When the sun once again passed through the treetops and morning mist, everyone around the campfire also filled their kettles with boiling water.
Under a pine tree about twenty meters away from the campfire, Wei Ran also sat cross-legged on the edge of an open cloak, carefully using the half-barrel of gasoline mixed with a little engine oil that they had brought.
He cleaned all the disassembled machine gun parts and easily solved the problem of the ammunition feeder being jammed by foreign objects.
He filtered the used fuel with a piece of rag and put it back into the oil drum. By the time he reassembled the wiped parts, those in the distance had already extinguished the bonfire and gathered around them amidst the rising sun and the faint noise of the aircraft engine.
come over.
"Victor, can this machine gun be used?" Vinya was the first to run over and ask, and by the way, he returned the German kettle that had been filled with hot water to Wei Ran.
"It should work." Wei Ran pointed to the top of his head, "Try?"
"Try it!" Sasha and Alyosha were the first to be tempted.
"never mind"
Political Commissar Vinia was not moved, "Our machine guns may be able to bring down the plane, but it will definitely consume a lot of ammunition. If the plane shoots at us or even drops bombs, we may have to pay a higher price."
.”
"Comrade Vinya is right," another political commissar Zinovi agreed, "use this machine gun to destroy the German ground forces, that way it will be of greater value."
"Now, Victor, let's take some photos!" Platoon Leader Taras changed the subject and said, "We are about to leave."
"How about taking a photo next to it?"
Wei Ran patted the newly assembled Deshka machine gun and suggested, "I'm going to wash my hands first, and I'll take pictures for everyone when I get back. Before that, you can decide who will take the pictures in order."
"Listen to Comrade Photographer's arrangements." Taras clapped his hands, and immediately, the soldiers lined up as quickly as possible.
Upon seeing this, Wei Ran and Political Commissar Weniya smiled at each other, walked alone to the stream not far away, took out the set of seized toiletries from their backpacks, took out the soap and carefully washed the oil on their hands.
I didn't forget to wash my face and shave.
When he came back, he already had a twin-lens reflex camera in his hand, and the Deshka machine gun had been turned into an anti-aircraft machine gun by the Red Army soldiers who had removed the shield and set it up.
At this time, next to the machine gun, there was a small man wearing a cloak who looked less than 1.7 meters tall. He was holding the machine gun with one hand and adjusting his posture under the guidance of his comrades.
"Comrade Photographer is here"
Another soldier reminded him, and the little man standing next to the machine gun subconsciously puffed up his chest.
"Soldier, what's your name?"
Wei Ran hung the camera around his neck, and then took out from his arms the notepad of Anani, a fallen war correspondent, and the pen from the metal book that Platoon Commander Taras had given him for safekeeping.
"Innokenji!"
The little soldier shouted, "Innokenty Josephovich Popov!"
"Where are you from?" Wei Ran asked, writing down the other person's name.
"Penza, I'm from Penza!" Innokenti replied loudly and proudly.
"I got it"
Wei Ran said, but handed the notepad and his pen to the political commissar Zinovi who was standing next to him, and at the same time said, "Please register your address with Comrade Political Commissar later. If you have the opportunity in the future,
, I will send your photos back."
"I know his home address"
Political Commissar Zinovi took the notepad and pen, and while writing a string of addresses fluently behind the name, he said, "I remember everyone's address."
"Then I'll trouble you," Wei Ran said, and then he raised the camera, instructing Innokenti to make some adjustments before pressing the shutter.
"Comrade Anani did the same thing"
It wasn't until Innokenti gave up the photo background to the next soldier that Commissar Zinovi said, "Also using this notepad, he asked me to help register everyone's addresses and names, but he only took pictures of us.
A group photo, and promised to send the photo to everyone. Victor, you may have the talent to be a reporter."
"If I have the opportunity in the future, I will become a reporter."
After Wei Ran finished speaking, he began to direct the second soldier to make slight adjustments to his posture, and then pressed the shutter button seriously. At the same time, Zinovi also wrote the corresponding name and address on a new line in his notepad.
.
Soon, Wei Ran took a photo of more than 20 soldiers, including political commissar Zinovi and platoon leader Taras, wearing cloaks and boat caps, holding a machine gun in one hand and holding a protective shield under their feet.
Single photo of.
Finally, these young soldiers obeyed Wei Ran's command, flattened the machine guns, reinstalled the shields, and placed the Simonov anti-tank guns on them, forming two rows behind them.
We took a group photo wearing German weapons.
"Let us join in the second group photo!" Wei Ran asked, shaking the camera in his hand.
"Of course!" Platoon leader Taras agreed without thinking, "I'll take pictures for you!"
"No need." Wei Ran waved his hand, "Let this machine gun shoot for us."
