When Wei Ran returned to the temporary camp, in addition to their sleds, Yog and others had built a snow wall to block the wind around the low tent. At this time, the four of them were wearing
Hanno sewed sleeping bags and huddled in the tent chatting.
"Victor, you are finally back. Where is Major Schubert?"
As Yog spoke, he asked the others to move away and said enthusiastically, "Come and take a rest. Thanks to the sleeping bag made by Hanno, it makes him feel as warm as in the cabin. Also,
I have already fed the sled dogs."
"Major Schubert will be back soon."
Wei Ran took out his sleeping bag, took off his one-piece thermal insulation suit and got into the tent. He lay down in the position given to him by the others and said, "If you are in the mood to chat, why not get some sleep as soon as possible. The major said, we will be there in two hours
We’re about to leave.”
"Victor, are the British chasing us?" Hanno asked a more critical question.
Hearing this, Wei Ran hesitated for a moment and then nodded, "Major Schubert has repelled them, but no one knows whether they will continue to catch up."
"Victor, we need a compass." Carsten suddenly whispered, "Can you find a way to get it for us?"
After a slight hesitation, Wei Ran glanced at Yog and Hanno, who were secretly looking at him, as well as Dr. Cross, who remained silent throughout.
Just when he opened his mouth to answer this question, Major Schubert stopped at the entrance of the tent on his skis, and Carsten immediately made a silent gesture towards Wei Ran.
Soon, Major Schubert came in holding his sleeping bag and ordered, "Hanno, you go on guard duty and wake everyone up in two hours."
"good"
Hanno responded without thinking, got out of the warm sleeping bag he had sewn without any complaint, held it in his arms and climbed out of the tent.
Schubert's arrival also caused silence in the tent, and soon Dr. Jörg started snoring.
Seeing that no one was in the mood to chat, Wei Ran simply tightened the "hood" of his sleeping bag and fell asleep after a while.
When he was woken up again, the wind and snow outside the tent had weakened a lot, and he could even see the faint starlight and the gorgeous aurora in the distance.
"It's time for us to go"
Schubert got out of his sleeping bag before he finished speaking, "There may be a big snowstorm tonight. We must try to travel as far as possible before the snowstorm comes."
"Major"
Wei Ran, who also got up, asked directly after the other party finished speaking, "I need to know how far we are from our destination."
Before the frowning Schubert could speak, he immediately added, "I am a chef. I have to plan the consumption of ingredients and the food consumption of the sled dogs. In fact, the food we carry is not much.
"
"From here, it's about 300 to 400 kilometers,"
Major Schubert replied, "It will take us 4 days at the fastest to reach our destination. If there is a big snowstorm in the next few days, it may take a week."
"So we don't have enough food," Dr. Yoger said with a frown.
"Continuing forward, there is a breeding ground for emperor penguins."
Schubert said while putting on his thermal clothing, "We will try to get there before the storm so that we can get enough food supplies, and then we can walk the rest of the way."
"Major"
Carsten asked excitedly, "Can I understand that we will spend the entire winter there? I mean, I found..."
"You can understand it this way for the time being."
Before Carsten could finish his question, Schubert replied, "Unless we receive new orders by radio."
Hearing this, Carsten looked at each other excitedly and the equally excited Dr. Cross, and then suddenly suggested, "We can throw away some things to speed up the speed. Major, we can throw..."
"It's not time to throw away anything yet, let's pack up camp and set off."
Before he finished speaking, Major Schubert, who had changed his clothes, had already put his sleeping bag into a canvas bag and walked towards his sleigh.
Upon seeing this, Dr. Jorg winked at the two Carstens, and then everyone immediately cleared the camp, shouted to the sleigh, and under the leadership of Major Schubert, chased the two oil lamps and continued on the cold Antarctic.
Heading towards an unknown destination in the night.
This time, Major Schubert's speed was obviously much faster. At the same time, he would inevitably stop from time to time, taking out the compass and map again and again to make calculations.
At nine o'clock that night, before Major Schubert could lead everyone to find the emperor penguin breeding ground he mentioned, the snowstorm came a few hours earlier than he expected.
"where to!"
Major Schubert pointed to a raised snow hill in the distance that was only five or six meters high and shouted, "Let's go there and set up camp! Quick!"
Without any need for him to say hello, several sleds drove over, dragged by the dogs.
