Huttunen looked round. Everything in the mill was comforting and familiar to him: the walls, the furniture, the hopper, the flour bins. They all seemed to be begging the master of the place for mercy: don’t burn us down! Huttunen didn’t strike another match. He gathered up the material for the fire, adjusted his rifle on his back and left the mill. He strapped the logs, the kindling and the bark onto the luggage rack of his bicycle, and then he leapt into the saddle, like a light infantryman going off to battle.
‘Christ Almighty, I’m going to burn the whole village,’ he roared. With his rifle butt knocking against the frame of his bicycle, the hermit pedalled to the centre of the village. Vittavaara’s farm, the Siponens’ farm, the shop – they all passed. Huttunen slowed down at the shop and thought about setting fire to Tervola’s establishment, but decided it was too small a target. His vengeance wouldn’t be satisfied with so little. Huttunen didn’t stop his bicycle until he got to the fire station. Perhaps he could start there. But then his gaze alighted on the new church, towering over the graveyard, the most imposing monument in the canton, and he had a revelation.
That’s what I’m going to burn down to teach them a lesson!
Huttunen cycled through the churchyard to the main door of the church. There was no one about, but the doors were open. He took his things inside and began building a fire in the nave in front of the altar. His rifle butt banged on the ground as he crouched down over the wood, the noise echoing around the big church.
When the fire was ready, Huttunen stood up to dig the matches out of his pocket. He cast a furious, vengeful look around the enormous church. The altarpiece, a painting of Christ on the cross, caught his eye. Huttunen shook his fist at the picture.
‘You stupid idiot! Why did you have make me mad?’
The Christ in the altarpiece appeared to look Huttunen straight in the eyes. The Saviour’s air of suffering gave way first to an expression of surprise, and then to a look of amused indulgence. He opened his mouth and started speaking. The huge nave echoed as Christ said to the hermit, ‘Don’t blaspheme, Huttunen. In principle, your mind is no more disturbed than anyone else’s. You got good marks in your assignments for the Institute of Education through the Medium of the Post. You’re more intelligent than Vittavaara and Siponen put together, and far more so than the pastor of this parish, even though he had the chance to study at university. I’ve always hated this pastor, he’s a completely worthless character, an obnoxious churchman.’
Huttunen listened open-mouthed. Was he going clinically mad, or was the altarpiece talking to him?
Jesus continued in a soft but clear voice.
‘Each of us must bear our cross, Huttunen, you just as much as I.’
Huttunen plucked up the courage to contradict Jesus.
‘But it’s going a bit far in my case! Being hunted like this for six months! I have been freezing in the woods for weeks, and they dragged me off to Oulu asylum … Couldn’t I be spared some of it?’
Jesus nodded understandingly, but then started talking about his own misfortunes.
‘Your problems aren’t that great, Huttunen, compared to how I was made to suffer.’
Christ’s features hardened at the memory of his experiences.
‘They persecuted me all my life … and in the end they nailed me alive to a cross. I’ve had to suffer, Huttunen. You cannot imagine how painful it is having five-inch copper nails driven through the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. They forced a crown of thorns on my head and put up the cross. The worst was hanging there, afterwards. No one can understand that pain if they haven’t been nailed to a cross themselves.’
Jesus looked seriously at Huttunen.
‘I’m a man who has suffered a great deal.’
Huttunen averted his eyes from the altarpiece, and fiddled with his matches. He didn’t really know what to say to Jesus.
‘But if you’ve set your heart on burning down this church,’ Jesus continued, ‘I shan’t object. I’ve never liked this building much. I prefer the old church on the hill. It was megalomania that made them build this. But don’t light your fire right in front of the altar. Go into the sacristy or the vestibule, the fire will spread better from there; the church is dry. And could you take away that rifle? It’s not very appropriate coming in here with your arms full of logs and a rifle on your back. You are in a consecrated place, after all.’
Faintly embarrassed, Huttunen knelt down before the image of Christ, gathered up his wood from in front of the altar and took it into the vestibule. There, he quickly lit the fire. The twigs and bark merrily burst into flames. Thick smoke filled the vestibule and the nave.
