Unknown Soldiers

Chapter Five

They marched. A second, third, fourth day. They were glorious midsummer days. The gardens of the Karelian villages they passed through were overgrown with wild grass. The air shimmered with a bluish haze that occasionally vibrated with the faint sounds of cannon fire and plane engines somewhere to the south. An aerial battle was taking place up there in the endless blue, though from the ground the dull chattering of machine guns sounded more like an army of croaking frogs.

‘Those are our boys,’ an officer said, watching the planes speed off into the horizon. ‘Shielding our army from attack… I bet our neighbors over there aren’t celebrating now the way they were in the Winter War.’

The men no longer cared about the Winter War, however – any more than they cared about this one. Their feet were covered in pus-filled blisters and they were exhausted and irritated, trudging on with little thought of anything going on around them. The first day they’d been buoyed up by some sort of delight in the fact of advancing. But the strain of the march had sapped their spirits quickly.

This army had a style all its own. It’s possible that other armies of the world resembled it while in flight or retreat, but certainly not at any other time. In this army, it was all the same – advance or retreat. They lumbered along in a disjointed herd. The companies would assemble in rows in the morning when they set out for the day’s march, but within the first hour they would drift into smaller groups, plodding along as they pleased, requesting no instructions and ignoring any that might be on offer. Rifles dangled and swung from side to side. One guy tiptoed barefoot through the grass beside the road, his boots slung over his shoulder and the hems of his long johns dragging through the dirt. Another guy was bare-chested, sunbathing as he walked, carrying all his gear bundled up under his arm. The first day, one fellow carried a mildewy suitcase over his shoulder, dangling from the end of a pole. The suitcase contained items scrounged from various houses: a glass jar and a worn-out pair of women’s shoes (never know when you might need ’em!).

By the second day, however, the suitcase had already flown, literally, by the wayside, which had become the receptacle of even essential belongings. The gas masks were rounded up, as too many of them would have been tossed aside otherwise. The men scrounged for food wherever they got so much as a whiff of it. One village had had a pig kolkhoz, whose livestock were now running free in the hills, the collective farm having been disbanded. A light machine gun, it turns out, is very effective in a pig-hunt, but only the companies marching in front had a chance to take advantage of the bounty, as the pigs were quickly rounded up and taken to safety.

Some of the villages had been inhabited. Arbors framed their alleyways, and ornaments made out of moss and stone popped up here and there.

‘What’s with all the decorations?’

‘They must have had some kind of harvest festival. I’ve heard folk dancing is really popular around here.’

‘All kinds of trumped-up shit out there in this world.’

Their bitterness let fly at every possible pretext. Trucks drove by transporting laughing officers and Lottas. A comet tail of staff, canteens, laundries, field hospitals, and everything else trailed after the troops. The men jeered at the vehicles as they passed, hurling such obscene expletives at Finland’s proud Lottas that the overexcited auntie Lottas back in the local parish would have died of a collective heart attack had they been within earshot. The passing general’s car provoked such a virulent spate of swearing that an onlooker would have thought the army only about a day away from all-out mutiny.

‘Sure, just spray that dust in the infantry’s eyes, asshole! Funny how the gas shortage doesn’t matter a shit when the boss feels like taking his field whore out for a spin. Who the hell is whistling over there? Shut up! We got our hands full enough over here without you hissing on top of everything else.’

Village after village slipped by. Columns of men cut across Karelia, streaming down every road to Lake Ladoga. Dust clouds rose underfoot, blending into the blue smoke of countless forest fires, and the sun glowed red and hot through the haze. Somewhere, further off, where shoe soles weren’t pocked with holes and collarbones weren’t chafed raw beneath carrying straps, exultation was at its height: Finland was marching forward.

Lehto, Määttä and Rahikainen did not march. They disappeared from the ranks each morning and reappeared at the camp each night from somewhere further down the convoy. They didn’t offer much of an explanation as to where they’d spent their time, but anybody could guess, even without an explanation. Each night they brought something to eat, however, and when they shared it with the others like good Christians, no one pressed the issue of their apparently effortless march.

One evening Rahikainen was more chipper than usual. ‘Lehto over there’s got butter and flour in his pack. Anybody for hotcakes?’

‘For real?’

‘Show ’em.’

‘Good Lord! Guys!’

‘Quick, boys, get the campfire going!’

Their exhaustion was forgotten. They fried up the pancakes in a mess tin and devoured them in the quiet, summer twilight. The sun was sinking in a red globe behind the forests of the Karelian borderlands and a dusky haze softened the contours of the landscape.

‘Don’t wolf them down all at once! Those didn’t come cheap. I had to trade eight times before I managed to get my hands on ’em. I had a bottle of booze at one point and I didn’t even drink it.’

‘You’d have drunk it if I’d have let you,’ Lehto said, establishing who was to thank for the outing’s results, which the whole platoon was now enjoying.

The march started up again.

‘OK. Better get going again, huh?’ Koskela rose and tossed his pack over his shoulder. Grunting and cursing, the men slowly got up out of the ditch where they’d been lying with their feet propped up on a muddy bank. Using their rifles as walking sticks, they hobbled along the first couple of steps until their legs could handle bolder strides.

Koskela seemed to be immune to fatigue. His shoulders swung steadily in front of his men, mile after mile. ‘Train yourself to walk properly,’ he had instructed them. ‘Don’t get all tense and rigid. You should have a kind of loose, easy step, like a tramp. That lax, sort of vagabond walk saves the most energy. Your leg has to move from the hip.’

Vanhala’s gait was stiff, but despite his stiffness and his chubbiness he withstood the marching and exhaustion pretty well. And his good spirits never flagged, not even for a moment, despite the prevailing atmosphere of annoyance. His eyes had a smile in them that was ready for anything. Once he looked as if he had suddenly remembered something. Then he gazed around for a long time, looking at all the men marching, and finally he burst into an explosion of giggles, shouting, ‘Suhnas on the March!’

A few angry glares silenced him, but he continued chuckling with pleasure at his own joke. He looked at the men shuffling along – faces grimy and covered in dust, expressions dour, caps and shirts dangling from gun barrels, trouser-legs hanging down over the tops of their boots.

‘Suhnas March off to War!’ he giggled to himself, tickled at the startling discrepancy between the high, overblown patriotism surrounding the Finnish soldier and his actual existence. The Information Bureau pamphlets, amongst other things, provided Vanhala with an endless source of amusement. By now he had amassed a stockpile of official terminology from whatever pamphlets had fallen into his hands: ‘our boys’, ‘our deep-forest warriors’, ‘our fearless fighters’, ‘the blazing will of the nation’s defense’. He would toss in these sayings now and again, whenever an opportunity presented itself, though he had to restrain himself somewhat during the marches, as there was a limit to what the men would tolerate.

Riitaoja marched at the very back of the group, silent but childishly happy that they weren’t under fire. He would gladly have marched from eternity to eternity and withstood the strain of endless marching rather than hear those angry squeals whistling in his ears, announcing death in search of its prey.

On the fifth day of the march, toward evening, they noticed that the road began to look less trampled on. Before long it dwindled into nothing more than a path, and just about then a long swath hacked out of the forest opened up before them.

‘Guys, the old border.’

The event revived their spirits somewhat. Hietanen, standing in the middle of the clearing, took one big leap and said, ‘Aaand now! The Hietanen boy stands on foreign soil!’

‘We’re in Russia now, boys,’ Salo said.

Lahtinen hobbled over irritably, glaring at the others out of the corner of his eye and muttering, ‘So we are. And here our rights end. By which I mean, from this point on, we’re a pack of bandits. Just so you know.’

‘Bandits, bandits!’ Sihvonen snarled angrily. ‘So we’re bandits when we cross borders? And when other people move them, they’re just protecting their nation’s security…? Bandits, bandits… huh-huh.’ He gave a few bitter snorts, not so much because he was in a political passion as because he had sand in his shoe and couldn’t stop to get it out without falling too far behind.

