[Crossing] Beacon Fire Dragon Line

〖A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants. ——Schopenhauer〗What awakened Sheng Rui was a sharp pain from his crotch.

Although still not conscious, he instinctively curled up with his legs together like a shrimp ball.There was a cold and hard touch on his cheek, and he tried his best to dispel the darkness that oppressed his brain, and opened his eyes.

He was lying on the ground surrounded by several pairs of high black riding boots.It's the boots of the German army.

He realized that he had just been kicked.

On the battlefield, when soldiers check whether the enemy is loading a corpse, they often use a method: kick the opponent's crotch hard.No man can bear that kind of pain, unless he is really dead.

But why is he lying here?

He tried to recall what had happened.

He remembered that after leaving Rome, he drove back day and night, took a few cars, and arrived in Bologna in northern Italy, with the vast valley on the south bank of the Po River in front of him.After a short walk, we entered the territory of Germany.

……Then what?Then what happened?

A hand in a leather glove grabbed his hair and forced his head up.A face with a sharp outline appeared in the field of vision, and a cold light radiated from the eyes with barely visible irises.

There is an idiom in Chinese to describe this fierce appearance: eagle nose and hawk eyes.

"Know German?" Harrier Eyes asked.

Sheng Rui looked at him without any reaction.

Harriereye released his hand contemptuously, and wiped the glove with a cloth.

"Do you speak English?" The sergeant next to him came over and asked in English with a strong German accent.

Sheng Rui was still at a loss.

He is not stupid.Although I can't remember what happened for a while, it is an obvious fact that I was captured by the German army.

Once he started talking, they were bound to want him to talk more.That meant being interrogated endlessly and tortured repeatedly.And, whether or not they could get the information out of him, it was certain that they would never let him go in the end.If the German army at the beginning of the war still abided by the "Geneva Convention", then by now, the provisions for the protection of prisoners of war have become useless.

Therefore, from the moment he understood his current situation, he quickly made up his mind: no matter what the other party asked him, he would only answer with one expression—"What are you talking about?"

The sergeant was depressed.

Their company was stationed in Bologna, and the area to the north from here was the last battlefield in Italy, which was still occupied by the Germans.But the U.S. forces were advancing so fast that they had to prepare to retreat to the north of the Po River within a few days.

Yesterday, the sergeant led a small team and planted landmines and ambush circles on a road outside Bologna, hoping to capture some American prisoners for interrogation before leaving.As a result, the Willys jeep carrying Sheng Rui ran over a landmine.The airflow generated by the explosion slammed the car body into a sharp turn, and Sheng Rui, who was sitting in the back row, was thrown out by the strong centrifugal force, injured his head and lost consciousness.

However, since the Germans deployed anti-infantry mines, they were not particularly powerful compared to vehicles.Although injured, the jeep persisted on three wheels and ran away.The German army had no choice but to catch the one that was thrown out, but they didn't know the language.

In the later period of the war, the armies of various countries took strong men and prisoners everywhere to supplement the source of troops.It is said that some people were first captured by the Japanese, then captured by the US military, then captured by the German army, and finally turned into Soviet soldiers.Given this confusion, it was not uncommon for soldiers in the same unit to have language barriers.Therefore, it is not inconceivable that Sheng Rui, an American soldier, cannot speak English.

Harrier Eyes with its hands behind its back, quickly paced left and right in the room.The sergeant was so frightened that he didn't dare to make a sound, he knew it was a precursor to the anger of the kite eye.

Sure enough, Harrier Eye rushed in front of Sheng Rui, kicking his heavy leather boots hard into his stomach.Sheng Rui felt a rush of heat rushing up his throat. He tried his best to suppress the urge to vomit, but then he was kicked in the back again.

"You dirty pigs!" Harrier Eye growled furiously, and the soles of his boots poured down on Sheng Rui like a storm.

Sheng Rui didn't say a word, letting his body roll on the sea like a boat about to be torn apart by wind and waves.He bit his lip tightly, not letting out a groan.

Harriereye stomped his hands on the cold ground, his riding boots lifted high, then dropped sharply.The back edge of the iron palm pressed heavily into the first knuckles of the index finger and middle finger of his right hand, and there was a sound of cracking bones.The unspeakable pain rushed straight to his brain, like a speeding train crashing into a cliff, causing him to lose his newly recovered consciousness again.

Having vented enough, Harrier Eyes regained his composure. He took out a comb from the jacket pocket of his military uniform, combed the loose hair on his forehead back neatly, lifted his collar with both hands, and slowly walked onto the chair. Sit down and say, "Take him back to the cell and give him something to eat and make him think we'll let him go."

Two soldiers dragged Sheng Rui back to the cell, turned and left.They didn't even bother to tie him up.

Sheng Rui was thrown on his back to the ground.

He woke up choking on his own blood.The blood rushing from his stomach to his mouth poured down his throat, making it hard for him to breathe.If this continues, he will suffocate to death in a short time.But he didn't even have the strength to turn his head sideways.

