‘Yeah, yeah, that’s why we’re here.’ The Lieutenant sent his companion back to the line while he himself remained marveling over the bodies.
‘It was just you, shooting?’
‘Well, sure, you might say that. Neighbors over there tried’a chime in every once in a while, but nothin’ much came a that. Did gimme a nick in’na head, though, the bastards. Clear knocked me out for a second there.’
‘And I was all ready to run,’ Lampinen confessed meekly, as if to establish that he had no intention of denying his fear. Rokka gave a good-spirited chuckle and said, ‘Sure were! Gave me a good laugh when I came to and saw your foot right there next to me, ’bout’ta push off for the rear. ’Nen it flashed through my head that you thought I was a goner. I reckoned you’d git a hell of a start from a dead man pullin’ your leg! But lissen, you bandage up my head now, all right? Ain’t bleedin’. Cold’s stopped the blood, but you better wrap it up anyway.’
Lampinen started binding the wound. He wasn’t at all embarrassed about how scared he’d been, and said in a voice full of humble admiration, ‘I don’t know much about these things, but man, you’re one hell of a shot.’
Rokka raised his mitten and started lecturing in his school-teacherly voice, ‘Now, you see here. Here’s how it is. You turn tail, and you can hightail it all’a way to the Gulf’a Bothnia. They’ll chase after ya, no doubt about that. But if you stay put and don’t give an inch – well, whadda they gonna do about it? Wouldn’t be quite right to all fall in’na same pit together. That’ssa whole key to defensive strategy right there. There’s nothin’ more to it than that and there never will be. But gaddamn it, don’t swaddle me like a babe! Pretty soon I ain’t gonna be able to see or hear nothin’! Say, Lieutenant, gimme a smoke. I left mine back in’na transport.’
‘Here, take the whole pack. I’ve still got another.’
‘Naw. Now, aren’t you a big-hearted bastard? I like you lots, Louie. You go see if those fellas all got felt boots on. ’F they do, then tomorrow I’m outfittin’na whole platoon with ’em!’
There were no felt boots on the bodies. They checked the next day, once the enemy had ceded back the reconquered village. The wedge that had been pushing toward the service road had forced them to return to their original line. Fifty-two bodies were found lying in the swamp. By Lampinen’s count, Rokka had emptied seventeen drum magazines. The weapon showed it too. The barrel was stretched beyond repair.
After the fighting, Major Sarastie assembled his battalion again and thanked them for a job well done. He said that their role in the counter-attack had been decisive. The battalion had fought well, and even the Regiment Commander had sent his congratulations. He had ordered that the battalion be recognized for its dauntless fighting spirit.
The men didn’t really understand how this time was any different from any other time, but anyway, apparently they had fought well, because somebody said so.
And to revitalize that fighting spirit within them, they had even shot two privates in front of a sauna wall in the next town over. It would have been rather incredible, after all, if such a thing had had no effect whatsoever.
Chapter Ten
I
Mäkilä was pacing back and forth beside the field kitchen. He spotted some potato peel on the ground, picked it up and tossed it into a crate. Though the sight of the potato peel had aroused his general distaste for the ‘undying barbarism’ of his present company, he was actually in an exceptionally good mood. The machine-gunners had emerged victorious from a scuffle with the Third Company over grazing land for their horses, and so had triumphantly taken control of the forest meadow in question. Mäkilä was to be thanked for this coup, as for so many other matters concerning the company’s maintenance. Sinkkonen, the Master Sergeant, had proven utterly incapable of managing things adequately. Appeals to the rule book or the customary proceedings were of no help out here. The circumstances required initiative and punch – and Sinkkonen had neither. Which was why the machine-gunners frequently found themselves suffering the consequences of his ineptitude compared to the other master sergeants, who knew better what they were about and how to hold their own. It was only Mäkilä’s staunch, hefty pressure, combined with the men’s own enterprise, that evened things out, despite the fact that Mäkilä’s inferior rank put him in something of an awkward position with the other master sergeants. ‘But we have to try something. Touching a hand to your cap’s not going to get anybody too far round here.’
The early summer evening was already on the wane. The glints of sunset flickering between the trees had already vanished from the pond’s surface, and dark shadows were stretching long from its western rim. Mäkilä would have gone to bed, but he didn’t dare. Rahikainen was leaning against the field kitchen, chatting with the guard. Angling to steal something. Mäkilä didn’t even have to wonder anymore whether Rahikainen was up to something – which was why he was still up, hanging around, for fear the guy on guard would slip up and get himself swindled.
Finally Rahikainen left, lazily making his way down the path. When Mäkilä saw him disappear around the bend, he crawled into his tent and went to bed. Rahikainen walked a little further down the path, then stopped and gave a low whistle. The answer came right away. Rahikainen followed it and after tiptoeing a little way, found Rokka perched on a rock.
‘It’s next to the field kitchen, on the pond side. Won’t be easy, but I’ll manage.’
‘Who’s on guard?’
‘Sipilä.’
‘All right, ’attl work. I’ll git to it soon as I git over there. You just make sure you’re ready when’na time comes.’
