War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 662 Cleaning
As the short daylight on December 12th was replaced by night and the gorgeous aurora, Wei Ran, with the help of Talas and Sharip, brought the stewed soft, rotten and boneless wolf meat to the transport from Apoli in the car.

When the lid of the soup bucket was lifted, the water vapor wrapped in a rich aroma diffused instantly, easily suppressing the long-lasting smell of stinky feet in the living cabin, and even made everyone in the compartment take a deep breath. in one breath.

“Come and eat”

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had filled Dr. Murat's dinner plate with a large spoonful of stewed wolf meat with soup and water.

Just as the so-called dog meat is rolling three times, Stalin couldn't stand still while holding on to the nuclear bomb.

Although Wei Ran has never eaten this dog meat, after three or four hours of stewing the wolf meat, the taste is really not to be picky, at least it is much better than the rabbit meat without any fat.

"Victor, you just need to be responsible for cooking from now on."

While Dr. Murat was speaking, he had already picked up a piece of wolf meat and threw it into his mouth. He chewed and said, "Comrade Lenin testified that this is much more delicious than the butter stewed wolf meat made by Apoli last time."

“It is indeed a bit more delicious than what I cook”

Apoli also picked up a piece from his dinner plate and threw it into his mouth, "I hunted two wolves today, if I had known earlier, I would have brought their meat back together."

"Let's finish eating this first and then talk about it." While speaking, Wei Ran also poured a large spoonful of wolf meat to Agwan, who was at the bottom of the queue.

"Apolly, allow me to correct a little."

Pavel, who just woke up, dipped the bread into the thick soup and took a bite, and said vaguely, "It's not a little better, it's a lot better, at least the dishes I didn't cook in Victor You can eat wolf fur that can't be chewed."

"Mr. Pavel, please, don't mention the dishes that Apolly made last time."

Gennady covered his mouth and complained, "You just saw it, but I ate a ball of hair covered in cream."

"Stop mentioning it from now on"

Dr. Murat shivered involuntarily, "Apoli, I lose my appetite when I think of your cooking, now we need a bottle of vodka to calm down."

"That's right!" Agwan was the first to agree, followed by several young people around him, and even Dr. Pavel knocked on the table.

"Drink as much as you want, and I have no right to restrict you." Apoli spread his hands helplessly, and went to the cargo hold to get a bottle of frozen vodka.

"Dr. Murat, shall we listen to the radio?" Gennady asked tentatively, "We've been together for a few days."

"Forget it Gennady"

Sharip picked up his glass and took a sip, "The news on the radio is even more unappetizing than the dishes Apoli cooked last time."

"Although I admit that you are right," Apoli said innocently, "but why do you always bring me?"

"Shouldn't you know better than all of us?" Pavel jokingly raised his glass and touched Apoli and Wei Ran respectively.

"The radio is fine."

Murat said a fact that is very likely to be true in a joking tone, "If we hear the news on the radio one day later, we may be able to be a Soviet for one more day."

Seeing the people with different thoughts in the living cabin fell silent again, Apoli spat out his chewed bones, raised his glass and suggested, "Let's sing! How about a song from the Gems?"

"How about the song that my address is the Soviet Union?" Pavel followed up with the suggestion.

"As long as it's not the song I'll Take You to the Tundra"

Gennady deliberately mocked himself with a bitter face, "We are probably less than a hundred kilometers away from the tundra, and I don't want to go further north."

"In fact, the nearest tundra is about [-] kilometers away," Dr. Murat corrected with a smile.

"Dr. Murat, have you ever been to the tundra?" Apolly asked curiously.

"Of course, of course I have been."

Murat and Pavel looked at each other and said with a smile, "It's about [-] kilometers away from the true north."

"this location"

Pavel tapped the map stuck on the wall with the fork in his hand, and successfully left three matchhead-sized stains on it, "Dr. Murat and I took a helicopter to survey and map here. We've been to the tundra, and we've landed in an abandoned copper mine to escape a storm."

"That mine left a lot of mining equipment," Murat said, taking over the topic, "and the head of Comrade Khrushchev hangs in the auditorium there."

"The thing I regretted most at the time was that I couldn't bring a corn, so this time I specially prepared a gift for Mr. Khrushchev's head portrait."

While talking, Pavel opened the drawer of the dining table, reached out and took out a pair of plump corn cobs. These yellow and orange corn cobs were even tied with a pink bow!
"So we're really going to the tundra?" Gennady asked with a bitter face.

"of course not"

Murat said with a smile, "Our work before the permafrost thaws is only at the junction of the tundra and the forest. The exploration of the tundra will be next winter."

"But it doesn't stop us from going to the copper mine, does it?"