The entrance was soon so obscured that Huttunen had to open the door of the church, and retreat to the nave where he sat on a pew, rubbing his eyes. He’d never have thought such a small fire could produce so much smoke; it must have been because there was no breeze.
A cloud of smoke escaped through the open door, floated over the graveyard and drifted off towards the village past the firemen’s tower. The first firemen came running, buckets rattling in their hands. Huttunen, meanwhile, was trying to stir up the fire in the vestibule. He blew on the embers, setting them glowing; new flames leapt up. The smoke kept on forcing him back into the nave.
Outside, he could hear the people who’d come to put out the fire shouting. The pall of smoke in the church grew even denser as they began throwing water on the fire. The blaze hissed; the flames shrank back. Huttunen couldn’t see the firemen, but judging by the voices, there were a lot of them. He had to get away; he wouldn’t be able to get the better of such a crowd. Taking a deep breath, Huttunen ran into the church vestibule, jumped over the spitting embers and out into the open air, his gun on his back, his hands clamped over his streaming eyes. The stunned onlookers parted before him. Soon he could see clearly enough to hurtle across the churchyard. He jumped over the graves, leapt the hedge and disappeared into the forest.
Police Chief Jaatila arrived at the scene. He established the fire was out. When he was told the hermit Gunnar Huttunen had tried to burn down the church, he said in a tone that brooked no argument, ‘Starting tomorrow morning, we are going to organise a massive manhunt. I’m going to ring Rovaniemi to get them to send us soldiers and army dogs.’
CHAPTER 36
One morning, a goods train, a rare sight in those parts, stopped at the station. At the rear of the train there was a cattle truck, which opened its double doors to reveal half a section of helmeted light infantry – bicycle-mounted division – who promptly leapt out onto the platform. They had an army tent, a field kitchen and two army dogs in tow, and each of the men was armed with a machine pistol. On the sergeants’ bellowed orders, the detachment fell into line. The commanding officer, a tough young lieutenant, presented his men to Police Chief Jaatila.
‘Welcome, soldiers!’ Jaatila said. ‘A dangerous and difficult mission awaits you, but I have every confidence in you and especially your dogs.’
The police chief offered the lieutenant a cigarette. The sergeants drew the men up in marching order; the detachment noisily set off towards the ferry. Vittavaara’s horse was hitched to the field kitchen. The army dogs and the lieutenant got into the police chief’s car. The dogs were muzzled for safety’s sake; they were big Alsatians with thick coats, sinister, nervy-looking creatures. The lieutenant stroked one and proudly told the police chief, ‘This one’s Terror of the Frontiers, that one’s White Nose. No sense of humour, these two.’
Disembarking from the ferry, the soldiers headed towards the sports ground where a crowd of civilians with rifles and rucksacks was gathered. Including the women and children, there were more people than there had been spectators at the provincial athletics champion-ships.
Equipped with a loudspeaker, the police chief gave orders. Provisions and maps were distributed. The farmers were divided into groups of ten. The sun was shining, ideal weather to start a major operation. The farmers were supplied with cartri
dges; the border guards loaded their machine pistols.
‘This could be tough going,’ one of the infantrymen said.
‘I prefer a manhunt to a forest fire,’ his companion replied. ‘Last summer we spent two whole weeks putting one out in Narkaus. By the end all of us had a layer of soot on our faces an inch deep.’
‘In the war, I was sent after two or three enemy spies who’d parachuted in behind our lines. Hunting this nutter should be the same sort of job.’
‘Lucky they’ve given us helmets,’ said another soldier. ‘Apparently he’s got a rifle. Unless he gets a clean shot, it’ll ricochet off.’
The lieutenant ordered the men to be quiet and listen to the police chief’s instructions. Jaatila was winding up his talk.
‘So once again I want to emphasise that the man we are hunting is armed and extremely dangerous. If he doesn’t give himself up at the first command, force will have to be resorted to. I’m sure I make myself quite clear.’
