War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 821 The Tomb of Despair

In the middle of the mountain road among the dense forests, the Frenchman Jiller's changed screams and his slashed cheeks also scared everyone around them back a few steps, and even their eyes on Wei Ran were taken away. The color of fear.And the little monk who had just been lifted up put his palms together and said something pleasing to the eye with his eyebrows lowered.

At this moment, Squad Leader Liang walked over, frowning and asked, "What's wrong? What did you ask?"

"The devil asked him to pretend to be an Englishman to create chaos and spread rumors." Wei Ran paused, and roughly recounted the information he just asked.

Before he could finish his sentence, Tan Shouzheng knocked out two big gold teeth from Jill's mouth with the butt of his submachine gun. He also spat a mouthful of thick phlegm into Jill's mouth, and then cursed in his native dialect. Saying "Dog hanging!"

Ignoring the ear-piercing screams, Wei Ran, who had finished the retelling, went to Ji Le and squatted down, and slowly stabbed the bayonet in his hand into the gap between his chest and ribs with no expression on his face, piercing his heart accurately.It's a pity that this time, he still didn't feel the indescribable sense of brain shutdown.

Just as he drew out his bayonet, the little monk also opened his mouth to say something.

Seeing that everyone was looking at him, Zhou Guochang immediately translated, "Master Sehao said, if we are going to Mo's village, he wants to go with us, so as not to."

"For what?" Wei Ran habitually wiped the blood from the bayonet on Jill's face.

"In case you scare others, and in case others misunderstand us."

Zhou Guochang grinned and said, "Master Sehao said that he is from Mo's village, and he is willing to testify and explain for us along the way."

Before Zhou Guochang could finish his sentence, the young monk who seemed to be only sixteen or seventeen at most showed a gentle smile at Wei Ran, and then said something in Burmese.

"Master Sehao said that he met you in the temple in Mansi Town and accepted the bananas you donated."

Zhou Guochang paused, and waited for the little master named Sehao to say something again before continuing to translate, "He also said that he would pray for you and pray that you would not be entangled in killing karma."

Hearing this, Wei Ran smiled indifferently, "Take what is useful, let's go now."

Before Zhou Guochang and the little monk Sehao finished communicating, Tan Shouzheng had already put the two big gold teeth that had just been pried off into his pocket, and then picked up the Webley revolver that Jill was holding originally, and looked at it. Throwing it into the basket with a look of disgust.

A little later, Zhou Guochang also dug out a lot of rifle bullets from the things pulled out of the three corpses and threw them into his back basket, while Squad Leader Liang hung the water bottle on the donkey.

At the same time, the little monk named Sehao also helped the girl who had fallen on the muddy ground, and the two of them worked together to lift the old man's body to a bullock cart not far away.

While Wei Ran and the others were waiting, the little monk picked up the blanket again to cover the Buddha statue in the bamboo basket on the donkey, and then bent down to pick up the ornate Burmese knife He pinned it on his waist with a calm expression.

"Master Sehao said that he is ready to go," Zhou Guochang helped translate.

"Let's go then"

Wei Ran, who carried the least weight, took the first step, and Zhou Guochang and Tan Shouzheng, who also held submachine guns, followed a step behind, but Squad Leader Liang and the young monk Sehao led their donkeys in no particular order. Going hand in hand and walking in the end.

Chatting all the way, under Zhou Guochang's translation, Wei Ran and others finally knew that this little master Sehao was sent by the abbot of Mo's Village to Manxi Town to transfer the two precious Buddha statues in Manxi Town of.

Moreover, according to what he said, as early as about a week ago, the British army had already left Mansi Town and withdrew to Mo's village first, and within a short period of time, they left Mo's village and went nowhere.

When asked about the expeditionary force in Mo's village, the little master just shook his head and said under Zhou Guochang's translation, "A large part of them have also entered Savage Mountain. When I left the village the day before yesterday, there There are not many expeditionary soldiers left."

"What about the hospital?"

Tan Shouzheng asked, "Guochang, quickly ask Master Sehao, is the hospital in Mo's village still there? Are the wounded still there?"

Fortunately, after these words were translated by Zhou Guochang, the little monk leading the donkey nodded immediately, and replied calmly in Burmese, "Yes, they are all here."

