Riitaoja took a few steps backward and stuttered, his voice wavering: ‘It scares me, C-c-c-corporal, sir. When it whistles. That noise it makes.’
‘Oh wah-wah, you miserable piece of shit!’ Lehto was furious and disgusted, but he stopped bullying the poor wretch. He despised Riitaoja’s fear as he despised all weakness – just as he had despised all discussions of anything ‘spiritual’ back in the barracks. He didn’t even know why, as the question had never crossed his mind. He just had this feeling and he responded accordingly. It certainly wasn’t out of any obligation as squad leader or supervisor that he came back to punish Riitaoja, as Lehto couldn’t have cared less who performed his duties and who didn’t. At most he might have forced the others into submission on some point or other just because he couldn’t stand anything that went against his will.
‘You go to the road and you get two cases of ammo from the trucks. Then you come back with the medics from the Third Company. They’re carrying the bodies to the roadside. You’re such a worthless fool you won’t know how to get anywhere otherwise. And don’t you dare just mess around here hiding.’
‘Yessir, C-c-c-corporal, sir.’
Relieved, Riitaoja flew off toward the rear, and Lehto hurried after the company. As he was about to cross the trench, he spotted a mess kit lying on the ground, half-filled with bread-and-water mush. Beside it lay a dark-haired, slant-eyed corpse. The attack had obviously caught the guy in the middle of a meal. At first Lehto started to jump over the trench, but then he lowered himself into it and kicked the mess kit, sending mush flying into the dead guy’s face. Then he gave a cruel laugh and left.
He met up with the company advancing through the forest. The other section had joined back up with them, as Lahtinen’s machine gun was there too. It hadn’t actually been of any use, since by the time they had reached the enemy positions, the defense had already collapsed.
Hietanen was feeling blissfully carefree, fired up with the elation of victory, and smoking some horrible Russian mahorka as he chattered away. ‘Well, that was one bloody day, boys. How’s it go, that song they taught us in school? “When Lapua’s glorious day was done, von Döbeln rode to see the brave ranks had been sadly thinned …” Or was it a poem or something like that?’
‘Oh, please. Nothin’ glorious ’bout this day. I’m thirsty as hell and there’s not a sip of water to be had anywhere.’
‘Urho Hietanen, poet extraordinaire! “The brave ranks had been sadly thinned …” God damn this bread bag! It keeps slipping down and whacking me in the gut.’
The others poked good-spirited fun at Hietanen’s poetic efforts, which cracked them all up, Vanhala in particular. The tiniest thing was enough to make them all burst out laughing. The drone of death had been ringing in their ears for the past three hours – and yet here they were, still alive. That was reason enough to smile. Hietanen did not appreciate being the butt of the joke, however, and said irritably, ‘Yeah, yeah. That’s what they taught us in school all right. Why in the world I remember it so well is beyond me. I’ve certainly got better things to do than memorize shit some fool made up off the top of his head. All that stuff’s a big waste of time if you ask me.’
‘Quiet! Open field just ahead,’ the scout yelled from out front as he threw himself to the ground.
‘Houses. It’s a village.’
‘What village?’
‘Dangerville, of course. All the villages round here’re dangerville to us.’
‘And this one, too. Everybody down!’
Ta-ta-ta. Phiew phiew phiew.
‘There they are again, the little fuckers.’
‘Shut up!’
‘Cover!’
They heard the rumble of the first shot from the enemy side. Koskela crouched down as he saw the men throwing themselves to the ground, as he still couldn’t hear anything. The forest shook as shells exploded behind them. Faces were anxious, eyes fearful of what was to come.
‘Shouldn’t it be our turn to go into reserve now? We’re the ones who broke through the line. The others were all off somewhere just hanging out.’
‘Dream on. Our esteemed officers’ve got medals to earn.’
‘Machine guns in front! Hurry! Enemy on the right.’
The sight almost took their breath away. On the right, the field sloped down to a small pond. Some forty Russians had emerged from the forest and were calmly heading toward the village, entirely unsuspecting. They were clearly unaware of what was going on. The men quickly set the machine guns at the ready.
‘Get them in your sights. But let the machine guns start,’ said Kariluoto. Burning with excitement, he grabbed a gun from one of the men, saying, ‘Give me a rifle, too … pistol won’t reach.’
The enemy hadn’t noticed anything yet. Lehto settled himself at the gun to shoot, aiming at the densest part of the group. The flesh of his cheeks moved as if he were eating. Calm and expressionless, Määttä aimed the second machine gun.
‘All right, men. Drop the needle. Valse triste,’ Kariluoto said, registering the horror of the situation, despite his excitement.
The enemy group fell to the ground. Some men crawled into ditches, but about ten of them immediately fell motionless in the tall sedge. Unfortunately for them, the ditches faced toward the oncoming fire, and soon cries of despair pierced the air, even through the rattling of the guns.
‘Good, that’s the way.’
‘Done deal.’
‘I definitely got at least two.’
‘Listen to ’em howl!’
‘Give ’em some more, that’ll put ’em out of their misery.’
