War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1490 Dream talk on a rainy night

The camp was still burning around the bonfire, and everyone sitting together again put their harvests together.

What Nurse Ji picked up were a few wild vegetables and a handful of moss. Li Zhuang, Zhang Erwa, and Monitor Liu seemed to have gained the most. They dragged back the crown of another pine tree.

Glancing at the horse-fur camera case that Wei Ran placed in front of him, Squad Leader Liu opened his mouth without saying anything. He just asked, "Where is the little lama? Where has he gone?"

Before anyone could answer, the little lama wearing a bamboo hat also limped back from a distance.

"Comrade! Comrade! Comrade!" The little lama shouted happily while still some distance away.

Almost subconsciously, everyone stood up one after another. After getting used to the dizziness caused by hunger, they immediately supported each other and gathered around.

"What's wrong with your foot?" Nurse Ji asked with concern.

The little lama, who did not understand Chinese at all, showed his signature bright smile, raised the bamboo hat in his hand, and happily showed off his discovery.

"This little lama is really a lucky star!"

Squad leader Liu laughed and praised, at this moment, the bamboo hat the little lama was holding contained a bunch of mushrooms!

Even Wei Ran, who came from later generations, could tell them just by smelling them. These were most likely matsutake mushrooms, which were old and slightly open.

"Can this mushroom be eaten?" Li Zhuang asked subconsciously.

"Where did you find it?" Zhang Erwa also asked.

"Don't worry about this for now, help the little lama back quickly and see what's wrong with his feet." Nurse Ji said anxiously.

Upon hearing this, squad leader Liu immediately took the bamboo hat from the little lama's hand, while Li Zhuang and Zhang Erwa helped the little lama back to the camp.

After Nurse Ji carefully rinsed it with water, the dirt on the soles of the little lama's feet fell off little by little, finally revealing a wound that was the size of a cigarette butt and was still bleeding.

There was still a trace of sawdust remaining in the wound. Obviously, it should have been pricked by a wooden thorn, and the little lama had pulled out the wooden thorn himself.

"do not move"

Nurse Ji gave instructions, turned around and took out her satchel from the bamboo basket, took out a pair of small tweezers, put them on the charcoal fire and burned them for disinfection. After the temperature dropped, she carefully pinched the wound on the sole of the little lama's foot. A piece of sawdust the size of a matchhead came out.

Putting away the tweezers, Nurse Ji then leaned down, and under the panicked gaze of the little lama, she put her cracked lips to the mouth of his dirty soles, sucked out a mouthful of blood and spit it to the side.

Seeing Nurse Ji leaning down to suck out a second mouthful of blood from the wound, the little lama curled up his legs in a panic and tried to avoid it, and stammered in a chant that no one could understand.

"Nurse Ji, let me do it." Squad Leader Liu said and grabbed the little lama's muddy leg, "How could you, a girl like you?"

“What can’t be done?”

Nurse Ji couldn't help but block Captain Liu, "It's up to me to hold him down. We don't have saline, so we can only rely on him to bleed more to flush out the dirt in the wound. Otherwise, if he gets infected, I'm afraid it will be with Comrade Jiang Yu."

When the topic reached this point, Nurse Ji closed her mouth belatedly, pushed Monitor Liu aside, sucked out the second and third mouthfuls of blood from the wound on the sole of the little lama's foot, spat it aside, and then cut off another piece. Small pieces of tallow candle were applied to the wounds.

This was not over yet. He then asked Wei Ran to borrow a kettle cup. After filling it with water, he put her own spare leggings in and started cooking.

"Let's check everyone's physical condition first."

While waiting for the water in the cup to boil, Nurse Ji said, "Everyone should wash their feet with rainwater and see if there are any wounds on their feet. This is as important as food to whether we can go out."

Nurse Ji said this. Even if they didn't care, Monitor Liu and others stretched their feet to the edge of the slope of the tent. They washed the stains on their feet with the rainwater flowing from it. By the way, they also helped the little lama to lift the other foot. Wash it cleanly.

While everyone was resting on their elbows and putting their feet near the campfire to bake, Wei Ran and Nurse Ji frowned.

In comparison, Wei Ran's feet were definitely considered to have "fine skin and tender flesh." Because of this, his feet were not only the most wrinkled and wrinkled from the soak, but also had more fine scratches.

The rest of the people were not much better. Ever since the little lama was pulled out from the mud last time, his original pair of straw sandal-style leather shoes had been left in the swamp and mire, not to mention that he had been injured just now.

