War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 429 Beer and Military Rank

Amidst the indistinct prayers disturbed by the noise of the artillery fire, the soldier who was shot in the chest finally closed his eyes, and Tom, who was hiding under the wreckage of the tank in fear before, also seemed to have been reborn, his face The previous fear was replaced by piety and determination.As for Wei Ran, who has no faith at all, he has dragged back the third wounded.

Obviously, the addition of pastor Tom made Wei Ran's treatment work a lot easier. He could hardly help people in medical treatment, but he was able to calm down his restlessness with the help of the Bible and the prayers in his mouth. the wounded.

With the tacit cooperation of the two, the wounded received temporary treatment one by one, and then were carried by the stretcher soldiers running around on the battlefield to the bunkers built by bulldozers on the rear beach.

As time went by, the sun that was hanging high above his head gradually sank most of his body below the sea level. Wei Ran, who didn't even remember how many wounded he had rescued, had already exhausted all the medical kits in the fourth group. Pharmacy stockpile.

But the fighting showed no sign of stopping. Fortunately, with the support of the artillery of the warships on the sea, two troops had already occupied the high grounds on both sides of the landing field. Now, only the front of the landing field was left. The high ground densely covered with firepower points, and the anti-slope curved artillery hidden behind this high ground.

While stitching up the ruptured blood vessels amidst the wailing of the wounded, Wei Ran said that all the used medical instruments were thrown into the medical bag, and then he pushed it to Pastor Tom and said, "When you and the stretcher soldier go back, bring me two new ones by the way. The medical kit and enough morphine, if there is plasma, remember to get some more."

"give it to me!"

Pastor Tom, whose body was already covered with the blood of the soldiers, made a promise in a hoarse voice. He had completely let go of his fear after following Wei Ran for a long time. head off.

Before Tom hung the medical bag around his neck, the stretcher soldier who had guided Wei Ran to the injured black man in the morning also ran over with his partner.

After most of the day, Wei Ran and the other party have cooperated a lot, and at the same time, they also know that the stretcher soldier is named Randy, and his partner is named Adam.

"Randy, do you still have any stock?" Wei Ran asked with a loud voice.

Hearing this, Randy and Adam turned the stretcher over, looked at the bag on the back of the stretcher and replied, "No, the last two medical kits have just been taken away by Chris."

"Where's the blood plasma?" Wei Ran conveniently pasted a wounded information label on the wounded helmet at his feet, "He needs a blood transfusion and a shot of morphine."

"Then let's run faster!" Before Randy finished speaking, he had already put down the stretcher and carried the wounded person Wei Ran had just treated.

"Tom will follow you back too," Wei Ran reminded, "Bring him to me later."

"I'll find you!"

Before the words were finished, Randy and Adam had already picked up the stretcher and ran to the rear, while Pastor Tom also ran away without a trace with his blood-stained Bible.

With no rescue work for the time being, Wei Ran didn't intend to leave the position, and lay down honestly in the foxhole dug out by someone who didn't know who used the bomb crater to relieve his exhausted spirit.

Speaking of it, although the firepower of the Japanese army on the opposite side is fierce, it is much worse than the original Don 19 position or the Battle of Berlin. The bomb dropped by the plane, as long as he hides in the hiding place honestly at this time, he will basically not be in too much danger.

But those soldiers who fought frontally and needed to charge their lives to take down the high ground were in a different situation. The dense firepower points on the high ground, the curved artillery fired from behind the high ground, and the Japanese snipers hidden in the ruins brought them a lot of difficulties. Lots of casualties.

During this afternoon, he no longer remembered how many batches of reinforcement soldiers came running from behind, let alone how many wounded he and Pastor Tom sent away with his own hands, and how many sacrifices he witnessed with his own eyes.

Reaching out his hand to take out the pack of cigarettes from the mesh cover of his helmet, Wei Ran, who rarely smokes usually, took out one from it and stuffed it into his mouth, then he took out a lighter he picked up and lit it, leaning against the damp straggler The pit wall took a big mouthful comfortably.

For a person like him who seldom smokes, the nicotine released by this kind of cigarette without filter tip easily brought him a sense of dizziness.

After smoking a cigarette in two or three puffs, Wei Ran carefully poked his head out to look at the frontal battlefield, then quickly retracted, and continued to wait for Pastor Tom to come back.

