Koskela drained Kariluoto’s glass and took a seat on the bench. He stared at each man in turn, one after the other, without saying a word. The orderly came round to fill the glasses, then disappeared.
Ensign Spectacles started in again on his interrupted solo, ‘Die Strasse frei den braunen Bataillonen …’
Koskela started staring at the singing officer. At first, the man just kept on singing, but soon the strange fixity of Koskela’s gaze began to make him uncomfortable. Assurance fell from his voice and even the melody turned tail as he struggled to remain self-possessed in the face of this unflinching stare. Finally, he was forced to stop singing entirely.
Suddenly Koskela said, ‘Siberia bolshoi taiga.’
‘What’s that?’ the Ensign asked uncertainly, his voice strained.
Koskela didn’t answer him, instead saying in the same husky voice, ‘Dobra hoo-ya.’
Now the Ensign was entirely unnerved and flew into a rage because of it. ‘Who is speaking Russki here?’
‘Koskela the Finn. Eats iron and shits chains.’
Kariluoto realized that Koskela was looking for a fight, and offered him a drink to distract him, but Koskela shoved his hand aside and started to count out insistently, ‘Odin dva tri pyat … Odin dva tri pyat …’
‘Have you got something against me?’ Spectacles asked, growing ever more furious. But Koskela just continued on in his curious tongue, ‘Union sovyet sosialist … tis … list … k republeek … Holodna karasho maatreeoshka dee-yay-vushka krashnee-soldier komsomolski homoravitsha bulayeva Svir … Dada dai dada! Dada dai dada …’
It finally dawned on Spectacles that it was the foreign language of his song that had prompted Koskela’s carrying on. ‘I can speak Finnish too,’ he said. ‘And you might do well to stick to it yourself.’
‘Guh … gun … gunners … Dada dai dada! Dada dai … dada. Martti Kitunen, Hunter of Bears … dum-dee-dum dee-dum-do Jack Frost blows the windows …’ Koskela sang. The tempo mounted and Koskela hissed the words through clenched teeth, ‘Father Christmas in his snow frock, tousled hair, snow-cape and gray sock—’
On this last syllable he suddenly rose and punched the Ensign, who had also risen and was standing beside the bed. The officer was knocked unconscious and collapsed onto the floor, his spectacles sailing off into the corner.
The others rushed to contain Koskela. Even Lammio tried to grab hold of him, but was sent flying into a wall like a cast-off glove. Just then Koskela took hold of the heavy bench and swung it up into the air, saying, ‘Stay back, damn it. Or I’ll shift to second gear.’
‘Koski, calm down,’ Kariluoto urged, but Koskela no longer recognized him. The ensign lying on Lammio’s bed seized Koskela’s arm from behind and got him to drop the bench. Then the others were able to get a hold of him. Spectacles came to and started spitting the blood out of his mouth. Lammio called for Mielonen, who came inside with the orderlies on his heels.
‘Tie this man up … Tie him up!’
They managed to get Koskela face-down. Five, maybe six men were lying on top of him, but he still wriggled around like a bear beneath the pile of them. At last they got three belts around him, and Koskela was helpless. Nevertheless, he clenched his teeth and growled, ‘I’m not giving up, damn it! Damn it, I’m not giving up.’
Then they carried him off to his tent with a sizeable brigade in tow. Kariluoto walked beside him, chatting to try to calm him down, until finally Koskela asked, ‘Who’re you?’
‘Why, I’m Kariluoto! Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, your old friend.’
Koskela lit up. ‘Well, hello there! So long, boys … Where we going?’
‘To lie down. You’re tired.’
‘Tired … Old Lady Koskela’s boy never gets tired … Then Antti of the Isotalo’s came by … singing all the way from Härmä da-dye …’
The casualty rate in the tent was rather high as well. Only Rokka and Vanhala were still up. Määttä had actually taken the initiative to go to bed, but the others had just dropped out on the field, as it were.
