Unknown Soldiers Page 10

  Kariluoto was desperate. He could sense that the attack was losing its edge. But the thought unleashed a powerful wave of his former drive. Fear lurked in the depths of his soul. Strained, tottering on the brink of despair, he suppressed it, and little by little his will won the upper hand, and he was able to get his anxiety under control. ‘Crawl forward! Take turns firing. Take advantage of the terrain. Squad leaders. Get your guys together and advance in squads, half the guys cover while the other half advance. Give an example for the others to follow!’

  Kariluoto was already nearly ten yards out in front of the others. The nearest squad leader ordered his men to fire and rose to make a run for it. He had just come into line with Kariluoto when his sprint was cut short. The man rolled onto his back. A blue hole lay between his eyes, right in the center of his forehead. His hand fumbled for the button of his collar and went stiff, his mouth gasping for air a few times, like a fish out of water.

  ‘Tyynelä!’

  No answer. Kariluoto crawled over and confirmed that the man was dead. Just then a bullet tore a hole through his own cap.

  ‘Rekomaa, take the second squad.’

  A man from the second squad, Tyynelä’s coffee buddy and closest friend, was endeavoring to aim his gun. The sight was blurry. His eyes smarted with tears and sweat. In a choked-up voice, wavering with anger – an anger directed at Kariluoto – he muttered, ‘Example, example. There’s Tyynelä’s example.’

  They advanced a few more yards, but Tyynelä’s death had taken a toll on the men.

  ‘I’m hit!’ Somebody started crawling back on all fours.

  ‘Medics!’

  A minute later, nineteen bullets raked the body of some guy who was crawling. They counted the bullets later, at the aid station.

  Kariluoto had a hole in his holster now, too, as well as his cap. He was taut with nervous exhaustion, but he refused to let up. No sooner would the platoon catch up with him than he would start advancing again. Private Ukkola, the guy who had run beside him the previous day, was following close behind him now. Each of them threw a hand grenade, but both fell hopelessly short. Four or five enemy grenades came thudding down in response, though they, too, fell too far off to be effective.

  Kariluoto heard someone calling out his name and, spotting Autio lying behind him, crawled over.

  ‘Can’t you get any further?’ Autio asked.

  ‘I’ve tried everything.’ Kariluoto’s voice was angry, but not in a defensive way – more despairing. He tried to spit, but the pitiful drop dried up on his lips. His mouth was horribly dry. He wiped his sleeve across his lips and caught a bitter, crushed worm in his mouth. ‘Lost three men and my best squad leader. The barricade’s mined and the lead’s coming down like rain. It’ll be the death of the whole platoon … but if you think … I mean, personally I’m ready …’

  ‘No … no. None of that … The whole battalion’s stuck. The Second Company’s got heavy losses … Two platoon leaders. And from my men, Lilius is out of the game. Took it in the shoulder. I notified the Commander of the situation, but he ordered us to keep at it.’

  ‘Can we soften them up again?’

  ‘We’ll never get another attack launched if we pull back now … If you make it, you know … look, I won’t mince words. You make it through, today’s your day.’

  Autio knew Kariluoto and his plans to pursue a career as an officer – which was why he was applying every possible psychological pressure. He knew that, of all the platoon leaders, Kariluoto was the one who, despite his weaknesses, would have the hardest time saying, ‘I can’t make it any further.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can … if I can just get the guys to move.’

  ‘Give it a shot. It’s not obligatory. It’s just that it would be pretty rough having to turn back now, after all these casualties.’

  Autio returned to his men and Kariluoto crawled back to the head of his platoon, which was still exchanging fire. The shooting had died down a little. Every last one of the men would have fiercely denied that it had taken them a full hour and a half to advance these sixty-odd yards. The men were already getting tired. Their lips were parched with thirst. Several were already lying down apathetically behind boulders.