Hietanen looked around and said congenially, ‘Doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot for a pack of bandits to steal around here. Even the road got a whole lot worse all of a sudden. Woods look the same, though… Hey… hey, guys. We’ve marched across Karelian song country! Isn’t it somewhere around here that those old boys and biddies sang all kinds of folk songs and dirges? I heard something like that somewhere or other. Though I wonder what in the world a dirge is anyway. Crying and singing at the same time? I watched some old biddies at a funeral once try to chant and cry at the same time, but nothing much came outta that. Nothing but some sorta whiny screeching.’

‘Seems like we might have reason to sing a dirge or two ourselves around here.’ Lahtinen took a swig of warmish water from his canteen and continued, ‘I mean, I guess they’re gonna dig in pretty good now that we’ve crossed over onto their side. Before they were, like, sure, go ahead and take Karelia if it means that much to you – look, we’ll give it to you. But we’ll just see how things go once we’re in there. I mean, you shouldn’t go poking a bear in its den, that’s all I’m sayin’.’

‘Well, it’s different if you got a gun,’ said Salo. ‘Even we’re not going in with spears to fight them this time.’

‘Humph… you and your guns… Guns aren’t gonna to be much help…’

‘There’s a lot of troops in front of us,’ Hietanen said. ‘They won’t send us back out to the line right away.’

‘Look boys, we don’t even know, our job might end right here,’ Salo broke in. ‘The fellows over there was sayin’ they told the reservists it’ll take three weeks and then we’ll be heading back in time to make hay. And it’s already been two.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Lahtinen laughed with bitter contempt. ‘Where’d you get that? The Daily Bullshitter? The officers made that rumor up to get the reservists to cross the old border. Oh, they know how to do it all right. Gonna build that Greater Finland. Got their heads so hot they got steam coming out their noses.’

‘Suhna Superpower in the Making! Heehee. And they’re off! Our forest warriors show the world what Finnish spirit can do. With our valiant Lottas standing by our boys. Heehee…’

‘Humph… Tell you what…’

The lift they’d felt upon crossing the border died away, and they trudged on in silence. Astonishingly, the march ended earlier than usual, however, and they set up camp in a thicket of saplings along the banks of a creek. As soon as they’d eaten, they hurried to soak their feet in the cold creek water. Some men even splashed around trying to swim, though the water barely reached their knees. Cannons boomed somewhere out in front of them, mingling occasionally with the faint, far-off chatter of machine guns.

‘There it is again, boys. They’re waiting for us.’

‘Of course they are. We’re about to go open the road.’ Sihvonen was standing in the creek with his trouser-legs rolled up, washing his foot-rags. ‘But hey, look, the peacock’s headed this way. I wonder what he wants over here.’

Lieutenant Lammio stepped off the main road toward their encampment. He had already managed to get cleaned up and don a fresh uniform. Knowing that the regiment would still be on break for a while, he had decided to take advantage of this time by redressing the declining discipline of his company. The Lieutenant was possessed of a principle, which he had fashioned for himself by drawing upon his vast store of stupidity, as well as his many character flaws. The principle was: strict discipline and systematic militarism. He established the necessity of this principle for himself via such thoughts as: discipline is the backbone of the army, and the will of the leader can affect men only through that spine of discipline that runs down the center of the group. This reasoning wasn’t something that Lammio had dreamt up on his own, it just happened to offer a position that suited his needs. His ideal soldier was an officer who, well-groomed and white-gloved, led his unit with a cold, proud bravery. His men would feel a humble admiration toward him and obey him out of sheer respect. Such an officer would himself demonstrate unfailing compliance with the demands of military discipline. Lammio did grant his exalted being one reprieve in this regard, however, particularly while he was still young: after a few drinks, he might ride his horse right into some restaurant or other and order two glasses of champagne – one for himself, and one for the horse. He would get a confinement, naturally, but the Commander would clap him on the shoulder with a knowing smile and say, ‘Well, you know the rules… But what a devil… what a devil!’

The Division Management headquarters were nearby, and there were some ‘feisty little Lottas’ over there – which explained the white collar Lammio had fixed to the neck of his shirt.

He stopped and tapped his index finger on the stem of his bone cigarette-holder, dumping out the ash before beginning to speak in his shrill voice: ‘A-hem. The Master Sergeant will be arriving to distribute your daily allowance, so everyone is to remain within the camp area. In any case, absence without official leave is, of course, prohibited. You are to assemble in work groups with your comrades-in-arms to wash your shirts in the creek. Then you are to cut your hair and shave. If I see unkempt men at noon tomorrow, additional housekeeping diversions will be devised for those parties. And one more item. Just because we are now at war does not mean that discipline has been relaxed. I observed some notable lapses during the march, and I intend to root them out immediately. The company looked more like a band of vagrants than an army unit. That kind of pig-headed, battle-hardened mentality will not be tolerated. This regiment has already proven instrumental in the army corps’ war operations, earning a reputation on the basis of its first combat situation. Each man here is to take that reputation as his own and conduct himself accordingly. Remember, this is not the Rajamäki Regiment, nor the Friday Fishing Club. This is an elite troop of the Finnish army. And may I remind you that the upper management is located not far from where we stand, so should the company’s conduct provoke any criticism, I have plenty of means available to me to get things back in line. I hope my meaning is not lost on any of you. To your assignments.’

Hietanen was sitting on a rock on the creek bank, dangling his feet in the water. He’d been watching the others during Lammio’s speech, looking at them one at a time, and when Lammio finally fell silent, he said, ‘I trust that all of you heard this very important speech. I only hope you are capable of understanding what it means.’

Hietanen turned with affected solemnity toward Lahtinen, as if demanding his opinion. Lahtinen responded bitingly, ‘The German model, that’s what it means. And above all, it means that that nutcase has lost the one smidgin of sense he had. Wasn’t much to begin with, but now even that’s gone.’

‘Laundry. Heehee… Our boys are taking a break from the fighting to wash their shirts. Our forest warriors demonstrate the diverse range of their capabilities…’ Vanhala chuckled, then suddenly went stiff and said, ‘Guys.’

They all looked in the direction he was facing and saw one of the big trucks stop on the main road to let Lehto, Määttä and Rahikainen jump off.

‘Oh Jesus! Now they’re in for it!’ Hietanen said and began waving his arms to get their attention. He couldn’t yell, but he waved and gestured to try to alert them to the danger, whispering over and over again, ‘Guys, go! Go to the other side! Go through the woods! No, not straight ahead into the wolf’s mouth… you bumbling idiots… oh, for Chrissakes… biggest goddamn idiots in tarnation!’

The trio realized their danger too late. In the past they had always driven a way beyond the camp and then made their way back through the forest, but habit had made them careless, and now here they were, standing before Lammio with cardboard boxes under their arms.

Lammio paused for dramatic effect and then asked, ‘On whose authority were you riding in that vehicle?’

‘Our authority,’ Lehto replied. Seeing as there was no saving them now, he figured it didn’t really matter what anybody said and decided to be his usual surly self.

‘What is in those boxes? Show me.’

Nobody made a move to open the boxes, and only when he realized that the others weren’t going to say anything did Rahikainen venture, ‘Oh! Well, these here are some crackers and, uh… jelly.’

‘Tell me where you stole them from!’

With a look of pure innocence, Rahikainen shifted his feet and started to explain, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, ‘Oh, we haven’t stolen any of this! Some of the guys at the field storehouse back there by the roadside are from my home town, and they just gave us this stuff. We didn’t steal it.’

‘You’re lying. Furthermore, you have no right to take more than your allotted rations from the government’s food supply. Do you pretend you were not aware that those men had no right to give you provisions?’

Rahikainen kept playing dumb. ‘Oh, I guess that could be – that they didn’t have any right to do it. I don’t know anythin’ about their management. When they offered us stuff we hadn’t even asked for, I just assumed they knew what they were doin’.’

‘Don’t start giving me excuses. Are you really so stupid as to think I would fall for that kind of… And Lehto, am I to believe that even you were unaware that absence without official leave during a march is prohibited?’

‘Nah. I knew.’

‘The insolence! You all think very highly of yourselves. Do you know what would happen if I were to hand your case over to the court martial? You’d be stripped of your ranks and sent out to hoe swampland. How would you feel about that?’