However, the wait lasted for more than half an hour. Not only did Tom not come back, but even the two stretcher soldiers who had a good impression did not come back.

Nothing will happen to them, will they?

Wei Ran's heart sank, and he ventured to stand up and look around. After hesitating for a moment, he jumped out of the foxhole and ran back.

Going around the scorched earth, broken corpses, and large and small bullet craters, he only found out when he ran back to the beachhead landing site that he had built a bunker that looked safe enough. Behind the bunker, there is also a temporary field hospital.

But at this time, there was an extremely conspicuous shell crater near the hospital, which was not too big. Around the shell crater, there were even dead bodies that had not yet been lifted away.

Pastor Tom, at this time, is working with the stretcher soldier Randy to carry a wailing wounded man to the makeshift operating room.

"What's going on?" Wei Ran shouted after catching up with Tom.

"Bombardment!"

The pastor yelled in response, "Two shells just landed near the field hospital! Adam is dead, and several doctors are dead! Victor, go to the operating room to help!"

Wei Ran glanced at the wounded on the stretcher, then at Randy who looked sad, and rushed into the temporary operating room without saying a word.

To put it bluntly, this so-called temporary operating room is a large trench with a roof. Apart from being relatively safer, the environment is not much better than outside. Even because it is too close to the sea, a layer of turbidity has accumulated on the ground that can submerge the feet. seawater.And in a corner a little farther away, there is even a water pump working non-stop.

There are four beds in this not-so-large operating room, but there are only two doctors who are busy performing operations, and the wounded lying on the remaining two beds are only given blood plasma and morphine.

Just as Wei Ran walked in, a female nurse asked loudly, "Can you perform abdominal surgery? Or amputation!"

"I can do it!" Wei Ran quickly responded, "But he is better at amputation."

"God bless! Come here!"

The female nurse immediately sent Wei Ran a set of surgical gowns, and after helping him put them on, she immediately cut open the clothes of the wounded man who was still wearing surgical gowns, revealing the wound on the severed arm that was imprisoned by the cuff.

"I've already used morphine"

The wounded doctor said calmly, "Now I need to suture the blood vessels and"

"Now I'm a doctor, lie down."

Wei Ran blocked the second half of the other party's sentence, tried the wound with a scalpel, and seeing that the other party did not feel any pain, he immediately began a rough treatment procedure.

If the surrounding environment and the constant English conversations are excluded, this place is almost the same as the small clinic by the Moltke Bridge in Berlin. At most, there is no shortage of medical supplies here, and Wei Ran has more experience.

With the help of the nurse who didn't even know the name, the wounded were carried onto the operating table one by one, and were quickly carried away after treatment.The turbid seawater under his feet was gradually stained red by the dripping blood, and by the way, this simple operating room was filled with a disgusting smell of blood.

Gradually, the sound of artillery outside gradually became sparse, and the sound of the exchange of fire became farther and farther away, but the number of wounded sent did not decrease at all.

After he helped a wounded man remove the eyeball that fell out of the eye socket for unknown reasons, the nurse immediately said, "Dr. Victor, it's time for us to change places."

"Change place?" Wei Ran glanced blankly at the other party, and then looked around, only to realize that only himself and the helping nurse were left in the operating room.

"Follow me!" The nurse had already picked up the medical kit and was the first to leave the operating room before she finished her sentence.

It wasn't until this time that Wei Ran noticed that it was already dark outside.And there are already a lot of supplies around, and even some wounded are also lined up at this time, waiting to take the landing vehicle back to the relatively safe battleship.

Following the female nurse for a distance of one or two hundred meters in the dark, Wei Ran found that a temporary field hospital had been built here, and there were even bulldozers and excavators busy building bunkers and trenches around.

"You can take a rest here." The female nurse brought Wei Ran to the door of a tent, "This is the dormitory of the Sea Bee Camp. I'll bring you some food and drink later."

"thanks, thanks."

While thanking Wei Ran, he also got into the tent, and then found that the three people inside were all acquaintances.

Besides Pastor Tom, Randy the stretcher is also there, but the last acquaintance is the bulldozer driver who pointed the gun at Wei Ran because he saved the black man, the shirtless soldier.

It's just that, at this time, there is a circle of gauze wrapped horizontally on the chest of this guy, so that it looks a little nondescript and funny like wearing a lady's suspender tube top.

"Look who's coming!"

