‘What for?’
‘They gotta light machine-gunner over there, see. And I wanna git me behind that stump. They’ll kill me if they’re left’ta shoot in peace. So you shoot real hard!’
The light machine-gun opened fire and Rokka got up. There was a flash of gray as he made a dash for the root, and only once he’d ducked behind it did the hail of bullets start whistling after him.
Rokka needed no more than a blink of the eye to figure out what was concealed in the mass of alder bushes he’d ordered the man to keep under fire. There was a pit in there with three men inside. One guy with a submachine gun and a light-machine-gunner with a fellow helping him. The latter had his light machine-gun, one of those Soviet ‘Emma’s, hammering away on his trail, but he himself was safely under cover of the stump. Flames fluttered from its fire damper, and Rokka could clearly see the man’s broad-boned jaw pressed up against the butt of the light machine gun. He took a hand grenade from his belt and felt a wave of smugness wash over him, prompted by his perfect confidence that his target was toast. When his eye caught sight of a smooth pine cone, he snatched it and threw. He regretted it instantly, of course, but he just hadn’t been able to resist, so what of it? The unexpected pine cone sailed smack into the pile of sticks. One of the men noticed it, but by then Rokka’s hand grenade was already airborne. A panicked scream came from the pit, and the heads disappeared. The pile of sticks exploded into the air and Rokka made a dash for the pit. One of the six hands moved and Rokka shot it down as he ran.
Dirt flew up around the rim of the pit and Rokka pressed himself low, yelling, ‘C’mon, fellas! I’ll fire! You all know what’s out there in front of us? Finland! C’mon fellas! Now!’
He determined which direction the firing was coming from, and as soon as it paused, raised his head and shot. No more danger from that pit. He glanced backwards long enough to see the platoon leader, Ensign Taskinen, rise up to yell something and fall in the same blink of an eye. Then he saw the guy with the light machine gun lying dead in the spot he’d just passed. Further back was yet another fellow, his head rolling back and forth gruesomely as he fell to the ground. Rokka cleaned out another pit whose dwellers hadn’t yet caught on to what was happening.
As soon as he had stopped shooting, Rokka whirled around, as someone had thudded into his hole. It was Viirilä. He was making room for himself amidst the bodies and tore open one of the Russians’ packs. He found a long, untouched loaf of bread inside, which he promptly shoved down his shirt, against his bare chest. He didn’t have an undershirt. ‘Ain’t worth sporting an undershirt round here, like this job was better than it is, phahahaha!’ Lice had taken over Viirilä’s undershirt, and he had burned it over a campfire. ‘Phahahahah!’
Viirilä’s arrival had not gone unnoticed, and both men ducked their heads as dirt flew up about the edges of the foxhole. Viirilä stomped his feet on the floor of the pit and hollered, ‘Hey, you over there! Yeah, you! What the hell do you think you’re doin’? Uh-huh… Cut it out! Either that or I’m gonna come over there and take that gun off your hands myself.’
‘Lissen. We clear out a couple a foxholes so the fellas can git in ’em… Then we steamroll ’em, see? You take the right, I take the left. You got any hand grenades?’
‘Yeah, I got a two or three potato mashers… You know the French for “black cat”?’
‘No, dunno… Lissen, now ain’t the time…’ Rokka was irritated, as the spot they were in demanded a quick follow-up, but he knew from experience that talking to Viirilä was like talking to a lunatic. The man had his own way of doing things.
Viirilä suddenly raised his submachine gun and fired a short burst, finishing off some man who had just raised his helmeted head above the edge of his pit.
‘It’s a dark miaow. Phahahaha!’
A hand grenade sailed toward them. As soon as it went off, Rokka raised his gun, knowing that its throwers would also be watching to see where it landed, and took out yet another of the most dangerous enemy soldiers. Viirilä peeked out at the terrain and squatted down in the pit ready to sprint. Then he commanded himself, ‘Private Viirilä. Man the foxhole of the enemy soldier you have just executed, then fire at the Soviet soldiers’ machine-gun position that is located at the base of that pine. The pine is situated in the eastern portion of the Greater Finland. In order to paralyze enemy morale, you are to strike up a spirited battle cry.’
Rokka had also spotted this same machine-gun position. It sat in the protection of a boulder that prevented any of their fire from reaching it. The same rock meant that the machine gun couldn’t shoot at them either, but it was perfectly capable of annihilating anything in the pit Viirilä was eyeing. Rokka decided to shoot at the rock to subdue the men as Viirilä made his dash, and as soon as Viirilä rose, he opened fire.
Viirilä bolted off. Seeing him in his normal state, nobody would ever have imagined that this hulking beast of a man had so much speed and power in him. His army boots – two sizes too large – thudded down two or three times as he leapt between the pits. With his last thump, he roared, ‘Holy crap, it’s Saaaataaaan!’
Rokka kept the rock sparking with continual fire. The machine gun was silent and thus condemning itself to certain destruction. Viirilä’s monstrosity of a head rose from the pit and he emptied the drum of his submachine gun into the enemy position. One of the wounded machine-gunners tried to crawl to safety, but Viirilä had already reloaded his gun, blurting as he fired, ‘Stay with your group! Private Viirilä’s orders.’
Just then Rokka took off. He made it to a strong shooting position as well, and the two of them cut an opening in the line of defense along the slope. It was no more than thirty yards across, but it was enough. When Koskela saw that Rokka and Viirilä had opened up the possibility for a charge, he joined the men himself and then, ordered it. The moment was, above all, psychologically opportune. The men closest had seen the feats of their two comrades and, fired up by their success, they pushed forward.
Hand grenades burst on one side, then the other. Fierce hand-to-hand combat filled the foxholes. Four hours later, Koskela’s company was atop the slope’s ridge, but its force of sixty-eight men strong had shrunk to seventeen.
They made it to Major Sarastie’s headquarters and found his body stripped down to its underwear. There, a fierce counter-attack took them by surprise and fending it off proved no easy task. Määttä and Vanhala had to shoot through the belt of every last assailant before the attack was put down.
Kariluoto was crouched beside the remains of the ambulance. The bodies reeked something terrible. The ones inside had been burnt to a crisp, but Hietanen and the new recruit who’d made it out of the vehicle hadn’t burned, only their clothes had. Hietanen’s leather belt still smelled like it was smoldering.
The First Company had also managed to advance somewhat. The enemy had pulled back their position as well, when Koskela’s attack pushed it out of its positions south of the road. But it had dug in its heels again and skirmishing had given way to heavy fighting.
Casualties were high. There was no blaming the men for any lack of effort this evening. The head of the First Company, Lieutenant Pokki, had fallen almost immediately. He had made the error of yelling condescendingly at some men who had halted in their advance, ‘Come on, boys, move out! Nothing over there but a couple of loose-stooled Russkis.’