Pow, pow, pow, pow … oooo … oooooo …
‘Advaaance …’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa …
‘Medii-iiics …’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa …
Their clothes were full of holes, as were their shoes. The creases in their faces had deepened into furrows, and their sprouting, adolescent beards made their filthy skin look even darker. Somehow or other they had been hardened against everything now. Grumbling and griping were rare. Solemnly, silently, they listened as each new assignment was explained, their bodies still trembling with exhaustion from the last one. Somewhere out in front of them lay Petroskoi. That was their final destination. All questions would be resolved as soon as they reached it. And even if they weren’t, they still weren’t going beyond that point. They rallied the last of their energy on the basis of this general understanding. Petroskoi, Petroskoi, the golden city, toward which they strove, through pain and suffering, like pilgrims.
They considered it almost like the right of their regiment to remain in the city once it had been captured. All the regiments advancing toward it probably nurtured the same thought, for the same reasons: ‘We’ve been in all of the worst fighting, and besides, our strength’s run out.’
The opposition grew ever fiercer the nearer they drew to the city. The more exhausted they became, the more demanding the tasks that confronted them, and they were continually obliged to push the limits of their physical capacities. But it was becoming apparent that the bow had been stretched to the breaking point. Even the weakest counter-attacks could set them back now. Their frayed nerves couldn’t withstand situations they would have dismissed as skirmishes before.
When they were about four miles from the city, the Third Company’s Commander, Lieutenant Autio, fell, shot by eleven bullets. Which is to say, that is how many bullets managed to strike him upright, before he collapsed to the ground. It was one of the most beautiful deaths they had witnessed. The men had begun to falter in an attempt to repel a counter-attack. Some had started disappearing from the line when, in an effort to restore their courage, Autio rose to his feet and yelled, ‘Remember who you are! Not one step backwards!’
His body literally rippled as a hail of light-machine-gun fire punched straight through it. Kariluoto took over command. Autio’s death brought Kaarna’s demise flooding back to him, and for a moment he was thrown back into his old, rather theatrical state of mind. The scene felt like a repetition of the first, and the likeness compelled Kariluoto to prove to himself that some difference in him set the two scenes apart. The alder branches rustled in his ears, but he rose and yelled, ‘The Third Company is now under my command and is to remain in position!’ Who would dare abandon his post after that?
One of the soldiers nearby did. He was just starting to crawl backwards when Kariluoto’s shouting prompted the enemy to increase fire in their direction.
‘Where are you going?’
The man didn’t answer, but cast his eyes furtively to the ground, and Kariluoto’s high-minded spirit evaporated. He started cursing at the man and humiliated him into returning to his post, but the incident left Kariluoto with a bitter taste in his mouth. No, there was absolutely no room out here for a man’s solemn, spiritual side. This was a place of base, bare-faced brutality. Even Kariluoto had sometimes wondered what endowed him with the moral right to drive other men to their deaths. To deride and humiliate them, to strip them of all honor and manhood if they failed to obey his command.
But these were thoughts of a moment, thoughts he himself dismissed as the product of over-exhaustion. The nearness of Petroskoi filled him with excitement in anticipation of its conquest.
On the last evening of September, they reached the outskirts of the city.
They lay out in the dusky twilight before the fortifications at Suollusmäki, contemplating the enemy dens and positions reinforced with barbed-wire fencing.
‘Snuffin’ out a hell of a lot of lives over there.’
‘Well, not ours, far as I know,’ Koskela said. ‘We won’t be attacking over there. Some other units are coming in to attack and we’re turning off to the north.’
‘Fuck. Of course. Of course they’re not letting us into the city.’
The conversation went no further. It was too bitter a discussion to continue. They watched solemnly as the sky lit up behind them and listened to the howling shells soaring overhead.
‘How in the world are the people going to pay for all that damage?’ Lahtinen asked.
‘I don’t know. But that looks like a pre-tty shitty place to be,’ Hietanen said.
