During the mutual tentative chat, the off-road vehicle pulled Wei Ran and others to the sugar beet field he had been to before.
Although it was midnight, the place was brightly lit by high-power camping lights. More than 20 soldiers were lining up in a horizontal line two meters apart, holding metal detectors in the vegetable field.
shuttle back and forth.
Wherever you look, you can see many one-meter-high triangular flags planted around the mud pond. On the roadside, in addition to several trucks and two crawler excavators parked on the side, there are also
Many locals who stayed up late at night and came to watch the excitement were pointing and talking.
"Those little flags mean there's a metallic reaction underneath the soil."
Battalion Commander Kirov, who was in the co-pilot position, explained as he opened the door, "The darker the flag, the greater the depth of burial."
"You guys move so fast," Wei Ran sighed sincerely.
"After all, it is our job," Kirov said bluntly, "and someone helped us pay the compensation to the owner of this land."
"There should be a price for these, right?"
Wei Ran, who was also standing next to the car, lowered his voice slightly. Since the other party just said it so clearly, he had no intention of being secretive about it.
"certainly"
Kirov seemed to be very addicted to smoking. While responding to Wei Ran, he lit up a cigarette again, "Our main task is to find the Soviet Red Army soldiers and their combat weapons left on the battlefield. The former will be buried and the latter
Send it to the museum. But every time it is inevitable to dig up some scraps of copper and iron left by the Germans."
"It is indeed a win-win situation." Wei Ran gave a pertinent evaluation, and then continued to ask, "When do you plan to start digging?"
"The excavation work will have to wait until after dawn."
Kirov glanced at his watch, "It's now 10:40 pm, and the excavation work won't start in about eight hours. What we have to do is to dig out this place in as much detail as possible in the last eight hours.
Check it out and make preparations for clearing unexploded bombs."
Having said this, Kirov paused, glanced at Wei Ran, and then at the taciturn Siwa next to him, "What about you? Are you staying here or going back to rest?"
"stay"
Siwa, who had been silent along the way, said in a rare move, "Mr. Kirov... No, Comrade Kirov, is there anything you need me to do? I can drive an excavator, I can also use a metal detector, and even
I can help with cooking, any job is fine, whether my grandfather is here or not, I want to do something."
"Can you drive an excavator? Can you also use a metal detector?" Kirov asked in surprise. "Are you an earth digger?"
"I'm not a digger"
Siwa couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile on his face, "I learned how to use excavators and metal detectors when I worked in a mine."
"What about you?" Kirov did not rush to respond to Siwa, but looked at Weiran again, "Do you decide to stay and wait, or return to the city?"
"Stay"
Wei Ran secretly gestured with his middle finger. He came all the way in the middle of the night. The other party must not have just wanted to take a look at the excavation site. Even if he wanted to go back to the city at this time, he was afraid that the car would break down the next moment.
"Since you are all willing to stay, let's take a rest in the tent over there."
Kirov patted Siwa's shoulder affectionately, "As for what you want to help with, it's not urgent. After daybreak, I will let you be responsible for driving an excavator."
With doubts in his heart, Wei Ran followed him into a tent on the roadside, randomly found a folding bed and sat down, and Battalion Commander Kirov, after making arrangements for the two of them, simply turned around and left.
Where did it go.
"Mr. Victor, thank you for your help." Siwa, who was in the same tent, said suddenly.
"You're welcome. It's my honor to be able to help Mrs. Valentina."
Siwa fumbled around and took out a stainless steel wine bottle from his pocket and took a sip. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Is my grandfather really here?"
"Probably right here..." Wei Ran gave an ambiguous answer.
"She's dying," Siwa said and took another sip of wine.
"Mrs. Valentina?" Wei Ran looked at her in surprise.
Siwa nodded, "She was holding on. The afternoon of the second day when I met her, she was sent to the hospital. The doctor said that the analgesics had little effect on her. She might be holding on.
It won't be long before..."
"You should have gone to see her earlier." Wei Ran finally told the truth that made the other party regret it.
"I really should have gone to visit her earlier."
Siwa rubbed his face, "I wanted to visit my mother after she passed away last year, but my own life is also a mess. I...I always want to wait."
The tree wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop...
Wei Ran sighed in Chinese that the other party couldn't understand, but he didn't mean to explain. Instead, he lay on the folding bed with his head up, and using the cover of his coat, he took out the wine bottle from the metal book, opened it and took a sip.
In the blink of an eye, early the next morning, two more military trucks pulling more than a dozen soldiers and several civilian excavators arrived to replace their companions who had been busy all night. Siwa also had a quick breakfast and was driven to excavate as promised.
Machine work.
Amidst the roar of the excavator, buckets of mud were lifted up from where the flags were placed around the mud pond, and the drainage pump started working soon after, pumping the smelly sewage to the drainage ditch on the other side of the road.
Also busy beside the mud pond, the location where the flag was planted in the sugar beet field was also dug up bit by bit by the soldiers who arrived.
