Deep in the cave where a "state of peace" had been temporarily achieved, Wei Ran and the three of them lay on the blankets assigned to them and fell asleep one after another covered with tattered blankets.
Compared with the "relaxation" of the three of them, Mahbubu in the distance was still working hard, holding a wave of sand to guard the children around him.
In this delicate balance, even Hakim, who was tossing and turning, couldn't bear the fatigue of the past few days and gradually fell asleep.
When Wei Ran and others were woken up by the baby's cries, the man holding a gun to warn them had turned into Habibullah, and the sky outside the cave had become extremely dark.
Looking around, Multaza was busy boiling goat milk for the baby and Ayana by the campfire.
Hakim was performing the evening prayer alone at the entrance of the cave, while Mahbub was sleeping soundly beside the bonfire.
"You guys are awake"
Seeing the three of them sitting up one after another, Habibullah immediately brought an enamel pot filled with broth and a piece of naan bread. "We don't have much food. This is all we have for dinner."
"It doesn't matter"
Kirill was still the first to speak, "Before eating, let Victor and I change the dressings of the wounded."
"Alright"
Habibullah nodded, "Who do you plan to start with?"
“Let’s start with Ayana.”
Wei Ran said, "Her situation is the most serious, let's start with her first."
"Come with me"
Habibullah took a step back as he spoke, and at the same time he cautiously held the weapon originally hanging on his shoulder, and at the same time reminded his sister on the other side of the curtain in Pashto.
After a moment of waiting, Ayana on the other side of the felt curtain shouted in slightly hoarse Persian, "Let them come in."
It was only then that Habibullah handed a medical kit to Wei Ran, and he followed behind holding up the submachine pistol that belonged to Ruslan. At the same time, Hakim also raised it and picked it up.
The AK74 was aimed at Ruslan who was staying by the campfire from a distance.
In this regard, neither Wei Ran nor Hakim said anything, they just took the medical bag and walked into the curtain.
At this time, Ayana was still lying on the stone, but there were a few extra sheepskins spread under the felt. Beside her, Qiaoya and Soraya were each holding a wrapped baby.
The tight little baby was patted and comforted gently.
"Let me check the wound."
As Wei Ran spoke, he had already opened the medical bag. As expected, there were no medical instruments such as scalpels and hemostats in the medical bag, only various medicines and bandages.
Wei Ran didn't take it seriously. He gently opened a clean towel covering Ayana's belly, then carefully opened the gauze and began to check the wound and change the dressing.
At the same time, Kirill, who was born in a major, inquired in detail about Ayana's physical feelings, food and water intake, and even the eating status of the two babies. By the way, he also helped the mother and son take their temperatures.
"I'm going to give you another shot."
Kirill waited for Wei Ran to finish his work and took out an antibiotic from the medical bag. At the same time, he explained, "The sanitary conditions here are too poor. You are very likely to get infected. All I can do is give you an injection."
Injection of antibiotics.”
As he spoke, he opened the ampoule, sucked out the medicine and started intramuscular injection. At the same time, he carefully instructed various precautions, as if he had forgotten that he was just a prisoner.
"Thank you... thank you, thank you." Ayana said weakly.
Kirill just smiled, put away the medical bag, and walked out of the curtain with Wei Ran.
"Tell me your predictions"
Kirill said in Russian, and after thinking about it, he changed to Farsi, "I mean, her physical condition."
“Thanks for the cold weather”
Wei Ran answered truthfully, "The chance of her wound becoming infected is not very high."
Hearing this, Habibullah, who was following them with a gun, breathed a sigh of relief. This was probably the only good news for them.
"Who is next, you or Comrade Mahboob?"
Kirill left the decision to Habibullah behind him, "Or our companions?"
"My father," Habibullah said.
Hearing this, the two Wei Ran wisely stopped and waited patiently for Habibullah to wake up his father. Then they stepped forward and started changing the dressing, and Kirill was still responsible for injecting antibiotics.
After Mahbub lay down again, the two took the initiative to walk to Hakim's side. After Habibullah handed the weapon to the other party, Wei Ran also changed the dressing for him.
After he picked up the submachine pistol again, the two finally changed the dressing on Ruslan's wound and also injected antibiotics.
After completing the dressing changes for all the wounded in such a vigilant and tense confrontation, Weiran and Kirill watched Habibullah take away the medical kit, then sat down by the campfire again and took Ruslan's hand.
