It took Shang Yujun a full five minutes to drive them back to their respective caves, and they themselves returned to their caves. The shelling had ceased completely, and in the great silence that followed, he heard gunfire coming from Heights 342. After waiting nervously for a while, he suddenly saw Qu Baoxiang running from the forest in the direction of the company headquarters and shouting loudly: "Platoon commander, brothers, come out quickly!" The 342 Heights have been defeated, and the entire No. 1 Ridge has also been defeated! ”

His first feeling was that he didn't believe the news that Qu Baoxiang had brought back, it came too suddenly! But there was already a commotion in the forest, not only did the soldiers in the surrounding woods drill out of their holes, but in the forest opposite the stream, he saw that the soldiers of the seventh and eighth companies also ran out! The soldiers gathered at the edge of the forest again as they had just done, jumping happily and shouting: "Hey, this dog's 3rd regiment is moving strangely!" ”

"People are a kind of regiment!"

"Why did the Soviets forget to shoot at us?!"

"How can they be! The soldier is so poor that he can't even wear pants! ”

Shang Yujun came out of the cat hole. He still couldn't believe the above message. But the breathless heaviness that had been pressing on my heart since I was awakened before dawn, and the feeling of being deeply stung by something sharp, disappeared at once, and another warm, moving, joyful emotion swelled up in my heart like a tide...... "...... Is the battle on Ridge One really over? Qu Baoxiang's message seems to be reliable. …… If the 3rd Regiment really knocked down the No. 1 Ridge, wouldn't we have no battle? …… Wouldn't it be better if that were the case? ......" he thought so, and the joy and emotion that was rising in his heart suddenly turned into deeper excitement and joy, flooding through his life...... He came to the edge of the forest, where the three squad leaders were talking excitedly. Lu Liwei, who hadn't shown up much in the morning, was also standing there at the moment, his eyes flashing with a moist and bright light, and asked him: "Platoon commander, tell me, if the battle of No. 1 Ridge is all over to the 3rd Regiment, will the boss still ask us to participate in the battle?" ”

"I still say the same thing: not necessarily!" Gong Wenxuan, who was faintly dissatisfied, didn't wait for Shang Yujun to answer, so he grabbed the conversation, "What if Regiment Commander Peng sympathizes with us and leaves three or two hills for our battalion to fight?" ”

"Fuck I don't want him to sympathize!" Li Yue, the leader of the ninth squad, interjected very fiercely, "Let the 3rd regiment contract all the mountain!" ”

"So what do you want you to do?" Gong Wenxuan sneered, "Just asked you to eat compressed dry food? Then you might as well feed the pigs with it! ”

Shang Yujun did not participate in their arguments. The sky was already bright, and the fire on Heights 342 had been extinguished, turning into a column of gray-brown smoke that rose straight into the sky. He still couldn't believe that the war was over, but the relaxed, joyful atmosphere that permeated and beloved the woods infected his heart more and more.

He had a lot of things to do next: after a while, the company commander sent someone to inform them to pick up firewood for the cooking squad and burn the fire; Suddenly, the battalion commander was accompanied by a training officer to the platoon to check the combat preparations (this incident made his spirit re-nervous, but the company did not immediately set off for battle after the battalion commander left, and his mood relaxed again); Later, they sat at the edge of the woods and waited for the cooking class to announce the start of the meal. Shang Yujun returned to the cave and sat down, he had already agreed with the relaxed atmosphere that seemed to be over in the forest, but every three or five minutes, a certain worry that he could not forget still made him walk to the edge of the forest again and again, looking towards Heights 342.

He still couldn't believe the end of the war! After months of suffering and suffering for so many days and nights to enter this war, he was finally ready to endure the most unimaginable hardships and sacrifices. Now he was told that the war was over before he fired a shot, how could he believe it!

"Platoon commander, sit down and eat some dry food?" On a meadow at the edge of the forest, three squad leaders sat on the ground, eating the compressed dry food they were carrying with cold water from the bottom of the stream. When Lu Liwei saw him, he greeted him.

"Who told you to eat dry food?" When Shang Yujun saw them, his heart was a little panicked again. Compressed dry food, like bullets, is a material that must be properly kept in combat preparations, and it is absolutely not to be eaten without an order in the company!

"Platoon leader, you just tell everyone to eat!" Gong Wenxuan, the eighth squad leader, said lightly.

"Look at today's situation, we probably won't be able to fight, and keeping it is also luggage!"

Shang Yujun didn't care anymore, Gong Wenxuan may be right. The secretary had just fought with the company commander, and it seemed that he would not be able to eat this meal well in the morning; From last night to now, everyone has not had a tooth, once the task suddenly comes-the habitual role of consciousness makes him feel that it is still possible for the company to go to war-it will not be able to support it without gnawing some dry food!

So in the 9th Company, which did not eat within 40 minutes stipulated by the deputy regiment commander, only Shang Yujun's 3rd platoon quietly ate some dry food in violation of the regulations. Shang Yu did not eat dry food. He still didn't have the mood to eat dry food. At this point, his emotions were basically calm, but for some reason, he still couldn't convince himself that the battle was over!