The police chief turned to the lieutenant.
‘Between you and me … With this Huttunen, you can shoot on sight.’
‘I understand.’
The search party was split in two: twenty-odd civilians were detailed to comb the forest east of the Kemijoki while the bulk of the men took the ferry back across the river to search the woods to the west. The police chief set up his command post at the station.
When the postman Piittisjärvi heard of these developments, he instantly feared for his still. He leapt on his bicycle, overtook the soldiers and pedalled to Huttunen’s letterbox, where he hid his bike and dashed off at top speed to save his moonshine and warn Huttunen in the process. Sandbank Camp was deserted. He called Huttunen quietly, but got no answer. He guessed the hermit had gone fishing on the river, since his rifle and tackle were nowhere to be seen.
Piittisjärvi dismantled his still, hid the vats and pipes among the roots of some tall black firs and pulled his churn of firewater out of the waterhole. It still contained at least eight pints of wildwood’s tears.
Piittisjärvi left a note on Huttunen’s rucksack.
Huttunen, the army is on your tail. Take to your heels. Piittisjärvi
The postman hoisted the churn of hooch onto his back and left the camp. His plan was to get back to the safety of the main road before the troops could search the area. But he had to act quickly; no time for a cigarette. He barely even dared take the odd sip from his churn.
This was the second time Piittisjärvi had been forced to evacuate his set-up that summer. He may have had to hurry the first time, but this was a real emergency. He pelted across the shifting bog and through the dense brush with just one thought in mind: to get across the road before the forest was crawling with the soldiers.
But the well-trained border guards had quickly fanned out and were silently moving through the trees in a long line. Dripping with sweat, the little postman was easy pickings. One of the dogs let out a brief howl and would have torn him to pieces if its handler hadn’t come to his rescue with its muzzle.
Piittisjärvi and his moonshine were taken to the police chief’s command post at the station. Jaatila questioned the postman briefly and then Portimo took him to the cells. The grog was pitilessly poured out onto the ground. Tears welled in the postman’s eyes.
In the afternoon, the infantrymen found Huttunen’s camp, destroyed it and took the message left by Piittisjärvi to the police chief. Jaatila immediately ran to his cell and gave the postman a tremendous thrashing with his lead-filled truncheon. Piittisjärvi wept and moaned and begged in vain for mercy. The police chief demanded information about Huttunen but the fellow refused to give him anything. The hermit’s post was produced – the assignments set by the Institute of Education through the Medium of the Post, a few love letters, the last communication from Happola. How had Huttunen got his post? Covered in bruises, Piittisjärvi was heroic.
‘You can kill me, but I’ll never betray a friend.’
Nor did he, despite receiving another beating from the police chief. When Jaatila stormed out of his cell in a fury, Piittisjärvi shouted after him, ‘I’ll never divulge postal secrets to a cur like you!’
The police chief called in Sanelma Käyrämö and subjected her to intense questioning. But the adviser didn’t admit anything, despite being threatened with the wrath of the provincial governor and the entire 4H Federation. Sanelma Käyrämö burst into floods of tears and begged Jaatila to be lenient towards Huttunen, saying that if he could just put his side of events, she was sure he’d leave the woods of his own free will. The police chief took due note of this, and then, with utter disdain, spat, ‘Do you want me to tell you what I think of women who mollycoddle lunatics? They’re worse than whores!’
The dogs were turned loose on Sandbank Camp. Wagging their tails, they dashed off in pursuit of the hermit, leading the soldiers upstream along the Puukko. Huttunen’s trail was fresh, and the excited Alsatians raced through the undergrowth on the bank, whimpering and barking with complete disregard for their handlers’ injunctions to be quiet.