The guy Kariluoto had taken the gun from tugged on the sleeve of the fellow next to him. ‘Let me get one. Give it here. Lemme get at least one. Damn ensign took my gun.’
‘Stop pulling on me! I’m trying to aim.’
‘C’mon, lemme get one of ’em, too. I haven’t gotten any.’
‘Get your own gun … I’m gettin’ that crawler over there.’
Lehto was focused and firing away. He called out to Määttä and, as always happened when he was excited, his voice rose into a falsetto that would eventually break into a piercing scream. ‘The bottom of the ditches, Määttä! Rake the bottom of those ditches. One at a time.’
‘Well, what does it look like I’m doing?’ Määttä was talking to himself. He loaded a new belt and took aim, squinting his eye strangely. When he aimed, he basically squeezed one eye so tight that it seemed like his cheek was right on top of his eye.
The firing died down. A few stray shots rang out and then they heard a voice moan something from the field, which sounded to their ears like a word: ‘Va saaa … va … saaa.’
Only then did they realize that they had been under continual fire from the village. Wild with excitement, one guy rose up on his knees shouting, ‘I got at least four for sure! Almost got the fif—’
A bullet struck. The others heard it clearly, followed by the man’s weak cry, right in its wake.
‘Medics!’
‘It’s no use. He’s done for.’
Faces grave, they crawled to cover and grimly answered fire.
V
A deluge of explosives descended upon the village. Six-inchers shook the ground. The roof of some hay barn went catapulting into the air.
‘Are we attacking?’
‘Of course. Everybody quiet!’
When the barrage was over, they were surprised to hear the crashing of combat coming from behind the village, but any wondering about what it might be was cut sho
rt as Kariluoto shouted, ‘Advance!’
They received only weak fire in response. It wasn’t a question of an organized opposition line, but rather the remnants of the village’s local defense forces, fighting for their existence with neither direction nor organization. They were cornered behind the village, trying to retreat through the trees in a scattered swarm. Heavy fighting had been taking place behind the village all day, as the Second Battalion had penetrated through to the main road that morning, racking up enemy positions as it made its way through the backwoods. The din of their own fighting had prevented the men in the First Battalion from hearing anything of it.
As they neared the closest building, they saw a courtyard with a team of horses that had been shot, a destroyed field kitchen and a grenade launcher, beside which lay several bodies.
A few men appeared in the village square, advancing at a crouch. Then a string of pistol shots rang out from here and there, ending the lives of at least a few unlucky souls. The clean up was underway.
Autio’s runner met up with Kariluoto’s platoon and notified them that the Second Battalion was behind the village, so they should be careful not to shoot their own men. The news broke the tension, as it meant that things were beginning to improve. Many men disappeared in search of booty, and the officers had their hands full trying to get even a few of the men to scour the terrain that hadn’t yet been searched.
Rahikainen staggered out of one of the buildings with a huge sack on his back.
‘What did you find?’
‘Sugar. Whole blocks the size of your fist.’
‘Gimme a little.’
‘Gimme, gimme. No sooner do I find something and go get it than I got the whole regiment on my back. This here’s for me and my squad. The rest of you can go find your own sugar.’
‘What’s up?’ Koskela asked, looking interested but just sort of gawking since he still couldn’t really hear when people spoke softly.
‘Bag full of sugar,’ Hietanen yelled into Koskela’s ear. ‘But he’s only sharing with his own squad.’
‘Well, the way it goes is basically that you’re not allowed to scrounge. So these don’t really belong to anybody. So, just keep your mouths shut and eat quietly. In any case they have to be shared amongst the whole platoon.’
‘Well, okey-doke! But I’m not luggin’ this whole thing around by my—’
Rahikainen’s sentence was cut short as he and his sack thumped to the ground. As did the others. A stream of light-machine-gun fire whistled over them.
‘Little bugger’s tryin’ to get his share, too.’ Rahikainen raised his head behind his sack. ‘There, he’s runnin’ over there. Disappeared into that thicket.’
There was a low willow thicket growing out of the stony field of rubble, with mounds of haystacks rotting along its edge.
‘Don’t shoot! Let’s take him prisoner.’
They dispersed into a half-circle around the thicket. ‘Make sure he doesn’t escape.’
‘Rookee veer! Hands up!’
A shower of submachine-gun fire answered back.
‘Idzii surdaa! Idzii surdaa! Come out! We’ll give you some sugar. Tovarisch, idzii surdaa!’
The thicket was quiet. Then they started hearing noises, which, dumbfounded, they realized were sobs. The men looked at one another. Somebody burst out, an unnatural harshness in his voice, ‘Give it to ’im. Even the goddamn devil couldn’t listen to that.’
Bolts clicked and weapons rose, but just then a hand grenade thumped in the thicket.
‘Who threw that?’
‘Nobody.’
‘He blew himself up, guys.’
‘Good God!’ somebody said in shock. Cautiously, they approached the thicket.
‘There he is. Guts all splayed out. Blew up right under his gut.’