Serve them mutton soup.
At the same time, Multaza also put the boiled and cooled goat's milk into the felt curtain, then sat with Hakim and quickly finished the food that belonged to them.
"Habibullah, take good care of them."
Hakim stood up and said, "Let's go find the guerrillas."
"be safe"
Habibullah said and handed a flashlight to the other party.
"We will be back before dawn"
Hakim took the flashlight and put it on his belt. He and Multaza each carried an AK74 rifle on their backs, and each led a donkey out of the cave.
As he left, Kirill was obviously relieved. Obviously, in his eyes, Hakim was far less easy to greet than the relatively calm and rational Habibullah.
"Let's talk about anything."
Kirill whispered as he fiddled with his tiny camera.
"What to talk about?"
Ruslan asked as he lay down against a stone, but in fact he focused all his attention on the wine bottle he had just taken out.
“Anything is fine”
Wei Ran also half-lyed against a stone, casually started a topic and asked, "Why did your daughter give you a wine flask?"
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "This is not originally filled with vodka"
Ruslan brought the jug to his mouth and sipped the remaining alcoholic flavor inside. He smacked his lips and said, "This was originally filled with honey. My father was a forest ranger and he raised a lot of honey in the forest.
, even this hip flask originally belonged to him.
Before I went to the battlefield, my father, a World War II veteran who participated in the Great Patriotic War, gave me this wine bottle. This wine bottle was captured from a German captain when he participated in the Battle of Minsk.
"
Having said this, Ruslan took off the leather cover on the wine bottle, pointed to the traces remaining on it and said, "He won a Patriotic War Medal Class II, and the iron piece was originally inlaid by him.
above this.
But when he gave the jug to me, he took off the medal, and my daughter Faina helped me fill the jug with honey.
I always thought he wanted me to put the medal I got in this war on it, until...it wasn't until I came to Afhan that I realized that maybe he didn't want me to give up the wine.
The medal appears on the pot again."
Ruslan shook his head when he said this and said in a rather apologetic tone, "My daughter hopes that I can stop drinking."
Having said this, Ruslan looked at the felt curtain not far away, "That simple little guy thought that I came to Afhan to help them. If I didn't come here in the form of war, she might be with those children.
Let’s be friends.”
"These are not things we can decide"
Kirill, who was lying on the felt, looked up at the dome of the cave and murmured, "At the beginning of the war, I thought my father was here to help them, until...until I came here as a soldier.
After I came here, I realized that this was not the case.”
"These are not things we can decide," Ruslan repeated what the other party had just said.
"How long has it been since you last seen them?" Wei Ran asked, changing the subject.
"Five months and 18...no, 19 days."
Ruslan gave his own answer, "I returned to Minsk five months ago to attend my father's funeral. That was the last time I saw my wife and daughter."
"I heard that your wife participated in the treatment of rescue workers in the Chernobyl accident?" Wei Ran asked.
Turning to look at Kirill, Ruslan nodded, "That experience was also a disaster for her. She suffered from severe psychological trauma after finishing the treatment work. Now they have moved from Jifu to Minsk.
She is alive, but her mental state is very poor."
"I remember you are going back soon?" Kirill asked, still looking above his head.
"yes"
Ruslan said while putting the leather protective cover back on the wine bottle, "I should have gone back next month."
"You will go back," Kirill murmured, "We will all go back."
"I'm afraid these people don't know where to go for prisoner exchange." Ruslan obviously had no hope for this, but at the same time lowered his voice, "We should still find a way ourselves."
"What do you have in mind?" Kirill asked in a low voice.
"We need to get weapons, and we need to get at least three donkeys."
Ruslan lowered his voice, "We don't even need to kill them. As long as we have weapons and donkeys, and put on their clothes, we will be sure to leave here."
"Are you trying to say, let's do it while we're changing their dressings?" Kirill changed the communication method to text written on the sand.
"We need to gain their trust first," Ruslan also wrote. "This will take some time. When they relax their vigilance and let those children take care of us, maybe..."
Before Ruslan finished speaking, the roar of fighter jets was faintly heard outside the cave.
Just as the three of them looked towards the entrance of the cave, Habibullah reacted very quickly and lifted up a blanket, covering it with sand and soil that had been piled on the blanket in advance to put out the bonfire.