‘Doesn’t seem like it’s worth a lieutenant’s time to ask my opinion. Seems like a lieutenant ought be able to figure out something like that all by himself.’ Lehto was in a mood – such a mood that he would have happily turned himself over to be hacked to pieces rather than humble himself before Lammio. Lammio’s tone of voice and condescending self-importance rankled him to the depths of his soul, and from that moment on, Lehto hated Lammio with a dark and unrelenting hatred. He had regarded him with cold disdain before, but now, as he clenched his teeth, it was only Lammio’s complete inability to understand anybody that protected him from perceiving what had transpired.

‘What are you saying?’ Lammio was on the verge of screaming, but then he remembered that his ideal officer would never do such a thing – he would be cool, meticulous, comme il faut – so he put on his most official voice and called out, ‘Ensign Koskela!’

‘Yee-up.’ Koskela emerged from the tent, and Lammio started dictating in a voice that insinuated to Koskela as to everyone else that he was a bad officer, incapable of maintaining discipline in his platoon. ‘Punishment for Corporal Lehto and Privates Määttä and Rahikainen issued as follows: twenty-four hours in close confinement. The punishment is modified under the circumstances into two hours’ standing at attention with full machine-gun equipment and field packs, fully loaded – to be carried out upon the start of the next hour. Offence: unwarranted absence from march formation, misappropriation of provisions, and, for Lehto, inappropriate conduct toward a superior. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Koskela crawled back into the tent. Undeterred, Lammio continued shouting after him, ‘The stolen foodstuffs are to be turned over to Mäkilä, to be handled in the provisions unit of the First Battalion.’

Lammio took his leave and the three delinquents slunk into their tent. Lehto threw himself on the ground and said darkly, ‘So the way it’s going to go is, I’m not standing.’

Koskela looked pained. He stood for a long time clearing his throat and finally said, ‘Yeah, uh, I don’t want to get mixed up in this thing, but it would be simplest if you guys could just do it.’

‘I’m not afraid of a little snot like him… Let ’em pin me to the wall if they want.’ Lehto clenched his teeth. ‘For a moment there we were pretty close to putting him in the hospital and me in the clink.’

Koskela rummaged around in his pack. ‘Right, well, this isn’t really about fear at all. It’s just the path of least resistance, I mean.’

‘Well, I can stand for a couple of hours, but I’m not putting anything in my pack. And I’m just saying that if that snotty little jackass doesn’t keep his distance, he’s gonna get it in the jaw and then what will be will be.’

‘I don’t care about the pack. Just that you have it on.’ Koskela seemed to relax a bit. Then he said, ‘But the stuff has to go to Mäkilä.’

‘You don’t mean we’re gonna have to give it all back!’ Rahikainen exclaimed. ‘If he was stupid enough not to check how much is in here, we can just put some in the boxes and eat the rest. I held my breath half an hour waiting to make a dash for these, and the duty guard nearly took a crack at me. I’m not gonna stand there for two hours for nothin’.’

So that was how they did it. They sent about a third of the food to Mäkilä and divvied up the rest. Koskela turned a blind eye to the proceedings, but refrained from taking his share. When they stepped out of the tent for a moment, Lehto turned to the others and said, ‘If it didn’t put Koskela in such a fix, I wouldn’t stand for two hours. Let ’em put a gun to my head, I still wouldn’t do it. Huh huh. Let ’em send six hundred strong! What are they going to do?’

The Master Sergeant doled out their pay. The men gathered around card games accordingly, as the pay was more than usual this time, having just been raised to the new scale. The three delinquents received their money first so that they could hurry off to take their punishment. This punishment gave Korsumäki a good laugh, and he smiled contentedly as he told the boys, ‘Well, at least you’ll hang on to your dough two hours longer than usual.’

The company secretary recorded the payments in his ledger. He was carefully groomed and combed, looking just as much the dandy as he had back in the burnt clearing. Rahikainen looked at him for a moment, thinking, and then took out Lieutenant Braskanov’s nail file and started buffing up his nails.

‘Nifty little gadget. But who’s got the time to file his nails out here? I’d trade this for a pack of cigarettes, if anybody needs a nail file.’

‘Let me see.’ The secretary inspected the file with great interest and said, after he’d thought it over for a moment, ‘I’ll give you a pack.’

‘Deal. I’m lettin’ it go awful cheap, but then, I don’t need it myself. Haven’t got time for that sort of thing.’

Others who had ended up with items from the Lieutenant’s nail-care set offered to trade them with the secretary, but none of them got more than a few cigarettes out of him.

Hietanen had been appointed to oversee the punishment, and so was urging Rahikainen to get a move on. The others were already on their way and Rahikainen trailed after them, dragging his gun behind him and chattering away contentedly, ‘I bet our gentleman neighbor wouldn’t have guessed how valuable his gadgets would be in the hands of the right fellow! Everything I touch turns to gold. That must be some kind of gift from on high. How else would you explain… But all righty, here we go, gotta go stand with the guns over our shoulders, even if we’re the ones who risked our necks gettin’ grub for the group.’

Hietanen led them a little way from the camp, as they weren’t exactly planning to carry out the orders to a T. The guilty trio shuffled themselves into a line.

‘But you’re the one who oughtta stand in the middle, since you’re the squad leader and the biggest bandit,’ Määttä said to Lehto.

‘Looks just like Golgotha, the three of you standing there,’ Hietanen said as he sat down on a rock to smoke. ‘Just stand there a little while. We’re not gonna hang around here the full two hours. The peacock went to go check out the Lottas in the staff headquarters, I’m sure of that, and Koskela’ll head to bed soon.’

‘Okey-doke. But what kind of Jesus does our corporal here think he is, standing there in the middle? You’re the one who got us into this whole mess in the first place. Leading us poor, innocent soldiers astray from the path of military discipline.’

They stood at something vaguely resembling attention. They rested the butts of their rifles on their belts so they could keep them upright without having to carry their whole weight. Hietanen had some good tips to offer, for while he generally respected authority, he had lost his temper once as a new recruit, lashing out at some corporal who’d made the mistake of being too insolent with him and twisting the guy’s nose between his fingers so hard that the cartilage squeaked. The affair had resulted in some similar standing exercises for Hietanen.

The charade had been underway for about half an hour when they started to hear a low drone coming from the sky. The sound grew louder and pretty soon they could make out black spots getting bigger and bigger.

‘Bombers.’

‘Could they be ours?’

‘Coming from the east. Though we could have planes coming from that direction, too. Oh wait, hang on, guys… one, two, three, four… Holy bejesus. Eighteen… we haven’t got a fleet anywhere near that big. Wait, more… nine fighter planes covering their tail…’

The drone grew louder. The engines sounded like organs plodding out a monotonous beat: voo voo voo voo.

‘It’s the enemy… the anti-aircraft guns are firing.’

They began to hear the light clatter of the anti-aircraft guns somewhere further off, but the red streaks of light from the shots fell far behind the enemy planes.

‘Headed this way.’

Shouts came from the camp. ‘Danger overhead! Take cover!’

Koskela emerged from the tent, looked at the approaching planes and shouted to Hietanen, ‘Stop with the guys’ punishment and get under cover!’

‘Get in the woods, guys!’ Hietanen said to the others, but Lehto stood right where he was and said fiercely, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m standing out my sentence.’

Hietanen grinned, thinking the comment was a joke, but then he realized Lehto was not joking.

‘Don’t you go nutty on us now!’ Rahikainen exclaimed, looking uneasily at the approaching planes.

Lehto cracked a cruel smile. Without so much as a glance at the planes, he said with pointed detachment, ‘Anybody who is scared is free to go. I’m not leaving.’

‘Well, I guess I can stay here too,’ Määttä said, putting Rahikainen in a tight spot. He was not exactly the stuff heroes are made of, and he certainly was not one to behave irrationally, and yet, blinking anxiously at the planes all the while, he said, ‘Well, all righty, let ’em blast us up into the tree branches, then. I’m not gonna be the one to say no.’

‘Don’t you all go batty now! What’s the point of this?’ Hietanen glanced back and forth between the approaching menace and the standing men.

‘Ask the peacock,’ Lehto said. ‘Wasn’t my idea.’