After a while, he kicked against the wall on one side, using the counter-thrust force from the other wall to turn his body over little by little, and turned into a side-lying posture, allowing the blood to flow out slowly from the corner of his mouth.

His body regained a little mobility, and he began to check his injuries.There must have been a head injury, but he couldn't see how bad it was.The index and middle fingers of his right hand were completely broken from the base, but he didn't even feel much pain, as if the body belonged to someone else.

Fortunately, the body is now strong enough to hold on.When he was beaten, the muscles of his whole body protected his internal organs and bones like iron plates.If he had been tortured like this when he just crossed over, he would have died long ago.

He slowly recalled the scene when the mine exploded.Shock, fire, impact.

No matter how you look at it, with his current condition, it is impossible to leave this place alive.That Harrier Eye is definitely not a kind person, there is no need to expect him to let him go.

For a moment, he felt hopeless.Unexpectedly, the final outcome would be like this.

It's like a person walking on a single-plank bridge over an abyss, and when he is about to reach the opposite bank, the bridge breaks mockingly.

He didn't even have anger, surprise, and anxiety, only despair.He closed his eyes, wanting to plunge himself into darkness and be free forever.

A pair of dark green eyes flashed across his mind.

Sheng Rui opened his eyes.

Can't die, can't die.Someone else is waiting for him.He couldn't just give him hope and then take it away.

Hungarian writer Kertes Imler has a work "Fate Is Uncertain", which is based on his early experience and describes the life of a Jewish teenager in a concentration camp.

At the end of that story, the teenager has a long monologue: "I will go on with a life that I simply cannot go on... There is nothing unimaginable that we cannot achieve naturally. I have learned that on my way, Happiness is like an unavoidable trap waiting for me."

When Sheng Rui read this, he drew a line under this passage with a pencil, feeling a kind of sweet despair.

Happiness is a trap.

However, is a sweet trap.

I never dared to give up life easily because I was afraid of happiness waiting in front of me.

Keepgoing, he said his little mantra again, keepgoing.

I don’t know how long it has passed—it feels like one day, a soldier brought some bread and water, and knocked the bottom of the bowl on the ground: "Hey, hey!"

Sheng Rui got up and crawled over.He set a principle for himself: Even if he vomits blood after being beaten, he still has to eat after vomiting to give his body the energy to keep going.

Watching him finish eating the bread, the soldier beckoned him to go out.He obediently stood up and was led outside the cell.Facing a high gray concrete wall, this is where prisoners are usually shot.But the soldiers did not stop here, and continued to lead him out of the gate and out of the barracks.Walking on the rough weedy road in the wild for about 10 minutes, a muddy open field appeared in front of me, and something was piled up. From a distance, it looked like strips of nylon filled with cement and sand on a construction site. bag.When I got closer, I saw that it was a corpse, all stripped naked, showing a waxy grayish white.

A shovel stuck in the soil.The soldier walked around, drew a rectangle about 4 by 5 meters on the ground with his leather boots, pointed at Sheng Rui's shovel, and pointed at the corpses.

Sheng Rui pulled out the shovel and began to dig a hole within the range he designated.The soldier stood by and watched for a while, then walked to a tree not far away and sat down with a gun in his arms, and lit a cigarette.

After digging the hole, Sheng Rui started to drag the corpses.

Stalin said that one death is a tragedy, but 1 deaths is a number.

In the same way that one corpse is a tragedy, ten thousand corpses are objects.

At some unknown time, he himself will become an ordinary one of these objects.No name, no memory, no nostalgia.

Naturally, there was nothing interesting about burying the corpse. The soldier didn't always stare at him, and occasionally looked away.At this time, Sheng Rui quietly took off the bandages wrapped around some corpses and hid them on himself.It was the only thing that could show up in him without arousing too much suspicion.

Hours later, the pile of bodies was gone, as if it had never been there.Sheng Rui walked back and forth to flatten the soil, and sprinkled another layer of floating soil and grass blades.The soldier came over to inspect it, and felt that it was almost done, so he hooked his hands and told him to go back.

On the way back, Sheng Rui tripped over a rock and fell into the grass.

The soldier came after him and kicked him twice on his calf, not very hard, like a routine.

Sheng Rui struggled in embarrassment, got up staggeringly, and continued walking with a numb face.

When he "accidentally" fell just now, he estimated the height of the grass.The grass is not too deep, just enough to bury a crawling person.They will be easy to spot during the day, but at night they will be excellent cover.

When returning to the German barracks, Sheng Rui took a sneak peek at the place.It might have been a small handicraft factory or something, but it was temporarily transformed into a prisoner of war camp, so it wasn't particularly strict.The concrete fence is about two meters high and there is no electricity grid.A vertical seam in the wall was shattered by air bombs, like a dying mouth crying for help, just wide enough for a person to pass sideways.

If you take advantage of this gap, climbing over this wall will not be a problem.The problem is that there is a guard with a rifle every ten meters around. If he tries to escape, he will be beaten into a hornet's nest if he fails to reach this position.