Vanhala was playing Stalin’s speeches and Rokka was telling tales of yore. ‘Looka here … I keep this lil’ almanac with me all a time, see. And then one time I go back home with the missus to her parents’ place and here I am flippin’ through this almanac here so her ol’ man asks, “Anythin’ in’nat book a yours ’bout the fishin’ for t’marra?” ’Nen I read, “Fish’s swimmin’ this time a year an’na pickins’s good”. And shucks! Next mornin’na ol’ man comes back with a whole heap of ’em, and he says Tommo went out and bought all kinds a books, too, but no good ever came a any a those. Shoulda seen how the ol’ man was worked up! But then’na next day he asks me again and I read him the same bit, but he doesn’t catch a damn fish all day. So then he gits all sore ’bout the whole thing and won’t open his mouth for three days. And then there’s the missus, who got sore ’bout it, too, ’cause I put one over on her ol’ man.’
Vanhala’s head was nodding off as he turned the record, but he laughed nonetheless and said, ‘The missus got sore … the missus always get sore.’
‘My missus never stays sore long. You know, Sankia Priha the Great, you know what you do with a missus when she gits all riled up at you?’
‘Give ’er a good whack ’cross the backside, heeheehee.’
‘Stop that. I spinn’er round in a polka and I’ll be darned if that don’t set things right. But hey! What the hell is’sat? What’ssat they’re draggin’? Those fellas gone and killed Koskela?’
They went to meet the traveling party and Rokka growled from a good way off, ‘What the hell’d you folks do you gotta drag a fella back like that? What’ssa matter, boy? Somebody take a crack at you?’
‘Well, hullo, sharp-shot. Who took a crack?’
They lowered Koskela to the ground and Kariluoto whispered to Rokka, ‘Try to get him to go to bed. He got carried away and we had to tie him up.’
Rokka loosened Koskela’s bindings and led him over to his tent. Koskela put up no resistance. He had no idea what was going on around him, and just babbled as he stumbled along, leaning on Rokka’s arm. ‘Hullo, you old Taipale vet. Let’s sing Lundgren … da da da off with the stable naaags …’
Koskela dropped off to sleep as soon as he hit the tent. Rokka tossed a coat over him and came back outside.
Lammio was trying to play sober, and failing miserably, though the ruckus had dispelled his drunken haze quite a bit. He looked around at the men lying about here and there, a few of whom had vomited up the rice porridge consumed in honor of the occasion. ‘Lovely … Very attractive … Well, that clears that up. The whole platoon’s in the same state. What have you been drinking here?’
‘Home brew. Bubba had such stuff in’nim that me and Vanhala here’s the only ones left standin’! We’d offer our guests some, ’ceptin’nat we’re all out, see …’
‘You are responsible for the section until Koskela and Hietanen have sobered up. And what do you suppose would happen if we were called to alert now?’
‘Well, shucks, me and Vanhala here’d go set up a machine gun and empty some belts over there, and there, and there, and there. We’d send such a hail a bullets in each direction as would settle that alarm right then and there, don’t you worry. Lissen, you better not have any more to drink now, hear? Otherwise I’m gonna end up bein’ company commander. Not that I couldn’t do it, a course, it just wouldn’t be quite right, see.’
At that, Lammio could say nothing, so the officers made their exit. The whole festive mood had been spoiled, and
Lammio even started enumerating Koskela’s less favorable qualities for the others’ benefit. ‘It is not always the case that personal courage makes a man suitable for the rank of officer. When they asked me about possible candidates for officer training, I thought of Rokka and Hietanen, but I decided against it. And this kind of thing proves that I was right to do so. As good a man as Koskela may be, he lacks the sense of tradition and the true spirit of a real officer. He doesn’t fit into civilized circles – which is why he buddies up with his men and then vents his resentment in a drunken outburst. There is no other possible explanation. I wouldn’t have believed it of a man so calm and restrained.’
Kariluoto hiccuped. His spirits had suddenly plummeted. Everything Lammio was saying made him feel so sick that he somewhat uncomfortably started speaking up in Koskela’s defense. ‘Sure, but he was totally drunk. Home brew can make anyone like that, for no reason at all.’