‘I guess you think I’m such an idiot I can’t see what you’re angling at. You wanna tell everybody the guard ran scared, but you stayed… Well, if you’re not leaving, I’m not leaving. Let ’em send down bombs and old biddies on bobsleighs… but look! I can see the shells dropping! Jesus Christ, that’ll put a stop to the creekside laundry!’

The powerful roar of tens of engines set the air vibrating. The planes flashed in the evening sunlight as bombs dropped distinctly beneath them. Out in front of them, shells were already exploding. Smoke rose and columns of earth spewed up over the tree tops.

‘Those ones are for us! There they go.’

The fleet was upon them. The last, six-plane formation was not yet overhead, but they knew that the bombs it had dropped would hit the ground the same moment the planes themselves flew over. A piercing whistle cut through the air.

‘Stay where you are… Do not move!’ Lehto yelled. His face had gone entirely white, but his expression remained stiff and resolute. As the bombs’ whistle grew louder, Rahikainen ducked his head in between his shoulders and said, ‘And now… we die.’

When the first explosions went off behind the road, Rahikainen huddled down in a squat. The others remained standing, however. Then came a series of powerful thumps whose air pressure nearly leveled them. The closest bomb was still a safe distance away, however – over between the tents, one of which collapsed into a heap. Rahikainen was face-flat on the ground when it exploded, but he scrambled quickly to his feet so the others wouldn’t notice that he had succumbed in the heat of the moment. Their faces were pale and taut, but as soon as they realized that the last bomb had exploded, and that they were still standing there – intact – smiles stretched wide across their lips. This would be news.

But their smiles fell. The fighter planes started sowing lead over the field the bombs had plowed open, and a garbled wailing was coming from somewhere near the tents. ‘Somebody, help me! What’s happened to me? Oh, ahh… oh Jesus, help me… So this is how it ends… help me… what’s wrong with me?’

The wailing was drowned out by the sputtering and screeching of engines. Lehto’s face grew taut as he said to the others, ‘Through to the end, boys… through to the end… we’re staying here…’

Actually, they weren’t in any great danger, as the fighter planes had targeted the edge of the main road, which was a little way off.

‘Somebody’s hit, guys! We’d better go and help,’ Hietanen said, but Lehto refused.

‘Well, I’m going, damn it!’ Hietanen said and darted off toward the tents at a crouch. Rahikainen and Määttä started to follow, but Lehto cut in prohibitively, ‘There’s no reason to go! Let’s see it through. Hietanen can manage whatever needs to be done on his own. And there goes Koskela, too, and the medics are coming down the road.’

The others decided to stay, as the last fighter plane had already vanished and there were already several men running toward the tents.

‘Who is it?’ Rahikainen wondered. ‘Sounded like Salonen… No, hell no. You!’ He turned to Lehto. ‘You’re the one who got me into this mess… and it’s not going to happen again.’

Lehto gave a strange, deep laugh. He was so pleased that he nearly softened, for a moment. He knew he’d had his revenge. No, there was nothing they could do to him. They couldn’t concoct anything worse than death, and death he could cope with well enough.

Rahikainen acted as if the attack hadn’t frightened him in the least. He was already back to cracking jokes with his customary panache. ‘Let’s see what grade Liberty Cross we get when the peacock hears what heroes we are! And Hietanen oughtta get one of the oak-leaf pins for sticking around so long, even though he wasn’t one of the crooks like the rest of us.’

When the guys in the camp had recognized the planes as Russian, they had abandoned their card games and laundry. Koskela ordered everyone to take cover in the forest, and a few of them ran like mad as far as they could, but some stayed by the tents because somebody shouted, ‘They never hit the tents since that’s where they’re aiming!’

After distributing the men’s pay, Master Sergeant Korsumäki had stuck around to chat with Koskela, so he was still in the camp when the planes flew over. Koskela ordered him to take cover in the forest with himself and the others, but Korsumäki had stayed by the tents. He lay in a ditch beside a mound of grass, holding his hands over his ears. He’d stuck the empty cigarette-holder in his mouth so it would stay open and protect his eardrums.

The earth heaved beneath him and when the explosions grew near, he felt something fall and strike his shoulders, knocking him unconscious. As he came to, he realized he was on his knees. Everything felt incomprehensible. Only when he heard groaning and saw a man lying on the ground did he realize what had happened, and that he himself had been injured too. A heavy drowsiness swept over his body, but he didn’t feel any pain. He rose to his feet and took a few halting steps forward. His entire being flooded with agony. ‘I can’t… I can’t… I got it bad.’

In a confused blur, he remembered fearing death the entire time he had been at war, waiting for it… So this was how it happened. ‘It’s over… I can’t go on.’

The ground swayed and his eyes dimmed, and consciousness had left him by the time the fighter planes raked his body with machine-gun fire. The last sounds to escape his mouth were a sob and a helpless whimper. ‘Stop… stop… let me live.’

Koskela and Hietanen arrived on the scene simultaneously, just as the medics were arriving from the road. There was nothing to be done. Korsumäki was already dead, and the other guy who had been injured had lost consciousness. It was in fact Salonen, just as Rahikainen had guessed – the same Salonen for whom Hietanen had convinced Mäkilä to hand over new boots before their departure. One of his hands was torn off entirely, and his heartbeat was scarcely perceptible by the time the medic took his pulse.

The men began to gather round. Even the company secretary came rushing over, repeating over and over like a madman, ‘I was right there! If I had stayed with the Master Sergeant… it’s just like being on the front lines, even if I am staff!’

He was so worked up that even he himself didn’t understand the stream of speech pouring out of his mouth, in which the words ‘right there’ and ‘front lines’ shot out over and over in quick succession.

Hietanen was feeling rattled and jittery from all that had happened, and finally he exploded angrily, ‘To hell with your goddamn chatter!’

The secretary straightened his shirt, smoothed his hair, set his cap on his head, and kept overflowing with verbiage. Hietanen checked Salonen’s pulse, then picked up his cap from where it had fallen, used it to flick away some debris and said, ‘You can stop bandaging. It’s over.’

They lifted the body onto a stretcher, and the men’s shock manifested itself in an eagerness to help take care of everything. Somebody carefully picked up the severed hand and placed it beside the body.

‘Set him in good…’

‘His leg’s kind of…’

‘Somebody press his eyelids down a little…’

Their careful attentions revealed the awe in which they held death, and for no apparent reason even their voices dropped almost to whispers. The medics carried Salonen away and Korsumäki lay awaiting his turn. They set the Master Sergeant’s fallen cap back on his head, though not too firmly, nor quite as straight as it had always been before. They noticed a tear in the corner of the Master Sergeant’s eye. Perhaps it had welled up there in the final seconds, as he realized that he was dying. The old man’s limp body had melted into a helpless sob as he understood that the end had come. There was something touchingly elderly about his corpse, which the men perceived as well. It was probably just his thick, patterned wool socks, whose homey quality brought to mind the old people who generally wore them.

There was a third body lying on the ground beneath the collapsed tent. It was Private Kaivonen from the fourth squad. He still had three crumpled 100-mark notes and five playing cards clenched in his fist.

‘What are they?’

‘Four aces and a lady.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘Rough game. I’d have bet my spot in heaven on that hand.’

‘Guess those devils must have had a joker.’

They were perfectly serious. No one smiled; they expressed their astonishment with perfect gravity, as if they were reading the Lord’s Prayer. But as soon as the bodies were carried away, the heavy atmosphere began to lift. They tried to be even more chipper than usual, making careless declarations like, ‘Boys’ve gone and left us for the cemetery sector!’ ‘Only hurts once…’ ‘Can’t lose any more than the life ya got.’

They lamented the Master Sergeant’s fate a while longer. Now nobody had the smallest grievance with him and he had even become quite popular since the fighting had begun, particularly after the men observed his cold conduct toward Lammio, everyone’s enemy. They knew that the Master Sergeant could have obtained a transfer away from the front as soon as mobilization came, but that he had refused to do so. ‘Death had to come all the way out here looking for the old man.’

The three bandits were still standing at attention at the edge of the forest. Only once the dead had been carried away did it occur to Koskela to turn his attention to them and ask Hietanen, ‘Those three still standing over there?’

‘They stood over there through the whole bombing. Wouldn’t leave, even though I ordered ’em to.’

