War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 831 Marching Day and Night
In the cave where the bonfire was still burning, Wei Ran sat up staggeringly, waiting for the dizziness in his brain to disappear, while quietly looking at Luke who had lost his life, looking at the bullet hole in his forehead and between the eyebrows. dark red blood.

Whether it's the cold knowledge from Hongqi Forest Farm, or the experience of killing and saving lives accumulated on various battlefields, he knows very well that Luke's choice to commit suicide at this time is the best choice, no matter for himself. , or for this team.

But for Wei Ran, shooting at one of his own is definitely not a comfortable experience—even if the opponent is British.

Even though he is extremely clear, this is the greatest and only help he can provide to the other party.Just like what he did, let the opponent die unprepared and extremely straightforward.

"I killed people I shouldn't have killed, but the war left me with no choice."

Wei Ran leaned against the cold rock wall, stared at the tattoo on the tiger's mouth, and subconsciously chanted the sentence he saw on the last page with words when he just got the metal book.

“Fortunately an Englishman”

After a long time, Wei Ran rubbed his face vigorously, trying to find an excuse to comfort himself.Walking to Luke's side, he reached out to help him close his eyes, and then pulled out the engineering shovel from his back basket.

Lightly tapping on the rocky ground, Wei Ran bent down and drilled out of the cave. On the edge of the banana forest on the side of the cave entrance, he dug a hole big enough for Luke to lie down.

Wrapping Luke in a raincoat and carrying him into the grave, Wei Ran waved his engineering shovel to carefully bury him after a short silence, turned around and chased after the direction where Squad Leader Liang and the others disappeared.

Along the way, Wei Ran speeded up his pace to catch up with the marks left by Liang Squad Leader and others, and at the same time tried the newly learned language.

However, what made him laugh and cry was that this time he neither learned the useless Burmese language nor Japanese. cavity only.

No wonder it was a secondary language task, Wei Ran murmured in disgust, he used guns to kill acquaintances, but he only learned the "accent", which was too different from what he expected.

Regardless of whether he was satisfied with the newly learned things, after trotting and chasing for more than half an hour, he finally saw Squad Leader Liang and others waiting for him in a valley.

This valley is far more spacious than the ones we passed through before. Not only can you look up to see the long-lost complete sky, but there are also large and small gravel and pebbles under your feet, and there is even a winding stream rushing forward in the middle.

From a long distance, he saw Squad Leader Liang sitting on the edge of a boulder to rest.However, as the distance got closer, he once again smelled a strong smell of corpses!

Frowning, he quickened his pace. When the distance between the two sides was less than a hundred meters, he also saw bomb craters and a large number of rotting and mutilated corpses around the bomb craters.

Even on the edge of the stream, there were still standing pots and stoves, tents that had collapsed and were too late to clean up, and even corpses with most of their bodies submerged in the water.

Not only that, but on the other side of the stream, he even saw an aerial bomb that did not explode after landing, lying quietly on the gravel beach!
Looking up at the setting sun that was about to be blocked by the mountains, Wei Ran sighed, walked around a broken corpse, and walked to the side of Squad Leader Liang amidst the flying flies, quietly looking at the bag in his hand. On that steel helmet, there are those extra blood-red orthographic letters that have not yet dried up.

"coming?"

Squad leader Liang greeted him without raising his head, his tone full of sadness and exhaustion.

"coming"

Wei Ran responded softly, looked at Zhou Guochang who was sitting on the ground leaning on the boulder, with his head buried in his arms, and said after a pause, "Mr. Luke didn't suffer, I buried him in the area on the right side of the cave." It’s on the edge of the banana grove, and I piled a few big rocks on it.”

"Let's rest"

Squad leader Liang waved his hand wearily, "When the sun is completely covered, let's continue walking, as far as we can."

Nodding silently, Wei Ran glanced at the little monk who was sitting cross-legged on a stone not far away, chanting scriptures, and then at Tan Shouzheng, who was carrying a basket on his back, looking for something among the rotting corpses, and finally Still took off the backpack and walked over.

"What are you looking for?" Wei Ran asked at the same time, but also hardened his heart, and pressed the shutter on the corpse on the gravel beach and Tan Shouzheng who was looking down.

"acquaintance"

Tan Shou replied without raising his head, "See if there is anyone he knows. If there is, if he can go back alive, he will help send a letter back. By the way, let's see if there is anything we can use. "

Having said that, Tan Shouzheng lowered his voice, "Is Mr. Luke?"

