War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 733
With a soft "crash", Mikita and Baolid each put the removed firing pins on the table in no particular order.

"It's all here"

Baolid counted the firing pins, put them all in his pocket and said, "The firing pins of all semi-automatic rifles have been removed, Captain Mikita, why don't we put all those mines in this building? Surely It will save you a lot of trouble."

"Our purpose is not to kill them"

Wei Ran, who was restoring the rummaged single beds to their original state, took over and explained, "We need to ensure that those people are alive and kicking, otherwise who will help us dig out the collapsed mines?"

"Victor was right"

Mikita took out his cigarette case, "Next"

"Don't smoke in this building"

Before the other party took out the lighter, Wei Ran reminded, "Cigarette butts or soot can easily expose us. If they come here today, the residual smoke smell will also make our prey more vigilant."

"It's not so exaggerated." Mikita muttered, and finally put away the cigarette case obediently.

While the two waited patiently, Wei Ran erased all traces of rummaging, and went to another building to sweep enough dust to gently blow on the cotton bed cover and the stepped on the floor.

"Victor, what have you been doing all these years since you left Mine 52?"

It wasn't until Wei Ran locked the gate with an iron chain and a lock, and wiped off the footprints of the three of them with a rag he found somewhere, that Mikita took advantage of the former to cover up the footprints on the snow. Kung Fu of Footprints asked.

After a little hesitation, Wei Ran, who was busy working, said without raising his head, "I have been in Kazan all these years."

"You are in Kazan?!"

Mikita showed surprise on his face, and then blamed, "Since you are in Kazan, why have you never contacted us?"

"My current identity is not so popular." Wei Ran paused for a moment, and tentatively said, "I work in Hongqi Forest Farm."

"Where is Hongqi Forest Farm?" Baolid asked blankly.

"There should be many forest farms with this name, right?" Mikita's tone was also uncertain.

"Where is the Lenin Technical School?" Wei Ran asked with a smile. The reason why he said this was just to expect to hear some news about Hongqi Forest Farm from these two people.

"Where is that place?" Baolid was still at a loss, "Captain Victor, did you become a teacher?"

"You just said the Lenin Technical School?" Mikita's face changed, "The Lenin Technical School? You actually went there?"

"Where is that place?" Baolid asked dissatisfiedly, "Can't you just say it directly?"

"Let Victor speak for himself. I don't dare to talk nonsense about that school." Mikita shook his head with a wry smile, and there seemed to be a trace of despair and remorse on his face.

"Do not misunderstand"

Wei Ran patted Mikita on the shoulder, continued to squat down, and said while carefully cleaning up the footprints, "Captain Mikita, I am here as a friend this time, so if Baolid wants to know something, It's up to you, if you still think of me as a friend, as a member of the firing squad."

"Can I say?" Mikita asked tentatively.

"Of course." Wei Ran waved his hands happily, and handed his back to Mikita and Baolid with confidence.

Mikita looked at Wei Ran with a complicated expression, and finally sighed, "I just heard about that school, but I don't know what's there, and it's even the first time I know that school is in Kazakhstan. Mountain!"

"It's okay, don't worry, just tell what you heard."

Wei Ran lightly brushed the snow with pine needles, "And wouldn't these be more suitable for you? After all, you didn't know I worked there before, you don't know now, and you won't know in the future."

Mikita raised his eyebrows, then nodded with a smile, and let out a long breath, "That's right."

"Why am I a little confused?" Bao Lide still looked at a loss.

"I only know two things"

Even in this wilderness, Mikita subconsciously lowered his voice, "First, only the best soldiers and party members with the strongest beliefs have the opportunity to work there.

Second, I have overheard someone say that the best prisoners of war in the correctional camps have the opportunity to be sent to a place called the Lenin Technical School for further study.And they never came back, and even records of working in correctional camps were destroyed. "

Seeing these two people looking at him in unison, Wei Ran stopped what he was doing, thought for a while and said with a smile, "Maybe they have already gone home."

"Go home? Are you talking about being repatriated?" Bao Lide subconsciously asked, "What about you? Captain Victor, you are not a teacher for prisoners of war!"

Before the bearded Baolid could finish his sentence, Mikita covered his mouth with a cloud of snow, and at the same time gave him a warning look.

