The Winter War

by William Durbin

  Marko looked at Karl. His face was ashen and his eyes half closed. “My mother taught me a trick that really helps block the pain,” Marko said. “She had me think of a place that was calm and peaceful. How about your farm?”

  “Not the farm,” Karl said. “All I can see are the black eyes of that soldier and me reaching for the shovel.”

  “My special place is a bay where my friend Johan and I used to go swimming,” Marko said. “Just offshore there's an island with a rock ledge that's perfect for sunbathing.”

  “Just let me rest.”

  “No! Stay awake! If I'm going to all the trouble to drag you across this lake, the least you can do is listen to my stories.” Karl smiled weakly. Marko knew that if Karl passed out, he might never wake up again.

  “The island has a deep drop-off on one end that's perfect for diving. One day Johan and I swam right up to a loon….”

  Trying not to pant, Marko talked as he dragged the stretcher over the place where the lake had been mined. A faint smell of gasoline was the only hint of the battle. Ice had sealed the scar where the tanks had disappeared.

  By the time Marko reached the far shore, he'd told Karl the story of his day swimming with Johan, and how his polio began. He set the stretcher down to catch his breath. “That day was the last time I ever walked without this.” He rapped his brace. His body ached as though he was getting polio all over again.

  “Are we there yet?” Karl asked.

  “You sound like my little sister,” Marko said. “We made it across the lake.” The day was so warm that Marko was sweating, but Karl's lips looked blue. “Are you cold?”

  “A little.” Karl's voice trembled.

  Marko took off his coat and tucked it around Karl's shoulders. Marko smiled. “That's a pretty good imitation.”

  “Of what?”

  “You're making a face just like Kekko does.”

  “My face is twisted … 'cause I hurt,” Karl said.

  “I thought you were trying to make me laugh,” Marko said. He picked up the stretcher and started pulling again.

  “I know how much you're hurting. Leave me here.”

  “I won't leave you no matter what,” Marko said.

  “What are you … most afraid of, Marko?”

  “That you're never going to stop asking me questions.” The bank ahead was steeper than he remembered.

  “Seriously,” Karl said.

  “When it comes right down to it”—Marko started up the bank—”I'm most afraid … I'll never be normal. That people won't… really see who I am because of my leg. A girl wouldn't ever like me. And who knows if I'll ever be strong enough to do a man's work?”

  “Someone will like you.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Marko said as he picked his way between the rocks and tall pines.

  “I know it,” Karl said.

  “What's your biggest fear?” Marko asked.

  “Going back … home … alone.” Karl's voice trembled. “I shake every time I think about walking into my house again.”

  “You don't have to worry about going anywhere alone. We're in this together.”

  CHAPTER 31

  THE CLIMB

  Marko plodded up the hill, trying not to jostle Karl. He saw that Karl had closed his eyes again. “If you don't stay awake, I'll try to guess your name.”

  “Give up … on that,” Karl said.

  “The war's over,” Marko said. “No reason to keep it a secret.”

  “Maybe I won't ever tell you.”

  Marko's heart pounded, and sweat poured down his forehead. At the top of the hill, he set the stretcher down. He took off his cap and stuffed it into his back pocket. “I'm sweating like I've been at our forge all day.”

  Karl was pale, and his eyes were closed.

  “Hey!” Marko said. “You said my driving was too rough for you to sleep.” He gave Karl tea from his canteen. Karl closed his eyes again.

  “At least tell me the first letter of your name.”

  “It hurts bad, Marko.”

  “Picture something peaceful, like that day Johan and I were swimming with the loon.” Marko rubbed the back of his calf. Then he picked up the stretcher.

  “How can I… relax but not sleep?” Karl's tongue sounded thick.

  “Tell me a story,” Marko said.

  “Too tired.”

  “Come on, now,” Marko said. “Think back to something that happened before the war.”

  “I do remember a time … last November. It was late in the day. Father and I had dropped off some sacks of rye at the flour mill.” Karl's voice sounded far away. “When we stepped outside and climbed into the wagon … the sky was totally black, like a ghost city. I was scared until I remembered the blackout.”