After listening to Zhou Guochang's translation, Squad Leader Liang, Qin Shouzheng, and Wei Ran all heaved a sigh of relief, and then Zhou Guochang also heaved a sigh of relief. Anyway, as long as the hospital is still there, he is still in a coma on the back of the donkey with a high fever Luke still has help.

After several days of running around, they finally heard the good news, and the pace of everyone has accelerated a lot.As noon approached, fewer and fewer refugees were traveling with them, and a meandering river gradually appeared in front of them.

But compared to the vaguely seen river, what is more conspicuous is the gravel road under the feet that has been clearly maintained, and the various artillery and vehicles along the river in the distance!
"Master Sehao said that Mo's village is just across the river. He is going to the temple in the southeast of the village. The field hospital is also near the temple. He asked us where we are going." Zhou Guochang helped translate and couldn't help but read Eyes on Luke lying on the donkey's back.

"Go to the hospital first!" Squad leader Liang and Tan Shouzheng made the same decision without even thinking about it.

Hearing this, the little monk Sehao nodded quietly, and led the group to another path that was also paved with gravel and less than two meters wide.

However, before seeing the temple, Wei Ran frowned and sniffled. He was sure that he smelled the smell of burnt protein and mixed with it, the smell of meat that was hard to ignore!
He had smelled this weird smell before in Stalingrad, in Berlin, and even on that small island in the Pacific Ocean, behind those flame-breathing soldiers!
Worried in their hearts, they walked around a forest of miscellaneous trees used to divide the paddy fields. At a glance, everyone saw a stupa surrounded by forests in the distance, and a small temple at the foot of the stupa.

But compared to these, what is more shocking is the camp on the open space on the east side of the temple, which has obviously been burned by the fire!
Squad leader Liang and Tan Shouzheng looked at each other, took off the panniers on their bodies, and ran over. After a short period of sluggishness, Wei Ran strode after the stumbling two.

When he got closer, the indescribably weird smell became more intense, and he finally found a graveyard with an unknown number of corpses piled up on the edge of the forest on the west side of the temple!

It's just that most of the corpses piled up in the tomb that had accumulated a little water were charred black!And on the side of the tomb, there are a few old men wrapped in gauze, or middle-aged people, or even two monks in dark red cassocks, who are silently burying the tomb full of corpses!

"What's wrong with this?"

Squad leader Liang knelt down on the ground and muttered to himself.Tan Shouzheng, on the other hand, was wandering around aimlessly in a panic, trying to find something.

"Dead, all dead." A middle-aged man with a longki around his waist responded in Chinese with a strong accent.

"Little devil? They blew up the hospital?!" Tan Shouzheng asked angrily in a loud voice.

"Oh," the middle-aged man who can speak Chinese sighed, "suicide."

"What did you say?!"

Squad leader Liang asked in disbelief. While speaking, he even pulled out his box gun in a hurry, pulled the hammer, and pointed the gun at the middle-aged man tremblingly, "Say it again!"

"Suicide"

The middle-aged man didn't seem to see the threat at all, and continued to bury his head to cover the grave, "You are late, the large army has entered the Savage Mountain, and the wounded soldiers can't keep up. In the early hours of yesterday, They agreed to commit suicide together."

"What did you say?"

The box gun in Squad Leader Liang's hand fell to the ground, and he also sat down on the scorched dirt, "Dead? Dead? All dead?"

"all dead"

The middle-aged man put down the shovel in his hand, sat down next to Squad Leader Liang, took out a pack of British cigarettes from his pocket, tore open one and handed Squad Leader Liang one, and he lit it himself, " More than a thousand wounded, all committed suicide, some swallowed guns, some set themselves on fire, and some drove a truck with a load of wounded, singing songs and driving directly into the river. Dead, all dead.”

The middle-aged man wiped away his tears, and pointed to the cemetery not far away, "A team of engineers dug a few cemeteries around the forest with machines left by the British, and sent all the wounded soldiers who committed suicide to the grave." Go in and bury it."

Having said that, the middle-aged man wiped away the muddy tears on his face again, and said with a choked voice, "Those engineers also committed suicide, in that grave, after they jumped in, they also sang songs, then Before the song was over, they poured gasoline on their bodies, smoked grenades, and shouted."

