1940 year

Port Tynemouth, UK

The rain rained for more than three hours and still didn't stop.

The soldiers also stood on the beach for more than three hours.

It's July, and the warm Atlantic current sweeps the rain and falls to the ground, but the night that should be cool and warm adds a touch of cold air inexplicably. It was as if winter was approaching.

The only light here is a lighthouse in the raging sea in the distance.

A huge pillar of light swept around, and in the blink of an eye, it turned in other directions, streaking across the surrounding craggy and ruined monasteries, and the dense needle-like rain in the air.

The air was filled with an inexplicable smell of fish, which came from the fishing boats parked by the harbor, and the ground was black and wet masonry, on which some inexplicable seaside mollusks wriggled.

Soldier Kos Diman stroked the cold raindrops on his face, and with a slight movement of his foot, he kicked away a small fish that had not been carried away and was still crackling and jumping.

It was his first time on such a mission, and Diman swallowed his spit a little nervously, and looked around him, his companions were all like him, wearing helmets, holding guns, and wearing black ponchos, staring at the sea like a reef in the dark and rainy night, as if waiting for something.

At this moment, the whale oil lamp of the lighthouse swept across the empty sea, and the black shadow of a freighter was cut out, and it appeared silently, faintly in the rain curtain, and the shape could not be seen clearly, as if it had passed through the layers of space, and was placed in that position by the gods.

"Three teams, vigilance. ”

"Second team, pick up the goods. ”

An unusually tall and thin man stepped out of the soldiers, and he shouted.

The man looked like a bamboo pole, tall and thin, wearing a long-beaked mask similar to that of a plague doctor in the Victorian era, round glasses stained with rain, and wrapped in dark black robes. Black rubber leather boots on his feet.

Diman retracted his gaze and didn't move, he was on the third team.

Behind him, the soldiers of the second team turned on the flashlight, and under the light of the flashlight, a huge iron train was still lying quietly in the dark and dreary rain.

Bang knock!

The soldiers entered the train, and then stepped off the train one by one, carrying large wooden boxes. Heavy stacking on the dark, damp floor tiles of the harbor.

At the same time, the ghostly steamer on the surface of the sea slowly stopped and anchored, and the sailors lowered their lifeboats, put on ponchos to start the lifeboats, and approached the pier.

There are two lifeboats, one carrying people and the other carrying a large black and heavy iron box.

The strange man in the crow mask at the head waved his hand, and all the soldiers immediately became alert, and they clenched the Lee Enfield rifles in their hands and spread out slightly.

Diman did the same, but he saw the "leader" pull a black stick from his bosom and stuff it into his cuff.

The lifeboat docked.

The sailors at the head jumped on the pier and secured the boat with ropes to prevent it from being pushed away by the tide.

Then, they worked together to tow another lifeboat with an iron box to the shore, and the four tall sailors' arms hooked the ring at the bottom of the iron box, and the muscles used force to hold up the box that had to be lifted by a crane.

The four of them stepped forward quickly and placed the iron box four meters long and three meters high in front of the group of soldiers.

At this time, Diman saw the dress of several people clearly, they all had bare scalps and brown skin, like monks. But it's also like a monk.

They were all unusually tall and strong, wearing patched straight-cloth undershirts and trousers, and on their skin, there were some strange patterns tattooed, some seemed to be square characters, and some were some inexplicable red patterns, which looked a little hideous.

After the box was put down, the four of them silently put their hands on their crotches and said nothing.

"What about Fatil?"

A woman with a flame tattoo on her face stepped out from behind the group of men, looking like the leader of their side.

She has a beautiful face, waist-length braids, a wide Tang skirt, and clogs barefoot, but she speaks English very fluently.

"Here it is. ”

The man in the raven mask stepped forward, he was nearly two meters tall, and the woman with the eastern face was only as tall as his chest.

The man stretched out his hand: "I'll see you when you're reconciled, Miss Xi." ”

"Just speak English, Mike. ”

The woman approached and pushed the other's hand away, and Diman could see a small mole under the corner of her eye.

"OK, I've been waiting for a long time this time......"

"Where's the medicine?"

The woman interrupted him directly.

"Here. ”

The crow-faced man waved his hand, and several soldiers carried the wooden box up: "Aspirin, antibiotics, sulfonamides, quinine, morphine, well, there are special medicines too." ”

The woman crouched down and began to inspect the wooden box.

When the team leader is in charge of the transaction. Diman's gaze couldn't help but sweep to the pair of snow-white thighs under the cheongsam after the woman squatted down, and after his Adam's apple stirred, he withdrew his gaze, but saw a pair of gloomy eyes in front of the big iron box.

The tall, exotic man looked at him, his face square, his neck muscles protruding, and his eyes dark.

Diman could feel the smell of sea and blood. He swallowed, his fingers trembling as he tightened his grip on the rifle in his hand.

