War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1523 Chatting by the Operating Table

In the operating room filled with a strong smell of blood, the kerosene lamp was re-lit, new wounded were pushed in, and the blood-stained curtain was pulled back up, providing the only dignity for the woman in labor next door.

Even their four child laborers began to work tirelessly again.

"Where did you get the fuel, Vet?"

Just as Wei Ran was busy amputating the shattered calf of a little boy who was no more than ten years old, the sewing machine man next door asked while he was busy.

"Stolen," Wei Ran answered in French without turning his head.

"Rama, let your brother come in and share the remaining fuel with other operating rooms."

After the sewing machine finished speaking, the little girl with a camera around her neck immediately ran out of the operating room and called in her brother Ed and the boy named Hanward.

As the two guys were walking out with the oil drum, the sewing machine said as a matter of course, "After we finish today's work, let's go steal some more fuel, right? At least we need to fill up the ambulance's tank, and we also need to reserve enough fuel in the operating room."

"No problem," Wei Ran answered happily.

"Can you find enough fuel?"

Opposite the stretcher that served as the operating table, Edelweiss asked as she helped Wei Ran wipe the sweat from his forehead that was burned by the gas lamp.

"Yes," Wei Ran answered simply, "but I need one, no, I need at least two oil extraction pipes."

"Mr. Veterinarian, I will help you find the oil pipe." The 11-year-old translator Rama's serious assurance made Wei Ran and others smile.

"You can only look for it in the hospital," Wei Ran reminded gently.

"Let your brother go. You have to help us translate."

Edelweiss said, handing Rama a test tube with some blood in it, "Ask Dalal to help with the blood type. This poor child needs a transfusion, quickly."

"Leave it to us!"

Before Rama finished speaking, he took the test tube and ran to the door of the operating room. He handed it to the little girl who seemed to be only responsible for guarding the wooden door of the operating room. He spoke something to the other party in Arabic, and also said something to his brother Ed who had just returned from distributing the fuel.

"Let the child get a blood test?" Wei Ran looked at Edelweiss opposite him in surprise.

"They are nurses now," Edelweiss replied as a matter of course, "We don't have enough staff, and they are careful enough, so this is not a difficult job."

"I'm just curious about when you taught her all this." Wei Ran used the same matter-of-fact tone to hide his inner surprise.

"I taught them more than just simple things like blood tests," Edelweiss said with a little pride, "They will all be excellent medical workers in the future."

"The prerequisite is that they can survive in this hellhole, grow up, and receive more complete and systematic medical training." The female nurse code-named Cradle next door reminded very soberly and cruelly.

'They will survive'

Edelweiss sighed, and after a moment of silence, she said, "When we evacuate here, I plan to take them with me, adopt the four of them, and train them to be the best doctors."

“Don’t dream too much”

The sewing machine reminded them soberly and cruelly, "Survive first, and leave here alive, whether it's us or them."

"Why don't we change the subject?"

Wei Ran suggested while speeding up the treatment on his hand, "Why did you join MSF? How about we talk about this?"

“My grandfather was a Nazi during World War II”

Edelweiss, who was standing opposite, was the first to answer, and gave an answer that surprised Wei Ran very calmly, "If you know the history of World War II, you must have heard of the Death Squadron."

"I know." Wei Ran nodded. Of course he knew.

"My grandfather told me that he was in charge of interrogation and medical work in the concentration camp. Sometimes when there was a shortage of manpower, he also helped execute Jews. That was also a way to test loyalty."

Edelweiss didn't even lower her voice when she said this. "He told me that he may have killed hundreds of Jews during the years he worked at Zhongzhuoying. He couldn't even give an exact number."

"What does this have to do with your joining MSF?" Wei Ran asked curiously, "To atone for your grandfather's sins?"

"Atonement? Ha!"

Edelweiss snorted, "My grandfather never thought he did anything wrong. He is still a devout Nazi Party member."

"Did he escape justice?"

The cradle next door asked curiously, and then everyone in the operating room heard the loud cry of a baby.

"No, he got 12 years in prison."

Edelweiss answered with remarkable calmness, "The day he was released from prison was the day I was born."

