On the street at the southern end of the small town of Rothenburg, Wei Ran and Phil chatted about their experiences since the last meeting while walking toward the outside of the city.
Compared with the experience of being captured by a German reporter and several Italians in the description of military service in the North African desert fabricated by Weihan, Phil who stayed on the Western Front battlefield had achieved remarkable results in the war.
This pharmacist who became a navigator had a terrifying resume of sending away 7 captains, 4 radio operators and 19 machine gunners in the past five years. He flew through almost the entire World War II without any damage, and flew dozens of
He participated in the bombing of military targets in Germany, France and Belgium for several times, and even participated in anti-submarine missions and air strike missions for landing operations.
But compared to these, the navigator chose to retire on the day when the Allied forces entered Berlin, completely leaving the battlefield where there was no longer any suspense.
We walked and chatted all the way, raising the camera again and again but rarely pressing the shutter button. Wei had been secretly observing the orchards and schools passing along the way, guessing where Julian's wife's home and school were.
Phil, who was equally absent-minded, was also observing the house numbers of every building he passed along the way, trying to find the address on Julian's letter.
Finally, when Wei Ran once again saw an apple orchard full of red apples and a two-story wooden house with a fenced courtyard through the viewfinder of the camera, Phil also stopped abruptly.
“That’s it”
Phil looked at the lonely wooden house and said, "That's the delivery address for Mr. Julian's letter."
"Should we go over and take a look now?" Wei Ran stopped and asked.
After hesitating for a moment, Phil pressed the backpack slung on his shoulder, finally sighed and said, "Now that you have found this place, let's go take a look."
Hearing this, Wei Ran walked towards the orchard on the roadside.
However, just when the two of them were less than five meters away from the one-meter-high fence, they saw a person wearing a long skirt in the corner of the small wooden house facing the sun.
A beautiful woman wearing a sun hat sat on a bench holding her slightly bulging belly, looking blankly at an apple tree in the distance filled with fruit, looking at some men or women of different ages, and
Some half-grown children worked together to pick the fruits one by one and put them in the basket.
"Who are you looking for?"
Just when Wei Ran and Phil were looking at each other, a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties and pushing a cart came over from the orchard and greeted Wei Ran and Phil enthusiastically.
call.
"Excuse me..."
Phil glanced at Wei Ran before continuing, "Excuse me, is this Mrs. Barbara Klinsmann's home?"
"Who are you?" After putting down the trolley, the man subconsciously glanced at the woman sitting on the bench not far away.
"us..."
"Can we go across the road and have a chat?"
Wei Ran grabbed the topic and asked, "Also, can you give us two apples to eat?"
"Of course, of course."
Before the man finished speaking, he had already handed over two big, red apples to Wei Ran and Phil. Then he looked at the pregnant woman sitting on the bench in the distance again, and finally pushed open the fence door and came out.
He followed Wei Ran and Phil to the other side of the road.
"Is that Mrs. Barbara?"
While Wei Ran asked, he also took out the paratrooper's gravity knife from the metal book, took out the sharp stainless steel blade, and slowly peeled off the increasingly long peel of the apple in his hand.
Glancing at the "fruit knife" in Wei Ran's hand, the man's eyes shrank, and after a moment of hesitation he replied, "Yes, she is indeed Mrs. Barbara von Klinsmann. You, what are you doing?"
who is it?"
"Feng?"
Wei Ran glanced at the other party suspiciously, and once again shook the paratrooper knife in his hand before Phil could speak, "We are Julian's teammates. We served on the same plane, but as far as I know
, there is no Feng in Julian’s name.”
"That arrogant man didn't bother to add Feng to his name." The young man sighed, "I have already guessed that you must be related to him."
"So you are?" Phil hesitated for a moment and continued to ask, "You and Mrs. Barbara..."
"We are all colleagues of Mrs. Barbara."
The man pointed to the orchard behind him, "All the adults you see busy in the orchard, including me, are teachers who once taught in the same school as Mrs. Barbara. As for those who came to help on the weekends,
The children are all students of us and Mrs. Barbara."
"Mrs. Barbara remarried?" Wei Ran said, and gestured to his abdomen with the hand holding the paratrooper's knife.
"No"
The man sighed, took out a crumpled cigarette case from his pocket with trembling hands, took out a cigarette from it and put it into his mouth to light it. After taking a few puffs, he said, "Please don't doubt Mrs. Barbara's loyalty.
, her belly...she..."
Before he finished speaking, the man had tears streaming down his face and said angrily in a hoarse voice, "It's the British who occupied Bremen."
