They were all mourned as soldiers killed in the line of duty. The names of Kariluoto and Lieutenant Pokki, the First Company’s commander, appeared on the walls of their former schools. Russian work teams buried them all, along with the battalion’s other dead, beside the swamp, not far from Sarastie’s command post.
Chapter Fifteen
Upon receiving word of Kariluoto’s death, Koskela immediately got the head of the Second Company on the phone. He suggested the man take over command. The Lieutenant turned him down, however. The honor held no allure for him, and besides, he knew Koskela himself was the better man for the job.
‘If you consent to a retreat through the ponds, I’m pulling out,’ Koskela said.
The Lieutenant hesitated. He would have to get in touch with the Division Commander by radio first.
Koskela was irritated. In truth, there was no way he was going to continue with the attack, but Lieutenant Colonel Karjula might order the Second Company commander to do so. Koskela had been thinking they could just break off, and not get back in touch until all possibility of continuing this useless massacre of men had passed. He knew Karjula well enough to fear that the man might suspect him of exaggerating in his assessment of the situation.
Nor was he mistaken. But he declared flatly that at least the part of the battalion under his command was not going to continue the attack. The Division Commander was infuriated. He had assembled a weak force to secure the west side, and if the battalion pulled out from where it was, the enemy would immediately shift more men over to the barricade, which would enable them to push it off the road.
They were still arguing when a great clamor began over by the line by the brook. The phone rang and the Second Company sent word that a fierce attack was underway. Koskela brusquely apprised the Commander of the situation, to which the latter replied furiously, ‘In any cathe, you are to bring the equipment back with you.’
‘Not the anti-tank guns, at any rate. But the battalion I’ll bring.’ Koskela put down the radio phone and said to the artillery observer, ‘We’re going to keep that guy off for a little while.’
Then the phone started ringing and the messengers, running. Commands were clear, single-minded and thoroughly considered. Koskela pulled the First Company back somewhat. Then he withdrew the Third Company from the south side of the road entirely and set it up in defensive positions along the north side, so that the line ran partially along the road, turned to follow the brook line, then curved back around toward the north on the far left wing. Thus he got the men into a horseshoe formation, and ordered the wounded to be brought into its center. He had already had the wounded from his own company carried to the north side of the road earlier in the evening, as well as assigned a command group to make stretchers out of stakes and tent tarps. At one point he had thought that they might get the road open, but he had proceeded with his preparations regardless.
One of Kariluoto’s men asked, hesitating, ‘What about the bodies? We brought the Captain’s body out too.’
‘The living are enough.’ Koskela didn’t even glance at Kariluoto’s body, nor any of the other dead. There was no time for prayers. He was concerned with nothing but saving the battalion, which he had decided he was going to do, come hell or high water. His face expressionless, he issued commands with businesslike brevity, and without thought or question, the men obeyed.
He was most concerned about the Second Company’s position. How were the men going to be able to pull out under that kind of enemy pressure? Koskela knew that that kind of withdrawal was one of the most difficult operations to pull off, because in that sort of situation the squads could easily get mixed up – panic, even. And he couldn’t send any help, as he needed to have a position ready to receive them, through which the Second Company might pull out safely.
Luckily, the guys manning the south side of the road were able to disengage and retreat to safety before the tanks rumbled over the defensive forces alongside the road. The tanks destroyed one of the anti-tank guns, and its men along with it, but the other went flying spectacularly into the air, its own men having amassed everything they had by way of explosives and ignited them all underneath it just as they fled. A barrel explosion would have destroyed the gun more easily, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive – and even in their mortal danger, the men really enjoyed the fireworks.
They left behind four machine guns, as well as some of the wounded, but considering the circumstances, Koskela was satisfied.
He sent the Second Company northward to spearhead the coming march. The First and Third Companies would hold the ring of the horseshoe henceforth. Then he gathered the machine-gun, mortar and anti-tank teams, as well as the artillery observers, in its center.
‘Get yourselves into carrying squads of four. If we’re short of stretchers, make some up quick. The wounded we carry and the machine guns we dump in the pond. We’ll just keep one as a souvenir.’
Koskela looked around and saw Määttä, leaning on his machine gun. ‘Want to bring yours?’
‘Don’t make much difference. Whatever you want.’
It seemed natural that Määttä’s gun should be the one they kept. He’d been looking after it since the first days of the war, first shooting it, then leading its team – and now there he was, leaning on it, mute as a statue. Not once had any of them seen him hand it over to somebody else to carry. At the beginning, this devotion to a weapon the others detested for its weight and unwieldiness had just been a statement of the small-bodied man’s quiet ambition, but over time it had become elevated into an ideal – the only ideal Määttä really had in connection with the war. He would have been able to toss it into the pond, but it was almost unthinkable that it would stay behind with the enemy unless Määttä’s body stayed with it. It had fallen to the enemy for a little while, when Lahtinen had fallen and it had stayed with him, but Määttä didn’t think you could really blame the gun for that. After the enemy withdrew the next day, they had found it a little way from Lahtinen’s body, and from that point on Määttä had guarded it like a precious inheritance.
Even if Määttä had answered his question offhandedly, Koskela knew that he had given Määttä something no decoration ever could ever have. With his question, he had attested before all of them to Määttä’s superior ability to carry the machine gun.
The others hesitated at first. It felt strange to throw weapons into the pond, weapons they’d been dragging around the whole war long, often with the very last shreds of their strength.
‘Just toss?’
Koskela grabbed the closest man’s machine gun. ‘Just toss. Like this… I don’t have time for jokes.’
The water heaved and there it went. Koskela’s irritation was as strange as the dumping of the machine guns – but dump them they did, as the men cast their hesitation aside.
‘So long, buddy boy!’
‘Have a good trip, you jack-hammering bastard!’
‘No more tearing up my shoulder!’
Even the war hadn’t quite killed the rascals in them. Their faces beamed with mischievous delight.
Enemy tanks were already on the road, their infantry forcing the men on the horseshoe into combat. In the interest of safety, Koskela set their course due north, designating the small, nameless ponds he had pointed out to Kariluoto earlier as their first destination. The First Company’s patrol had determined that the flanking enemy forces had positioned men all along the north side of the road, and Koskela wanted to avoid running into them at any cost. Burdened down with their loads and the weight of their defeat, the men would be helpless if confronted with any significant fighting. He needed to get the battalion back to the road in one piece, and that was going to require a long detour.