After saying that, he called on two soldiers to help remove the machine gun and shield from the gun mount, and then set it up to become an extra stable tripod.
Once again directing everyone, including Vinia and others, to pose, Wei Ran placed the camera on the tripod, adjusted it, pressed the selfie lever, and then ran over and squatted down next to political commissar Vinia.
There were no slogans, no cheers, and even the sound of the shutter was completely obscured by the roar of fighter jets flying overhead.
After the group photo was taken and the four Guardsmen stood up, Platoon Leader Taras saluted with his soldiers and finally said, "It's time to separate, Vinya, Victor, and Sa
Sha and Alyosha, we will return the weapons to you soon."
"Comrade Taras, Comrade Zinovi, are you really sure you don't need us to act with you?" Vinya asked seriously after returning a military salute.
"No need, really no need."
Platoon leader Taras smiled and said, "If we need your help, we will contact you in time. How about staying at the place where we met before?"
"Okay then" Vinia nodded, "In that case, let's act separately."
"Protect your gun repairmen"
When Zinovi said this, he glanced at Wei Ran and added with a smile, "Of course, there is also future reporter Comrade Victor."
Watching Platoon Leader Taras and Political Commissar Zinovi disappear into the forest with the soldiers carrying weapons and ammunition on their hands and shoulders without looking back, Wei Ran picked up the camera still on the gun stand and said
, "Let me take a photo of each of the three of you!"
"I'll go first!" Sasha, who had wanted to take a photo for a long time, was the first to raise his hand in response.
"Hold on"
Wei Ran glanced at the political commissar Vigna without leaving a trace. After leveling the gun stand, he mounted the heavy machine gun and shield again and rearranged the background for the photo.
"Commissar Vinia, please help me record their names and addresses." Wei Ran said, handing over the notepad and pen.
"Comrade Zinovi is right, you do have the talent to be a journalist."
Winia came back to her senses, and while making fun of Wei Ran, she took the things in Wei Ran's hand and skillfully wrote down Sasha's name and address.
After he took a photo of Alyosha, Vinia also handed over the notepad and pen.
"Let me take a picture for you too."
Wei Ran took the notepad, opened it, and asked seriously, "So, Comrade Weinia, what is your full name?"
"Vinya Isaankovitch Sukhorukov"
While answering Wei Ran's question, Political Commissar Vinia straightened the boat cap on his head and stood next to the machine gun, putting one hand on the thick muzzle brake.
"Where's the address?" Wei Ran asked while writing.
After a moment of silence, Political Commissar Vinia replied, "My home has been occupied by the Germans... No, it has been destroyed by the Germans."
Hearing this, Wei Ran looked up at the other party, lowered his head and said, "The war will eventually end, and you will always return to your hometown."
"If I could live to that day, I would indeed go back," Political Commissar Vinia sighed, "I never thought I would live to that day."
"So what's your address?" Wei Ran asked again rather stubbornly.
"Stalino's..."
"Where?" Wei Ran's brows jumped, and he raised his head and looked at the other party in surprise.
"Stalino, what's wrong?" Political Commissar Vinia looked at Wei Ran in confusion.
"nothing"
After Wei Ran finished speaking, he sighed secretly. This place was obviously named after taking pictures of Stalin's horses. It was also one of the main battlefields on the Eastern Front.
But he knew more clearly that the geographical location represented by this place name had another name that was still associated with the war after the end of World War II - Donetsk!
Looking at Weiran suspiciously, Vinya gave a detailed address called "Berkhovka Village".
After carefully writing down this string of addresses, Wei Ran carefully took a single photo of Political Commissar Vinia, who seemed a little distracted.
"Victor, let me take a picture of you too."
Alyosha glanced at the camera in Wei Ran's hand with some envy, "How about you teach me how to use your camera by the way?"
"sure"
Wei Ran happily handed the camera to the other party and taught him how to take pictures.
"Stop your posture and look at the camera." Alyosha imitated the way he just looked at Wei Ran and commanded, "Please raise your head a little bit."
He patiently cooperated with the young man's instructions and took a single photo. Wei Ran took the camera handed to him with his front foot, and then heard the political commissar Vinia greeting him with his back foot, "Come here, we should discuss the next thing.
Already."
Hearing this, Wei Ran quickly put away his camera and pen under the cover of his backpack, and also stuffed the notepad into his backpack.
By the time he gathered around him, Political Commissar Vinia had already removed the artillery shield, and then took out a map from his pocket and spread it on it. After some searching, he used a small piece of diatomaceous earth to mark one of the locations.
Pressing hard left a white mark.
"This is where we are now"
As Vinya spoke, he drew another line not far away. After some rough measurements, he said, "This is the edge of the forest, next to a road. It was also the battlefield where we fought the Germans before, and
The straight-line distance between our current locations is only about three kilometers."