  The peat-covered enemy bunker was already clearly visible. Continuous fire streamed out from its black openings. There was another one a little ways off to the left. After that, the line turned a corner and the Second Company’s sector began. There, men had been ordered out of the ranks to assist the medics. Spearheading the attack had cost them many men. The platoon leaders had taken the brunt of it, and two of them were already dead. To make matters worse, the Second Platoon had lost its deputy platoon leader just after its leader.

  When the platoon leader fell, the ambitious corporal had envisioned taking over his duties, which would send him straight to the top. ‘All right, boys, this is it!’ He managed to sprint four steps as a platoon leader before a spray of light-machine-gun fire cut short his dreams of promotion for evermore.

  In the protected area, there were eleven bodies and eighteen wounded. And more kept arriving. The stretchers were sticky with blood. The head medic rushed about amidst a sea of wails and moans. ‘How am I ever going to get all of these back? Pretty soon half the company’s going to be carrying the other half.’

  The men had reached the end of their tether. They were cursing and yelling at one another, ‘Shut up … pick up the fucking stretcher or I’ll just drag him!’

  III

  Koskela and the first section had had almost nothing to do since the fighting began. The machine guns couldn’t be brought in for support until they were closer to the bunkers. Koskela could see that it wouldn’t pay to carry such easy prey into the fighting unless they could run the guns straight into reasonable range of the bunkers. This made some of the men happy, but some of them felt uneasy standing around idly while the others were engaged in such heavy fighting. They hadn’t been hardened against that sort of thing yet, as this was their first real battle. When Koskela saw that the men had stopped before the bunkers, he decided the moment had come.

  And so they had their first taste of the miserable task of all machine-gunners. ‘It’s easy shit, running in behind?’ the infantry guys would sometimes ask. The easy life didn’t come cheap, however, and they paid for it in the tens of pounds of equipment they had to lug. It was hard to take cover with the equipment, so they tried to slither up the slope on their sides, dragging the gun-stands, but the going was excruciating. Koskela sent Hietanen off with Lahtinen’s machine gun to attack one bunker, and he himself took Lehto’s to the other.

  The worst part was that, when you were bogged down with those contraptions, it was hard to stop anywhere you wouldn’t be seen. But, finally, the sweaty ordeal was over, and they were just behind the infantry.

  ‘Get into position!’

  Panting, cursing and urging one another on, they lugged the gun to a small depression shielded by a fallen birch. Vanhala pulled the heavy gun-stand into the ditch. Kaukonen fixed the gun to it. Koskela and Kariluoto agreed that the machine gun would fire at the openings in the bunker, providing some cover for Kariluoto and his men to try to get into the trench.

  ‘Shoot for the mouths of the bunker!’ Koskela commanded, and Kaukonen started shooting.

  Kariluoto rose to a crouch: ‘My platoon: advance!’ The side of the fallen birch crackled beside him, obliging him to press low to the ground again.

  Vanhala smiled, in the middle of everything, and said, ‘Those fellows are out to kill us over there. Guys can’t take a joke.’

  ‘
Feed the belts!’ Lehto called curtly, sending Vanhala cowering into silence.

  ‘You got it, Kaukonen. Aim’s good.’

  Kaukonen glowed at these words of praise and lifted his head to see better, but quickly ducked back down again. Kariluoto crawled off.

  Several of the men tried to follow, but their venture was cut short when one of the light machine-gunners fell and the guy helping him was wounded in the same burst. A bullet had gone through his throat, which now wheezed grotesquely, its broken whine draining the men of their last shreds of willpower. The gruesome sights were starting to overwhelm them. It was too much to take all at once.

  ‘They’re sending us out to be killed for nothing,’ a voice came from somewhere. ‘Where are those fucking fancy-pants hiding?’