After hastily securing the sleigh, everyone who was almost stunned by the wind along the way picked up their snow shovels at the urging of Major Schubert and began to busy building wind walls and setting up tents.
Soon, six sleds formed a "sun"-shaped wall base next to the snow wall, and two tents were set up next to each other.
After driving the dogs into one of the tents, Dr. Yog took out a bucket of pre-cut, cooked and frozen meat from his sled and fed it to the hard-working dogs one by one.
In the tent on the other side, the others each dug out a Gemstone oil stove, or used lunch boxes to heat cans for two people, or simply boiled a lunch box of snow, and at the same time reached over and drank it.
The heat released when an oil stove burns.
"Major, how far are we from the penguin breeding ground?" Carsten asked.
“It’s close here”
While grinding coffee beans slowly, Major Schubert replied, "After the snowstorm stops, our sled marks will be smoothed out. I will go look for them then and wait until we have replenished enough food."
Before setting off, we will be stationed here temporarily."
Having said this, Schubert looked up at Weiran and Hanno, "Victor, Hanno, after the snowstorm stops, you are responsible for setting up the radio station."
"No problem!" Hanno responded immediately.
"Major"
Dr. Cross and others also accepted the task arranged by Schubert, and then asked thoughtfully, "I want to know if that thing is in danger and if it has been snatched away."
"No"
Schubert said firmly, "It is still in our hands. According to the communication two days ago, it has been delivered safely."
"That's good, that's good!"
Dr. Cross breathed a sigh of relief and immediately smiled. He even said in a joking tone, "Major, how about giving me a cup of coffee later?"
"These coffees are for Victor"
Major Schubert said while grinding coffee, "He will be on duty all night, so don't take his quota. Victor, after dinner, you go to another tent to watch the night."
I’m such a naughty grandma, thank you!
Wei Ran, who accepted the job without hesitation, cursed in his heart. Night duty in such an environment was not an easy job, let alone sharing a tent with dogs.
The only thing he was lucky about was that, judging from the current situation, there was a high probability that they would not have to continue traveling after the night watch, and he might still have a chance to sleep by then.
Soon, when Dr. Yog also got into the tent after feeding the dog, the canned food in the lunch box was also boiled.
He poured half of the canned meat into the lid of the lunch box and gave it to Dr. Yog. Wei Ran broke off the portion of bread and threw it into the canned meat soup, stirred it up and started eating.
However, Dr. Yog was not in a hurry to eat. Instead, he waited patiently for the water in the lunch box to boil, filled his own kettle and the sanitary kettle with hot water, and then slowly picked up the lunch box filled with canned meat.
cover.
After finishing dinner in silence, Wei Ran saw that everyone still had no intention of chatting, so he simply got out of the tent, wiped the lunch box clean with snow, and threw it back into his hiking bag along with the small oil stove.
"Victor, coffee."
Major Schubert pointed to the beautiful coffee pot on his oil stove, "It's yours, and you'll have to work hard tonight."
"Thank you Major"
Wei Ran thanked him gratefully, left the tent with the coffee pot, and pulled his sleigh at the door into the tent where the dogs lived next door.
Although the smell in this tent is not very good, it is not much colder. After all, there are so many dogs guarding it, which are like small stoves.
After kicking the dogs away to make way for himself, Wei Ran patted the snow off the sled, placed a few pieces of luggage that were easy to move on the side of the sled, wrapped himself in a sleeping bag and sat on it, then opened the sled.
hiking bag.
Except for the two boxes of black tea he stuffed in on the way, the rest of the bag was standard equipment for mountain soldiers and two cans of meat for emergency use.
In other words, not only did he own the backpack containing these things, but Schubert also owned it, and Hanno also owned it. On the other hand, Dr. Jörg and the other three had their luggage packed in suitcases.
This led to Wei Ran's doubts before entering this historical episode: Why didn't Major Schubert have a mountaineering bag next to him when he fell into a crevice in the ice?
Did he not take it with him like when he ambush the pursuers before, or was it taken away by someone? If it was the latter, who could it be?
After some doubts, Wei Ran discovered that in this six-person team, including himself, except for Schubert and himself, a bystander who was restricted by the metal book and could not kill, everyone seemed to have a reason to kill him, who had the power to control only one person.
Some "regulators" of two firearms!
After thinking hard to no avail, he simply lit the oil stove again, reheated the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup.
After just taking a sip, he couldn't help but secretly cursed for being stingy. That bastard Schubert didn't even add sugar to this pot of coffee!
