War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 170
At dawn on the third day after Wei Ran joined Li Hexian's team, the sound of rumbling cannons came from outside Teng County.The faintly audible sound of firefights not only stimulated the tense nerves of the guards and soldiers, but also made the residents who remained in the city spontaneously send all kinds of warm clothes, cotton shoes, and even all kinds of food and drink.

Under the ten-meter-high city wall at Chengdongguan, soldiers who had already put on new cotton-padded clothes, trousers and cotton-padded shoes took advantage of their shifts to lean against the thick city wall, and some were wiping their hands. Rifles, some holding a stone, silently polishing the rust on a large piece of knife.

And all of this was secretly captured by Wei Ran, who avoided the Li family brothers, with a double-lens reflex camera from different angles.

When there was only the last film left in the camera, Wei Ran ventured to hide behind a war horse, pointed the lens at the Li family brothers who were sitting together, and lightly pressed the shutter.

Covered by the snorting war horse, Wei Ran put away his camera, walked to the side of the Li family brothers and sat down, and then found that Li Hexian was holding a 20-ring pot-bellied box, gesticulating and giving Li Suian next to him explained the essentials of shooting.

Seeing Wei Ran staring straight at the belly box in his hand, Li Hexian asked casually, "What's wrong?"

"I'm looking at the words engraved on your gun," Wei Ran said truthfully.

Li Hexian smiled, unloaded the magazine of the pistol, handed it to Wei Ran generously, and explained, "My old man is a small salt merchant in our locality, my eldest brother, my second brother, and me, When we left Sichuan, my old man prepared such a big belly box for us, and this poem was also written by him himself."

Holding the pistol in both hands, he returned it to Li Hexian with precious hands. After the latter took the gun, he reloaded the magazine in his hand and murmured against the cold city wall, "Wo'er will never die and never return!" Chuan, alas, I don't know how long it will take before this little devil can be completely driven out."

"Third brother homesick?" Li Suian asked in a low voice.

Li Hexian nodded calmly, put the worn-out military cap on his face, and said dully, "Can you not think about it? I don't know if the old man and the mother are in good health."

Seeing that his cousin felt nostalgic, Li Suian deliberately changed the topic in a joke, and asked with a playful smile, "You don't miss Zhou's sister?"

"You melon!"

Li Hexian took off the military cap that was on his face, touched the back of Li Suian's head lightly, and said with a look of nostalgia, "I don't want to, I can't go back for a while, why bother to delay him? But speaking of Miss Zhou's family, I'm even more greedy for the bowl of glutinous rice balls she handed me when she sent me out of Sichuan in Shaocheng Park in Xindu."

Li Suian pretended to shake his head and said, "How innocent are the glutinous rice balls, bringing Miss Zhou to suffer from this lovesickness?"

"Mr. Ge! Put your earwax in!" Li Hexian raised his hand to hit him, but the former ran away laughing and writhing.

Looking at the Li family brothers who were laughing and cursing, Wei Ran who was sitting on the side felt his throat was blocked.I couldn't help but have the urge to go outside the city to participate in the battle.

While he was waiting anxiously, the sun above his head rose to the highest point and began to slant westward little by little. After groups of soldiers who were urgently dispatched from the battlefield outside the city passed through the city gate, they did not even have time to rest. Run up the wall.

Not only the defenders who had withdrawn from outside the city, but also the police and security regiment of Teng County were also deployed as reinforcements. Although there were not many of these people, they were equally invaluable to Teng County, which was short on troops.

At the same time, Wei Ran, who climbed up the city wall, also held up the binoculars he took out from his leather notebook, and saw the little devil who was almost close at hand outside the city.

If they were put on the European battlefield, those thin-skinned and small armored vehicles and tanks, as well as the reconnaissance aircraft flying low overhead at this time, might not be able to withstand a round of covering strikes at all.

But for the defenders of Teng County who lacked heavy firepower and ammunition at this time, and even the anti-Japanese vanguards in the entire Chinese land, their only choice to defeat such an enemy may be to fill the gap in firepower with human lives.

Seeing that the Li family brothers also climbed up the city wall, Wei Ran immediately put away the binoculars in his hand, then stood up and went up to meet them.

"The one opposite is the little devil." Li Hexian pointed in the direction outside the city in a flat tone, then turned his head and asked, "Are you afraid?"

Li Suian, who fled all the way from Beiping to Teng County, swallowed his saliva and said firmly, "I'm not afraid! I'm not afraid!"

"What about you?" Li Hexian turned to look at Wei Ran.

"afraid"

Wei Ran said calmly, "I'm afraid that I didn't kill enough people, I'm sorry for my ancestors. I'm afraid that the guns aren't accurate enough, the bullets aren't powerful enough, and even more afraid that the big knives aren't sharp enough to cut off their bastard heads. But only, not afraid of death!"

Li Hexian patted Wei Ran and Li Suian's shoulders vigorously, but turned around and walked towards the other soldiers without saying anything.

As night fell, the sound of fighting artillery fire gradually subsided, and a stretcher team organized by the people spontaneously brought back many wounded from outside the city and sent them to a Chinese medicine shop next to the city gate.

