Arno acknowledged this apateia, this stoic serenity. He also liked the idea of physical exercise, the concept of shaping your life positively with cross-country running, skiing and football.
He had his companions, he had his girlfriend. She was named Maja Boklöf. They met from time to time. Indeed, the natural way to spend a Friday night was to be with her. This also came to pass this very night in June, 1938, even though nothing of interest happened; the pair met at Arno’s bedsit, had a meal, made love and went to the movies.
So, Arno knew that war was coming. But what about this war, then?
We’ll get to it. First, Arno did his military service later this year, in 1938. For ten months, he trained and served as ration team leader in an infantry regiment, I 14 in Gävle by the north-eastern Swedish coast. As a chef he already knew how to cook; now he had to take responsibility as a team leader, leading two freshmen in the art of bare-bones, military style cooking. Arno quickly adopted his cooking skills to field conditions – and, he even more liked the art of soldiering, learning to shoot, bivouac and fight in the wintry woodland of Sweden.
An anecdote to shed light on Arno’s military service might be this one:
It was a Friday afternoon in February 1939, on Gävle Central Station. Going home on leave, waiting for the Karlstad train, Arno went along the platform, halting at the spot where it bridged a river. He looked at the water flowing between ice floes, he saw mallards sitting around, he saw the stone embankments. He was dressed in grey army uniform and side-cap and before he knew it a man was standing next to him, a man in topcoat and Homburger hat, a decent fellow, so it seemed. The man said:
“You in the Army?”
“I am,” Arno said.
“Defending the realm?”
“Indeed.”
“But what use is it?” the stranger then said. “We’re all gonna die.”
“Wrong,” Arno said. “We are already dead.”
“Oh, are we?” the stranger said. “Well maybe we are. An unconventional answer, I’ll grant you that.”
Then they boarded separate trains. Arno, riding his train, thought about the encounter. He had come up with a witty answer, the one about already being dead, but he could also admit that this stranger, for his part, was somewhat original in his thought. Now, Arno didn’t endorse defeatism but this was something more than that, some rare existentialism, rare, at least, for a chance remark in the crowd.
Make no mistake about it: Arno was all for national defence and combatting Bolshevism but he could also, to a certain extent, appreciate oddities, oddballs and odd men out. As Arno rode the train west to Karlstad, watching the meadows and copses fading away in the darkening afternoon, he thought: if we all were stern fighters, how boring a place the world would be.
Having completed his military service in the spring of 1939, Arno returned to his job as a cook at the Karlstad City Hotel. Meanwhile, Hitler had occupied Czechoslovakia. In August, Poland met the same fate. Thus war broke out for real, with England and France declaring war on Germany. For Arno this meant no immediate change. However, as a fully trained conscript he was ordered to be prepared to serve again; if the order came he must go to Boden in Norrland, his wartime mobilisation station. The realm was in danger and he was forbidden to leave the country without permission. But besides this, life in Karlstad went on as before. Arno had his chef’s job and he had his Maja.
He had his girl, but the relationship by this time had cooled off. It all ended in October 1939. Maja gave him an ultimatum: marry me or leave me! Arno chose the latter option.
By this time Arno was thinking more about war than women. The ongoing war was getting to him. And later that autumn, in November, he was inducted into War Preparedness Duty, having to put on service uniform again. Sweden wasn’t in the war, it was neutral and not under attack, but it had to have its Field Army, Navy and Air Force mobilised at wartime strength, prepared for anything. This had begun on September 3, 1939, when France and England declared war on Germany. Thus, War Preparedness Duty was Sweden’s way of meeting the challenge of the already raging war.
As for Arno, the Field Regiment he belonged to was grouped in Norrbotten in the far north of the country. They lay quietly at a bend of the Kalix River, near the border with Finland. Living in a sailcloth tent, leading the two ration team cooks and ensuring that the Company had one cooked meal per day – this was Arno’s task. It was a life of grey woolen uniforms, marching boots, field cap and white fur coat, a life of guard duty, catering lists, the quartermaster’s sharp eye on the business, pea soup and meat soup. The meat was dried, government issue meat. One day in January, a welcome change: Arno got hold of an accidentally shot reindeer. It was dismembered and became the base of various stews and soups for a day or two. It made him popular among the Company’s rank and file. Being a chef in an immobile, bivouacked field unit was like being a ship’s cook: the service monotonous and food one of the few highlights of the day.
In December 1939 Soviet Russia attacked Finland, Sweden’s eastern neighbour. There were fears of Sweden too being attacked. Sweden wasn’t a war zone in the proper sense but the Zeitgeist was war and nothing but war. This came through both implicitly and explicitly. This is an anecdote of Arno’s encounter with the war spirit:
One day in late March he stood in the kitchen tent guarding the fire in the cooking stove. The tent was three by four metres, supported at one end by the field-kitchen proper, the floor covered with planks. Arno himself was bare-headed and wore an apron over his grey uniform. At a nearby workbench a Private stood peeling and chopping onions for pea soup. By a mess table a Platoon Leader sat talking with a visiting Sergeant Major who had been in Finland, having taken part in the action of the Winter War. They were drinking warm currant juice and eating flatbread with whey-cheese.
Arno didn’t hear everything the two said but he overheard this line from the Sergeant: “This is no hands up-war.” Arno immediately understood what he meant, condensed into this wisdom: in the combat zone, shoot to kill. That was the reality of the World War II combat zone. Arno made a mental note of this.
Another anecdote of the warlike Zeitgeist is this. At some time during the Preparedness Duty, in February, Arno’s Company had been lined up for inspection. It was before an exercise with live ammunition. The head of the Company, Captain Rapp, had scolded the Company. “What the hell is this?!?” he said. “You look like lambs on the way to the slaughter. Shape up, damn it. You’re soldiers, so look the part!”
After this and a series of attention, at ease and general barking the Captain had whipped up the team spirit. Arno remembered this: when you’re a soldier, at least try to look the part. You have to will to be a soldier, wanting to fight, whenever you fight. You need that fire in your eye – “the Eye of the Tiger”. That was how Swedish battles like Narva, Lund and Holowczyn had been fought and won; the Swedish soldiers going out into these battles hadn’t looked like frightened sheep, they had looked like warriors.
In March 1940 the Finnish Winter War ended. Finland had to cede substantial parts of its eastern regions to Russia. Sweden, for its part, had followed the war closely. It even had a Volunteer Brigade of 10,000 men taking part in the action, the largest volunteer unit any country sent. With the imminent threat seemingly over, the Swedish Army cut down on the level of preparedness. For example, Arno’s Battalion was disbanded at the beginning of April and the men sent home. At virtually the same time the Germans occupied Norway, meaning that war was nearby still. Nonetheless, Arno could return to his chef’s job at the Karlstad hotel. Now he was head chef, a position entailing planning the lunch menu for the week, making purchases for this and for the à la carte, and leading the workforce of one cook, one apprentice and the cold cut lady. The evening menu, that is, the à la carte menu, for its part, was always virtually the same: herring appetiser, various fish from Lake Vänern and beef with parsley butter and red wine sauce, served with pommes gratinés.