What happened next finally made Shang Yujun's heart completely relaxed.

At the end of the victory in the battle of the 342nd Heights, a group of people walked on the newly opened safe passage of the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment on the North Slope of No. 1 Lingbei. An hour later, they had reached the mountain stream without a sound.

These are three young men who are also wearing grass green uniforms. Walking in the middle was a large warrior with a badly collared cockade; Behind him was a migrant worker in unmarked jacket-style civilian uniforms; At the front were a teenage boy, and since he also wore a single military uniform without any rank symbols, the three men did not attract much attention as they traveled north and south along the small road in the woods on the east side of the mountain stream.

It wasn't until they approached the campsite of the 3rd Platoon of the 9th Company that Qu Baoxiang, who was sitting on the grass at the edge of the forest, was the first to discover the problem: "Hey, platoon commander, look, what's going on with that little guy?" ”

As soon as he shouted, Shang Yujun and the soldiers all stood up from the grass and looked at the group. Soon, they also saw a flaw in the three people who were walking calmly on the surface. Although they all came down from the 342 Heights, each of them had different attitudes and demeanors: the boy at the front was obviously a Russian, unkempt; The clothes were dirty and torn, and a gap of more than a foot long was cut on the left trouser leg, revealing half of the bare leg when he stepped forward.

Realizing that there were many people watching him at the edge of the forest, the Russian boy raised his head, and Shang Yujun saw two small, dark-brown, frightened and bewildered eyes in his deeply sunken eye sockets; The big soldier behind him is 1.8 meters long, and his body is broad, strong and powerful. Although he had just experienced a battle, a brand-new military uniform was neat and tidy, showing a joyful bright color in the bright morning light, a "whirlwind" submachine gun hung upside down behind the right shoulder in a very chic manner, the right elbow was naturally and forcefully bent, firmly against the body of the gun backwards, and the thumb of his right hand held the gun back in front of the shoulder to protrude an obtuse angle, and he looked very satisfied with his spirit, as if he had not come to fight but to be reviewed. Nevertheless, his attention was unusually concentrated, and from time to time his eyes would glance warily at the boy in front of him, as if he were afraid that he would suddenly run away; As for the thin-faced migrant worker beside him, he was obviously a rural youth who had been temporarily recruited before the war, and he was the most relaxed of the three, with a demeanor of staying out of the matter, looking left and right as he walked, as if he was not here to participate in the war, but to enjoy the mountains and rivers.

"Hey, fellow, which unit are you from?" Qu Baoxiang was the first to step out of the woods, and accosted a big soldier among the three who were obviously temporarily in charge.

"3 regiments and 2 battalions!" The big man replied loudly and confidently as he walked.

"This ...... What does that mean? Qu Baoxiang pointed at the boy who was walking in front with his eyes and asked.

"Captive wow!" The hunk replied; Realizing that his words immediately caused surprise and shock at the edge of the forest, he stopped with satisfaction, glanced at the boy ostentatiously, and then looked at Qu Baoxiang and the soldiers who were surrounding him from the edge of the forest, and this expression appeared on his face: It is not appropriate for the three of them to be noticed only when they come here; However, now that he has been noticed, he is still willing to chat with them for a few words, so that these people who have not even been on the battlefield can open their eyes. Everyone's a soldier!

"Captive? …… How did you catch him? After almost the whole platoon came up, Qu Baoxiang walked around the little captive like looking at a rare object, his eyes shining with excitement, and he raised his head and asked.

"Caught while cleaning up the battlefield!" With so many people watching, the big soldier became even more vigorous, and said loudly and with a little disdain, as if dissatisfied, "Our battalion has captured this one prisoner!" …… It is said that the whole group only caught this one! …… There were not a few Soviet troops on the mountain, and they were wiped out by the cannon alone! We had to shoot our guns into the sky! I found him when I was cleaning up the battlefield. As he spoke, he pointed with his left hand at the little captive who had cowered down on the grass, and his eyes did not look at the latter, "and as soon as the shell went off, he found a crack in the stone and hid, and we pulled him out of a pile of dirt!" ”

The onlookers let out an exclamation of "tsk" from their mouths, which made the eyes of the big soldiers brighter and their mood more pleasant. For a while, everyone stopped paying attention to him, but to the little captives underground. Today was the tenth day of the war, and for the first time in their lives, they saw the captives they had captured, and they naturally felt surprised and fresh. While babbling, he said, "This kid is fifteen at most!" ”

"How can they call such a young child to fight!"

"Look at his poor creatures, the shoes on his feet are torn!"

"No shirt on his body, only a military uniform!"

"Let's see if he's cold!" The Zhang Zhongming brothers, who everyone hadn't seen in the morning, also crowded into the crowd. Zhang Zhongliang, who also looked like a child, cried out with pity when he saw the little captive, and he found that the little captive's scrawny shoulders were trembling slightly.

The little captive first squatted on the ground, and then sat down; Two small arms were stacked on top of each other's knees, and the dirty little face rested on them, and a pair of frightened eyes hiding from the eyes around them; He had grinned at Qu Baoxiang who had come closer to see him, as if he wanted to laugh, but he didn't laugh, and suddenly lowered his face down, buried in the crooks of his arms, and his immature little shoulders kept shaking silently.

