Koskela packed up his things, and not without care. Nothing about him suggested that he considered this outburst a sign of insurgency – he seemed happy enough to let the men vent their anger in peace. Nature had somehow hit the bull’s-eye in every aspect of this quiet ensign from the countryside. His education was limited to the basic elementary school curriculum, but his intelligence was keen and never failed to lead him to the best solution for any given situation. His intelligence was not dazzling in speed or agility – on the contrary, the blankness of Koskela’s face might easily be interpreted as almost drowsiness at first glance – but it always cut straight to its target, and so managed to take care of everything it needed to. Now, for example, he knew perfectly well that when he tossed his pack on his back and left, the men would follow without further ado. But if he were to try to clamp down on their angry protests, in whatever way, the men’s bitterness would just fester in the back of their minds, and far more dangerously. Furthermore, he wasn’t pleased himself that their rest had been cut short. Exhaustion wasn’t just unpleasant in itself, it was also dangerous, because it brought out this quarrelsome tenor in the men and caused unnecessary casualties. And this irritability in their operations would lead to even greater exhaustion. He didn’t really feel he could say, though, whether it was an issue of necessity, or just poor management.
The grumbling continued, but Koskela foresaw that when the worst of the fury had died down, the situation would improve with the help of certain known individuals – Hietanen and Rokka, mainly. And, sure enough, Rokka started right in with his trivial chatter, sliding right into, ‘Well, soldiers, let’s git to it! Why’s this job here gittin’ you all so worked up? Fightin’s a way to finish a war. Gotta head on outta here if we’re gonna git anywhere. Who the hell wants’a dawdle around these backwoods for ever, anyway? C’mon fellas, mopin’ time’s done! There’s some big towns up ahead, too, and Russian ladies a-waitin’ for us to turn up, you hero-boys just wait and see.’
Rokka started swaying his shoulders and humming, looking mischievous. Vanhala melted completely and burst out laughing. And Hietanen comforted the rest of them by pointing out that when you were on the front line, at least you didn’t have to dread when your rest period would be up. ‘That’s the upside.’
‘There ain’t no upside to this, turn the damn thing over and upside down as much as you please,’ Rahikainen muttered flatly, angriest of them all.
Gradually they began to settle down, chatting idly to pass the time. Mäkilä called them to eat. He distributed three days’ dry rations to each man, leading them to suspect that some kind of special mission awaited them.
‘Don’t eat it all at once. It’ll have to last you three days,’ Mäkilä warned.
‘Have to last. Damn straight it’ll last if you won’t give us any more!’
‘There isn’t any more.’
‘Then steal something!’
Mäkilä let the conversation drop, knowing that the men were just messing with him. Rahikainen put in a bid for new boots. ‘These here ain’t gonna make it to the Urals.’
‘They’re still in good shape.’
‘Oh sure, they’re in good shape. Just like our quartermaster’s here. Excepting that I got this one toe here keeps tryin’ to sneak a peek at the Greater Finland. Look!’ Rahikainen covertly assisted his toe’s sightseeing efforts, stepping on the binding where it joined the sole and raising his foot from the boot. Mäkilä was forced to hand over new boots.
The field kitchen was dishing out oatmeal mixed with some bluish and generally rotten-looking bits of meat.
‘Yup. That’s a horsey.’ Hietanen removed a bit of chewed cartilage from his mouth. ‘One of the gypsies’, looks like. You can still see the whip-lash marks.’
‘No complaints about the food, please. The meat is absolutely up to standard.’
It was the company’s new master sergeant, First Sergeant Sinkkonen. He was on duty for the first time, having only just arrived. Following Korsumäki’s death, Mäkilä had taken over the Master Sergeant’s duties. Sinkkonen was a regular non-commissioned officer, over forty, and entirely incapable of relating to the men, from his first comment onward. He was dressed in full uniform, with a white collar setting off his neck, and tall, new boots on his feet, their tops folded over. His greeting to the men could not have been more tactless, and even Hietanen looked him over for a moment before saying, ‘Well, who asked you? Who are you, anyway?’