After these words were spoken, even Sasha and Alyosha realized Commissar Vinia's plan.
"Political Commissar, on which road do you want to set up an ambush?" Alyosha finally couldn't help but ask.
"This road connects to the village of Polpino that Platoon Commander Taras and others want to attack by surprise."
Political Commissar Vinia explained, "I just asked, they plan to attack the patrol outside the village tomorrow afternoon.
Once fighting breaks out over there, we will also start to ambush the Germans passing by on that road, and we will definitely be able to help them share some firepower."
Having said this, Vinia drew a circle around the diatomaceous earth shack where they had previously hidden and explained, "The distance between these two points is far enough. After the ambush, we will escape immediately. This way
Our hiding place in winter will also be much safer."
"Where's the machine gun?"
Alyosha asked, "Commissar, what about the machine gun? We won't be able to run fast with this big guy."
"Just leave it here"
Vinia said, "Sasha, you should lead the mule back as fast as possible and bring everyone except Father Dofero and our weapons. We will ambush you nearby."
.”
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "I'll go back right away!"
Before Sasha finished speaking, she had already stood up, and without saying a word, she took the two mules and started to walk back.
"etc"
Vinia stopped the other party, pointed to the machine gun next to him and said, "Remember to ask Father Doferro to help make a sledge that can drag it. Also remember to bring engineers to shovel it."
"I see!"
Sasha responded, climbed onto the back of a mule, shouted to the two mules and walked back.
"The next step is for the three of us," Vinia put away the map and said, "Let's go to the edge of the forest to see what's going on there."
"Is this machine gun placed here?" Alyosha asked. There are not only machine guns here, but also so much ammunition.
"Just get something to cover it with."
Vinya said, bent down to pick up the cloak that Wei Ran used as a floor mat, looked at it, and casually covered it on the machine gun. Following Wei Ran and Alyosha, they cut down pine branches from a distance to cover the machine gun.
On top.
After haphazardly hiding the machine gun, Vinia took out a pocket watch-style compass and looked at it, then walked out of the forest with Wei Ran and Alyosha.
Except for Alyosha, who carried a German submachine gun on his back, the only individual melee weapons in this group of three were the pistol on Vinia's waist, and the revolver hidden in a metal book by Wei Ran.
Fortunately, when preparing weapons for Taras and others yesterday, Wei Ran found nearly 30 rounds of countersunk bullets used in the Nagant revolver in the shack. Therefore, apart from reloading, which would be more time-consuming, it would not be a serious problem.
He didn't even have the strength to fight back.
They walked cautiously in the forest. Just as they finished the long and winding three kilometers and were about to walk out of the forest, the three of them smelled the slightly strong smell of corpses one after another. They were walking at the front.
Alyosha's shoulders were also held down by political commissar Wei Ran and Venia almost at the same time.
"What's wrong?" Alyosha took a step back and asked nervously.
"I'll do it," Wei Ran whispered under Alyosha's blank gaze.
"Be careful," Vinya responded, signaling Alyosha, who was at a loss, to step back some distance.
Standing at the spot where Alyosha was standing and walking less than half a meter forward, Wei Ran squatted down again, carefully pulled out the bush, and let his eyes follow the tight fishing line at the root of the bush that was covered with morning dew.
Start moving.
Soon, he found an M39 egg-shaped grenade in the crown of a low pine tree nearby. The portable key ring on the butt of the grenade was passed through a rope and tied to the branch of the pine tree.
There was even an extra tower of dry pine attached for camouflage.
And the tight fishing line is tightly entangled with the gray cover fixed on the fuse. The gray cover means that its fuse time is a full 10 seconds, which also implies that this is probably
The second blast of this booby trap.
Sure enough, he soon found another oval-shaped grenade in another waist-high bush not far away. This grenade was fixed in exactly the same way, but its fuse cover represented an instant explosion.
red.
Perhaps also to cover up the conspicuous red color, which is only the size of a fingernail, there are also birch leaves on the cover that are twisted together with the petioles on both sides.
After careful observation, Wei Ran took out his paratrooper knife and cut the fishing line, then untied both grenades, tightened the fuse caps and put them into his pocket.
However, even if the hidden dangers were eliminated, he was not in a hurry to move on. Instead, he checked carefully, then took a cautious step, and continued walking to the edge of the forest, which was only 20 meters away, while looking for more
of explosives.
Soon, as he stopped again and again, he also defused more explosives.
Among these explosives, there are both oval M39 grenades, the Germans' beloved garlic hammer M24, and even the F1 lemon grenades and anti-humanity RGD33 grenades equipped by the Soviet Red Army. Even in this short time, it is only more than 20 meters.
