by Väinö Linna
‘Phaahaahaa … Bring on the rough and tumble. Long live anarchy and bloody duds! Bring on a storm that’ll send foot-rags flying to the tips of the North Star to dry … Phaahaahaahaahaa,’ he burst into his familiar, raucous laugh. That was Viirilä – ready to kill and just as ready to pack up and go home. Or, rather, go anywhere in Finland, as he wasn’t from any place in particular.
Koskela started organizing the men.
They asked for food. There wasn’t any, but someone would look into it. Silent and bitter, they began digging foxholes. The unit covering them pulled back, retreating behind their line. The sappers mined the road and to some extent the roadsides as well, but the barricade wasn’t nearly strong enough. There was plenty of exposed terrain between the swamp and the road.
Lammio took over command of the battalion and Koskela returned to the Third Company. He was quiet and pensive. He issued instructions in a low voice as if he were somehow tired and depressed. Määttä’s machine gun was positioned beside the swamp, close to the road. Another platoon was operating as a normal infantry platoon under Rokka’s command. Koskela stopped beside Määttä’s position and sat down on the ground, leaning against a tree trunk.
He looked out over the swamp. The sun had already climbed above the treetops, and it warmed his face. He sat still for a long time, as if he’d been turned to stone. Every last tremor seemed to have disappeared from his face. His wide jaw and high cheekbones were pronounced beneath his weather-beaten skin. He was thinner. Even the dent in his jaw seemed to have deepened. His eyelids were rimmed with red. A pained crease quivered around his mouth. He had turned thirty-one years old the day before yesterday. He hadn’t remembered until the next day. Nor had it meant anything to him.
The world had fallen silent for a moment. Even the far-off noises of battle. It wasn’t at all typical, as lately the enemy had taken to intensifying its efforts with each passing day.
Koskela leaned his head back against the tree trunk and allowed his eyes to sink shut. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face, whose skin had grown rough and sensitive from exhaustion and lack of sleep. His mouth burned from so many cigarettes, and his empty stomach made him feel weak. He could hear the clink of nearby shovels and the men’s quiet voices. An image of Karjula rose up in Koskela’s mind. He wasn’t insulted by the scolding he’d received. He knew that Karjula couldn’t take these kinds of disappointments without venting his irritation at someone, whoever that might be. Karjula had to pick a scapegoat so that he didn’t wind up one himself, and he needed to find some sort of pretext for his choice. There was no weak point in Koskela’s sense of honor. He forgot the whole thing. Then he forgot the whole prevailing state of affairs. He grasped only warmth and the faint exhaustion of his body. The present moment faded away and he slipped into the space between dreams and wakefulness. He heard voices emerging from Määttä’s gun. He heard Hietanen’s voice, and a sort of panic came over him. Something was awry, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then Rokka said something. Hietanen laughed. Koskela grew more and more alarmed. What was there to laugh about now? Everything wasn’t as it should be. His breath started heaving as he clenched his empty fists in anxiety. Hietanen’s face came nearer to him and laughed. It was black wrapped in the charred bandage, which still had little whitish strips around the edges of the blood stains.
‘Want a smoke?’
Koskela started and opened his eyes. Why was Hietanen standing there like that – black – with a pack of cigarettes in his hand? Määttä gazed in wonder as Koskela’s eyes stretched wide for a couple of seconds, as if he hadn’t quite understood the offer. Then Koskela took the cigarette and said, ‘Oh … yeah … I mean, thanks. I guess I fell asleep.’
‘So I see. It’s just that that engine over there’s started rumbling already. Don’t seem like they’re giving us any downtime.’
‘No, no.’
Määttä sat down to smoke as well, and Koskela relaxed against the tree trunk again. His recent dream had upset him. Why had he seen Määttä as Hietanen? He felt wretched and all mixed up. Some kind of restlessness was gnawing away at him, but he couldn’t find any reason for it.
‘How much longer am I going to hang on out here?’
