The Relic of Past

On the outskirts of Smolensk, a half-new UAZ452 van was parked with its four doors wide open in a clearing in the woods. The drizzle tried vainly to wash away the thick mud on the body of the van.

Not far from the van, in the center of the thick canvas canopy, Jack Sawyer was squatting in a two-meter square pit more than one meter deep, carefully cleaning the damp black soil.

"Boom!"

The Soviet-made engineering shovel poked into the wet soil, making a dull echo.

"Found it!"

Sam looked delighted and quickly threw away the shovel and dug through the mud with his bare hands.

A faint stench of decay wafted into the air, and a piece of charred log finally saw the light of day again after more than seventy years.

"That's right, this is definitely the German front-line command post in the Second Battle of Smolensk!"

After two weeks of hard work and digging at more than ten spots around the suburbs of Smolensk, we finally found it!

"Crash!"

With a strong shove, the rotten log was easily dug through. Sam quickly moved back a step to continue expanding the hole.

"It's been half a month; at least something can be produced!"

While muttering to himself, his hands moved more cautiously, shoveling away the loose soil and digging up the little bit of silt remaining at the bottom. It took him a full half hour to clean out a heavy metal box.

The appearance of the box was very complete, but the lid had been rusted together with the box body. It might take some effort to open it, so Sam decided to lift it aside first.

Where are the weapons? Why are there no weapons?

No body either?

Sam took out a high-powered flashlight and continued to search. The cramped and damp underground cave was filled with a strong stench of decay. If one's food, drink, and defecation for the next month did not all depend on this harvest, who would be willing to endure this suffering?

After mentally cursing his boss's entire family again, Sam finally found the outline of half a boot after some almost violent digging.

After all, he had been in the business for more than half a year. Now he could recognize at a glance that these were round-nailed infantry boots. They had been standard equipment issued to Germany since the beginning of World War II. There was no doubt about it.

Without further ado, he picked up the engineer shovel and dug forward along the line of the boots. Gradually, the true appearance of a corpse lying facedown at the bottom of the trench was revealed.

Just imagine how horrifying it would be to dig up a corpse that had been rotting for more than 60 years in a dark underground cave.

But Jack enjoyed it. To some extent, the stinkier the body, the better preserved it was. And the better preserved the body was, the more valuable it was. Even if the identity could be confirmed, he could hand over the remains to the German World War II Missing Soldiers Search Organization in exchange for a thank-you payment ranging from $100 to $500.

At present, the corpse was preserved very well, but the soldier badge on the neck was severely rusted. He carefully picked everything up into a large garbage bag, fearing that he might miss anything.

Pay special attention to the hands, as it would be great if he could find an SS ring.

A ring?

It's just a dream!

Sam knew better than anyone that the probability of digging up a ring was definitely not much higher than the probability of digging up a Tiger tank.

However, although the skull ring was not found, a bracelet was found on the wrist of the corpse.

What amazed him was that the bracelet was in the traditional American design of two eagles circling a central star inlaid with gold and turquoise.

Under the light of the headlights, two American bald eagles, as thick as chopsticks, made of silver and gold respectively, were intertwined and formed a circle, and in the middle of the two eagles' heads was a fiery blue bead slightly larger than a soybean.

It's strange, why would a German soldier have an American object on them?

Don't worry about it for now. Jack rinsed the bracelet with mineral water and put it directly on his left wrist. How dirty could it be after being buried for sixty or seventy years? This thing might be quite valuable.

After sorting out the few spoils from the corpse, Jack began to work on the item boxes.

According to his "professional experience," it didn't matter if the box was rusted. As long as it hadn't rusted into holes, it would be more sealed.

With two clangs of the shovel, a circle of red rust fell off. He skillfully pried it lightly with the tip of the shovel, and with a "click!" sound, he easily opened the box.

"Hey! There's quite a lot of stuff!"

Sam rubbed his hands together and tossed the food out while muttering to himself.

"A leather diary, a military map, wool gloves, a sweater, socks. Hey! And dust goggles? You're pretty sophisticated, huh? These things might add a lot of value to your money!"

