Unknown Soldiers Read online

  Väinö Linna

  * * *

  UNKNOWN SOLDIERS

  Translated from the Finnish by Liesl Yamaguchi

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Note on the Translation

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  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  UNKNOWN SOLDIERS

  Väinö Linna (1920–1992) was one of the most influential Finnish authors of the twentieth century. He shot to immediate literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon sotilas (Unknown Soldiers), and consolidated his position with the trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star).

  Liesl Yamaguchi, a former Fulbright grantee to the University of Helsinki and subsequent Special Assistant and Adviser to the US Ambassador to Finland, is currently completing a dissertation in Comparative Literature at Princeton University.

  Chapter One

  I

  As we all know, the Lord is almighty – he knows all and sees far. And so, one day, he let a forest fire burn a good swath of state land, laying waste to acres of the dry, pine forest around the town of Joensuu. The people did everything in their power to put a stop to his work, as they always did, but he burned the forest undeterred, just as far as it suited him. He had his own plans.

  A certain colonel was the first to appreciate just how far the Almighty’s gaze had extended. Chief of staff of an army corps at the time, he noticed that the fire had opened up first-rate sites for his returning men to set up camp. Finland’s Winter War had ended: the war that was, of all wars up to then, the best – seeing as both sides won. The Finns, however, won a bit less, in that they were obliged to cede some land to their opponents and retreat behind a new border.

  What was left of the troops was sent home, and a younger set was called up in replacement. And so the clearing found itself beset with a battalion of infantry. The older men set off in the warmth of the spring – in fur caps, coats, felt boots and thick, wool sweaters. They returned without any ‘difficulties of reintegration’. First, a good, old-fashioned Finnish dousing – then, back to work. Were all of our sacrifices in vain? Well, that was a question reserved for people without spring planting to do – and those people might well wonder whether their sacrifices had been so terribly great after all.

  For the most part, they were a solid crop. The spiritual difficulties of re-entry into civilian life? They couldn’t afford to invent stumbling blocks like that. People in the winter of life may have souls, but a soldier has nothing of the kind. Anybody who had such a thing would have had it anaesthetized as quickly as possible. No, the deep-set eyes above their chapped, stubbly cheeks revealed only animals, sly and ferocious, trying to hang onto two things: their positions and their dear lives.

  The younger troops assumed their ranks.

  There they stood, bumbling into lines with a bit of difficulty: Mother Finland’s chosen sacrifice to world history. Farmers in coarse, sturdy clothes – day-laborers in flimsy jackets, ties sticking out from underneath their cheap, milled collars – and even some clueless city slicker with a wool ‘ulster’ on, who has ‘like, no idea what happened on the trip out here. Like, seriously, none.’

  Mäkinen was a bit hesitant, at first. A bundle under his arm, he had his best clothes on and his last wood-chopping pay tucked into his pocket. He had a picture of the neighbors’ daughter too. Mäkinen wasn’t actually in love with the girl, any more than she was with him, but he’d heard that looking at girls’ pictures was something you did in the army. They were just neighbors, having lived down the road from each other their whole blessed lives, but when he was leaving, Mäkinen had taken the picture, awkwardly half-joking, ‘Remember to write!’

  What was his relationship to the great tides of world history, ripples of which had reached his ears one way or another? Adolf was raising a ruckus. That much he knew. And he knew what a ruckus would mean, too. It had already happened, at the dances, that some ‘chest-beater’ would climb up onto a chair, yank the lamps from the ceiling, and roar, ‘Everybody out, goddamn it!’ Finns are fierce – and we didn’t start this. It’s our right. That was just what Mäkinen thought as well. And if anybody comes over here again, then by God, we’ll meet iron with iron.

  ‘What greater honor than dying in battle, valiant guardian of your nation’s land …’ That was how the Finnish schools tried to cultivate the chest-beating bravado into something a bit more respectable. The future looked brighter if you considered it from a developmental point of view. But ditties dreamed up by some hobbling old man weren’t quite the thing to spark these men’s imaginations. ‘Back in old Hellas! I mean, way, way back, fellas, when there was no Finland, yet … alas …’

  Trumped-up tunes were fine for gents – the average Finnish male having none too high an opinion of whatever it is that knocks around in the mind of a gentleman. More to his taste were tales of men who jumped on tanks and banged iron bars down machine guns to knock them out of plumb. Those guys were more in line with the heroes from the stories he knew.

  So, their Finnishness was ennobled. Duly cast into the model of patriotism. Truth be told, their spirit could not have been better suited to the task for which they’d been assembled.

  A year went by. Barracks rose along the edges of the clearing, which itself had been leveled into a training area. There the men ran, shouted and gradually grew into a lazy lot of confirmed ‘old-timers’. Mäkinen was a soldier now too – or would have to suffice. He hadn’t turned out quite the way his makers had intended, but he would have to do. The gaping jaws of world history were waiting.

