War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 290 Unexpected Curiosity

When the alarm clock woke up the people in the two tents again, it was still dark outside, but this couldn't stop the enthusiasm of Eric and Professor Jonas, who didn't even get dressed , then called Wei Ran and Leo to help, and moved the huge wooden box they had brought so hard into the still warm cave.

After Wei Ran ignited the cast iron stove again, the two of them, the teacher and the student, had already emptied the contents of the wooden box, and then opened the box lid and the small covers around it.

Under the observation of Wei Ran and Leo, they each picked up a Leica camera and replaced it with film, and then stuck the adjusted lens on the two circular openings on the box cover, and fixed it firmly with two rubber belts. .

Before this was over, the two of them put the lit kerosene lamps on the windows opened on both sides of the box, so that the bright light could illuminate every detail in the box.

Until this time, Professor Jonas compared the catalog he found yesterday, took out two thick folders from the shelf, and handed them to Wei Ran and Eric respectively.

"One negative can take four pictures. Before shooting, remember to align each page with the marking line at the bottom of the box, and be sure to shoot according to the page number."

While speaking, Professor Jonas opened one of the file folders, took out the first four, and sent them from the side into the wooden box illuminated by the kerosene lamp, aligned with the red paint marking on the bottom plate, and then The camera shutter on the case lid was pressed.

After the crisp shutter sounded, Professor Jonas put the two completed photos aside, and said at the same time, "One last reminder, don't adjust the lens. In addition, don't discard the original materials of the completed shooting. Although we You can’t take them away, but at least you can keep them here.”

It turned out to be like this, coauthored this is a copy box?

After understanding the operation process, Wei Ran finally understood why there was a task of shooting [-] photos in his return task.

Seeing that Eric had already started shooting, Wei Ran picked up his own book, untied the binding, put four pages of paper filled with various meteorological data into a box, and pressed the shutter of the camera.

All of a sudden, the sound of shutters kept ringing in the warm cave, and sheets of original materials were gradually accumulated on the desktops at the hands of Wei Ran and Eric.

Whenever they finish taking a copy of a document, Professor Jonas, who sits next to them, will help them organize it and send it back to the shelf against the wall, and then give them a new folder.

And the film they replaced will also be put into a plastic sealed tube by the old guy, and after marking the number, they will be neatly arranged on the table farthest from the stove.

As for Leo, he had already gone out hunting arctic foxes on his skis with his shotgun in hand.He can't help with the work here, and Professor Jonas is probably not willing to let him help.

For the three people in the cave, this boring filming work is definitely not interesting.Compared with taking away these heavy and eye-catching paper documents, it might really be a wise choice to only take away the lightweight film, but this has suffered for both Wei Ran and Eric.

They bent down and took pictures of the dazzling wooden boxes for several hours, until Leo came back with two snow-white arctic foxes, and they barely finished taking pictures of three floors of the first shelf.And there are as many as five of these four-story metal shelves in this room.

"How much film did we use?" Eric asked while kneading his sore lower back and neck.

"There are more than eighty at least"

Professor Jonas put the materials that Wei Ran just finished shooting back on the shelf, and at the same time replied, "Fortunately, we have enough film. According to the current consumption, it should be enough to take pictures of everything."

"It would be great if we could bring all these original documents back," Eric said regretfully.

"It's really the best choice if you can take it back," Professor Jonas agreed, "but so many paper documents are too eye-catching. Relatively speaking, it's more convenient to take the film back."

"It's as if the film is not eye-catching"

Wei Ran muttered to himself, thinking that he should have completed the 200 photo shoots in the return mission, and simply decided to watch the development of the situation with a cold eye, while thinking about what Professor Jonas did last night.

In the next few days, such boring shooting work was repeated day after day, more and more films were placed on the table, and there were fewer and fewer folders waiting to be browsed on the shelves.

These documents are not only meteorological data, but most of them are the telegrams of this weather station, the records of sending and receiving of radio stations, letters with different names and even various polar research materials that have nothing to do with meteorology.

Even, they found many old photos in these folders.In these old photos, there are group photos of those who worked here at that time, their pet dogs, and several extremely beautiful arctic fox cubs.
Of course, there are also large-scale photos of them spending Christmas and birthdays here, and even bathing in snow with their bare buttocks in the ice and snow.

Obviously, regardless of Professor Jonas or Eric, the teachers and students made it clear that they were going to take pictures of all the materials that are not needed, even the correspondence between the people who worked here and their families. Did not let go.

Just as the fourth short day of their filming was coming to an end, the wind around the valley was getting louder and louder. Leo, who was supposed to go hunting, also hurriedly called everyone out of the cave.

