Chapter 335 The hard bone blocking the meat grinder
As Wei Ran waited patiently, the white light in his field of vision dissipated, and his surroundings turned into a familiar studio.
On page 16 of the metal book, the pattern drawn by the quill pen has turned into a black and white photo. In this photo, the originally blurry face of the soldier lying on the stretcher has become much clearer, and he can vaguely see it.
It was Nurse Llano who came out.
Under the photo, a metal quill pen rustled out lines of text.
"The hard bone stuck in the meat grinder"
On October 3, 1942, the company led by company commander Valentin and political commissar Sergey was attacked by German artillery, and all members died.
Pasha, the doctor at the first aid station, led the field medical workers and the wounded to supplement the frontline positions to block the attack. No one surrendered and no one survived.
Postman Revry, nurse Llano and sniper Danila encountered a German patrol that day. They died one after another to cover the artillery observer Andre. Their bodies were recovered by forestry loggers led by ranger Gioia and buried together in Le
Pine forest on the outskirts of Zhev.
Artillery observer Andrei, after completing the artillery guidance task that day, received a new task and continued to lurk deep in the pine forest. A week later, he was unfortunately hit by a mine on his way back to the Soviet position and died.
Forest ranger Gioya, after the Battle of Rzhev, married Yuna and survived until the end of World War II. He searched for the bones of artillery observer Andrei for a long time until he gave up after the collapse of the Soviet Union and moved to Moscow to live.
Ivan, a soldier of the Soviet Red Army, retired due to injury at the end of September 1942. He returned to his hometown of Tyumen and worked in the Tyumen State University Library in charge of cleaning. He passed away in the summer of 1997.
Soviet Red Army soldier and artist Tonya retired from the army due to injury at the end of September 1942 and returned to his hometown of Moscow. After the war, he became a photographer and had a son. His son Sergey briefly worked for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, father and son
They ran a photo studio together, and in the winter of 2001, Tonya passed away in her sleep.
After writing this, the metal quill pen started a new line and wrote a detailed address in Moscow, as well as a name called Sergey and a string of phone numbers. In addition, the quill pen also provided an additional set of detailed addresses.
coordinate of.
After a brief pause, it continued in another line, "Those forgotten names were all unknown heroes on the forgotten battlefields. What they worked hard for may just be so that the living will no longer have to experience it.
The pain they've been through."
Amidst the clatter of turning pages, the metal quill continued to write under the slowly rotating red vortex, "My dear comrade, thank you for witnessing our wedding. My dear comrade, thank you for pressing the shutter for us,
My dear comrade, thank you for your gift of vodka."
With a crisp sound of "clang", the metal quill that completed the work fell on the hard solid wood table.
Wei Ran rubbed his face vigorously, took a deep breath, reached into the red vortex, took out the contents and placed them on the table.
This time, in addition to a Soviet cloak and a pair of leather marching boots commonly equipped by the German army in World War II, the pair of well-polished leather boots also had a thick foot-wrapping cloth stuffed in each pair.
And among the iconic clothing and equipment belonging to the two camps but stacked together, there is a large book that looks very dated, with the words "Komsomolskaya Pravda" printed in gold stamping on it.
Gently opening the plastic book, which was larger than an A4 paper, Wei Ran discovered that, except for the words "31st Group Army of the Soviet Red Army, 673rd Regiment of the 220th Infantry Division" written on the first page, Weiran found that on the following pages
On each page, there are four single photos of Soviet Red Army soldiers. Under these single photos, addresses are written in dark blue pen. In the middle of these four photos,
A paper bag the size of a cigarette box contains the negatives corresponding to these four photos.
As he flipped through the pages, there were too many familiar or unfamiliar people appearing in this photo album. Among them were the soldiers who once sat around the stove with him, baking footcloths while listening to the artist Tonya's singing.
There was the veteran who once told himself that his home was in Stalingrad and that his son worked at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, as well as the soldier who gave him the boots, as well as company commander Valentin, political commissar Sergei, and
Boris, the soldier who was almost chosen to be Danila's deputy.
Turning to the last page of this thick photo album, Wei Ran found that there were only photos of the soldiers in the trenches, but not a single one of the subsequent photos.
Wei Ran turned the metal book that was still aside and turned a page forward. Wei Ran took out the thick stack of negatives from the paper bag next to the black and white photo, and stuck them on the backlight board one by one, waiting for him to get through.
I turned on the backlight board and breathed a sigh of relief. The photos that didn't appear in the album were all here.
After carefully putting away the negatives, Wei Ran first picked up the long marching boots that were still on the table and looked at them. These boots, like the cloak next to them, seemed to have been restored to "factory condition" by the metal book.
I can't find the size or production date, nor can I find the manufacturer's code.
But the soles of these boots are slightly thicker, and even the cleats embedded in the soles look more sturdy and wear-resistant.
not bad...
Wei Ran muttered to himself, put it aside, and then unfolded the thick cloak and put it on his body.