  ‘Shut up and adva-h-ance!’ Kariluoto’s angry voice wavered on the brink of sobs as he screamed. He knew ‘fancy-pants’ couldn’t be referring to him, since he had been out in front of his men the whole time, but he still felt as if he had been insulted. Koskela crawled beside him and said, ‘Let it go. You’ll get yourself killed for nothing … you won’t get ’em to move that way … you’ll just get yourself killed, and for nothing.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do? What else is there to be done? We have to try to advance somehow. Either they come or they don’t … but I for one am not stopping.’

  ‘I know a trick. We could try to get one guy up close with a satchel charge. It’d work better if some of the others could help him out with some fire. Tiny little movement like that might go unnoticed. If you get the whole platoon to charge, it will cost us several men no matter what.’

  ‘I’ll try it myself.’

  ‘Won’t work. I’m going.’

  ‘But I should be the one … This is my mission, not yours. In any case, a machine-gunner’s not supposed to take the lead.’ Kariluoto was dismayed. Koskela’s suggestion struck him as insulting, and in the same blow it seemed to confirm that he had failed.

  Koskela could feel himself getting irritated at this excessive touchiness and egotism, as he himself had never set much store by such things. Nonetheless he replied calmly, ‘It won’t work that way. Somebody’s got to get the men to advance and that’s your job. Otherwise there’s no point.’

  Kariluoto realized Koskela was right and ordered his men to bring over the satchel charges. The men had been lugging them along to the right of the formation, and Koskela started binding two of the nine-pound charges together with some wire.

  ‘Eighteen pounds. You think you can make it with all that?’

  No answer. Koskela was running his mouth down the twisted wire to clamp it tight. Finally the satchel charge was ready.

  ‘Lehto. You keep that rooster crowing non-stop soon as I head out. And the same goes for Kariluoto’s guys. Just don’t shoot me.’

  Koskela examined the terrain closely. The men, for their part, just watched him. Quiet Koski’s heading in.

  Kariluoto was beginning to have doubts. His mind was suddenly overcome with fear that Koskela would be shot down in his mission, or that the satchel charge would have no effect, in which case Koskela would also be shot. That would make two men lost on his account. Kaarna’s death returned to him now as something that had been his fault.

  ‘What if the charge doesn’t have any effect?’ he asked, hesitating. ‘Maybe I should just try again without …’

  Koskela was no longer looking at Kariluoto. His eyes were fixed on the terrain and his mind was focused on the task before him, as he said, almost in passing, ‘There’s nothing over there but a layer of logs and mud. Eighteen pounds oughtta do something to it. Anyway, it buys you the time you need.’ He set out, dragging the satchel charges at his side.

  ‘Watch out for Koskela and fire!’ Kariluoto ordered. He had definitely decided to attack immediately – alone if need be – if Koskela was killed, just as he would in the event that he was able to throw the satchel charges. The men accelerated their fire until they were shooting at maximum capacity. The machine gun chattered and rattled.

  The water boiled trying to cool the gun, and Kaukonen lifted his head to try to better direct the stream of fire. At just that moment a heavy sigh burst from his mouth – ‘Aa–aah!’ and his head hit the handle as it slumped over the machine gun.

  ‘Kaukonen!’ Vanhala yelled, half asking, half trying to attract the others’ attention.

  Lehto went pale, but resolutely took hold of Kaukonen’s body, lifted it to the side, took hold of the handle, and started shooting. He spotted a man’s upper body swing into view from the enemy trench and throw a hand grenade in Koskela’s direction. He turned the machine gun in the same blink of an eye and watched his fire strike its target. ‘Koskela … watch out,’ he hollered, and then with cruel glee he muttered, ‘Got him.’

  The hand grenade went off several yards from Koskela. He lost his cap and hair was flying wildly above his face. He yelled backwards, ‘Just keep shooting like hell, I’m gonna try to get closer.’

