War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 668 Supplies left by the fourth winter duty

Without waiting for anyone to help check whether the ladder is still working, Dr. Pavel has already climbed up the ladder and hung the two corns he brought on the nails that were used to hang the picture frame.

"Dr. Pavel seems"

"His parents were victims of corn planting," Dr. Murat's simple explanation made everyone nod their heads suddenly.

Holding the ladder together and waiting for Pavel to come down, Murat pointed to the few remaining rooms and said, "These rooms are offices, and there is a radio station at the end. If you are interested, you can go and have a look."

Hearing this, Apoli was the first to step out of the auditorium, almost trotting towards the room where the radio station sign was hung.

Seeing this, Wei Ran wisely did not follow, and casually pushed a room.

There are only two simple desks and two chairs in this room, plus a locked iron cabinet.On the windowsill of the only window, there is still a row of ceramic flower pots with only soil left.

Randomly opened a drawer and looked, there was nothing in it except newspapers.Reluctantly, he opened the second one, and it contained some schedules such as cultural performances.

After checking all the drawers one by one, Wei Ran, who found nothing, stood in front of the metal cabinet, took out two wires from his pocket that were originally prepared for the safe in the transport vehicle, and easily pried open the locked cabinet door .

Contrary to his expectations, there are a lot of things in this cabinet.On the metal horizontal board on the top floor, a flashlight, a kerosene lamp, a small metal oil pot, and a cardboard box full of batteries were neatly placed.

On the horizontal board on the second floor, there was only one flare gun and three boxes of bullets of different calibers.Finally, I looked at the third horizontal board. There were fewer things on it, except for an accordion and a harmonica, a bottle of ink, a folder, and a key disk with at least a hundred keys tied on it.

Opening the folder and looking at it, Wei Ran raised his eyebrows involuntarily. This is a patrol record on duty.

Turning it to the last page, what he didn't expect was that the last patrol time recorded on it turned out to be in November 1969.

Turning forward a few pages, Wei Ran was surprised to find that before 1968, there seemed to be people on duty here every winter. Or a signed record from a hunter from somewhere who came here to take refuge in a blizzard.

He even found a black and white group photo in it. In this group photo, a man in military uniform was sitting on the roof of the ATC59 tracked artillery tractor outside with an AK rifle on his shoulders.

Beside him, there was a woman in winter clothes, holding an accordion in her arms, and the head of a kitten was faintly exposed in the woman's furry hood.

Turning the photo over, it was written in smooth black pen, "Taken on September 1966, 9, the fourth winter duty, with Dusa's company, this winter will be very warm."

"This job is really enviable." Wei Ran muttered to himself, and then put the photos in his hand back into the folder.

Looking at the situation outside the corridor, Wei Ran pried open the door of the lower half of the metal cabinet.It's a pity that there are only a set of toiletries, a few pairs of socks with wrapping paper and an old-fashioned folding razor inside, and there is no other valuable gain.

After thinking for a moment, Wei Ran stuffed the old-fashioned razor into his cuff, took the iron key plate, and locked the iron cabinet again.

Before he could walk out of the room, Agwan shouted excitedly from the corridor, "Come and see what I found!"

Running out of the room quickly, Wei Ran saw the door of the room diagonally opposite at a glance. Agwan was holding a wine bottle in one hand, shaking it excitedly, "Vodka, I found the vodka produced in 1967!"

"let me see!"

Shalip was the first to run over, but before he could touch the wine bottle in Agwan's hand, the latter raised his hand and hid it, getting out of the blocked door and saying, "There are a lot of them in there!"

Hearing this, Wei Ran simply walked over with the key disk.

Passing through the door, he saw at a glance that apart from a table in the middle of the room, the walls on both sides were filled with metal cabinets.

And in one of the cabinets that was obviously opened violently, there were bottle after bottle full of unopened wine bottles and some cans that had already expired for an unknown amount of time.

In addition, there is a cast-iron stove near the window, and there is actually a winch that seems to be modified from a bicycle by the window. Looking at the posture, it seems that the coal burned in this stove is passed through the winch. Lifted from the outside of the window.

"So, after the copper mine was closed, there were still people living here for a long time?" Gennady, who was the third to run into the room, guessed.

"It's the on-duty personnel here. I heard from my friends that there are many mining areas near here that will send some people to be on duty in winter after the mining is exhausted.

In particular, it is not too far from the tributary of the Lower Tunguska River. Maybe convoys from other mining areas would pass by here frequently at that time, and they would definitely need help in winter. "

Before the Apolly man entered the room, the voice came from afar, "And there is a radio system in the radio station, and the records on duty in it lasted until the winter of 1969."

