War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1914 Survive, the Possibility of Survival.

In the basement of the abandoned church, Wei Ran held up a candle and examined the cramped space.

There are only two granite coffins here. The coffins are not covered; instead, they are placed side by side on top of each other, like bed boards.

There were no sacred relics in these two sarcophagi. The first sarcophagus contained mostly spoils that were clearly captured by German soldiers.

The most common items were M34 or M39 backpacks and complete sets of German military uniforms, but no weapons.

Looking at the second stone coffin, there is a large bundle of reeds piled inside. Underneath these reeds, you can vaguely see two suitcases, one large and one small, with the classic LV pattern.

"That's Dragan's luggage."

Milos explained, "These are the things he seized from the Germans."

"Seized? How was it seized?" Wei Ran asked curiously.

"Using a gun"

Milos said in a low voice, "Draghan began fighting after the Germans occupied Yugoslavia last spring."

He used his gun to snipe passing German soldiers on a highway several kilometers away, then brought back the spoils he had captured from them.

"Didn't he join the guerrillas back then?" Wei Ran asked.

However, Milos remained silent after the question was asked.

After a moment, he finally spoke up to explain, "He joined Chetnick last year, but he left at the end of the year."

No wonder.
Wei Ran nodded to himself, then asked, "Can I find anything useful among these spoils of war?"

"sure"

Milos warned, "But you'd better be careful, there are a lot of scorpions here, and it hurts a lot if you get stung."

I will be careful.

As Wei Ran spoke, he took off the rifle from his shoulder, picked out a German backpack, shook it, and said, "Miloš, how about you go outside and keep watch? While you're at it, check if there's any light leaking in."

“Okay,” Milos immediately agreed.

"Don't run around"

Wei Ran reminded him worriedly, "I have a feeling that Dragan will definitely come here. If he runs around at this time and attracts the Germans, this last hiding place will probably be lost, and that will harm Dragan."

"I see"

As Milos spoke, he lifted the thick curtain and left the basement.

Upon hearing the sound of the wooden door opening and closing outside, Wei Ran immediately picked out all the remaining German backpacks one by one, and after searching through them, he took two kerosene lamps from the edges of two of the backpacks.

He gently shook the lamps and, finding no fuel inside, immediately took out the oil can from the metal notebook, poured a full lunchbox of kerosene into the two kerosene lamps, and lit them.

After blowing out the not-so-effective candles, Wei Ran put away the oil drum and then rummaged through the German backpacks.

Just as Milos had warned, there were indeed quite a few scorpions hidden in these backpacks. In addition to the scorpions, he even found a snake that he didn't know if it was poisonous.

Fortunately, perhaps because of the snake's presence, he didn't find the rat.

After carefully selecting a backpack that looked decent, a few blankets, and a piece of canvas that could be used to pitch a tent or make a raincoat, Wei Ran threw the rest of the backpacks, along with the snake, back into the stone coffin.

Ignoring what he had picked out, he used his gun to remove the reeds from another stone coffin and pulled out the two designer suitcases.

The locks on the two suitcases were no problem for him, but when he pried them open and saw what was inside, he sighed.

The slightly larger suitcase was filled with German gas mask canisters, one after another.

The gas mask canisters were covered with a string of characters that looked very similar to Italian, but he could only vaguely understand them, along with a string of dates that he could make out.

These jars were used to hold ashes.
Wei Ran made a judgment almost instantly, but the handwritten text in paint was not any of the languages ​​he had learned.

Could it be Romanian?

So Dragan was Romanian?

So why did Milos go to live in Romania after the war?

Wei Ran finally recalled some key details from his distant memories.

Without opening the metal cans, Wei Ran locked the box again and put it back in its original place, then looked at the second box.

The box was much smaller. Inside, besides a set of winter clothes, there was a plastic notebook, several medals from the Spanish Civil War, a stack of passports from different people, and a few US dollars, British pounds, and German marks.

Before he could take a closer look, he heard some rustling noises outside. He immediately closed the box, locked it, put it back in its original place, and covered it again with reeds.

After he finished his work and quickly took out the gas mask pouch from the metal notebook and stuffed it into the early-model M39 backpack he had just picked out, Milos also crawled in.

"what happened?"

While tidying up his backpack, Wei Ran asked in a low voice that he needed the bag as cover for taking things out of the metal notebook.

"Tanks, German tanks!" Milos exclaimed, barely able to contain his panic.

Upon hearing this, Wei Ran immediately blew out the two oil lamps, then picked up his gun and followed Milos out of the basement.

In just a short while, the fog outside thickened even more, but even so, they could still see the dim beams of the vehicle's headlights through the fog and hear the creaking sound of the tracks grinding against the ground.

