Chapter 8 Chapter Seven: Pillar of Red Smoke

Last night we slept with the hatch door closed to keep the snow from drifting in.As soon as Zhang Yicheng opened the hatch, a cloud of ice and snow broke through the door, and the wreckage of C-47 had turned into a silver-white grave.Fortunately, the wind and snow stopped this morning, and the sky was covered with azure blue, matching the silvery white on the ground. It was breathtakingly beautiful.Hearing Zhang Yicheng's exclamation, we got up in a daze and walked out of the cabin to check the situation.The snow-capped mountains are so high that they touch the sky, and people become very small at this time, no different from ants.

Behind a snow-capped mountain, there is a red smoke, like the smoke from a farmhouse, slowly rising into the air.The red smoke column was at least a few kilometers away from us, and it was hidden behind a snow peak that we couldn't pronounce the name of. No one could figure out what it was.I thought about it last night, whether to burn a fire, use the smoke to report our position, and ask the passing comrades to rescue us.However, cargo planes fly at night, and the smoke is black, making it difficult for comrades to spot.No matter what is burned, the smoke is either black or gray. None of us have seen red smoke pillars.

Han Xiaoqiang raised his head and asked, "Are the other comrades still alive?" "You ask me, who should I ask?" Zhang Yicheng said, "I don't think they belong to us, why don't you tell me, when you went to the United States for training, did anyone teach you how to make red smoke pillars?" I shook my head and said, "Nobody taught me that!" Hu Liang resisted the glare reflected by the snow, and looked up into the distance: "Look at that snow mountain, the pillar of smoke behind it must be at least a few thousand meters high, otherwise it would have been blocked by the snow mountain long ago. What kind of smoke can rise to thousands of meters? Won't you disperse?"

Zhang Yicheng waved his hand and said, "Don't confuse people! How do you know that the pillar of smoke rose from the ground? Maybe someone lit a fire on the top of the snow-capped mountain, but we didn't see it." I thought about what Zhang Yicheng said, although it seemed rough and unreasonable, it was also possible.After all, no one has ever seen smoke that can rise in a straight line for several kilometers. The general cooking smoke dissipates within a few tens of meters, and few people have seen red smoke.In nature, the brighter the color, the more poisonous that thing may be. This is definitely not the smoke column burned by comrades-in-arms.The Japanese are so perverted, they either caesarean section or make comfort women, the smoke column must be made by them, we'd better stay away from it.

Zhang Yicheng agreed with my point of view with both hands. The snow-capped mountain was in front of him, and it was difficult to climb over without the aid of ice ax and crampons.If you want to make a detour, there is a road under the mountain, but no one knows whether it can be detoured.Han Xiaoqiang couldn't breathe anymore, so he didn't dare to be brave, so he quickly said that it would be best not to go there.However, Hu Liang wanted to satisfy his curiosity, and wished he could grow his wings and fly there.Right now we are all disabled soldiers and wounded, how can we have that kind of energy, so Hu Liang had to compromise.

We are located in the Great Himalayas, where there are dozens of snow peaks, each of which is over 7,000 meters high and snow-covered all the year round. After the C-47 crashed, it fell at the foot of a snow-capped mountain. We couldn't name the snow-capped mountain, and the navigation map didn't work at this time.I remember that the further north you go in this section of the northern belt, the flatter the terrain will be. (Note: It is the north belt, not the north slope, and the definition is different from the north and south slopes.) Without professional equipment, you must not go south, because it is getting steeper and steeper, and there is no human habitation at all.

I took out the compass from my pocket and determined the position to the north. I didn't expect it to be the side of the red smoke column. It seemed that I had to deal with the smoke column.I pointed there and sighed how long it would take to bypass the snow-capped mountains in front of me. It might take tens of kilometers in the snow.Now our lips are purple from the cold, dry and chapped like farmland short of water, we must replenish our strength first.What's more, the temperature here is so low that we feel like our blood is freezing. If we don't make a fire, we will really freeze to death.

At this time, Hu Liang looked at the compass in his hand, and then asked me: "Which side did you just say is north?" I froze for a moment, and replied, "Didn't you hear the red smoke over there?" Hu Liang raised his head and said, "No, that's south. Liu Anjing, do you know how to use a compass?" I opened the compass in my hand, and I had checked it just now, and the side with the pillar of smoke was north.How could I make a mistake with such a simple question, so I handed my compass to Hu Liang for him to check.This time, Hu Liang became very puzzled, because his compass was different from mine, and the direction of the pointer was completely opposite.I hurriedly said no, let me see, but don't make jokes at this time.

I held two compasses in my hand, and sure enough, the directions of the pointers were different, showing a difference of 180 degrees.Seeing this, Han Xiaoqiang quickly took out his compass and compared it with ours.But the result obtained by Han Xiaoqiang's compass is also different, which is 90 degrees different from ours.The three of us looked at Zhang Yicheng, which made him lazily take out the compass in his pocket. His pointer direction was also different from the other three, and it was just the opposite of Han Xiaoqiang's. This caused us a lot of headaches. The four compass points point in different directions. It can be said that we can't tell the difference between east, west, north and south.When I went to the United States for training, I heard that some places have abnormally strong magnetic fields, and the compass will deviate.But the magnitudes of those deviations are all about the same. I have never heard of strange magnetic fields that can make the results of several compasses very different.This must have nothing to do with the magnetic field, because the direction of the magnetic field is uniform, and there will be no different results.