Within a short distance, he also saw two wooden box mines dug out.
But these explosives were nothing compared to what he encountered at the real edge of the forest.
Just looking at the three "cockroach whiskers" that were condensed with morning dew sticking out from the fallen leaves and the two hair pulling wires that were also condensed with dew on both sides, he knew that he had encountered an opponent that no demining soldier wanted to encounter -
The S-shaped mine, which American soldiers call "Bounce Betty"!
What’s even more deceptive is that the landmine in front of me still uses a crazy three-parallel fuse!
This so-called three-parallel fuze, in short, means that there are three fuze interfaces that can trigger landmine explosions. For example, the one in front of you is set as a companion, and the one in the middle with three cockroach whisker sensors is a pressure
hair.
No matter which one is hit, the mine buried in the humus layer and covered with fallen leaves will jump up and bite people in the crotch.
But what was even more crazier than the current mine was that he could roughly guess from the trip wires filled with morning dew that there were at least two other mines of the same type around him!
What can prove his guess is that less than fifty meters away from the forest, on the wreckage of a destroyed Soviet BT7 tank, there are several iron mines specially equipped with this kind of mines, each of which can hold three mines.
Box.
That is, about a hundred meters behind the wreckage of the tank, there is a road. He can even see that there is a sidecar motorcycle and several mules and half-track motorcycles on the road.
They were moving forward with artillery fire. A little further away, he also saw a No. 1 tank parked on the roadside with sandbags piled around it to serve as a fixed bunker and two camouflaged and reinforced No. 2 tanks.
On both sides of these three tanks are completely destroyed anti-tank cones. In front of the tanks, not only are there a table and a machine gun fortress made of sandbags, but there is also a person who is not sure who is directing traffic.
Still a chain dog showing off its power.
Of course, between everything outside the forest and Wei Ran and the three of them, there is still a barbed wire fence of unknown length.
And on the trees where these barbed wire fences are fixed, there are still many smelly or burnt corpses hanging. Most of these corpses are wearing Soviet clothes, but there are also some wearing civilian clothes, and on their necks,
Most of them also have some warning words to intimidate those brave men who try to attack the highway.
"It's a challenge..."
Wei Ran, who was muttering to himself, glanced at Vinia and the others who were about twenty or thirty meters away behind him, knowing that if they didn't open a safe passage, it would be impossible for them to sneak attack the enemies on that road.
After thinking for a while, he took out a few oval grenades from his bag, removed the carrying key rings from their tails, then took out the wire cutters from the metal book, and cut them into arcs.
of thin wire.
Gritting his teeth, Wei Ran carefully lay down in front of the first mine, and with absolutely gentle movements, he took away the fallen leaves used as camouflage one by one, and then carefully inserted the safety pin he had just made into his hair.
In the small hole on the fuse that has been sealed by soil.
It wasn't until the thin wire crossed the small hole in the fuse and emerged from the other end that he relaxed a little and started digging carefully from the side with his bayonet.
Fortunately, perhaps out of self-confidence, there was no additional disgusting ambush beneath this mine that was not buried deep enough.
But even so, he still did not dare to rashly cut off the other two trip wires that could also trigger the explosion. Instead, he followed the trip wires carefully and vigilantly and found another mine of the same style.
Repeating the same trick, Weiran pinned the pressure-sensitive fuse of this mine. Weiran found a third mine of the same style along another accompanying wire, and also solved an elastic device made of flexible branches halfway.
.
This is the disgusting thing about this set of booby traps. If he had just cut off any of the accompanying wires, this elastic device would immediately pull the trip wire of another mine.
It wasn't until the third mine was eliminated and it was confirmed that one of its trip wires was only tied to the root of a shrub and that there was no ambush directly below it that Wei Ran began the drastic dismantling work.
Finally, when he dug out all three landmines out of danger, it was already 10:30 in the morning, and the fog in the forest had already completely dissipated.
After taking a look at the stinking corpses hanging around, Wei Ran did not rush to let Vinya and Alyosha behind him come over. Instead, he used wire cutters to cut a gap in the barbed wire fence and carefully worked alone.
Climbed out.
After crawling on his hands and knees to the edge of the wreckage of the tank, Wei Ran finally understood why the Germans had laid barbed wire and mines here.
Just over a hundred meters away, the three tanks were guarding a three-way intersection. One of the road signs with a corpse on it pointed in the direction that read "To Bryansk" in Russian and later in German respectively.
But at the other two intersections, because the road signs faced away from him, he had no idea what was written.
"Transportation hub..."
Wei Ran smacked his lips, this place was indeed worth a vote, but the broken anti-tank cone in the distance also made him realize that this was probably the location where the picture in the metal book was frozen.
