War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 256 Meeting Charlotte for the First Time

When Herbert and Wei Ran rushed to the south bank of Lake Ness in the Scottish Highlands, it was already the morning of the second day.

This small town called Fort Augustus only has a few hundred households. One river passes through the town, and the other end of the river is connected to Loch Ness, which is rumored to have a monster.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this rumor that there are many tourists in this small town.Wei Ran even saw a few Huaxia aunts holding silk scarves by the river lock and taking pictures with great interest.

It was also because of stepping here that Wei Ran really wanted to understand that the jokes about the weather when the British meet and chat is not an exaggeration. It is now the middle and late June, but perhaps because of the dimensionality, the temperature in this place is no more than [-]-[-] at most. At the same time, there is still a cool drizzle in the sky.

Not to mention that, on the streets on both sides of the river, there are people wearing short-sleeved shorts, some wearing turtleneck sweaters, and some simply wrapped in down jackets, which perfectly express their respective body temperature indexes here.

"Although I'm French, I have to say that I hate the terrible weather here, and Volgograd is heaven by comparison."

Herbert complained very appropriately, "Even if there are really some water monsters here, I don't want to live in such a ghostly place. Before I got out of the car, my knee joints started to hurt."

“Really uncomfortable”

Wei Ran zipped up the jacket. In his opinion, this kind of cold weather is the most suitable for sleeping on the bed. Even opening the curtains is an unforgivable sin.

"Let's go quickly, and I hope Mr. Charlotte has lit the fire."

Herbert paid the fare, turned up the collar of the windbreaker, pulled the suitcase, greeted Wei Ran, and walked towards an old-looking house by the river.

The shape of this two-story house is not much different from the house shared by Wei Ran's studio and the travel agency next door.It is only shorter in length, only about [-] meters, but it is also more beautiful. In the space surrounded by the anchor chain at the door, there are some sun umbrellas and solid wood tables and chairs, separated by a small piece of extraordinarily flat lawn. , which is a walking trail next to the river.

Although his English was sloppy, he could understand that more than half of the house, including the area surrounded by the anchor chain outside, was used to run a bar.The remaining half is a souvenir shop that looks quite delicate.

Following Herbert into the store, the storefront of less than 40 square meters is filled with all kinds of silverware, from English tea sets and tableware, to various styles of silver portable flasks, and even candlesticks and jewelry. Boxes or some small pendants in the shape of the Loch Ness Monster, etc. can be described as dazzling.

And on the wall facing the door, there is a man who seems to be about 40 years old, who is concentrating on carving something on a piece of silver.

Herbert took off the windbreaker and hung it on the hanger at the door. After placing one of the suitcases against the wall, he asked the other party something in English, and the man pointed upstairs without raising his head.

"Let's go up, it seems that Mr. Charlotte is already waiting for us." Herbert said in German.

"Mr. Charlotte has been living here?" Wei Ran put down his suitcase, followed behind him, and asked as he walked upstairs on the creaking wooden stairs.

"Mr. Charlotte has been living here since his retirement."

Herbert explained with a smile, "He has two sons and a daughter. The youngest daughter helps him run a jewelry store in Edinburgh. The one downstairs is his eldest son who runs this souvenir shop. The bar next to him is his other shop." My son is running it."

"It seems that his old age is not bad." Wei Ran sighed, but at the same time, he couldn't help thinking of the friends who would never be able to wait by the dry well.

“Of course not bad”

Herbert stopped and hammered his sore knee, lowered his voice slightly and said, "He is also a well-known ancient coin collector and winemaker in England. Of course, he has always regarded himself as an explorer, although he Never left England much in my life."

"A theoretical explorer?" Wei Ran also asked in a low voice.

"You can think so." After finishing speaking, Herbert blinked, continued to walk, and took Wei Ran up to the second floor.

Compared with the first floor, which is less than [-] square meters in size and full of silver objects that are enough to resist vampire attacks, the second floor is much more spacious, with only a living room, it is as big as the downstairs.

In addition, all kinds of outdoor equipment can be seen almost everywhere, and even tables and chairs are foldable and portable models commonly used in outdoor camping.

But except for the beautifully shaped large outdoor wood stove next to the window, which burns red charcoal and has obvious signs of use, many other things have not even removed the labels, especially the neat wooden shelf in the corner. All kinds of kerosene lamps, gasoline stoves and other objects placed there have obvious layers of dust accumulated on them.

