War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1524 The off-duty veterinarian is called Dongfeng

In the small space at the end of the garage, Edelweiss was busy writing, while Wei Ran was holding the opponent's prisoner of war watch and guarding the hissing large oil stove.

For a moment, the only people in the garage were the two young men who had just finished their showers, chatting in Arabic, which they could not understand.

"Tell me about those children?" Wei Ran turned down the fire of the oil stove and changed the subject.

"What do you want to know?" Edelweiss asked in German without even looking up.

"whatever"

Wei Ran pretended to be casual and said, "For example, where they came from, and what their parents do."

"Except for Dalal, all three of them are Palestinians, but they are all war orphans, war orphans without any living relatives."

Edelweiss glanced at the two young men whispering not far away, lowered her head and continued writing, saying, "On the first day I came to Libannen, I met my young translator Rama. She was separated from her brother Ed because of an explosion, and she was buried in the collapsed ruins."

When she said this, Edelweiss's face was filled with maternal radiance, and she said with pride and heartache, "I went into the rubble to rescue her. She was covered in dust, but when I picked her up, she actually called me mom."

Edelweiss stopped writing and said in a gentle but firm tone, "I decided at that moment that even if I had to kill God, I would protect that poor little thing."

"And you helped her find her brother Ed?"

"not at all"

Edelweiss shook her head and said, "It was more than half a month after they were separated that we found Ed.

Ed thought his sister Rama was dead, so he joined the 8th solution to avenge their parents and his sister Rama. Then he was injured and sent to the operating table where I was in charge.

By then, Lamar was already in the operating room, helping me translate, but she was sitting behind a curtain.”

There was a hint of helplessness in Edelweiss's tone, "I was worried that she would run around, so I had to put her in the operating room. I was also worried that I would scare her, so I had to let her hide behind the curtain."

"I thought you were just an emergency nurse," Wei Ran said belatedly.

“I’m also a general practitioner.”

Edelweiss explained nonchalantly, "But I had too little experience and wasn't fast enough. So after you joined us, I became your partner.

Before you came, I was mainly responsible for bandaging injured children, and occasionally helped with the cradle and delivery."

“You will be an excellent doctor in the future.”

After Wei Ran sent his blessing, he changed the subject again, "What happened next? Did Ed recognize his sister?"

"He heard it as soon as Rama opened his mouth."

Edelweiss tapped her head lightly with the ballpoint pen in her hand. "At that time, Ed had a wound of nearly five centimeters on his head caused by a bullet. He suddenly turned back and scared me. I was just about to clean the wound for him. At that time, you were called over by the sewing machine next door to help treat a seriously injured person."

"And you left Ed behind?"

"It was Rama, she was the one who left her brother behind."

Edelweiss spread her hands. "I was worried that she would run around, so I asked her to stay in the operating room under the pretext that I needed help. She thought I really needed help, so she asked her brother to stay and help as well."

"Speaking of this, it seems that only Rama can speak French?" Wei Ran asked.

"Ed knows a little bit, but it's just greetings."

Edelweiss explained as if she were talking about her own children, “Their parents originally planned to immigrate to France, so after Lamar was born, they hired a French teacher for her and Ed.

Unfortunately, before their family was ready to emigrate, the civil war broke out. After their parents died in the civil war, they were adopted by Rama’s French teacher. Later, their French teacher also died, and they became orphans in the true sense of the word.

After a brief silence, Wei Ran continued to ask, "Where are Hanwad and Dalal?"

“Almost the same”

Edelweiss replied, "After Ed decided to stay and help, he called his good friend Hanward to help as well. They were originally classmates in the same class. These two young gentlemen helped us a lot."

Without Wei Ran asking further questions, Edelweiss continued, "Dalal's father died on the operating table where the sewing machine was operating. When we finished work that day and were about to come back to rest, we found her sitting alone on the steps crying. Rama asked for us and brought her here too. Strangely, you seemed to be away that day."

After saying this, Edelweiss showed a warm and healing smile, "Anyway, they did help us a lot."

"How about letting me ask another question?" Wei Ran said with a smile.

"Of course," Edelweiss agreed readily.

"Are we the only MSF members in this hospital?"

Wei Ran gently patted the rear bumper of the emergency vehicle behind him, "And this car, is this all we have?"

“We are the only ones in this hospital.”

Edelweiss nodded, "There are other colleagues in other hospitals, but we are really the only ones here."

Before he finished speaking, two little girls, Rama and Dalal, came back with wet hair, each wearing a nightgown that seemed to have been made from surgical gowns.