Zhang Yicheng didn't feel relieved, and said to everyone: "What's so strange about this! We fell from the sky last night, and it's so cold now, maybe the compass is broken!" I admit that what Zhang Yicheng said makes sense. The compass may really be broken. Fortunately, the direction can be judged based on the position of the sun so as not to get lost in the snow-capped mountains.Looking at the sun in the sky, we were sure that the smoke column was north and my compass was correct.However, the sun only has the function of guiding the way in the snow-capped mountains. We can't feel its warmth at all, as if it is broken.

This morning, we took everything we could from the wreckage, and the body of the Japanese was left on the snow.Although we don't want the devil to defile the country, we can't carry him away, and we don't have the conditions to burn him to ashes, because gasoline and alcohol must be saved.Zhang Yicheng snorted and said that there are wild beasts in the snow mountain, so let the wild beasts eat him.Later, I recalled this period of past events. If the Japanese body had not been left behind, perhaps it would not have caused regrets in the future.Because none of us thought at that time that his identity would be so special. The identity of the Japanese will be revealed in the story soon, so let me continue the story now. We discussed for a while, and decided to eat some compressed biscuits to satisfy our hunger, and then take advantage of the fine weather to find the C-53 transport plane that crashed together last night.We do not have much food on us, we cannot eat it all in one sitting, and must distribute it carefully.In fact, those compressed biscuits are particularly unpalatable, no different from chaff.In addition to biscuits, we also had American-made chocolate, but there were only two pieces, and no one was willing to eat them right away.We had no water on our bodies, and we were thirsty after eating compressed biscuits, so we had to eat a handful of snow, which almost froze our tongues. After leaving the wreckage of the plane, Hu Liang took the lead and walked in the northwest direction.According to memory, we saw C-53 crashed there last night, about one or two kilometers away from C-47.That location is the intersection of two snow-capped mountains, the terrain is a little lower, and it is now on the shady side, without sunlight.This situation is beneficial to us, because if you don't wear sunglasses in the snow-capped mountains, people's eyes are easily blinded by the light reflected by the white snow.We lost our sunglasses last night, but now that we are walking in the shade of the snow-capped mountains, our eyes are relaxed. At the beginning, the road was very narrow, but it became wider and wider as we walked in, turning into a huge snow valley.The wind is blowing here, and we are like kites, almost flying.Han Xiaoqiang was the weakest. I worried that he would die if he walked, so I kept supporting him.After walking a certain distance, our cold body finally warmed up a bit, but our hands and feet felt very itchy, as if an ant was biting us.Only Zhang Yicheng got used to it better, except that his mouth was still chapped and his head didn't hurt so much anymore. The snow in the snow valley is very thick, and the snow that floated down last night has not been compacted yet. When we stepped on it, it was like stepping on mud, and it was very difficult to pull out our calves.This snow valley is not a straight line, and there is a corner in the distance, which makes it impossible to see the end.Not far from the corner, we saw a large grave in the snow, and we were filled with emotion. It was the wreckage of C-53.Everyone quickened their pace and walked over anxiously, wanting to save their comrades from suffering, but they couldn't find their bodies when they walked over there. After sweeping away a layer of white snow, we got into the cracked cabin, and there was no one in it.This C-53 crashed due to a vacuum bag. We saw it clearly from the side. At that time, no one successfully parachuted, and the crew was all in the plane.I thought to myself, could it be that they, like Gray, mysteriously disappeared in the sky, wouldn't this be too evil?Zhang Yicheng couldn't find the body, so he searched for the things that hadn't been burned to see if they could be used.After searching all over for nothing, Hu Liang stepped out of the cabin and went outside to look for it.I asked Han Xiaoqiang to rest inside for a while, and then followed him out, wanting to ask Hu Liang what he found. As soon as I walked out, I saw Hu Liang wearing black gloves sweeping the snow, as if he was digging something.I went over to ask what I was looking for, but before I finished asking, Hu Liang dug out a trapezoidal stone.There was also a pile of white snow behind the rocks, but it was not as big as the wreckage of the plane, so we thought it was an ordinary snowdrift at first.This stone has traces of being burnt black. It must have hit the mountain when the plane crashed last night and rolled down.I saw that there were four words engraved crookedly on the stone-"Tomb of Heroes".I immediately realized that the bones of comrades-in-arms were buried behind Bai Xue, and someone took the lead and built a tomb here in advance. "Who could have done it? It is impossible for anyone on the C-53 to survive a crash of the magnitude last night!" I asked puzzled. "There were 14 planes last night, and there may be other survivors." Hu Liang guessed. "Then why didn't they come to look for us?" I said to myself, always feeling that it wasn't the actions of the comrades who flew out from the same batch. Zhang Yicheng couldn't find anything usable in the cabin, so he also came out, leaving Han Xiaoqiang alone inside.When he saw the grave in Xueli, Zhang Yicheng asked who did it.I wanted to say that maybe it was done by other comrades in arms, but at this moment, two consecutive gunshots sounded in the snow valley, and then a woman with a Shaanxi accent shouted: "I'm wrong, don't run away... help!"