‘Careful that asshole doesn’t shoot you.’
‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’
They parted ways. Rokka pressed into the forest and Rahikainen started tiptoeing back toward the path. He crawled under cover of the bushes until he was a few yards from the field kitchen, then stopped to wait. The guard was smoking, looking at the pond glimmering between the trees. The supply guys’ tent was just a little way away, but over there everything was quiet.
A thud sounded in the forest, and the guard turned quickly, slipping his rifle off his shoulder and under his arm. A branch rustled in the trees, and the man released the safety on his gun. Then he took a few steps toward the noise and paused, listening, and Rahikainen slithered over to the field kitchen and grasped the soup vat sitting overturned beside it, then started pulling it quietly into the bushes.
Another thud came from the forest. Masking his fear in an artificially raspy voice, the guard called out, ‘Password!’
No password came, but the supply guys emerged from the tent in their underwear.
‘What’s over there?’
‘I don’t know. Something made a noise.’
‘Must be birds rustling around.’
Rahikainen had already pulled the soup vat into the bushes and left the men to wonder over the cause of the mysterious noises. He returned to their previous meeting point to wait for Rokka, who arrived promptly.
‘How’d it go?’
‘Take a look!’
‘Aw, shit, that’s swell! All we gotta do now is screw the top on and we’re all set.’
Rokka tossed the vat over his shoulder and off they went. Their tent was pitched in a little clearing in the forest, and some of the guys were lying around it. The two men stopped before they’d left the cover of the trees. Rahikainen gave a low whistle.
‘C’mon out! Coast’s clear.’
Rokka and Rahikainen’s arrival aroused lively interest. Everybody gathered around the ten
t, except the guy on guard. Shouts of joy burst forth as the men spotted the vat. They crowded around it, touched it and inspected its interior. Vanhala stuck his head inside and let out a yodel. ‘Ba-aaha-aahha-aa!!’
He must have enjoyed the sound of the echo, judging from the massive grin spread across his face when he removed his head.
The first section was ‘standing down’, in other words, laying a road. The company had organized their time off the line by section, and each rest period lasted one week, during which time the guys on their break would stay back somewhere by the supply crew and lay a log road extending toward the front line. It was the first day of Koskela’s section’s turn, and they had decided a long while back that when their next break came, they would make home brew. The lack of a vessel was their only concern, and since they knew there was no use in asking Mäkilä for such a thing, they had decided to steal it. Koskela had agreed to the plan, seeing as he could hardly use his position to pressure Mäkilä, under the circumstances. And anyway, even Koskela’s authority would hardly have induced Mäkilä to surrender his pot for such nefarious purposes.
Määttä and Vanhala went to fill the pot with water. Then they added a bowl of boiling water to it. Rokka took the helm, while Koskela tossed in brief, occasional words of advice. First, Rokka poured in the sugar they had collectively saved, followed by the precious yeast obtained through many tricky twists and turns. Finally, in went the pieces of bread each man had saved from his rations.
Then they screwed the lid shut and shoved the vat into a corner of the tent, covering it in coats and backpacks. The joy of anticipation gleamed in all of their eyes. Vanhala put his ear to the side of the vat. ‘Hissing already. The oppressed are rising to power in there.’
‘But we can’t just leave it sitting in here alone,’ Hietanen pointed out. ‘Somebody’s gotta stand guard. Mäkilä might suspect we took it and come and inspect the tent.’
Koskela looked like he was thinking. ‘Nobody’s really allowed to just hang around here. But doesn’t anybody have some kind of injury? Maybe somebody could go to the aid station and ask for sick leave.’
‘I got a sore throat!’ Rahikainen broke in, but Koskela replied, ‘No. It’s gotta be somebody legit, somebody they’re not going to question. Salo, you got any kind of injury you could go complain about? Wouldn’t occur to anybody to suspect you of trying to get off.’
‘I do have a sore on my foot. But it’s almost dry already.’ Salo was very flattered, taking Koskela’s selection as a straightforward compliment and missing its insulting insinuation entirely.
Salo removed his boot when Koskela ordered him to show him the wound. ‘Scratch it a little. And in the morning before we set off, rub it so it gets all red. Then go ask for first aid, really earnestly.’
‘Tell ’em like this,’ Rokka instructed, ‘tell ’em it ain’t that it hurts so much, it’s just that it rubs when you put on’nat boot, see. And tell ’em that it’s been that way for a long time, but it don’t git any better so long as you have to keep movin’ it all’a time.’
The next morning Salo went to the aid station and obtained his sick leave, though only for three days. But now that this precious wound had attracted the attention of the whole section, it got so much worse that after three days Salo really did limp to the aid station and easily obtained three more days’ leave. So he was able to guard the vat, whose absence had caused a great hubbub amongst the supply crew. Even Mäkilä wouldn’t have thought to suspect that it was Koskela’s men who had taken it, mostly because it would never have dawned on him what they would do with such a vessel. Otherwise he would certainly have linked the coincidence of the vat’s disappearance with Rahikainen’s movements near the kitchen around the same time and drawn the obvious conclusions.
