Unknown Soldiers

Chapter Fifteen

Upon receiving word of Kariluoto’s death, Koskela immediately got the head of the Second Company on the phone. He suggested the man take over command. The Lieutenant turned him down, however. The honor held no allure for him, and besides, he knew Koskela himself was the better man for the job.

‘If you consent to a retreat through the ponds, I’m pulling out,’ Koskela said.

The Lieutenant hesitated. He would have to get in touch with the Division Commander by radio first.

Koskela was irritated. In truth, there was no way he was going to continue with the attack, but Lieutenant Colonel Karjula might order the Second Company commander to do so. Koskela had been thinking they could just break off, and not get back in touch until all possibility of continuing this useless massacre of men had passed. He knew Karjula well enough to fear that the man might suspect him of exaggerating in his assessment of the situation.

Nor was he mistaken. But he declared flatly that at least the part of the battalion under his command was not going to continue the attack. The Division Commander was infuriated. He had assembled a weak force to secure the west side, and if the battalion pulled out from where it was, the enemy would immediately shift more men over to the barricade, which would enable them to push it off the road.

They were still arguing when a great clamor began over by the line by the brook. The phone rang and the Second Company sent word that a fierce attack was underway. Koskela brusquely apprised the Commander of the situation, to which the latter replied furiously, ‘In any cathe, you are to bring the equipment back with you.’

‘Not the anti-tank guns, at any rate. But the battalion I’ll bring.’ Koskela put down the radio phone and said to the artillery observer, ‘We’re going to keep that guy off for a little while.’

Then the phone started ringing and the messengers, running. Commands were clear, single-minded and thoroughly considered. Koskela pulled the First Company back somewhat. Then he withdrew the Third Company from the south side of the road entirely and set it up in defensive positions along the north side, so that the line ran partially along the road, turned to follow the brook line, then curved back around toward the north on the far left wing. Thus he got the men into a horseshoe formation, and ordered the wounded to be brought into its center. He had already had the wounded from his own company carried to the north side of the road earlier in the evening, as well as assigned a command group to make stretchers out of stakes and tent tarps. At one point he had thought that they might get the road open, but he had proceeded with his preparations regardless.

One of Kariluoto’s men asked, hesitating, ‘What about the bodies? We brought the Captain’s body out too.’

‘The living are enough.’ Koskela didn’t even glance at Kariluoto’s body, nor any of the other dead. There was no time for prayers. He was concerned with nothing but saving the battalion, which he had decided he was going to do, come hell or high water. His face expressionless, he issued commands with businesslike brevity, and without thought or question, the men obeyed.

He was most concerned about the Second Company’s position. How were the men going to be able to pull out under that kind of enemy pressure? Koskela knew that that kind of withdrawal was one of the most difficult operations to pull off, because in that sort of situation the squads could easily get mixed up – panic, even. And he couldn’t send any help, as he needed to have a position ready to receive them, through which the Second Company might pull out safely.

Luckily, the guys manning the south side of the road were able to disengage and retreat to safety before the tanks rumbled over the defensive forces alongside the road. The tanks destroyed one of the anti-tank guns, and its men along with it, but the other went flying spectacularly into the air, its own men having amassed everything they had by way of explosives and ignited them all underneath it just as they fled. A barrel explosion would have destroyed the gun more easily, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive – and even in their mortal danger, the men really enjoyed the fireworks.

They left behind four machine guns, as well as some of the wounded, but considering the circumstances, Koskela was satisfied.

He sent the Second Company northward to spearhead the coming march. The First and Third Companies would hold the ring of the horseshoe henceforth. Then he gathered the machine-gun, mortar and anti-tank teams, as well as the artillery observers, in its center.

‘Get yourselves into carrying squads of four. If we’re short of stretchers, make some up quick. The wounded we carry and the machine guns we dump in the pond. We’ll just keep one as a souvenir.’

Koskela looked around and saw Määttä, leaning on his machine gun. ‘Want to bring yours?’

‘Don’t make much difference. Whatever you want.’

It seemed natural that Määttä’s gun should be the one they kept. He’d been looking after it since the first days of the war, first shooting it, then leading its team – and now there he was, leaning on it, mute as a statue. Not once had any of them seen him hand it over to somebody else to carry. At the beginning, this devotion to a weapon the others detested for its weight and unwieldiness had just been a statement of the small-bodied man’s quiet ambition, but over time it had become elevated into an ideal – the only ideal Määttä really had in connection with the war. He would have been able to toss it into the pond, but it was almost unthinkable that it would stay behind with the enemy unless Määttä’s body stayed with it. It had fallen to the enemy for a little while, when Lahtinen had fallen and it had stayed with him, but Määttä didn’t think you could really blame the gun for that. After the enemy withdrew the next day, they had found it a little way from Lahtinen’s body, and from that point on Määttä had guarded it like a precious inheritance.

Even if Määttä had answered his question offhandedly, Koskela knew that he had given Määttä something no decoration ever could ever have. With his question, he had attested before all of them to Määttä’s superior ability to carry the machine gun.

The others hesitated at first. It felt strange to throw weapons into the pond, weapons they’d been dragging around the whole war long, often with the very last shreds of their strength.

‘Just toss?’

Koskela grabbed the closest man’s machine gun. ‘Just toss. Like this… I don’t have time for jokes.’

The water heaved and there it went. Koskela’s irritation was as strange as the dumping of the machine guns – but dump them they did, as the men cast their hesitation aside.

