Unknown Soldiers Page 9

  Lieutenant Lammio came up behind them. A disgruntled Mielonen trailed a few paces after. The change in company commander had hit him hardest of all. No more of the Captain’s familiar humming and rambling on, not to mention the squabbling, which was certainly out of the question now. Now, commands came in shrill, hyper-correct contortions, whose every pretentiously crossed ‘t’ made the men wince.

  Lammio had no particular business being there, seeing as the machine-gunners had been split up into platoons and attached to individual infantry companies. He was just strutting about for his own amusement, flexing his muscles and enjoying his new position. As soon as he was out of earshot, Rahikainen snorted, ‘So now they’ve landed us with that peacock. It’s just a wonder he didn’t ask us to salute.’

  Private Määttä took a drag on his cigarette and murmured, ‘He can ask whatever he wants. Don’t mean we’re gonna do it. My flipper’s feeling pretty heavy these days.’

  It was a startling outburst, as up to then Määttä had been the most compliant and obedient of men, never uttering so much as a word of complaint. In the previous day’s attack, every one of them had taken note of his calm, downright cold-blooded bravery. They had also noticed that he never requested a rotation in carrying equipment. It was as if the little guy could haul a machine gun indefinitely. Shifts would stretch out longer when it was his turn to carry, since it was only after a long battle with his conscience that the next guy would finally say, ‘All right, hand it over.’

  ‘Sure, if you want,’ Määttä would reply. ‘Or I can just keep it.’

  Määttä was smoking his cigarette in long, slow drags. There was no mistaking his words. They sensed that instinctively. His wasn’t just the usual talking big while backs were turned. What they couldn’t understand was where this sudden defiance had appeared from. In truth, the matter was simple: this quiet guy, whose reticence tended to relegate him to the fringes of things, had realized that he could stand his ground just as well as anybody else when the chips were down. Death had failed to impress him – and there’s nothing worse than that.

  ‘My flipper’s feelin’ pretty heavy, too,’ Rahikainen chimed in.

  The morning sun was hot. The men were glum and worn out. Can’t the Third Battalion advance? … We’re gonna have to open the road again ourselves … of course we are … no news there.

  Booms began echoing from the enemy side. They dragged themselves up to a seated position and listened. The rumbling lasted three, four, five seconds, and then: hoo-ee!

  The first shell crashed down on the roadside just in front of them. ‘Get down!’ The order was pointless, as every one of them was already trembling in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road. All thoughts were banished and their heads pounded as they waited for their worst fears to be realized. The ground shook and blasts of air kept pressing their clothes against their bodies. Shrapnel whirred through the air, dropping to the ground with rocks and clods of earth. It lasted scarcely two minutes. When the echo of the last explosion had died away, a frantic scream pierced the silence. ‘Stretchers! Bring the stretchers! Medics!’

  Two medics came running from behind, carrying a stretcher. Somebody was lying on the road bank out in front of them trying to get up. ‘Aargh … yeow … help me …’

  A couple of men were kneeling beside the wounded. ‘Shh, shh, stop crying, stop crying,’ they kept repeating frantically. The man’s scream was so gut-wrenching that they lost their heads entirely and couldn’t even manage to help him. His shoulders were badly torn up. The medics started binding his wounds, struggling against the man’s frenzied thrashing. He tried to yank himself upright and yelled, ‘Help … shoot me, somebody! Ah … ow … you goddamn pansies! Somebody shoot, damn it!’

  ‘Ylitalo’s dead.’ A pale-faced man was coming toward them from further down the road, holding his bleeding arm. ‘Could you guys bandage this?’

  The overwrought medics were in a panic. One was struggling to keep the wounded guy from thrashing about, while the other was trying to bandage him as best he could. Their words came rushing out all at once. ‘How – we can’t do everything all at once! Where the hell is the head medic? Scaredy-cat son-of-a-bitch is hiding and we’re supposed to be all over the goddamn place.’

  The man sat down on the bank of the road. A resolute expression fell over his pale face as he said, ‘Stop whining like a two-year-old, for fuck’s sake. I can wrap this myself. Ylitalo over there in that ditch’s got half his brains blown out.’

  The air was still thick with smoke and dust. ‘Scatter!’ Kariluoto yelled. ‘Don’t bunch up all together!’ His face was pale, but a resolute gleam lit up his eyes. In the brunt of the attack, he had lifted his head, just to test himself – and it had risen easily. He felt the same victorious feeling wash over him that he had felt after the previous day’s attack. It didn’t have the same wild abandon this time, though, as Ylitalo was one of his men, as were both of the wounded.

  Lahtinen crawled out of his ditch. ‘To the Urals, huh, boys? Well, by all means, why don’t you strike up the band!’

  ‘You know that chorus even in your sleep, don’t you?’ Hietanen was irritated. ‘Of all the goddamn lies. Sure, just listen to a shell to hear if it’s coming close. Hell of a whopper that is! Biggest goddamn lie I ever heard. It doesn’t make any noise at all. Nothing! Just thwamp! when it blows up on the side of the road. Pre-tty curious if you ask me. They said out on the Western Front you could hear ’em in time to get down. Well, I’ll tell you straight out that those guys have never heard a shell over there if that’s the case. Maybe they’ve got something else.’

