War Photographer's Notebook

"Dominique! You're finally here!"

Sophie and Dominic hugged gently, and the latter opened his small satchel immediately after the other party let go, and said flamboyantly, "Sister Sophie, my mother said that your paint must not be enough, she took me It took a lot of shopping to get these.”

"Thank you" Sophie asked expectantly, "Are you going this time?" "No."

Captain Letz waited for Wei Ran to come over, and then introduced, "His cousin Victor, Dominic, came here with Dominic to seek refuge this time, but he has to work with me for a few days before he can do it." ...Victor, this is my daughter Sophie."

"Is there anything else?" Sophie and Wei Ran asked in confusion after shaking hands politely.

"certainly"

Captain Letts called Wei Ran to connect the oil barrels on the half-track motorcycle with the oil barrels in the mill with the oil pipeline, and explained in a low voice, "Winter is coming soon, and the supplies in the city are getting more and more. I'm nervous, in order to survive this winter, we must stock up on food and drink.

Moreover, it is necessary to reserve more medicines for Dominique, as well as coal and fuel oil. Without these things, this winter will be very difficult. "

Having said that, Captain Letts has taken off his head.Compared with the serious face of this middle-aged man, when he showed his heavily bald Mediterranean hairstyle, the whole person became extremely happy.

"When are Uncle Carsten and Aunt Heidi coming?" Sophie asked, putting her hands on Dominique's shoulders, "and your brother Bruno.

"Uncle Letts, when will my parents and brother come over?" Dominique subconsciously looked at Captain Letts riding a half-track motorcycle.

"They have to wait"

Captain Letts sighed, and explained in a low voice, "Your brother was just born last month, and it's too dangerous for him to live here now. Besides, your parents still have work to do, so they don't know what to do now." There is no way to leave.

"Oh." Dominic nodded regretfully.

"Okay, now is not the time to chat." Captain Letts glanced at his watch, "Hurry up and get all the supplies down!"

Hearing this, a girl named Sophie immediately helped pick up a 20-liter oil barrel and sent it to the mill, and brought out two empty barrels by the way.

Seeing this, Wei Ran and Dominique also immediately helped, and moved all the oil drums on the oil truck into it.

After the ammunition boxes on the car driven by Wei Ran were brought in, Sophie immediately lifted the floor, revealing half a 200-liter oil drum floating on the water.Under the command of the girl, 20-liter oil barrels were thrown down one by one.When the oil drums full of fuel drifted away along the current, she picked through the ammunition boxes again, found a few boxes with the German word "Eh" written in inconspicuous khaki paint, and greeted the guards. Ran helped, and put them all into the oil drum that was used as a boat.

"Dominic, come down."

Standing in the water, Sophie raised her neck and extended her arms to invite Dominique, who was squatting on the edge of the floor opening.

"No! I don't want it!" Dominic shook his head flatly, "It's too dark in here, I don't want to go!"

"Go down!" Captain Letts said with a cold face, who had been standing guard at the gate of the mill with a gun in his hand from the beginning to the end.

"Plop!" Dominique, who said no to it a second ago, immediately jumped down. "Victor, you go down too."

Captain Letts still didn't turn around, "Come back quickly after helping Sophie move things there, we have to make another trip tonight."

"I'll be back soon," Wei Ran said, and jumped in.

Holding on to the damp stone wall and walking a few steps forward, Sophie, who was at the front, turned on the square box flashlight for lighting, and walked forward with a rope pulling half an oil drum full of wooden boxes. , and will kick the oil barrel that floats a little slowly.

After turning several turns in a row, Wei Ran also saw two animal traps the size of washbasins hanging on the wall.

Although these beast traps are not

There are toothed blades, but just looking at the size, Timov must have been pinched by this thing at the beginning, otherwise he would not have screamed so badly.

After struggling to get out of the narrow hole, Wei Ran immediately discovered that the moat was full of water at this time, and, although there were far fewer pine trees here than in later generations, the ruins in the center of the moat were full of water. Overgrown with various vines and weeds.

If it weren't for the relatively intact bell tower next to the church that was mostly destroyed by bombing, it might be difficult to see that this place is not a wasteland but the ruins of a castle.

After regaining his senses, Wei Ran quickly helped Sophie and Dominic to carry the hard-earned things to the shore.

Seeing that Sophie didn't intend to invite herself in, Wei Ran no longer insisted, took out the flashlight in the metal book, turned it on, turned around and walked back.