‘So long, buddy boy!’

‘Have a good trip, you jack-hammering bastard!’

‘No more tearing up my shoulder!’

Even the war hadn’t quite killed the rascals in them. Their faces beamed with mischievous delight.

Enemy tanks were already on the road, their infantry forcing the men on the horseshoe into combat. In the interest of safety, Koskela set their course due north, designating the small, nameless ponds he had pointed out to Kariluoto earlier as their first destination. The First Company’s patrol had determined that the flanking enemy forces had positioned men all along the north side of the road, and Koskela wanted to avoid running into them at any cost. Burdened down with their loads and the weight of their defeat, the men would be helpless if confronted with any significant fighting. He needed to get the battalion back to the road in one piece, and that was going to require a long detour.

He knew that he needed to get it there as quickly as possible, but even if it meant facing the court martial, Koskela had decided that they had taken enough reckless gambles for one day. Not even in their famous ‘shitty encirclement’ had they lost as many men as they had in this hopeless effort. The last three hours had been the bloodiest in the battalion’s history. Koskela recalled Hietanen’s charred body. Even the bandage around over his eyes had burned.

Koskela grunted.

Vanhala, Rahikainen, Honkajoki and Sihvonen carried Ukkola.

He was in severe pain. The bullet had gone in through the chest pocket of his shirt. At first it seemed that the wound was not dangerous, but soon after their departure, Ukkola had started coughing, and blood rose to his lips.

‘So it has punctured the lung, damn it. No wonder it feels like there’s a nail in there every time I breathe,’ he gasped.

The others tried to console him, but Ukkola knew the value of such speeches all too well. He had knelt more than once beside some dying guy, telling him over and over again how easy his recovery would be. He hadn’t even feared death all that much, but this incessant pain was hard to take.

In an effort to cheer him up, Honkajoki started talking about his own injury, describing the wonders of the military hospital. Ukkola was heaving and writhing on his stretcher, but Honkajoki carried on with all his former aplomb. ‘All the most smashing girls are nurses’ aides. They are indeed heroic, as you will see. They do not even consider it below themselves to wash the leathery ass of a private. Why, those boys have risked their lives over there! With that curly, blond hair and strapping, athletic physique, you’ll be a sensation. Don’t you worry. Try to hang on just a little longer. I know how it feels. They carried me in a sled during the thaw. Careful, gentlemen. Careful you don’t jar him.’

‘Break!’

Vanhala sat down on a mound of grass and wiped his cap across his brow. Low moans sounded out in front of them. The infantry guys covering their passage stood off to the side. The dusk of the summer evening was just descending into darkness. A fine mist hovered in the damp air. And Vanhala was smiling. Not with glee, nor with bitterness, but as if he were weighing the whole evening in his mind and smiling nonetheless. ‘They’ve suffered some losses, but our army is as unbeatable as ever as it retreats behind a new line of defense.’

Ukkola’s face twisted into a smile. He’d spent hundreds of hours on guard with Vanhala.

‘Ohhhh… as… chuh… chuh… as long… chm… ohhhhh. As long as… chm… we’re still breathing… they’ll be saying… chm… we’re un… unbeatable… chm…’

‘Here, let me straighten you out…’

‘It’s no use… chm… so long as there’s still one… chm… left to slaughter… chm… we’re not beat… chm… ohhh ohhh… What’s it gonna take… chm… for us to be beat?’

‘Does anyone have a handkerchief? Or actually, hand me a bandage.’ Honkajoki wiped the blood from Ukkola’s lips.

Vanhala put his cap back on his head. He knew that Ukkola in severe pain still couldn’t be anyone but the old Ukkola, so he said, giggling softly, ‘Undaunted even in his defeat, laughing proudly in the face of death, he looks beyond the avalanche that has buried the hopes of his homeland. Heehee… You heard it. We can’t lose.’

The words Vanhala had just uttered were ones the men had recently heard on the radio, and Ukkola was amused just by the fact that Vanhala remembered such things so precisely. When they got moving again, he said, huffing, ‘Hold on tight, Priha… chm… chm. If these lungs hold out… chm… out… then… sometime… chm… we’ll go Priha… Ohhhh… huh… huh… get drunk…’

After they started off, the wounded man three stretchers ahead of them died.

The body was left at the base of a tree and the guys who’d been carrying the man started alternating shifts with the others. The dead man had been wounded by a shell out on the brook line and was already on his last legs when they’d set out. The men carrying Ukkola tried to pass by the spot in such a way that their friend wouldn’t see that the body had been left – but failed.

‘If… I don’t… chm… make it… then you’d cover me… with something… chm… or what’s that…’

One of the wounded men had lost it. ‘Just don’t leave me! If they attack… You promise? Come on, speed up! Hurry up… If we run into them, don’t leave me behind…’

The men carrying offered no promises. They lumbered on silently, grunting and panting, and whenever the wounded man rose in a panic, they pressed him back down on the stretcher.

Ukkola’s pain was increasing. He was running a fever and Vanhala wrapped his coat around him like a blanket. Ukkola put his arm over his eyes, giving a moan now and again, frequently accompanied by a litany of curses. Once when the stretcher gave a violent lurch, he seemed jolted out of his pained torpor, and said, ‘Same… steps… Chm… step… together… boys.’

‘I don’t think we can get much of a sense of rhythm. Terrain’s hell.’