“Is there anything we should do?” Milos asked in a low voice.

"Do you think we can do anything with the weapons we have?"

Wei Ran's low question silenced the young Milos. They couldn't do it; there was nothing they could do.

"Let's go back"

Wei Ran gave a low greeting and led the helpless Milos back into the cramped basement of the abandoned church.

He relit the two oil lamps and used the tent fabric to make a hammock, which he then tied between two stone pillars.

Let's take a break.

Wei Ran said, "I'll go outside and keep watch. You can relieve me in the latter half of the night."

"I still..."

"Take a nap."

Wei Ran urged, "You can only continue fighting if you are well rested."

Upon hearing this, Milos finally nodded and obediently lay down in the hammock that Wei Ran had made for him.

Without rushing out, Wei Ran turned his back to Milos and took out the horsehair bag. He then took out the silver coffee brewing pot and placed it on the sarcophagus lid. He lit the alcohol lamp and brewed a pot of coffee, letting it slowly flow into his British army canteen under the pressure of steam.

At the same time, he also took out a mosquito coil tube from the battlefield in Papua New Guinea from his gas mask bag and lit a coil of mosquito coils for later use.

Having made ample preparations for staying up all night, Wei Ran packed up all his belongings except for the mosquito coil holder, then slung over his shoulder the German horsehair bag that he had just found, which looked remarkably similar to the one he had found. Only then did he leave the coffee-scented basement and hide in the cornfield not far away.

After checking that the mosquito coil tube next to him was tightly sealed and no flames were coming out, he took out the Soviet canvas cloak and put it on. He also took off his muddy boots and put on the marching boots that he had taken out with the cloak.

Unable to retrieve the wooden box containing the sesame cakes again, Wei Ran took out an entrenching tool, knocked down an ear of corn, peeled off the leaves and husks, and chewed it slowly, sucking out the sweet juice, treating it like sugarcane.

Under his quiet observation, the tanks that had just passed through drove further and further away, eventually heading towards the encirclement front.

The church, which had been abandoned for who knows how long, along with the adjacent cemetery and cornfield, returned to silence, quietly listening to the sounds of battle coming from the battlefield just across the mountain.

Is it safe here? Of course not. If it weren't for waiting for Dragan, running away right now would undoubtedly be the best option.

But according to the so-called "blind spot" principle, this place is safe—provided that the person hiding here doesn't lose their composure.

As Wei Ran waited patiently, the sky gradually brightened, the fog dissipated, and visibility improved significantly—but this was not a good thing.

However, it was in this increasingly thinning morning mist that a figure limped over from a distance.

Is it Dragan?

Wei Ran immediately grabbed the Mauser sniper rifle beside him, first aiming at the other person's face to confirm his guess, and then immediately aiming at the other person's back.

Fortunately, no Germans appeared behind him until the other party reached the side of the abandoned church, nor did any Germans appear on the dirt road not far away.

With the Soviet army cloak folded up as quickly as possible, Wei Ran slung the backpack he had brought as cover over his shoulder and dashed out of the cornfield.

As soon as he appeared, Dragan noticed him and recognized him immediately.

"You are hurt?"

As Wei Ran approached, he immediately noticed the bloodstains on the other person's head, legs, and hands.

"Stray bullet," Dragan explained weakly, "Mimilosh."

"There's no one injured inside. You can go in first."

As Wei Ran spoke, he had already walked in the direction Dragan had come from.

After checking and confirming that there wasn't much blood along the way, he immediately ran back to the basement of the abandoned church.

"Go outside and keep an eye on things."

As Wei Ran entered, he spoke to Milos, who immediately grabbed his gun and ran out.

"How did you get hurt?"

While asking questions in Spanish, Wei Ran had already picked up the oil lamp and begun to examine the other person's injuries.

“Miloš said you actually speak Serbian?” Dragan asked a completely unrelated question.

“I’ve actually been learning, but I’m not as fluent as I am in Spanish.”

Wei Ran switched to Serbian and said, "It's your turn to answer my question."

A shell landed near me.

Dragan shuddered as his wound was touched. "A guerrilla rescued me, and when I woke up he was dead, lying on top of me. I hid when no one was looking."

"There was only some gauze among these spoils, and it had been here for so long that it was already contaminated. Besides, gauze alone is simply not enough."

Wei Ran frowned as he examined the wound.

Although the shrapnel wounds on Dragan's head and legs were of varying depths, they had already scabbed over.

However, his right hand was particularly badly injured; shrapnel had almost completely severed the hand except for the thumb.

If it weren't for the leather strap tightly binding his wrists, he might have died from blood loss long ago. "Looks like I'm finally going to die on the battlefield."

