War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 335

While Wei Ran waited patiently, the white light in his vision dissipated, and his surroundings became his familiar studio.

On page 16 of the metal book, the pattern drawn by the quill has been turned into a black and white photo.In this photo, the originally blurred face of the soldier lying on the stretcher has become much clearer, and it can be vaguely seen that it is Nurse Lano.

Under the photo, the metal quill pen rustled lines of text.

"Hard bones stuck in a meat grinder"

On October 1942, 10, the company led by company commander Valentin and political commissar Sergey was hit by German artillery and all members died.

Pasha, a doctor at the emergency station, led the field medical workers and the wounded to supplement the frontline positions to block the attack. No one surrendered, and no one survived.

The postman Revley, the nurse Rano and the sniper Danila encountered a German patrol on the same day and sacrificed one after another to cover the artillery observer Andre. Pine forest on the outskirts of Zhev.

Artillery observer Andre, after completing the artillery guidance mission that day, received a new mission and continued to lurk deep in the pine forest. A week later, he was unfortunately struck by a mine and died on his way back to the Soviet position.

The ranger Joya, after the Battle of Rzhev, married Yuna and survived until the end of World War II. He searched for the remains of artillery observer Andrei for a long time, until he gave up after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and moved to Moscow to settle down.

Ivan, a soldier of the Soviet Red Army, retired due to injury at the end of September 1942. He returned to his hometown of Tyumen and worked in the library of Tyumen State University as a cleaning worker. He passed away in the summer of 9.

Soviet Red Army soldier and artist Tonia, retired due to injury at the end of September 1942 and returned to his hometown of Moscow. After the war, he became a photographer and had a son.His son, Sergey, briefly worked for Komsomolskaya Pravda.After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the father and son jointly operated a photo studio. In the winter of 9, Tonya died in his sleep.

At this point, the metal quill started a new line, writing a detailed address in Moscow, a name called Sergey, and a string of phone numbers.In addition, this quill additionally provides a set of detailed coordinates.

After a short pause, it started another line and continued, "Those forgotten names were once unknown heroes on the forgotten battlefield. What they worked for may just be to make the living no longer experience the pain they've been through."

With the sound of flipping pages, the metal quill continued to write under the slowly rotating red swirl, "My dear comrade, thank you for witnessing our wedding. My dear comrade, thank you for pressing the shutter for us, My dear comrade, thank you for your gift of vodka."

With a crisp sound of "clang", the metal quill that completed the work fell on the hard solid wood table.

Wei Ran rubbed his face vigorously, took a deep breath, reached into the red vortex, took out the contents and placed them on the table.

What I got this time, apart from a Soviet cloak and a pair of leather marching boots commonly equipped by the German army in World War II, each pair of well-polished long leather boots also stuffed a thick foot wrap.

And among the iconic costumes and equipment that belong to the two camps but are stacked together, there is also a large booklet that looks very old, with the words "Communist Youth League Pravda" printed in gold on it.

Gently opening the plastic leather book, which was a circle larger than A4 paper, Wei Ran found that, except for the words "31st Army of the Soviet Red Army, 220rd Regiment of the 673th Infantry Division" handwritten on the first page, the following pages On each page, there are fixed four single photos of Soviet Red Army soldiers. Below these single photos, addresses are written in dark blue pen, and in the middle of the four photos is A paper bag the size of a cigarette pack contained the negatives corresponding to the four photographs.

As he flipped through the pages, there were too many familiar or unfamiliar people in this photo album. Among them were the soldiers who once sat around the stove with him, baking foot wraps and listening to the artist Tonya singing, There is the veteran who once told himself that his home is in Stalingrad, and his son works at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, and there are also soldiers who gave him boots, as well as Company Commander Valentin, Commissar Sergey, and Boris, the soldier who was almost chosen to be Daniela's deputy.

Turning to the last page of this thick photo album, Wei Ran found that there were only photos of the soldiers in the trenches, but he didn't see any of the photos taken after that.

Turning over a page in the metal book that was still on the side, Wei Ran took out the thick stack of negatives from the paper bag next to the black-and-white photo, stuck them on the backlight one by one, and waited for him to switch on. The power supply of the backlight board, and then he was a little relieved, those photos that did not appear in the album are all here.

Carefully putting away these negatives, Wei Ran first took a look at the long marching boots that were still on the table. These boots, like the cloak next to them, seemed to have been restored to the "factory state" by the metal book. Neither the size nor the production date nor the manufacturer's code can be found.

But the soles of these boots are slightly thicker, and even the cleats on the soles look more durable.

not bad
Wei Ran murmured to himself, put it aside, and then unfolded the thick cloak on his body.