The still shirtless soldier dropped the poker cards in his hand, then turned off the radio beside him, and said mockingly, "Tom, Randy, he is the shameful medical soldier I just mentioned! He is the one who took the precious Medicines are wasted on those black people!"

"Again, I don't find that shameful."

Wei Ran glanced at Tom and Randy who looked embarrassed, sat down on a bed, and said while taking off the blood-soaked surgical gown and military uniform, "Of course, I don't think you are still How dare you point a gun at me."

"Marshall, that's enough!"

Tom was like a perfect priest at this time, "I have just said that we are all equal before God!"

"Equal in front of the doctor," Randy the stretcherman added. "Marshall, you should apologize to Victor. He saved a lot of people today. And maybe you will need his help tomorrow."

"He should apologize to us!" Marshall said stubbornly, "He should go to the black man's tent to rest!"

"You are Marshall?" Wei Ran looked at the other party in surprise. He had calculated everything, but he never thought that the bastard who pointed a gun at him was Marshall!
"Have you heard of me?"

Marshall looked at Wei Ran with a sneer on his face, showing intentionally or unintentionally a tattoo on his arm consisting of two crossed revolvers and a five-pointed star with a cowboy hat. Under this tattoo, there is a " A ribbon tattoo with the words "Remember the Alamo".

Just from this tattoo, we know that this stubborn bastard must be from Texas, because before entering this war, Wei Ran had heard from Katenka and Makar more than once, the phrase Remember the Alamo ( Remember the Alamo) is a symbol of Texas independence.

Thinking of this, Wei Ran couldn't help scolding the metal book again in his heart, taking a photo with such a stubborn bastard and that black Will, I'm afraid it's only possible for one of them to turn into a corpse.

"Answer my question!" Marshall stood up, walked to Wei Ran and asked with a cold face.

Glancing at the blood-stained gauze, Wei Ran lightly pressed on it, seeing that the other party took a step back subconsciously because of the pain of the wound, he deliberately imitated Ji Ma's wretched expression and tone and said, "I Never heard of you, I just know a girl named Marshall, she wears the same top as you, but her chest muscles are much bigger than yours."

This blatant ridicule immediately made Marshall raise his fist, but before his fist hit Wei Ran's face, he was stopped by the pastor Tom and the stretcher Randy together.

"Marshall! In the name of God I order you to put your fists down and apologize to Victor!" Tom growled gravely.

"I don't believe in God!" The brave Marshall raised his leg and kicked Wei Ran who was close at hand.

"What if my rank of lieutenant requires you to apologize immediately?!"

Pastor Tom's tone became more and more severe, and he was completely different from the frightened expression hiding under the wreckage of the tank.

"Then I will ask him to apologize to me with my sergeant rank!" Marshall said stubbornly.

"Tom, let him go."

Wei Ran coughed, took out a pair of shoulder badges stained with the blood of the wounded from his pocket, showed them to Marshall, and then said innocently, "If I remember correctly, I seem to be a second lieutenant. Then, Sergeant, I don't need your apology, let alone apologize to you, but how about we shake hands and make peace? If you're okay, I can buy you a beer."

Marshall was stunned for a moment, and stretched out his hand reluctantly, taking advantage of the steps given by Wei Ran, "For the beer's sake!"

"Of course, for the beer's sake." Wei Ran smiled, reached out and shook hands with the other party.

"Marshall, why are you a sergeant?" Randy the stretcherman asked in surprise, "Aren't you the driver of the bulldozer?"

"The promotion I got in Saipan was temporarily transferred here." After finishing speaking, Marshall looked at Wei Ran and asked in an unfriendly tone, "What about you, second lieutenant? Why did you go to the front line? You should be in the battalion hospital."

"It was just an accident." Wei Ran spread his hands, "Give me your kettle, and I'll get you some beer."

"Can you really get beer?" Pastor Tom honestly handed his kettle to Wei Ran, although his tone was clearly distrustful.

"Just give me the kettle." Wei Ran took the kettle, then reached out to Marshall and Randy.

"If you let me drink beer, I apologize to you." The stubborn Marshall also untied his water bottle and handed it to Wei Ran while speaking.

"If you can't drink beer, I apologize to you."

Wei Ran smiled, took the water bottles handed over by the other party and Randy successively, and said as he walked out, "Wait for me here, of course, you can also go and get some food."

(End of this chapter)