"What are you shouting for?" Squad leader Liang, who had already burst into tears, asked.

"Destroy the shell! Use nails to destroy the shell!"

The middle-aged man imitated it from memory, "It seems...it seems to be this sentence, those wounded people shouted it when they committed suicide, and those engineers also shouted it."

"Destroy the shell. Use nails to destroy the shell. Haha! Haha! Destroy the shell! Use nails to destroy the shell! Haha!"

Squad leader Liang cried and laughed like crazy, grabbed the box gun that had just fallen, and pointed the muzzle at his chin.

Seeing this, Wei Ran immediately rushed forward and grabbed the barrel of the gun.

"boom!"

In the crisp Johnson's voice, the strong airflow lifted the cap off Squad Leader Liang's head and scalded Wei Ran's palm at the same time.

But even so, he didn't let go of his hand. He just endured the pain and snatched the box gun from the opponent's hand abruptly.

"Don't forget what's in my bag"

Wei Ran put the pistol back into the opponent's hand, forced himself to calm down and said, "The dead are already dead, and the living still need us."

"Yes, yes. The living ones! The living ones!"

Squad leader Liang muttered nervously, struggling to get up, stumbling and going forward, "We're going to chase them, they're very close, and we'll catch up to them soon."

"Ugh"

Wei Ran sighed, quickly walked a few steps to catch up with Squad Leader Liang, and pressed his hands hard on the side of his neck behind his ears.

It wasn't until Squad Leader Liang fainted with a thud that he walked up to the middle-aged man who was still sitting by the grave, ignored the box gun that the other party had picked up, and asked politely, "Hi, may I ask you?" It's this village."

"I'm not. The people in the nearby village have already run away. Even in that temple, there is only the old monk who helped bury the soil."

The middle-aged man looked at the box gun in his hand, and continued in a flat tone, "We are Chinese who fled from Mandalay and came here with a large army. We are all old, so if we don't run away, the savage mountain will go in." It is also a death, maybe there is not even a whole body left.

So it's better to stay here, bury them before the devils come over, and plant a few more empty graves to fool the little devils.The rest is life or death, go ball! "

Silently took the box gun from the other party, Wei Ran was silent for a moment, took out the camera that was already his own from his backpack, and asked very respectfully, "Sir, let me take a picture for you Take a picture."

"Shoot me? Why do you shoot me?" The middle-aged man lit a cigarette and asked in despair.

"Lest we forget"

Wei Ran pointed to the tomb that was less than half buried, "In case people in the future forget about them and you."

"Forgot?" The middle-aged man snorted, "Who will remember them. Who will remember us?"

“someone will always remember”

While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already raised his camera, and used the lens to surround the stupa and the tomb in front of him. After careful selection of angles, he finally pressed the shutter.

"My son is dead. He was killed by a devil's plane a month ago. Do you remember? There is an egg!"

The middle-aged man picked up the shovel again while speaking, and continued to raise soil into the grave pit one by one, covering the young, charred soldiers who couldn't go home little by little.

Sighing again, Wei Ran asked, "Uncle, we still have a wounded patient with a fever, do you know where it is?"

"Let's look in those cars by the river." The middle-aged man raised his finger and pointed to the river in the distance, "Everything that can be used has been taken away, and what can't be taken away is also destroyed."

Wei Ran and Zhou Guochang, who was standing not far behind, looked at each other, and after hesitating for a moment, handed the box gun pinned to his waist to the other party, "You stay with Luke and go to the temple to wait, and then help Squad Leader Liang Also recite it, I will go find the medicine."

"Okay, be careful." Zhou Guochang said, took the gun, and led the donkey to the small temple.

Walking to the river, Wei Ran couldn't help shaking his head secretly. There are various Dodge trucks, Willys jeeps, various towed artillery, and even various styles of tanks scattered here!
But without exception, these war equipment have been damaged, and there are even traces of being blown up and burned.

And on the other side of the river, the not-so-big village was completely empty and there was not a single living thing to be seen.

After a little hesitation, Wei Ran pulled out a bicycle with severed tires from the cargo bed of a truck, and rode along the river, searching for anything useful among these abandoned war equipment.

It's a pity that after walking around, the only thing he got was a half barrel of gasoline found in a Willys Jeep.