  II

  The machine-gunners were training on a separate side of the clearing. The afternoon was sweltering, and the heat, combined with the meal they’d just eaten, made the men so sluggish that their drills became even more slack than usual. Even the drill leaders had been NCOs too long to have any of that sharpness of ambition about them. This was particularly true after they realized that a conscript with the rank of corporal could consider himself at the highest peak his military career was going to afford him. The officers lingering further off weren’t particularly keen to back them up either, should they manage to muster up more than the minimum amount of effort required. Enthusiasm of that variety would be shot down immediately by murmurs of mutiny from the ranks.

  ‘Stop screaming, you fucking war horse!’

  Listless orders rang out through the clanging of the guns the men lifted and lowered, going through the motions of their even more listless pivots.

  ‘Boys, this is it! What’cha gotta know in war is how to pivot. Just bust out one of these little doozies, and that’ll clear everything right up. In the bag.’

  ‘What’s that fellow Rahikainen muttering over there? Shut your traps in the ranks!’

  ‘Soon as you shut yours, pal …’

  Suddenly, the drill sprang to life. Clangs sharpened and step
s quickened and the officers loitering further off hurried briskly toward their platoons. Prompting all of this was a thin-blooded little man who had emerged from the barracks headquarters and was now heading for the training area. It was Captain Kaarna, formerly of the renowned Finnish Jaeger Battalion trained in Germany, and presently commander of the company. Fifty-something, clean-cut and straight as a ramrod, he cut a compelling figure, despite his small stature. The Captain was a swift and nimble fellow, but even so, something in his present step signaled exceptional urgency. Kaarna kept his eyes fixed on the company as he walked, as if, in his impatience, he might will himself to his destination. And so he stumbled on a burnt tree root, regaining his balance quickly, though not before sputtering, ‘Yee-aach! Mother f—’

  Turning around to look for the root, the Captain promptly tripped on another, this time only barely managing to remain upright. ‘Whaaoah! Son of a bitch!’ All his bottled-up tension erupted in an impromptu soliloquy that fizzled out into series of disgruntled coughs. ‘Achem. Hmm.’

  Upon reaching the company, he paused for a deep breath. Then, sitting on each syllable, he yelled, his voice cracking mid-command: ‘Ma-chiii-hi-iine Gu-nnaaars!’

  The men turned to face the Captain, each soldier stiffening to attention. One guy turned the wrong way in a panic, and was correcting his error with bated breath when a new command rang out, much to his relief.

  ‘At ease. Platoon leaders!’

  The tension in the men’s bodies went slack and the three officers started quickly toward the Captain. He awaited them impatiently, shuffling his feet as his restless eyes glanced back and forth between the sky and their approaching figures. They formed a line in front of him and stiffened to attention. Kaarna avoided looking at the First Platoon leader, Lieutenant Lammio. Lammio had a habit of raising his hand to the visor of his cap in a jerky, almost spastic manner that Kaarna found supremely irritating – particularly because, on top of everything else, Lammio curved his wrist, which was against regulations. Anyway, the Captain really couldn’t stand the man himself. The Helsinki lieutenant was tall, thin-faced and possessed of a self-assured arrogance that severely tried Kaarna’s patience – which was none too bountiful to begin with. Lammio was a career officer, and the Army Academy had spoiled him for good. He had picked up all sorts of mannered gestures there that really made the old captain grit his teeth. The sound of Lammio’s voice alone was enough to prick the men’s hostility, piercing the air with its shrill, pretentiously convoluted orders.

  The Second Platoon leader was a young, conscripted ensign – a small-town, high-school graduate from the wealthier, western part of the country, trying to live up to some mythic ideal of the Winter War ensign by performing his duties with outlandish ceremony.

  The Third Platoon leader was also an ensign, aged about thirty. Vilho Koskela was a country boy, hailing from a small farm in Häme, some hours north of Helsinki. Sturdily built, blond-haired and blue-eyed, he had a cleft chin and spoke so little that he had acquired the nickname ‘Quiet Koski’. The men had heard rumors of his feats during the Winter War, though he himself had never spoken a word of it. All anybody knew was that near the end, he had been serving as a company commander, even though by rank he was only a sergeant. When the war ended, he had been sent into officer training, and he had remained in the army beyond his conscripted time at the pay grade of ensign. He spoke very little and was somewhat awkward in carrying out his duties, but he was very direct, so in the end he was able to manage his men as well as anybody else.

  The Captain held him in high regard, and even now it seemed as if he were addressing Koskela personally, reducing the other two officers to mere onlookers. The company watched as the four officers’ conversation dragged on, raising their hopes that a change of activity might be afoot. Finally, the consultation ended. The Captain went back to the barracks headquarters and the officers returned to their units. The company’s spirits perked up considerably when the order rang out that all platoons were to march back to their barracks.

  ‘I bet we’re going swimming,’ one guy whispered to the fellow next to him. The latter, well past entertaining the illusion that pleasant surprises were something that army life afforded, restricted himself to a half-hearted sneer.