In addition to the white wrinkles and relatively few scratches on their feet, Monitor Liu and Nurse Ji also had large and small frostbite on their feet.

"In addition to straw sandals, we need a pair of decent shoes."

Nurse Ji said seriously, "Otherwise, if you keep going like this, your feet will be soaked to death in a short time."

"Where are we going to find decent shoes?"

Zhang Erwa said with a bitter face, "Now we can hardly find the grass to weave straw sandals. Even if it is straw sandals, as long as they step into the mud, they will be sucked in within a few steps."

"There is a way"

As Nurse Ji spoke, she had already taken out her satchel. After looking at it, she said, "This satchel is barely enough to make two pairs of shoe soles. Together with everyone's spare leggings, it can always wrap the feet tightly. When the time comes, Wearing straw sandals outside is always useful.”

"That's it!"

As Squad Leader Liu spoke, he had already taken out his satchel, and simply took out the two glass medicine bottles and put them aside.

Under the busy work of Monitor Liu and Nurse Ji, pairs of "shoes" were carefully cut out of these two satchels with a knife.

This so-called shoe is just a piece of thick canvas that can barely cover the sole of the foot. If you want to wear it on your foot, you need to wrap leggings from toes to heels, and wear straw sandals on the outside.

It's hard for others to say, but at least Wei Ran admits that wearing such a pair of simple shoes is much more comfortable than just wearing straw sandals.

At the same time, the leggings in the cup were also disinfected by boiling rainwater. Nurse Ji then took apart her bamboo hat, tore off a piece of the waterproof oil paper sandwiched inside, and smeared it on the branches of the tree. After heating the rosin balls found on the street, they sealed the wound on the sole of the little lama's foot like a plaster.

Then he personally helped him wrap the foot with the canvas removed from the satchel and the leggings boiled in boiling water.

No matter from which level he looked, Wei Ran had to admit that this little nurse, who looked like she was only 20 years old at most, had done her best with what she could find.

But he knew better that the other party's skillful use of the only conditions to treat wounds was really the result of a long-term lack of medical treatment.

While she was dressing the little lama's wound, Li Zhuang and Zhang Erwa also used the materials they scraped together to protect their feet at the urging of Squad Leader Liu.

Fortunately, Nurse Ji was fair enough. Although she and Squad Leader Liu did not get the shoes made of satchels, she got the consent of the little lama, tore open his furoshiki, carefully dried it, and gave it to her He and Squad Leader Liu also put on "cloth shoes".

After completing the protection of their own feet, everyone's attention naturally focused on the little lama and the mushrooms he brought back.

"With these mushrooms, we can have a good meal today."

As Squad Leader Liu said, he carefully washed the mushrooms with rainwater and threw them into a copper ladle. In such weather conditions, these mushrooms cannot be stored for long even if they are baked into dried mushrooms. In this case, they can be eaten while they are still available. Getting it into your stomach as soon as possible beforehand is obviously the best way to deal with it.

"Little Lama, where did you find these mushrooms?" Li Zhuang asked the little Lama holding a mushroom.

Perhaps he guessed what Li Zhuang was asking, the little lama pointed in the direction behind him while speaking something in Zang language that no one could understand.

"Let's go over and have a look later"

Squad leader Liu said happily, "When we walk out of the grassland, I want to drag this little lama to the cooking class. He is more qualified than me, the squad leader of the cooking class! Look, my position as squad leader is not as good as letting him never mind."

"I see, the little lama probably doesn't want to stay in the cooking class."

As Wei Ran spoke, he threw the camera holster onto the charcoal fire and roasted it, "You didn't see that the box gun was always strapped to his waist."

"You don't want this camera case?"

Squad leader Liu did not answer Wei Ran's words about the little lama, but just pulled out the camera case that Wei Ran had just thrown into the charcoal fire.

"No more"

Wei Ran couldn't help but take the camera case back and throw it into the charcoal fire again. Watching the flames singe the horse hair on it, he said nonchalantly, "This thing is better than the belt. Let's take advantage of the fact that we are here today." Stop here for a day, just to cook it for a while."

"Alas" Squad Leader Liu sighed softly, but remained silent.

Seeing this, Wei Ran didn't say much, waited for the campfire to burn the horse hair on the camera case clean, and after the leather case itself was slightly charred, he immediately took it out, picked up the anti-Japanese sword, and raised the knife with his hand to cut off the leather case. The sleeves and leather lanyards were cut into chewable sizes and poured into the copper ladle that had already contained mushrooms, bark and wild vegetables.