After admiring the mirror in the distance, Wei Ran simply put on his boots and took out the SVT40 semi-automatic sniper rifle from the wooden box on the table. He silently looked at the buttons on the butt.
The notch and the two rows of five-pointed stars.
Gently flicking the two rings pierced through the ring on the charging handle, he murmured and sighed amidst the clear impact, "It's a pity that there will never be a chance to have 100 Germans engraved on it."
lives. Fortunately, it will never have the chance to be engraved with the lives of 100 Germans."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! With a final sigh, Wei Ran put the rifle in his hand back into the wooden box, then took off the outfit he was wearing and folded it, along with the photo album
Put them back into the corresponding red vortex together.
After copying down all the addresses and coordinates recorded in the metal book, Wei Ran closed his eyes and leaned on the back of the chair in a daze for a long time. Finally, he opened his eyes again and put away the metal book beside him, and then skillfully took it out from inside.
The bed was filled with guqin and Yaoguang.
After a while, the melodious and simple music of the piano began to echo in the warm studio, and Wei Ran closed his eyes again.
After finishing the Guangling sanqiang, Wei Ran, who felt much calmer, slowly put away his guqin, rubbed his face again, and then took out the laptop that Katenka had given him not long ago. He told what happened on the Rzhev battlefield
Everything was recorded one by one in an almost chronicle manner, and then connected to a scanner to type out the negatives in the metal book, the negatives in the photo album, and the names and home addresses of the Red Army soldiers in each photo.
into the same document.
As for whether these things will be seen by Katenka, he is not worried. These information, which is almost an investigation record, will be made public soon. As long as he does not record the things involving the metal book, no one will say anything after reading it.
What happened?
It took nearly two hours to complete this complicated and trivial but boring record that was not very readable. Wei Ran began to think about the next arrangements while moving his wrist.
There is still almost a week left before returning to Hongqi Forest Farm for classes. Based on my experience at the end of last year, after completing this course, I may get more than two months of vacation.
By then, whether I return home or take a complete vacation, I will definitely not have the time or opportunity to follow up on what happened on the Rzhev battlefield.
With this in mind, Wei Ran entered the set of coordinates provided by the metal book into the computer. After some comparison, he finally determined that this location was in a forest outside Rzhev.
Finally, after planning some time, he simply bought a ticket to fly to Moscow early the next morning, planning to go to the forest to see the forest before returning to the Hongqi Forest Farm.
After making arrangements for the next few days, Wei Ran packed up the things on the table, yawned and walked to the bedroom on the second floor.
After a solid sleep, the next morning, before the sun jumped over the horizon, he had already driven an off-road vehicle from the studio early and headed straight to the airport, and successfully boarded a flight to Moscow not long after.
After the plane landed smoothly, Wei Ran found a car rental company that often cooperated with his aunt's travel agency, borrowed an off-road vehicle, and went straight to Rzhev, which is more than 150 kilometers away.
As Moscow citizens often complain, after leaving the Moscow Grand Ring Road it is like arriving in another country.
This complaint is no exaggeration. In addition to the rapidly shrinking houses around it, the dilapidated infrastructure is also the main reason. But fortunately, it is almost the coldest time of the year, and the road is paved all the way.
, so it is not difficult to walk. The only thing he needs to be careful about is the wild deer or drunkards that may suddenly jump out along the road.
Arriving to Rzhev on a starry night, Wei Ran randomly found a hotel that looked pretty good and rested for one night. The next day, he bought a few bottles of vodka and a large bouquet of blooming sunflowers.
Driving the borrowed car towards the destination pointed by the set of coordinates.
As the car crossed the bridge across the Volga River and left the city, the scenery outside the window turned into cultivated land and scattered factory buildings after the forests were cleared. As for the traces left by the German army's wanton destruction during World War II,
Now all he could find were the few monuments he saw before leaving the city.
Perhaps just like what is written in the metal book, those forgotten names were once unknown heroes on the forgotten battlefield. Perhaps what they worked hard for was just to prevent the living from experiencing what they experienced.
pain.
From the perspective of a bystander, or from the perspective of a bystander who was born and raised in China, not to mention Rzhev who is drifting away behind him, even Moscow, which is nearly 200 kilometers away, in his eyes
In fact, that's it.
Wei Ran can even say objectively, confidently and proudly that even though Moscow is the capital of a country, it may not be as comfortable, convenient, safe, etc. as the small county town in his hometown. Even if necessary, he can
Day and night, he listed out all kinds of evidence to prove that he was not boasting.
But from the perspective of an eyewitness who briefly experienced that war, today's Rzhev has nothing to do with the artillery observer Andrei, the sniper Danila and the field nurse Llano, and the young postman Revry.
For the soldiers holding the position under the command of Captain Valentin, it may have been an earth-shaking change that was unimaginable.
As for the fact that the regime that once guided them to fight has long since fallen, maybe they don't actually care, because at least their families and children finally don't have to go through the pain they experienced.