Seeing this, Wei Ran, who was digging a trench, dropped the pickaxe in his hand and followed. Under the cover of night, he got into an empty private house. When he came out again, he already had a heavy pickaxe in his hand. First aid kit and a kerosene lamp.

Following the stretcher team into the Chinese medicine shop, Wei Ran took the initiative to say without waiting for the person in charge to speak, "I am also a doctor and can perform simple operations."

The person in charge of the temporary hospital glanced suspiciously at Wei Ran, who was wearing a coarse cotton padded jacket and had a weapon on his body, and asked after a moment of hesitation, "What do we need to do?"

"Let me wash my hands with a basin of water. If I have a white coat and a mask, give me a set. I also need a spacious room."

"Nurse Chen!" The tall and thin person in charge immediately called a young nurse to convey Wei Ran's request, and then personally led him into the innermost room.

When he put away the medicine box and lit the kerosene lamp, the nurse, who seemed to be at most 20 years old, had already brought a basin of clean water, and another nurse who followed her also brought a set of white coats.

After washing his hands carefully, putting on a white coat and putting on a mask, Wei Ran put rubber gloves on his hands and said, "Bring it in."

"I can ask you are."

Wei Ran looked up at the person in charge standing at the door, lowered his head while continuing to make preoperative preparations and replied firmly, "Huaxia people".

The other party sighed, waved his hand and signaled to bring in a young soldier who was shot in the thigh and kept crying, "Do you need an assistant?"

"One will do." While speaking, Wei Ran took out a morphine from the medicine box and stuck it on the wounded.

"Xiao Chen, stay and help." Seeing that the wailing of the wounded gradually stopped, the person in charge finally took a step back.

With the help of the nurse Chen who was younger than Suisui, Wei Ran calmed down and started the operation in an orderly manner. At the same time, he kept asking, "Can you sew blood vessels?"

The flustered Nurse Chen shook her head, and when she realized that Wei Ran's attention was on the wound, she immediately followed up and replied, "No."

"What about suturing muscle and epithelial tissue?" Wei Ran had already clamped the ruptured blood vessel and was about to suture it when he asked.

"No," Nurse Chen replied disappointedly.

"It's okay, will the injection be done?" Wei Ran asked while suturing the wound.

"Neither will." Nurse Chen's tone was already crying, "I only received two days of training."

"Will you bandage?" Wei Ran asked again.

"Yes! I will!" The young nurse Chen replied holding back her tears. This was the only job she was competent for.

"It's enough to bandage"

Wei Ran looked up at the other person's dark eyes, lowered his head again, and said while suturing the wound, "Hold back the tears, and I will teach you while suturing, as much as you can learn, it doesn't matter if you can't keep up, do more It will happen next time."

"Thank you! Thank you!" Nurse Chen said hastily.

Next, Wei Ran explained the operation at hand very quickly, and at the same time meticulously stitched up the ruptured blood vessels and torn muscles, trying not to leave ugly scars on the young wounded man, even if... He might not survive the siege at all.

Finally, the bandaging work was handed over to the nurse Chen, and Wei Ran injected the wounded with penicillin, which is extremely precious in this era.

As the first wounded was carried out, the tall and thin person in charge also ran over. After checking the condition of the wounded, he immediately grabbed the door and said, "Can you come outside for surgery?"

"Go outside?" Wei Ran raised his head in confusion, saw the other party pointing to the kerosene lamp hanging above his head, immediately understood what the other party meant, and walked out of the room with his hands on his chest.

The person in charge quickly helped to carry out the small tea table with the first aid kit, and then called a nurse to help move the kerosene lamp to the spacious lobby outside.

Under this bright ice-blue light, the treatment of other wounded was also accelerated, and the second wounded was sent to the temporary operating table in charge of Wei Ran.

In the gradually deepening night, all kinds of medicines in the first-aid kit were rapidly consumed by Wei Ran, who was becoming more and more stingy. Under his instructions, the whole morphine was sucked out of the tin injection with a needle by the nurse Chen. Only half a tube is used, and those penicillins sealed in ampoules are only used one-third at a time.

But even so, as the medicines in the medicine box gradually decreased, it became more and more difficult for Wei Ran to treat the wounded.

Finally, when the last bit of morphine and the last bit of penicillin in the syringe were all pushed into the body of the last wounded, the sky outside the door also turned pale.

"Dang!"

Wei Ran threw the blood-stained tweezers into the tray, signaled to Nurse Chen, who had been busy with him all night, to bandage the wound, and then bowed deeply to the wounded all over the floor and the doctors and nurses who were still busy, and then stood in front of everyone. In the confusion, he staggered out of the traditional Chinese medicine shop alone, ran faster and faster along the stone road, and finally disappeared in a small alley.

When the bloodshot Wei Ran came out from the other side of the alley, he had already taken off his blood-stained white coat and thick mask, and strode towards the Chengdongguan position.

What he did last night was already the limit of what he could help.Without the support of those special medicines, he might not be as useful as the leftover medicine box and the kerosene lamp that was lit all night. Instead of being of little help in the pharmacy, he might as well kill devils!

(End of this chapter)