At five o'clock in the morning, Wei Ran, who was sleeping soundly, was successfully awakened by the loudspeaker of the Germans on the opposite position. Cursing silently, he reluctantly sat up from the single bed made out of the ammunition box.
The shelling last night did not last long, and there was no further exchange of fire. However, the light emitted by the illumination bombs that the two sides hit into the night sky from time to time could be blocked by the bunkers, but the sound of the irregular firing was not at all. A ball of cotton stuffed into the ear can block it.
Because of this, almost everyone did not sleep well that night. Now that he was woken up again by the other party's loudspeaker full of obscenities, Wei Ran couldn't help but use a loudspeaker too and cursed back in German.
He walked out of the bunker in confusion. The thick fog in the early morning made the visible distance no more than ten meters at most. But in the damp trench, a platoon leader under Valentin had organized several soldiers to climb out of the trench.
"What are they going to do?" Wei Ran asked company commander Valentin who was standing not far away.
"Go and pick off the German boots"
Valentin said matter-of-factly, "There are still a dozen soldiers in my company who do not have boots that are strong enough to withstand mud and water. This will seriously affect their combat effectiveness. The other side just sent gifts last night, and now is the time to receive these gifts." While he was talking, the soldiers were already holding a gift. A submachine gun and two landmines made of wooden boxes quietly climbed out of the trench and disappeared in the thick fog in an instant. The rest of the soldiers also climbed into the trenches, readying their weapons and alertly guarding against enemies that might appear at any time.
While waiting quietly, time passed by one second, and the originally dim sky gradually became brighter, but those soldiers never came back. But what makes people feel a little relieved is that , at least there were no gunshots coming from the mist.
Half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, until exactly seven o'clock in the morning, regular yellow lights began to flash in the fog outside the trench.
Soon, soldiers with boots or leather boot tops hanging on their shoulders came back from the fog one after another.
It wasn’t until after the war that the soldiers inside and outside could clearly see each other’s faces that the leading soldier turned off the flashlight he had been holding, and beckoned his companions around him to return to the trench along the ladder.
"Company Commander, we have obtained a total of 22 pairs of boots, and the mines have been laid."
The leading soldier finished speaking happily, reached out and took off the boots and hung them around his waist. bag of potatoes, “and a lot of cigarettes and other stuff.”
“Let’s share it with everyone.”
Valentin waved his hand, “You can Go get a small glass of vodka each, unwatered vodka, this is a precious gift brought by our journalist comrades."
Watching the soldiers with boots running happily to the nearby. In the field kitchen, Valentin shouted to everyone around him:He said, "Okay, now that the Germans have woken us up, we will continue to repair the trenches and bunkers today. Before dark, I don't want there to be water anywhere in the trenches!"
Around The soldiers either responded enthusiastically, or sighed secretly, and then followed the squad leader and platoon leader to continue the work that was not completed yesterday.
Weiran also entered the command post at Valentin's invitation, and enjoyed hot boiled potatoes and oatmeal porridge together, as well as black bread hard enough to be used as a hammer.
"Victor, thank you for sharing the vodka yesterday." As Valentin spoke, he took out a glass jar filled with pickles from the wooden box behind him, "Come and try it. Well, my wife sent this a few months ago, and I usually can’t bear to eat it myself.”
“Thank you, just give me half of it,” Wei Ran said quickly. Things may be dispensable to oneself, but they are precious things to the other party.
"It's just a pickle"
Valentin generously poked out the largest one with a fork and handed it to Wei Ran, but he just took a sip from the glass jar. of soup, then screwed on the lid and put it back into the wooden box.
He broke open the pickled cucumber handed to him and gave it to the other party in half. Before Wei Ran could speak, the radio on the table against the wall rang.
"The Soviets opposite, how about asking your singer to continue singing a few songs, and then we turn off the speakers?"
See Wei Ran looking at him in surprise. , Valentin said nonchalantly, "It's the Germans on the opposite side, and we weren't the only ones woken up by their loudspeakers."
"Then..."
" This little deal doesn't affect the situation, does it?"
Valentin stood up and shouted outside the bunker, "Where is our artist? Let him lead everyone in singing? A few songs, remember not to get together."
"Will the Germans judge our position by singing, and then..."
"Don't worry, Victor"
p>Walien Jinghun said nonchalantly, "It will be their turn after we finish singing. No one will open fire at this time."
As if to confirm his guess, just After Tonya in the trench led everyone to sing "Farewell to Slavic Women", the Germans on the opposite position were not to be outdone and played the classic "Girl Under the Streetlight" (aka Lily Marlene) through the loudspeaker. ).