‘I’m the company’s new master sergeant and I’d like to begin by pointing out that this perpetual complaining is beneath the dignity of a Finnish soldier. I’d say the food is quite good, under the circumstances.’
Lehto was sitting on a mound of grass, eating out of the lid of his mess kit. The mess kit itself was sitting on the ground beside him, and when Sinkkonen stepped near it, Lehto said flatly, ‘Under the circumstances I’d say you’d better not kick over my tin.’
Sinkkonen’s neck began to turn red, and grew increasingly redder until Rahikainen said, ‘Might be beneath our dignity, pal, but out here you better turn a blind eye to a thing or two. It is true, though, it ain’t the horse’s fault if he’s got tough in his old age.’
For the first time in his life, this graying brat of the barracks realized that he commanded no authority whatsoever, and it shook the very foundations of his being. A misconception of his function had guided him through the entirety of his military career, and now it was backfiring. He was so shaken by the men’s insolent mockery that all he could do was stutter, ‘It has been said that the biggest whiners are the ones who turn out to be cowards in combat. The best men have performed their duties uncomplainingly.’
Rokka shook his spoon at Sinkkonen and said, ‘Lissen here, Master Sarge! You got sumpin’ real bad wrong with you. You crack jokes like they was serious. Out here a fella’s gotta keep things light. We’re all fellas with a sense a humor, see. Here, watch this!’ Rokka stretched out his left arm as if he were holding a violin, and, using his spoon for bow, began to play as he sang:
Fingerin’na fiddles! hiitulahaatuu
Accordion’sa blowin’ hilapatataa …
‘Lissen! You hear that fiddle music? Lissen, why don’t you join’na group! Let’s make a orchestra. Here, grab that spoon there and keep beat on drums. And you got sticks over there, yeah, take ’em! Lissen … what, you ain’t takin’ nothin’? Spoilsport! This fella here’s not playin’! We got a whole live show set up here, and he don’t wanna play. Well, whadda ya know?’
Sinkkonen stalked off, but Vanhala was all set to start banging, so he and Rokka played together. Rahikainen joined in to complete the trio, improvising an instrument out of a comb and some wax paper.
‘What kind of circus is this?’ Lammio appeared behind them, almost as if he’d just popped up out of the ground. Vanhala put away his sticks in an embarrassed fluster. Rokka and Rahikainen stopped too, and Rokka said to Lammio, ‘That new master sarge, see, he was so down we thought we might try to cheer a fella up with a lil’ song. But he took off. Ain’t much of a man for music, I guess.’
‘Enough of your clowning around! The company is to be ready to march in one hour. Anyone who does not have a white handkerchief is to go collect a white piece of paper from the quartermaster. Squad leaders, make sure each man is taken care of. Move!’
This command was so unusual that nobody even knew how to joke about it.
‘I bet I know where they’re takin’ us,’ Rokka said. ‘They’re gonna press us deeper in’na forest overnight, and the handkerchiefs’re so we can keep in contact.’
‘Straight into the shit.
’
‘When are those goddamn Krauts gonna make it to Moscow?’
III
Dusk was already falling. The rain continued and an autumn gloom reigned over the dark forest. Company after company turned off the main road, pressing into the forest in an extended formation.
‘Big time, boys. Got the whole regiment lined up.’
Each man had attached a white handkerchief or piece of paper to his back. These were supposed to help them stay in contact in the darkness. They were ordered to keep conversation to a minimum. Smoking was prohibited entirely after nightfall. The sappers walking out front cut nicks into the trees to mark the direction the men were to follow, and set down log paths across streams and bogs. Soon the terrain changed into swampland, and remained so for a long time.
The men’s loads were heavier than usual. They had twice the usual allocation of ammunition. The heaviest fell to the guys with the machine guns, mortars and anti-tank guns, as they had to carry the artillery on top of their own gear.
