War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1697 Group Photo Before Evacuation
Deep in the cave where a "state of peace" had been temporarily reached, Wei Ran and the other two lay on the felt distributed to them, covered with tattered blankets, and fell asleep one after another.

Compared to the "relaxation" of the three of them, Mahbub in the distance was still forcing himself to stay alert, holding a PPSh and guarding the children around him.

In this delicate balance, even Hakim, who tossed and turned, couldn't stand the fatigue of the past few days and gradually fell asleep.

When Wei Ran and others were awakened by the crying of the baby one after another, the person who was holding a gun and alerting them had become Habibullah, and the sky outside the cave had become extremely dark.

Looking around, Murtaza was busy by the campfire, cooking goat milk for the baby and Ayana.

Hakim was performing the Madhyama prayer alone at the entrance of the cave, while Mahbub was sleeping soundly beside the campfire.

"You are awake"

Habibullah saw the three people sitting up one after another, and immediately brought a small enamel pot filled with broth and a piece of naan. "We don't have much food left, this is all we have for dinner."

"It's ok"

Kirill was still the first to speak, "Before we eat, let Victor and I change the bandages for the wounded."

"Alright"

Habibullah nodded, "Who are you going to start with?"

“Let’s start with Ayana.”

Wei Ran said, "Her condition is the most serious, let's start with her first."

"Come with me"

Habibullah took a step back and cautiously grasped the weapon hanging on his shoulder, while reminding his sister on the other side of the curtain in Pashto.

After a moment's wait, Ayana on the other side of the felt curtain shouted in slightly hoarse Persian, "Let them in."

It was not until this time that Habibullah handed a medical kit to Wei Ran, and he followed behind holding the submachine gun that belonged to Ruslan. At the same time, Hakim also raised the AK74 he had picked up and aimed it at Ruslan who was staying by the campfire from a distance.

In response, neither Wei Ran nor Hakim said anything, they just took the medical kit and walked into the curtain.

At this time, Ayana was still lying on the stone, but there were a few extra sheepskins under the felt. Beside her, Qiaoya and Soraya were each holding a tightly wrapped baby and gently patting and comforting the baby.

"Let me check the wound."

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already opened the medical bag. As expected, there was no medical equipment such as scalpels and hemostat in the bag, only various medicines and bandages.

Wei Ran didn't care about this. He gently lifted a clean towel covering Ayana's belly, carefully opened the gauze and began to check the wound and change the dressing.

At the same time, Kirill, who graduated from a professional school, asked Ayana in detail about her physical feelings, her food and water intake, and even the eating habits of the two babies. He also took the temperature of the three of them.

"I'm going to give you another shot."

Kirill waited for Wei Ran to finish his work, then took out an antibiotic from the medical bag and explained, "The sanitary conditions here are too poor. You are likely to get infected. All I can do is give you an injection of antibiotics."

As he spoke, he had already popped open the ampoule, sucked out the medicine and began to inject it intramuscularly, while carefully giving various precautions, as if he had forgotten that he was just a prisoner.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." Ayana said weakly.

Kirill just smiled, put away the medical kit, and walked out of the curtain with Wei Ran.

“Tell me your predictions”

Kirill said in Russian, then after a moment's thought, he switched to Persian, "I mean, her physical condition."

“Thanks for the cold weather”

Wei Ran answered truthfully, "The chances of her wound getting infected are unlikely."

Hearing this, Habibullah, who was following them with a gun in hand, breathed a sigh of relief. This was probably the only good news for them.

"Are you or Comrade Mahbub next?"

Kirill left the decision to Habibullah behind him, "Or our companions?"

"My father," Habibullah said.

Hearing this, Wei Ran and the others wisely stopped and waited patiently for Habibullah to wake up his father. Then they went forward to change the dressing, and Kirill was still responsible for injecting antibiotics.

After Mahbub lay down again, the two of them took the initiative to walk to Hakim's side. After Habibullah handed the weapon to him, Wei Ran helped him change the bandages.

After he picked up the submachine gun again, the two of them finally changed the dressing on Ruslan's wound and injected him with antibiotics.

After completing the dressing changes for all the wounded in such a vigilant and tense confrontation, Wei Ran and Kirill watched Habibullah take away the medical kits, then they sat down by the campfire again and took the mutton soup that Ruslan had prepared for them.