This action aroused the vigilance of the yellow-skinned man in black cloth shoes opposite, and he narrowed his eyes slightly. Take a step forward with a fist. The rain quickly evaporated from his bare head.

He is obviously unarmed, but his momentum makes people feel oppressed.

Diman stepped back with his rifle.

The movement made the woman with the flame tattoo on her face turn her head instantly: "Quan Zai, don't be like a ghost." ”

The man immediately stood back, bowed his head, and looked very respectful.

Diman didn't understand what they were saying, so he tilted his head slightly and asked a veteran next to him, "Who are these?"

The veteran's lips squirmed: "People over there, don't talk nonsense." ”

After inspecting the rows of wooden boxes on the ground, the cheongsam woman nodded with satisfaction.

"The medicine is there, do you want to check it?"

She pointed to the large box that had been brought down from the ship.

The man in the crow mask glanced at the box, a cold white mist erupted from the mask's nostrils, he shook his head, and stretched out his hand:

"He Sayu loves it. ”

"Hmm. The woman shook the palm of the man in the crow mask, turned her head and waved her arm: "Scattered water." ”

The group of Oriental men in sackcloth immediately retreated to the wooden box, picked it up, put it on two lifeboats, and disappeared into the dark rain of the harbor without looking back.

The freighter from the Far East flickered in the black tide for a moment, and then disappeared as it had come.

Only an inexplicable large iron box was left in the harbor.

The rain in the sky crackled against the boxes, hissing hookah, as if drops of water were dripping on a burning coal stove.

The tall, thin man in the crow's mask walked slowly to the large iron box, and with his back to Diman, he tapped the iron box with his slender fingers like bamboo, and put his ear to it for a moment to listen.

Then, he straightened up: "Take it and go to Wales." ”

More than a dozen soldiers stepped forward as they said, but the box that was lifted by four strong men from the East, a dozen soldiers couldn't help it.

Until the man in the crow mask knocked on the iron box with a thin wooden stick without leaving a trace. The soldiers lifted the box and put it in the train.

Ten minutes later, a thick scorching steam erupted from the front of the car parked in Tynemouth Harbour, and three thick lights shot through the rain curtain and shone into the unknown distance.

The exotic cargo was tightly placed in the middle of the train, with heavily armed soldiers in front and behind.

Kos Diman stood guard in the corridor of the carriage closest to the cargo, looking back.

Through the glass, illuminated by a row of incandescent lamps on the roof of the car, he saw that the iron box sent from the foreign country was covered by a thick layer of dark gray tarpaulin, firmly fastened to the iron plate of the train by steel cables and nails.

For some reason, he felt a mood called "grumpy" from the box.

The outer tarpaulin trembled slightly, and it was clear that the train had not yet started.

"What are you looking at?"

The soldier standing guard next to him tapped him on the shoulder with the butt of his rifle.

Diman came back to his senses and found that the other party had a cigarette in his mouth and a cigarette in his fingers.

"Well, thank you. ”

He took the cigarette and lit it with a match.

"Don't look around. The veteran reminded him.

"Hey!"

Diman couldn't help it, he spat out a mouthful of white mist: "Aren't you curious, there is a rumble in that box, but you pretend not to hear anything." ”

"Curious?"

The veteran glanced at him indifferently: "I'm telling you, young man, there are too many things in this world that you don't understand, don't look around, touch randomly, and think wildly...... The danger is none of your business. ”

Diman shut up and smoked in silence.

But he couldn't help but think about what was in the box, as if someone told him not to think about the elephant, and the shadow of the elephant immediately appeared in his mind.

......

Time flies.

The train continued to move unslowed down in the dark rain.

Inside the carriage, Kos Diman's eyelids grew heavier.

It seemed like three hours had passed, and it seemed like only another second had passed.

Suddenly, something swept across his cheeks, and he awoke from his drowsy state.

But at this moment, the veteran standing guard next to him was gone, and the other soldiers around him were nowhere to be seen.

The wind was blowing behind him, and he was startled and looked back.

I saw the chandelier in the carriage crackling, and in the flickering light and darkness, the exotic iron box had been opened at some point. The steel cables fastened to the iron plates were all broken, and the canvas was flying, but there was nothing inside.

"Chris......?"

Diman swallowed and called out the name of the missing veteran, but no one answered. It seemed that all of a sudden, he was the only one left on the moving train.

The carriage in front of him flickered and flickered, he couldn't see clearly, he didn't know what the situation was, he was only frightened, holding the gun and slowly retreating.

Retreating to the corner of another carriage and leaning against a hard object, he breathed a sigh of relief. The body begins to warm up gradually, the temperature rises, and it gets hotter and hotter.

He let go of his grip and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Wait a minute.......

Hot?

The heat in the body continued to rise, as if two scorching blowers were blowing on their backs.

He turned around.

In the dark.

The iris opens horizontally.

A pair of huge blazing orange vertical pupils burned silently.