Koskela laughed and ordered the culprits to come away, but they asked to stay and carry out their punishment to its completion.

‘Well, whatever suits you,’ Koskela chuckled, amused. He was quick to see the comedy in the whole ordeal, with all its nuances, and it tickled him. Lammio needed a lesson, and Koskela was more than happy to hand him one. Although Lammio put precious little store by other people, even he was careful never to attack Koskela directly. Koskela still felt a certain aversion toward him, though, and he was also sensible enough to see that Lammio’s every move poisoned the men’s spirits.

When the two hours were up, the trio returned to their tent. Lehto was silent, but his cruel smile kept flickering across his face. ‘“You’d better be prepared to see it to the end.” That’s what Kaarna told me once. That old man knew what he was talking about and he lived up to his word. But that snotty little jackass just needs a good fist in the face. And I might just keep it there till Christmas. With one good, extra twist on Christmas Eve.’

Rahikainen was bragging about his heroic feats, never mind about the squatting in the middle. ‘No use kowtowin’ before death. A fellow’d get his neck all whacked out of shape if he kept noddin’ every time things started heating up! Well, anyway, now that the old accounts are settled, we can start in on some new ones tomorrow. If we’re gonna get on here, we’re gonna hafta go about making some acquisitions. Koskela, you’re gonna hafta cover up our operations, cause we’re not about to start goin’ hungry round here.’

‘That cloud the bomb made is pretty high up there.’ That was what had interested Määttä.

Their break stretched on for a surprisingly long time. Lammio’s ‘return to discipline’ had no effect whatsoever, as orders came down from on high, instructing the officers to avoid putting any unnecessary strain upon the men. Rahikainen’s threat of sneaking more rations was realized as well, and Koskela even agreed to use all the powers of his position to assist in the operation. He knew perfectly well that Rahikainen was stealing the provisions from somewhere, but he also knew that the men were genuinely suffering from lack of nourishment. One serving could keep a man’s strength up – just – but it was far from sufficient for a growing adolescent stomach, which would start eating up its owner’s body instead and make him emaciated. Koskela also knew that the men in charge of provisions were hardly denying themselves the privilege of sneaking more than their allotted rations, so he privately hoped Rahikainen would succeed in his venture and appointed him as his interim runner to replace the fallen Salonen. In truth, from that point onward, Koskela ceased to have a special runner because he didn’t need one, but he kept Rahikainen in the position because it permitted him the greatest freedom of mobility. Rahikainen’s standard reply from then on, whenever anybody took an interest in his comings and goings, was, ‘Errand for Ensign Koskela!’

News of the machine-gunners’ famous punishment had spread throughout the regiment, transforming as it went, of course, into a rumor of fantastic proportions. Even the Commander took an interest in the event, stopping on one of his rounds through the camp to ask Lehto, ‘Were you the one who took the punishment over there?’

‘Me and a couple others, Major, sir.’

Sarastie smiled benevolently. ‘Well, well. Next time you start adventuring, you might want to be a little more careful. Playing hooky is all well and good, but you can’t let yourself get caught.’

As he was leaving, he explained to his aide, mostly to demonstrate the sharpness of his psychological eye, ‘Even from up here where I stand, anyone can see that every last inch of that man is made out of steel. He just has that typical Finnish hatred of having anyone over him. That kind of energy and grit are worth their weight in gold. Lammio’s just squandered them. It seems that his hold on things generally isn’t quite up to the demands of the current situation. I’ve observed as much, but it’s hard to get him to understand these types of things, as capable an officer as he is otherwise. I remember Kaarna talked about this guy Lehto once and proposed him for officer training. The basis for his argument was entirely accurate – that the man’s character was extremely valuable, but that placed under authority he would just revolt, whereas if they put him in a position commensurate with his skill level, he would be extremely successful.’

‘Indeed,’ the aide replied. ‘This event clearly demonstrates how aggression operates. If it is suppressed, it is spoiled and transforms into a spirit of revolt. Correctly handled, it can be cultivated upwards for the benefit of society.’

‘Precisely. This is what each social community needs to know in order to function properly. Just think how many men with this kind of anger, which gnaws away at society itself, could be directed upwards, for the greater good.’ The Major fell silent in such a way that imposed silence upon his aide as well. An intense, inward-looking gaze lit up Sarastie’s eyes. He looked as if he must be thinking wise thoughts. In truth he wasn’t thinking anything at all, he was just feeling pleased with his recent speech and the depth of his insight. Sarastie was not willing to grant that the ideal officer was this kind of ‘daredevil’ type who was merely effective in carrying out his missions. He was of the opinion that you had to be able to consider the world a bit more broadly too. Take him, for example. His thoughts didn’t circle around in the conventional grooves that suited a battalion commander. He had read a great deal of military history and he was able to conceive of the war within a larger framework. Then his thoughts turned to the decorations ceremony to be held that evening, which pleased him, as he was to be awarded a Liberty Cross.

The battalion did indeed gather that evening for the investiture of decorations. The Regiment Commander had arrived personally to distribute the medals.

First, he inspected the battalion, looking each man in the eye as if he were trying to pierce straight through him. One of the great skills the army can provide is that which enables a person, whom one might otherwise consider perfectly sensible, to carry out this kind of exercise without laughing. To walk up and down the ranks with furrowed brows, staring the people down, and taking in the grave, disheveled faces staring back in return, each struggling to express the very surliest aspects of its owner’s personality.

Then the Colonel gave a speech. He tried to infuse his voice with a certain tone of camaraderie, and to speak in a way that was both elegant and masculine at the same time. ‘Men! Now, at my first opportunity to see you all gathered together since the outbreak of the war, I would like to thank each and every one of you for the work you have done. I do not need to read off your accomplishments, for you know them yourselves; and one day they will be known everywhere. You have been confronted with daunting tasks, and you have carried them out superbly. The regiment has already made its proud and distinguished mark in the glorious pages of Finland’s military history. And I am convinced that you will continue to fill its covers with new and equally brilliant chapters. I thank each and every one of you for the readiness and bravery you have demonstrated in your service to this shared cause so dear to all of us. The admiration and esteem of our friends, and the fear of our enemies, provide testaments to the Finnish man’s capacity to take up arms in the defense of his home and the safety of his family. And so we continue on. Our task is to ensure the security and independence of our nation, and we will keep our swords drawn as long as necessary in the fulfillment of that duty.

‘I have been charged with the task of distributing tokens of the nation’s gratitude: medals of distinguished service awarded in recognition of those who have had the opportunity to serve with exceptional distinction.’

Names followed. The officers received Liberty Crosses and the NCOs and privates got Liberty Medals. Each man went up to receive his decoration from the hands of the Colonel, along with congratulations. Some of them took their time walking up, soaking up every last moment in the limelight, but most scurried up and back at a sort of half-run, as if embarrassed to be receiving a prize for something they didn’t realize they had done. They could not have been more Finnish in the disparaging attitude they all took toward the proceedings. Shitty little trinkets.

The trinkets were trivial, of course, particularly in the minds of those to whom they were not conferred. The strangest thing about the whole business, though, was that it did not seem to dawn on a single one of them that what they were honoring was the best killers. Not even the battalion chaplain, who led the closing prayer. This last went rather dismally, as the Colonel’s presence gave the chaplain stage fright and banished whatever pitiful trace of oratorical skill he might have possessed.

All sorts of curiosities emerged from that man’s mouth: about how the devil’s henchmen were going to be crushed with the help of the army of God, and also that of the Germans; and about how many of their comrades had already borne the heavy burden of sacrifice before the altar of the nation’s success.

They sang the hymns and returned to their tents. They gossiped over the decorations, and the guys who had been passed over pointed out how many undeserved medals so-and-so had received. Koskela had been awarded a Fourth-Class Liberty Cross, and Hietanen, Lehto, Määttä and Lahtinen had each received a Second-Class Liberty Medal.

Rahikainen cracked a joke about some decoration or other, prompting Lehto to throw his own medal at his feet.

‘Take it, if you want one so much. I don’t go for shiny stuff.’

‘Aw, I couldn’t do that to a pal! ’Sides, neither do I.’