Wei Ran smiled when he saw this, and continued to clean up the footprints on the ground while talking nonsense, "I'm still the executioner, the same as I was in Mine No. 52 more than ten years ago."

"What do you want to eat later?" Mikita asked bluntly, changing the subject, obviously not wanting to continue talking about anything about the Lenin Technical School.

"You decide"

Wei Ran pointed to the footprints that haven't been cleaned up yet, I'll deal with this first, "You can go back and prepare the meals first, and discuss what we should do next by the way."

"Then I'll leave it to you"

Mikita didn't give Baolid a chance to speak at all, and dragged him to the abandoned hospital not far away.

"Does this crappy school have such a long history?" Wei Ran muttered until the two had walked away.

Ever since he knew that the Red Flag Forest Farm might be inextricably linked to the Lenin Technical School, in order to avoid getting troubled, he had been deliberately avoiding contact with information about the Lenin Technical School for so long.

This time, it was completely whim to ask Mikita, a native of Kazan, in this historical segment, but he never expected that the school had such a long history, let alone that the school was once in a correctional camp. Find the raw materials suitable for training into spies.

"Fortunately disintegrated"

Wei Ran muttered with a smile, and continued to wave the pine branch in his hand, gradually smoothing out the footprints left by everyone.

After cleaning up all the footprints, Wei Ran passed through the small square with two statues and returned to the abandoned hospital opposite.

Obviously, taking advantage of the time just now, Mikita had already explained something to Baolid, and the latter finally dispelled his curiosity. At this time, the two were busy skinning the wolves they brought back.

Picking up a hunting knife who didn't know who it was, Wei Ran also joined the ranks of skinning the wolf corpse.

"Victor, we can't keep waiting for those two-legged beasts who don't know if they will come." Mikita tore off a piece of wolf skin and threw it to Baolid next to him and continued, "So After eating, we plan to go to the No. 4 mine to find a way, we have brought so many explosives, we will definitely be able to blow up the collapsed mine.”

"You are the captain of the firing squad, and I will follow your arrangement."

While speaking, Wei Ran poked the hunting knife in his hand on the bed, then grabbed the belly skin of the wolf corpse and pulled it hard, tore off the whole skin and handed it to Baolide for follow-up processing, and then with the help of Mikita Next, throw the viscera in the abdominal cavity into the oil drum next to it.

"In this case, we work every eight hours and take an eight-hour break every 16 hours."

While Mikita was speaking, he swung an ax to help Wei Ran chop off the skinned wolf head tied to the bed frame.Taking advantage of the time when Sercy carried the wolf meat to another room next door, Mikita continued, "I am in a team with Sercy, Victor, you are in a team with Baolid, and we rotate every eight hours. .

Those who come back to rest are not only responsible for preparing food and drink, but also responsible for keeping an eye on the direction of the river.If those animals really come, don't rush to conflict with them, put them in the nurse's dormitory building, and we will have a good chat with them after they settle down, so as to prevent them from leaving behind. "

"I have no opinion"

Wei Ran replied without thinking, this is indeed the best arrangement, those prisoners of war may definitely come, but it is not sure when they will come.Therefore, there is really no need for them to sit here and wait foolishly.

Seeing that Wei Ran agreed so happily, Mikita immediately showed a smile on his face, raised the ax and chopped fiercely, split the skinned wolf head, and then used a spoon that he didn't know to bring, it was not counted. The extra brains were thrown out and put into a clean lunch box.

Even without explaining, Wei Ran knew that these people would never eat the brains of wolves, and the reason why they did so was to use the brains of wolves to tan the wolf skins that had just been peeled off.Although he doesn't know how to cook beans and burn Osmunda, he has seen it in Inta and even Jima.

"In that case, after dinner, Selsey and I will go there first."

Mikita casually threw the worthless wolf head into the iron bucket of waste, and finally asked worriedly, "Victor, do you know how to blast?"

"certainly"

Wei Ran showed a gentle smile and blasted in a directional way. Of course he knows how to do this, but he didn't use it much before.

Following the two men peeled off the wolf skin one by one, Baolid carefully scraped off the remaining fat on it, and directly nailed it to the wall with nails.

Even the wolf meat was not wasted. They were all sent to a room with intact windows, and were hung up with high and low iron racks. Afterwards, a brazier was lit and covered with pine needles that Wei Ran brought back in the morning.

When the billowing smoke rose, the three of them sealed the door with a bed board nailed with canvas in advance.

