Amidst the crisp sound of the shutter, fierce white light also filled Wei Ran's entire field of vision at the same time. When his vision returned to normal, the surrounding environment once again became a familiar studio.
Wei Ran first looked at the pistol and magazine that he was still holding tightly, and hastily put them aside. Then he nervously touched his chest. Unfortunately, the letters wrapped in rainproof cloth did not turn out as he hoped.
Bring them back together.
"Where did those letters go..."
Wei Ran couldn't help but pick up his clothes and smell them. When he saw that there was no smell of corpses and gunpowder smoke that had filled the air above Position 19 just a moment ago, he sat down on the cold floor and held on to the anti-tank door.
Pao's assistant looked at the leather notebook lying on the floor.
With a soft "clatter" sound, the cowhide book automatically turned to the third page, showing the Zis-3 anti-tank gun that had turned into a black and white photo. And directly below the photo, the metal quill pen was also
"Swish, swish, swish", a short obituary was written in the thin voice:
The unknown hero
All the soldiers holding No. 19 on the Don River were killed, and no one survived.
Is this the end?
Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, and watched helplessly as the metal quill pen started a new line and wrote: Correspondent Nicholas, on August 1, 1942, the letters home from the soldiers at Position 19 were delivered to the Don River Field Post Office on time.
Sent to Suvorov Junior Military Academy to study.
In 1953, Nikolai was sent to the East Berlin Post Office and was also responsible for intelligence collection. He retired on August 1, 1989 and now lives in Kazan.
Is it the kid who delivered the message? Is he still alive?
Wei Ran raised his eyebrows and looked at the detailed address that the metal quill pen continued to write. He couldn't help but have a crazy idea in his heart. He wanted to go to Nicholas and ask if there was anything in his memory.
The person "Postman Victor"!
Just as he was distracted, the metal quill pen started another line and continued to write, "If there is only the last negative left, should it be used to record war, or should it be used to record happiness?"
Before Wei Ran could figure out the answer to this question, the pale yellow page had been turned to the back, and the metal quill continued to write under the red swirl, "The last gift from a war photographer."
Manhan expectantly picked up the thing suspended in the red vortex. It was a Leica IIIB camera that was almost collectible in appearance. The brown cowhide protective cover wrapped around the body could still be seen as rough.
The word "Zoya" is branded on it, and the other two small bags of the same material fixed on the cowhide strap also contain a separate lens and a special film advancer.
Gently opening the leather case, this camera not only has the d.r.p's floral logo and the crisp eagle emblem, but also a sickle and hammer mark that was obviously hand-engraved in the later period. But unfortunately, there is no film in the camera.
Is this Zoya's camera? Wei Ran frowned, how could this camera appear in his hand? He bravely reached into the red vortex and touched it. After a long time, he regretfully pulled his hand away.
come out.
In this whirlpool there were not the letters he was expecting, nor the all-important report on the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Disappointed, Wei Ran put the camera back into the red vortex. He ignored the metal quill that fell on the floor. He couldn't wait to turn the page back and took out the only one from the paper bag next to the black and white photo.
A negative.
Wei Ran struggled to get up and ran to the workbench. He opened the copy plate, clamped the negative on it and picked up the magnifying glass.
This negative shows a group photo of Captain Aleut and Zoya. As the background, on the shield of the anti-tank gun, there are nine battle stars painted with paint and a copper five-pointed star hung on it with wires. Although they are in the negative
It's a little out of focus, but you can still barely see clearly.
"It would be nice if I could bring those letters back..."
Wei Ran muttered to himself. He promised Aleutian and others to help them deliver the letter, but now not only the letter has not been delivered, but also the crucial application report for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union is gone.
This made him feel a deep sense of guilt in his heart.
"I hope their identity capsules are still there!"
Wei Ran threw down the magnifying glass in disappointment, picked up an oil can from the corner of the studio, and carefully wetted the breech of the artillery, the latch plate and the linkage mechanism. Then he found a thick steel pipe and put it on the latch handle.
With a little extra force, the shell casing still hidden in the gun barrel was taken out with difficulty.
After half a century of being buried in the city, the shell has already been covered with rust. Only the primer is still as bright as new and has the unique color of metal.
He turned it over and knocked it lightly on the breech block. As the wet soil slipped from the shell case, the remaining solidified paint at the bottom was indeed exposed!
After some observation, Wei Ran turned off his headlights, then found a small cutting machine, carefully cut the shell shell with a lot of rust in half, and took out a piece of dried paint that was as big as a fist. He cut it with a wallpaper knife and
With the help of small pliers, he peeled off pieces of gravel, soil and even broken bone fragments covered in red paint.
Finally, when the paint block in his hand became only the size of an egg, the three identity capsules stored in it were revealed.
Without rushing to open it, Wei Ran put the cleaned paint chips and the few bone fragments, together with the large piece in his hand, into glass bottles, and then walked into the darkroom.
Under his skillful control, more than ten minutes later, a black and white photo of Zoya and Captain Aleutian was developed and hung on the drying line.
After walking out of the darkroom, Wei Ran hesitated and finally took out his mobile phone to book a flight to Kazan for the next morning. He decided to go talk to Nikolai before looking for a client. In addition to wanting to know if there was anything about it, Wei Ran
In addition to my own memory, I also want to see if I can get more clues about the people in the memory from the other party's mouth.
After making arrangements for the next day's itinerary and taking back the films and notebooks, Wei Ran immediately got into the bathroom eagerly. The more than a week he spent at Position 19, being surrounded by broken corpses in mud and sewage every day was definitely not a good thing.
In terms of memories, even though it is vaguely clear that those things are unlikely to follow me back, psychologically, I still need to take a scalding hot bath to make myself forget the experience of crawling around in the trenches.
After a full hour, Wei Ran, whose fingers were already wrinkled, came out of the bathroom refreshed and put on clean clothes.
Glancing at the pistol and magazine still on the workbench, he put it into his bag without hesitation and drove straight to a restaurant not far away.
During the more than a week at Position 19, the difficult days of eating only boiled potatoes to satisfy his hunger had made him mentally think that he had lost at least ten pounds. So the most important thing now was to find a place where he could eat meat.