Contrary to Wei Ran's expectation, the first thing to be unearthed was the remains of a No. 4 tank. Even the location where it was unearthed was a hundred or ten meters away from the mud pond.
Just by looking at its location, Wei Ran knew that it was the tank that was originally destroyed by Roman and later used as a bunker by the stretcher bearers.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Before this tank was completely dug out, clues about the Panther tank were also revealed.
However, as the scope of excavation expanded, it became clearer to everyone that the condition of this Panther was even worse than that of the first discovered Panzer IV tank. Not only was its turret gone, but even the road wheels on both sides of the chassis were missing.
Not complete, even the engine only has a rusty main frame left.
Upon seeing this, the soldiers who were busy here immediately gave up their work and, under Kirov's command, moved their position to the direction of the mud pond. Their work was interrupted by the few civilian excavation vehicles that came with them in the morning.
The machine takes over.
Around noon, less than 10 meters away from the edge of the mud pond, a nearly complete No. 3 assault gun showed its head.
Kirov glanced at the printed copy of the application report he had been holding in his hand, and immediately called on the surrounding soldiers and Siwa to start digging around the No. 3 assault gun.
Soon, a Panzer III tank with remaining paint also revealed its small head. Soon after, they finally saw the tank turret of the T-34-76!
"Hatch wrench!"
A soldier shouted at the top of his lungs, and someone immediately handed over an L-shaped wrench that Wei Ran was particularly familiar with.
An additional reinforced steel pipe was put on, and under Wei Ran's watchful eyes, two strong soldiers worked together to unscrew the rusty hatch cover.
"Bodies! There are two corpses!" The soldier who had just shouted for a wrench looked inside and immediately gave the most critical information, "No remaining ammunition was found within the visual range."
"Right!"
Kirov stuffed the information in his hand into Wei Ran's arms, grasped the desk and issued an order, "In one hour, pull out this T-34, pay attention to whether there are any scattered parts around, Peter, prepare the coffin and
Mass ceremony.”
"Roger that!" A magnetic voice responded on the radio channel.
Soon, more soldiers gathered around. Amidst the roar of the excavator, the soil around the T-34, which had not been repaired until its death, became less and less, and a neat slope appeared behind it.
And it extended all the way to the country dirt road.
Soon, two army-green bulldozers rumbled off the truck and used a complex pulley force-splitting device to connect the tanks to their rear towing hooks and an excavator that served as an anchor point.
Together.
"beep--!"
Amidst the sharp whistles, the surrounding soldiers immediately left the excavation site, clearing away the crowd of onlookers. Even the excavators creaked further away under the command of a platoon leader.
Soon, the two bulldozers began to exert force at the same time. Amidst the thin black smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe, they easily pulled the T-34 tank, which was buried nearly two meters underground, onto the rural dirt road.
Almost at the same time as one soldier removed the dragging steel cable, the other two soldiers had already started the long-awaited high-pressure water cannon and began to clean the soil stained on the outside of the tank.
Under the strong flow of water, the soil attached to the tank turret was peeled off. Immediately afterwards, whether it was the busy soldiers around or the ordinary people watching, they all saw clearly the remaining white paint slogan on the turret - "
To take back the Soviets is a shame.”
When the high-pressure spray gun stopped working, Wei Ran deliberately walked around to the front and took a look. Sure enough, there were two bullet marks overlapping the position of the directional machine gun mantlet, and even the barrel of the directional machine gun was gone.
While he and Siwa waited patiently, the soldiers opened the locked hatch on the driver's seat, and a bright light was hung on the hatch on the turret.
With the help of lights and sunlight, Wei Ran and Siwa saw the corpse sitting in the driver's seat at a glance.
For more than half a century, his lower body has been completely buried by the mud accumulated in the tank, but even so, the tank cap on his head is still intact.
In addition, a Moscow brand vodka bottle was suspended from a heavily rusted thick wire near Vajim's neck. The mouth of the bottle was tightly sealed with wax oil, and the inside seemed to be vaguely
Packing something.
Behind this body, in the center of the turret, Wei Ran could still see the body of commander Roman. Next to him, there was also a wine bottle hanging. The only difference was that it was on the wire that fixed the wine bottle.
, just two more medals.
After getting permission from Battalion Commander Kirov, Siwa carefully removed the glass bottle near the driver's seat, wiped the dirt on it with the hem of his T-shirt, and immediately saw a photo in the bottle.
"This is a photo of my grandfather Vadim and my grandmother Valentina!"
Siwa pointed to the photo in the wine bottle and spoke faster, "I have seen this group photo at her home! I saw it when I was very young! When she was sent to the hospital a few days ago, she asked me to go to her home
Send her this photo! She said she usually has this photo by her bedside!"
Battalion Commander Kirov and Wei Ran looked at each other, raised their voices and said, "Please get Comrade Vadim out of the tank!"