There is a high probability that they will not eat these wolf meat, but after all, no one can guarantee how long they will waste here to get through the mine, so even if it is a reserve ingredient, it is a good choice.

On the other hand, it can be said objectively that these Soviets who experienced World War II were really hungry, and they were almost as frugal as those generations of people who suffered on the land of China.

Perhaps, this is also the reason why these people are clearly here for the gems, but they are still ready to take off the wolf skins that they have easily beaten and take them away.

Wei Ran blew on the smoke coming out of the gap by the door, cut off the random thoughts in his mind, turned around and got into the room that was the kitchen.

It only took half a day, and under the scorching fire, the fireplace made by Sercy with mud and oil barrels came in handy.Now not only are there a few cast iron pots and enamel kettles that are cooking and boiling water, but even the room has become much warmer.

"I never realized that this place is so beautiful." Mikita leaned against the window sill with a half cup of coffee in his hand, and sighed while looking at the snow scene outside.

“I don't think it's beautiful here”

Bao Lide lit a cigarette and said, "Mosquitoes in summer and the smell of dead bodies from the trenches, at least eight months of winter, and the sun only comes out for less than four hours a day in winter.

Of course, there is also the polar night and the green aurora without even the sun.I've had enough of this stuff long ago, and that's why I went to Warm Kharkov.If it weren't for the goddamn gems, I would never want to be here again in my life. "

"really"

Mikita grinned, "I take back that stupid sentence just now. It seems that I haven't been here for a long time, and I just stupidly started to miss my life at that time."

"Speaking of which, I do have a question."

Bao Lide took the coffee brought by Selsey, "If we encounter those animals again, they should be regarded as citizens of the Soviet Union by now. But the secret of the gem must not be known to them, so if we kill them, will we in trouble?"

"What trouble can there be?" Mikita said indifferently, "What if they also came to look for gems? What if a Soviet came to snatch our gems?"

"Of course I killed them," Baolid said without thinking.

"Or we don't have to kill them"

Mikita glanced at Wei Ran indiscriminately, and saw that he didn't have any strange expression, so he continued, "We can definitely cause a mine accident, can't we?"

"The mining accident in the aluminum mine at that time was also man-made?" Wei Ran asked half seriously and half jokingly, holding the coffee he just got.

"How is that possible? It was an accident caused by an earthquake."

Mikita categorically denied this conjecture, but his innocent appearance made Wei Ran more sure of the artificial possibility.

The reason why Mikita did this is not difficult to guess. He must have killed the experimental prisoners who were in charge of mining, so instead of worrying about whether these people would tell other prisoners the secret of the gemstones and target them It is obviously a good way to save time and effort, and it is very in line with the logic of Maozi's thinking.

On the other hand, although Mikita did not look at and treat those prisoners of war with hatred like Wei Ran, he did not treat those prisoners of war as human beings.

For this professional executioner, the only difference between killing one prisoner at a time and burying hundreds or thousands of prisoners alive at once is that they use different tools.

"It's just a herd of livestock. If they die, they die."

Holding a coffee cup, Wei Ran expressed his attitude, and at the same time dispelled Mikita's worries, "Frankly speaking, I really miss the life in Mine No. 52. After all, Japanese prisoners of war who are shot and tortured at any time are not good. , they should be called war criminals, in short, this kind of life is too nostalgic and yearning for."

"I was always worried that you would become a murderous maniac." Mikita shook his head dumbfounded, and at the same time secretly heaved a sigh of relief.

"Get ready to eat," Sercy, who had already served all the food on the table, greeted everyone while serving soup.

Hearing this, the three of them ended the conversation in a timely manner, and sat down around a table not far from the fireplace.

This lunch is quite simple. Each person has a communist dish plus a large bowl of cabbage soup. The rest is sliced ​​Daliba and a small cup per person. According to Selsi's regulations, the working hours must be limited Served with vodka.

This so-called communist dish is actually goulash in a pot, or simply called goulash with potatoes.

This dish was originally a famous dish in Hungary, and its status in Hungary is roughly the same as that of "Roast Duck in the Imperial Capital" in China.

Coconut shell-sized earthenware pots are filled with potatoes, beef, chili and other condiments. They are stewed on the fire until they are soft and delicious. This kind of stew can be transliterated as "pants diarrhea", which can be found almost everywhere in Hungary. The home-cooked dishes are also the first choice for traveling or needing to take meals out.