Ukkola couldn’t keep up a smile any more. More and more blood rose to his lips and his breath grew weaker and weaker. His coughing fits soon became so agonizing that even the guys carrying him had a hard time watching. He was shivering from the fever, and soon anything they could find was wrapped around him.

Four years of continuous malnourishment had not managed to diminish the life force of the country boy. Ukkola had been one of those athletes who turns up at every summer event, and although his results had remained unremarkable, the training had given him a kind of strength and endurance against which death could make no impression. It hadn’t managed to make him lose consciousness yet, though he himself wished that it would, as did the men carrying him.

They reached their first destination. Koskela got in touch with the Commander. The man was in a rage. Everything had gone just as he feared. As soon as the battalion pulled out from the road, the enemy had brought its tanks up to the barricade and decimated it. They would have to continue pulling out, and now the detour would be longer still, as they needed to reach a destination that was even further off. The Colonel himself designated the point at which Koskela was to meet up with the main road, saying finally, ‘That ith the command. Your berry-picking excurthion endth there. Ith that clear?’

Koskela couldn’t have cared less. He was immune to Karjula’s criticisms – for even if he didn’t ever descend into self-congratulation, he was still aware that not many men would have been able to get the battalion out in as good a shape as he had. Or as quickly.

The journey continued. The men carrying the stretchers were on their last legs, for although the burdens were not so heavy when divided amongst four men, the uneven terrain multiplied the strain many times over. Their progress grew ever more difficult.

One of the men carrying the stretcher in front of Ukkola’s fell, and the wounded man dropped to the ground with a shout of pain. The fellow carrying regained his balance, gasping for breath, spat and screamed in a voice ringing with rage, ‘Finnish president Risto Ryti and the National Orchestra proudly present… a polka: “Up Shit Creek Without a Fucking Paddle”.’

Then he grabbed hold of the handle rods again and the power of his anger spurred him on for a little while.

Even Ukkola’s carriers weren’t talking anymore. They weren’t up to it. Silently, concentrating all of their energy on their task, they toiled onward as Ukkola coughed and gasped on the stretcher in ever-increasing pain.

At three o’clock in the morning, as dawn was already beginning to lighten the sky, Ukkola shot himself with Sihvonen’s gun, which had been left leaning against the stretcher during a break.

His carriers were looking off to the side, watching the infantry guys, and didn’t realize what was happening until the shot went off.

They would have been happy to bring Ukkola’s body to the road, but they were forced to abandon the idea, as the exhausted carrying teams needed to keep rotating and Koskela was urging them to hurry. But when they remembered Ukkola’s plea to be covered, they hastily dug a shallow bed with their field shovels and set the body in it, wrapped in a tarp. Then they shoveled some moss and dirt on top to cover it up.

Even Honkajoki was solemn. Maybe it was just exhaustion, but then, death had become a constant companion that night, and it left little room for chatter.

As they were shoveling, Rahikainen said, ‘Now, that guy would have made it. But everybody rings things up as he sees fit.’

‘I guess Ukkola here was the last guy left in the Fourth Platoon who started in the burnt clearing,’ Vanhala said. ‘Man, I still remember that one time when we were new recruits, when the Third Company came back from a march and somebody had stuck this massive rock in Ukkola’s pack. He’d cheated in packing it up. Heehee. Kariluoto was the one who stuck it in.’

‘That guy was a real asshole back then – Kariluoto,’ Sihvonen said. ‘Grew up into a man, though. Guess they’ll dump him in that pond too.’

They left Ukkola’s grave and hurried onwards. There was no benediction. Nothing but Sihvonen’s bitter outburst as he left: ‘So that’s how a Finn bites the dust these days. This country’s done for.’

The supply train was retreating.

It was early morning, but bright as day, so the drivers were worried about air raids. The vehicles had been camouflaged with underbrush and the horses’ harnesses were covered in alder branches, and one of the drivers had even stuck a sprig in his cap.

‘Keep wider intervals,’ Sinkkonen shouted, riding his bicycle along the side of the road as he tried to pass the vehicles. Lammio was with him as well, since Karjula had allocated him the task of managing the supply train’s retreat.

The old guy who’d been called out of the reserves, Korpela, was leading his horse alongside the vehicles. He had checked the carts for officers’ bags and their other belongings, but the previous driver had already tossed all that kind of stuff into the forest, so there weren’t any objects left for Korpela to hurl in his fury.

Sinkkonen was telling him something about aerial observation. Korpela glared daggers at the Master Sergeant and snarled, ‘Yeah, order me to keep an eye on the sky! Why don’t you just get out of the way? Yeah, that’s right, take care of your bicycle so you can ride off on it when the time comes. ’Cause that’s what you’re gonna do all right.’

The battalion’s Lotta was standing on the roadside. Raili Kotilainen hadn’t snagged herself one particular man over the course of the war, but that was partially made up for by the fact that she had snagged several. The aide who had taken her picture by the captured mortar back at the start of the war had been dead for some time. At that point Raili was still a flower in bloom, but the war had worn her down as it had the rest of them. She had withered and lowered her standards so much that she had even succumbed to some anti-tank guy in infantry. Sic transit gloria mundi, Sarastie had observed.

The Lotta’s bicycle was broken. She was tired and worn out. The men showed her nothing but their unmasked contempt and hostility. They showered her with obscene, insinuating abuse. Spotting Korpela, she thought she might turn to him for help. An older man, she imagined, would have some kind of fatherly sympathy for her.