There was no sadness in Dragan's tone; on the contrary, there was only relief and even joy.

"Why do you say that?"

While Wei Ran was asking questions, he had already taken out a coffee brewing pot from the horsehair bag under the cover of the stone coffin. Then he removed the cup sleeve from his British army canteen and, still under the cover of the stone coffin, took out a bucket and filled it with water.

Wei Ran placed the cup sleeve on the alcohol lamp of the coffee brewing pot, lit it, and then took out several packs of gauze and put them in for steaming and sterilization.

"All my friends are dead."

Dragan muttered, “They all died in Spain, and I am the only one who survived.”

"If you die, who will take them home?" Wei Ran asked while busy sterilizing the gauze.

"You saw what was in the box?" Dragan asked nonchalantly.

"yes"

Wei Ran readily admitted to rummaging through his personal belongings without permission, saying, "I wanted to find something usable."

We are from the same class.

Dragan said, "I was in the same class at the Romanian War College, and I was Romanian."

“That’s a good school.” Wei Ran paused, taken aback.

"Most of us only studied at that school for two years, and most of us dropped out after less than a year to go to Spain to fight in the war."

Dragan gave a bitter smile. "There were 13 of us in total, forming a combat squad, but in the end, only I survived."

I... I don't know how to get them home.

"I don't know either"

Wei Ran sighed, just as he couldn't overcome the fear of hunger through experience.

He also had no way to alleviate the pain of sending his fallen comrades home through his combat experience.

In fact, this is a kind of pain that becomes more unsolvable and terrifying the more one experiences these two things.

"Yeah, I don't know either."

Dragan sighed, "To die on the battlefield, to die on the battlefield like them, is perhaps the best answer."

"This is indeed the best answer for you."

Wei Ran stared at the alcohol lamp on the coffin lid and said, "But for those who have died, perhaps the best answer is for you to go back alive and send them back alive."

"The most painful answer"

"Yes, it's the most painful answer."

Wei Ran nodded. "Do you want to live? If you plan to die here, I'll run away too. I don't care whether Milos lives or dies."

"What do you mean by this?" Dragan asked, both amused and exasperated.

"Freedom to decide, of course, means you are free to decide."

Wei Ran said with a smile, "If you're going to give up, then I'll give up too."

"Okay, I choose to live."

Dragan shook his head helplessly. "What do you plan to do?"

"At the very least, we need to get a surgical kit that can help treat your wounds, or find a qualified doctor."

As Wei Ran spoke, he took out a pack of confiscated R6 cigarettes from his bag, handed one to the other person, and said, "As for what to do next, I don't know."

After letting Wei Ran light his cigarette, Dragan said, "If you intend to continue fighting, then we're going to find the guerrillas next."

"That's it."

Wei Ran had barely finished speaking when Milos ran over, "More German cars are coming from the distance, lots of them! They've arrested a lot of people!"

"I gonna go see"

As Wei Ran spoke, he crawled out of the basement, hid under a pile of reeds, and looked into the distance with binoculars.

In the almost dissipated morning mist, he could clearly see several trucks and half-track armored vehicles approaching from a distance, along with sidecar motorcycles mixed in with them.

In addition to these, there were also a large number of captured guerrilla fighters and villagers, as well as cattle, sheep and wagons that were also captured.

As the enemy closed in, Wei Ran shrank back, took out his Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera, and pressed the shutter to photograph the convoy and the captured people.

Under his watchful eye and the lens of his camera, the convoy did not stop, but continued to escort the long procession of prisoners along the dirt road into the distance.

"boom!"

Just as he pressed the shutter again, a gunshot rang out from the escorting convoy on the road.

Subconsciously raising his head, Wei Ran pursed his lips. He could clearly see in the viewfinder that the man who was shot was only slowed down because he seemed to have an injured leg.

Waving to Milos, who was trying to emerge from behind, Wei Ran picked up his camera again, hid in the reeds, and held his breath to observe.

Perhaps because the journey was being slowed down by the people who had just been executed, the convoy escorting prisoners stopped at this moment.

What happened next made Wei Ran tense up.

Amidst the shoving and shouting of the Croatian auxiliary troops, those prisoners of war who were unable to keep up with the ranks due to age or injury were selected and pushed to stand in a row against the broken wall of the abandoned church.

"Fire!"

An officer sitting on a motorcycle with a sidecar waved his hand and issued the order in an unusually casual manner.

"boom--!"

Amidst the almost overlapping gunfire, Wei Ran, hiding in the reeds, pressed the shutter again, and then heard the dull thuds of the prisoners standing against the wall falling to the ground one after another.

He didn't dare raise his camera to take pictures again, but the filaments outside the reed pile pushed the second group of people against the wall.