"A blizzard is coming." Professor Jonas looked up at the gloomy sky, and made a very positive judgment.

“It really was a blizzard”

Eric's tone was a little excited, "Professor, there are still a lot of meteorological equipment left in the cave decades ago, do we want to monitor this weather change?"

"Compared to these, let's think about how to survive first." Before Professor Jonas finished speaking, Leo quickly said something in Norwegian.

Eric's face changed, and he quickly translated, "Leo said, we must reinforce the tent before the snowstorm arrives, and we must stay away from the foot of the mountain. This is the time when avalanches are most likely to occur."

"What do we need to do?" Professor Jonas asked quickly.

Eric turned his head to communicate with Leo, and then he said according to the script, "Lift out all the oil barrels in the cave and surround the tent, and reinforce them with snow. This is the only way to survive the snowstorm. Now Even if that fishing boat has probably sailed back to Finnmark, we can only hope we can weather the storm."

"Then let's start quickly," Professor Jonas said without thinking, and was the first to get into the cave.

Under the busyness of the four people, 200-capacity empty oil drums were carried out of the cave one by one, and surrounded the two tents in a circle, and even covered them with snow, and pressed the lower edge of the tent by the way. , leaving only less than half a meter of entrance and exit.

In addition, at Leo's suggestion, one end of these oil barrels was smashed open by everyone with an ice pick and an axe, filling them with snow that can be seen everywhere.

By the time Leo, who looked nervous, tied the four reindeer to the steel drill that was smashed deep into the snow, the sky was completely dark, and the snowflakes fluttered wantonly in the howling wind, and then they were swept away by the wind again. In the air.

Leo yelled a few words at Eric, and waited for the latter to nod, and immediately pushed Wei Ran into the tight tent, and used the 200-liter oil drum pulled back from the fishing boat a few days ago, from the The tent door was held down inside.

After making gestures to Wei Ran to ignite the gasoline stove and turn it on to the maximum, Leo stood on the sleigh, looked out through the vent on the top of the tent, and then quickly pulled out a canvas bib from the sleigh. Surround the vent, leaving only a small circle with the mouth of a bowl for ventilation.

The whistling high-pressure gasoline stove continuously provided heat for the tense tent, but Leo's expression became more and more tense. From time to time, he would stand up and hit the tent with the trekking pole he had been holding all the time. Knock on the tees to avoid being crushed by too much snow outside.

Although the tent looked far less sturdy than the warm cave, but less than an hour later, everyone including Wei Ran dispelled this self-righteous illusion in the loud noise caused by the avalanche outside.

It wasn't until this time that he really understood why the Germans at that time built a wooden house in the middle of the valley that seemed superfluous after digging that solid cave.

In this frightening blizzard, time passed by every minute and every second, and the surrounding area of ​​the tent was also pressed into a round arc by the snow, which also made Leo and Wei Ran have to push from the inside almost every 10 minutes. The edge of the tent, so as not to be crushed by the snow.

In another tent at the same time, Jonas looked at Eric who was constantly busy, reached out and touched the zipper of the mountaineering bag behind him, and then his old face became gloomy.

But just for a moment, Jonas put on a gentle smile, picked up a bottle of potato wine and shook it at Eric, "Eric, come and rest. Although this snowstorm is big, it may be very serious." It will pass soon, and there are valleys around, so don't worry too much. Let's have a drink now."

"This is the first time I have seen a blizzard"

Eric stood on the sled and looked outside, then sat next to Professor Jonas with lingering fear and sighed, "It's hard to imagine how those Germans persisted in such a ghostly place at that time."

"It's really hard to imagine, but it's their persistence that left us with a treasure, isn't it?"

While Professor Jonas was speaking, he suddenly raised the thick glass wine bottle in his hand, and smashed it hard on Eric's head.

Accompanied by a muffled sound of "bang", the glass bottle with more than half of the remaining liquor exploded with dark red blood, and Eric, who was defenseless, also fainted in the dark.

Throwing away half of the wine bottle in his hand, Professor Jonas took out a bundle of rope from his bag and bound Eric's hands and feet, and then blocked his mouth with a cotton glove.

After confirming that Eric, who was still in a coma, completely lost his ability to resist, Professor Jonas groped around him, and finally pulled out a film from Eric's trousers pocket.

"Eric, you shouldn't be curious."

Professor Jonas muttered to himself as if neurotic, "Those meteorological data are your treasure, you shouldn't steal these films that belong to me, not even one of them!"

(End of this chapter)