‘I can’t ride this and I’m just so tired. And the heel of my shoe came off. Do you think you could give me a lift on your cart?’

Good Lord! The front-line Lotta! The sight of the woman struck Korpela the way a red banner strikes a bull. ‘We ain’t soiled this cart driving any of your sacred shit yet, bitch. Damn straight that’s how it is.’

Lammio overheard him. First, he ordered the Lotta into the next vehicle and then he yelled, ‘Private Korpela!’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘What did you just say?’

‘I said what I said. Yeah, and I meant that we’ve got enough shit to haul around here without hauling the Finnish officers’ whore too. That’s right.’

‘Listen here, Korpela! You’ve gone too far. Now shut your mouth! One more word out of you and you will regret it.’

‘Quit mouthing off at me, you raggedy-ass bastard. Yeah, you heard me.’ Korpela’s fury had flared up full blast. He screamed at the drivers in a voice choked with rage, trying to pack as much biting contempt into his voice as possible, but mostly drowning it out in the overwhelming flood of his anger. ‘Me-en! Hey, driiivers! Who’s that bastard on my ass? We only had horse flies swarmin’ round before. We startin’ to get people now too?’

‘You’re under arrest. Hey, you, over there. Two men, over here! Confiscate Private Korpela’s belt and rifle.’

There were no volunteers. Nor were they necessary. Somebody further behind was yelling, ‘Heavy-duty tillers overhead… air raid! Sturmoviks! Get under cover!’

They turned the horses quickly toward the cover of the forest and everyone disappeared somewhere or other. Only Korpela remained on the road. His cart wheel got stuck in a ditch and the horse wasn’t able to pull it out. The animal strained against its harness, pulling with all of its might, but the wheel just sank deeper into the treacherously soft soil at the bottom of the ditch.

Small bombs fell from the ground-attack planes and exploded behind them.

Vo… uuuuuu… trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… The plane droned over and machine-gun fire raked the road. When it had passed, more followed in its wake.

‘Come on, you assholes, come and lift!’ Korpela howled, but there was no help in sight nor did any materialize. Many men abandoned their horses and ran off deeper into the forest.

‘Run… run! Just run like hell then! Leave your poor horse here to be killed, oh, that’s fine…’

The carousel continued. Planes circled round and shells exploded ceaselessly, accompanied by the chattering of machine guns. The angry explosions of quick-load rifles grew nearer, then suddenly the back beams of Korpela’s cart cracked. Korpela ducked for cover, but returned to his feet immediately and started yanking again. Having first taken the Lotta to safety, Lammio was now approaching Korpela’s cart. He walked upright, with apparent indifference to the planes, and when Korpela noticed him, he flew into an unbridled rage. That man, flaunting his bravery!

‘You stay the fuck away from me! Don’t you dare touch my cart. I don’t need any help from the likes of you. Yeah, you’re damn straight I mean it.’

Lammio just continued toward him and suddenly Korpela threw the reins to the ground and stepped in front of him, saying, ‘You get me a transfer right now! I’m moving to another unit.’

‘What marvelous unit would that be? What is this… where do you think you’re going to go?’

‘Fuck you! I’ll go all the way to hell if it means I can get you out of my sight!’

‘Korpela, I am warning you for the last time. The defeat has gone to the heads of men like you, but do not make the mistake of thinking that this army is going to let you spit in its face, even in its defeat.’

‘Ha ha ha. Who’s spitting in whose face here? You asshole, you’re the one that’s been spitting in other men’s faces for years! Yeah! Damn straight! You let go of that holster of yours or I’ll throw it into the forest and send you right in after…’

Korpela turned, as another ground-attack plane was nearing them again. Heading toward his cart he hissed, ‘Now… now… only now do I know what the high-born Finn really is. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay. What he’s really made of. I didn’t quite think that. Wouldn’t have believed it. But now I know. Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay.’

He tore at the harness and screamed in fury, ‘Fuck it! Goddamn cart can stay there. Torturing poor, senseless creatures as if they’d done something wrong. Run away! What are you doing here letting ’em torture you? Come on! Yeah, you heard me!’

A plane neared them from behind. Flames fluttered down beneath it and the branches rustled. Korpela led the horse into the forest and, shaking his fist up toward the sky, he howled, ‘You shoot, too, asshole! Shoot away! You just shoot like hell, here’s your chance. Get it out of your system! Well, fuck!’

The plane pulled up and something flashed behind it. The frightened horse bolted off, galloping into the forest. For a while, it dragged Korpela along, as his hand was tangled up in the reins. When it finally slipped out, Korpela lay on his back. Lammio made it to the spot in time to see his eyes move for the last time. A great stream of blood was flowing out from beneath Korpela’s body.

The ground-attack planes had flown off by the time the head of the battalion column reached the main road. Koskela radioed in a request for ambulances to evacuate the wounded, which arrived once the planes had disappeared. They began loading the wounded immediately. One of the stretchers held a corpse, as the man had died so near to the road that the men had just kept on carrying him.

Lieutenant Colonel Uuno Eemeli Karjula arrived. He was a bull-necked man with a stocky build who always spoke at a near scream, pressing his fists against his hips. The inner corners of his eye sockets pulled a bit too close together, which gave his small eyes a piercing aspect. Creases lined his powerful face. One hard, cruel line extended downwards from the corner of his mouth. His hair was always closely cropped, so that the strange, sharp crest along the crown of his head was exposed whenever he removed his cap.

