War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 328 The sniper who persevered until the last moment

While everyone was waiting, Joya limped back from the depths of the forest, leading a strong draft horse, dragging a clean sledge behind the horse's buttocks. .

"Is there anything else I need to do?" Joya asked expectantly after handing over the reins to Revley.

"I really need your help"

Revley took a cloak from a girl and put it on his body, "I'll take care of the two of them. Besides, the Germans have discovered the mine, and they might come after them. You have to hide them well." Row."

"Leave it to me, leave these to me, I will take care of them." Joya touched the Bobosha submachine gun on his shoulder, "Are you going to start now?"

"Yes" the sniper Daniela spoke in the affirmative.

"wait for me"

After Qiaoya finished speaking, he limped into the shack. Not long after, he came out again with a canvas bag, "Take these, I made my own jerky. Also, if you need my help , You can come here to look for me at any time, or go to another shack, I will take them to hide there before the fog clears, you must know the location, Raffle."

"I know there"

The postman Revley took the canvas bag, took out a piece of dried meat the size of an index finger, and stuffed it into his mouth. Just as he was about to say something, a seemingly invisible explosion came from outside the forest at this moment.

"It seems that the Germans have already passed the mine. It's time for us to go."

Revley patted his good friend Joya on the shoulder at last, and after all, without saying anything, he beckoned everyone to get on the horse-drawn sledge, and disappeared into the forest shrouded in mist and night in an instant.

"Joya, do you have any extra weapons?" A girl asked at the door of the shack. "If there are any extra weapons, please give us some."

"There is also a rifle and a shotgun." Joya thought for a while and said, "However, we have other things we can use."

"What?" Another girl couldn't help asking curiously.

"Come with me"

The limping Joya led the two girls half a circle around the shack, and then untied the rope from a pine tree.

With a soft bang, two sacks that could easily hold an adult fell from another pine tree not far away.

Although these two sacks were not small, the contents inside did not seem to be much.Under the curious eyes of the two girls from the same village, Qiao Ya unbuttoned the button and poured out all the contents inside. It turned out that there were animal traps the size of a washbasin!
"Are you sure you will use it?" Joya asked, looking at the two girls.

"It will work!" One of them nodded affirmatively, "My family used to have this kind of thing."

"My family also has this kind of animal trap, but it's not as big." Another girl followed suit.

"You two go to the shack and change into a set of clothes." Joya suggested abruptly, "There are clean clothes in the wooden box under the bed."

As if fearing that the two girls might misunderstand, Joya immediately explained, "The Germans stationed in the village have wolf dogs, and those beasts might catch up with the smell, so we have to find a way to kill those wolf dogs." Row."

The two girls looked at each other, then immediately turned and ran to the shack.Not long after, they changed into Joya's clothes, and each walked back with their original clothes.

Not daring to waste time, Qiao Ya pulled out a small knife from her waist, cut the clothes of the two into strips, and then led the two girls to use these strips of cloth as bait to set up animal traps.

After all the animal traps in the two sacks were arranged, Joya immediately led them to find a stream in the forest, and motioned for them to take a bath here before moving forward, while he himself returned to the shack and put some important He packed all his belongings, including the German uniforms left behind by Raffles, and limped to meet the two girls at the upper reaches of the creek.

At the same time, on the horse-drawn sledge slowly moving forward in the forest, after repeated communication with Daniela, Revley finally confirmed the exact location of the artillery position that the other party saw, and then yelled at the strong draft horse Adjusted direction slightly.

Taking advantage of his time on the road, Raffle asked the artillery observer Andre again to confirm the observation conditions required by the other party.

Led by this careful postman, the people sitting on the sledge tightly wrapped their cloaks, waiting patiently to reach their destination, and at the same time, they were also secretly vigilant, for fear that a group of Germans would come out from any direction.

"Who wants a sip of vodka?" Wei Ran asked softly, and at the same time he took off the kettle on his waist.

"You brought vodka?" Nurse Lano looked at Wei Ran in surprise, "Where did you get the vodka?"

"Don't worry about where you got it, who of you wants to take a sip?" Wei Ran simply unscrewed the lid of the pot.

"Give me a bite"

Artillery observer Andre took the kettle first, raised his neck and took a big gulp, then asked in a low voice in surprise, "You didn't add water?"

"My vodka is never mixed with water." Wei Ran didn't take the kettle, and instead asked Daniela, who hadn't communicated much along the way, "Would you like a sip?"

Daniela, holding a sniper rifle, took the water bottle and took a big gulp. Then he took out a piece of dried meat from the canvas bag among the crowd and threw it into his mouth. He sighed contentedly, "This is what I've been drinking for half a year. The most authentic vodka."

"Refly, do you want to try it?" Wei Ran waited for Nurse Lano to take a sip as well, and then asked the postman who was in front of the harness.