While waiting for the pot to be cooked, everyone was busy. Wei Ran's anti-Japanese sword became the most useful tool. As it kept changing its users, the tree crown brought back by Squad Leader Liu and others was chopped into sections. Sections of firewood were scraped off and the edible bark was finally piled beside the campfire and slowly roasted.

Not only that, Squad Leader Liu also specially selected a piece of the most oily pine tree, baked it until it was dry enough that even the outside was burnt black, and then carefully put it into a brown glass medicine bottle that stored coarse salt, and kept it for future use. Used as kindling or lighting.

Around noon, everyone finally had their first meal of the day.

In addition to the bark that had been cooked all night, this meal also included a few wild vegetables that were put in before serving, and the matsutake mushrooms that the little lama discovered.

While they were eating, the copper ladle was still boiling all the leather materials they had saved, as well as the new bark they had just collected. The food in the enamel jar was put into the stomach in a few mouthfuls. Squad leader Liu took Li Zhuang and Zhang Erwa and continued to chop firewood with the anti-Japanese sword. Wei Ran called the little lama to the place where he found the matsutake mushrooms. Look, Nurse Ji was left alone to look after the campfire.

After leaving the camp in the rain, Wei Ran finally didn't have to grit his teeth every step of the way because he had an extra layer of protection on his feet, and his speed was naturally much faster.

Under the leadership of the little lama, the two of them walked to the other end of the pine forest before stopping.

Looking at the humus that was pulled away from the roots of the pine tree pointed by the little lama's finger, Wei Ran couldn't help but sigh.

Perhaps the little lama was lucky to be able to find those matsutake mushrooms.

But along the way, he also noticed that there were traces of digging up the soil at the roots of many pine trees.

Even the little lama's hands had many fine scratches, and the nails were filled with dirt. Apparently, finding those matsutake mushrooms isn't that easy.

But why would he do this?

Wei Ran couldn't help but become more and more curious about the little lama's thoughts, and wanted to complete the language task as soon as possible and find an opportunity to have a good chat with him.

Seeing that the other party was already kneeling under a pine tree that had also been peeled off and started digging, Wei Ran also found a tree and gently peeled away the soil with his hands, looking for mushrooms that could feed his stomach. At the same time, he also paid attention to Around, I hope to find some small animals.

As the two of them were busy in silence, the area under the tree was dug up to become larger and larger, but they only found a pitiful four or five matsutake mushrooms.

Among these matsutake mushrooms, the largest ones are no more than the size of a AA battery, and the smaller ones are only slightly larger than a pigeon egg - such a harvest cannot make up for the energy they consume.

Although he didn't find a few to eat, Wei Ran dug up a lot of slender, soft and tough tree roots, which were just right for making straw sandals.

Watching the sky gradually darken, and hailstones as big as the size of fingertips began to fall again, the two of them did not dare to delay. They held the modest harvest in one hand and ran back holding the bamboo hat in the other hand.

Returning to the camp again, Squad Leader Liu and the others had cut down another small tree, cut it into suitable sizes and placed it around the campfire for baking.

Not only that, the three of them also used tree branches and hemp rope to tie up a simple back frame each, and put the dried and even carbonized firewood on the back frame, as if they were ready to carry it on their backs at any time. appearance.

Not only these three racks, the three bamboo baskets also contained a lot of carbonized firewood. The difference was that these firewoods were deliberately covered with more or less pine brightness.

In addition to fuel, Squad Leader Liu also used a copper ladle to dry the hard-collected bark, crushed it as much as possible with the handle of the knife, and stuffed it into a piece of dry food sewn with coarse cloth, which was slimmer than the bagged instant noodles of later generations. Bag.

"In addition to these bark powder, we also have so much meat skin and beef jerky."

As Squad Leader Liu spoke, he opened another dry food bag of the same size. This dry food bag contained the pieces of leather that had been cooked all day and the beef jerky donated by Weiran.

“And these”

Nurse Ji said as she opened the third dry food bag. This dry food bag contained all the highland barley grains they had, the last few dried chili peppers, and the last small piece of ginger.

"comrades"

Squad leader Liu said confidently, "Although there is still not much food, at least there is no shortage of firewood. Have a good rest tonight, and we will set off early in the morning!"

"Yes!"

Everyone responded in unison. In their respective enamel jars, Nurse Ji filled an equal amount of bark mushroom soup, a small piece of leather that had been boiled all day, and only a small piece of mushroom. .