And by the window, a man wearing an old-fashioned expedition suit and desert boots, with a khaki helmet on his head, looks like an old man of six 70 years old is sitting on a canvas chair smoking a pipe, in his At his feet, there was also a Doberman pinscher that obviously lacked exercise and was as fat as an inflated sausage.

"This is Mr. Charlotte"

After Herbert said hello in English, he introduced Wei Ran to the old gentleman who was in good shape.

Due to the language barrier, Wei Ran could only shake hands with the other party, and choked out a sentence that he learned in junior high school, "Nestu Mi Te You".

To Wei Ran's surprise, the nearly seventy-year-old Mr. Charlotte even choked out a seriously out-of-tune "Nihao", which actually narrowed the distance between the two.

Under Herbert's translation, after a few simple greetings, the two sides brought the topic to the so-called treasure.

After Herbert placed the oil drum in the suitcase on the aluminum alloy folding table between the three of them, and took out the translated secret language and handed it to Charlotte, Wei Ran took it out from the backpack at his feet. A file bag was placed on the oil drum.

Charlotte picked up the file bag curiously and opened it, and then saw the hand-drawn map in Pell's codebook.

After a short moment of daze, Charlotte stood up in surprise, put the map into her pocket, and said something very fast, with a pair of old eyes, also staring at Wei Ran.

"Mr. Charlotte asked, where did this map come from?" Herbert asked, suppressing the surprise in his heart.

"It was discovered together with the code book," Wei Ran responded in German.

"Can you tell me who got it from?" Herbert translated Charlotte's question.

Wei Ran shook his head pretending to regret, "The other party doesn't want to reveal his identity."

After listening to Herbert's translation, Charlotte sighed, got up and walked to the writing desk not far away.

While Wei Ran and Herbert were puzzled, the old gentleman took out a photo album from the desk drawer.Signaling Herbert to put the oil barrel aside first, the old Charlotte opened the photo album and found a black and white photo taken by Wei Ran himself.

In this group photo, Per and Pierre each wear a birthday crown folded from pornographic magazines. They are the same as Carlo, Harry, Panettone, Trento and others around them. They all hold a plate of pasta in one hand, various glasses of red wine in the other, and a wooden box originally used to hold ammunition sitting under their buttocks.

Behind these people, there is the Italian-made CL39 truck on one side, and a three-wheeled motorcycle on the other. From the corner, you can vaguely see the half outline of the water well and the endless desert in the distance.

"Carlo, Panettone, Trento, Pierre, Pere,"

Charlotte pointed to the people in the photo and called out their names one by one, then pointed to Harry who was wrapped in gauze in the photo, and said in English that Wei Ran could understand, "My father, Harry, Harry Burton".

Listening to Charlotte's thick and mellow Italian pronunciation when he pronounced Pell's first few names, Wei Ran hesitated for a moment, looked at the other party and asked in Italian, "Mr. Charlotte, do you know Italian?"

This abrupt question made Herbert, who couldn't understand at all, bewildered, but Charlotte, who was about to ask something, nodded in surprise, and replied in proficient Italian, "I will indeed Italian, which my mother taught me, is almost my second language. I always thought that in the Scottish Highlands, except for the occasional Italian tourist, I didn’t use it at all.”

Before Wei Ran could say anything, the old man turned his head to look at the bewildered Herbert, and said something in English, and then he saw Herbert stand up helplessly, and reluctantly walked towards the communication room. Head to the stairs on the first floor.

Charlotte didn't pick up the closed photo album until the melodious sound of the glass door of the souvenir shop and the wind chime knocking came from downstairs, "Young man, will you go to the study with me?"

"Herbert him."

"Tell him to go to the bar next door for a drink first, lest he want to make money from me again." Charlotte joked in Italian, got up and walked to a wooden door that connected to the living room.

Hearing this, Wei Ran laughed dumbfounded, stood up happily, followed the other party through the wooden door, and walked into a room where the walls and even the floor were covered with various books.

Putting down the photo album in her hand, Charlotte emptied a chair full of books, and after beckoning Wei Ran to sit down, he also sat on another chair across a writing desk.

"Okay Victor, let's talk about this treasure now, shall we?"

While Charlotte was speaking, she opened the drawer and took out two clean glasses, then took out a box of ice cubes from the small refrigerator behind her, and finally took a bottle of whiskey from the wine rack.

"Where do you want to start talking?" Wei Ran took the cup and asked.

"How about starting with this map?" Charlotte asked as she poured herself a drink.

(End of this chapter)