"So why start answering the veterinarian's questions with your grandfather?"

The sewing machine was also intrigued. “We have been working together here for so long and we have never talked about this topic.”

"Because my grandfather was my medical teacher. After I graduated from medical school, I told him that I wanted to be a military doctor, just like him. Of course, it doesn't include the part of torture and execution of prisoners."

Edelweiss imitated the old man's voice and said, "But the old man said, forget it, my Clara! If you are unlucky, your boss is also a crazy painter. You may not be as lucky as me to survive."

Amid good-natured laughter, Edelweiss returned to his normal tone and said, "I think what he said makes sense, and then he pointed to the old newspapers that wrapped the bread and said, you see, this stupid almost glowing organization seems to be a good choice, I think you can try it.

Although he thought that Doctors Without Borders was just about traveling to any country that interested them and doing medical work, I accepted his advice and came here. ”

"Do your parents support you so much?" Wei Ran couldn't help asking, "They should know what kind of organization this is, right?"

"They certainly know exactly what kind of organization this is."

Edelweiss said proudly, “Although they thought this was a bit stupid just like my grandfather, fortunately, they always supported any decision I made. Even the car I brought was prepared by them for me.

Of course, they didn’t think I’d have the guts to come to Paris, they thought I’d be working in Paris.”

Having said that, Edelweiss picked up a used hemostatic forceps and reached into her collar, pulling out the slender platinum necklace, which in turn stained her slender white neck with a trace of blood.

Thanks to the bright light released by the kerosene lamp, Wei Ran could clearly see that the slender platinum necklace was actually a military ring.

"This is a gift my grandfather gave me before I set off. The old man said that he hoped I would not violate the Hippocratic Oath and not make the same mistake he made back then." Edelweiss spoke in German, a language that only Wei Ran seemed to understand.

"Put it away"

Wei Ran glanced at the operating room door that was pushed open, and at the girl named Dalal and a man in a robe who ran in from outside. "You'd better not show the ring here, otherwise those mad Jewish dogs will mistake you for a member of the 8th Liberation Organization and kill you."

"Of course I know"

As Edelweiss spoke, she used hemostat to stuff the ring back into her collar, leaving a trace of blood on her neck.

The topic was temporarily interrupted. Edelweiss took out the blood transfusion equipment with swift movements, and without asking any questions, connected the blood of the man who came in and the child lying on the bed.

At the same time, Wei Ran also sped up his hands again to save the child on the hospital bed.

A moment later, with flash lights coming on behind them, the pregnant woman and her child were pushed out. A little later, Wei Ran also completed the final bandaging work with the help of Edelweiss.

"It's your turn, Mr. Sewing Machine"

As the two boys who had been busy pushing in a new wounded soldier, Edelweiss swiftly prepared for the operation while continuing the topic she had just interrupted, "Why did you join MSF?"

"It's partly because of my father and partly because Cradle joined MSF."

The sewing machine next to him looked at his wife opposite him, and until the other nodded with a smile, he also answered with an unconcealed smile, "My father participated in the ridiculous Moss War, and then as expected, he became a prisoner of war, and as expected, he was bombed by the Americans."

"The bombing of an enemy prisoner-of-war camp?" Edelweiss asked in astonishment. "I haven't heard of anything so outrageous in the stories my grandfather told me about World War II."

"Believe me, Americans are very good at doing this kind of thing." Wei Ran couldn't help but say.

“The vet was right.”

Sewing Machine agreed, "In short, it was a Chinese military doctor who saved my father with his own life, giving him the opportunity to return to Tuerqi alive, meet my mother and have me.

I'll be honest with you, I grew up listening to my dad's amazing experiences in the prisoner of war camps, and when I was as young as Rama, maybe even younger than her, I had already decided that I wanted to be a doctor, and then I finally became a general practitioner."

"And then?" Edelweiss Cui asked.

"Then I met Cradle one day in France and fell in love with her the moment I saw her."

Sewing Machine smiled and said, "Unfortunately, I was a bunny rider, but she was a hottie. Fortunately, she had just joined MSF at the time.