At the same time, Murtaza also brought the cooked and cooled goat milk into the felt curtain, and then sat down with Hakim and quickly finished their food.

“Habibullah, keep an eye on them.”

Hakim stood up and said, "Let's go find the guerrillas."

"be careful"

Habibullah said, handing the other party a flashlight.

"We'll be back before dawn."

Hakim took the flashlight and put it on his belt. He and Murtaza each carried an AK74 rifle, and each led a donkey and left the cave.

As he left, Kirill was visibly relieved. Apparently, in his eyes, Hakim was not as easy to deal with as the relatively calmer and more rational Habibullah.

"Let's chat about anything"

Kirill whispered as he fiddled with his tiny camera.

"What to talk about?"

Ruslan asked, lying down against a rock, but actually all his attention was on the wine jug he had just taken out.

“Anything is fine”

Wei Ran also half-lying down against a rock, casually started a topic and asked, "Why would your daughter give you a wine jug?"

“This wasn’t originally filled with vodka.”

Ruslan put the wine jug to his lips and sipped the remaining wine inside, smacking his lips and saying, "This was originally filled with honey. My father is a forest ranger. He raised a lot of honey in the forest, and even this wine jug originally belonged to him.

Before I went to the battlefield, my father gave me this hip flask. He was a veteran of World War II and participated in the Great Patriotic War. This hip flask was captured from a German captain when he participated in the Battle of Minsk. "

At this point, Ruslan took off the leather cover of the wine flask, pointed to the traces of marks left on it and said, "He was awarded the Second Class Order of the Patriotic War, and the piece of iron was originally inlaid on it by him.

But when he gave me the flask, he took off the medal, and my daughter Faina helped me fill it with honey.

I thought he wanted me to put the medals I received in the war on it, until... until I came to Afkhan, I realized that he probably didn't want me to have medals on the flask anymore."

Ruslan shook his head and said apologetically, "My daughter hopes that I can stop drinking."

At this point, Ruslan looked at the felt curtain not far away. "That naive little girl thought I came to Afkhan to help them. If I hadn't come here in the form of war, she might have become friends with those children."

“These are not for us to decide.”

Kirill, lying on the felt, looked up at the dome of the cave and muttered, "When the war started, I also thought my father came here to help them. It was not until I came here as a soldier that I realized that this was not the case."

"These are not things we can decide," Ruslan repeated what the other party had just said.

"How long have you not seen them?" Wei Ran asked, changing the subject.

"Five months and 18 no, 19 days."

Ruslan gave his answer, "Five months ago I returned to Minsk for my father's funeral. That was the last time I saw my wife and daughter."

"I heard that your wife participated in the rescue work of the Chernobyl accident workers?" Wei Ran asked.

Turning his head to look at Kirill, Ruslan nodded, "That experience was also a disaster for her. She suffered severe psychological trauma after finishing her rescue work. Now they have moved from Jifu to Minsk, but her mental state is very bad."

"I remember you were going back soon?" Kirill asked, still looking above his head.

"yes"

Ruslan said as he put the leather cover back on the flask, "I was supposed to go back next month."

"You will go back," Kirill whispered, "We will all go back."

"I'm afraid these people don't know where to go to exchange prisoners." Ruslan obviously had no hope for this, but he lowered his voice and said, "We should still find a way ourselves."

"Do you have any ideas?" Kirill asked in a low voice.

"We need to get weapons, and we need to get at least three donkeys."

Ruslan lowered his voice and said, "We don't even need to kill them. As long as we have weapons and donkeys, and change into their clothes, we can definitely leave here."

"Are you trying to say that we should do it while we're changing their dressings?" Kirill changed his communication method to writing words on the sand.

"We need to gain their trust first," Ruslan also wrote. "It will take some time. When they relax their guard and let the children look after us, maybe we can do it."

Before Ruslan could finish his words, the roar of a fighter jet could be heard faintly outside the cave.

Just as the three of them were looking towards the cave entrance, Habibullah reacted very quickly and lifted up a blanket, and used the sand that had been piled on the blanket in advance to cover the campfire.