  Karl took a shallow breath. “On the way home snow started falling…. A car came toward us … and snow-flakes swirled in the slits of the headlights. Then it was dark.”

  “Virtalinna was the same,” Marko said. “Like everyone had packed up and gone away.”

  “Now everyone will have to go,” Karl said.

  “Let's not think about that,” Marko said as he passed the place where the Finnish gunners had fired their cannons.”Remember those big guns?”

  “My head aches just thinking about it,”Karl said.”If only I could sleep a little.”

  “No sleeping!”

  In a few minutes Marko reached a clearing.”I know this place. Last fall Johan and I ran an orienteering course through here.”

  “Let's hope I don't end up like Johan,” Karl sighed.

  “Never! Don't talk that way.”The thought of Karl dying was too much for Marko.”Just one little bog ahead, then the road.”

  Karl was silent.

  “Talk to me, Karl.” Marko looked over his shoulder and saw that Karl's eyes were shut.”If you don't talk, I'll have to sing a funny song, 'My Pretty Darling.''My darling is so very pretty. With her skinny bones and her knotted hair, with her squinty eyes and her yard-wide mouth, she makes the horses—'“ He turned. “Hey! Don't you like my song?”

  Karl blinked. “What?”

  Marko had to hurry. He trotted through the bog, dodging the frozen hummocks.

  “Whoa!” Karl almost slid off the stretcher.

  The stick had slipped off the rear handles. He knelt and tied it back in place.”Good as new.”But Karl's bandage had darkened. “I think I'll wrap another turn around this,”Marko said.”Have a drink while I fix it.”He handed Karl the canteen.

  “Am I bleeding a lot?” Karl asked. His hands shook as he took a swallow of tea.

  “Just want to play it safe,” Marko said.

  Marko tied another layer around the wound. He hoped he hadn't made a mistake trying to get to the road. If Karl bled to death, he would never forgive himself. But if Marko tied on a tourniquet and Karl lost his leg, Marko would always wonder if he could have waited.

  “How much farther?” Karl asked.

  “There's a farm up ahead, and the road should be just beyond it.” Marko hoped it wouldn't snow. Low clouds were moving in from the west, and the sky was darkening.

  “Starts … with a K,”Karl said.

  “What's that?”

  “My name.”

  “You're finally going to tell me?”

  “Three … guesses.”

  “K.…”Marko thought.”It must be Kristiina.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Okay.” Marko pulled the stretcher as fast as he could. “Katri?”

  “Nah.”

  “I've got it—Katariina.”

  Karl didn't answer. Marko turned. Karl's eyes were closed, and he looked totally white.

  At that same moment Marko heard a sleigh. “Be right back!”

  Marko ran as fast as he could. At the edge of the field he hurdled a fence and somersaulted into the snow. But he scrambled back up.

  He reached the edge of the road just as the horses clattered past.”Stop!”

  The teamster didn't hear. Mark
o picked up a stick and threw it. It hit the teamster in the shoulder. The man whirled and aimed a rifle.

  “Don't shoot!” Marko ducked and waited for the shot. I'll be dead and Karl will be left in the woods to bleed to death.

  “Is that you, Koski?”

  Marko jumped up and ran to the sleigh.

  “What in blazes are you doing out here? Those last shellings made me so jumpy I was ready to shoot—”

  “Karl's hurt bad. We need to get to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER 32

  THE HOSPITAL ROOM

  Marko opened his eyes and squinted in the harsh white light. It took him a moment to realize he was staring at the ceiling of his old classroom. Why was it so quiet? Then he saw he was wearing his soot-covered uniform and lying on top of a hospital bed. He remembered the doctor working on Karl's leg. Mother had talked Marko into lying down to rest by promising to wake him when the doctor was done. Where is Mother? And Karl?

  Marko stepped into the hall, limping badly. Mother was just leaving the next room.

  “Marko!” She turned and gave him a hug. “Look at you.” She held him by the shoulders.