‘Damn assholes, shooting everything to bits. There won’t be anything left!’ Rahikainen grumbled.
‘Maybe we ain’t headin’ in there at all,’ Rokka said.
‘Awful lot of force in those shells,’ said Määttä.
‘Offensive Operation Underway! Heeheehee. The deafening voice of Finland’s artillery makes itself heard! Heehee,’ Vanhala giggled. He sat down on a tree stump and nibbled on a piece of bread he’d scrounged from a dead enemy soldier. He’d scraped off the bloody part.
II
The first morning of October was clear and beautiful. The sky was a cloudless, transparent blue. If you looked upwards, so you couldn’t see the autumn landscape, you might have thought it was the middle of summer.
The men advanced through the thicket, following the power lines. They weren’t directed northward after all, but received orders to cut off the roads leading north from the city. A rocky, forested ridge in front of them still blocked the city from view, but everything around them signaled its nearness. Small footpaths crisscrossed through the thicket, and the whole landscape had an ‘inhabited’ feel to it, between the wood boards, paper scraps and other bits of garbage people tend to leave behind.
The first to glimpse over the ridge was a fellow named Viirilä, a beast of a man, with a large head and quite a mouth on him. This boorish creature was the eternal thorn in the officers’ sides and he had regularly spent time in confinement during peacetime. But since they’d been at war, Viirilä had demonstrated a bravery verging on lunacy – often, as now, voluntarily walking out in front as a scout. Were it not for this intrepid fearlessness, the man would hardly have been forgiven for the obscene parody he made of the whole blessed war.
He stopped as he reached the top of the ridge. ‘Hey, Finnskis! Petrozavodski gleams in the dawning light of the homeland.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, and there’s smoke coming from it. Looting little Finnskis are already having a field day down there.’
They climbed hurriedly up the ridge. An airstrip opened up in front of them, and behind it rose the clustered buildings of Petroskoi. The wide, open surface of Lake Onega stretched off into the blue-gray horizon. Columns of smoke rose from the city and the odd shot still rang out here and there.
‘There she is.’
‘So that’s the shantytown we’ve been killing ourselves over.’
The city’s gray, ramshackle appearance came as something of a shock. There were a few white, stone buildings mixed in with the collection of shacks, but that was it. That was the whole city – what a disappointment! The landscape itself was beautiful, though. The smoke-tinged air shimmered blue above the glinting lake, and further off in the steel-blue haze you could just make out some landmasses jutting out into Lake Onega.
‘Haa … alt!’
The company came to a halt and sat on the ground to admire the view. Undeniably, they were overcome with a sense of fulfillment. There
she was: the city for which they had persevered through all those obstacles and misery. Now they had reached their destination, and here their war would end. For some reason, they believed such a thing was possible.
Rahikainen was impatient. ‘What are we standin’ round here for? The other units are gonna snatch up all the good stuff before we get there!’
Rokka leaned on his gun and said, ‘I don’t give a damn ’bout all’at. Oh, but if that town were Käksalmi!’
‘Hear hear,’ Susling replied wistfully, though it was more hometown pride than genuine yearning that drove him to say it.
Koskela didn’t say anything. He sat on a rock with his face to the sun. Had he said something, it would have been, ‘Sun feels awfully good.’
Hietanen was on his knees. He was silent for a long time at first, but then he launched into an extravagant address. ‘Hello, Petroskoi! You object of our most fervent hopes! If only all the boys were here to see you. All the guys who kicked the bucket trying to make it out here. Here we are, even though they tried to hold us back at every turn. Boys, this is a historic moment. One day they’re gonna write war songs about this. One day the kids’ll be singing about the day we came crawling on our hands and knees to Petroskoi. Mm-hmm. It’s a kind of thing that doesn’t happen every day. There lies Finland’s newest city … I bet they’ve got saunas over there too. Say, I itch like hell. I get a good four or five lice every time I take a swat under my arm.’