He remembered the shots whistling from the bunker, and how Koskela had crawled toward it, loaded down with satchel charges on both sides. And he knew that it was he, and not Koskela, who had received all the credit for that breakthrough. But it wasn’t his fault. He’d done everything he could to make sure everyone knew what Koskela had done. Kariluoto could feel himself growing sober, and in his numbed state he was suddenly ashamed of the whole drunken evening and everything he might have said over the course of it. Goodness, how far away all of this was from the center of things, from that point upon which the reality of all these events turned! Kariluoto didn’t return to Lammio’s quarters, but turned off toward his own command post without a further word of explanation.
Rokka and Vanhala dragged their compatriots into the tent for the night. They brewed a pot of ersatz coffee and drank it between themselves.
Mosquitoes swarmed in the beams of sunlight streaming from the evening sky, and from high in the treetops of a nearby spruce came the hollow call of a cuckoo.
IV
They awoke the next morning to the rustle of Rahikainen’s return. Rumpled heads began to rise along the edges of the tent, eyes red and squinting, tongues wriggling about in their dry, sticky mouths. Hietanen looked around, spotted the empty vat and said, ‘Well! Never taken part in a war operation like that one before!’
‘You ended in a tailspin, heeheehee!’
‘I can’t remember a damn thing. But hey, let’s put on some coffee. I need something anyway. My mouth tastes like a cat took a crap in it.’
Koskela got up too. He wrinkled his forehead in concentration, but evidently the effort yielded no insight into the festivities of the previous evening, as he subsequently asked, ‘So, uh, how did everything go yesterday?’
Rokka laughed. ‘Went pretty good for everybody else! It’s just you they had’da take prisoner over there at the headquarters.’
‘Did I go over there too?’
‘Sure did. Fellas carried you back. Bound hand and foot.’
‘What for?’
‘You started a fight over there.’
‘Mm. Mhm … I see …’ Koskela ran his fingers through his hair, gave a grunt and fumbled idly with his backpack. Then his face resumed its customary, expressionless mien, and he asked, ‘Well, did they say anything about it? Did anybody get hurt?’
‘Naw, nothin’na worry ’bout over there. I hear the Second Company’s ensign was spittin’ blood, but it probably done that fella good.’
‘OK. Well, if that’s the worst that happened, it doesn’t matter much. Better take that vat back to Mäkilä. And start getting all this equipment into piles. We’re leaving right after we eat.’
Vanhala looked on inquisitively as Rahikainen lay down to sleep, and when it looked as though he might doze off without any confession at all, Vanhala finally asked, ‘So, you roll out your blanket?’
Rahikainen had been waiting for somebody to grant his return due attention, and now, smiling mysteriously, as if to make the whole thing more significant, he said, ‘Boys, I’m sleeping from now until it’s time to eat. Don’t wake me up before then! Oh, and I gave the other bottle to the guy standing guard, he traded me some Swedish crackers.’
Rahikainen pulled his blanket up over his head and fell asleep. The others started boiling up the coffee, reminiscing with rather half-hearted smiles about the previous day. Then, in the middle of everything, up rose the tent flap and in crawled Mäkilä.
‘Well, hello! C’mon in!’ Rokka called out. Mäkilä didn’t reply. His eyes went directly to the soup vat and stayed there as he cleared his throat.
‘You lookin’ for sumpin’?’ Rokka asked, looking at Mäkilä out of the corner of his eye.
‘Chuh. Who stole it?’
‘Nobody stole it,’ Hietanen said. ‘The guys found it over there next to the path.’
‘Chuh. Right next to the field kitchen. Chuh.’ Mäkilä inspected the vat. He refused to look anybody in the eye, and just kept coughing to himself, looking cross.
‘It’s dented.’
‘Well, I’ll be darned. So it is. But lissen here, don’t you worry. We’ll fix ’er right up. Sankia Priha the Great, gimme that piece a wood there.’
Rokka took the piece of wood and started banging the pot back into shape, as Mäkilä watched out of the corner of his eye, as if he were thinking, ‘Bang away! It’s not going to make it any better. It’s ruined.’