"Of course, of course I want to take a sip." Revley turned around and took a sip from the jug, then returned the jug to Wei Ran.

Taking a sip of vodka to soothe the tense nerves of these people, Wei Ran asked in a low voice, "Danila, where are you from? I mean you and Nurse Lano, where are you from?"

"Tyumen"

Daniela leaned on the frame of the sledge and said, "We all come from the countryside of Tyumen, it's a good place, at least not like here, there are German planes flying overhead at any time, and if you drop some, it will explode." Open iron bumps."

"It's really a good place," artillery observer Andre said enviously.

"What about you? Where are you from?" Nurse Lano turned to Andre and asked.

"Moscow"

Andre picked up the jug placed between the three of them again and took a big gulp of vodka. He said with some nostalgia, "You won't believe me. I'm a student of the Department of Mathematics at Moscow State University. If there hadn't been a war, I would have just graduated at this time."

"You took part in that military parade last year?"

Nurse Lano asked abruptly, and while speaking, she put away the water bottle that the former had just put down and hung it on her waist, and took off her own water bottle and threw it to Wei Ran.

As a Slavic woman, she really knew these men too well. If no one stopped them, before they arrived at their destination, the pot of vodka would be drunk by the few of them sniffing their sleeves.

"participated"

Andrei tightened his cloak and said in a low voice, "We participated in a blizzard. We walked through the Red Square, passed the Lenin Mausoleum, and then were sent directly to the battlefield. I also heard the words of Comrade Stalin. speak."

"You're really lucky." Ravri, who was in charge of driving, expressed undisguised envy. He had only heard the military parade through the radio, and it was hard to imagine what the scene was like.

“Really good luck”

Andre sighed, "I didn't expect that I would survive and have the opportunity to become an artillery spotter."

Wei Ran, Daniela, and Nurse Lano also sighed. Obviously, the good luck in Raffle's mouth and the good luck in Andre's mouth are not the same thing.

In the silence of everyone, the horse-drawn sled continued to adjust its direction in the thick fog, and finally stopped at two o'clock in the middle of the night.

"It's here"

Revley covered the lit oil lamp with his cloak, and pointed at a big rock with sharp corners beside him with only a glimmer of light, and asked, "Danila, can you see if this rock is in the position you mentioned? "

Daniela looked around the stone, and after finding a bullet mark that seemed to be made by a bullet, he immediately responded softly, "This is it!"

"Then it can't be wrong"

Raffle raised his finger and said in a direction, "Since you're right here, you can leave the forest and enter the range of the forest farm by walking at most one kilometer in that direction. That must be the artillery position you mentioned."

"Andre?" Daniela looked at the artillery spotter beside him.

“A little foggy”

Andre said in a low voice, "With such a thick fog, you can't see anything 10 meters away, let alone one kilometer. If you want to call artillery to accurately destroy their positions, you can only wait for the fog to clear during the day."

"In this case, go find Pavel with me first, and hope he is still alive."

Daniela muttered worriedly, signaling Raffle to turn off the oil lamp, and led the horse to wait on the spot, while he led Wei Ran and others in the dense forest towards a direction that deviated from the artillery position by about 45 degrees. Walked over with a deep foot and a shallow foot.

In less than 20 minutes, a ruin with only four stone walls appeared in the thick fog directly ahead.

Daniela took out the flashlight and shook it lightly twice. After waiting for a while, seeing no response, she walked quickly over.Soon, under the light of the flashlight, everyone saw a figure lying in the corner of the ruins.

Apart from a cloak, the man's body was also covered with thick fallen leaves. Facing the wall, he cut out a not-so-large shooting hole, and the muzzle of the SVT40 semi-automatic rifle came out from here. The shooting holes stick out, facing the direction of the German artillery positions outside.

Danila was stunned for a moment, and quickly pulled away the fallen leaves that he had personally covered the opponent, trying to wake up the middle-aged soldier who was still lying on the ground.

However, when his hands touched the other person's body, he found that he had already become stiff and cold.Even the bandaged wound on the shoulder blade on the back has long since turned a lifeless dark red.

But from the beginning to the end, this weathered and resolute soldier maintained the standard posture of a sniper holding the gun in his hand, and his index finger covered with dew never left the trigger guard.And in his left hand, he was still tightly clutching a palm-sized notebook.

Daniela gently took the book out of the other party's hand, and then found that it was the observation record left by the other party during the time he was away.

And on the last page of the book, the veteran named Pavel also left him a last word, "This gun was rewarded to me by the division commander, leave it for you to use, it's a pity I only killed 23 people with it." German. In the end, leave my body here, and do as I taught you."

Stuffing the book into his bosom, Daniela stood up straight and saluted.After a long time, he turned his head and said to Wei Ran, "Comrade reporter, can you come over and take a photo of him after dawn? He... His name is Pavel, he is a sniper, he is from Minsk."

(End of this chapter)