This man had set out for the Winter War as a captain and had been promoted to lieutenant colonel in recognition of his personal fearlessness and indomitable will. His tactical brilliance might have left something to be desired, but his absolute unwillingness to retreat was generally understood to make up for it. Higher up, Karjula had a reputation for being a strong man – and that he undeniably was – but whosoever should end up near him or subordinated to him would, almost without exception, begin either to fear this man or to hate him. Once, after a quarrel with Karjula, Sarastie had gone so far as to tell his aide, ‘And then there are men who would be criminals if armies and prisons didn’t employ them. It’s just pure chance that determines which side of the bars they’ll turn up on.’

Karjula was absolutely enraged at the fact of defeat. He knew of no remedy besides ‘iron-fithted operationth’. Leaving aside the retreat generally, he was furious that the battalion’s withdrawal meant that the position of the entire combined combat unit was now in peril. There weren’t many more miles left to cede before they would have to forfeit the whole position. The fallen Sarastie was treated to a real earful – even if, having died, he couldn’t hear any of it. Karjula certainly didn’t share the chaplain’s belief that the Major could still understand him, but that didn’t prevent him from abusing the man.

‘Damn it! Why didn’t that man have any retherveth? Thquatting right by the road like that with no cover at all.’

Karjula chose to ignore the fact that he himself had approved Sarastie’s operations, and also that he had promised to send him a sapper company for reserve before detaining said company laying a road. Just now the company was scraping together all that was left of the other machine-gun squads to form a barricade, but the best they could muster would pose no more than a weak obstacle for the enemy.

Koskela gave Karjula a brief account of the situation, though the Lieutenant Colonel struggled even to hear him out. Despite the presence of the many men listening, he said, ‘Due to your hathty athethment of the thituation, the enemy ith now dethimating our flank. And on top of that, withdrawing the battalion through the pondth wath entirely unnethethary. A cothtly two hourth. And the loth of our betht pothition.’

Koskela spoke solely out of a sense of duty. He took no interest in Karjula’s speech, knowing very well that no amount of reasoning was going to assuage this man’s anger, which the calm tone of Koskela’s voice seemed only to exacerbate.

‘It has to be taken into consideration that I couldn’t let the battalion’s flank be exposed to the enemy under the circumstances. Dividing into groups was too risky as we had to protect the wounded. And besides, the men were depressed by the casualties.’

‘I have taken that into conthideration. I know what the thituation ith and I do not need any explanationth. But you thhould know that the battalion lotht thith fight only when you admitted itth defeat. Now hurry up and get the battalion into formation. Man the edge of that thwampland. Put a thuffithiently thtrong retherve unit on the flankth, and build it out of active troopth. The new anti-tank gunth will be here thhortly. I am trying to get the anti-mithile weaponth in tho far ath I am able. You take care of the battalion until Lammio hath finithhed with the thupply train and can rethume command. After that you will take over ath Third Company commander. The machine gunth go to Lieutenant Ovathka.’

His voice deadpan, Koskela said, ‘I ordered them to sink the machine guns in the pond so I would have enough men to carry the wounded. I just kept one.’

Karjula’s jaw dropped and closed repeatedly for a little while. ‘In the pond. Thunk. Ma… chi… ne… gun… th… thunk.’

Karjula wouldn’t have been so fundamentally enraged, had he not been obliged to recognize that the measures Koskela had taken were indeed correct. But that was precisely what he did not want to do, as it would have meant acknowledging defeat.

‘Good God, Lieutenant! Mutiny… Deliberately aiding the enemy. I ordered you to bring the weaponth. Machine-gunnerth are machine-gunnerth, not medicth. And you were the battalion’th commander, not itth nurthe…’

Karjula at least realized that he was saying things that should not be said. Even the men had risen to their feet. Those who knew Koskela were hoping he would sock him to the ground, but Koskela just stood there, looking over the madman, his face motionless.

Trying to cover up his blunder, Karjula said, ‘You may redeem your reputathion by holding the line. Get thome thteel into your thpine.’

Karjula had become cognizant of the men’s presence and proceeded to grow furious with them, though he himself was the one who had mouthed off at Koskela in their hearing. Now he raved like a lunatic. ‘And you men! What are you, thheep or tholdierth of Finland? You athume a pothition tho that either you hold it or you go down trying. You are wearing the thame uniformth ath the men who defended Thumma and Taipale, damn it. Thothe men knew how to die. You don’t know how to do anything but flee. Thhame on you, damn it! I wouldn’t dare to call mythelf a Finn if I abandoned the way you did. Whoever thtill dareth to abandon hith potht will find that there ith a thection of the Code of Military Juthtithe devoted to him. The game endth here. There will be no merthy requethted nor granted. Ith that clear? Now, to your pothitionth!’

Honkajoki went wide-eyed and dropped his jaw in a look of feigned astonishment. Then, in an official, important-sounding voice, he asked Vanhala, ‘Corporal Vanhala. Are you a sheep or a Finnish soldier?’

‘I am the World’s Greatest Forest Fighter! Heehee…’

‘Indeed, yes, indeed.’ Honkajoki sighed, as if in doleful resignation. ‘One hope I do retain. That the war will end and I will serve as a stud in a great farmhouse.’

Viirilä was sitting off on his own, munching on the loaf of bread he’d scrounged from the enemy soldier’s pack the previous evening. Seemingly unintentionally, he blurted out, rolling his head, ‘A man came from Arimathea and poured water on his head.’

