Finally, Rahikainen was forced to take Riitaoja’s rifle as well, as the man had reached the end of his tether. Even so, Rahikainen couldn’t help muttering, ‘Try to carry the clothes you’ve got on, OK, pal? My soldierly solidarity’s got its limits.’
They were lying down on a break when three men approached them from behind. A cigarette glowed between the fingers of the man in front, and Hietanen noticed it. He personally was suffering acute withdrawal, which was the primary reason he exploded angrily, ‘Don’t you fucking know we’re not allowed to smoke, asshole? You must be one hell of a big shot to smoke whenever you feel like it. Put it out! Now! It’s our lives you’re playing with, not just yours – which obviously isn’t worth shit.’
The man put out his cigarette without a word, but the fellow next to him murmured rebukingly, ‘Careful what you say – and to whom.’
‘No, no, he was perfectly correct. I was just testing out how the command was being enforced. You did quite right. Name and company?’
‘Corporal Hietanen, First Weapons Company, Colonel, sir.’ Hietanen rose to his feet a little uneasily, recognizing the Regiment Commander, but calmed himself with the reassurance that he was in the right, after all. Even if it was just his craving for a cigarette that had made him jump on the Colonel for smoking.
‘Well, Corporal Hietanen, keep up the good work.’
Then the Colonel turned to the rest of the men and asked, ‘How are you boys making out?’
Salo struggled painfully to attention and tried to sound chipper as he responded, ‘Very well, Colonel, sir.’
‘Atta boy! That’s Finnish endurance for you. The “Blood of Vaasa trembles not, nor does Iron of Kauhava rust”. The old Finnish way, boys. Nobody stands in the way of the mighty, not even the devil himself.’ The Colonel turned away and Salo sank back into his puddle, trembling with exhaustion and feeling as much joy as his tired, depleted state would allow.
‘So tell me, which one of those guys is the bigger tool?’ Lahtinen whispered to Vanhala, who giggled with delight, ‘Heehee… heehee. Ye-ess, the deep-forest soldier presses on! Fired up and ready to fight! Heeheehee.’
‘Advance!’
The night was beginning to give way to a weak light. They could already make out one another’s outlines: strange, monstrous phantoms staggering beneath their loads. Exhaustion began to recede into the shadows of their burgeoning anxiety, as they knew that by now the head of the line could not be far from the road. Messages urging them to be on their guard frequently rippled down the line. Every other man aimed right while the others aimed left, keeping watch in so far as was possible while still keeping an eye on the path and staying in contact.
Riitaoja fell and no longer had the strength to get up again. The others just walked past, but Lehto stopped beside him and yelled, ‘Give me your pack and get up!’
‘I c-c-c-can’t go any further, C-c-c-corporal, sir.’
‘Give me your pack when I tell you to and get up!’
‘Over there.’ Riitaoja began to cry, his sobs consuming the last shreds of his energy. He was entirely limp and incapable of doing anything. To make matters worse, he was so afraid of Lehto that he was trying to curl himself even deeper into the swamp. Riitaoja’s sobbing brought Lehto to the point of rage. He kicked him, screaming in a hoarse whisper, ‘I ought to shoot you, you little bastard! What I wouldn’t give for the Russkis to take you off my hands. But no, you, you little pansy, you never get near enough to the action for that.’
‘I c-c-c-can’t keep going… Please don’t hit me, C-c-c-corporal, sir… ahh… ahh…’ In his panic, Riitaoja kept stuttering and calling Lehto ‘sir’, curling tighter into a ball to escape Lehto’s blows. He groaned and cried out for Koskela, but the Ensign was walking far ahead at the head of the platoon. Unfamiliar men were already walking past. Each of them had his hands full just trying to keep up and so couldn’t get involved, and anyway, the endless exertion had made them all apathetic. What did it matter what happened around them? One fellow did at least shout at Lehto as he passed, though the source of his fury and bitterness was as much the march as anything else. ‘Don’t kick the man, you fuckin’ scumbag! I oughtta put a string of bullets through you!’
The man figured keeping his spot in the line was more important than getting involved, however, and so continued on without responding to Lehto, who yelled after him, his mouth foaming, ‘Try your luck, asshole! We’ll just see who the sun shines through.’
Whispers rippled down the line. ‘Viipuri’s been retaken… Pass it on… It was on the radio last night.’
‘Viipuri’s been retaken…’
‘Viipuri’s been retaken… Pass it on…’
‘Viipuri’s been retaken.’
Lehto grabbed hold of Riitaoja and yanked him upright. ‘Now we march, you piece of shit,’ he hissed, and started dragging the exhausted man supported in the crook of his arm. ‘Viipuri’s been retaken,’ he whispered hoarsely forward. He forgot to change the tone of his voice, so the guy walking in front of him received the news in a furious hiss, as if Viipuri’s retaking was the worst thing in the world that could have happened to Lehto.
‘Viipuri’s been retaken.’
‘Viipuri’s been retaken… pass it on.’
Lehto got Riitaoja up to speed and, shockingly enough, the latter managed to walk on his own again. There was no other option, as Lehto was walking menacingly behind him. ‘You start lying down again and I’ll take a stick and give you a beating you’ll never forget. Of all the motherfucking pansies, I have to drag you along.’
Riitaoja had already been afraid of his squad leader during peacetime, even if, for the most part, it had just been the timidity of an overly meek private before his superior. He addressed Lehto as ‘sir’, even when the others had taken to responding to their leaders’ commands with snarls of ‘Shove it!’ But in war his terror had altered. He feared the dark and violent nature of this man as if he were some sort of terrifying force that might crush him at any moment. True, Koskela had put Lehto under strict orders to stop abusing Riitaoja, but he wasn’t always around, and besides, even Koskela understood Lehto’s bitterness, seeing as Riitaoja not only left his duties to others, but also forced them to drag him along like a child. Riitaoja was also horrified by Lehto’s bravery, and thought that because this madman seemed to have no regard for death at all, there was nothing to prevent him from killing him straight off. Not even understanding himself how he managed to put one foot in front of the other, he pressed on across the swamp, fearfully choking back his sobs of desperation.
Then they were given a break, but this time they could guess what was coming. The halt took place silently, with no command, and each man dropped to his knee, raising an arm to alert those behind. A sort of pile-up ensued, as the darkness prevented anybody from making out the signal prior to tripping over the guy in front of him.
‘Road directly ahead. Eyes peeled, and stay calm.’
‘Stay calm… stay calm…’ Sihvonen repeated, but he was so restless that Lahtinen tried to urge him to calm down. ‘Take it easy now, we’ll be over there sticking our necks out soon enough. Ain’t gonna be a walk in the park, I mean… boys, tomorrow we’re in for some fighting over there like we’ve never seen…’
They stopped short as a gunshot rang out in front of them, and a submachine gun hammered back in response. Brr… brr… brr… brr.
Then they set off, groping their way forward. The battalion split up, and the machine-gun platoons broke off and assembled behind their infantry companies. The Third Company fanned out to the left, the Second to the right, and the First set up in clusters behind them. Koskela divided the machine guns between the platoons, who set them in position. Lammio arrived with the order that one gun was to be moved further out to the left, where the Third Company’s Second Platoon was advancing.