In the smelly bear cave, when Wei Ran woke up from his sleep, the wind outside the cave entrance had stopped, the snow had lightened a lot, and the faint aurora could even be seen in the far distance in the night sky.
In the corner on one side of the cave entrance, Kantan was still guarding the slowly burning bonfire. Looking at the other side, Gale was huddled in his sleeping bag and was mumbling something, while Dorian was sleeping soundly.
Reaching out and touching Dorian's forehead, Wei Ran breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, his body temperature seemed to have returned to normal.
"Uncle Kantan, how long have I been asleep?" Wei Ran asked in a low voice.
Hearing this, Kantan glanced at the watch he grabbed on his wrist and responded in a low voice, "Less than eight hours."
"I'll check the wound for you, and then you can take a rest." As Wei Ran spoke, he had already taken out a first aid kit from his pocket.
"Sorry to trouble you." As Kantan spoke, he carefully moved his body and sat next to Wei Ran, then took out a flashlight and turned it on.
After untying the bandage on Kangtan's leg, Wei Ran took a look at the wound and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that there was no sign of inflammation.
After changing the dressing and gauze, and collecting the replaced gauze into the first aid box, Wei Ran picked up some branches, broke them off and threw them into the helmet, "Uncle Kantan, go get some sleep."
“I’m not sleepy yet”
Kantan shook his head and put his lower body into the sleeping bag again. After hesitating for a moment, he said, "We need to reinforce this place as soon as possible."
"What's wrong?" Wei Ran immediately realized something.
Kantan didn't say anything, he just turned on the flashlight again and pointed the beam at a cracked charred wooden beam not far away.
Seeing this, Wei Ran immediately stood up and got out of the bear cave. Then he discovered that although the wind outside had become lighter in such a few hours, the snow had actually accumulated to a depth of more than half a meter. Not to mention that at this time
The head of the brown bear was buried by him, and even the buckets on both sides of the cave entrance were almost buried.
Looking up at the snowflakes still falling, Wei Ran got back into the hole, "This is a big project, with just the few of us..."
"We have enough time, don't we?"
Kantan was quite confident, "Let's wait until Gale wakes up. Then we can put up the tent and live in it temporarily. We can reinforce this place as soon as possible before the next snowstorm comes."
Hearing this, Wei Ran nodded. Helping to build this shelter was one of his return tasks, so he naturally had no objections.
"I don't know what happened to Quentin..." Kantan shook his head, "I still owe him a pair of leather shoes."
"Leather shoes?" Wei Ran looked at the other party in confusion.
"I'm a shoemaker"
Kantan said with nostalgia, "I used to run a leather shoe shop in Paris, and even General Charles de Gaulle asked me to make customized leather shoes."
"It seems that your craftsmanship is pretty good." Wei Ran paused and asked, "Kangtan, how did you get here?"
"Maybe it's because I made leather shoes for General de Gaulle," Kantan smiled and spread his hands, "Who knows what those Germans are thinking, we have all surrendered."
"It's true that no one knows what's going on in their minds." Wei Ran smiled and followed the conversation and asked, "So Quentin is also your client?"
"That was a month ago"
Kantan said with a smile, "I lost my shoes at that time, and Quentin helped me get a pair. It was said that they were taken off the feet of a dead prisoner. I promised to make him a pair of the best leather shoes if I had the opportunity in the future."
"
"I believe Quentin will definitely come back to you to ask for leather shoes." Wei Ran raised his voice slightly.
"Quentin is back? Oops!" Gale sat up suddenly in his sleep, but accidentally hit his forehead on a charred wooden beam.
"Unfortunately, he has not come back yet, but I believe he will come to us."
Kantan spread his hands and said, "Now that Gale is awake, we should start working."
"What job?" Gale asked, rubbing his forehead.
Kantan smiled and joked, "Reinforce this place to prevent it from being knocked down by your forehead next time."
"Don't you need a little more rest?"
Wei Ran frowned and asked. He said he was doing well, but the physical conditions of these three people were not very good. What they needed now was to have a good rest and eat more.
Kantan waved his hand, "No, we have enough food and drink now. The most important thing is that there are no Germans chasing us with guns."
"I'm not tired either!"
Gale sniffed and said, "I just dreamed of being pushed into bear dung by those German guys. The smell was really disgusting."
"There's no need to talk about such disgusting dreams in the future, but the smell here is really not good."
Kantan thought for a while and continued, "In this way, let's put up the tent first, and after moving in, we will consider how to strengthen the place next."
"You take care of the campfire," Gale said before the fire started. "It's just me and Victor who are going to set up the tent."
"The campfire is indeed very important," Wei Ran continued. "At least we don't have to worry about making Dorian smell the smell of meat before we set up the tent."
Kantan touched the wound on his leg and finally nodded in agreement with Wei Ran and Gale's suggestion.
After comforting Kantan, Wei Ran and Gale got out of the hole and found the canvas roll buried in the snow. They found a few pine trees nearby and opened the canvas roll.
After some research, I successfully built it using the light of a flashlight.
Just like Dorian said before, this tent may really be used to keep armored vehicles warm. In other words, the space in the tent is also scary, big enough to park even an armored vehicle.
However, the accumulation of oil smoke and soup stains on one side also hinted that this tent may have been misappropriated and turned into a field kitchen.
The tent was buried around the tent with snow. Gale followed Wei Yan into the tent and stepped on the snow inside and said, "Maybe we might as well just live in this tent."