  “How's Karl?” Marko asked.

  “Don't worry. Karl is right in here and doing well. But you do know”—Mother looked at him with worried eyes—”that Karl—”

  “Is a girl.”Marko nodded.

  He stepped through the doorway. Karl was propped up on two pillows and wearing a white hospital gown. Her blue eyes were huge. Her blond hair had been washed, and it shone in the sunlight. “Good morning, K—” Marko stopped.

  “It's Kaari,” she said.

  “I should have guessed.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Kaari asked.

  “Why? After what we've lived through, we'll always be friends. It's like we're—”

  “Blood brothers?”

  “Yes, brothers. Baptized in the blood of battle.” Marko smiled.

  “You're not angry I made you keep my secret for so long?”

  “It's not like I had to lie to anyone.”

  “That's true,” Kaari laughed. As Marko listened to her musical laughter, he couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed she was a girl right off.

  “Are you sure you can be friends with a girl?” Kaari asked.

  “Friends stick by each other no matter what. How's your leg?”

  “I should be asking you the same question,” Kaari said.

  “I'm used to it,” Marko said. “How many stitches did you get?”

  “Seventeen. And you told me it was only a scratch.”

  “Now you know why I didn't want you to go to sleep.”

  Mother nodded. “She was close to shock.”

  “You saved my life, Marko,” Kaari said.

  “You would have done the same for me.”

  That evening as Mother and Marko walked home from the hospital she shared the news from Sweden. “Grandmother's last letter said that Nina is getting along fine with her cousins, and she's even learning how to crochet.”

  “But she hated needlework,” Marko said.

  “Nina's also been helping an aid committee sew clothing for our troops. And Grandma says little Jari is babbling in Swedish—she's afraid that he may forget his Finnish.”

  Once inside the house, Mother handed him a letter. “Arrived yesterday. Father was finally able to tell where he'd been stationed.”

  “Was he in Suomussalmi?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “I knew he was in the north, and I heard about a big Red Army offensive in that sector.” Marko picked up the letter.

  “He was in the battle on the Raate road,” Mother said.

  Not the Raate road. “Is he all right?” If the Russians had lost a whole division, as Kerola said, how many Finns had been hurt or killed?

  “Only frostbite on two toes. He's at a military hospital in Joensuu.”

  When Marko finished the letter he smiled. “Father says that losing a couple of toes won't hurt his black-smithing.”

  “We'll all be together again very soon.” Mother looked out the window toward the field and the lake beyond. “If only we didn't have to leave this behind.”

  “It's not right that we go to bed having a home and wake up to find that politicians drew a line on a map and took it all away.”

  “That's why wars never stop,” Mother said. “It's the greed of rich men with pencils in their hands.”

  “And how could the Russians give our people only two weeks to move?” Marko said.

  “We have a lifetime of things to pack.” Mother looked at her kitchen.

  “I'll help you as soon as I get back.”

  “You're not going to the front!”

  “My duty is with my company.”

  “But what if the Russians—”

  “The shooting has stopped, but the army has lots of work to do. Any equipment we leave behind will be lost.”

  “But—”

  “The war is over, Mother. And Father and I survived. Moving will be easy after what we've lived through.”

  Later, when Marko went to bed and stretched out under his feather quilt, he expected to fall right to sleep. But after a winter of snoring soldiers and bombardments, he couldn't stand the quiet. He turned over and stared at the dark ceiling. He finally pulled his bedding onto the wooden floor and slept.

  Later, a voice rose. A soldier, singing softly and smiling, walked toward Marko. “I'm home,” he said.

  Then Marko saw that the soldier was clutching his guts in his hands. He screamed.

  Mother ran in. “A bad dream?” She squeezed his hand.

  Marko opened his eyes, but the image of the smiling soldier wouldn't go away. “I'm sorry.” Marko's scalp prickled with fear.

  “How you must have suffered!” Mother said.

  “I'll be fine.”

  “Try to rest,” Mother said. “Some of the boys in the hospital have nightmares at first. But they go away with time.”

