Chapter 1113 The slogan at the entrance of the mine
At the edge of the second pier covered with snow, Wei Ran used an engineering shovel to carefully dig out the first tombstone, which was mostly buried in the snow.
This tombstone, which seems to be carved out of iron ore, is only about 30 centimeters wide but over 60 centimeters tall.
There is also a five-pointed star carved on the top of this tombstone, but perhaps because of the passage of time, the five-pointed star has been mottled and only the faint outline of the star is left.
Looking down from the five-pointed star, the words "Worker xxx" can still be vaguely seen. The second tombstone was cleared, and the content carved on it was not much different.
Unwilling to give up, they cleared them out one after another. When it came to the sixth tombstone, the five-pointed star on it turned into the symbol of a hammer and sickle. Moreover, the tombstone not only had the title and name engraved in Russian, but also had additional words beside it.
Chiseled in Japanese.
Not to mention, on one side of the tombstone, it is engraved in Japanese and Russian that "In April 1954, party member Alexander (Junpei Igarashi) was repatriated to his hometown with his ashes."
Looking at each other with Suisui, Wei Ran dug out the next buried tombstone from the snow. The content carved on it was similar to the one just now. The only difference was that the person who carried the ashes was sent back to his hometown, and the time.
It's just changed.
Suisui said, "I just counted, there are 27 tombstones in total here."
"Clean up all the tombstones and take a look." Wei Ran thought for a while and said, "Take a photo of the content on each tombstone."
"I'm going to get the camera," Suisui said, got up and walked towards the big bicycle not far away.
Tightening his gloves, Wei Ran cleared out all the remaining tombstones buried in the snow and inspected them one by one.
Although the writing on the tombstones was mottled, he still found two special tombstones inside.
On one of the tombstones, the owner of the tombstone is exactly the warehouse guard Panin Yashin who was mentioned by Diane.
According to the brief information on this tombstone, this young guard was born in 1933 and died in 1951. In other words, he was only seventeen or eighteen years old when he died.
On another tombstone, the owner of the tombstone is Lieutenant Mesut Gotze, the German veterinarian that Weiran is looking for on this trip.
What Wei Ran didn't expect was that in addition to "veterinary surgeon and blacksmith", Mesut's position also had a special label of "convicted party member". And on the side of the tombstone, someone carved it in Russian.
With the word "missing".
"Found it" Wei Ran waved to Suisui who was taking pictures of the tombstone.
Upon hearing this, the latter immediately ran over with a camera and pointed the lens at the tombstone that had been filled with snow.
"A party member serving a sentence?"
After taking the photo, Suisui looked at Wei Ran in confusion and said without thinking, "Did you get fucked?"
"Where are you following?"
Wei Ran shook his head dumbfounded and explained while clearing out the two tombstones next to each other, "In the situation you mentioned, you probably have to be expelled from the party before you can serve your sentence. In this case, you serve your sentence first, and then because of your good performance
, became a party member.”
"A well-behaved activist?" Suisui said subconsciously.
"Absolutely." Wei Ran, who was still busy clearing the snow, nodded, but he had more doubts in his heart.
"You don't want to dig up these two graves, do you?" Suisui asked curiously after taking the photo.
"This place has probably been dug up."
As Wei Ran spoke, he used a sapper's shovel to pry up a rusty pickaxe from the frozen ground.
Just looking at the remaining bright orange rubber handle on this pickaxe, you can tell that this thing is definitely not very old.
After looking at each other with Suisui, Wei Ran continued to clear the snow on the ground. Gradually, a shallow pit that was only half a meter wide and less than two meters long came into view.
Putting on the pickaxe he had just dug out, Wei Ran tried to hit the frozen ground. Unfortunately, he hit it with the pickaxe as hard as he could, leaving only a white spot on the ground as big as a fingernail.
"Are you really planning to dig it up?" Suisui asked with a frown, obviously not agreeing with this act of digging a grave.