"Dead." Wei Ran also lowered his head and replied, "I killed it."

"It's harder than beating devils." Tan Shouzheng sighed, stopped and opened a remaining tent, which immediately startled a swarm of flies.

Looking at the rotting corpse lying on the ground in the tent, Tan Shouzheng's face turned pale, and he immediately put down the canvas curtain.

Following him all the way down, among the hundreds of corpses, Tan Shouzheng did not find a single acquaintance he knew or could still recognize.

In the end, when the sun was completely blocked, the two returned to Squad Leader Liang's side, carried their own baskets on their backs, and took another step forward.

Following the traces left by the people in front, everyone walked upstream along the stream.Waiting until the smell of corpses behind him completely disappeared, until stars gradually appeared above his head, Wei Ran then asked Zhou Guochang while lighting the kerosene lamp, "Guochang, you."

"I'm fine"

Zhou Guochang wiped the corners of his eyes, "I'm fine, Brother Wei, I don't blame you."

"Sorry" Wei Ran said softly.

"Actually, Mr. Luke begged me to kill him the day after his fracture."

Zhou Guochang said after a moment of silence, "He is a devout Christian, he can't commit suicide. But I can't do it."

"I know." Wei Ran responded vaguely, and wisely did not bring up this topic again.The team that had been traveling all night also fell silent again.

Walking up this stream until midnight, cliffs that go up and down gradually appear on both sides, as well as strange calls of various unknown wild animals.

However, Squad Leader Liang, who was walking at the end, didn't call to stop, and the crowd naturally wouldn't stop either. They could only walk while chewing the jerky or bear jerky they got.

Holding on to the exhaustion and walking all the way until the sky gradually dawned, this winding valley finally came to an end.However, what was waiting in front of them was not a new mountain, but a wide river and new cliffs on both sides of the river.

And the creek that accompanied them all the way was one of the branch branches from this slow-flowing river.

"Take a break." Squad leader Liang, who had been silent all the way, finally gave the order to rest in a hoarse voice.

Looking left and right, Tan Shou was pointing at the crack at the bottom of the cliff on one side, "Go in there, at least you can start a fire to burn some water."

"Then let's go." Squad leader Liang waved his hand and gave the order absent-mindedly.

Under the leadership of Tan Shouzheng, the crowd walked wearily to the entrance of the cracked mountain fissure, and then saw that there were still ashes left by the campfires, and some places even had unburned Finish the remaining firewood, and the banana leaves spread on the ground.

Without commanding at all, everyone immediately untied the bamboo baskets tied to the donkey's back and the dry firewood they saw along the way, mixed with the damp firewood left in the mountain crevice, lit the bonfire, and put the only remaining iron pot and enamel pot stand Go up and start boiling water.

By the way, under Wei Ran's strong suggestion, everyone took some cold pills with the little water left in the kettle, which can be regarded as the prevention of malaria.

Taking advantage of the time when Master Sehao helped boil the water, Wei Ran and Squad Leader Liang also left the mountain crevice and came to the river with empty bamboo baskets on their backs.

"I'm here to catch the fish. You're going to find out which direction the main force is heading to." Squad Leader Liang said hoarsely.

"give it to me"

Wei Ran nodded, pulled out the machete, sharpened the bamboo pole in his hand again, and walked carefully into the still clear river.

The width of this river is at least more than ten meters. Although the final flow direction of the river cannot be discerned due to the twists and turns of the river, but fortunately, the river is not too deep, at most it is just waist deep, and in most places it is only knee deep. .

Not only that, but the river is still quite clear, and staying overnight is not too fast.Bending down to touch the bottom of the water, Wei Ran picked up a stone and looked at it, then threw it back into the water, and walked upstream against the cliff on the shore.

Facing the slow water flow for two 300 meters, Wei Ran finally stopped at the edge of a wild mango tree in the crevice of the rock on the edge of the cliff.

This mango tree grew on a small platform less than two meters above the water, and most of its roots were rooted in the cracks in the rocks. The dense canopy was only five meters above the ground. It is also covered with golden mangoes.

Looking up for a while, Wei Ran easily climbed up to the stone platform less than two or three square meters in size, carefully observed the thick moss covering it, and then looked at the moss growing on the curved tree trunk and parasitic vines.

After thinking for a while, Wei Ran climbed up the tree trunk, reached out and picked some mangoes and put them into the emptied pannier.