Where did that sudden thought come from? He didn’t usually allow such thoughts to enter his mind. Then he remembered what he had been thinking the last time he saw Kariluoto alive: That man will die today.
Was his number up next? Why was all of this coming to mind? For God’s sake, here I am telling fortunes. It’s nothing but exhaustion. That’s where this whole numb depression’s coming from. I had a dream. He must have been dead before the flames reached him. The man was full of holes, at least. But the ones who were in the ambulance – that must have been pretty horrible all right. Koskela had been in such a panic himself over the situation that night that he hadn’t had time to think about anything. But seeing it was terrible. That’s where that sight a second ago came from, too. Yeeeesh. Seeing a guy you know in that kind of state …
Pi piew pieeeeeeeeeeeeeeew …
‘OK. They’re here. And we’re going to be up against them pretty soon, too. Better keep our eyes peeled.’
V
Koskela lay in a foxhole. The ground trembled and swayed. Sand blew down from the upper rim. A piece of shrapnel whirred closer. The noise intensified until the side of the ditch suddenly caved in.
‘How the hell did they move those guns so fast?’ Koskela cautiously raised his head, but quickly ducked it back down again, having spotted a column of smoke rising into the air close by. Dirt rained down into his pit.
When the barrage fell silent, Koskela heard a call to attack. The first shots were already whizzing by. On the left, Määttä was hammering away with the machine gun as if his life depended on it. Koskela overheard Honkajoki saying as he ran by their position that the Lieutenant Colonel was lying down, but nonetheless declaring gravely in a voice thick with fear, ‘Damn it! Now’th the moment we could really use those anti-mithile weaponth.’
Undoubtedly. Three tanks were coming down the road, tearing up the surrounding roadside with their guns. Koskela ran past the shooting men, who, in their nervousness, were aiming at the tanks, which was of course pointless. A grenade from one of the tanks killed somebody, and a panicked cry rose nearby, screaming, ‘They’re gonna run us over! Guys! They’re gonna run us over …’
‘Stay in position! They’re not going to run anyone over. It’s mined over there.’ Koskela yelled as loud as he could in order to make himself heard over the din. He knew that if the men didn’t hear his order clearly, it might easily induce a general panic. There were several short-range defense guys lying in the ditch alongside the road. Koskela crawled over to them.
‘Got any satchel charges?’
‘Yeah. But these won’t get anywhere close …’
‘I’ll try. Couple of you guys come with me!’
‘It’d be better to try from the pit. Ditch here’s too shallow.’
Of course it would be better. But Koskela was quite sure that by then it would be too late. The men would flee before the tanks came within range of the pit.
Satchel charges were almost entirely ineffectual by now, as the tanks were well secured, but there was no other option.
Koskela set out. Two men followed. The first tank stopped and then turned toward the side of the road. The drivers were already fairly sure that the Finns didn’t have any anti-tank equipment. Otherwise they would have started shooting it well before now. The tank advanced boldly. Bullets crackled in the pine branches and direct fire blaste
d into the roadside.
Straight ahead was a curve in the ditch, where it swerved around a boulder. If he could just make it there.
Koskela made it. He squatted down on his knees and waited. The tank seemed as though it was starting to hesitate, but kept approaching nonetheless, shooting continuously. Koskela tried to calm himself as much as possible. He knew from experience that this kind of situation called for presence of mind above all else. You couldn’t try from too far away, and you had to focus on the task and block out any distractions. You had to try to forget where this toss was happening. To do it without thinking about the danger or what it meant. As if you were just trying to hit the tank in some entirely calm, safe place. You also had to risk as much as you could stand to be sure that you wouldn’t miss.
‘And there’s my shot.’ Koskela pulled the igniter and rose to a crouch. He threw on an upwards curve, and the arc was beautiful, like a great toss in a ball game. The charge fell just beside the gun turret, rolled across it onto the fender and went off. The tread broke and the tank stopped, turning onto its side. Koskela couldn’t see it any more. He’d been shot by a submachine gun across the road just as the satchel charge left his hand. He tried once to rise up onto his elbows, but his limp body collapsed onto the floor of the ditch, and Quiet Koski was dead.