Mile after mile of the difficult journey slipped by in silence. The darkness thickened and their pace slowed. The first symptoms of exhaustion began to appear amongst the weakest. Their feet sank into the swamp’s hidden potholes, and their tired bodies kept toppling over, unable to keep their balance. Panting for breath, the men would struggle to their feet and continue plodding on. Every now and again whispers would run through the line to confirm contact.
The head of the line had already trudged across miles of swampland by the time the tail end finally turned off the road. Three thousand men stretched out single-file across the swamp in the middle of the dark, foggy drizzle. The game was reckless and the stakes were high. And who was to guarantee that the line wouldn’t break at some point? It was only as strong and shrewd as its weakest man. It might well happen that some guy would lose his way, leading those behind him who knows where. And it could also happen that, on top of everything else, that man would be afraid to send word of the break right away. The likelihood of a bottleneck and disintegration – and thus the possibility of failure – was great. And that was just the beginning. Awaiting them more than a dozen miles ahead was their destination: the junction of the enemy’s main road and its rail line. It was into this lion’s den that the regiment was supposed to elbow its way, alone, armed with the ammunition they held in their pockets, with no support, and nothing in the way of an umbilical cord but one phone line – which would certainly break before long.
The Regiment Commander used the phone frequently to make contact with the division. ‘Point such and such. Southern tip of A. So far so good.’
‘Status unchanged. No sign of any break in the line.’
The Commander walked along anxiously in his black raincoat, sucking on his moustache. At every moment he was expecting to hear shots from the head of the line, and for each moment of silence that passed he was grateful. It seemed impossible that the regiment would make it all the way to its destination unobserved, but nevertheless their odds improved with each mile they covered undetected. And what would happen if the dead-tired regiment did hit organized opposition? The Colonel hurried forward, then back to those behind, urging the men on. He was in desperate need of a cigarette, but hesitated to disobey his own orders. If he were to be caught, the situation would be embarrassing, to say the least. Sneaking off for a smoke didn’t really befit a colonel and regiment commander, though there was no question this fellow had partaken of the pastime in days of yore.
By around midnight, a general fatigue had taken over. More than six miles lay behind them, and the men were faltering. There was a low murmur of groans, hisses and whispered curses, and somebody or other was constantly toppling over. Sometimes there were sobs mixed in amidst the curses. Mud squirted up as some man sank thigh-high into the swamp. Then this fellow, on his last legs, his will tottering at breaking point, would summon the last shreds of his strength and continue on. Each man stayed with the group. There was no need for discipline, homeland, honor, or a sense of duty. A force mightier than all of these whipped them onward. Death.
You couldn’t fall behind, because that meant straying alone behind enemy lines – and thus certain annihilation. Ditching your ammunition or weapons would mean the same thing, even more certainly, as each man knew the price he would pay the next day. They left no gear behind. When they were allowed a break, they dropped to the ground right where they were. Oblivious to the wet and the cold, they lay in puddles in the swamp, panting for breath and collecting their strength for the next effort. Bit by bit, they devoured the little bread they had, but soon this source of pleasure, too, ran out for many. The hard rye crackers slipped into their mouths, neither nourishing nor satiating them.
Koskela carried four boxes of ammunition, having taken Salo’s when the latter’s strength had started giving out. Hietanen had Riitaoja’s boxes, and Lehto carried the gun-stand the whole time, while Vanhala carried the gun. Lahtinen and Määttä carried these for the other machine gun, as Rokka was helping Sihvonen and Susling, both of whom were weaker than him.
Finally, Rahikainen was forced to take Riitaoja’s rifle as well, as the man had reached the end of his tether. Even so, Rahikainen couldn’t help muttering, ‘Try to carry the clothes you’ve got on, OK, pal? My soldierly solidarity’s got its limits.’
