by Väinö Linna
‘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 chat
ter!’
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.
IV
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.