  Määttä took a drag on his cigarette. ‘The thing’s gonna blow up just the same whether it makes a noise or not.’

  Lammio arrived. ‘Scatter! Did you not hear the command?’

  ‘Oh, shut the fuck up, asshole,’ Rahikainen muttered from his ditch. Just then the enemy artillery started rumbling again and a thump shook the ground as the men dived for cover. Lammio hadn’t moved a muscle. Neither had Koskela, who was still sitting perfectly still. ‘They’re over us, guys.’

  Lehto, Määttä and Hietanen pulled themselves together quickly. The bombs whistled overhead and exploded far behind them.

  ‘Whistling bad news for our artillery battery,’ somebody observed.

  Lammio stood on the road and screeched, ‘All of you men had better start believing what you are told. That round could just as easily have struck here.’

  His lack of fear made the men hate him all the more, depriving them as it did of the opportunity to despise him. Rahikainen even whispered again, ‘Quit whining, you little bugger.’

  Riitaoja was still lying in his ditch, face pressed to the ground. He was like a terrified child. Lucky for him, ambition did not figure amongst his concerns. Neither did any conception of ‘homeland’, so he was at liberty to be just as terrified as he liked.

  ‘Why don’t you make some more noise?’ Sihvonen muttered. ‘Holler and wave your arms around, why don’t you? That way those binoculars over in that observation tower’ll spot you right away and be sure to shoot all our guts out. And we’ll just stand here like a bull’s-eye. That’s right. Nothing but goddamn blockheads running this show.’

  The injured guy had fallen unconscious. Two medics drenched in sweat carried him back on the stretcher. The fellow with the injured arm had refused to let the medic bandage his wound after he’d finished with the other man, snarling angrily, ‘Gi-git …’

  ‘Hey, hey,’ the nervous medic said. ‘I popped out about twenty years ago and I’m not goin’ back in … Look,
bandage it yourself, if you like. It’s not like I want to.’

  The man walked off, waving his good arm and calling out, ‘So long, boys! This fellow here is headed home on leave.’ He was happy. Not only because of the leave, but also because he knew that later that night, somebody in a tent would say, ‘Tough son-of-a-bitch, that Rantanen guy. Whew! My God!’

  ‘Move out!’

  They got up. They practically marched on one other’s heels they were so eager to get away. Ylitalo’s head was covered, but some liquid from his canned pork was dripping from his bread sack, as a shard of shrapnel had punctured his emergency rations as well.

  II

  ‘Enemy directly ahead, behind a barricade about three hundred yards out. Two armed bunkers reported back there, at least. Artillery opens fire for five minutes. Mortars join two minutes after that. H-hour is at 10.48.’ Kariluoto kept his voice low.

  The men listened, looking at the barricade visible between the trees. It ran along a rather steep slope and stretched for tens of yards. They couldn’t see any barbed wire, though. Reconnaissance missions carried out earlier had determined that there were several machine-gun nests in dugouts behind the barricade. Two fell in the sector assigned to Kariluoto’s platoon.

  A scout about a dozen yards out in front of them whispered hoarsely, ‘Movement behind the barricade. Shall I give it a shot?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Everyone still.’

  Off to the right, the artillery observer was speaking into his radio. ‘Esa speaking. Esa here. Masa, do you read me? Masa, do you read me? Over, over.’

  The artillery observer’s low voice sounded as if it were reciting a strange incantation. The men’s anxiety mounted, as his call meant that all hell was about to break loose. The forest was damp with morning dew and humming with the buzzing of mosquitoes. The spiderwebs hanging in the low blueberry bushes clung to their hands unpleasantly as blood pounded through their wrists. Squad leaders whispered final instructions. The men tightened their belts and put their cartridges into their pockets where they’d be easy to reach.

  ‘Hand grenades at the ready. Who’s got the satchel charges?’

  ‘Here’s one. Two … Should I launch them?’

  ‘No, absolutely not.’

  The artillery observer was muttering figures into his radio. Nervous explosions went off on their left, here and there, in the Second Company’s sector. The enemy could scent an attack.

  It was 10.43. Behind them it seemed like the whole world was being torn to pieces. Shrill cannons, low-booming howitzer fire, and the rolling thunder of the heavy artillery came thumping on one another’s heels as if they were racing. The men clung to the ground as the shower of shells sailed over them, sounding like a clattering train. Their bodies bounced and shook along with the movements of the earth beneath them. Smoke, earth, rocks and wood came pouring down from behind the barricade. Flames flared up in the gray whirl.

  ‘Jesus! Can a person survive that?’ A pale face rose to watch.

  ‘And now it’s your turn, buddy,’ another voice murmured low, with vindictive pleasure.

  ‘They’ve overshot a little,’ Koskela said, kneeling to look up the hill.

