War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 3 Stalingrad Meat Grinder
"Dang!"

Wei Ran, who just hung up the phone, accidentally glanced at the cowhide notebook on the table, then his eyes widened, and even the mobile phone slipped from his hand and hit his big toe directly.

"Damn it! Hiss—"

Wei Ran grinned and sat on the floor, kneading his big feet wearing only sandals. After he recovered, he didn't even care about the mobile phone that had slipped under the table. He hopped to the edge of the desk and opened his mouth to read Looking at the cowhide notebook on the desktop.

Compared with before, this tattered cowhide notebook seems to be 80 years younger. Not only the mold spots all over the body before have disappeared, but even the dark brown cowhide skin is smooth and smooth, and even the four big excessive The copper-clad corners are all shiny and shiny, as if they have just been installed.

But these were not enough to make him drop the mobile phone he bought only last month, but the silver-white feather-shaped bookmark that floated straight up and down directly above the notebook, slowly turning!
"Are you afraid it's not some Soviet black technology?"

Wei Ran tremblingly stretched out his fingers and dangled between the bookmark and the brand-new cowhide notebook. There was no obstacle, not to mention, even the floating bookmark was stable and did not even shake!Try again just above the bookmark, again there is no hairline or anything like that.

"It's unscientific!" Wei Ran yelled nonsense, and after hesitating for a moment, he stretched out his index finger and touched the weird bookmark lightly.

"Dang!"

The metal bookmark hit the glass countertop with a crisp sound, and even Wei Ran's heart twitched.

Steady his mind and gently opened the notebook, what made his forehead break out in cold sweat was that the photo on the first page of the notebook not only turned into color, even the people in the photo became his own ID photo, and in this photo Directly below, "Battlefield Photographer Wei Ran" is written in flamboyant Chinese characters, and after this page, the original photos are gone, and the words on it are gone!
"Did you hit a ghost?"

Wei Ran looked behind him in shock, the shutter door of the studio was locked.Looking at the top of the head again, the pale fluorescent tubes did not flicker at all like in horror movies.

Looking down at the cowhide notebook on the desk again, Wei Ran was stunned, where is the notebook?I looked left and right, and even the feathery metal bookmark was gone!

The hot and humid evening wind blowing from the Volga River entered the studio along the window, but he shivered involuntarily.This ghostly place is less than a kilometer away from the top of the Mamayev Hill in a straight line, and during World War II, this place was a veritable flesh and blood mill!How many people have to die this way? !

"Gudu" swallowed his saliva, and he was about to raise his hand to wipe the cold sweat off his forehead, but the inadvertent glance made his heart tremble.

At some point, there was already an unfolded notebook tattoo on the tiger's mouth on his left hand!On this tattoo, which is only the size of a matchbox, there is a pattern of a quill that seems to be writing something!
Wei Ran sat down on the chair with dull eyes, his expression filled with deep fear.

What's with this tattoo?

Where is the notebook?

Almost at the moment when he had this idea, his left hand sank suddenly, and the cowhide notebook appeared out of thin air again!
Shocked again, the trembling Wei Ran seemed to be holding a hot piece of red coal, and directly threw the notebook in his hand!At the same time, he leaned back and smashed the chair heavily on the floor.

With the soft sound of "cracking", the notebook that fell on the table turned to the third page as if no one was there, and the feather-like metal bookmark was suspended on the page again and began to move rapidly, making a "swiping" sound .

Struggling to get up, Wei Ran moved up cautiously, only to see that the feather-shaped bookmark quickly drew a T-34/76 tank on the pale yellow paper!

"Dang!"

The thing that was called a metal quill rather than a bookmark fell on the glass table again, making a crisp sound again. Looking at the paper at this time, right under the extremely accurate tank, there is still The neat Chinese characters read:
Role identity: Pravda war correspondent Victor
Return condition: assist Lieutenant Lev to complete the task and take 6 photos.

"War correspondent? Lieutenant Lev?"

Wei Ran had just finished reading those small words, and his eyes were already shrouded in intense white light, and at the same time, the sound of rumbling guns and shouts of killing came from his ears.