Immediately afterwards, he handed the weapon to Mahbub who had woken up, and he quickly ran to Wei Ran and the other two, and covered the campfire with another bag of wet sand wrapped in a blanket.

"Don't move!"

Habibullah warned, "If you move, I will have to shoot!"

As he spoke, he had already distanced himself from Wei Ran and the other two, and took the PPSh submachine gun that Qiao Ya handed to him.

For a moment, the only light left in the cave was the faint light from an oil lamp in the deepest part. However, the light of this faint oil lamp just covered the three people lying on the ground, forcing them to raise their hands. Also while raising his hand, Ruslan scratched out the few remaining Russian words on the sand without leaving a trace.

After a while, the roar of the helicopter faded away completely, but no one let down their guard.

After waiting for about ten minutes, the roar of a helicopter was heard outside the cave again, which undoubtedly made everyone in the cave more nervous.

Fortunately, neither the fighter jet flying below that seemed to be a bait nor the group of helicopters behind it seemed to have discovered the cave. This was at least good news for Mahbub and others.

But the explosion that was faintly heard from the distance immediately afterwards made everyone, including Wei Ran and the other two, nervous.

Half an hour later, the night sky finally became completely quiet. Mahbub immediately directed Habibullah and the children to build a fence to cover the cave entrance with felt, stones, and sticks.

In order to avoid being exposed by the fire, Habibullah even climbed above the cave entrance and covered the naturally formed skylight with thick felt.

At the same time, the two little girls finally reignited the fire and brought charcoal to Wei Ran and the other two to serve as fire starters.

When the cave was illuminated by the campfire again, Mahbub put down the submachine gun in his hand, and the two sides, at least on the surface, returned to a peaceful state.

Because they were quite far away, Wei Ran could not hear the conversation between Mahbub and Habibullah beside the felt curtain, but from their body movements that kept looking outside the cave, he knew that they were worried about Hakim who had gone out to look for the guerrillas.

"Go back to sleep"

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Kirill whispered meaningfully, "The most important thing now is to heal your wound."

"How long will it take?" Ruslan asked in a low voice.

"Two weeks. Your wound will take at least two weeks."

Kirill said, "If there is no infection, the wound on Habibullah's head will only take a week to heal. The woman's recovery time should be similar to yours, but the wound on Mahbub's foot will probably take one or two months."

"So we"

“We should rest more”

Wei Ran took over the conversation, "Only by resting more can the wound heal as quickly as possible."

"Then continue to sleep."

Ruslan understood Wei Ran's hint, covered himself with the dirty blanket and closed his eyes.

Subconsciously glancing at Mahbub and the others in the distance, Wei Ran wrapped himself tightly in the blanket and closed his eyes, even though he was not sleepy at all.

When he was awakened by the cold wind blowing behind him, the curtain blocking the cave entrance had been removed, and the sky outside the cave was already bright. Even Hakim and Murtaza had returned.

"The Soviets sent out planes to bomb last night."

Hakim, who was hiding by the campfire, holding a bowl of meat soup, said, "When Murtaza and I rushed over, there was nothing there except corpses. I guess they were avenging the attack on them yesterday."

Taking a sip of the broth, Hakim continued, "Besides, there's even worse news."

"What bad news?" Mahbub asked, frowning and leaning on the Bobosha.

"There were quite a few butterfly mines scattered along the way."

Hakim said, "It was those helicopters that dropped it last night. We saw them dropping it with our own eyes."

"If it weren't for those plastic pieces, we would have returned long ago," Murtaza said angrily.

"We were worried that something might have gone wrong here, so we hurried back." Hakim said thankfully, "Fortunately, you are all okay."

"You should have a good rest."

Habibullah said, "I will look for it this evening."

"Let's get out of here right now"

Mahbub suddenly said, "It's not safe here anymore. Hakim, you and Murtaza should take a rest. We will leave in the afternoon."

"Afternoon? Where are we going?" Hakim asked subconsciously.

Mahbub glanced in the direction of Wei Ran and the other two, and lowered his voice slightly to say a place name that Wei Ran and the other two could not hear at all.

"This is too far," Habibullah couldn't help but exclaim.

"It's better than being trapped here and dying."

Mahbub said worriedly, "The situation has exceeded our expectations. I suspect that all the guerrillas around here will be wiped out. If we stay, we may all die."