The life of the entire section began to revolve around the vat of home brew. When the men returned from laying the road, they hurried directly to the vat. They listened to it and tapped gently on its sides, and when they forgot about it for a moment, somebody would ask, ‘What’s hissing over there under the packs?’
‘Bubba’s in there.’
For some reason the jug of home brew had acquired the name ‘Bubba’.
‘Seems like things’ve been quiet an awfully long time. Be a damn shame if we got called up before he was done. We’d have to drink him as is.’
‘That won’t happen here. They need all the boys they got down in Crimea and Kharkov.’
‘What have the Fritzis got brewing down there, anyway?’
‘Let ’em brew whatever they want. All we’re worried about here is what’s brewin’ in Bubba.’
‘In my town, we had this one old guy, this Heikki Vastamäki, who cursed like a sailor. And one time the minister stopped in to ask for something to drink, and this Heikki, he pulls the blanket off his keg and says, “Beer brews like a bastard and grain floats like shit, but why the hell is a pastor here askin’ for it?”’
‘And once, in our town—’
‘But I was saying—’
‘Or then this one time—’
The low rumble of fire echoed from the line, ersatz coffee bubbled over the campfire and, in the corner of the tent, the home brew was hissing away.
II
June 4th, 1942, was a glorious summer day. The Marshal was celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday, and the event consumed the whole of public life. For those in the army, the day was remarkable because it brought with it one bottle of liquor for every five men: ‘cut cognac’ it was called.
‘But just one thing. When we start getting sloshed, we can’t make a racket. So if anybody in the group starts looking for a fight, we all take him down together, OK? What do we do to him?’
‘Butter his balls in rifle grease.’
‘OK.’
‘OK.’
‘Sh’we get things rolling with Mannerheim’s liquor?’
‘Cut cognac, heeheehee! What do you think you cut cognac with?’
Hietanen measured out the drinks into field cups, and when everybody had some, they took a group swig. Hietanen raised his cup and said, ‘So, hey, cheers! To our good luck! Better dedicate the first one to Lady Luck for sparing us so long.’
Cups turned bottoms-up and the bliss of the celebratory drinks settled over the men.
‘C’mon, that’s nothing, let’s have Bubba!’
‘What are they gonna say tomorrow when they find out where the soup vat’s been?’
‘Bah! Don’t worry about tomorrow!’
Hietanen shared the home brew around and they gulped it down, coughing and choking. No one would have dared criticize it, seeing as it had already afforded them the joy of anticipation, which made its waters sacred. It was beyond reproach. They downed another round and grew drunk with glee, more from the pleasure of knowing that they would soon be drunk than from the actual alcohol, which hadn’t had enough time to take effect.
Conversation grew livelier. A sort of radiant joy seemed to rise in each of the men. They were quick to laugh at even the most pitiful jokes, and a powerful atmosphere of camaraderie and fraternity soon reigned within the tent.
‘Aw, shit, it warms a belly to the depths!’ Rokka smiled. ‘Hey! Koskela! Why ain’t you over at the command post? They got the big shots’ liquor over there.’
‘Nothin’ as big as this jug here.’
‘You sure don’t do much drinkin’ with them other officers.’
‘Why should I? Right here’s where I come from.’
Faces here and there were already flushed pink, and Salo was off to such a rip-roari
ng start that he was already singing Koskela’s praises. ‘No, guys. Say what you will, but there’s not many sections got a top dog like we got.’
Koskela didn’t pay him any attention, and none of the others was quite drunk enough to start launching into public confessions just yet. They stuck to praising the home brew.
‘Stiff stuff. Starting to feel it, boys!’
They drained one cup after another, and soon the conversation turned to the various phases of the war and the friends who had fallen. ‘It’s been rough, boys. Guys dropping like flies … you remember the time we flanked the road for that shitty encirclement and the stretchers were dripping with blood? That guy was tough all right … I mean, if you wanna tell it straight, Lehto was tough as nails … guy killed himself for nothing … Yeah … sure was … sure was … Lahtinen was as good as they come … got ’im in the back of the ear … Aren’t many guys would of even started lugging that machine gun back.’
‘Lissen, Koskela,’ Rokka said, ‘you oughdda make ’em git another stripe for Määttä, now that he’s replaced Lahtinen as squad leader and all. Not that those ribbons are worth anythin’, but since that’s how it’s done and all. He’s a good fella.’
Koskela hadn’t said anything yet. Little by little he had started looking around at the others, always fixing his steady gaze upon whoever happened to be speaking. Now, weighing his words, he said, ‘I know the guy.’
Salo turned to Koskela, hands flailing. ‘But look, Koski! Maybe I ain’t the best, but I still done purty good, ain’t I?’
Koskela looked at each of them again, staring at them for a long time. Then, weighing his words as carefully as before, he said, ‘Tough crew.’
‘Yeah, I say so too. And no other crew better come stompin’ all over us.’ Hietanen might have been the drunkest of them all, bobbing his head as he spoke, hair falling in his eyes.