Huttunen was fly-fishing on the banks of the Puukko, at the edge of a peat bog. He had already caught a couple of grayling and was thinking of going back to his camp. He lit a cigarette and gazed in a melancholy way at the slow-moving stream. The light was going. Huttunen wanted to write to Sanelma Käyrämö and tell her the latest news. Now that he wouldn’t be able to sell the mill, perhaps he should go further north and build a cabin deep in the forest where he could spend the winter. He needed to split a pair of skis, make a few barrels, pick berries and shoot a brace of game birds. Perhaps it would be good to smoke an elk for the winter. The hermit’s keen hearing picked up the sound of barking somewhere downstream. Straining his ears, Huttunen could make out men’s muffled voices. Raising his binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the marsh on the opposite bank. In the gathering twilight, he saw helmeted soldiers in grey uniforms. Two big hounds were racing along the stream in his direction. The hermit instantly guessed they were after him. He loaded his rifle, abandoned his fishing tackle and his catch on the bank and fled as he fast he could towards a little hill on the other side of the marsh.
The dogs soon reached the deserted fishing spot. They threw themselves on the fish lying on the ground, tearing them to pieces. Huttunen lined up one of the dogs in his sights and fired. It gave a little yelp, and then keeled over dead. The second dog came bounding across the marsh towards the hill where Huttunen was lying on his stomach, the rifle pressed to his cheek. When the animal was only fifty feet away, Huttunen fired again. It somersaulted into the air, then fell back on its side without a noise. The border guards formed ranks and stormed the hill, one of them firing a brief burst of machine-gun fire.
Huttunen fled north. He ran as fast as he could.
You’re going to have to be strapping lads if you’re going to take me alive.
All night the light infantrymen swept the forest without catching a glimpse of Huttunen. In the early hours of the morning, they regrouped at Sandbank Camp, where Vittavaara had taken the field kitchen on a sledge. The army tent was pitched, and the exhausted farmers and soldiers congregated to eat and sleep.
The dead dogs were hung from a pole by their paws. Four men were detailed to take them to the village. When the exhausted party arrived at the police chief’s command post, he pointed at the dogs and sneered, ‘Have you brought these carcasses back to lay them in consecrated ground?’
‘Don’t push your luck!’ the lieutenant bristled. ‘At least we found the lunatic’s camp.’
The lieutenant gave orders for the dogs to be buried. The infantry dug them a grave at the station crossroads, next to the transformer. Father Rasti’s farm nearby was holding a prayer meeting that evening. A hymn rehearsal could be heard in the distance. The lieutenant cursed, ‘Get a move on and bury those dogs. They’re singing psalms now, for God’s sake. What sort of yokel town is this?’
In the farm, the lay preacher Leskelä was testifying and prayin
g for Huttunen.
‘Dear Sweet Lord, receive the former miller Huttunen into your care with all due haste, or else deliver him forthwith into the hands of the army, in the name of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, Amen.’
CHAPTER 37
For three days the soldiers and the canton’s male population combed the woods and bogs in vain. Then the farmers discreetly went home, hung up their guns and returned to work in the fields. The border guards packed up their tent, took the field kitchen back to the station and loaded their kit into the cattle truck. Without further ado, this was coupled to a goods train heading north. The steam locomotive whistled, and then the army was gone.
The only legacy of the great manhunt was a mound slowly being overgrown at the station crossroads. Under the earth lay two heroic army dogs. The little children developed a habit that autumn of coming every Sunday and singing on their grave the same hymns of Zion that the preacher Leskelä led them through at prayer meetings.
Once a day, Police Chief Jaatila went to the cells to give the postman Piittisjärvi a thrashing, but it was a waste of energy. Tough as boots, the man heroically endured the blows in the name of the inviolability of postal secrecy.
Since neither force nor numbers had enabled him to catch Huttunen, the police chief resolved to use cunning. He paid a visit to the horticultural adviser Sanelma Käyrämö and told her that the authorities had finally decided to let the hermit off. He still had to make the first move, however, and come out of the woods.
‘Let’s go to the jail and tell Piittisjärvi that he can take Huttunen an official letter of amnesty. Your hermit’s misdemeanours will be forgotten, I swear. We’ll just give him a small fine, that’s all.’
The police chief wrote Huttunen a letter. The adviser added a little note asking him to come to the village and give himself up. The past would be forgiven.
The Howling Miller Page 18