  Kariluoto’s watch ticked. 10.44 … 45 … 46 … 47 … ‘Forty-seven … keep them under fire as you move out … use the barricade to your advantage … if I get scared, just shoot me … we’re going all-out …’

  10.47. Kariluoto waited conscientiously until his watch showed 48 minutes exactly, and just at that moment the last shell sailed overhead.

  ‘Fourth Platoon, advance!’

  Kariluoto dashed quickly toward the barricade, keeping low to the ground. The men followed. The scout darted out in front of all of them. Enemy mortars whistled overhead and exploded behind them.

  ‘Advance! Advance!’ the men urged one another on.

  Fighting was already in full swing in the neighboring sector. The scout’s submachine gun rattled away and returning fire hammered straight back. The air whistled and whined, pounded and boomed.

  ‘All right men, let ’er rip!’ Kariluoto leapt forward. He gritted his teeth and hollered, ‘Move out! Mow them down … the bastards … now we’re going to shove you bastards right back where you came from … Asia for the Asians …’ Kariluoto stoked the flames of his anger to keep his courage up. Maybe it helped him – in any case, he advanced ever further, despite the angry whizzes nearly grazing his eyebrows.

  ‘Yeeessss, men …’

  Because the platoon was still advancing at a crouch, taking cover only now and then, he was hoping to advance directly into a charge, which would settle the whole thing quickly.

  Just then, the scout dropped his submachine gun and fell to his knees, pressing his cap to his face. Blood seeped between his fingers. ‘My head … it got me in the head … my eyebrow’s torn up …’

  ‘Can you manage by yourself?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so … it’s not fatal … can’t be dangerous … a head wound kills instantly if it’s fatal … but I’m still here … so it’s not an emergency …’ The man was dazed by the blow and kept repeating this thought that had sprung into his mind, which in itself was perfectly correct.

  He started to make his way back on all fours as the others continued to advance, though the sight of his injury had prompted several of them to take cover. The barricaded slope lay in front of them. An unbroken stream of infantry fire was coming out from behind it, but the fervor of the fire far exceeded its threat. It basically went straight over them.

  About halfway up the slope, however, it began to be more effective. The men pressed themselves low to the ground. Some darted from cover to cover and some crawled, but several were already trapped in the line of fire. Kariluoto was four or five yards out in front of his men. He was crawling on all fours, yelling constantly, ‘Advance, men …! Let ’em have it!’

  Then somebody yelled, ‘Watch out for the bars of soap!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The soap. Hanging from the logs. It’s TNT.’

  ‘The barricade’s mined. Watch out for the wires.’

  The barricade was hung with little TNT explosives that looked remarkably like bars of soap. They weren’t terribly dangerous, so long as you weren’t right next to them when they went off, since without shells they were basically just pressure explosives.

  ‘Dismantle them. Be careful!’

  They didn’t have any sappers, but somehow or other they had enough training to manage situations like this, which they were supposed to navigate on their own. The sappers were with the neighboring company, as it was the one tasked with spearheading the attack.

  The men were wary of touching the wires. The advance came to a halt.

  ‘We’re stuck.’

  ‘What kind of sucker’s gonna touch that?’

  ‘They don’t do anything. They’re harmless.’ Kariluoto detached one of the wires, emboldening the men around him to follow his lead.

  Bam!

  ‘Get anyone?’

  ‘Nope. Just the world gettin’ a word in.’

  Kariluoto rose to a squat. ‘Try to keep clear of the rest. Let’s crawl from here.’

  The clamor intensified. It billowed in waves on the right, then on the left. Men screamed out orders and calls to charge. Shells whizzed overhead in both directions as the artilleries battled it out. Bullets whistled, ricochets whined. They began to hear screams of ‘Stre-e-e-tch-ers!’ from the neighboring platoon’s sector.

  The barricade provided them with some cover, as did the boulders and hollows in the terrain. The enemy ma
chine guns weren’t just firing off bursts, but whole belts, hammering from one end straight through to the other. The uproar of battle continued as far as the men could make out above the blasts of their own fire. The regiment was attacking the bunker line. And from further off on the right, they could hear the clatter of a neighboring regiment’s attack.

  The air trembled as booms echoed through the summer morning. Thousands of gun barrels glowed with heat, thousands of hands loaded and fired, and thousands of men crawled and dashed their way forward, body and soul gripped with anxiety. And in that same anxious grip, thousands of others fended them off, staunchly defending their posts to the bitter end. Tens, hundreds died; hundreds were wounded; there were displays of fear, and there were displays of spectacular bravery. For more than a year, a great proportion of the Finnish people had been quietly awaiting their moment of revenge, fists clenched in their pockets. There was real force behind the attack.

  But there was real force behind the defense, too. It was clear to Kariluoto that leading a charge in the face of this fire would mean the end of his platoon, even if he could convince the men to attempt it. They were crawling slowly.

  ‘Fucking artillery! It’s no help at all,’ somebody gasped.