"boom--!"

As soon as the second volley of gunfire began, the third batch of selected "inferior prisoners of war" were pushed forward.

Under Wei Ran's watchful eye, the volley of gunfire fired four rounds before finally stopping.

Immediately afterward, two soldiers wielding MP40 submachine guns began firing. Wei Ran retreated before the enemy could raise their guns, and carefully closed the narrow wooden door amidst the gunfire.

After a burst of piercing gunfire, the prisoner escort team set off again and increased their speed, leaving behind only piles of corpses beside the ruined walls of the abandoned church—most of them innocent people.

After listening intently for a moment, Wei Ran closed the wooden door from the inside and whispered, "Don't go out, keep quiet."

Milos, Dragan needs a doctor. Instead of wondering what's happening outside, you should think about where to find a doctor.

After saying that, Wei Ran walked to the side of the coffin lid, extinguished the alcohol lamp, and then put it away using the coffin. He then took out the steamed gauze roll.

He patiently waited for it to cool down, carefully cleaned the wounds on Dragan's head and legs, and meticulously bandaged them.

After he finished his work, Milos spoke up, "I know where there are doctors, but they are far from here. It would take half a day to get there by carriage, and I'm not sure if there are any Germans or Croatians there."

"Let's rest for a bit first, and we'll set off later."

After loosening the leather strap slightly and then re-bandaging Dragan's hand to stop the bleeding, Wei Ran said.

No matter how serious Dragan's injuries were, the outside world was full of enemies, and going out now would be tantamount to suicide.

“What’s happening outside?” Dragan asked.

Nothing happened.

As Wei Ran spoke, he stood up and walked to the side of the stone coffin, picked up his backpack and said, "I'll go outside and keep watch. Milos, you take good care of him."

What's going on outside?

"Miloš, stop asking."

Dragan stopped Milos, "Do you have any water? Get me some."

You can't drink water.

Wei Ran, who had already pushed the door open again, reminded him, "If you don't plan to die here, don't drink a drop of water."

After saying that, Wei Ran crawled out and closed the door before Milos could peek out, then used a stick to prop it shut, blocking Milos's chance of coming up to take a look.

After observing for a moment through the gaps in the reeds, Wei Ran carefully crawled out of the reeds, crouched down, and slipped into the nearby cornfield. From this angle, he pressed the shutter to take a picture of the corpses piled up beside the ruined wall.

After hiding himself back in the cornfield, before Wei Ran could even take out his Soviet army cloak again, a half-track motorcycle with a trailer came speeding towards them from a distance!
Seeing this, Wei Ran immediately took out his binoculars and glanced at the half-track. Seeing that there were no vehicles behind it, he immediately crawled to the other side of the cornfield and took another look. The convoy that had been escorting prisoners had long since disappeared.

Do you want to give it a try?
After only a slight hesitation, Wei Ran put down his Mauser rifle. He had experience with this kind of thing; as long as he could quietly seize the car, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Carefully moving to the roadside, Wei Ran, who was hiding in the cornfield, rolled up his Soviet army cloak and got ready.

As he waited patiently, the half-track motorcycle drew closer and closer, and Wei Ran even heard the three German soldiers on board singing "Lili Marleen."

"Let you sing, you son of a bitch!"

Wei Ran darted out of the cornfield and, as if casting a net, threw the Soviet army cloak in his hand at the driver of the half-track motorcycle.

Amidst the gasps, the young driver instinctively began to brake, and Wei Ran seized the opportunity to leap forward.

First, he swung a shovel at the neck of a German soldier sitting behind him. Before blood could flow, he immediately let go, grabbed another German soldier by the neck, and used the momentum to climb onto the vehicle while twisting his arm.

With a sharp crack, Wei Ran, who was almost kneeling between the driver and the passenger in the back, continued to hold the corpse for leverage, turned around, and stomped hard on the back of the driver's head in a nearly sideways position.

"Click!"

With a crisp cracking sound, Wei Ran immediately released the soldier's body in the back row, turned around, straddled the driver, leaned over to grab the handlebars, straightened the vehicle, and turned off the engine.

Looking around, Wei Ran, who had successfully completed his adventure, didn't dare to delay. He pulled on a Soviet cloak to cover the wound on the corpse behind him whose neck had been slashed, then got out of the car and picked up the fallen entrenching tool.

As quickly as possible, he pulled the driver out, snapped his neck, and laid him horizontally on the hood. After getting into the driver's seat, Wei Ran immediately turned the car around and pulled the trailer behind him to the edge of the abandoned church.

Although they successfully hijacked a half-track motorcycle, Wei Ran knew that their adventure had only just begun.

Whether they can escape in this car is anyone's guess.