Immediately afterwards, he handed the weapon to Mahbub who woke up, and he quickly ran to the three guards and extinguished the bonfire by covering it with another bag of damp sand wrapped in a blanket.
"Don't move!"
Habibullah reminded, "If you move, I will have no choice but to shoot!"
While speaking, he had already distanced himself from Wei Ran and the other three, and took the Bobosha submachine gun handed over by Qiao Ya.
For a moment, there was only the faint light provided by an oil lamp lit in the deepest part of the cave. However, the light of this weak oil lamp just enveloped the three Wei Ran people lying on the ground, forcing them to
raised his hand.
Also taking advantage of the gesture of raising his hand, Ruslan scratched out the few remaining Russian words on the sand without leaving a trace.
After a while, the roar of the helicopter completely disappeared, but no one relaxed their vigilance.
After waiting for about ten minutes, the roar of a helicopter was heard outside the cave, which undoubtedly made everyone in the cave even more nervous.
Fortunately, neither the fighter jet flying over the suspected bait nor the group of helicopters behind seemed to have discovered the cave, which was at least good news for Mahbub and others.
But the explosion that followed faintly from a distance made everyone, including the three Weiran people, tense up.
It wasn't until half an hour later that the night sky finally became completely quiet. Mahbub immediately directed Habibullah and the children to start building a barrier to cover the entrance of the cave with felts, stones, wooden sticks and other objects.
In order to prevent the fire from being exposed, Habibullah even climbed above the entrance of the cave and covered the naturally formed skylight with thick felt.
At the same time, the two little girls finally rekindled the fire and brought charcoal to Wei Ran and the other three.
When the cave was illuminated by the bonfire again, Mahbub also put down the submachine gun in his hand, and the two sides, at least on the surface, returned to a peaceful state.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Because they are far away, Wei Ran cannot hear the conversation between Mahbub and Habibullah next to the felt curtain, but it is interesting to see their body movements when they look outside the cave from time to time.
You know, they are worried about Hakim who is out looking for the guerrillas.
"Go on to sleep"
Kirill whispered meaningfully, "The most important thing now is to heal the wound."
"How long will it take?" Ruslan asked in a low voice.
"Two weeks, your wound will need at least two weeks."
Kirill said, "If there is no infection, the wound on Habibullah's head will only take about a week to heal. That woman's recovery time should be about the same as yours, but the wound on Mahbub's foot may take
It will take a month or two.”
"So we..."
"We should rest more"
Wei Ran took over the words, "Only by taking more rest can the wound be healed as soon as possible."
"Then just keep sleeping"
Ruslan understood Wei Ran's hint, covered himself with a dirty blanket and closed his eyes.
Subconsciously glancing at Mahbubu and others in the distance, Wei Ran also wrapped himself tightly in the blanket and closed his eyes, even though he was not sleepy at all.
When he was awakened by the cold wind blowing behind him, the curtain blocking the entrance of the cave had been removed, and it was already bright outside the cave. Even Hakim and Multaza had returned.
"The Soviets sent out planes for bombing last night"
Hakim, who was hiding by the campfire, was holding a bowl of broth and said, "When Multaza and I rushed over, there was nothing there except corpses. I guess they were retaliating for yesterday's attack on them."
Taking a sip of the broth, Hakim continued, "In addition, there is even worse news."
"What's the bad news?" Mahbubu frowned and asked, leaning on the wave of bosha.
"A lot of butterfly mines were dropped along the way."
Hakim said, "It was dropped by those helicopters last night. We watched them drop it with our own eyes."
"If it weren't for those plastic pieces, we would have come back a long time ago," Multaza said angrily.
"We were worried that something was wrong here, so we came back quickly." Hakim said happily, "Fortunately, you are all fine."
"You should have a good rest."
Habibullah said, "It's my turn to find it this evening..."
"Let's get out of here immediately"
Mahbub suddenly said, "It's no longer safe here. Hakim, you and Multaza have a rest. We will leave in the afternoon."
"Afternoon? Where are we going?" Hakim asked subconsciously.
Mahbub glanced in the direction of Wei Ran and the other three, then lowered his voice slightly and said a place name that Wei Ran and the other three could not hear.
"This is too far" Habibullah couldn't help but exclaimed.
"It's better than being trapped and dying here."