  Koskela marched his platoon to the front of the barracks. He stood awkwardly for a moment, as if uncertain how to begin. He was uncomfortable giving orders in general, and formulating commands was particularly difficult, because somehow or other he was embarrassed by the contrived formality army commanders used to say such simple things.

  ‘Right. NCOs, there’s some stuff you guys need to take care of. A transport’s coming to move the battalion to a new location, so we need to pare down the equipment. Everybody take the clothes you’ve got on and put a change of underwear, foot flannels and your overcoat in your pack. Bread sacks and mess kits come too. And weapons, of course. Everything else goes into storage. Try to be quick about it. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve packed my own stuff.’

  The situation was so out of the ordinary that the first section leader ventured a question that was actually rather out of line. The assignment they’d received hadn’t been accompanied by any indication of why it was to be carried out, so Corporal Hietanen, boldly assuming a ‘just between us’ sort of air, asked, ‘So, uh, where are we headed? The depths of hell, I guess?’

  Koskela glanced at the horizon and answered, ‘I don’t know. Those were the orders. I’ve got to get moving. You’d better hurry, too.’

  So that was all the men were to know of their fate. That being the case, they can be held only so responsible for it. But, anyway, they were very excited. Some men even took the initiative and asked their squad leaders what needed to be done – a rare occurrence indeed. Hietanen sat down at the table and drew up a list of the equipment to be taken along, which cut down on the chaos considerably. The Corporal was from the southwest part of the country around Turku, and in Koskela’s absence he was the eldest in the platoon. His great voice boomed out over the others as he took charge of the preparations, setting time in his amusingly staccato Turku accent. He was a breezy, easy-going fellow – young, with a powerful build; and he had managed to garner some sort of authority within the platoon, mainly thanks to his imposing strength.

  ‘The guys said the runner reported that the company secretary said that they’re sending us to garrison Joensuu,’ a self-important voice called out.

  Hietanen was all too familiar with these rumors, which hope spawned now and again, and replied mockingly, ‘Well, I heard from the drivers that this whole battalion here’s being sent to garrison Helsinki! We’re gonna trade in all these old rags for new, and we’re all gonna get riding breeches into the bargain. That’s what I heard. Oh, I hear all sorts of things.’

  The second squad leader, Corporal Lahtinen, was kneeling on the floor, tying up his pack. He was a big guy from northern Häme with evident communist sympathies. He was leaning over his pack, muttering, ‘There’s gonna be a stink, boys. You’ll see. That nutcase in Germany’ll take off first, and then our idiot big-shots’ll hoof it after him. Might as well be written on the wall, the way he’s been yabbering on about it.’

  Lahtinen looked around apprehensively, his mouth twisted into an anxious knot. Then he continued, ‘Well, we’ll just see how things work out for him. They sure aren’t gonna to run out of ammunition over there’ – his head tilted ever so slightly east – ‘and they’ve got mines lying in wait on all those roads, too.’

  ‘Ah, and there my Katyusha lies waiting for me, too!’ grinned Private Rahikainen, the unconcerned, perennial truan
t from North Karelia.

  ‘Nah, listen guys,’ Hietanen spoke up. ‘I bet I know. We’re just going to build fortifications along the border. The stuffed shirts are scared that if they join up with the Germans, the Russians’ll drop in again—’

  ‘But what would the Russians want here?’ Lahtinen cut in, unconvinced. ‘Far as I know they’ve never attacked anybody. But Herr Fritz and his buddies are already here.’

  ‘Just passing through on leave!’ somebody said.

  ‘On leave!’ The sharp accent of Lahtinen’s voice revealed an untold reservoir of fury and disdain that sparked an all-out uproar. ‘About as “on leave” as the Russians down there in our seaside hotels in Hanko! Just renting the place, uh-huh. Right! Like the ones in Viipuri. Vyborg, my ass. Stop defending them, for Christ’s sake.’

  Any attempt at defense was obviously hopeless, and even Lahtinen’s ‘Well, we’ll just see!’ was drowned out by the din. They didn’t really think the question was as momentous as all that, but the clamoring might well have continued indefinitely had it not been cut short by Hietanen’s deafening roar of ‘Attention!’

  The Captain stepped into the barracks. ‘As you were, as you were, it’s all right. Everyone taken care of?’ The Captain strode swiftly about the room, inspecting the men’s equipment as he said, ‘Swap any broken equipment for new. If you have any civilian clothes, pack them up and smack a home address on them. The quartermaster will be responsible for taking care of them from there. Don’t bring any unnecessary extra gear like writing pads and that kind of stuff. You know what it says on a boy scout’s belt? “Be prepared.” Be prepared! All right, all right, let’s go.’

  ‘Oh, but Captain, sir! Not the writing pads, please. The ladies won’t oblige if we don’t lay on the love songs.’