Like an acrobat, Dr. Pavel tossed two corns in circles in his hand, and even added an empty vodka bottle in the process.

After this impromptu performance, everyone's topics were also attracted to topics such as the stories Khrushchev and Corn had to tell, and the warm living cabin was gradually filled with laughter brought by Soviet-style humor. Full.

After this meal, Dr. Pavel, his students Agwan and Gennady took over the work, and Dr. Murat and the three began to rest.

Correspondingly, Apoli also took over Wei Ran's sentry work, and the sign of the beginning of this work is to warm up the transport vehicle.

After the transport vehicle stopped again, Pavel said to Wei Ran who was about to open the cabin door, "Victor, you can stay in the living cabin, there is no need to hide like that stubborn young man in Apolly."

"Coffee or black tea?" Wei Ran turned around and asked with a smile.

Pavel was taken aback when he heard the words, and replied with a smile, "Black tea!"

"Where's Dr. Murat?"

Wei Ran continued to ask. At this time, Taras and Sharip, who had been busy for several hours, were already lying on the bed and sleeping with their heads covered, but Dr. Murat was still sitting at the table, and was watching with relish. The original title is "The Kara Sea and Siberian Sea Ice".

"I want black tea too, please put more sugar and milk." Dr. Murat replied without raising his head.

"Hold on"

While speaking, Wei Ran picked up the enamel kettle on the edge of the stove and made a cup of black tea for the three people including himself.

"If you don't mind, how about I come and clean this place?" Wei Ran asked after putting down the kettle.

"That's the best way," Pavel happily replied, "As long as you don't touch our manuscript paper."

"certainly"

Wei Ran smiled, picked up a rag hanging from the chimney that seemed never used and wet it, starting from the cabin door, and patiently wiped it.

The reason why he took the initiative to take on this job was definitely not because he loves to be clean, but because he was familiar with the arrangement of items in the living cabin through cleaning, and to see if he could discover some hidden secrets by the way. To put it bluntly, This is no different from him rummaging through various things in the cab.

It's just that, compared to the cab, this living cabin, where seven or eight rough men live, is really not clean.

Not to mention, by the time he finished wiping the locked iron cabinet and safe, the original white cotton rag was as dark as the sky outside the window.

However, it was through this opportunity he had won that he was sure that as long as he managed to get two wires, he would be able to open those tin cabinets, and if he could be given another half an hour to an hour alone , maybe even he is sure to pry open that safe.

On the other hand, when he was cleaning the tin cabinet and the safe, both Dr. Murat and the relatively better-spoken Dr. Pavel also focused on him. There is no doubt that the tin cabinet and the safe There must be something very important in the safe.

In addition, he also found that the drawers of the two solid wood desks could also be locked, and there was no doubt that only Murat and Pavel held the keys.

It's just obvious that apart from Dr. Murat's full drawer of vodka bottle caps and Pavel's collection of more than a dozen animal teeth of various sizes, there is nothing important in this drawer.

Even Murat took the initiative to open the drawer, cleaned up the sundries inside, and dumped all the unnecessary small objects into the tin bucket for garbage.

It took more than an hour to wipe all the places that could be wiped, Wei Ran wetted the broom again, and carefully cleaned including the space under the bed.

After harvesting more than a dozen pairs of socks that smelled like feet, and foot wraps that made my stomach look sick, as well as a full bucket of dust and various magazines.

He also inadvertently caught a glimpse of an F1 grenade stuffed into a mug after being covered in a sock in the box belonging to Gennady!

Quietly restoring the cover that had been concealed to its original state, Wei Ran picked up the broom again and carefully cleaned the sundries under the bed, but in his list of dangerous people in his heart, there was another member name.

It took more than two hours to clean the inside and outside of the living cabin, and even burned an iron bucket of boiling water to make a full set of toilets, successfully dredging the toilet that had been frozen for an unknown period of time. Drain pipe valve.That way, at least everyone can take a shower.

This kind of tireless behavior naturally won the favor of the two doctors, especially after he fixed all the socks and foot wraps hanging around the stove to a rope drawn between the two carriages with clips, the cleaning In the clean living cabin, the pungent foot odor was finally no longer permeated.

Finally, the water storage tank was filled with clean snow, Wei Ran wiped the Soviet slogan on the water tank for the last time, and then lay down on his own bed, closed his eyes and listened to the occasional conversation of the two doctors Chatting, trying to get some more information from it.

It's a pity that until Dr. Murat was going to sleep an hour before the shift change, most of what they talked about was just concerns about the current situation, their scientific research projects, and their teachers.

In the end, in the living cabin 1992 days before 25, only the rhythmic sound of the old-fashioned mechanical typewriter and the continuous snoring sound remained.

(End of this chapter)