"Did you ask him how old he is?" Qu Baoxiang stopped paying attention to him, raised his head, and pulled up with the big soldiers who were escorting the little captive.

The migrant worker who was standing next to the big soldier, still looking around the mountain stream all this time, interjected. It turned out that he was a field interpreter for the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment. "I interrogated him on the hill, he is fourteen years old, he has only been a soldier for a year, and he has deserted three times." The interpreter said, "He said that he can't desert anymore, and if he does it again, he won't give food to their family!" ”

I don't know if it was because I understood some of the meaning of the translated words, or because I was just afraid of my situation, the little captive suddenly cried in a hoarse voice.

This sudden cry brought to a halt the chattering among the onlookers at the edge of the forest. Instead of paying attention to the big men and the interpreters, their eyes turned back to the little captive. After another moment, the curiosity on everyone's face gradually turned into pity that could not be concealed.

"Is he hungry?" It was still Zhang Zhongliang who raised another childish question, and raised his eyes, looked at Li Yue and Shang Yujun, the ninth squad leader, as if asking for permission, and saw that they didn't say anything, so he was relieved and boldly touched the shoulder of the little captive with his hand, and handed over a bag of compressed dry food that had just been torn off the wrapper, "Hey, you eat!" He said to the little captive, suddenly thinking that the other party could not understand his words, he looked up at the interpreter as if asking for help, "Brother, tell him to eat some dry food!" ”

The interpreter said something loudly to the little captive in Russian. The little captive did not look up and cried even harder.

"What are you doing here!" The big guy, who had always been arrogant, felt a little embarrassed. A few minutes ago, he was the hero and star of this place, and now when the little captive cried like this, he felt an atmosphere that was unfavorable to him from the eyes of the people around him. "You see, there is no one who is difficult for him," he said, his eyes wandering through the crowd, as if to find someone to come out and prove to himself that he had indeed not embarrassed the little captive during the march just now, neither tied the little captive with a rope nor forced the little captive to walk behind with a submachine gun. But he did not find such a person. “…… If you want to eat dry food, you can eat it, let's just rest here for a while before leaving! Annoyed, helpless, and a little pitying, he said to the little captive, not realizing that the latter did not understand him either, so he unloaded his submachine gun from his shoulder, sat down on the ground and smoked.

Finally, the interpreter leaned down, leaned into the little captive's ear, and said something to him in Russian, and the little captive stopped crying, raised his little face that was stained with tears again, and looked at the people around him in a daze, as if he was encouraged by some kind of encouragement, timidly took the compressed dry food from Zhang Zhongliang's hand, and gnawed it without completely peeling off the plastic wrapper. He was so hungry that he ate so fast that he choked on a few bites. Zhang Zhongliang kept watching him eat, and then he hurriedly unscrewed the lid of his kettle and handed it over, the big brother treated the little brother like a little brother, and said, "Drink saliva and eat slowly!" The little captive understood what he meant, without a translation, and took the kettle, carefully touching his chapped lips to the spout, and drank it in great gulps, because he had drunk so violently, that he choked again. When he returned the kettle to Zhang Zhongliang, a trace of childish gratitude vaguely appeared in his blank eyes for the first time. The people around him breathed a sigh of relief, and the atmosphere became relaxed again.

Shang Yujun was also in the crowd of onlookers, but he didn't squeeze to the front.

For the first moment, the word "captive" vividly evoked in him a hostile emotion and thought; By the time he saw the little captive with his own eyes, certain new emotions and thoughts came to his mind, and he forgot the question of whether the war was over or not. The little captive in front of him did not fit well with all the understandings of captives he had read about captives in the past. In the past, although the prisoner was supposed to be given preferential treatment, its meaning was, after all, associated with the "Soviet army", and therefore first and foremost emotionally disgusting; The little captive in front of him gave him different feelings and thoughts: the little captive first reminded him of not a man from an enemy country, but a child who was only fourteen years old, a person who probably did not understand the political-military concepts of "Soviet army" and "prisoner"; In his frightened and dazed eyes, there was not a hostility and a strong sense of national and national consciousness that a soldier should have, but only a deep instinctive despair and sorrow, and a more realistic and simple fear of the surroundings. At dawn, the feeling of being stung in the heart by something sharp when the Chinese army shelled it was once again intensified in his life.

“…… He was only fourteen years old. How could he be only fourteen? Who else is in his family? …… Why would they let a fourteen-year-old come to war? Isn't there anyone more suitable than this boy? During the time when the little captive was crying and later gulping down dry food, Shang Yujun's mind had been violently churning with the above thoughts, and the feeling of being stabbed became stronger and stronger, "This little kid is still naïve even if he becomes a captive, and he doesn't understand what he is going to do with him,...... But why was there so much sadness in his eyes? ”

"Perhaps, although he did not understand anything, deep down in his heart knew that it was unreasonable and inhumane for him to be sent to war at a young age; And he didn't have the strength to rebel against this fate. …… What he didn't understand was only the war, but he understood his own situation. ”

(To be continued)