The others didn’t understand what Viirilä meant. Probably just blabbering on senselessly again, as he tended to do, not really meaning anything by it.

‘Phaahaahaa… Bring on the rough and tumble. Long live anarchy and bloody duds! Bring on a storm that’ll send foot-rags flying to the tips of the North Star to dry… Phaahaahaahaahaa,’ he burst into his familiar, raucous laugh. That was Viirilä – ready to kill and just as ready to pack up and go home. Or, rather, go anywhere in Finland, as he wasn’t from any place in particular.

Koskela started organizing the men.

They asked for food. There wasn’t any, but someone would look into it. Silent and bitter, they began digging foxholes. The unit covering them pulled back, retreating behind their line. The sappers mined the road and to some extent the roadsides as well, but the barricade wasn’t nearly strong enough. There was plenty of exposed terrain between the swamp and the road.

Lammio took over command of the battalion and Koskela returned to the Third Company. He was quiet and pensive. He issued instructions in a low voice as if he were somehow tired and depressed. Määttä’s machine gun was positioned beside the swamp, close to the road. Another platoon was operating as a normal infantry platoon under Rokka’s command. Koskela stopped beside Määttä’s position and sat down on the ground, leaning against a tree trunk.

He looked out over the swamp. The sun had already climbed above the treetops, and it warmed his face. He sat still for a long time, as if he’d been turned to stone. Every last tremor seemed to have disappeared from his face. His wide jaw and high cheekbones were pronounced beneath his weather-beaten skin. He was thinner. Even the dent in his jaw seemed to have deepened. His eyelids were rimmed with red. A pained crease quivered around his mouth. He had turned thirty-one years old the day before yesterday. He hadn’t remembered until the next day. Nor had it meant anything to him.

The world had fallen silent for a moment. Even the far-off noises of battle. It wasn’t at all typical, as lately the enemy had taken to intensifying its efforts with each passing day.

Koskela leaned his head back against the tree trunk and allowed his eyes to sink shut. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face, whose skin had grown rough and sensitive from exhaustion and lack of sleep. His mouth burned from so many cigarettes, and his empty stomach made him feel weak. He could hear the clink of nearby shovels and the men’s quiet voices. An image of Karjula rose up in Koskela’s mind. He wasn’t insulted by the scolding he’d received. He knew that Karjula couldn’t take these kinds of disappointments without venting his irritation at someone, whoever that might be. Karjula had to pick a scapegoat so that he didn’t wind up one himself, and he needed to find some sort of pretext for his choice. There was no weak point in Koskela’s sense of honor. He forgot the whole thing. Then he forgot the whole prevailing state of affairs. He grasped only warmth and the faint exhaustion of his body. The present moment faded away and he slipped into the space between dreams and wakefulness. He heard voices emerging from Määttä’s gun. He heard Hietanen’s voice, and a sort of panic came over him. Something was awry, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then Rokka said something. Hietanen laughed. Koskela grew more and more alarmed. What was there to laugh about now? Everything wasn’t as it should be. His breath started heaving as he clenched his empty fists in anxiety. Hietanen’s face came nearer to him and laughed. It was black wrapped in the charred bandage, which still had little whitish strips around the edges of the blood stains.

‘Want a smoke?’

Koskela started and opened his eyes. Why was Hietanen standing there like that – black – with a pack of cigarettes in his hand? Määttä gazed in wonder as Koskela’s eyes stretched wide for a couple of seconds, as if he hadn’t quite understood the offer. Then Koskela took the cigarette and said, ‘Oh… yeah… I mean, thanks. I guess I fell asleep.’

‘So I see. It’s just that that engine over there’s started rumbling already. Don’t seem like they’re giving us any downtime.’

‘No, no.’

Määttä sat down to smoke as well, and Koskela relaxed against the tree trunk again. His recent dream had upset him. Why had he seen Määttä as Hietanen? He felt wretched and all mixed up. Some kind of restlessness was gnawing away at him, but he couldn’t find any reason for it.

‘How much longer am I going to hang on out here?’

Where did that sudden thought come from? He didn’t usually allow such thoughts to enter his mind. Then he remembered what he had been thinking the last time he saw Kariluoto alive: That man will die today.

Was his number up next? Why was all of this coming to mind? For God’s sake, here I am telling fortunes. It’s nothing but exhaustion. That’s where this whole numb depression’s coming from. I had a dream. He must have been dead before the flames reached him. The man was full of holes, at least. But the ones who were in the ambulance – that must have been pretty horrible all right. Koskela had been in such a panic himself over the situation that night that he hadn’t had time to think about anything. But seeing it was terrible. That’s where that sight a second ago came from, too. Yeeeesh. Seeing a guy you know in that kind of state…

Pi piew pieeeeeeeeeeeeeeew…

‘OK. They’re here. And we’re going to be up against them pretty soon, too. Better keep our eyes peeled.’

Koskela lay in a foxhole. The ground trembled and swayed. Sand blew down from the upper rim. A piece of shrapnel whirred closer. The noise intensified until the side of the ditch suddenly caved in.

‘How the hell did they move those guns so fast?’ Koskela cautiously raised his head, but quickly ducked it back down again, having spotted a column of smoke rising into the air close by. Dirt rained down into his pit.

When the barrage fell silent, Koskela heard a call to attack. The first shots were already whizzing by. On the left, Määttä was hammering away with the machine gun as if his life depended on it. Koskela overheard Honkajoki saying as he ran by their position that the Lieutenant Colonel was lying down, but nonetheless declaring gravely in a voice thick with fear, ‘Damn it! Now’th the moment we could really use those anti-mithile weaponth.’