I thought, if I was also a Doctors Without Borders, we wouldn’t care about each other’s nationality, so I joined MSF after discussing it with my parents, and let the cradle become my wife, and gave birth to a healthy and beautiful child for me. ”

"You will never imagine how fat your healthy and beautiful son will be in the future." Wei Ran couldn't help but complain in his heart.

"What a jealous love," Edelweiss teased with envy.

"Miss Edelweiss, don't you have a boyfriend or are you married?" Cradle asked curiously.

“I was a devout Catholic”

Edelweiss, who was busy coordinating with Wei Ran, glanced at the translator Rama who seemed to be eavesdropping, and continued the slightly adult topic in Latin, "The doctrine does not allow it, and I cannot accept premarital sex.

All the boys who tried to pursue me gave up decisively after learning this. They didn’t want to waste their time under a tree that was destined to bear no fruit. ”

"so."

"So to hell with Catholicism"

Edelweiss, who had a talent for comedy, switched back to French while busying herself and said regretfully, "Unfortunately, when I decided not to believe in the troublesome Catholicism anymore, I was already on my way to the fence."

Amid a new round of laughter, Edelweiss asked, "What about you, Cradle? Why did you join MSF?"

“My mentor joined MSF”

Cradle replied calmly, "Then I joined MSF under her inspiration and followed her to Cambodia. Not long after I came back from there, I met Sewing Machine."

After briefly talking about his own experience, Yao Lan turned the topic over to the initiator, Wei Ran, "Veterinarian, it's your turn? Why are you here?"

"Dang." Wei Ran threw the shrapnel he had just taken out of the wound into the tray. While busy treating the wound, he began to make up a half-truth, "I actually came here to investigate some things, but now it is clear that a doctor is more needed here, so I temporarily joined MSF."

"Are you a detective?"

Edelweiss on the other side answered her own question, "I have never met a doctor whose treatment methods are as rough and efficient as yours."

"Why else is his code name Veterinarian?"

Before the sewing machine next door finished speaking, the laughter of everyone in the operating room, which was deliberately suppressed, rang out again.

The physical and mental fatigue was dispelled by chatting, and the operating room gradually became quiet as the sky outside grew darker and the gunshots became less and less.

Finally, when no more wounded were brought in, Edelweiss was the first to extinguish the kerosene lamp, "Let's go back quickly, I'm going crazy with hunger."

"Go, go."

As he spoke, Cradle took down the kerosene lamp, extinguished it and held it in his hand. He called upon the young translator Rama, who had already lit a candle, and the other three "child laborers" who were guarding the door, to pick up the used surgical instruments and leave the operating room together. He then locked the wooden door of the operating room with his own hands.

At this time, although there were still many wounded lying in the corridor, most of them had fallen asleep. Some were still groaning in pain. There were also other people in nurses' uniforms walking over with oil lamps, either comforting them gently, or feeding them some pain-relieving pills, or injecting them with pain-relieving injections.

Passing through the ground full of wounded people, the group silently came to the door of a garage some distance away from the main building of the hospital.

The garage has a complete iron door, and on one side of the door there is a tall and lush cedar.

While Wei Ran was waiting curiously, Edelweiss took out a key from her pocket and opened the padlock on the iron door. The sewing machine pushed the iron door open to a gap less than half a meter wide, allowing the young translator holding a candle lamp to walk in first.

They lined up and finally squeezed into the narrow gap of the iron gate. Before Wei Ran could pass through the thick felt curtain, the sewing machine on the inside of the iron gate immediately closed the door, and Edelweiss conveniently hung the iron lock in her hand on the lock tongue inside.

It was not until the thick felt curtain covered the gap in the iron door that Wei Ran realized that everyone around him breathed a sigh of relief.

"laugh--"

Amid the sound of airflow, the cradle lit the kerosene lamp that he had been holding in his hand, and the young translator Rama blew out the candle lamp in his hand at the same time.

As the brighter light from the gas lamp became more stable, Wei Ran could see everything in the garage clearly.

The garage was not too wide, but deep enough to park a truck. Parked inside was, of course, the six-wheeled Pinzgauer ambulance that Wei Ran had seen in the photo.