So that was where Lehto’s medal stayed. Lahtinen looked at his and muttered, ‘They’re really bribing us with stripy colored ribbons? I’m not killing anybody for that. Don’t want to be killed for one, either. I’ll shoot like hell if somebody shoots at me, but I don’t jump for bronze lumps and ribbons.’

Määttä flipped his over, studying it carefully on both sides. After he’d looked it over for a while, he showed the others what had caught his interest. ‘“Awarded for valor”, it says. The other bit must mean the same thing in Swedish. “För tapperhet” it’s got scratched in there. But what’s that supposed to mean, “valor”? Can’t make head or tail of that.’

‘It means, the deep-forest warrior has no fear except the fear of God. He removes his cap for nothing save the church and the courtroom. It signals the conviction and fearlessness of the Finnish hero… Heeheeheehee!’

‘Oh. Well, that clears it up. Of all the… I thought it was something important since they put it on there in lots of languages.’ Määttä genuinely despised his medal. He pinned it so it dangled from one of the straps of his pack, and later it fell off and disappeared somewhere along the road.

The distribution of decorations made them suspect that their break would be over shortly, and Lahtinen summed up the general sentiment when he declared, ‘They don’t give these ribbons out for free, boys. Won’t be long before they send us off somewhere where we’ll be paying dearly for them.’

It was August already. The summer was heavy with all the produce the sun had sired. Light greens deepened and the whole landscape brimmed with overripeness, indicating that the glory of its summer youth was gone. The last few nights, having had some respite, the men had been able to admire the magnificent moonlight. Many childish letters were scribbled on such nights. The camp guards wandered about in the moonlight, dreaming of women – naked, usually. And the shouts issuing from the tents typically went something like, ‘They keep harping on about how small the nation is and how small the army is, but then they don’t give us any leave!’

‘If I had a couple of weeks’ leave, the Class of ’41 would be massive. They would not want for recruits. Guaranteed.’

‘Shut up and let a fellow sleep, wouldja?… Go bang your elbow against some rock out there and it’ll calm down all right.’ Hietanen’s protest didn’t by any means put a stop to their fantasizing, however. More and more attractive visions of their upcoming leave came drifting into view, visions which, while highly unlikely to reach fruition in the majority of cases, still made each man feel like quite the lady conqueror.

The whole business came to an abrupt halt as the tent flap opened and a face popped in, its two sharp eyes darting quickly about. ‘Which tent the bosses in round here?’

The question rolled out in the rapid-fire clip of the Karelian isthmus as its speaker’s penetrating eyes surveyed the tent’s interior.

‘There’s one there,’ somebody gestured toward Koskela.

‘It’ssa company commander I want. Guess you’re a platoon leader?’

They pointed the man toward the command tent and he left. He had a buddy with him, too, and one after the other they walked over to Lammio’s tent. Lammio was sitting in the back, listening to the radio. The two of them crawled into the tent on all fours.

‘Ah-hah. Guess this here’ssa company commander. We’re your reinforcements. Guess’sa Major called’da say we’d be comin’. This here’s our orders, both of ’em.’

Lammio looked the two men over in the weak light of the oil lamp. ‘Indeed… well. You’re a corporal?’

‘’Ndeed I am. Earned me some stripes in’na Winner War. Not too sure what for, though. Ain’t done nothin’ bad to nobody… but hey, lissen here, Lieutenant, you just sign us up in’na same squad, same platoon at least, all right? We’re neighbors, see, made it through the whole Winner War together.’

Lammio was offended. ‘You will do well to remember that this is not a reserve regiment. We are not in the habit of instructing our superiors to “Lissen here”. Nor do we tolerate exceptions, as they encourage a relaxing of discipline amongst the conscripts.’

The man looked at Lammio out of the corner of his eye. A tiny, almost imperceptible smile flickered at the corners of his mouth as he said, ‘Aw, I see! So that’s how it is. Well, now, I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout that. Two a us here, we’re just reservists, see.’

His voice had taken on a penitent, beg-your-pardon sort of air, but he forgot it quickly as he barreled on at his usual clip. ‘But lissen here, ahem, ahmmean, Lieutenant, sir, you just make sure me ’n’ Suslin’ here stays in’na same group, all right?’

‘Who?’

‘Suslin’.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Sus. Private Sus’s m’name.’

‘So, “Susi” then. And your name?’

‘Rokka here, yessirree. First name Antero. Been called Antti m’hole life, though, and I even say it m’self.’

‘So it is Corporal Rokka, then. We do not have any squad leader positions available at the moment, so you will commence as deputy leader in one of the squads. You can join the Third Platoon. Address yourselves to Ensign Koskela. He will assign you your positions within the platoon as necessary. Is that clear?’

‘Yee-ess indeedee, clear as a bell! Now if you could just let us know where’da find this fella Koskela, we’ll be all set.’

Lammio was a little thrown by these continual orders issued by an inferior, and not entirely certain how to handle them. They seemed to belong so naturally to this man’s whole persona that even Lammio hesitated in making a fuss, however contrary to regulations his conduct may have been and indeed was.

He pointed the men toward the Third Platoon’s tents and Rokka said, ‘Oh we already stopped in’nere! C’mon Suslin’.’

They walked one after the other, the quiet Susi speaking now and again as he followed Rokka. ‘Stickler for the rules, that fella. If there’s any more like him I’m not sure we’re gonna git on so well round here, Antti.’

‘It’ll work out all right, always does! Don’t you worry, Suslin’. That fella’s awful young, see. I guess all a bosses round here’s career fellas, so a course they’re pretty militaristic. But we’ll git on same way we always have. Or whadda you thinkin’?’

‘We’ll git on,’ Susling agreed, and the issue was settled.

A small chaos ensued as the two of them scuttled into Koskela’s tent. It was as if the whole tent was suddenly filled up by one man, with Susi seeming but a shadow of his chatty companion.

‘Happened upon just the right spot first time round! Company boss said’da go over’n join Koskela’s fellas. You must be Koskela then. Boss said we oughdda introduce ourselves and you’d figger out what to do with us. We’re your replacements, see. I’m Rokka and this fella here’s my buddy Suslin’. But where’re we gonna find a place to sleep? Well, guess there’s a lil’ space here. C’mere Suslin’. Over here. Just squish this stuff over a lil’ bit, you with those buckets for boots. Here, kick that bag a lil’ closer this way! Say, why you still got your boots on anyway? ’Spectin’ an alarm? OK, that’ll do. Suslin’, you use your coat for a blanket, might git cold overnight. Signs of it in’na air, see. Lord only knows, but just in case. All right, we sleep here. Goddamn it! Well ’at’s no good. There’s a rock under there. Look, lookit dat! Stuck good and deep right there in’na ground, ain’t comin’ up neither. Lemme move over a lil’ more this way. There. That’s good now. Plenty a space for that rock to sit’ter self down anywhere else, but no, she’s just gotta cram’mer self in right there. Well, guess that’s how it goes the world over, don’t it. Suslin’, if you’re hungry there’s still some crackers in’na pack. I’m gonna fall clear asleep soon… Hey lissen, Ensign! You know what time we’re headin’ out?’

‘Seems likely we’ll head out early, if they’re sending us reinforcements.’

‘Could mean’nat. Guess you must a lost some fellas for ’em to be sendin’ us out here.’

‘A few. Bombing just took a couple. You guys stick with the first squad from now on, OK? Then we’ll see if we start needing you more somewhere else.’

‘Don’t matter where you stick us long as we stick together. We’re neighbors, see.’

Finally, the man fell silent and dropped off to sleep. Somebody was still asking him something, but no further reply came.

‘He drops off kinda quick,’ Susi explained.

The next morning they were roused by a chattering Rokka, who had already been up Lord knows how long. ‘Tea, fellas! I took some mess bowls and fetched it from the kitchen. You all know which one’s yours. Lissen, Ensign! We’re headin’ out today. I went checkin’ up on things over there and they’ve already got gear for the whole battalion packed up on’na carts. That means we’ll be headin’ out soon for sure. Say, you fellas’s all pretty young. Me and Suslin’ here’s both over thirty. Got wives and kids, too.’

‘None of us’s hitched,’ Hietanen said. ‘We’re, uh, Finland’s junior heroes.’