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "This is not good advice"
Wei Ran dug his shovel into the snow at his feet, straightened up and said, "Not to mention whether the next snowstorm will blow away this tent, that layer of canvas can't block the low temperature, let alone the light of the campfire.
"
"makes sense..."
Gale sighed, resigned to his fate, walked the figure eight bunny steps, and said while stepping on the snow under his feet, "My feet are almost freezing."
"Why didn't you get a pair of boots from the Germans?" Wei Ran asked, looking at the pants wrapped around his feet.
"My feet are so cold and swollen that they can't fit into German boots." Gale quickened his pace as he spoke.
"You can get two pieces of bearskin to wrap up later. That one will definitely keep you warm." Wei Ran thought for a while and continued, "And Kantan said he is a shoemaker. Maybe he can help you make a pair of shoes."
"Why didn't I think of that! I'm going to get two bearskins right now!" Gale ran out of the tent before he finished speaking.
Soon after, Quantan and Dorian walked into the tent dragging the bear skin, and soon after, Gale walked in pulling a sled bucket full of supplies.
Looking at the two pieces of bear skin covering Gale's feet, Wei Ran shook his head in confusion. The two pieces of bear skin were completely removed from the brown bear's hind legs. Gale just turned them over.
Then he tied one end with a rope and put it on his feet. If you ignored the remaining blood and fat on the bear skin, it looked like he was wearing a pair of real leather socks.
"Leave the work in the tent to Dorian and me."
Kantan pointed to the bear cave and said, "Victor, and Gale, you need to clear the snow around the bear cave first, and then we will study together how to strengthen it."
"Dorian, how are you feeling now?"
While Wei Ran was talking, he also glanced at the pair of marching boots on the other party's feet that were the same as his own. He clearly remembered that those boots were worn on Kangtan's feet before. But on Kangtan's feet, this time
Shi, like Gale, was also wearing a bear skin that came off the front legs of a brown bear.
"Much better," Dorian sniffed and said, "Although my head still hurts a little, it's much better."
"Then don't waste time." After Gale said this, he was the first to run out of the tent.
He and Dorian walked out of the tent without distinction. Wei Ran picked up the shovel stuck at the door and put it on his shoulder and asked, "Dorian, I heard that you are from Lille?"
"A small town in the country," Dorian replied with a big sniffle, "a small place called Couva in the Roubaix region. What about you?"
"Dunkirk" once again gave an address that was almost as famous in France as Paris after 1940.
"I've heard of it, but I don't know where it is." Dorian wiped his nose with his sleeve as he spoke.
"Dorian, how did you get captured by the Germans?" Wei Ran walked to the edge of the bear cave and began to clear the snow along the edge of the stone wall with Gale.
"My father is a guerrilla" Dorian gave the answer nonchalantly, picked up a piece of gravel and threw it into the sled bucket near the entrance of the cave.
"The French guerrillas..." Wei Ran grinned, not knowing what kind of evaluation he should give. After all, their combat effectiveness was pitifully low.
"And you?"
Dorian lifted the second fastest stone and threw it into the sleigh and asked, "Why were you sent here?"
"Maybe it's because when the British were retreating from Dunkirk, I picked up a rifle that no one wanted." Wei Ran said in a joking tone what was originally a made-up excuse.
"Didn't you pick up the shoes and underwear that the British lost?" Gale asked playfully.
"I ran too fast and couldn't catch up." Wei Ran spread his hands seriously, and then the three of them laughed out loud.
While the three young men were chatting, Dorian sent three trucks of excavated stones to the tent, and Wei Ran and Gale had also cleared the foundation.
The foundation of this collapsed house is not very large. It is basically a rectangle with a side of four meters by five meters.
But after cleaning up this circle, the stone wall that was originally less than one meter high is now as high as the chest. Even the rest of the stone wall is nearly half a meter high.
"First...go back to the tent and take a rest."
Gale panted and said, this work of clearing the snow is not easy. The most important thing is that although his physical condition is not much better than Dorian or Kantan, this is just because the other party is sunken due to long-term malnutrition.
The cheeks can be seen.
“Really need a break”
Wei Ran agreed, casually poking the shovel into the snowdrift, and supported Gale, who was walking in vain, back.
At this time, Kantan and Dorian had built a simple stove with the stones they had picked up. The bonfire released a heat that could not be ignored, and there were even two steaming lunch boxes on it.
Beside the fireplace, Kantan, who was sitting on a bearskin, had chopped a small pile of firewood with an axe, while Dorian was carrying down the dead branches from the drag bucket.
"Drink some hot water." Kantan pointed to the lunch box on the stove, "I put some pine needles in it."
Hearing this, Wei Ran and Gale were not polite. They each picked up a cup that matched the kettle, poured some hot pine needle water from the lunch box and held it in their hands.
Speaking of which, the water was not very tasty, especially the unique smell of rosin, which made Wei Ran reluctant to swallow it.
In contrast, Gale looked satisfied. Obviously, in his previous life as a prisoner, even a cup of hot water was not so easy to get.
“I also cooked some bear meat,” Kantan continued. “Although it may not be as delicious as Gale’s, it is definitely cooked.
"This is already good," Gale said with satisfaction, "there is salty meat, hot water, and it is warm enough."
"Don't be too optimistic"
Kantan put down the ax in his hand and took a deep breath and said, "We have to speed up a little bit. We have to find a place that is strong enough and can raise a bonfire without restraint before the next snowstorm comes."