Just like when unloading supplies from the car yesterday, Wei Ran had already noticed that there were at least four wooden boxes filled with stews that were packed in earthenware pots and had condensed into jelly due to the low temperature.

Needless to say, its advantages are not only delicious, but also the clay pot can be heated directly on the fire, as long as it boils inside, it can be eaten with rice or bread slices.

To say that the only shortcoming of this thing is that the shelf life is not long enough.However, in this freezing Siberia, the shelf life does not depend on the sterile environment at all, but depends on the temperature.

As for why this kind of stew, which tastes good when traveling at home, is dubbed a "communist dish", it is all because of the famous saying that Khrushchev said in a speech in Hungary that year - goulash with potatoes is communism. doctrine.

Just like this dish, the bowl of cabbage soup with plenty of ingredients is similar. They are all prepared in advance and frozen into pieces. When you need to eat, just throw it in the pot and heat it up.

These two things not only taste good and save time, but even Sercy can easily make enough for everyone.

Of course, this also indicates that these two things will appear on the dining table every day for a long time to come.

"Now I'm starting to miss the prisoner of war I took away back then. His cooking skills are really good." Mikita said while clinking glasses with Wei Ran and Bao Lide.

"Xishan Dream?" Wei Ran immediately asked, "The prisoner with number 589?"

"Your brain is really good, you can remember so many things." Mikita took a sip of wine, "I have long forgotten his name and number."

"Is he still alive?" Wei Ran asked the most critical question.

"Probably still alive"

"Probably?" Wei Ran looked at Mikita in confusion.

"He escaped?" Baolid was the first to call out the answer.

"right"

Mikita nodded, "That's why I rushed over to look for gems as soon as I learned that the military base was abandoned. The prisoner of war disappeared on the day the aluminum mine accident happened. No one knows where he went. , and no one knows if he survived."

Speaking of this, Mikita paused, "But I'm sure, if he survived, he would definitely go to the mine where the gems are hidden."

"Why?" Baolid put down the soup bowl and asked.

"It was his younger brother who led you the way."

Mikita told the truth vaguely while eating, "I asked him to choose one, whether he survived or his brother survived, he chose his brother, but I still took him away, after all his The cooking skills are really good.”

"Uncle Mikita, could those prisoners of war who might come be the chef you just mentioned?" Sercy, who was eating quietly, also joined the topic.

"It's not impossible"

Mikita put down the spoon, and after thinking for a while, he told his nephew, "Selsey, no matter who comes, if they make you feel dangerous, you must shoot them immediately, even if you kill them all!" It doesn't matter if you die."

"I" Selsey swallowed, "I see."

"Don't hesitate, killing them is no different from those beasts we killed when we were hunting." Mikita continued to instruct with concern, "But they are more dangerous than those beasts we encountered when hunting, so you come Don't hesitate at this time."

"And don't believe anything they say"

Wei Ran followed and reminded, "Selsey, the three of us walking in front of you were the executioners of this mine at that time. If they saw us and had the ability to retaliate, they would definitely kill us, so If you have any hesitation when you need to shoot, the three of us may die."

"Victor was right"

Bao Lide also reminded, "Didn't you always say how accurate your shots are on the road, don't let us laugh at you then."

"I definitely won't hesitate!" The young Selsey's tone was much firmer this time, and after the three of Wei Ran looked at each other, they also tacitly changed the topic to other aspects.

After finishing his lunch like a storm, Mikita immediately left the abandoned hospital with Celci and several boxes of explosives in a cart.

"Let's go get some firewood." Baolid put his rifle on his back as he spoke, "How about going near the river? By the way, you can keep an eye on it to see if any animals are coming."

"Let's change to another place." Wei Ran retorted without thinking, "We have left too many traces there, and if those animals come, it will easily expose us all."

"Then go in the opposite direction"

After Baolid finished speaking, he opened the door and got in, driving the latest truck and roaring away from the lobby on the first floor.

Watching the other party leave, Wei Ran locked the door from the inside, then managed to climb up to the top floor, found a room with a view of the pier, wrapped the blanket tightly around his body and sat on the chair he picked up, while holding the bag in his hand. The assault rifle was wrapped in a white cloth strip, while quietly looking at the scenery outside.

(End of this chapter)