Unlike before, this dinner didn't have the slightest salty taste. Obviously, Squad Leader Liu saved a small amount of coarse salt when cooking the dinner.

After finishing the food in the enamel jar with his eyes closed and expressionless, which was not much and definitely not delicious, Wei Ran took off his soaked "cloth shoes" and put them on the firewood he was visiting by the campfire. Then he dried his feet before lying down in the simple tent.

"The road tomorrow will be difficult"

Monitor Liu said to himself, "I took Li Zhuang and Erwa to the top of the mountain to see a large swamp and a river."

After a pause, Squad Leader Liu continued to talk to himself, "Comrades, no matter what happens tomorrow, first, ensure that the little lama crosses the river safely, secondly, ensure that Comrade Ji Chunlan crosses the river safely, and thirdly, ensure that Comrade Wei Ran crosses the river safely."

"Yes!"

Before Nurse Ji and Wei Ran could say anything, Li Zhuang and Zhang Erwa had already responded decisively.

Wei Ran opened his mouth, but didn't say anything, just sighed silently.

That night, Li Zhuang, Zhang Erwa and the little lama slept very soundly. Just like last night, squad leader Liu got up from time to time to add firewood to the bonfire and fill the boiled bark with water. Only Wei Ran and Nurse Ji could not fall asleep after tossing and turning all night.

"Squad leader, what are you going to do after we defeat the invaders and liberate the oppressed people?" Wei Ran, who couldn't sleep, asked as if he was muttering to himself when squad leader Liu got up again to add firewood.

After a moment of silence, Squad Leader Liu smiled and replied softly, "If I am still alive at that time, I will go back to my hometown, raise children with my house, let them read and read, and let them join the army and join the party, so as not to be like me and struggle with big words." I can’t recognize a basket.”

"What else?" Wei Ran continued to ask.

"There's more"

After finishing adding firewood, Squad Leader Liu turned over and lay down, looking at the cold night sky that was raining all the time above his head, and murmured to himself, "I don't know, how could I possibly live until then, to be able to watch the two children grow up? That’s enough!”

After a moment of silence, Wei Ran, who was also looking at the night sky, asked someone else, "Nurse Ji, what about you?"

"I do not know"

Nurse Ji, who also suffered from insomnia, smiled and replied, "I never thought about it."

"Think about it now?"

"Now think about it."

Nurse Ji calmed down and said with a smile soon after, "I want to find Comrade Zhao Wanya's child and raise him."

"What about yourself? Don't you have any arrangements for yourself?" Wei Ran asked relentlessly.

"My own arrangements."

The young nurse Ji thought for a while and replied with great certainty, "I want to study medicine and treat the common people. Since joining the army, we have met so many sick folks along the way. They"

"I mean yourself"

Wei Ran interrupted the other party's murmuring, "Don't you have any hobbies or dreams? For example, be a singer or something."

"That's not a dream. I didn't join the revolution to become a singer and performer in the future."

Nurse Ji fell silent after speaking. Perhaps, this young girl had never thought about so much, let alone any dreams related to herself. Even the word "dream" may be too distant and unfamiliar to her.

Just when the insomniac Wei Ran was about to ask more questions, Nurse Ji said firmly, "I just want to study medicine and treat people. This is my, my dream.

Wei Ran, do you know? When I was a young lady from a landlord's family, all I thought about every day was to find a good man to marry and become a wealthy wife with no worries about food and clothing.

At that time, that was my biggest thought, but now I don’t think so. "

"What do you think now?"

“I don’t want to be a caged bird attached to a man, what’s the point of living like a plaything?

I want to be a doctor like an instructor, to save lives and heal the wounded, and to treat poor people! "

"What about you?"

Squad Leader Liu, who had been listening quietly, suddenly asked Wei Ran the question, "Wei Ran, after the invaders are defeated, what are you going to do in the future?"

"I don't know either"

Wei Ran was silent for a moment and said firmly, "I don't know what will happen to me in the future, but I am sure that we will be able to drive away the invaders and overthrow the three mountains that are pressing on us!"

"How wonderful." Monitor Liu couldn't help but sigh.

"Can we really drive away the invaders?"

Nurse Ji asked in a low voice, "Can you really overturn the three mountains pressing on you?"

"Yes! Why not!"

Without thinking, Squad Leader Liu answered in the affirmative with a firm tone - even though he did not come from a prosperous and powerful family like Wei Ran.