Hundreds of Gaming Pieces
- Inka
- Jul 12, 2022
- 4 min read
When we stepped out of the car the clouds had begun to disperse and made room for all the blue needed to fill the sky, and soon we could feel the temperature rise. It was still early so there was no doubt the day would become warm. Luckily a birch forest was spread nicely out across the area we had decided to search.
My friends Baard and Skule had arrived to the North for the summer vacation and we were gonna check if we could find any nice old war junk or even more helmets were we had dug out three lids last summer. We started by checking the area where we had found the helmets thoroughly.
After a while it was obvious that we needed to head deeper into the forest because here were only a few rifle casings, a coin and a single gaming piece between some iron rubbish and absolutely no helmets.
We had put our backpacks near a huge anthill so naturally the army of tiny workers had made highways towards the food bag and became a bit grumpy when we brushed them off and grabbed our stuff. We made a new "Headquarter" between a few of the dumping pits we opened last summer and searched on from there.
An hour later we had a coffee- and food break as one need that after combing the forest floor. So far all I had found was a few coins and I think Baard had a similar haul. He had upgraded to a Fisher F5 detector from his old Garrett, which Skule had inherited and was now learning how to use.
The place we were searching had supposedly held a big number of German soldiers, barracks, stables and even a shooting range, but this far the finds we had could not come from any large number of people, so we continued moving into the forest to try find the living quarters and kitchen area.
A little later I found what seemed to be a dumping ditch and began digging in one end of it. It was the blade of a German shovel that was the first item I dug up, followed by some rifle casings and a few gaming pieces.
Skule and Baard came to help and began opening up the rest of the ditch. Skule immediately found a nice Red Army canteen and soon after Baard picked up the screwcork for it. I kept digging up gaming pieces and in between were a couple of coins, casings and tooth brushes. Ski wax, a few Red Army grenade primers, padlocks and bits from a rifle cleaning kit as well. Baard found a leather holster for a smaller pistol and like that he had new energy to continue digging through what more and more looked like a burn pit judging by the amount of melted metal blobs, ash and charcoal.
While we were digging we heard some strange barking sounds coming from deeper into the forest, and soon the sound came closer, and closer to us. It was kinda creepy as long as we weren`t really sure what kind of monsters could be dwelling here. The source of the screeching barks was now very close to us. Fifteen, twenty meters prehaps, but the vegetation made it really difficult to see anything and I was half expecting some samsquanch or hyena to jump out in front of us.
But then we spotted the orange fur, and the face of a fox peeking out at us from between the trees and grass. It stood still for a moment, studying us, before it barked and continued up the hillside behind us. That was such an amazing experience. We think that the fox probably had cubs nearby and wanted to chase us away.
Not long after this we had emptied the dumping ditch with not many more finds. Well, in the end of the ditch where I had begun, there had been some more gaming pieces waiting under the soil and I had now filled the whole shovel blade with them. A big, fat pile of colored glass bits. Later at home I cleaned and counted them. 201 pieces in total. Quite a pocketfull!!
The rest of the day passed with not many finds worth mentioning. I dug up a rotted close combat knife while Baard topped it all with a super nice Italian coin from 1941!
Around seven in the evening we went back to the car, happy and tired after a ten hour long search. We still can`t say that we are sure if this camp had housed a large number of soldiers, so far the finds point to a very small number.
But prehaps we ll be back there soon to make sure once and for all :D
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