"How about we dig up those Japanese graves?" Wei Ran asked, throwing away the pickaxe in his hand.
"Okay!" Suisui, who was frowning just now, nodded enthusiastically without even having time to think about it.
"As if I didn't say anything"
Wei Ran patted the stains off his gloves and looked behind the tombstone of the warehouse guard named Panin. Fortunately, there were no signs of digging.
He also won't dig here, and there is no need to dig it up - after all, it is not necessary for him to come here.
"So what should we do next?" Suisui asked as she stuffed the camera into her bag.
"Boss, maybe you should come here and take a look." Just when Wei Ran was about to speak, Anfisa, who was holding an AK12 in her hand, pointed to Anfisa, who was being led by her sister, digging a hole in the snow next to her.
Beria.
Hearing this, Wei Ran and Suisui walked over quickly. In a short time, Beria was already knee-deep in the snow, like a small bulldozer, backing up and digging out a path that could have three or four feet.
meters long and as wide as its body.
There is no doubt that it is much more comfortable to stand in the trench dug by the dog than to stand on the soft snow. However, on one of the pieces of ground scraped open by Anfiya's snowshoes, there are exposed
A section of rusty railroad track, and a section of railroad ties that are still complete.
"Why are there railroad tracks here?"
Wei Ran and Suisui subconsciously looked at both ends of the rail. The dug rail was only half a meter long. One end pointed to the shore of the pier, and the other side pointed to the back of the pier.
, a not-so-wide logging road.
After taking a few steps in this direction, Wei Ran used his engineer shovel to scrape away a raised pile of snow, and what was revealed was a rusty mine cart.
"Isn't this a lumberyard?"
"It is indeed a logging site, but both open-pit and underground mines require a large amount of wood."
Wei Ran explained with a smile, "At least the Soviet Union was very frugal just after World War II, so it built a lumberyard before mining materials. The felled trees could not only support the initial infrastructure construction of the mine, but also would not be wasted.
The only thing that needs to be paid for these precious woods is the time of the labor reform prisoners."
"The time of a prisoner of war is not valuable," Anfiya muttered subconsciously, "it is as valuable as life."
“You’re right”
Wei Ran nodded, "Let's get back in the car and search along the logging road to see what we find."
The three girls naturally wouldn't object. If nothing else, at least it was much warmer inside the car than outside.
Soon, the three cars distanced themselves and drove out along the logging road.
After driving forward four to five hundred meters with some difficulty, an open space less than a hundred meters square appeared directly in front.
In the center of this open space, there is a dark cave opening sloping to the ground.
Although the entrance to the cave is mostly buried by snow, you can still see the wooden boards and beams used to support the cave entrance, as well as the abandoned mine cart inside the cave entrance.
Of course, compared to the mine itself, which had been mined for who knows how long, and had been awakened from hibernation by the roar of the engine, the brown bear crawling out of the mine was obviously more dangerous.
"Ugh——"
The brown bear let out a threatening roar, and then rushed towards the big bicycle at the head like a mountain of meat!
"Our big truck tires can't resist its bite!"
Suisui, who was in charge of driving, shouted in panic, not only were the tires unable to bear the teeth of this brown bear, but such a big bear slapped its paws on the car. Even if the sheet metal of the car could bear it, the double-layer insulated glass
I can’t bear it either!
Not to mention, at this time, their car, which was aimed at the entrance of the mine, had to back up even if they wanted to avoid the bear. But at this time, behind them, there were also the big feet driven by the Katenka sisters.
The traffic is stuck!
Even without their cars blocking them, no matter how fast the reversing speed was, how could it compare to the running speed of a brown bear that had been awakened from hibernation and had reached the peak of its anger level!
"parking!"
While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already pushed open the sunroof above his head, pulled away Beria, who was already baring his teeth and growling, and leaned his upper body out of the car window while holding up the double-barreled shotgun.