Blinking his eyes subconsciously, the regained sight made him stupefied. Over his head, thick smoke flew across the air and ashes slowly fell like snowflakes. There were endless ruined walls around him. On the street corner not far away, even And a tank belching smoke!
However, there are more corpses and trenches that can be seen everywhere!Some of these corpses were wearing Soviet military uniforms during World War II, and some were wearing German military uniforms during World War II, but most of them were civilians who had no uniform at all!Men, women, the elderly and even children!

Just as he was looking around in horror, a shell that flew from nowhere hit the ruins in the distance, and the huge shock wave engulfed bricks and mud and even part of his body flew up. up in the air!
Wei Ran was startled and shivered, and rolled into the trench next to him like a donkey rolling, but before he got up, a young soldier wearing a World War II Soviet uniform pressed his chest with a submachine gun.

"Which unit are you from?" The soldier saw Wei Ran's frightened expression, and the disdain on his expression became more and more obvious.

"Me? What am I doing? Ah yes!"

Wei Ran forced himself to calm down, and stammered, "Reporter, a reporter from Pravda!"

"Reporter?" The man's attitude was relatively good, "Where's your press card?"

"Journalist ID?"

Wei Ran looked down, he was still wearing sandals, beach pants and a T-shirt a second ago, now he was wearing a dirty Soviet military uniform, and even had an old-fashioned Rollei SLR around his neck. camera.

Feeling frantically on his body, he finally found a tattered ID from his coat pocket, but before he could take a look at it, he was snatched away by the Soviet soldiers beside him.

"Is it really a reporter?"

The soldier returned the certificate to Wei Ran, and after hesitating for a moment, he pushed the muzzle of the Bobosha submachine gun in his hand aside, then stretched out his hand and said, "Lev, I am Lieutenant Lev of the 644 Independent Tank Battalion, you Victor?"

Are you Lieutenant Lev?Wei Ran was stunned and quickly replied, "Yes, Victor! My name is Victor!"

"It's an inspiring and good name!"

A happy smile appeared on Lev's face. The name Victor also means victory in Russian. For the soldiers struggling on the front line, it does have an inspiring effect.

"Why are you here?" Lev asked leaning against the trench.

"Scattered." Wei Ran, who entered the scene very quickly, pointed behind him, "I was there when I woke up. I don't know where the others went."

"Don't look for them anymore, in Stalingrad hell, no one can see the sun of the next day."

where? !Stalingrad? !Wei Ran looked around nervously, and then retreated to the trench full of rotting corpses with a miserable face.

Lieutenant Lev bent down and picked up an MP40 submachine gun from the dead body of a German soldier, "Take it, it is better than the camera in your hand, I hope you can live until these bullets run out."

"."

Wei Ran opened his mouth to say something, but finally took the submachine gun and loaded a bullet tremblingly.Anyway, he has been in Russia for so many years, and he usually goes to the gun store or hunts with the professor every now and then. I won't talk about how this marksmanship is, but he definitely knows how to use it.

"This trench is yours?" Wei Ran, who had calmed down, asked without words, but in fact, he just wanted to ask Lieutenant Lev's mission on the ground.

But he didn't want to, Lieutenant Lev shook his head, took out a pack of cigarettes from the coat pocket of a corpse beside him, lit it on the flames on the edge of the trench, took two silent sips, and pointed to the smoking cigarette not far away. Tank said, "We're just passing through here."

"Then where are you going next?"

Wei Ran hesitated to speak, if Lieutenant Lev gave up the mission, would he be able to go back by himself?This is the Battle of Stalingrad, which can be called a meat grinder, and he doesn't want to take risks in such a ghostly place!

Lieutenant Lev flicked the cigarette butt, and said firmly, "Of course I will continue to complete my mission."

Fuck!
Wei Ran swallowed hard, "Can you tell me what the task is? Maybe I can help you."

Lieutenant Lev glanced at Wei Ran, straightened up slightly, pointed to the top of his head and said, "The Germans set up howitzer positions two streets away, and the shells flying above our heads came from there. If we don't eliminate them, It will be very difficult for other troops to take back Mamayev Kurgan."

"Capturing Mamayev Post?" Wei Ran was taken aback for a moment, then quickly asked, "What date is it today?"

"28th, September 9th, what's wrong?" Lieutenant Lev asked inexplicably.

(End of this chapter)