After washing off the dust on their bodies and the ink stains deliberately smeared on their faces, and changing out of the blood-stained clothes, the two little girls finally looked more like children.

Almost at the same time, Hanward and Ed also stood up immediately, each picked up a dry towel, and asked the two girls to sit beside the oil stove that was releasing heat, and carefully helped them wipe their hair that was still smelling of shampoo.

"Go take a shower first."

Wei Ran and Edelweiss spoke in German in unison, and then smiled in unison.

"You go first." Wei Ran shook the POW watch that the other party lent him, "I still have work to do."

"OK then!"

Edelweiss put away her unfinished notes, walked into the tent where her high heels were hanging, picked up some toiletries and walked towards the small door.

Watching the other party close the door from the outside, Wei Ran glanced at the time on his watch, then stood up and walked towards the medical tent with men's leather shoes hanging on it.

The conditions inside the tent were much better than he had imagined. There was a carpet under his feet which was not very clean, and several curtains divided the tent into two rooms, inside and outside.

Gently pulling open a curtain, he saw two beds placed together. On a simple small table beside the beds were a sewing machine, a cradle, and a photo of their child. In the background was the barbecue restaurant that Wei Ran had seen in the photo.

  That's Yashar when he was little.

How did he become so fat later? Wei Ran muttered to himself, took two steps inside, and pulled open the curtain of the inner partition.

There were three single beds in this partition, each about half a meter apart. There was a tattered suitcase next to the head of the innermost single bed, with my name written in Chinese characters on it. I guessed that should be my bed.

Wei Ran walked quickly over to open the suitcase and couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. In the suitcase there was only a West German-style Swamp 2 camouflage uniform and a pair of jeans, as well as a few sets of underwear for changing and a tattered canvas bag.

What could barely be considered a surprise was that in addition to a pair of West German Type 77 military boots, the canvas bag also contained a pair of lightweight German training shoes stuffed inside the boots, and of course, two hundred dollars in cash found inside the boots.

I picked up the pair of jeans and shook them open to take a look. Fortunately, they were not the bell-bottoms that were popular at that time.

With a slight sigh of relief, Wei Ran threw the pants on the bed, turned around and walked out of the tent.

Almost at the same time, the sewing machine and cradle, which had just finished their bath, also pushed open the door and returned to the garage.

"Leave the disinfection work to us. How long will it take?" Cradle spoke first.

She also washed off the stains on her face, and she looked much more energetic.

Taking out the POW form from his pocket and taking a look at it, Wei Ran handed it to the other party directly, "It will take about 20 minutes."

"I have a watch," the sewing machine urged with a smile, "go take a shower."

Hearing this, Wei Ran put the watch back into his pocket, turned around and walked back to the tent, picked up the swamp camouflage suit, and casually picked up a few underwear and toiletries found under the bed, and carried them in a basin to the small door at the end of the garage - he had long been curious about what was discovered here.

Pushing open the door and passing through a thick curtain, Wei Ran discovered, with the moonlight above his head, that this place was more like a small courtyard of not too big.

There are three rooms in a row against the wall on the left hand side. There are several 200-liter oil drums on the roof, which are probably simple solar water heaters to provide hot water for bathing. At this time, these three rooms are lit with faint candlelight. In one of them, a vague figure can be seen and the sound of flowing water can be heard coming from inside.

This small courtyard is not big, it can even be said to be extremely small. There is also a row of three houses on the right side.

In the middle of the two rooms, there are several ropes with a lot of clothes hanging on them.

After walking through the clothes and taking a look at the unlit right side, Wei Ran turned around and left in disappointment. This row of rooms without even windows was filled with all kinds of car repair tools and spare parts such as tires inside and outside.

He even found a rusty engine next to a still-working faucet in the corner.

It seems that this garage or the small yard hidden behind the garage may have been a place where the hospital's ambulance drivers were on duty and rested.

Without thinking any further about this, Wei Ran walked towards the row of rooms with lights on.

Except for the shower room at the end where Edelweiss was using, one of the remaining two rooms was a bathroom, and the other had a washing machine, but there was a shower head hanging from a wire above the head. Even the ground was wet, and the air was filled with the smell of soap.

Because of the power outage, there is no way to use the washing machine here, and even the lighting is done by candles.

I just don't know who is responsible for doing the laundry?

While daydreaming, he took off his clothes, fumbled to find the shower head's water valve switch, and turned it on, letting the slightly scalding water pour over his head.