Koskela wondered for a long while whether he should say something. He felt it was his responsibility to offer some sort of explanation, but then, what was there to explain, really? Finally he asked, ‘You, uh, didn’t need it while it was missing, did you?’
Even Koskela was not going to be spared this time, regardless of his rank, position and whatever virtues he might possess. In Mäkilä’s scales, none of these carried much weight beside the offenses of drunkenness and theft on the front. He muttered angrily over his shoulder, ‘Chuh! Course not … Don’t need anything to transport food in if all you fellows need is beer.’
Koskela couldn’t help smiling as Mäkilä silently hoisted the vat onto his back and set off, dripping with disapproval. Hietanen chased after him, pleading, ‘Hey, gimme a few of those salted herring from the kitchen, wouldja? I need salt something awful.’
Mäkilä marched out in front, fuming silently, his vat bobbing about on his back. Hietanen lumbered along behind him, pulling at his waistband with one hand and scratching his head with the other. He kept up his campaign, undaunted by Mäkilä’s outraged silence. ‘Come on, you can spare a couple of herring. I’ll pay you back swell for ’em sometime, somehow or other. You oughtta at least help out an old friend.’
No answer. The vat just bobbed on, and Hietanen shifted into sentimental gear. ‘C’mon, wasn’t I the one who whispered you the answers about the moving parts of a machine gun back in NCO training? And I always let you off easy when it was my turn to be drill leader. You could at least pay me back for that with two or three herring. Or even five, really.’
There was some truth in Hietanen’s pitch. He was talking around the issue discreetly, though, as whispering in class was hardly a remarkable event. In actuality, Hietanen’s help had been of a more profound nature. Quiet and devout, Mäkilä had frequently fallen prey to the rowdier boys’ shenanigans, and a sharp command from the brawny, broad-shouldered Hietanen had shut up his tormentors more than once. It was for this reason that Mäkilä conceded to open his mouth. ‘That was a long time ago. And why should I go get you a salted herring for your hangover? I’m not a doctor. If you don’t feel good, go to the field hospital!’
‘C’mon, gimme a couple!’
‘Why
don’t you go drink some more of your beer? That’ll get rid of your hangover.’
‘Well, there isn’t any left!’
‘Go steal another pot from somewhere and make it!’
‘You gonna be sore about that stupid pot till the cows come home?’
At that Mäkilä finally blew his top. ‘Stupid pot? What does one little pot matter? If I didn’t fight tooth and nail to hold onto stuff around here, you lot would take everything! I have to feed and clothe one hundred and fifty men with my bare hands. I’ve got one guy sitting all starched and spiffy in the office dugout, ordering people around, but as soon as anybody comes round sniffing for something, it’s heels together and aye aye, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Without so much as a thought of holding his ground! I’d take a foxhole out there on the front lines over this job any day! If I just sat around here sucking my thumb, everything would disappear in one fell swoop. First you get drunk, then you make a racket, then you start fighting, and now you come chasing after me for salted herring! But just let things heat up again, and then everybody’s got Our Father on the tip of his tongue.’
Hietanen was both irritated and extremely amused by this yoked creature in front of him with a vat bobbing about on his back. He knew which teat to tug to get the milk he wanted, though, so in a voice of pure seriousness and sympathy, he declared, ‘Well, look, you took the words right outta my mouth. I don’t lead that kind of sinful life at all. You sure got a tough gig, don’t I know it. Never a moment’s peace for you. You gotta watch this stuff like a hawk day and night. Look, I wouldn’t a taken the vat, but the other guys took it. What was I supposed to do, tell you? That would have put me on the outs with my own gang. Sure, I guess you can understand that. But come on now, gimme a couple of herring!’
Mäkilä didn’t reply, but Hietanen’s hopes rose, as he suspected this silence boded well for him. Mäkilä dilly-dallied in the kitchen, fiddling around over here, and then over there, while Hietanen sat on a rock, waiting impatiently. He wasn’t sure if he should keep pushing or not, as it could be that Mäkilä was stalling deliberately and that a renewed request would make him change his mind. Finally, Mäkilä went to the little dugout-like hole where he stored the rations. He returned a moment later with one miserable, measly herring dangling from his hand.