At this time, the car was riding right above a car repair ditch. On the front of the car, there was an obviously extra welded metal bracket, which not only fixed two spare tires on the left and right, but also installed a small two-stroke gasoline engine generator in the middle.

Looking at the roof again, in addition to two halogen lamps directly above the cab, there is also a black tweeter and a retracted snake-bone antenna fixed at the corner.

On the shelf behind the car lights, there are things like tent bags and metal racks tied to them. Even on both sides of the car body, there is a set of stretchers fixed on each side.

Then he walked around to the rear of the car and saw an oil drum fixed on each side of the tailgate. All of the above were details that he could not see from the Polaroid photo before entering this historical fragment.

It was through these details that Wei Ran was almost certain that even with only this ambulance, they might be able to set up a medical aid point capable of performing emergency surgery.

While the cradle was standing on a chair, Wei Ran hung the kerosene lamp in his hand on a wire hanging above his head. He also looked inside through the car window.

Inside the car, on the right side, there is a stretcher with several cardboard boxes full of medicines on it. On the roof directly above, in addition to a small electric fan and a small shadowless lamp, there are some medical equipment such as a defibrillator hanging upside down.

On the left side of the carriage is a row of cabinets that seem to be filled with medicines. Between the cabinets and the stretcher is a small chair that seems to be able to slide along the middle floor of the carriage.

Closer to the front of the vehicle, back to back with the cab, there is a row of simple seats with seat belts facing the rear of the vehicle. Under the seats, two horizontally placed oxygen cylinders can be clearly seen.

Considering the era we live in, this is definitely a sufficiently professional emergency ambulance.

Compared to the fully functional ambulance, the small space at the end of the garage that seems to be used for living is much more simple.

Less than two meters away from the rear of the car was a low wooden table, on which were placed some food such as flatbreads, lamb stewed with carrots, and so on. Under the table was a blanket that was not very clean.

At the end, against the wall, two medical tents with the red crescent logo were set up next to each other.

On the door curtain of the tent, there were a pair of bright red high-heeled shoes and a pair of brown men's leather shoes that came from nowhere, hanging solemnly.

At the end of the passage less than one meter wide between the two tents, there is a narrow wooden door on the wall, and it is unknown where it leads to.

"When are we going to get the fuel?"

As Edelweiss spoke, she finally took off the surgical cap and mask she had been wearing, revealing her neat and flowing short light blonde hair and the black stains smeared on her face.

"When are we going?"

While Sewing Machine was speaking, he also took off his surgical cap and mask. Almost at the same time, Cradle, who also took off his mask, also looked like Wei Ran.

At this point, Wei Ran also discovered a small detail.

Whether it was Edelweiss, Cradle, or even 11-year-old Rama and 14-year-old Dalal, their faces were smeared with black stains that looked like ink.

"What time is it now?" Wei Ran asked as he took off his mask and surgical gown.

"17: p.m."

As Edelweiss spoke, she had rolled up her sweater sleeves, revealing her fair and slender wrists, and the Rolex prisoner-of-war watch on her wrists.

"It's too early now. Let's go later." Wei Ran said, "By the way, is the oil pipe ready?"

"It's already been prepared!"

The one who answered this question was the young translator Rama. As she spoke, she bent over the ground and lifted up the greasy, torn blanket covering the repair ditch under the car, revealing several 20-liter oil drums and three rubber hoses hidden in the ditch.

"Then let's eat first," Wei Ran said with a smile, "Fill your stomach and take a rest before we go."

"Children, go take a bath first." Cradle clapped his hands and greeted, "Then you can eat."

Hearing this, the four children immediately ran along the narrow passage between the two tents towards the wooden door that led to an unknown place.

The child laborers ran to take a shower, but the rest did not rest.

Sewing Machine picked up the oil drum that Ed had just brought back, while Cradle picked up two stacked stainless steel buckets from the side of the tent and walked towards the small door.

Even Edelweiss was not idle. She asked Wei Ran for help and brought over a large double-burner gasoline stove made in Switzerland from the corner. Then, with his help, she took down a huge and heavy canvas bag from the roof of the car. The bag was nearly one meter long, less than half a meter wide, and at most twenty centimeters high.

