue cabin that was filled with the smell of blood.

"Are you still alive?"

Wei Ran squatted down next to the first resident and felt his breath. Fortunately, the man with multiple burns all over his body was still alive.

The badge on his arm with a black background and a white border and a hammer in his hand also implies that he is from the bomber crew of the German Second Air Wing (KG2).

However, the pilot's condition was not optimistic. The burns on his body, especially on his face, were only the most minor injuries.

Wei Ran's quick examination revealed that the man's ribs had been broken in multiple places, and some organs had probably been punctured.

Perhaps due to the pain and stimulation during the inspection of the injury, the soaked crew member also woke up. After seeing Julian leaning against the wall next to him and Wei Ran who was inspecting his injury, he pulled up With an apologetic smile, he said with difficulty, "Sorry, our plane broke the mast."

"The medical kit is in the highest cabinet on the right."

Julian first pointed out the location of what he wanted to find to Wei Ran, who was rummaging through the box, and then turned around and asked, "What are you flying about?" "Flying pencil." After the man finished speaking, he coughed up some blood foam, "I Yes. Ahem! It’s a navigator.”

"Mr. Navigator, now is not the time for chatting."

Wei Ran, who came back with the medical kit, said as he put down the medical kit, "Sorry, I can't operate on you due to the conditions here, and you may have injured your internal organs. All I can do is give you an injection." Be comfortable, if you are still alive after I treat the gentleman next to you, I will find a way to help you."

"Thank you." The navigator murmured with difficulty and allowed Wei Ran to give him an injection of anesthesia.

"Are you familiar with this place?"

While Wei Ran was talking, he had already taken off Julian's soaked flight suit and inner jacket, then helped him lie down on a bed, and then brought the medical kit over.

Fortunately, the medical supplies in this box were enough to support the surgical work. Not only that, there was also a Gemstone oil stove that he had seen more than once.

The difference is that this oil stove also comes with a dark blue lampshade. Obviously, in addition to cooking and sterilizing medical instruments, this small oil stove also functions as a surgical light.

"I stayed in another hotel for two days three months ago," Julian replied calmly.

Wei Ran found an anesthetic from the medical kit and applied it around Julian's wound. He kept saying, "The small talk is over. Next, I will try to suture your wound."

"Is there a doctor on my plane?" Julian asked weakly.

"Veterinarian, I used to castrate cattle and sheep."

While Wei Ran was teasing Julian while the anesthetic was taking effect, he took off his soaked clothes as quickly as possible, found a clean Luftwaffe uniform, put it on casually, and wrapped it in a towel. Wet hair.

"Don't cut it in the wrong place," Julian joked feebly, and his attitude was much better than on the plane.

"Unless you move around, don't worry." As Wei Ran spoke, he had already lit the oil stove and put a blue glass lampshade on it.

With the help of the icy blue light released by the gas stove lamp, he first helped Julian take out the shrapnel that was almost the size of a nail clipper embedded in his left thigh and successfully sutured the wound.

However, he frowned when he re-examined Julian's mutilated right hand.

"What's wrong?" Julian forced himself to ask.

"I'm afraid you can't save the index and middle fingers of this hand."

Wei Ran said truthfully, "They only have a little bit of flesh and skin attached to them. Under the current conditions, even if I sew your blood vessels, I won't be able to sew the nerves at all. The best way is"

"Then cut it off." Julian sighed silently after finishing speaking.

No matter what the pilot thought, Wei Ran did not delay. While the medicine was still taking effect, he directly cut off the index and middle fingers of his right hand, together with the piece of palm meat that was half the size of a mahjong. After careful debridement, , the wound was sutured and bandaged as much as possible.

It was only then that he had time to get Julian a towel and a set of clean clothes, and after the other party had changed, he covered him with a blanket. Unfortunately, when he returned to the navigator who was still lying on the floor, he found that he had expired.

"Is he dead?" Julian asked weakly.

"Dead, the pupils have dilated."

He opened the navigator's eyelids and took a look. While responding to Julian, Wei Ran took off the air force uniform he had just put on carelessly and put on more comfortable and warmer thermal clothes. , and put on a sweater, warm pants and a pair of warm boots.

As for the Luftwaffe uniform, forget it, that thing was used to prevent him from being treated as a prisoner of war if he was caught by the British.

"Carry him outside." Yuri paused and pointed in the direction. "There is a radio distress device there. Try it and see if it still works. Also, can you get me a uniform?"

"I'll get it for you later."

While Wei Ran was talking, he had already found a rope and tied it to the navigator's armpit. Then he climbed up the ladder and used the rope to drag him little by little to the deck outside.

Using the light from the watchtower, he groped around the body as a habit, and finally successfully found a Sauer 38 pistol for elites and a spare cartridge from the water-filled boot. box.

Putting the weapon in his arms, Wei Ran untied the body's belt buckle and temporarily fixed him to the railing of the deck. Then he climbed back into the cabin, which was definitely not very warm. He first helped Julian find an air force uniform, and then under his guidance, he found the inconspicuous radio distress device and opened it.

"The radio itself can still be used, but the mast is broken and we don't have an antenna. Its communication range is probably not too far."

As Wei Ran spoke, he reached out and turned off the light above his head. Only the oil stove that was lit during the operation was still burning. While releasing the light, it also released the tide. The much needed warmth in the humming buoy.

"Julian, are you a noble?" Wei Ran, who had nothing to say, said as he took out a pack of cigarettes, tore them open, and gave one to the other party.

"Since the Weimar Constitution, how can there be any real nobility in Germany?"

Julian didn't know the nerve that was stung, and said in a disdainful tone, "Junkers are just a decadent and ignorant caste system. Germany does not need any counts, barons or Junkers at all. It needs loyal people even more." .

Just like you, Victor, do you want to be a veterinarian who castrates cattle and sheep for the rest of your life? Let your children, your children's children, have to deal with the dicks of animals all the time? "

“There’s nothing wrong with being a veterinarian.”

Wei Ran sat on the lower bunk of another iron frame bed, lit a cigarette leisurely and said, "At least as a veterinarian, you don't have to worry about being knocked down from the sky. At least if there was no veterinarian, you might have died of blood loss by now. "

"If you like being a veterinarian so much, why did you become a machine gunner?" Julian asked curiously.

"Like you said"

Wei Ran joked casually, "Germany does not need any earls, barons or Junkers, but it definitely needs loyal people more.

You see, I am the loyal people. Even though this war was not launched for the benefit of the loyal people, I still gave up my beloved veterinary job. "

"You are smarter than I thought"

Julian's attitude was softer, "This war was never launched for the benefit of the people, it was just to fill the pockets of the so-called Junkers."

"You are smarter than I thought," Wei Ran said with a smile, "I thought you were just an aristocratic clown who is as arrogant as a big rooster."

"That kind of status is more like humiliation to me." Julian fell silent.

Knowing that there was no point in continuing this topic, Wei Ran simply changed a topic that was more suitable for the "vet" to think about and asked, "Julian, are you hungry? Do you want to eat something?"

“There’s also brandy at that location.”

Julian seemed to want to change the subject as well. He raised his hand and pointed to a cabinet closer to him, "If you can get some food, we can have a drink by the way."