‘Well, we’re heroes, too, me and Suslin’! But, goollord! Lissen’na that cannon fire. Well, that’s where we’re headin’ real soon.’

‘Have you guys been out on the front before?’ Koskela asked.

‘In’na Winner War. We had our jitters out down in Taipale. Kannas’s where we come from. Got our goddamn farms stolen. Got out with our lives, though! Course they took a couple a cracks at those too. We’ll see if they git on any better this time round. It’s Kannas where I wanna fight. I got some things a settle up with the neighbors round there, see. Ain’t got no damn business round these parts.’

‘It doesn’t matter where we fight,’ Salo said. ‘There’s cabins up for the taking all the way to Smolensk.’

‘I don’t know nothin’ ’bout Smolensk. Seems like we’re makin’ those Fritzis out as some kinda gift from God. They’re makin’ it through all right, but I saw some of ’em on my way out here and those fellas click their heels too goddamn much ’fyask me. That ain’t how you git things done. But anyway, that ain’t our business. Europe can go to hell far as we’re concerned. We just take Karelia and go home.’

‘I don’t know,’ Hietanen said. ‘If we were thirty million, we could take a crack at the whole world too – ’cause we’d hold all the cards.’

‘Deep-Forest Warrior Takes Charge. Heeheehee!’ Vanhala giggled.

Rokka started gathering his belongings into a pile, making up a tune as he went.

Mmbadedar-dee dah-dee dar… tell ’em

we hold all the cards… mmba dee dah-dee dar

’cause we’d hold all the cards…

‘Start gittin’ your things together fellas, we’re pushin’ off soon…’

Right from the start Rokka seemed to belong – he never acted like a newcomer in a strange group, bashful for a while before acclimatizing to the particular spirit of the crew. Rokka was pretty much domineering right from the get-go. The others weren’t really offended by it, sensing that beneath this man’s brazen self-assurance lay the goods to back it up. He was certainly confident of their as-yet unannounced departure and acted accordingly. And indeed, when Mielonen came down the road twenty minutes later yelling, ‘Get rrready to move out! Take down the tents! Departure in one hour!’ he did not miss the opportunity to say, ‘See? And what did I tell you all?’

Mielonen’s announcement didn’t provoke the usual round of commentary, however, since they all more or less recognized that their time was up.

And so they left. They marched rather gloomily toward the rumble of cannon fire. Little by little they slipped back into the mind-frame of the front, that curious state of mind governed – sometimes clearly, sometimes more obscurely – by death. The booming of cannons solidified into something real again. Men came toward them from the opposite direction, carrying guys from the preceding battalion who had been killed or wounded trying to penetrate the enemy artillery blockade.

Lucky for them there was a break in the firing, during which they were able to get through. As they neared the front, they turned off the road and set up camp in the forest behind the front line. They whiled away the entire day there, trying to guess what their assignment would be and listening to the faint fire coming from the positions down on the riverbank about half a mile in front of them.

Sometime before midnight, Rokka, who’d been wandering off somewhere unknown to them for quite some while, arrived, announcing, ‘They’re gonna make amphibians out of us this time, fellas! They’re haulin’ pontoons and storm boats over there.’

‘Straight into the piss we go.’

‘Aw, c’mon, fellas. It’s just water.’

‘Guys, we’re crossing the river in cutters.’

‘Yeah, I bet we are. Nothing but the best for the hero brigade.’ Sihvonen was bitter.

‘Seems’a me the job’ssa same wherever they dump you. What’ssa difference if you’re on land or water? Death’s pretty much the same wherever it nabs you, ’fyask me. Everbody thinks those pilot fellas’re some kinda heroes, but I don’t really see what difference it makes how high up you are when death shoots you down.’

‘Don’t talk about death!’ Hietanen exclaimed in mock horror, shivering with fear. ‘You’re gonna make me wet my pants over here.’

‘Well, just make sure you don’t leak all over the rest of us.’ Rokka sat down on the grass and started chomping on his rye crackers. He looked around for a second as if searching for a target upon which to unleash all his excess energy. Spotting Kariluoto’s platoon a way off to the side, he yelled, ‘Hey you, Ensign! Lissen!’

Kariluoto turned to Rokka in wonder and asked, ‘What’s the problem?’

‘We’re crossin’na crick soon!’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Well, ’at’s all.’ Rokka waved him off and turned toward Koskela. ‘Heya, Koskela, lissen here, how we gonna organize this here crossin’? Sh’we put the guns in’na boats or are we gonna set up some kinda firin’ positions on’na bank?’

‘They’ll give us instructions soon enough. Probably both ways, I guess.’

‘That’s what I was thinkin’, too. Few fellas take the boats and the rest set up on’na banks and give it all they got. Tricks a the trade, huh? I always said you gotta be tricky in a war. The Russians, see, they woulda taken our positions tons a times in’na Winner War if they’da just thought up a few good tricks. But they just kept at it straight on, straight on, so acourse not a damn thing came outta that. Gotta think about what it is you’re doin’ all’a time. Goes for each man just the same’s for each unit. ’S’called strategy… Let’s have a lil’ shut-eye now, huh, fellas? Never know when you’re gonna git another chance to sleep.’

Rokka crashed immediately, but the others had trouble falling asleep. Now that they had rested, their anxiety and dread of the coming events overpowered any drowsiness. Their egos got a little boost from the reservists on the side of the road, whom they could overhear murmuring, ‘The guys on active duty are coming. Now things are really gonna heat up.’

Generally speaking, they considered themselves superior to the reserve units, and the officers capitalized on this fact, saying things like, ‘All right men, let’s show them how we see unwelcome visitors to the door.’

An innate want of action had resurfaced in some of the men after their long period of rest, so most of them didn’t even need to be woken up when the order came for the companies to move out. They split into squads a little way from the riverbank, where the sappers who were manning the bridge had already dragged the storm boats. There they received their assignment. Half of the Third Platoon would stay on the bank and maintain fire. The other half would back up Kariluoto’s platoon, which was to lead the charge.

Each squad was assigned a storm boat and the men then decided on the best routes to get to the other side. They set the machine guns into the bows, which they were supposed to shoot from, although Rokka protested that the effort was pointless, since the river was too narrow for them to fire more than a couple of rounds. And thus began the vicious verbal volley between Rokka and Lammio that would carry on just as long as the war did.

Lammio forbade Rokka from evaluating his orders, prompting Rokka to reply, ‘Well, you can see for yourself it ain’t no use puttin’ machine guns in’nere, my fine friend! Slows you down when you git ashore and gotta disassemble the thing.’

‘Listen, Corporal. I am not your “fine friend”, I am your commander, and you will do as I order.’

‘Yeah-huh. Well, at least we ain’t gonna put the whole gun-stand in there, too.’

Lammio didn’t respond, but as soon as Rokka had scurried off, he issued precisely the same command as if it were his idea. ‘Load only the guns into the bows, no gun-stands. One belt should be more or less sufficient to get you across.’

Rokka, stationed at Lahtinen’s machine gun, said, ‘Lemme at ’er, huh? I’m just sittin’ round like a bum over here. And anyway, you shot last time.’

‘Fine by me,’ Lahtinen said. ‘I don’t care who shoots. Don’t think Määttä minds, either. Do you?’

‘Fine by me…’

At four o’clock they were ordered into position. The men stood beside their boats. They tried to steel their minds against the persistent onslaught of images of machine-gun fire puncturing the sides of their boats and killing them. They tried to determine whether it would be possible to swim holding a machine gun and came to the conclusion that it would not.

Kariluoto’s anxious face rose from behind the first boat. ‘Keep it down! Not a word unless it’s absolutely necessary.’ The command had scarcely left his mouth when the world exploded behind them. Whee-ee-ee…

Intense, heavy shelling tore up the earth on the opposite shore. After it had gone on for about five minutes, they started dragging the boats down to the bank. The shells had blanketed the far shore in such heavy smoke that somebody muttered in relief, ‘They’ll have to aim by ear through that.’

‘Advance!’

The storm-boat drivers started up the engines and the men began pushing the boats into the river.

‘Everybody in!’

The propellers sank into the water and the boats started for the opposite shore.