Some of them lingered, but most of them went straight back to the village, stealing a furtive backward glance or two as they left.
‘Nice image.’
‘War’s brutal.’
‘—and fighting the cavalry’s futile.’
‘When Lapua’s glorious day was done, von Döbeln rode to see the brave ranks had been sadly thinned …’
‘Got something to chew on there, have you?’ Hietanen said, petulantly. ‘All right, now stop gawking at the guts and get going! We need to get in contact with the Second Battalion. I’ll carry the sugar.’
They scoured the edge of the village. Here and there a shot would go off somewhere, as the enemy were still refusing to give themselves up. Even in this hopeless state of affairs, they just kept trying to shoot, almost without even aiming, blasting away desperately to the end, in whatever direction. These desperate deeds garnered not one word of admiration from the men. When somebody commented on them, Salo said, ‘They’re scared. Wouldn’t you be, if you knew they were going to shoot your relatives if you surrendered?’
‘Yeah, that’s obviously the case,’ Sihvonen confirmed.
The others weren’t at all sure about this theory, but in any case they didn’t start any arguments over it.
Behind the village, they heard somebody cry, ‘Don’t shoot! We’re Finns.’
‘What unit?’
‘Fourth Company.’
The men were lying on the ground, silent and morose. They’d been having a pretty rough time of it the whole day, resisting the enemy’s breakaway attempts as well as its efforts to get reinforcements in from the rear. Even the end of the fighting hadn’t raised their spirits – they just responded irritably to the others’ questioning.
‘Did you guys break through the main road?’
‘Yup.’
‘How’d you get up to the road?’
‘Uh, from the roadside.’
‘We broke through the bunker line.’
‘That so.’
‘Nearly one in three guys knocked off.’
‘Well, thank lady luck you made it through. No use crowing about dead guys round here. We got ours over there, lined up by the root of that spruce. The wounded’ve been lying there since morning. Can’t do anything for ’em but stick needles in their arms.’
‘Got any bread?’
‘Nope.’
‘Neither do we.’
‘What’s Sarge got in his sack there?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? You scrounged something. I can see it.’
‘Wouldja listen to this guy? First he asks and then he says that he knows. If a guy says he knows something, then why’s he gotta ask? Pre-tty strange if you ask me.’
‘Oh spare yourself, Sarge.’
‘I’m pretty pleased I was spared, now that you mention it! And if you keep askin’ for it, it might be more than I can say for you!’ Hietanen was wound up and the argument might well have continued if Kariluoto hadn’t turned up.
‘Whoa, whoa, there. What’s to get all worked up about? Look, it’s all over now. Food’s on its way.’
‘Well, Jesus! What’s he pickin’ a fight for, then? What’d I ever do to him?’
The two men parted ways, joining the others as they began bunching into groups. Now that the danger was past, their spirits revived quickly, and soon they were even chatting about the more comical aspects of the day’s events. Hardly anybody was thinking about the guys who had fallen. They were just happy they were still alive themselves.
When the platoons assembled on the road, Kariluoto said to Koskela, ‘I still haven’t had a chance to thank you. You defused that whole situation back there. We’d have been dead in the water if it had
n’t been for that maneuver of yours.’
‘Time was it’d be called mischief.’ A flattered smile flashed across Koskela’s face, but he banished it quickly and resumed a serious air as he said, ‘Well, anyway, it was your platoon that did the work today. Good guys. Wouldn’t have taken ’em for first-timers.’
Now it was Kariluoto who smiled with pleasure – and he was in no hurry to wipe it off his face. Koskela’s thank you meant more to him than the others could possibly have understood. In the past two days, Kariluoto had developed a sort of inferiority complex toward this quiet ensign, whom he, like many of the other officers, had previously written off as rather clumsy and lackluster. Now Kariluoto could afford to recognize the man’s merits – for although Koskela’s satchel-charge stunt had been most decisive in saving the day, Kariluoto’s own charge on the bunkers was not far behind. Kariluoto had led his platoon into hand-to-hand combat, which for him sufficed as definitive proof that he was up to the tasks he’d been called to.
Full to bursting, he set off toward his men, congratulating them as soon as he arrived. ‘Men, remember this: we are the ones who made the breakthrough for the battalion today. Good old Platoon Four here ran the show. And Ukkola, that was some first-rate work you did with the second squad’s submachine gun. You keep it up just like that from here on out.’
The men were pleased. They stopped whispering snidely amongst themselves about the Ensign’s posturing. Kariluoto had gained a foothold in the minds of his men. That fellow’s not half bad when it comes down to it. Yeah, but he’s still got some of that cock-a-doodle-doo about him. Look! Look how he swaggers when he walks!
VI
The field kitchen was distributing pea soup. The soup was no worse than usual, but somehow or other the men had understood that this meal was to be a victory celebration of sorts, so the sight of pea skins floating along on that dishwater-gray surface made them rather bitter. Famished as they were, they had rejoiced in their victory and the knowledge that soon they would get to eat in peace – so the half-raw pea soup hit like a ton of bricks. The cook received curses in exchange for each bowl he ladled out.