Suisui, who had unconditional trust in Wei Ran, stepped on the brake with her foot that was already on the accelerator without thinking.
"boom!"
Before Wei Ran could open fire, he parked his car on the left and right in two other large trucks on both sides of the mine. The Katenka sisters also stuck the muzzles of their AK12 rifles out of the car window and aimed at them one after another.
The targets each fired a burst. In the almost overlapping gunfire, the two bullets crossed and hit the brown bear behind the ear.
"Plop!" With a muffled sound, the brown bear straightened its limbs instantly, and its entire huge body fell to the ground under the push of inertia. Finally, it rolled and slowly stopped in front of the big bicycle driven by Suisui.
Less than two meters ahead.
"call--"
Suisui, who was still firmly pressing the brakes and standing up while holding on to the steering wheel, breathed a long sigh of relief and sat down on the driver's seat again. Weiran waited for a moment and saw that the brown bear stopped moving.
, then turned off the safety of the shotgun. He retracted into the car and closed the sunroof.
He comforted Suisui, who was pale with fright, and then kicked Beria, who had been scratching at the door and wanted to go out to fight. He tied his traction rope to the armrest of the seat back, and then Weiran opened the door.
Went out.
A little earlier than him, the Katenka sisters also came over with weapons each. One of the sisters pointed a gun at the entrance of the mine, and the other carefully poked the brown bear in the eye with the muzzle of his gun, but saw that it did not respond.
, then asked, "Are you okay?"
"She was shocked"
Wei Ran glanced at Suisui in the big bicycle, and then said, "Thanks to you two sisters, your shooting skills are good."
"This is the first time we have hunted such a big prey." Anfiya pointed her gun at the entrance of the mine and said without looking back, "Should we go to the mine to have a look?"
"Is this edible?" Anfisa asked, pointing to the brown bear that was not yet cool, "Is it delicious?"
Before Wei Ran could answer the sisters' questions, Suisui also got out of the car and looked at the brown bear with bleeding from its mouth and ears in fear. She hugged Wei Ran first, and then hugged the Katenka sisters separately.
After giving him a hug, he naturally couldn't help but express his gratitude.
"So is this edible?" Anfisa asked, deliberately changing the subject.
"It should be possible."
Suisui said uncertainly, while her eyes glanced at Wei Ran, who was relatively the best cook among the four.
“You’ll know if you try it”
Wei Ran signaled the three girls to step back, "Let it dry for a while and wait until the fleas on it freeze to death."
Hearing that there were fleas, the three girls all backed up a full two or three meters away, as if the tiny flea was more terrifying than the huge adult brown bear.
"Watch Beria and don't let him get too close, otherwise all the fleas will be on him."
As Wei Ran spoke, he was already holding a shotgun and walked alone along the path made by the brown bear to the dark mine more than 20 meters away.
Standing at the entrance of the mine and looking inside, Wei Ran frowned.
The entrance to the mine was not small. If the reinforcement wooden boards, waist-thick pillars, and stones stacked around were removed, the diameter would be almost three meters. But when the flashlight beam shone in, he discovered that,
The depth inside this mine is only less than 10 meters.
As for the 10 meters beyond, I don't know whether it collapsed or was artificially blown up. It has already been tightly blocked.
At the end of the remaining 10-meter mine, you can still see a hot spring bear nest made of pine needles, weeds and other materials. Around the nest, which looks like a big bed, there are also a large number of broken bones and broken beasts scattered around.
"Food waste" such as skins and feathers.
Speaking of harvest, it is not without success. On a thick wooden board used for reinforcement on one side of the mine, you can also see a series of Japanese slogans written in red paint - work hard to increase production and strive for repatriation quota to go home.
"They cut down trees and dug mines. These prisoners of war lived a very successful life."
Wei Ran muttered to himself, knowing that there were no useful clues in this wilderness, so he turned and walked in the direction of the big bicycle.