He nimbly climbed down the mango tree, but he didn't continue forward or return the same way. Instead, he crossed the river to the opposite side with a long bamboo pole used as a cane.

This side is also a cliff tens of meters high, but vines hang down from the top of the cliff.

Picking up a vine with a bamboo pole from a distance to observe the intact leaves on it, Wei Ran turned and walked back.

When he returned to the fork of the creek flowing into the valley, Squad Leader Liang was still repeating the action of casting the net over and over again, and from time to time, he would fish out a few fish from the net and throw them into the canvas behind him. bucket.

Without stopping, Wei Ran continued to wade downstream. Soon, he found that all the bamboos growing on a small island in the middle of the river had been cut down, leaving only sharp edges. of bamboo roots.

He reached out and touched the sharp stubble and a rotten and smelly snake skin thrown on it.Wei Ran straightened his waist and looked towards the downstream direction. There is no doubt that the large army should be heading downstream.

After thinking for a while, he turned back again and joined Squad Leader Liang who was still casting the net.

"How's the harvest?"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he also probed into the bucket. To his surprise, there were several large fish with a length of more than [-] centimeters in the canvas bucket.

“Good harvest”

Squad leader Liang collected the last net, picked two fish from it and threw them into the bucket, and asked while rolling the net up, "Have you found the direction?"

"found it"

Wei Ran raised his finger and pointed downstream, "There was an island in the middle of the river, and all the bamboos on it were chopped off."

After speaking, he took off the basket to show the mangoes he had picked, pointed to the upstream direction and continued, "There is a mango tree over there, no one has touched it at all, I guess they must have gone downstream. "

"Let's go after dinner"

Squad leader Liang collected the fishing net, picked up a fish, and skillfully scraped off the scales and guts with the kitchen knife he brought, and said, "Leave this valley as soon as possible. We can’t run away. And let’s hurry up, send the medicine up quickly, and send the information up quickly.”

Wei Ran nodded silently, picked up a fish as well, and took out the Mauser bayonet from the metal book under the cover of his pocket, and started to work together.

The two cleaned up the fish they caught as quickly as possible. When they returned to the crevice, Tan Shouzheng and others had already boiled the water and were filling the kettle.

"This fish is really big!" Tan Shouzheng couldn't help admiring.

"You cook a fish soup"

Squad leader Liang took out two processed fish and handed them to Tan Shouzheng while speaking, "Each of the remaining ones should be grilled and eaten. After eating, we will continue to walk."

Although everyone present was very tired, no one refuted Squad Leader Liang's decision. Even the taciturn young monk Sehao nodded silently in agreement after listening to Zhou Guochang's translation.

Banana leaves were cut from outside, and everyone wrapped their own fish, sprinkled with coarse salt and a little dried chili, and then buried them with a bonfire.

Before the fish was cooked, Wei Ran habitually took out the camera and took a picture, and took the time to sleep with his eyes closed.

When he was woken up by Tan Shouzheng's shaking, the British army's lunch box in front of him was already full of a bowl of light white fish soup with a little oil flakes floating in it, and there was even a big piece of fish in this fish soup.In the other half of the matching lunch box, there is already grilled fish.

Looking at the little monk and Zhou Guochang who were also awakened by Tan Shouzheng, and Squad Leader Liang who was puffing on his cigarette pouch, Wei Ran silently picked up his chopsticks and ate his own food bite by bite.

"After we've had our fill, we're going to walk along the river"

Squad leader Liang said, "We don't know how long this river is, and we don't know how long it will take to get to the shore, but we can't waste any more time. Guochang, let little master put on his shoes later, just in case He hurt his foot in the river, so we couldn't carry him on our backs."

"I'll just tell him"

After Zhou Guochang finished speaking, he changed into Burmese to remind him. At the same time, Tan Shouzheng also handed the straw sandals prepared in advance to the young monk Sehao.

"It stands to reason that we have to take a rest and get some sleep." Squad leader Liang continued.

"No need." Tan Shouzheng said while gulping down the fish soup, "I'm not sleepy or tired."

"I'm not sleepy either," Zhou Guochang continued.

"I just fell asleep." Wei Ran responded, and had already eaten half of the fish.

"Then work hard." Squad leader Liang picked up a piece of fish and put it into his mouth, "We will find a place to rest after we get out."

The conversation ended here, and everyone wolfed down their own food, carefully checked the food and important supplies they were carrying, and then led the two awakened donkeys into the river, wading through the water and leaning on bamboo poles, Step by step towards the downstream direction.

(End of this chapter)