After admiring the mirror in the distance, Wei Ran simply put on the boots, and took out the svt40 semi-automatic sniper rifle from the wooden crate on the table.He silently looked at the notch on the gun stock and the two rows of five-pointed stars.

Lightly flicking the two rings on the ring of the trigger handle, he murmured and sighed in the crisp impact sound, "Unfortunately, it will never have a chance to be engraved with 100 Germans." Lives. Fortunately, it never had the chance to be filled with 100 German lives."

With a final sigh of emotion, Wei Ran put the rifle in his hand back into the wooden box, then took off the outfit he was wearing and folded it, and put it back into the corresponding red vortex together with the photo album.

After copying down all the addresses and coordinates recorded in the metal book, Wei Ran closed his eyes, leaned against the back of the chair in a daze for a long time, finally opened his eyes again and put away the metal book beside him, and then skillfully took out the The bed of Guqin Yaoguang.

After a while, the melodious and simple sound of the piano began to echo in the warm studio, and Wei Ran closed his eyes again.

After the song Guangling was finished, Wei Ran, who was much calmer, put away the guqin slowly, rubbed his face again, and then dug out the laptop that Kajianka gave him not long ago.Recorded everything that happened on the Rzhev battlefield in a near-chronological way, and then connected it to a scanner to compare the negatives in the metal book, the negatives in the photo album, and the photos of the Red Army soldiers in each photo. Names, home addresses, all typed into the same file.

As for whether these things will be seen by Katenka, he is not worried. These materials, which are close to investigation records, will be made public soon. As long as he does not record things involving metal books, no one can say no to them. what.

It took nearly two hours to complete this cumbersome but boring record without much readability.Wei Ran began to think about the next arrangement while moving his wrist.

There is still about a week before returning to Hongqi Forest Farm for classes. According to my experience at the end of last year, after completing this course, I may have a vacation of about two months.

At that time, no matter whether it is to return to China or to take a complete vacation for myself, there will definitely be no time or opportunity to continue to follow up on what happened on the battlefield of Rzhev.

With this in mind, Wei Ran entered the set of coordinates provided by the metal book into the computer, and after some comparison, he finally confirmed that this location was in a forest on the outskirts of Lezhev.

Finally, after planning some time, he simply bought a ticket to fly to Moscow early the next morning, planning to visit the forest before returning to Hongqi Forest Farm.

Having arranged the itinerary for the next few days, Wei Ran packed up the things on the table, yawned and walked to the bedroom on the second floor.

After a sound sleep, the next morning, before the sun jumped out of the horizon, he had already left the studio in an off-road vehicle and went straight to the airport, and boarded the flight to Moscow shortly after.

After the plane landed smoothly, Wei Ran found a car rental company that often cooperates with his aunt's travel agency, borrowed an off-road vehicle, and went straight to Lezhev, more than 150 kilometers away.

As Moscow citizens often complain, leaving the Moscow Ring Road is like entering another country.

This complaint is not an exaggeration. In addition to the rapidly shrinking houses around, the dilapidated infrastructure is also the main reason.Fortunately, it is almost the coldest time of the year, and the road is paved, so it is not difficult to walk. The only thing he needs to be careful is that he may suddenly jump out along the road. deer or drunkards.

Arriving at Lezhev almost at night, Wei Ran casually found a nice hotel to rest for the night, bought a few bottles of vodka and a bunch of blooming sunflowers on purpose the next day, and finally Drive the borrowed car to the destination pointed by the set of coordinates.

As the car crossed the bridge across the Volga River and left the urban area, the scenery outside the window also changed to cultivated land and scattered factory buildings after the forest was cut down.As for the traces left by the German army during World War II, all he can find now are the few monuments he saw before leaving the city.

Perhaps, as written in the metal book, those forgotten names were once unknown heroes on the forgotten battlefield.What they work for may be just to make the living no longer experience the pain they have experienced.

From the perspective of a bystander, or from the perspective of a bystander who was born in China and grew up in China, not to mention Rzhev who is drifting away behind him, even Moscow, which is nearly two hundred kilometers away, in his eyes In fact, that's it.

Even Wei Ran can say objectively, confidently and proudly that even though Moscow is the capital of a country, it may not be as comfortable, convenient, safe, etc., as the small county town in his hometown. Even if necessary, he can Day and night, he listed all kinds of evidence to prove that he did not boast.

But from the perspective of a person who experienced that war for a short time, today's Lezhev is very important to the artillery observer Andrei, to the sniper Danila and the field nurse Rano, to the young postman Revri, For the soldiers commanded by Company Commander Valentin to stand firm, it may have been an earth-shaking change that was unimaginable.

As for the fact that the regime that once guided them to fight has long since fallen, maybe they don't really care about it, because at least their family and children finally don't have to go through the pain they have experienced.

(End of this chapter)