‘Are you complaining about your lice?’ Rahikainen scoffed. ‘I’ve had one on a leash round my belly button for a couple of weeks now. Name’s Oscar. No lie, he’s about a quarter-inch long, with a Liberty Cross on his back. But what are they having us hang around here for? I sure hope they aren’t plannin’ on sendin’ us out to Suoju. I heard the reserve units refused to go any further. Which makes us the ones they’re gonna shove out into the next mess.’
‘I’m not going up to Suoju.’ Määttä was sitting on a boulder with his arms wrapped around his knees, staring thoughtfully out over the city.
‘Yeah, and if they send you?’ Sihvonen asked.
‘Won’t send me alive.’
‘Lissen, Koskela, you hear what these fools are sayin’? It’s mutiny they’re talkin’ ’bout! Say, what the hell you got goin’ on over there?’
Koskela was lying belly-down on a rock, using a twig to bait ants into attacking one another. Two ants hurled themselves into battle just as Rokka was speaking, so Koskela just said, ‘Not now!’ He was smiling – that curious, private smile of his, evident only in and around his eyes.
Kariluoto walked over. He had taken off his cap and the wind was ruffling his hair. He walked with his head held high, cutting a stiff, noble profile. He felt unwittingly like the blond, conquering knight of the West, standing atop his hill and gazing out over the conquered city. Even his face had taken on a look of cast steel, though Kariluoto wasn’t aware of it. One of the greatest moments of his life had just taken place. A company commander of the Finnish infantry, he had watched as the blue crosses of the Finnish flag rose up onto the flagpoles of the tallest buildings of Petroskoi. Whatever the journey out had cost, for that moment it was forgotten. There he stood, son of the independent Finland, the young crusader, with a strange lump caught in his throat. He was moved.
Then he cleared his throat, pulled up his holster so his belt wouldn’t sag, took a deep breath, and said, ‘Well, men. There she is. The Jaeger Brigade and troops from the First Division have manned the city from the south and southwest. As it went, we were not called upon to carry out that mission. But let whoever should march in first, march – the fact remains that we were the ones who opened the road. And if history tells it otherwise, then history lies. There are still a few stragglers destroying what they can down there, but that will all be over soon. We are to remain here and make sure no one is permitted to escape. So, take a breather, but keep your eyes peeled.’
‘Are we going to get some time off the line?’
‘I don’t know, but let’s hope so. All right, men. Our company was the first to see the city. I mean, the first of the troops advancing from this direction.’
‘Yeah, and Viirilä saw it first!’
‘Me first, mpaahaahaahaa … mpaahahahaha! I saw it first!’
Kariluoto managed a weak smile. While he had to recognize that Viirilä was the bravest man in the company, he still felt a kind of aversion toward him. It felt blasphemous, somehow, to think of this large-headed ape at a moment like this. Even just the man’s outward appearance was repulsive. The hunched back, bowed legs and that massive head. His clothes were always half falling off. And as for his pack, the man didn’t even have one. He just let his filthy mess kit dangle from the belt loop of his jacket. His pockets bulged with various belongings, and there was a spoon poking out from the bottom of his trouser-leg. Sometimes Kariluoto seriously wondered if the man was insane. Grunting and laughing and muttering things that rarely contained anything that made sense – just as he was doing now. Blurting things out and then bursting into grunts of laughter, shaking his head. ‘Mpaahaahaahaahaa! Private Viirilä … mpaahaahaahaahaa! Guard of the Homeland mpaahaahaahaahaa …’
Kariluoto walked off to the side in embarrassment. It was too difficult trying to find anything in this man that would be appropriate to the moment Kariluoto had just experienced.
Time passed. The shooting in the city had ceased, and they could discern movement within it.
‘Snatched right out from under our noses. Won’t be anything left over there,’ Rahikainen lamented, gazing longingly out over the airstrip.