Undoubtedly. Three tanks were coming down the road, tearing up the surrounding roadside with their guns. Koskela ran past the shooting men, who, in their nervousness, were aiming at the tanks, which was of course pointless. A grenade from one of the tanks killed somebody, and a panicked cry rose nearby, screaming, ‘They’re gonna run us over! Guys! They’re gonna run us over…’

‘Stay in position! They’re not going to run anyone over. It’s mined over there.’ Koskela yelled as loud as he could in order to make himself heard over the din. He knew that if the men didn’t hear his order clearly, it might easily induce a general panic. There were several short-range defense guys lying in the ditch alongside the road. Koskela crawled over to them.

‘Got any satchel charges?’

‘Yeah. But these won’t get anywhere close…’

‘I’ll try. Couple of you guys come with me!’

‘It’d be better to try from the pit. Ditch here’s too shallow.’

Of course it would be better. But Koskela was quite sure that by then it would be too late. The men would flee before the tanks came within range of the pit.

Satchel charges were almost entirely ineffectual by now, as the tanks were well secured, but there was no other option.

Koskela set out. Two men followed. The first tank stopped and then turned toward the side of the road. The drivers were already fairly sure that the Finns didn’t have any anti-tank equipment. Otherwise they would have started shooting it well before now. The tank advanced boldly. Bullets crackled in the pine branches and direct fire blasted into the roadside.

Straight ahead was a curve in the ditch, where it swerved around a boulder. If he could just make it there.

Koskela made it. He squatted down on his knees and waited. The tank seemed as though it was starting to hesitate, but kept approaching nonetheless, shooting continuously. Koskela tried to calm himself as much as possible. He knew from experience that this kind of situation called for presence of mind above all else. You couldn’t try from too far away, and you had to focus on the task and block out any distractions. You had to try to forget where this toss was happening. To do it without thinking about the danger or what it meant. As if you were just trying to hit the tank in some entirely calm, safe place. You also had to risk as much as you could stand to be sure that you wouldn’t miss.

‘And there’s my shot.’ Koskela pulled the igniter and rose to a crouch. He threw on an upwards curve, and the arc was beautiful, like a great toss in a ball game. The charge fell just beside the gun turret, rolled across it onto the fender and went off. The tread broke and the tank stopped, turning onto its side. Koskela couldn’t see it any more. He’d been shot by a submachine gun across the road just as the satchel charge left his hand. He tried once to rise up onto his elbows, but his limp body collapsed onto the floor of the ditch, and Quiet Koski was dead.

The other two tanks paused for a moment, but then drove boldly past the wrecked vehicle. When the men in the line saw that Koskela didn’t get up, and that the tanks were drawing nearer, they started to run. And everything unraveled from there.

Karjula hadn’t left Lammio’s command post. He had to block off the road in that direction, or else ‘the whole Combined Combat Unit Karjula would go thtraight to hell’. What was holding up that damn anti-tank gun? You’d think the Red Army itthelf wath manning the thing! The ground-attack planeth have nothing to do with the gun tranthport. The main road’th not an air-thtrip. The planeth are in the thky! Yeth, of courthe the main road ith open over there!

The phone rang. Positions lost. Koskela dead. Part of the Third Company in a panic.

Karjula left.

Lammio followed after him, but Karjula ordered him to remain and organize a blockade with the reserve units.

When Karjula reached the battalion, the retreat was in full swing. ‘You goddamn flock of thheep! Get into pothition! Not one more thtep! Anyone who keepth on running ith a dead man!’

Panicked men ran down the road, and somebody panted defensively, ‘What are we supposed to do? There’s no anti-tank guns! Koskela already went and got himself killed.’

‘Quiet! Who’th thtill mouthing off over there? Halt! Or I’ll thhoot.’

Karjula had a pistol in his hand. The men closest to him stopped hesitatingly and dropped to the ground, taking cover in the ditch. But the men further off just kept on running.

‘They’re coming, boys! Tanks!’

The shout further exacerbated the panic and even one of the men who had stopped at Karjula’s command now shot off again. The Lieutenant Colonel lost his last shred of self-control. The blatant disobedience made his body shake. A thick, blinding rage blurred his brain, in which there was nothing but a vague thought. ‘This is the moment. It should be put into action now. This is the situation it’s meant for.’

The groping thought was a sign that even he at least hesitated. That was why he formulated the thought: to defend himself against the pressing awareness that he was committing a crime. He spotted a man further off who was walking along unfazed by his shouting, a submachine gun over his shoulder.

‘Halt! What are you doing? Halt! For the latht time, halt.’

It was Viirilä. He pretended not to hear and just continued on his way. He wasn’t fleeing, he was just walking calmly onward – which was also why he hadn’t obeyed. He wasn’t actually being defiant, he was just scoffing at fear. The command didn’t concern him, because he hadn’t been running to begin with. He had abandoned his post just like all the others, but now, with his calm stride, he was demonstrating that he was not afraid, neither of the enemy nor of Karjula. His disobedience was a parody, enacted for the benefit of anyone who might mistake him for one bowing to fear, an emotion he felt not in the least.

‘Halt. Where are you going?’