“But Ayana”

"Let those Soviets carry her" Hakim came up with a "good idea".

“This is indeed a solution.”

Mahbub nodded and said, "Habibullah, take Soraya with you to make a stretcher and prepare some more food."

“I’ll start preparing now.”

As Habibullah spoke, he stood up and walked towards the large iron barrel where they stored supplies.

"What seems to have happened?"

Kirill, who could not understand Pashto at all, and even if he could understand it, he could not hear it clearly, whispered vigilantly, "Did they find the guerrillas?"

"I hope we are worthy of being captured"

Ruslan said vaguely that this was definitely not a good thing for the three of them. In this small guerrilla group, half of which were wounded and half were children, they could be treated as "friends" in a sense because they had access to medical resources.

But once they are handed over to the "official" guerrillas, what awaits them may be a long and unfriendly torture.

Whether they were willing or not, Hakim and Murtaza quickly ate their meal and then lay down by the campfire to catch up on their sleep. Habibullah took Soraya to make a stretcher, and then used a small amount of flour to bake one naan after another in the burning hot sand so that they could take out and eat at any time on the road to satisfy their hunger.

During the intense preparations, around two o'clock in the afternoon, Habibullah, with the help of Soraya and Joya, had baked all the flour into naan and put it into a canvas bag.

"We have to leave now to come here"

Mahbub walked up to Wei Ran and the other two and said, "Victor, Comrade Kirill, I hope the two of you can help carry my daughter. In exchange, your companion Comrade Ruslan can ride on the donkey."

"Where are we going?" Kirill asked.

“I can’t answer that question for you.”

Mahbub shook his head, “But as long as you cooperate, I promise you can survive.

Accordingly, if you cause any accident to my daughter, I will have to kill your companion first, and then kill both of you."

After saying this, Mahbub had already thrown three tattered robes to them, "Put these clothes on your bodies."

"Before we leave, can I take a group photo of you?" Wei Ran asked abruptly, "I mean everyone, you and us."

"Why do you still have this thought now?" Ruslan asked in surprise.

“One of us might die along the way.”

Wei Ran said seriously, "It's just a group photo, don't you dare?"

"We don't bother to take pictures with you," Hakim, who had also climbed up, snorted coldly.

"That means you don't dare," Wei Ran said sarcastically.

"All right"

Mahbub waved his hand and said, "We still have plenty of time, so let's take a picture. You take a picture for our family, and in exchange, I will take a picture for the three of you."

"Then it's settled"

Wei Ran spoke before Kirill, Ruslan, and even Hakim could.

After a brief preparation, the not-so-large amount of luggage and supplies were either tied to the goats or hung on the donkey's back.

Under the vigilant gaze of Habibullah and Hakim, Wei Ran and the other two walked out of the cave. Wei Ran also raised the miniature camera and framed the Afkhan guerrillas who were standing loosely together in the viewfinder.

Only this time, he did not suggest that they stand closer together. However, his silence did not mean that Kirill would not say it.

"You are too far apart," Kirill reminded, "Come closer, aren't you a family?"

“Because we are a family”

Mahbub waved his hand, which was folded loosely at his side, and said, "Please let me introduce you. This is my wife's position."

Then he pointed to the right back of his body with his other hand and said, "That's where my eldest son and his wife are. Look, Murtaza is standing in front of them.

Behind me were my second son and his wife. There was a beautiful girl in front of them, but their whole family had died too.

The empty seat next to Habibullah was reserved for his girlfriend, whom he had brought to meet our family, but she didn't survive.

On the far left is my only daughter, Ayana, and her husband, Muhammad, who has the worst grades among all my students.

But he tracked down my only daughter, and he fought very bravely, leading the guerrillas against the Soviets all these years until the night before last.

There should have been a handsome little guy in front of them.

Unfortunately, he died too. He stepped on a landmine you planted while helping to fetch water. Soraya was his classmate, so let her stand in his place. "

"I had a hound in front of me, a very beautiful hound."

Habibullah pointed in front of him and said, "His name is Ali. He didn't survive either. He died from your chemical weapons."

"They stood like this when they took their last group photo a few years ago."

Hakim said, “I was the one who took the photo for them.”