III
At first it looked as though they weren’t going to enter the city at all. But at dusk they received an urgent order to march in and take up positions as an occupying battalion. Apparently, somebody had found a massive keg of liquor – which may have been left there intentionally – and the previous occupying battalion was now rip-roaring drunk and looting the city.
They advanced down the ‘May First Road’, at some point coming across a large tractor stuck in the mud. Random, drunken shots rang out all along the streets, whistling past their ears and frequently forcing them to take cover. The descendants of the Hakkapeliittas, Finland’s fabled war heroes, were celebrating their victory, three centuries later.
On turning one corner, they found themselves facing a party of four: a captain and three privates. Two of the privates were dragging the Captain by the armpits, his body having gone entirely limp, and the third was walking out in front playing a mandolin. The Captain’s legs trailed along the ground and his head hung down over his chest, though he would occasionally raise it up to bellow out some garbled exclamation.
‘Damn it, why don’t you try to walk by yourself for a while,’ one of the guys said to the Captain he was dragging. ‘We drank just as much as you did, but you’re like a wet dishrag.’
‘Hey Hessu, play …’ the Captain blurted out. ‘Play With swords we draw the dividing line … From Ladoga straight to the White Sea! … Not we to be shaken, though fate should present … dadada deeda dee dee da da!’
‘Here, you try walking a bit …’
‘Walky walk walk. Deedeedadadadadeedeeda …’
The Captain swung his head and bellowed, ‘Not we to be shaken, though fate should present … Roads arduous, we will prevail … Not one tribe of Finland from us shall be rent … Our bonds are too great to assail! …Well, looky there, what unit’s that?’
The Captain noticed the approaching battalion and started bellowing, ‘Welcome to Camp Finland! Howdy do … what units are you? P
resent yourselves! I am Captain Usko Antero Lautsalo … but you can call me the Wrath of God. Terror of the Russkis, Number One … seeing as the Wrath rolled right over them … Hessu, play so these guys can hear the great Captain Lautsalo’s approach …’
Lammio ordered the Captain’s entourage to get him out of sight, but received only brazen responses of, ‘Go to hell! We’re in the Captain’s command and no lil’ loo-tenint’s gonna tell us what to do.’
It was clear that the men had decided to take advantage of their drunken fraternity with the Captain, thus rendering Lammio powerless, as he couldn’t actually arrest a superior officer. It was a bitter pill to swallow. They were like the servants who usurp their master’s power in his moment of weakness. ‘Listen Usko … Hey, Usko …’
The Captain noticed Lammio. He tried to stand up on his own legs and put on an absurdly comical sternness. His head swerved indecisively from one shoulder to the other, and the energy he was expending to keep himself imposingly upright was fast petering out.
‘Lieutenant … I ask you … I am Captain Usko Antero Lautsalo … and I am asking you, I, who earned the name the Wrath of God in the Winter War, I am asking you, what right do you have to order my men around …’ Then the Captain shook his head, hiccuped, and forgot both Lammio and whatever it was he had been talking about, bellowing, ‘Maaa-ay the na-aation of Finland forever be faith—hick! … hick! … faithful and valiant …’
‘I consider it within my rights to alert your men to the inappropriateness of their behavior,’ Lammio said.
‘Hick! … hick! … I do the commanding … hick! … and I command you to advance, my brave boys. We’ve still got half a bucket of booze … don’t we?’ The Captain stared at his men searchingly for a moment, awaiting their assurance, and when they offered it, he continued, ‘Hessu, play … Everyone should hear the arrival of the great Usko Antero Lautsalo, Captain of the Army of the Republic of Finland … hick! … Advance. We’ve taken Petroskoi. Made the dreams of centuries come true … hick! … Play “Hessu” … Hee … hee … advance … Lit with flaaaaames of desire, we are burning with rage. He who thiiinks he can last, let him stand in our way … Once a Northern man has set out to wage … War, be afraid! Hick! …’