‘To bang the wolves in Lapland,’ Viirilä blurted out in his signature, all-blaspheming voice. The only thing missing was the snorting guffaw that usually followed it. Karjula flew into a wild, bloodthirsty rage. This feeling that was constantly fermenting in his soul, making him a terrorizing presence to all around him – and he certainly was that – was now purified and distilled into exactly what it really was: a desire to kill and destroy. And this rage that dwelt within him, constantly seeking an outlet, now rose to the surface and all means of controlling it were powerless to hold it back. There he was. That huge-headed ape. Standing right there was the repulsive personification of everything that had turned the army into a flock of deserters. And the man was laughing.

Viirilä lowered his submachine gun into the crook of his elbow, a certainty descending upon him at the last moment that Karjula was going to shoot. The movement gave Karjula the last impetus he needed to turn desire into action. He shot into the middle of the chest. Viirilä fell to his knees, then doubled over and rolled to the ground. His body jerked for a little while, as the bullet didn’t kill him right away.

Karjula breathed heavily and pointlessly paced back and forth. Then he got his voice back and screamed hoarsely, ‘Men! Calling upon the Code of Military Juthtithe I have condemned thith traitor to death. Men, thith ith a quethtion of Finland. Right here… Right now. Thith event… ith not itholated, but related to every other ithue. The joking endth here. The thame fate awaitth anyone elthe who wantth to rebel.’

The men looked at one another in a state of shock. The silence was broken by Karjula’s hoarse screaming alone. He raved like a madman, destroying what little effect his act had had, which was already pathetically small compared to what it might have been, had he carried it out in a different mental state. The men didn’t know what to think, but they immediately sensed that Karjula hadn’t performed this act out of unavoidable necessity, but rather out of his own deranged fury. And to top it off, it was Viirilä, their Number One man.

Little by little the men’s bewilderment gave way to rage. Jaws clenched and fists squeezed tight around their gunstocks. One of the men further off even took aim at Karjula, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot. Instead, someone else began to scream brokenly in a voice of shock, ‘Russians! Come here! Come on over! Come on, finish us off. We’re killing people over here! Come on!’

The man was screaming like he’d lost his mind. His screeching was like that of a frantic child, full of shock, hate and fear.

The screeching brought Karjula back to his senses. A beastly roar emerged from his throat. The situation being what it was, there was nothing he could do but continue. Just as a person terrified by the realization that he has done something irreparable inevitably proceeds to compound his error, Karjula flew into a renewed rage at the man’s cries. Viirilä was the second man he had shot. The screaming man would certainly have been the third, had the enemy’s tanks not come to his rescue. From behind a bend in the road came the whistle of a shell that came crashing down at Karjula’s feet, laying him flat on his back in the center of the road.

The flight resumed.

Karjula revived instantly. He tried to stand up, but fell down again, as his leg had been nearly torn off. He lay on his stomach, pressing himself up on his arms and screaming, ‘Get in pothition! Damn it! Halt! You goddamn cowardth, help me get into pothition and give me a thubmachine gun…’

His cry betrayed not the slightest hint of weakness or pleading. It had just the same commanding fury as before. He was still trying to get up, screaming curses and howling with anger and pain. There was something in that struggle like the fight of a wild, wounded animal in the final throes of self-defense – filled with rage against everything and everybody, and beyond that the untold despair of knowing that it has already lost the power to fight. Later, the machine-gunners came to think that Lehto and Karjula had had something in common. ‘Exactly like Lehto would’ve been if he’d been a lieutenant colonel,’ they said.

Maybe somebody would even have seen something admirable in this madman’s wild, hopeless rage. But those who watched Karjula’s vigorous efforts to rise didn’t admire him. They hated him – with an intense and relentless hatred. One of the men running by even yelled, ‘We hear you, we just can’t help you!’

‘Blast a row through that motherfucker!’ somebody else called out.

‘We aren’t nurses…’

Rokka arrived in the last group. He hadn’t witnessed the event himself, but quickly gathered what had taken place. Just then Karjula fell unconscious a second time. The tank was shooting a machine gun and everyone vanished. Rokka grabbed the heavy man by the waist and ran beside the road to cover. He carried Karjula a little way, but once he was out of immediate danger, he lowered him to the ground. ‘Don’t feel like goin’ much further ’nnat. That fella there’s stepped outta the bounds a human ways and far as I’m concerned he can stay there.’

Two officers from the Second Company took him from there and carried him a little way, until they could get him into the hands of a couple of medics. The medics carried him because it was their job, but that didn’t prevent them from cursing, officers or no officers.

The battalion retreated without pause. After a small skirmish, the men on Lammio’s roadblock joined the others. The entire combat unit was ceding its positions. Their spirits had reached such a point that the battalion might have dissolved completely had the old border not opened up to greet them. Once they were behind it, their spirits seemed to rise all by themselves. They were even put on break. No questioning of any kind was carried out. Actually, the only real infractions connected to the event were the men’s shouts and the fact that they had not helped Karjula. And the issue was subject to interpretation, since wounded men had been left behind in panic situations before. It was probably determined that the matter would be best forgotten on both sides.

And when, after their rest, the battalion was pulled into a counter-attack, the men pushed back powerfully against the enemy. Their previous slackness had given way to vigor and a will to fight. The men spoke of nothing except that now it was time to start fighting for real. They hardly even noticed the whole thing themselves. ‘National defense’ just seemed like a self-evident duty as soon as the surface of their own land appeared, authorizing the use of such a term in relation to the war.

The battles over the Uomaa-line began, and even the enemy noticed that it seemed to be banging its head against a brick wall again.