After taking all the odds and ends, the remaining space was filled with books. He didn't expect that this commander was a studious person. What was even more unexpected was that more than half of these books were American hardcover editions.

In addition to the basic "Huckleberry Finn," "The Federalist Papers," and "Webster's Dictionary," there were even profound "The Federalist" and some frontier survival guides and almanacs.

What tricks was this guy using?

Sam curiously picked up a hardcover book and opened it. He saw that the yellowed and moldy pages were filled with dense annotations in English. It was obvious that the author had really studied it seriously.

These books cannot be sold at any price in Russia, but if there is a chance to bring them back to the United States, they will definitely be worth a lot of money.

He happily took out the sealed bags and desiccant and put away the books one by one. The box was immediately emptied of more than half. Then he put the previous owner's clothes into a separate garbage bag and put them together with the bones. The rest of the box was full of treasures that could be converted into cash immediately.

A bottle of unopened bourbon, probably captured from a battlefield. This old liquor might be worth a lot of money, so he put it away.

A few German five-mark silver coins, of which there were huge quantities, could only be exchanged for a few packs of cigarettes. However, the 50-pfennig nickel coins were more valuable.

The 50-pfennig nickel coin is also known as the tank recycled coin. In the late stages of the war, due to resource shortages in Germany, almost all of these nickel-containing coins were recycled to build tanks, so not many are left. They are worth some money, but also limited. One coin is only worth about $150 to $200, depending on the quality.

After cleaning up here, there was only a leather camera bag and a map storage tube left in the box.

Apart from the bracelet already worn on his wrist, the most valuable item should be the camera. If this thing could still be used, it would be no problem to sell it for thousands!

He carefully picked up the camera bag and looked at it. It had two compartments, large and small. The large one was for the camera, and the small one contained two sealed film compartments made of bakelite.

Perhaps thanks to the Germans' "rigor," the lids of these two sealed chambers were even sealed with paint. Jack didn't know if the film inside had been used, but now was not the time to open it. These two treasures should be handed over to professionals. If some photos could be developed, they would definitely sell for a high price!

After properly storing the film, Sam took out the camera.

It's Leica!

Even though he didn't know much about cameras, he still recognized the Leica logo next to the swastika on the camera!

When luck comes, nothing can stop it!

Sam quickly took out a pair of white-line work gloves and put them on to examine them carefully.

Unfortunately, after being buried for more than half a century, although the camera was intact as a whole, some key components were covered with rust, and even obvious water mist could be seen through the lens, which greatly reduced its value.

But even so, this camera was likely to be one of the most valuable finds from this excavation!

After throwing a few extra bags of desiccant into the sealed bag containing the camera, Jack opened the map storage tube with reluctance.

He didn't even need to look at it to know that this was definitely a military map used by the German artillery in the Second Battle of Smolensk.

Look at how well it's been preserved. The map wasn't very valuable, even less valuable than newspapers of the same period.

He casually opened the hard leather tube and knocked it down, and a well-preserved map and a hardwood stick slightly thicker than a cigarette fell into his hand.

But just as he was about to open the rolled-up military map, the bracelet that was originally loosely worn on his left wrist suddenly tightened, and the bead between the two eagle heads emitted a flash of blue light!

Before he could react, the military map in his hand turned into ashes at a speed visible to the naked eye under the illumination of the blue light!

Sam held the map storage tube in his right hand, keeping it tilted at an angle, and rested his left palm against the hardwood pole. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth was getting wider and wider.

A damp breeze blew by, and the ashes in his palm drifted away into the drizzle as if they had never appeared.

Sam stared blankly at his palm. He was not only surprised at the map that turned into ashes, but what shocked him even more was that the map that had turned into ashes was like the 3D projection he had seen in the science and technology museum in the United States before, and it slowly unfolded in his left eye's field of vision.

This holographic map that occupied half of the field of vision even had four arrows of different colors floating on it!

Sam rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but the map was still there, and it was even clearer!

He blinked again. It was not an illusion, definitely not an illusion!

Because as long as he focused his attention on any arrow on the map, he could clearly see the straight-line distance between it and himself!

Sam suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart and tried to calm himself down.

just

What exactly happened?