If you ignore the trenches outside and the busy soldiers carrying weapons on their backs, as well as the smelly corpses lying in the puddles outside the trenches, there is even a kind of Weiran. This is actually just two groups busy in the fields. peasants in delusion about folk songs.
"Don't we have a trumpet?" Wei Ran waited until the other party finished singing before asking.
"Yes, but there is no need to use it in this kind of place."
Valentin used a bayonet to cut the black bread and threw it into the oatmeal while it was soaking until soft. Kung Fu, one sideWhile biting into the soft boiled potatoes, he explained in an extraordinarily sober manner, "And we don't have anyone here who can speak German, so there is no need to waste energy and precious soldiers on this kind of thing. In addition, Tonya's singing Far more effective than their incompetent curses."
Hearing this, Wei Ran burst into laughter. He thought that the Battle of Rzhev would be more brutal than the Don River battlefield he had experienced, but in less than two days, what he saw was very different from what he thought.
Whether it is Tonya’s singing, or the singing played on the German position opposite, whether it is the boots that were once worn on the feet of German soldiers and later on the feet of Soviet Red Army soldiers, no matter where the The contaminated water source is still the field hospital hidden deep in the birch forest. Or the soldiers who made stoves out of whatever materials they could find to improve living conditions in the trenches. Everything is more like a forced joy in suffering.
He could even guess that in the German position more than two hundred meters away, in addition to the commanders, the soldiers at the lowest level, the de facto invaders, might be What he was doing at that time was no different from what the Soviet Red Army was doing on this side of the position.
Compared with the numbing battle itself, perhaps what bothers them most is the muddy trenches. Perhaps what they long for most is just a letter from home. Perhaps what they want most is just something that can temporarily numb themselves. Just alcoholic drinks and songs to soothe yourself.
When the German song stopped, the loudspeaker on the opposite side continued to start yelling and provoking like a gangster. Before the fog cleared, the Germans on the opposite side also organized a tentative attack again. On the contrary, Company Commander Valentin, due to lack of troops, could only organize defenses again and again.
When the firefight stopped again, there were more wounded and dead people in this position. Wei Ran looked at these casualties who were still trying hard to pose in front of his camera yesterday. , all he could do was to sigh like a bystander.
In the tireless busyness and suffering of the living soldiers, two whole days passed little by little amid the curses, songs, gunfire and screams of the wounded. By night, Nurse Lano would come to the front line as scheduled and ask if her fiancé Daniela had returned.
Watching the thin nurse return disappointed, the people alive in the trench became more and more silent.
Because on the afternoon of September 29, Tonya, who had the title of artist, was unfortunately injured under German shelling. A piece of wood stubble set off by the shock wave passed through his head. His cheek and chin, and a machine gun that was raised at the same time, also broke his thigh.
Although his life and legs were saved under the treatment of Dr. Pasha and others from the rear, according to Nurse Lano, he may never be able to sing again with his good voice. , even speaking may be affected.
For two days in a row, there was no more singing in the trenches., even in the evening of October 1st, the Germans on the other side used the radio to ask why there was no singing.
Watching Valentin leave the trench in silence, Weiran picked up the radio and calmly explained Tonya's experience in German.
After a while, the loudspeakers on the German position stopped provoking and cursing, and the battlefield also fell into a rare calm. Even after five o'clock the next morning, it remained quiet.
In the thick fog in the early morning, the political commissar with the rank of captain finally brought a group of less than 50 reinforcements.
Silently, he handed over these soldiers who were recruited from unknown places to Company Commander Valentin. He walked to a corner alone and sat down against the trench, and took out the group photo again. Then he drew a horizontal line through Tonya's name on the back of the photo with a pen.
Seeing that only his name was left on the back of the photo, the political commissar closed his eyes tiredly and once again hummed the aria from the opera Rigoletto.
At the same time, in the thick fog, a young Red Army soldier wearing a cloak and holding a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle crawled closer to the trench. Anxiously sending signals with flashlight.
Soon, he received a response from the soldiers in the trench, and then he immediately got up, trotted and jumped into the trench.
"Danila, you are finally back. Where is Pavel's father? Let me tell you the good news first, your..."
"Where is Comrade Company Commander? Still There are comrades political commissar, where are they?" Danila asked urgently without waiting for her comrades to finish speaking.
"I'll take you to the new command post!" The soldier who was lying on the trench on duty immediately realized the urgency of the situation, and ran towards the command post hidden in the fog with Danila. Place.