War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 741 Passage

After five consecutive days of enthusiastic, diligent and conscientious voluntary labor, the prisoners headed by Prisoner No. 589 finally succeeded in digging a hole through the collapsed mine tunnel with the sound of the last blast.

During these five days, those prisoners of war were extraordinarily honest, especially after the soreness in their elbows subsided, even their work efficiency increased a lot, and even looking at it, it seemed that they had rediscovered 15 years ago. The joy of working here is the same.

"Captain Victor"

A dusty prisoner of war crawled out from the low hole and said, "I just went to check, and there is a fork in the road behind."

Hearing this, Wei Ran turned his head to look at the prisoner of war who had been bitten by wolves. After these five days of recuperation, although he had been running a fever, at least the wounds had scabbed over, and the gauze on his face had been removed, revealing There are three scabbed scratches between the eyebrows, and the same scabbed bite wound at the hairline.

Seeing Wei Ran looking at him, the prisoner of war immediately nodded his head, "Let me lead the way."

"Do you want to go together?"

Mikita asked Irina, these few days, this woman has been exceptionally honest, not only doing her best to take care of the meals and hot water for the prisoners of war, but also taking care of those who were tortured or tortured. Or the wounded who were bitten by wolves or even accidentally injured in the mine.

"I..." Irene swallowed, and finally gritted her teeth and nodded, "I want to go in and have a look, otherwise I won't be reconciled."

"You go ahead," Mikita said without refusal.

"I want to go with her," said prisoner 589, standing up with difficulty.

"you stay"

There was still no room for negotiation in Mikita's tone, "Baolied, you stand guard here, if anyone comes out before Victor and I, shoot them and kill them."

"Click"

Although Baolide didn't speak, the action of pulling the trigger backhand to load the AKM in his hand has already shown his attitude.

"lets go"

After Mikita and Wei Ran looked at each other, they each handed over the assault rifles in their hands to Baolide, and then pulled out the TT33 pistols on their waists.

As the order was issued, everyone, including Irene, each took a kerosene lamp and a small pot of kerosene for spare.

In addition, the oxygen cylinders brought in on the first day of excavation were also prepared by the prisoners of war in groups of two and two on sticks.

The wounded, including prisoner No. 589, could only hold the rusty chain around their necks and watch from a distance.

The other ends of these chains were all locked on rusty rails.Without the key, they would never leave here at all.

Soon, the prisoner who was bitten by the wolf was also ready with the help of his companions.Under everyone's gaze, it hunched its waist like a goblin and limped into the mine tunnel, carrying a kerosene lamp.

Around its waist was tied a rope as thick as a thumb. This rope was more than ten meters long. It was dragged at the last end and connected to the handle of an oxygen cylinder.

The two prisoners of war who were responsible for carrying the oxygen cylinder were the second batch to enter the mine tunnel. Behind them, there were three groups of people carrying the other three steel cylinders, and then two prisoners of war carrying explosives.

Wei Ran and Mikita walked at the end with pistols. In addition to carrying kerosene lamps, they also carried wires and equipment for detonation, spare flashlights and even some food in their backpacks.At the same time, Wei Ran deliberately hung two more water bottles on his waist for emergency needs.

Moving extremely slowly, Wei Ran followed behind Mikita, crawling through the once collapsed area.

Continuing forward, the mine road did not become wider or higher, but after a while, three forks appeared.And the prisoner of war who led the way took them to the rightmost fork in the mine.

This place is slightly wider than the mine just now. Walking all the way in, the widest place is even enough for people to lie down horizontally, but the height here is only a little over one meter at most, and because, Everyone had to crawl forward on their knees.

After climbing forward in this way for almost half an hour, after turning to the branch road again and again and even wading through a waist-deep pool, the height of the mine tunnel became higher and higher, and finally even Wei Ran was already Can stand up without worrying about hitting the top of the head.

At the same time, he also noticed in the light of the kerosene lamp that the devil's aunt's flag was also engraved on the rock wall here, and stones with inscriptions were also piled up at the corners of the wall.

"Go forward from here"

The prisoner of war who had been bitten by a wolf sat down against the rock wall, panting heavily, and continued, "Go straight ahead and you will encounter two branch roads, and each time you go to the far left, you can see the track of the No. [-] mine. , there is an escape route sign, I...I'll wait for you here, my thigh hurts so much, I really can't walk."

"I need to pin you here"

While speaking, Mikita waved at a prisoner of war. The latter hesitated a bit, but before Mikita pointed the gun at him, he took out a rusty iron chain and handed it to Wei Ran, who let the latter take the chain The iron chain was tied around the neck of the leading prisoner of war, and the other end was smashed into the gap in the rock wall with spikes.