"This is impossible!" Phil exclaimed subconsciously in German.
"impossible?"
The man with tears on his face looked at Phil with a sad smile, "What is impossible? The British who occupied Bremen, those proud gentlemen who patrolled the territory like big roosters in search of spoils, discovered that they were hiding in the orchard.
Barbara in.
See that house?
Yes, it was in that house that 12 victorious British soldiers killed Mrs. Barbara and another math teacher who was hiding there again and again throughout the day.
There was nothing we could do, we weren't even allowed into the orchard to take away Mrs. Barbara's son! The five-year-old child was locked outside and listened to his mother screaming in the room!
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Where were you at that time?
Were you celebrating the downing of a few more British planes, or were you hiding in the air raid shelters dreaming that we could win that stupid war? Where were you! Tell me, where were you!"
"Sorry, we...we're late."
As if his backbone had been taken away, Phil knelt down weakly on the side of the road, muttering to himself over and over again.
The red apple in his hand also rolled to the ground, rolled to the opposite side, and rolled to the feet of a little blond boy wearing ill-fitting clothes. He picked it up again, wiped it clean with his sleeves, and walked staggeringly.
He walked over and carefully handed it to Phil.
"His name is Attila"
The man with tears on his face choked up and said, "Attila Klinsmann, without that stupid, ridiculous and redundant Feng, is the child of Mrs. Barbara and that arrogant pilot Mr. Julian."
"Attila, Attila"
Phil, who was kneeling on the ground, stretched out his hands tremblingly, trying to hug the slightly reserved child who was standing one meter away.
"Uncle, eat the apple." Attila finally plucked up the courage and handed the big, red apple over to him, "My apples are so sweet."
"I eat, I eat"
Phil, who was completely overwhelmed by guilt, took the apple from Attila's hand and ate it with big mouthfuls, but he couldn't stop the tears from falling down.
"Uncle, you eat too." Attila raised his head and looked at Wei Ran, who was clenching his teeth and keeping silent. "My apples are the sweetest, I swear!"
"I eat"
Wei Ran used a paratrooper's knife to carefully peel off the last piece of peel on the apple, and then took a big bite.
The sweet and crisp texture is indeed delicious, but this delicious apple is particularly difficult to swallow.
"Uncle, are you here to buy Apple?"
Attila mustered up the courage to continue asking, "Please buy our apples, or buy my cider. We need a lot of money."
"Good kids, what do you need money for?" Phil asked, wiping away tears.
"I don't know either"
Attila lowered his head and said, "Uncles and aunts said that mother needs a lot of money."
"Good boy, please go back and help pick apples first."
The man wiped away his tears and said, "I'll find a way to get these two uncles to buy all the apples and cider."
"Um!"
Attila nodded vigorously, and then asked cautiously, "They... they won't bully mom, right?"
"No, it won't be." Phil assured in a panic, "I swear, no one will dare to bully your mother again."
"Thank you." The little guy bowed politely, then turned and walked towards the orchard on the other side of the road.
"At the end of this year, Mrs. Barbara's baby will be born."
The man standing next to Wei Ran and Phil sighed and explained, "Also, winter is coming, but let alone coal burning, there isn't even a thick enough quilt in that house."
"us..."
Phil took the half-eaten apple and asked in a hoarse voice, "We, can we go see Mrs. Barbara? I have here... I have Julian's letter to her, and
...and some of his relics."
"You should have come earlier"
The man sighed, and finally took a step forward, walking to the other side of the road and saying, "Come with me..."
"Are you going to give that pistol to Mrs. Barbara too?" Wei Ran, who had already eaten the core of the fruit, asked in Latin.
"That's Julian's relic," Phil said thoughtfully, "but I'm not sure whether I should give it to her."
"If you're going to give it to her, at least empty the chamber and magazine."
Wei Ran continued to speak in Latin, "I guess, if it weren't for waiting for the news that Julian might still be alive, Mrs. Barbara might..."
"I...I know"
Phil gritted his teeth, took out the pistol from his arms, pulled the slide again and again, emptied the few bullets inside, and then stuffed it back into his arms under the watch of the man. At the same time, step by step
He followed the other person through the fence gate and walked to the bench.
"Mrs. Barbara is a music teacher, the gentlest music teacher I have ever seen."
The man who brought the two of them over said in a hoarse voice, "But ever since those damn British came, she...she has never spoken or sung anything again."
"Why is this happening..."