The other two tanks paused for a moment, but then drove boldly past the wrecked vehicle. When the men in the line saw that Koskela didn’t get up, and that the tanks were drawing nearer, they started to run. And everything unraveled from there.
Karjula hadn’t left Lammio’s command post. He had to block off the road in that direction, or else ‘the whole Combined Combat Unit Karjula would go thtraight to hell’. What was holding up that damn anti-tank gun? You’d think the Red Army itthelf wath manning the thing! The ground-attack planeth have nothing to do with the gun tranthport. The main road’th not an air-thtrip. The planeth are in the thky! Yeth, of courthe the main road ith open over there!
The phone rang. Positions lost. Koskela dead. Part of the Third Company in a panic.
Karjula left.
Lammio followed after him, but Karjula ordered him to remain and organize a blockade with the reserve units.
When Karjula reached the battalion, the retreat was in full swing. ‘You goddamn flock of thheep! Get into pothition! Not one more thtep! Anyone who keepth on running ith a dead man!’
Panicked men ran down the road, and somebody panted defensively, ‘What are we supposed to do? There’s no anti-tank guns! Koskela already went and got himself killed.’
‘Quiet! Who’th thtill mouthing off over there? Halt! Or I’ll thhoot.’
Karjula had a pistol in his hand. The men closest to him stopped hesitatingly and dropped to the ground, taking cover in the ditch. But the men further off just kept on running.
‘They’re coming, boys! Tanks!’
The shout further exacerbated the panic and even one of the men who had stopped at Karjula’s command now shot off again. The Lieutenant Colonel lost his last shred of self-control. The blatant disobedience made his body shake. A thick, blinding rage blurred his brain, in which there was nothing but a vague thought. ‘This is the moment. It should be put into action now. This is the situation it’s meant for.’
The groping thought was a sign that even he at least hesitated. That was why he formulated the thought: to defend himself against the pressing awareness that he was committing a crime. He spotted a man further off who was walking along unfazed by his shouting, a submachine gun over his shoulder.
‘Halt! What are you doing? Halt! For the latht time, halt.’
It was Viirilä. He pretended not to hear and just continued on his way. He wasn’t fleeing, he was just walking calmly onward – which was also why he hadn’t obeyed. He wasn’t actually being defiant, he was just scoffing at fear. The command didn’t concern him, because he hadn’t been running to begin with. He had abandoned his post just like all the others, but now, with his calm stride, he was demonstrating that he was not afraid, neither of the enemy nor of Karjula. His disobedience was a parody, enacted for the benefit of anyone who might mistake him for one bowing to fear, an emotion he felt not in the least.
‘Halt. Where are you going?’
‘To bang the wolves in Lapland,’ Viirilä blurted out in his signature, all-blaspheming voice. The only thing missing was the snorting guffaw that usually followed it. Karjula flew into a wild, bloodthirsty rage. This feeling that was constantly fermenting in his soul, making him a terrorizing presence to all around him – and he certainly was that – was now purified and distilled into exactly what it really was: a desire to kill and destroy. And this rage that dwelt within him, constantly seeking an outlet, now rose to the surface and all means of controlling it were powerless to hold it back. There he was. That huge-headed ape. Standing right there was the repulsive personification of everything that had turned the army into a flock of deserters. And the man was laughing.
Viirilä lowered his submachine gun into the crook of his elbow, a certainty descending upon him at the last moment that Karjula was going to shoot. The movement gave Karjula the last impetus he needed to turn desire into action. He shot into the middle of the chest. Viirilä fell to his knees, then doubled over and rolled to the ground. His body jerked for a little while, as the bullet didn’t kill him right away.