The next echelon of guys was already approaching the river. Weak, random shots came from behind the smokescreen, hurting no one.

Rokka lay in the bow of the second squad’s boat and shot into the smoke. He hadn’t made it very far down the belt before the bow scratched against the bank and the men jumped ashore. It was there that the first man fell. One of the sappers slipped on a rock and fell into the water, which began to billow red all around him. The scare prompted some of the men to dive for cover on the slopes along the bank, but Kariluoto forced them on. Rokka helped, having already started to make his way through the smoke with the machine gun over his shoulder, yelling, ‘Now’ssa time to git a move on! They’ll recover soon and then we’re cooked. ’Member, fellas, we got water behind us.’

They climbed up the meadowy bank in the smoke as the enemy fired from above. Kariluoto called to his men continually to make sure they were close, as their visibility was still limited, though the smoke was already beginning to clear up. Rokka ran beside him, panting, ‘Hey, Ensign! Lissen here! Don’t let your fellas dawdle in’na daisies back there! We gotta steamroll ’em! Keep up the pace! That’s what we did at Kelja, sent ’em scurryin’ with just the same trick.’

The enemy positions were set up along the rim of the forest. The smokescreen had already dissipated so much that it ceased to offer any protection, and one guy from Kariluoto’s platoon took a fatal bullet. The others threw themselves to the ground and answered fire, and Koskela ordered the machine guns into position to counter the enemy’s automatic weapons. The command was superfluous as far as the second gun was concerned, as Rokka was already shooting without the gun-stand, resting the gun barrel on the stump of a tree. Määttä remained standing nonchalantly as he fed the belt, determined to show this Rokka character that he didn’t have a monopoly on courage.

‘Over there, the bastards… Look! See…? Machine gun ’hinda logs.’ Rokka had spotted three heads behind a machine gun, but at just the same moment they had spotted him, and a hail of bullets whizzed by their ears. Two of the bullets tore through Lahtinen’s coat, which was sticking up in a bundle on his back as he pressed to the ground beside the gun. Rokka aimed the sight with speed and precision. Two heads fell. The third sank on top of the machine gun and the gun fell silent.

Kariluoto ordered his men to charge, and when Rokka heard the command, he handed the machine gun to Määttä, saying hurriedly, ‘Here, you take it… I’m goin’ in with the infantry fellas… somebody over there said charge…’

The enemy had abandoned a length of trench in front of them, or rather its defenders had all been shot down. Kariluoto leapt into the trench and a few of his men followed. Rokka raced after them and snatched Kariluoto’s submachine gun right out of his hands before the latter could even think to protest, saying in passing, ‘Gimme that… here, you take these hand grenades… now ain’t that a beauty!… mighty scarce in’na Winner War…’

Rokka raced off past him, and it all happened so naturally that Kariluoto just did as he was told without a second thought. There wasn’t any time to wonder over this lively, chattering man dashing in a low crouch along the edge of the trench. Kariluoto gathered up hand grenades from his men as they came up behind him, and when they reached a bend in the trench, Rokka would order him to throw a grenade up over behind it.

‘Soon’s it goes off, I’ll go in and take care a the moppin’ up. Let’s do one more round at the next bend. That oughdda take care of it… don’t you think?’

Kariluoto threw a grenade and as soon as it had exploded Rokka dashed around the corner. Two fallen enemy soldiers lay in the trench, and a third was pointing his gun at Rokka. He was dead before he had a chance to think of shooting, though.

‘Don’t you aim at me, ol’ man! That’ssa way to git yourself killed… this fella here’s speedy…’

Three enemy soldiers went down at the next corner. Rokka’s aim was swift and sharp. He called out instructions the whole time, which the others instinctively followed. Even Kariluoto didn’t so much as notice that Rokka had taken over his platoon. He just kept throwing hand grenades on command, marveling at the unfailing speed and accuracy of this man running out in front of him. Rokka’s mode of operation was fundamentally practical. His fearlessness meant he could keep a cool head and think without falling prey to panic, and he knew that the enemy would be helpless so long as they pressed onward relentlessly, without pause. As long as the enemy soldiers were under continual fire, they couldn’t launch any hand grenades themselves, and Rokka’s submachine gun took care of the rest, shooting decisively, though not hastily, and striking precisely where needed.

The Second Company, which had made the crossing behind them, now caught up on the right and easily took up the enemy positions, Kariluoto’s platoon having already advanced far down the trench and paralyzed its defense. Kariluoto’s men returned just as the platoon to the left of the Second Company was catching up to them. Part of the Third Company circled around, attacking from the opposite direction, or rather, just taking over the enemy positions, as a general flight was already underway. Koskela’s machine-gunners were out in front securing the battalion’s victory, with the exception of Rahikainen, who was in the back, securing his personal stockpile of insignia scrounged from dead Russian soldiers.

Kariluoto hurried over to Rokka in excitement. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Rokka here. First name Antero. Already all signed up with another ensign, though.’

‘No, no, I was just curious. That was some top-notch work you did in that push through the trench.’ Kariluoto was so excited that it hadn’t even occurred to him to be irritated with Rokka for giving him orders.

Rokka wiped his sweat with his cap and laughed. He had a peculiar way of looking at other people. He never looked anybody straight in the eye, but rather looked slightly sideways, out of the corner of his eye, which would flash with a sly twinkle more often than not. In general, his speech also had something about it that made it seem as if it were all half meaningless – except when he started lecturing pedantically on some topic or other. He answered Kariluoto’s praise with his typical lightheartedness, laughing, ‘Don’t you start praisin’ me, Ensign. You think I’m some kinda daredevil, don’t you?’

Then he stopped laughing, pointed his finger and started lecturing Kariluoto in a tone so schoolteacherly it sounded humorous coming from the mouth of such an animated man. ‘Lissen here, Ensign! You’re a young fella and you still got some idea ’bout bein’na hero. You wanna go out and do heroic deeds. Now me, I don’t give a damn ’bout none a that. You go where you gotta go when’na situation calls for it, and otherwise you keep low. In’nat attack back there you got yourself up and pushed on as a example to the others. That’s good – but make sure you check what the situation is before you go doin’nat kinda thing. We ain’t out here to die, we’re out here to kill. You keep your eyes peeled, always. That’s called offensive strategy. You go. They shoot at you. You run without lookin’ and those damn fellas’ll pop you off straight away. No – you look for cover, you see who’s shootin’, and you act fast but not hasty. Aim quick, aim sharp and shoot first. One second ahead’s all you need. That’s all there is to it.’

Then it was as if Rokka suddenly realized he was being unnecessarily serious and pedantic, and he followed up his speech with a wry laugh and said, ‘Anyway, I can’t seem to work up a fright in this here war. This’s all child’s play compared’da what we had out in Taipale. Suslin’ over there, he can tell you how we hadda lie in’na ice in between’na dead bodies and how all’a fellas went bonkers, and how we hadda drag half of ’em back dead every night. That’ssa way it was all right… But hey, I’m gonna go see what kind of chump that fella is, one who tried at me with his machine gun.’

Rokka took off toward the machine-gun position and came upon Rahikainen, busily taking stock of his loot. ‘What the hell you gonna do with those?’

‘Turn a profit on ’em.’

‘Where you plan on findin’ buyers?’

‘Bums in the back.’

‘Well, whadda ya know. Hey, where’d those two fellas fall? Oops, there they are, lyin’ on’na bottom a their trench. I wondered if I oughdda shoot the whole belt, but when those two fellas sunk down behind… Here’s the one took a shot at me. Young fella. Poor kid. Well, you pick a fight with me and that’ssa way it goes. But let’s git movin’… others’s gonna leave us behind. Ain’t changed, sound a bullet makes. Same ol’ whistle.’

They resumed their advance. The machine-gunners held Rokka in such a degree of esteem that it went far beyond envy. It helped that Rokka himself seemed to think it all perfectly natural and demanded no particular recognition. At the moment he was just pestering Susling to take better care of himself. ‘Quit rushin’ around like that! We’ll make it to Kannas all right, there ain’t no need for all’at. But hey! Lissen, grab that tent tarp from the fellas that went down over there. Shucks, that’ll make us a dandy blanket. Autumn rains gonna start up pretty soon.’