Phil muttered with a pale face, then turned to look at Wei Ran, only to find that the latter was squatting down, keeping the same height as Mrs. Barbara, and pressed the shutter of the camera.
"What are you doing?" Phil asked with a frown.
"I don't want to leave any regrets. I don't know when I will see Mrs. Barbara next time, and I don't know if Attila will forget his mother in the future. Since I have the opportunity, why not take more photos of her?"
?”
Wei Ran said seriously, and at the same time, he changed the angle slightly and raised the camera again. Just like before, he deliberately let the viewfinder only cover Mrs. Barbara's upper body and ignored her bulging belly.
"Sir, please take some photos of Attila and Mrs. Barbara." The man who brought them begged.
"sure"
"Can you just say that as long as you take a photo with them, you are willing to buy all the apples and cider here?"
The man considered and asked, "Of course, I'm not asking you to actually buy them. We will find a way to sell these things. I just hope that sensible child can be happy."
"no problem"
Wei Ran nodded again, and using the British trench coat as a cover, he took out the kettle from the metal book, and handed it to the other party along with all the marks in his wallet, "Also, help me fill this kettle.
Mrs. Barbara's Cider Bar."
"We helped brew those wines."
The man took the flask and money and said, "The only thing she can do now is to take care of Attila."
After saying that, without waiting for Wei Ran or Phil to say anything, the man greeted Attila who was not far away, and then walked into the wooden house carrying a kettle.
"Let's wait for a while"
Wei Ran, who had already had a premonition of something, said to Phil, "Let me take a photo of mother and son first."
"Okay...okay"
Phil nodded, staggered not far away and sat on the steps of the wooden house, chewing on the apple in his hand that was about to squeeze his fingers into the pulp.
After a while, the man walked out of the wooden house carrying Wei Ran's kettle. In his other hand, he also carried a tin kettle and two glass cups.
“Try it”
As the man spoke, he first handed the kettle to Wei Ran, then placed the two cups on the table beside the door, and filled them with clear cider from the tin jug in his hand.
“Let’s have a drink”
While Wei Ran was speaking, he had already picked up the cup and took a sip of the apple cider, which was so sweet that you couldn't help but smile, but also so bitter that you couldn't help but cry.
When the two of them drank the two glasses of fruit wine in silence, the man also finished telling Attila the excuse he had agreed with Wei Ran in advance.
When Wei Ran squatted by the bench again, Attila also sat next to Mrs. Barbara, and the latter, with a dull look on her face, naturally held Attila in her arms.
Sighing secretly, Wei Ran used the camera's viewfinder to cover the upper bodies of the mother and son, and silently pressed the shutter button.
To be on the safe side, Wei Ran took two more photos. He nodded towards Phil, then stood up and took a step back. He took out a few more dollars and handed them to the man who had been standing next to him, "Please take Attila to the city."
, take him to buy a set of clean and beautiful clothes."
Hearing this, the man trembled, obviously aware of something, but in the end, he sighed and nodded vigorously, "I will take him to buy clothes right now."
"Then take him to the hotel at this address to have a rest."
Wei Ran also handed the note with the hotel address in his wallet to the other party, "Tell the boss to let him rest in Victor or Mr. Phil's room. If the boss doesn't agree,
Just find a young man named Hans von Basten and he will arrange it for you."
"good"
The man nodded, picked up the young and ignorant Attila and walked towards his colleagues in the distance.
"Did you have a premonition?" Phil's voice became hoarse.
"Well," Wei Ran nodded and said almost indifferently, "it might be a relief for Mrs. Barbara."
"Yeah, it's not a relief." Phil sighed, "Aside from causing one tragedy after another, what's the point of this ridiculous war?"
"I have no idea"
After Wei Ran finished speaking, he turned around and left. He had had enough of this feeling of powerlessness that he knew the outcome but could not change at all.
Even this time, even if he can change history, for that poor woman, what is about to happen next may be the best ending for her.
After a moment of waiting, two carriages were the first to take away the children who came to help during the weekend.
After waiting for a while, a woman who looked to be about forty or fifty years old took away the young Attila. Mrs. Barbara's colleagues all stopped what they were doing and came over.
Looking for help again and looking at Wei Ran, who was smoking alone in the distance, Phil finally opened his backpack and took out the German kettle filled with brandy and the extra tightly buckled German lunch box from the backpack.
In this quiet, fruity little yard, Phil slowly described his encounter with Julian in German, describing everything that happened in that buoy, especially the relationship between him and Julian.
The agreement on "wife mailbox" and the discussion on how to be a good father in the future.