It took less than 5 minutes to take a quick shower. Wei Ran dried his body very carefully, changed into the camouflage uniform he found in the suitcase, and then found cigarettes, matches, and Edelweiss's prisoner-of-war watch from the dirty clothes.

Almost at the same time he walked out of the simple shower room, Edelweiss from next door also came out with a candle in one hand and a basin of dirty clothes in the other.

After washing off the stains on her face, Edelweiss looked much prettier. Her delicate and fair face in the dim candlelight reminded Wei Ran of the little match girl in the German movie The Little Match Girl. The girl who had just finished taking a bath had almost the same temperament as the protagonist in the movie, which could arouse people's desire to protect her. She was even more beautiful and delicate.

But reality is often so fucked up and contradictory. Such a pretty face and even such a temperament are not really an advantage in such an environment at this moment. Instead, they may bring her great danger that is more desperate than death at any time.

She must have known this, or she wouldn't have smeared black stains on her face - but she came anyway

Be stupid or be a saint.

If given a choice, Wei Ran believes that if he were in his place, he would never take the initiative to come to such a place to do such a "stupid thing" out of a sense of justice.

But he completely forgot that his repeated entry into those historical fragments was actually no different from the choices of the girl in front of him.

“What are you posting?”

"Your watch"

Before the girl, who was half a head shorter than him, could start teasing him, Wei Ran shook the POW watch in his hand and said, "I was thinking about how to return it to you."

"Please help me first and bring the candle lamps in the other rooms." As Edelweiss spoke, she had already walked towards the garage.

Seeing this, Wei Ran put his watch back into his pocket, took the two candle lamps from the bathroom and toilet, and followed Edelweiss to the garage.

Following each other's example, they placed the dirty clothes and candles on the table beside the small door. When they returned to the garage, the others were already sitting around the dining table waiting for them.

Without waiting for them to sit down, the three little helpers, except for the young translator Rama, had already started distributing food to everyone.

"Veterinarian, what's your plan?"

The sewing machine tore off a piece of bread and dipped it in the mutton and carrot soup, then stuffed it into his mouth, chewing and asking incoherently.

"Where do we get the fuel?" Cradle also asked.

"Also, how much oil can we get?" Edelweiss, who was sitting next to Wei Ran, also asked, "We need a lot of oil."

"I guess one or two hundred liters is not a problem"

Wei Ran returned the watch to Edelweiss and explained, "At dusk, I found an armored vehicle of the Falangists, and I stole those two barrels of oil from that vehicle."

"What did you say?"

The sewing machine widened its eyes and lowered its voice to say, "Are you crazy? Those crazy people are just against us."

“They don’t know I did it.”

Wei Ran took a bite of the slightly dry and hard pancake and said vaguely, "That is an early gasoline-powered M113 armored vehicle produced in the United States. I guess it was a discarded product sold to Yi Se Lie by the United States, and then discarded by Yi Se Lie and thrown to the Falange Party."

"What do you want to say?" Cradle looked at Wei Ran in confusion.

"The tank capacity of that armored vehicle is more than 300 liters, and it is a rare type of gasoline that our emergency vehicles can use."

Wei Ran said truthfully, "I stole two barrels of oil in the evening. When we get there later, if we are not discovered, no, if the car is still there, we can drain its tank."

"But."

“We need fuel urgently”

Sewing Machine took over the conversation from his wife, "It's hard for us to find so much oil at once. Like the vet said, it's important that our emergency vehicle can also use oil."

"Okay, okay." Cradle gritted his teeth and looked at Edelweiss who was eating happily. "Don't you want to say something?"

“Nothing to say”

Edelweiss was much more carefree than the couple. "We need fuel. Instead of using the fuel in their armored vehicles to burn and kill people, we should use it to save people."

After that, Edelweiss picked up another piece of carrot and stuffed it into her mouth, chewing it while asking, "What do we need to do next?"

"The children stay," Wei Ran said subconsciously.

"Sir, there are no children here."

The one who spoke was Rama, the 11-year-old Rama who had been busy translating for his friends.

Seeing Wei Ran looking at him, Rama said, "Sir, there are only doctors, nurses, trainee nurses, soldiers and trainee soldiers here. Including me, we can all play a role, please stop treating us like children."

Seeing Wei Ran's surprised expression, Edelweiss sighed, put down her knife and fork and said, "Let them participate."

Seeing that the sewing machine and the cradle were also silent, Wei Ran already knew that this kind of thing might have happened more than once, and this kind of persistence was not the only time for these children.