Trying to get another half barrel of gasoline from the fuel tank, Wei Ran couldn't find medical supplies at all, so he could only ride a bicycle with only wheels left, and returned to Xiaomiao with a barrel of gasoline.

After such a short period of time, the little monk Sehao, who had come back all the way, had already applied a layer of green pasty herbal medicine to the wound on Luke's arm. At the same time, he also lit a fire on the side of the temple gate. He was cooking something in a casserole.On the other side, the two unloaded donkeys were burying their mouths in the same trough, eating the grass inside.

Seeing Wei Ran approaching, the little monk raised his finger and pointed to the direction of the tomb on the west side, then folded his hands together and bowed slightly.

He put down the oil barrel from afar and folded his hands together to say hello. When Wei Ran ran to the edge of the grave, he found that Tan Shouzheng and Zhou Guochang were each holding an engineering shovel, and they were serious with those who chose to stay. Buried graves.

By the side of the tomb, Squad Leader Liang was leaning against a waist-thick teak tree, gazing at an English-style steel helmet in his hand.

Seeing this, Wei Ran sighed secretly, took out the camera from his backpack again, and took a picture of the other party from a distance.

"What did they shout before they left?" Wei Ran sat down next to Squad Leader Liang and asked with his back against the tree trunk.

"Go back, you must go back."

As soon as this sentence was finished, Squad Leader Liang's eyes shed tears again, "Those boys, they dream of winning battles and going home with credit."

"Where is this helmet?" Wei Ran continued to ask hard-heartedly.

"companion commander"

Squad Leader Liang paused for a moment before explaining, "It's also my cousin's. You see, my uncle ordered me to take this copper coin from the beam of his house, and he tied it on it himself."

"This is at"

"In that Buddhist hall"

Squad leader Liang put the helmet on his head, "He knew that I would definitely follow, so he deliberately stayed in the Buddhist hall and filled it with rice for us. He also knew that living would definitely drag us down. , that bastard!"

Hearing this, Wei Ran patted the other party's shoulder vigorously, then took off the backpack and opened it, deliberately revealing the two devil officer lunch boxes containing medicine inside, then stuffed the camera into the bag, then stood up, took the Pick up a shovel and help to bury the grave together.

In the silent busyness of the crowd, the strange smell was covered by the soil, and the soil that covered the corpse was completely covered by the firewood brought in.

As night fell, swarms of mosquitoes swept in as usual, followed by the old monk who had been busy all day, and lit a bonfire at the entrance of the temple, and then covered it with a bundle of grass from nowhere.

Amid the pungent fishy-sweet smell, the surrounding mosquitoes instantly emptied and disappeared, and some of the mosquitoes that flew slowly fell to the ground with crackling noises.

Some distance away, two 20-seal cauldrons were placed on top of the bonfire, and glutinous rice was steaming in one of the pots.Next to the other pot, Squad Leader Liang was vigorously waving the frying spoon, silently stir-frying the two ducks provided by the old monk, and some vegetables grown by the temple itself.

Gradually, the alluring fragrance wafted out from the pot, but everyone around them didn't have any appetite, they just silently thought about their own thoughts.

Under the Buddha statue inside the temple, the merchant Luke was still unconscious even though he was force-fed a bowl of herbs by the young monk.On the contrary, the little monk had already taken advantage of the darkness to bury the two baskets containing the Buddha statues in the vegetable field on one side of the pagoda.

In the unspeakable silence and almost tormented waiting, around the low table at the entrance of the temple, the bamboo and wooden bowls in everyone’s hands were filled with glutinous rice, and bowls of glutinous rice were also placed on the surrounding low table. Camellia oleifera, the banana leaf spread in the middle of this circle of camellia oleifera, is even more piled up with duck meat fried with chili.

"Eat, eat." The sweaty Squad Leader Liang greeted those compatriots who had been busy all day.

"Oh! God! What the hell is wrong with this world!"

An old man with a goatee let out a long sigh, picked up the chopsticks and stuffed glutinous rice into his mouth, and ate a few big pot dishes cooked by Squad Leader Liang.

Driven by the old man, the people sitting around picked up the bowls and chopsticks one after another, but the tears that these people had hidden for a long time were hidden by the light of the two kerosene lamps, and one after another fell on the short table. on the table.

(End of this chapter)