At the same time, Yilinni also helped the prisoner of war check the wound bitten by the wolf. Not surprisingly, the wound that had just grown on his buttocks and legs had burst open and oozes a little blood. .Not only that, when he passed by that pool just now, his wound was also soaked in the water.

"Captain Victor" Irene looked at Wei Ran hesitantly.

After all, these prisoners of war are still needed to help with work at this time, Wei Ran happily took out a medical kit from his bag and handed it to the other party, waiting patiently for her to re-bandage the wound of the prisoner of war.

"Wherever you want to go, you'd better come back before us."

Mikita said to Irini who was finished, "I will give you two people and a bottle of oxygen, but I won't wait for you after Victor and I come back."

Having said that, Mikita said to the prisoner who had been bitten by wolves, "If you leave early before Victor and I come back, I will strip you naked and smear you with tomato sauce and throw you into the wolf's den." inside."

After speaking, Mikita casually pointed to a group of prisoners carrying oxygen cylinders and said, "You two go with Irini and follow her command, otherwise you and your children will be buried alive in the mine."

"Thank you"

Irini lowered her head and thanked her, and set off first with the prisoners of war and oxygen cylinders assigned to her.

"Let's go too"

Wei Ran called the rest of the prisoners to stand up, carried the oxygen cylinder and carried the explosives, and walked towards the No. 4 mine road along the mine road.

"Captain Victor, Captain Mikita."

The last prisoner dared to ask, "Can we take those stones with us when we leave?"

"Those stones engraved with identity information?" Wei Ran asked with great interest.

"Yes" the prisoner of war nodded, "their families are still waiting for their news, even if they are dead."

"The families of those innocent people you killed in Northeast China back then are also waiting for their news." Wei Ran calmly stated the facts that had already happened.

"The war is over"

The prisoner of war who made the request said dryly after a long silence, "We have worked in Siberia for more than ten years, and we have paid the due price for what we did before. We have already surrendered."

"The due price?"

Wei Ran snorted coldly and said mockingly, "Exchange your more than ten years of hard work for others? You are quite good at business."

Hearing this, the prisoner of war who made the request fell silent.But Wei Ran knew that the reason for his silence was that he absolutely realized the mistakes they made, and it was probably just that he didn't think of a reason to refute for a while.

"Work hard"

Wei Ran said abruptly, "When we find what we are looking for, you can take all those stones away if you don't think they are too heavy."

"really?"

The prisoner of war looked at Wei Ran in surprise, saw him nodding, and immediately burst out a series of words of thanks from his mouth in a hurry, but unfortunately, among those words of gratitude, there was not even a single sentence that addressed them back then. Apologies for those things.

Marshal Zhukov was right.
Wei Ran glanced at the prisoners of war who stayed behind and the kerosene lamp and muttered to himself, after all, he didn't compete with the dead or those who were about to die.

On the contrary, for those prisoners of war, his generous attitude is undoubtedly enough to attract. No, a carrot to lure a donkey, so even the pace of his feet is a little faster.

After turning left from the bifurcation road twice in a row, Wei Ran and his team stepped on the footprints left by the three of Irini, and finally entered the No. 4 mine smoothly.

Looking at the rusty railroad tracks under his feet, and then at the escape map and numbers staring at the fat side rock wall, Mikita thought for a while and raised his finger in a direction, "Go there".

Wei Ran glanced at the kerosene lamp carried by the person in charge of carrying the explosives in front of him. The flame had become much smaller. Seeing this, he stopped Mikita and said, "Open the oxygen cylinder first."

Hearing this, Mikita waved his hand, and immediately a prisoner of war handed him and Wei Ran two oxygen breathing masks connected to oxygen cylinders.

After the rest of the prisoners also inhaled oxygen, the team set off again, and under the guidance of Mikita, they went straight to the mine where the gems were hidden back then.

Compared with them, Irini was faster. However, when she ran all the way with the help of the prisoners carrying oxygen cylinders and finally found the mine tunnel, she found that not only was the entrance of the mine tunnel small, It's pitiful, and there is a stone the size of a gasoline barrel blocking the outside.

"Smash! Smash it open!"

Irene's crazy voice echoed in the mine for a long time. The two prisoners of war looked at each other, shook their heads, took off the pickaxes on their shoulders, and swung their arms round to knock on the ground. On the boulder, a string of sparks also splashed out by the way.

(End of this chapter)