When he returned to the mill, Captain Letts immediately restored the floor to its original state, and stretched his hands into the gaps in the floor to fiddle with it. Then he limped and beckoned Wei Ran to get into the car and walked along the creek. Came back to the fort.

Without resting at all, the two refueled the half-track motorcycle, and then moved the ammunition boxes one by one from under a piece of canvas to load the motorcycle.

By the time the two of them drove the car out of the fortress again, stars and occasional US bombers could be seen in the fragmented night sky above their heads.

Still without turning on the lights, the two half-track motorcycles were less than five meters away from each other, and once again rushed to the forest mill in the dark.

In just such a back and forth effort, the oil barrel that Sophie took along the waterway before was emptied and sent back, and this girl has been waiting for a long time with the oil pipeline.

Feeling in the dark to fill those wet oil barrels with fuel, Wei Ran once again helped to send a few selected ammunition boxes to the oil barrel boat in the waterway, and helped the other party to the opposite shore.

When he got out again from under the floor of the mill, Letz had been waiting for a long time.

Before Wei Ran slammed the opened floor, Captain Letts threw down an empty oil drum, closed the opened floor himself, and reached into the gap to grope, before calling Wei Ran. The rest of the car was unloaded and piled in the corner of the mill.

However, what Wei Ran didn't know was that when the empty oil barrel was pushed by the water and floated out from one end, it was immediately picked up by Sophie who was waiting here and put it aside.

Immediately afterwards, the girl began to laboriously turn the switch dial of the sluice beside her. Amidst the creaking noise, the cast-iron sluice closed slowly, and the water level in that not-so-wide waterway also rose rapidly.

At the same time, Laitz had wrapped the iron chain around the air-leaking wooden door, and led Wei Ran to the half-track motorcycle that had been emptied outside, while explaining in a low voice, "This is an armed laborer in the forest." They will come here to replenish ammunition according to the assigned time slot, so that they don’t have to go back to the fort for replenishment, which is not only far away, but also easily exposed when entering and leaving the fort frequently during the day.”

Having said that, Captain Letts paused, and leaned close to Wei Ran's ear and said, "These days, you help me transport the last things over there, and then I will find a chance to let you die in battle, and then you can I rushed over by myself and went to the other side along the waterway.”

Seeing that Wei Ran opened his mouth to say something, Letz reminded, "Also, don't try to walk across the ground, I don't even remember how many landmines are buried there."

"When did you start preparing?" Wei Ran asked with a strange expression.

"Since I was sent back after losing a leg in the Battle of Poland"

Captain Letz, who didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, pulled out the cane fixed on the side of the fuel tank, tapped his left shin bone lightly and made a "bang bang bang" sound, "It's just that I didn't expect that this place would also change. into a battlefield."

"So, since you were 39 years old..."

"40"

Letz said proudly, "I spent more than two months in the field hospital in Poland before I came back, even though those damn Poles snatched one of my

Legs, but it also took me away from the front and became a logistics quartermaster. "

"Just a quartermaster?" Wei Ran asked with a strange expression, "A quartermaster from the Mountain Division?"

"Smart boy, I do come from the [-]st Mountain Division, but I wasn't a quartermaster in those days."

Letz fooled Wei Ran's question with an insincere compliment, and at the same time changed the subject without a trace, "What about you? What's the matter with your hand?"

"Sniper" Wei Ran tried his best to make his tone appear sincere, and at the same time, exposed unnecessary content as little as possible.

"You're lucky"

Letz put his disabled leg into the driver's seat with great effort, and said in a low voice, "I just exchanged one finger for the opportunity to leave the front line. This is a very good deal, but the time is a bit late. If it was 4 years ago, maybe you could have done more for me.”

"If there is anything I need to do now, I am still very happy to help you." Wei Ran said sincerely.

"Keep this a secret"

Captain Letts started the car while speaking, "Okay, keep up, we have to do one last trip, deliver some things to another supply point, and take a look at what goodies they picked up from the battlefield. "

Is this even German?
No, no, is this still a rank army?
In other words, how "smart" must a disabled soldier of the mountain division who only participated in the Polish campaign transform into a quartermaster wearing the uniform of the rank army?
Wei Ran glanced strangely at Captain Letz, who was particularly blurred in the night. Although this quartermaster had a serious face, what he did was clearly a philistine businessman making "national wealth"!