Karjula breathed heavily and pointlessly paced back and forth. Then he got his voice back and screamed hoarsely, ‘Men! Calling upon the Code of Military Juthtithe I have condemned thith traitor to death. Men, thith ith a quethtion of Finland. Right here … Right now. Thith event … ith not itholated, but related to every other ithue. The joking endth here. The thame fate awaitth anyone elthe who wantth to rebel.’
The men looked at one another in a state of shock. The silence was broken by Karjula’s hoarse screaming alone. He raved like a madman, destroying what little effect his act had had, which was already pathetically small compared to what it might have been, had he carried it out in a different mental state. The men didn’t know what to think, but they immediately sensed that Karjula hadn’t performed this act out of unavoidable necessity, but rather out of his own deranged fury. And to top it off, it was Viirilä, their Number One man.
Little by little the men’s bewilderment gave way to rage. Jaws clenched and fists squeezed tight around their gunstocks. One of the men further off even took aim at Karjula, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot. Instead, someone else began to scream brokenly in a voice of shock, ‘Russians! Come here! Come on over! Come on, finish us off. We’re killing people over here! Come on!’
The man was screaming like he’d lost his mind. His screeching was like that of a frantic child, full of shock, hate and fear.
The screeching brought Karjula back to his senses. A beastly roar emerged from his throat. The situation being what it was, there was nothing he could do but continue. Just as a person terrified by the realization that he has done something irreparable inevitably proceeds to compound his error, Karjula flew into a renewed rage at the man’s cries. Viirilä was the second man he had shot. The screaming man would certainly have been the third, had the enemy’s tanks not come to his rescue. From behind a bend in the road came the whistle of a shell that came crashing down at Karjula’s feet, laying him flat on his back in the center of the road.
The flight resumed.
Karjula revived instantly. He tried to stand up, but fell down again, as his leg had been nearly torn off. He lay on his stomach, pressing himself up on his arms and screaming, ‘Get in pothition! Damn it! Halt! You goddamn cowardth, help me g
et into pothition and give me a thubmachine gun …’
His cry betrayed not the slightest hint of weakness or pleading. It had just the same commanding fury as before. He was still trying to get up, screaming curses and howling with anger and pain. There was something in that struggle like the fight of a wild, wounded animal in the final throes of self-defense – filled with rage against everything and everybody, and beyond that the untold despair of knowing that it has already lost the power to fight. Later, the machine-gunners came to think that Lehto and Karjula had had something in common. ‘Exactly like Lehto would’ve been if he’d been a lieutenant colonel,’ they said.
Maybe somebody would even have seen something admirable in this madman’s wild, hopeless rage. But those who watched Karjula’s vigorous efforts to rise didn’t admire him. They hated him – with an intense and relentless hatred. One of the men running by even yelled, ‘We hear you, we just can’t help you!’
‘Blast a row through that motherfucker!’ somebody else called out.
‘We aren’t nurses …’
Rokka arrived in the last group. He hadn’t witnessed the event himself, but quickly gathered what had taken place. Just then Karjula fell unconscious a second time. The tank was shooting a machine gun and everyone vanished. Rokka grabbed the heavy man by the waist and ran beside the road to cover. He carried Karjula a little way, but once he was out of immediate danger, he lowered him to the ground. ‘Don’t feel like goin’ much further ’nnat. That fella there’s stepped outta the bounds a human ways and far as I’m concerned he can stay there.’
Two officers from the Second Company took him from there and carried him a little way, until they could get him into the hands of a couple of medics. The medics carried him because it was their job, but that didn’t prevent them from cursing, officers or no officers.
The battalion retreated without pause. After a small skirmish, the men on Lammio’s roadblock joined the others. The entire combat unit was ceding its positions. Their spirits had reached such a point that the battalion might have dissolved completely had the old border not opened up to greet them. Once they were behind it, their spirits seemed to rise all by themselves. They were even put on break. No questioning of any kind was carried out. Actually, the only real infractions connected to the event were the men’s shouts and the fact that they had not helped Karjula. And the issue was subject to interpretation, since wounded men had been left behind in panic situations before. It was probably determined that the matter would be best forgotten on both sides.