Speaking of which, Apoli also walked into the room, and Wei Ran also noticed that the other party found the key disk in his hand at a glance, "Can you borrow it for me?"

"certainly"

Wei Ranqing indifferently handed the key tray to the other party, who took it and searched for it, and opened all the metal cabinets in this room one by one.

"Why didn't we think of opening this cabinet when we came last time?" Pavel said regretfully.

"At that time, your attention was all on Khrushchev." Murat also expressed regret, "Why didn't I think of prying these cabinets?"

"You were in a hurry to go back then"

While Pavel was speaking, he had already taken out a bottle of vodka from the cabinet, wiped the dust off the bottle indiscriminately, and then unscrewed the cap and took a sip.

"You can still drink it!" Pavel raised the bottle again and took a second sip while speaking.

Seeing this, the rest of the people followed suit. They each took out a bottle of vodka and poured it into their mouths, followed by admiration in various tones.

But Apoli and Wei Ran were the only ones who remained indifferent. One of them was opening the cabinet in front, and the other was checking one by one in the back, as if they were looking for what they needed.

It's a pity that after opening the six cabinets, except for nearly a hundred bottles of wine of various brands and years of production, the rest are all kinds of expired canned food and moldy flour.

There was no need to communicate at all, Apoli took the key disk and left the room, Wei Ran also got rid of those alcoholics who were betting who would dare to open a can to taste, and followed Apoly into another room step by step.

There are also two metal cabinets in this room, and there is also a table in the middle, and on the table, there is a rusty toolbox, a gear covered in sludge, and a large handful of welding rods in a pen holder.And at the position by the window, there is an electric welding machine that looks very old.

While he was observing the environment here, Apoli also successfully found the key and opened the only two metal cabinets.There are quite a lot of things in these two cabinets, and one of them contains almost all maintenance tools such as wrenches, pliers, and electric soldering irons.And the other one stores various accessories, the most of which are various types of electronic tubes.

"Victor, come here and do me a favor." As Apolly spoke, he had already dropped the key disk on the table, and moved out the wooden box full of various parts from the metal cabinet.

"What do I need to do?" Wei Ran asked knowingly.

"Move this box of electronic tubes to the broadcasting room." As Apolly spoke, he had already pulled out the second wooden box.

"What are you going to do?" Wei Ran picked up the wooden box and continued to ask deliberately as he walked out.

"There is an old-fashioned radio system in the radio room. I'll try to see if I can fix it." Apoli responded to Wei Ran's question while putting some tools such as soldering iron wire into his pocket.

"Do you still repair radios?"

"What's so difficult about it?" Apolly said half-truthfully, "Before I joined the army, I worked in a radio factory."

"You are really good." Wei Ran complimented the other party hypocritically, but walked into the room with the door plate of the broadcasting station without slowing down.

The room wasn't that big, but it had two big windows at 90 degrees, and besides that, there was an old-fashioned radio system against the wall.

Although he couldn't recognize the model of this radio system for a while, he knew just by looking at the German nameplate on it that the origin of this set might be traced back to the loot brought back from Germany by the Soviet Union after World War II.

"When I was downstairs, there was an oil drum in one of the conference rooms, and a generator in the corner. Do you still remember it?" Apoli asked, putting the wooden box in his hand on the table. .

"Is there? I didn't notice it." Wei Ran flatly denied.

"Of course there is"

Apoli pointed to the downstairs, "I guess that generator must supply power here, Victor, why don't you go downstairs and have a look? Find a way to turn that generator on."

"let me try"

Wei Ran glanced at the set of radio equipment on the table for the last time, and then simply left the room and walked towards the stairs.

Deliberately wandering around in several meeting rooms downstairs, although Wei Ran finally squatted next to the old-fashioned generator, he was thinking secretly, Apoli wanted to fix the problem of the old-fashioned radio system. The intention and the various possibilities behind it.

First of all, and most obviously, since he wanted to do this, it must be because of demand.In other words, he now lacks the means to communicate with the outside world?

Remembering this possibility secretly, Wei Ran shook the oil barrel in the corner, but unfortunately, the light weight didn't look like it was in stock at all.

But if Apoli wants to contact the outside world, who will he contact?

As Wei Ran walked downstairs, he continued to ponder, even if Apoli managed to contact the person he wanted to contact, how would the other party react, and the disappearance of the scientific expedition team had something to do with Apoly's contact with the outside world. There is no direct relationship.

However, until he brought up a bucket of fuel and tried to start the generator that had been running for an unknown amount of time, he still couldn't come up with the most likely answer.

(End of this chapter)