They were lying down on a break when three men approached them from behind. A cigarette glowed between the fingers of the man in front, and Hietanen noticed it. He personally was suffering acute withdrawal, which was the primary reason he exploded angrily, ‘Don’t you fucking know we’re not allowed to smoke, asshole? You must be one hell of a big shot to smoke whenever you feel like it. Put it out! Now! It’s our lives you’re playing with, not just yours – which obviously isn’t worth shit.’
The man put out his cigarette without a word, but the fellow next to him murmured rebukingly, ‘Careful what you say – and to whom.’
‘No, no, he was perfectly correct. I was just testing out how the command was being enforced. You did quite right. Name and company?’
‘Corporal Hietanen, First Weapons Company, Colonel, sir.’ Hietanen rose to his feet a little uneasily, recognizing the Regiment Commander, but calmed himself with the reassurance that he was in the right, after all. Even if it was just his craving for a cigarette that had made him jump on the Colonel for smoking.
‘Well, Corporal Hietanen, keep up the good work.’
Then the Colonel turned to the rest of the men and asked, ‘How are you boys making out?’
Salo struggled painfully to attention and tried to sound chipper as he responded, ‘Very well, Colonel, sir.’
‘Atta boy! That’s Finnish endurance for you. The “Blood of Vaasa trembles not, nor does Iron of Kauhava rust”. The old Finnish way, boys. Nobody stands in the way of the mighty, not even the devil himself.’ The Colonel turned away and Salo sank back into his puddle, trembling with exhaustion and feeling as much joy as his tired, depleted state would allow.
‘So tell me, which one of those guys is the bigger tool?’ Lahtinen whispered to Vanhala, who giggled with delight, ‘Heehee … heehee. Ye-ess, the deep-forest soldier presses on! Fired up and ready to fight! Heeheehee.’
‘Advance!’
The night was beginning to give way to a weak light. They could already make out one another’s outlines: strange, monstrous phantoms staggering beneath their loads. Exhaustion began to recede into the shadows of their burgeoning anxiety, as they knew that by now the head of the line could not be far from the road. Messages urging them to be on their guard frequently rippled down the line. Every
other man aimed right while the others aimed left, keeping watch in so far as was possible while still keeping an eye on the path and staying in contact.
Riitaoja fell and no longer had the strength to get up again. The others just walked past, but Lehto stopped beside him and yelled, ‘Give me your pack and get up!’
‘I c-c-c-can’t go any further, C-c-c-corporal, sir.’
‘Give me your pack when I tell you to and get up!’
‘Over there.’ Riitaoja began to cry, his sobs consuming the last shreds of his energy. He was entirely limp and incapable of doing anything. To make matters worse, he was so afraid of Lehto that he was trying to curl himself even deeper into the swamp. Riitaoja’s sobbing brought Lehto to the point of rage. He kicked him, screaming in a hoarse whisper, ‘I ought to shoot you, you little bastard! What I wouldn’t give for the Russkis to take you off my hands. But no, you, you little pansy, you never get near enough to the action for that.’
‘I c-c-c-can’t keep going … Please don’t hit me, C-c-c-corporal, sir … ahh … ahh …’ In his panic, Riitaoja kept stuttering and calling Lehto ‘sir’, curling tighter into a ball to escape Lehto’s blows. He groaned and cried out for Koskela, but the Ensign was walking far ahead at the head of the platoon. Unfamiliar men were already walking past. Each of them had his hands full just trying to keep up and so couldn’t get involved, and anyway, the endless exertion had made them all apathetic. What did it matter what happened around them? One fellow did at least shout at Lehto as he passed, though the source of his fury and bitterness was as much the march as anything else. ‘Don’t kick the man, you fuckin’ scumbag! I oughtta put a string of bullets through you!’
The man figured keeping his spot in the line was more important than getting involved, however, and so continued on without responding to Lehto, who yelled after him, his mouth foaming, ‘Try your luck, asshole! We’ll just see who the sun shines through.’