"You will definitely drive away the invaders"

Wei Ran said to the 11-year-old Rama in a very formal manner, "It may take ten, twenty, or fifty years, but you will definitely drive away the invaders."

"We also believe that we will definitely do it." Rama showed a bright smile, with some soup still hanging at the corners of her mouth - just like edelweiss.

"Since our little helper is also participating, we have to be more cautious." The sewing machine reminded gently.

Wei Ran nodded and asked while eating, "How many oil drums do we have?"

"13," Rama answered immediately, "including the two you brought back today, there are 13 oil barrels in total."

“Take them all with you later.”

Wei Ran thought for a moment and said, "We also need to wrap the oil drums with cloth to make them quieter."

"Leave these to me," Cradle accepted the job.

"If that armored vehicle was still there"

Wei Ran looked at everyone and said, "I need two helpers to approach the armored vehicle with me. I need them to bring back the full oil drums. I also need someone to organize the children to stand guard around."

"Let's do it"

"The cradle and I will be your helpers," said the sewing machine, "and Edelweiss will be the sentinel with the children."

Hearing this, Wei Ran continued before Edelweiss was about to say anything, "Once we have filled all the oil barrels, we will immediately transport them back. We may need to make two trips, or even three. The key is to make sure you don't make any noise."

"What if we meet the Falangists?" Edelweiss asked.

"Leave it to me," Wei Ran answered subconsciously.

"Are you going to kill them?" Cradle asked, "Veterinarian, we are Doctors Without Borders."

“It’s already dark”

Wei Ran pointed to the top of his head and spread his hands like a rogue, "I'm off work. Even Doctors Without Borders can't work 24 hours a day, right?"

Compared to the sewing machine and the cradle who looked at each other in bewilderment, Edelweiss was the first to laugh and asked in a serious tone in French, "So, sir, who has finished get off work, what is your status now?"

Hearing this, Wei Ran thought for a moment, cleared his throat and said with a smile, "Now I am an internationalist fighter, and my code name is Dongfeng."

"Are we in Spain?"

Sewing Machine said in a joking tone, "I was wondering if I should come up with a code name to use after I get off work at MSF."

Taking advantage of this topic, everyone finished their dinner which was not very sumptuous but definitely filling and filling. The oil stove not far away finally completed the steaming and disinfection of the surgical instruments.

After turning off the oil stove, Cradle and Edelweiss worked together to store the sterilized surgical instruments, while the two girls, Rama and Dalal, each took a shoe brush and carefully brushed off the accumulated charcoal on the stove, first collecting it on a piece of newspaper and then in a glass plate.

While Wei Ran put the stove rack and the steaming plate back into the bag and re-secured it on the roof, Yao Lan took out a bottle of something similar to skin care products from the tent, squeezed a dollop of it into the plate, and stirred it carefully with a tongue depressor.

Then, the four women, two big and two small, dipped their fingers into the plate and smeared the black mud-like "skin care products" on their faces and even necks.

“Let’s paint some too.”

Wei Ran said as he also reached out to get some, explaining, "Use it as a disguise."

Hearing this, the sewing machine and the two young men also dipped their hands in the plate and smeared black stains on their faces.

After disguising themselves, Cradle and Edelweiss took the children to the backyard to find some rags and wrapped the oil drums.

Everything was ready. Wei Ran, with empty hands, slung three coiled oil pipes over his shoulders. He left the garage quietly, locked the door again, and followed the shadow of the building, groping towards the armored vehicle according to his memory, with his companions, big and small, who were each carrying two empty oil barrels.

It was already past eleven in the evening, and the street had fallen into darkness and silence. Only the faint starlight and the subtle movements of various animals wandering in the corners filled with the stench of corpses could be heard.

Because the people he was carrying with him were either valuable medical personnel or immature children, Wei Ran was more cautious than ever before, so his speed was naturally slow.

Around midnight, Wei Ran led everyone to carefully hide in the shadow of the ruins where he had stepped in the evening.

"You just wait here"

Wei Ran whispered, "Don't follow me yet, and don't make any noise. I'll come pick you up when I'm sure there's no danger."

"Beast, Dongfeng, you have to be careful." The sewing machine whispered.

Patting the other person's shoulder gently, Wei Ran took off the oil extraction pipe hanging diagonally on his shoulder and handed it to the sewing machine's hand. Then he crouched down and walked carefully along the wall to the armored vehicle guarding the street corner more than 20 meters away.