  Marko nodded. But after she left he was afraid to close his eyes. He looked out the silver window at the stars. Despite the fresh sheets that smelled of a cool spring day, Marko knew it would be a long time before he could forget the stink of spent powder and death.

  CHAPTER 33

  THE REPORTER

  When Marko arrived back at camp, Joki shouted to him. “You got here just in time to miss the work, messenger boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kekko said, “Can't you see we got everything packed?”

  “Didn't have to load no bullets, though,” Joki said. “We shot 'em all at the Russkies.”

  Marko looked at the sleighs. Everything but the sleeping tents had been loaded. Even the soup cannon had been wheeled out of the woods and was ready to be hitched to a team.

  “At least you can help us break down the tents in the morning,” Kekko said.

  “So how'd it turn out with Karl?” Joki asked. “The teamster said he got hit pretty hard.”

  “He's limping”—Marko thought of saying she but didn't want to get into a long explanation—”but the doctor says he's going to be fine.”

  “That's good to hear,”Kekko said.

  “The lieutenant put Juho and Seppo on report for starting that fire,” Joki said. “Them fools! Thinking the Russkies won't shell a smoke plume is like counting on a short fuse not to burn fast.”

  “But all of us have done dumb stuff,” Kekko said.

  “Like taking a sauna in broad daylight behind enemy lines?” It was the lieutenant, walking up the hill.

  “We don't need to bring that up,” Kekko said.

  Marko woke up late the next morning. Sunlight filtered through the tent roof, but the men were still snoring. He heard strange voices outside and pulled on his boots.

  Juhola had just finished shaving over his helmet. He held his razor in his hand, and a towel hung over his shoulder. A reporter and a photographer dressed in civilian overcoats and hats were standing beside him.

  “It's an
American magazine that you write for?”The lieutenant spoke in Finnish to a translator, who repeated the question to the reporter, who was writing in a notebook.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, please, how could your president have believed Stalin's lies?”Juhola set down his razor.

  The reporter stopped writing. “With Hitler building up his army and all, he probably had too much on his mind.”

  “Your Congress talked of sending help.” The lieutenant had remained calm through so many battles, but now he was angry. “Instead, they delivered seventy million dollars' worth of machine tools to Russia! We believed in America, even as your companies were selling ammunition to the Russians and shipping Liberty engines to their tank factories. Liberty!” He looked to the east. “In the end we stood alone.

  “Now we have lost Karelia. Twenty-five thousand of our brave soldiers are dead. More than four hundred thousand Finnish people are homeless.”

  “I only want a story,” the reporter said.

  “A story?”The lieutenant's voice was cold.”Nice that you have come to do your reporting now that the bullets have stopped. If you want to tell a story, it is there in that valley”—he pointed down the hill—”written in the trenches with the blood of good men.”

  The soldiers were quiet when the time came to hitch up the sleighs and leave camp. The minute Joseph saw Marko he nickered, but his ears drooped when he noticed that Karl wasn't with him.”Sorry, boy,”Marko said as he stroked Joseph and Cheslav.

  Before Company Three pulled out, Marko walked to the rim of the hill and looked down on Savolahti one last time. The air smelled like spring. Clear droplets of snowmelt hung from the needles of the pines.

  Below, Marko saw the red chimney of the pottery factory and the blackened timbers of Grandma's barn. Grandma had been certain her farm would be rebuilt. But now there would be no more Christmas sleigh rides to Savolahti. No more saunas during haying time. No more mushroom picking on the aspen hillsides.

  The men were silent during the long march to Virtalinna. Marko was surprised at how weak the battle-hardened soldiers looked. Under the bright sun their skin was ghostly white and their eyes bloodshot. Many of them coughed badly, and they had stained teeth and bleeding gums. Those who had washed and shaved looked the worst, because their sunken cheeks and eye sockets stood out. Some of the fellows rested a hand on the wagon as they walked or used a ski pole as a walking stick. For once Marko's limp fit right in.