Without Wei Ran's help, the sewing machine poured the little gasoline left in the oil barrel into the oil storage tank of the oil stove with its own air pump and began to pressurize and pump air into it.

At the same time, Cradle also brought back two buckets of water, and Edelweiss had already opened the canvas bag and took out a large stainless steel steaming plate that fit almost tightly into the bag.

"Stop being in a daze and help me get the stove ready."

While urging, Edelweiss picked up the upside-down lid on the cooking plate, and first used the clean water brought back by the cradle to simply rinse the medical equipment waiting to be disinfected that they brought back, and then poured it onto the cooking rack with a fine mesh with a "splash".

After Cradle poured the second bucket of water in, Edelweiss opened a can of sodium bicarbonate, scooped out a few spoonfuls of white powder with a measuring spoon and poured it into the steaming tray.

Before she could tighten the jar, the cradle had already closed the lid with a clang.

Then, the two women worked together to lock the lid with several metal buckles around it and carefully checked the pressure relief valve on the lid.

Coming back to his senses, Wei Ran quickly took out a furnace frame welded with steel bars and six steel legs that could be screwed onto the furnace frame from his canvas bag.

He had just finished assembling the shelf when the two large burners of a sewing machine not far away suddenly lit up.

Seeing this, Wei Ran quickly placed the stove rack on it, and the two women followed closely behind him, working together to lift the huge steaming and sterilization tray onto the stove rack.

As they each took a step back, the sewing machines immediately increased their power.

For a moment, the whirring sound of burning and the rolling heat waves came over him, and beads of sweat appeared on Wei Ran's face again.

They had just finished their work here, and the two little boys had also come back from taking a bath. They even changed into a set of slightly worn but clean clothes.

"Today it's your turn to supervise the disinfection."

The sewing machine stood up and pulled the cradle towards the small door, saying, "We are going to take a bath."

Edelweiss didn't say anything, but took off the Rolex POW watch that was a little too big for her and handed it to Wei Ran, saying in German, "You keep an eye on it, 30 minutes after it boils."

"it is good"

Wei Ran took the watch handed to him, but found that Edelweiss had already opened the tailgate of the ambulance, pulled open a small drawer, took out a 16-inch hardcover notebook, and began to write something.

"What are you writing? A diary?" Wei Ran asked curiously after glancing at the prisoner-of-war watch in his hand.

"That's right"

Edelweiss said without even looking up, "I will write down the medical experience I have accumulated here. It will definitely help some people, at least it can help myself."

"Yes, these valuable experiences can definitely help some people."

Wei Ran sighed. He inexplicably thought of the nurse in the Teng County Chinese medicine shop who knew nothing. If she could get such a detailed medical record, she would definitely learn a lot from it - if she survived.

"Tell me about this?"

Wei Ran shook the POW watch in his hand and asked, "Is this your grandfather's trophy?"

"Trophy?"

Edelweiss looked up at Wei Ran, and a bright smile appeared on her face, which looked particularly delicate even with the thick black ink stains. "It's not a trophy. It's a gift given to my grandfather by a prisoner of war who survived a prisoner-of-war camp in World War II on the day he was released from prison."

Seeing Wei Ran's strange expression, Edelweiss smiled even brighter. She lowered her head and continued to write furiously while saying, "My grandfather did commit war crimes that cost him 12 years of freedom, but he must have saved some lives, maybe not just Germans, maybe prisoners of war, and of course, maybe Jews.

Who knows anyway?

The old man never wanted to tell me about any righteous stupidity he might have done, but he would always tell me all the crimes he had committed without reservation.

"I guess he doesn't want you to make the same mistake as him."

Wei Ran looked at the ticking POW watch in his hand and muttered to himself, "No matter what, your grandfather was a brave man."

"The old fellow would be very happy to hear you say that about him."

Edelweiss smiled even more charmingly. "He gave me my code name. Before I set out, he told me that he hoped I would not taint the pure Edelweiss like he did."

(End of this chapter)