There was also the death of Julian, the crazy French woman, and... his wife who was about to give birth but died in a German bombing, and even Hans, the little thief Hans met on the train.
I don’t know when it started, but Barbara, who was expressionless, burst into tears.
At some point, this music teacher, who had endured the ugliest aspects of war, began to sing the song Lily Marlene.
At some point, her colleagues, with tears rolling down their cheeks, sang together the song Lily Marlene that they sang in the trenches on the front line, in the Axis positions, and in the Allied positions.
After a long time, when Wei Ran pressed the shutter again, the young woman with a slightly bulging belly solemnly bowed to Phil and Wei Ran, and said in a pleasant voice, "Mr. Phil, Mr. Victor
, thank you for being friends with my husband Julian Klinsmann in that environment.
Thank you for accompanying him through the last period of his life, thank you for giving him the last dignity of a soldier, and thank you even more for sending back his relics and letters after the war."
"Mrs. Barbara..." Phil, who was also in tears, stood up in a panic and tried to say something guiltily, "I..."
"Please try the apples that Julian and I grew."
Barbara reached out and picked out a large, red apple from the cart not far away. Then she picked up the paratrooper knife belonging to Julian that Phil had sent back, and skillfully threw it out.
The blade skillfully cut out the long peel.
"Julian is a nobleman, or rather, he is the son of a nobleman."
Barbara said to herself, "He is a special noble. Although he is a little childish and arrogant, he respects everyone equally, whether he is the grandson of an earl, the nephew of a baron, or just a butcher.
.No, rather than respect, it is better to say that he despises everyone equally."
"He was a true gentleman," Phil said with a sigh.
"Eat the apple"
Barbara handed the peeled apple to Phil, then picked up the second one and peeled it, "He never cared about the status of aristocrat, but after getting married, he insisted on adding the word "noble" to my name.
VON, he said he didn’t want to be a noble, but he didn’t mind letting me experience being a noble wife.
Ha! Just add three letters in the middle of the name to become a noble. It is really simple and saves effort, but it is a waste of ink."
"Mrs. Barbara..."
"I'm fine"
Barbara waved her hand towards Phil and said with a bright smile, "The wait is worth it. I finally got the news about Julian. This is something worth being happy about."
As she spoke, Barbara walked up to Wei Ran and let him press another shutter towards her. She waited until he put away the camera before handing over the second peeled apple.
"Please try it. I guess Julian must have shown off our apples to you."
"Thank you, Mrs. Barbara von Klinsmann."
Wei Ran took the apple with both hands and said in a very formal manner. The latter also raised the corners of his skirt and bowed slightly in response. While straightening up, he said, "Gentlemen, please wait outside for a moment. I want to go back and change my clothes."
Clothes, can you put away Julian's things first? Don't worry, I'll be out soon before you finish eating the apples."
"certainly"
Wei Ran tightened his grip on the apple in his hand and said with a normal expression, "There's no rush, we can wait forever."
"Thanks"
Mrs. Barbara bowed again, put the paratrooper knife belonging to Julian into her pocket, then picked up the can with fingers and sugar that Phil sent, and picked up the pistol without bullets.
, also picked up the German kettle containing the brandy in the buoy, and the letter written by Julian himself.
Watching Barbara walk into the room and close the door with a creak, Phil stood up staggeringly, walked to Wei Ran's side, took the cigarette from the latter, and lit it with difficulty.
Take a sip.
"So you two are British."
The man who first received them said indifferently, "Look at the good things you have done, don't you represent justice? Is this your justice?"
"Don't we represent justice?" Phil asked blankly.
"Even if it happens again ten thousand times"
Wei Ran looked at the man and said seriously, "Even if we are pushed into the toilet and drowned a million times, we will repeat every combat mission we performed in the war a million times. This is
justice."
"What about Barbara?"
A woman who looked to be in her fifties came over and asked, "Is the child in her belly also righteous?"
"That's not justice"
Wei Ran sighed and said, "That was the ugliest aspect of the war that was over."
In the long silence, everyone seemed to have lost interest in talking or even attacking the two "Englishmen". They just hung their heads and sat or stood waiting patiently.
"There seems to be a fire in the house!"
Just at this moment, the crowd let out an exclamation of surprise, and Wei Ran also looked up at the wooden house not far away, and saw the steaming fire in the second floor window.
"boom!"
When a crisp gunshot sounded from the wooden house, Wei Ran knew that another tragedy that had been doomed for a long time had come to an end...