Mahbubu said worriedly, "The situation has exceeded our expectations. I suspect that all the guerrillas around here will be wiped out. We may all die if we stay."
"But Ayana..."
"Let those Soviets carry her" Hakim came up with a "good idea".
“This is indeed a solution”
Mahbub nodded, "Habibullah, take Soraya to make a stretcher and make some more food."
"I'll start preparing now"
Habibullah said, having already stood up and walked towards the big iron bucket where they stored supplies.
"What seems to be happening?"
Kirill, who couldn't understand Pashto at all, and even if he could understand it, couldn't hear it clearly, whispered warily, "Did they find the guerrillas?"
"I wish we were worthy enough to be prisoners."
Ruslan said vaguely, this is definitely not a good thing for the three of them. In this small guerrilla group with half wounded and half children, they can still be regarded as "friends" in a sense with the medical resources.
"treat.
But once they are delivered into the hands of "official" guerrillas, what awaits them may be a long and not very friendly torture.
Whether they wanted to or not, Hakim and Murtaza ate a hasty meal and lay down by the campfire to catch up on their sleep. Habibullah and Soraya were busy making stretchers, and then used them not too much.
The flour was baked in the hot sand one after another, which can be taken out at any time to satisfy hunger on the road.
During this intense preparation, around two o'clock in the afternoon, Habibullah, with the help of Soraya and Joya, had baked all the flour into naan bread and put it into a canvas bag.
"We're leaving here now"
Mahbubu walked up to the three guards and said, "Victor, Comrade Kirill, I hope you two can help carry my daughter. In exchange, your companion Comrade Ruslan can ride on the donkey."
.”
"Where are we going?" Kirill asked.
"I can't answer your question"
Mahbub shook his head, "But as long as you cooperate well, I guarantee that you can survive.
Accordingly, if you let my daughter have an accident, I will have no choice but to kill your companion first, and then you two."
After saying that, Mahbubu threw three tattered robes to them, "Put these clothes on you."
"Before departure, can I take a group photo of you?" Weiran asked abruptly, "I mean everyone, you and us."
"Why do you still have such thoughts now?" Ruslan asked in astonishment.
"Maybe one of us will die on the way."
Wei Ran said seriously, "It's just a group photo, don't you dare?"
"We don't bother to take photos with you." Hakim, who had also gotten up, snorted coldly.
"That's why I don't dare," Wei Ran deliberately mocked.
"alright"
Mahbubu waved his hand, "We have plenty of time, so let's take a photo. You take a photo for our family, and in exchange, I will take a photo for the three of you."
"Then it's settled"
Wei Ran spoke quickly before Kirill, Ruslan and even Hakim.
After a short preparation, the small amount of luggage and supplies were either tied to the goat or hung on the back of the donkey.
Under the vigilant gaze of Habibullah and Hakim, the three of Wei Ran walked out of the cave. Wei Ran also raised the miniature camera and surrounded the Afhan guerrillas who were standing loosely together in the viewfinder.
inside.
Only this time, he didn't suggest that they stand closer together. However, just because he didn't say it, it didn't mean that Kirill didn't say it.
"You are too far away," Kirill reminded, "come closer, aren't you a family?"
"Just because we are a family"
Mahbubu shook his hand that was clasped at his side and said, "Please let me introduce you. This is the position of my wife."
As he spoke, he pointed to the back right side of his body with his other hand and said, "That is where my eldest son and his wife are. You see, Multaza is standing in front of their husband and wife.
Behind me is my second son and his wife. There used to be a beautiful girl in front of them, but their family is also dead.
The empty seat next to Habibullah was reserved for his girlfriend. He had already taken her to meet our family, but she did not survive.
On the far left are my only daughter Ayana and her husband Muhan Mode. Muham Mode has the lowest academic performance among all my students.
But he tracked down my only daughter, and he fought very bravely. He had been leading the guerrillas to fight the Soviets all these years, until the night before yesterday.
In front of them, there should have been a handsome little guy.
It's a pity that he died too. He stepped on a landmine you scattered while helping to fetch water. Soraya and he were classmates, so let her stand in his place."
"There was a hound in front of me, a very beautiful hound."
Habibullah pointed directly in front of him and said, "His name was Ali, and he didn't survive. He died of your chemical weapons."
"This is how they stood when they took the last photo together a few years ago."
Hakim said, "I was the one who took the photo for them."