Whew, it’s nothing, Hietanen thought, relieved at the conversational tone of Mielonen’s banter. He was still afraid to ask straight out about departure, though. He was about to say something in response, but didn’t manage to get it out before Mielonen continued, ‘We’re heading out, too. Go alert the Third Platoon, will you? I haven’t got it in me to crawl in there and wake up Koskela.’
‘You’re joking.’ Hietanen felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
‘Nope. Sound the alarm!’
Blood rose to Hietanen’s face. His first wave of anger was so powerful that he was deadly serious when he said, ‘You mother-fucking bastard. I ought to shoot you dead.’
‘Down, boy. Shooting me’s not gonna do anything. Gonna have to knock off some of the big boys for that.’
The angry outbursts that greeted Mielonen’s calls to alert had long since ceased to offend him. He just hollered on as before, ‘Machine-gunners, get rrready to head out!’
No other shout of that strength would have awakened the men just then, but this one did. As Mielonen made his way through the tents, yelling ‘Wake up! Get rrready to head out!’ faces emerged from the tent flaps, spewing curses so vile an onlooker would have thought Mielonen’s calm indifference lunatic.
‘Shut the fuck up, Savo!’
It was hardly the fault of his being from Savo that Mielonen had to wake the tired men, but the words ‘Get ready to head out’ were ones the men hated with a vengeance, rolled Rs or not. And, on hearing them, oh, how they hated Savo – apart from those who were themselves from Savo and thus obliged to demonstrate their anger in other ways.
A furious Hietanen stood between the tents, venting his anger by shouting, ‘Third Platoon, wake up! You’ve slept too much already. Get up! Time to get up and show the people of the world what a terrifying creature the deep-forest warrior is. Up, fearsome lions of Finland! The ground is trembling and the cannons have already let fly. Put down your plow and take up your sabre! Time to add new pages to the glorious, the victorious, the downright staggering military history of Finland!’
Sleepy voices emerged from the tents. All the crown jewels in the arsenal of Finnish curses were trotted out in the service of the men’s bitterness. For the ten-thousandth time, their medal-hunting officers had a chance to hear their glories sung.
‘We’re not going anywhere. Let’s tell the bosses we demand at least three days’ rest before we’re going anywhere. That or they can take off by themselves if they want. Nothing to carry and orderlies looking after them. Ha! Assholes ought to try taking a load on their own backs, then they might understand how much a man can take. The strain on them is so much less than on us infantry guys that they think we can just keep going the way they can.’
Koskela packed up his things, and not without care. Nothing about him suggested that he considered this outburst a sign of insurgency – he seemed happy enough to let the men vent their anger in peace. Nature had somehow hit the bull’s-eye in every aspect of this quiet ensign from the countryside. His education was limited to the basic elementary school curriculum, but his intelligence was keen and never failed to lead him to the best solution for any given situation. His intelligence was not dazzling in speed or agility – on the contrary, the blankness of Koskela’s face might easily be interpreted as almost drowsiness at first glance – but it always cut straight to its target, and so managed to take care of everything it needed to. Now, for example, he knew perfectly well that when he tossed his pack on his back and left, the men would follow without further ado. But if he were to try to clamp down on their angry protests, in whatever way, the men’s bitterness would just fester in the back of their minds, and far more dangerously. Furthermore, he wasn’t pleased himself that their rest had been cut short. Exhaustion wasn’t just unpleasant in itself, it was also dangerous, because it brought out this quarrelsome tenor in the men and caused unnecessary casualties. And this irritability in their operations would lead to even greater exhaustion. He didn’t really feel he could say, though, whether it was an issue of necessity, or just poor management.
The grumbling continued, but Koskela foresaw that when the worst of the fury had died down, the situation would improve with the help of certain known individuals – Hietanen and Rokka, mainly. And, sure enough, Rokka started right in with his trivial chatter, sliding right into, ‘Well, soldiers, let’s git to it! Why’s this job here gittin’ you all so worked up? Fightin’s a way to finish a war. Gotta head on outta here if we’re gonna git anywhere. Who the hell wants’a dawdle around these backwoods for ever, anyway? C’mon fellas, mopin’ time’s done! There’s some big towns up ahead, too, and Russian ladies a-waitin’ for us to turn up, you hero-boys just wait and see.’
Rokka started swaying his shoulders and humming, looking mischievous. Vanhala melted completely and burst out laughing. And Hietanen comforted the rest of them by pointing out that when you were on the front line, at least you didn’t have to dread when your rest period would be up. ‘That’s the upside.’
‘There ain’t no upside to this, turn the damn thing over and upside down as much as you please,’ Rahikainen muttered flatly, angriest of them all.
Gradually they began to settle down, chatting idly to pass the time. Mäkilä called them to eat. He distributed three days’ dry rations to each man, leading them to suspect that some kind of special mission awaited them.
‘Don’t eat it all at once. It’ll have to last you three days,’ Mäkilä warned.
‘Have to last. Damn straight it’ll last if you won’t give us any more!’
‘There isn’t any more.’
‘Then steal something!’
Mäkilä let the conversation drop, knowing that the men were just messing with him. Rahikainen put in a bid for new boots. ‘These here ain’t gonna make it to the Urals.’
‘They’re still in good shape.’
‘Oh sure, they’re in good shape. Just like our quartermaster’s here. Excepting that I got this one toe here keeps tryin’ to sneak a peek at the Greater Finland. Look!’ Rahikainen covertly assisted his toe’s sightseeing efforts, stepping on the binding where it joined the sole and raising his foot from the boot. Mäkilä was forced to hand over new boots.
The field kitchen was dishing out oatmeal mixed with some bluish and generally rotten-looking bits of meat.
‘Yup. That’s a horsey.’ Hietanen removed a bit of chewed cartilage from his mouth. ‘One of the gypsies’, looks like. You can still see the whip-lash marks.’
‘No complaints about the food, please. The meat is absolutely up to standard.’
It was the company’s new master sergeant, First Sergeant Sinkkonen. He was on duty for the first time, having only just arrived. Following Korsumäki’s death, Mäkilä had taken over the Master Sergeant’s duties. Sinkkonen was a regular non-commissioned officer, over forty, and entirely incapable of relating to the men, from his first comment onward. He was dressed in full uniform, with a white collar setting off his neck, and tall, new boots on his feet, their tops folded over. His greeting to the men could not have been more tactless, and even Hietanen looked him over for a moment before saying, ‘Well, who asked you? Who are you, anyway?’
‘I’m the company’s new master sergeant and I’d like to begin by pointing out that this perpetual complaining is beneath the dignity of a Finnish soldier. I’d say the food is quite good, under the circumstances.’
Lehto was sitting on a mound of grass, eating out of the lid of his mess kit. The mess kit itself was sitting on the ground beside him, and when Sinkkonen stepped near it, Lehto said flatly, ‘Under the circumstances I’d say you’d better not kick over my tin.’