  He inched his way forward, darting from one bit of cover to the next. The tall grass helped, as did the fact that the barricade had been set too close to the enemy positions. There was a boulder he could crouch behind about a dozen yards from the bunker. Holding their breath, the men firing realized that if he managed to make it behind that boulder, victory was theirs. And when Koskela made it, they watched how he calmly settled his body into position. Then he pulled the fuse and, like a flash of lightning, shot up and swung round, and the charge was flying. It happened so quickly that the men hardly knew how Koskela had thrown it. The moment he rose, the satchel charge was already airborne, and scarcely had it left his hands than he was lying behind the boulder again, hands over his ears.

  A few dozen nearby voices screamed at the top of their lungs as the charge exploded directly on the roof of the bunker. The end of a log stuck out of the smoke.

  ‘Charge!’ Kariluoto dashed forward and his men immediately followed.

  ‘The Russkis are running … take ’em down, men!’

  ‘Over there … shoot! They’re pulling out. Don’t let them get away.’

  Kariluoto was already in the trench, launching a stream of hand grenades into the mouth of the bunker. Ukkola’s submachine gun purred through cartridges, following them up. The platoon was already in the trench, and the men, drunk with excitement, had begun to overrun it, which was not difficult, seeing as the stunned enemy soldiers had already started to abandon it.

  Kariluoto sent a message to Autio requesting a reserve platoon be dispatched on the double to help sweep the positions in front of the Second Company. He sent his platoon out in front of their own company, while one machine gun and one infantry squad went to secure the opposite direction. The defense disintegrated quickly. The neighboring platoon was already in the trench and the fleeing enemy troops were falling along the edge of the forest as they ran for cover.

  The squad sent to reinforce the Second Company observed that the enemy had abandoned the second bunker as well, and so started securing it for themselves. The Jaeger platoon Autio had sent from his battalion arrived from the rear and continued the sweep of enemy positions.

  Koskela sat on the ground, blinking his eyes and shaking the dirt from his hair. Lehto was on his knees in front of him, bursting, ‘Ho-ly shit! Ho-ly shiiiit! What a stunt!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What a stunt!’

  ‘I won’t be able to hear anything for a little while. It’s happened to me before. Same thing happened back at Lemetti … But woof, what a blast! Go with Kariluoto. I’m gonna wait here for a bit,
till these flaps open up a little. It’s kind of rough out there when you can’t hear anything …’

  IV

  Bodies were strewn about the trench, many with their pockets already flipped inside out.

  ‘Look guys, insignia.’

  ‘Wow, that revolver’s a Nagant …’

  ‘It’s mine. I saw it first.’

  ‘Guys, stop scrounging. Keep moving.’ The machine-gunners went back to see Kaukonen’s body. The medics already had it on a stretcher.

  ‘Where did it hit?’

  ‘Went in through his cheek. Came out the back of his neck.’

  ‘Better to go quick.’ Lehto’s voice had an almost cruel pleasure in it.

  ‘So ends the war for the Kaukonen boy,’ Rahikainen said, and even he seemed solemn, though the deaths of the others didn’t interest him much.

  ‘Let’s get moving. We’ll be left behind.’

  In truth, they just wanted to get away from the body as quickly as possible, as they’d known the guy for more than a year, after all. The fighting of just moments ago still held them in its grip, but even so it felt strange to contemplate this yellowish face. One eye had fallen shut, but the other was bulging out, glassy and empty.

  ‘You guys go. I’ll be right there,’ Lehto said as he headed off to the rear.

  ‘Riitaoja.’

  A man appeared from the bushes and stood at attention. ‘C-c-c-corporal, sir,’ Riitaoja obediently replied, like a new recruit, smiling an idiotic smile.

  ‘You motherfucking piece of shit! What are you grinning at?’

  ‘I’m not grinning, C-c-c-corporal, sir.’ Riitaoja’s smile disappeared, and his terrified eyes started darting about furtively, though he was still standing stiffly at attention.

  ‘C-c-c-corporal, sir! C-c-c-corporal, sir!’ Lehto mimicked him furiously. ‘You’re not going to get out of this by calling me “sir”. Fuck, I’d make hash out of you – if it was worth it.’