‘Rahikainen…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.
‘Vanhala, aa… aa…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.
The hail of bullets sailed overhead, as he was lying in a blind spot created by the bank beside the path. Had he thrown himself to the ground instantly upon hearing the enemy shout, it would have saved him. Now it just prolonged his agony. Gathering his forces, he managed to infuse his voice with all his previous rage as he yelled, ‘Lower… aim lower… fucking cross-eyed bastards… aim lower!’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.
‘First machine gun! Vanhala…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa.
‘Are you motherfuckers deaf? Shoot here… down here… follow my voice… my gun… aaahh…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.
In pain and fury, Lehto cried. It came out in a combination of curses and sobs, as if some wild animal were wheezing in pain. ‘Aa… aah… hah… haa. Can’t you motherfuckers kill anything? Toss a fucking hand grenade! Fu—’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.
Lehto rolled onto his other side. The pain the movement brought on made his eyes black out, but just as they did he glimpsed something that restored his strength. Less than two yards away, the bolt of his gun was gleaming. His fall had sent it flying that far.
Now the painful journey began. It progressed no more than an inch at a time, as he dug his fingernails into the ground and dragged his paralyzed body forward. His nails bent back and his lips were in shreds, as he gnashed through them, biting down in pain. He fainted a couple of times, though each blackout lasted only a few seconds. He no longer had thoughts. There was nothing but that gleaming bolt, so close and yet so far away. He focused all efforts on that point, and finally the gun strap was in his hand. He pulled the weapon beside him. First he raised the gun barrel and set it in his mouth. Gritting his teeth, he bit down on the cold metal flecked with gunpowder, as if he were afraid somebody might still wrest it from his mouth. Then he twisted his neck so that the mouth of the gun pointed toward the roof of his mouth. Noiselessly, he eased his hand into the grip and curled his finger around the trigger. With no settling of accounts and not a shred of fear, he pulled it.
The shot frightened the enemy. A light machine gun rattled off a few rounds and a hand grenade thudded onto the road. Then all was quiet. And one more Finnish hero’s story drew to a close.
Riitaoja crouched in a corner of the dilapidated barn in the meadow, sobbing softly and trying to muffle the sound of his sniffles. At first, the nearness of the building had been reassuring. At least it was made by human hands. In the middle of all this danger and darkness, it seemed to radiate the comforting presence of other people. But then its ominous silence grew downright terrifying. There might even be enemy soldiers in there. Tonight it seemed like ambushes lay in wait everywhere. And Lehto’s cry. What in the world could have happened? What horrific force reigning over this darkness could have made that maniacal god make a sound like that?
As far as his crippling fear would allow, he steered his thoughts toward various scenarios of how he might get out of this situation. There were Finns in the direction of the crackling, but there was also Lammio. Yes – and he didn’t have the ammunition cases. A rock and a hard place. The path was certain death. The whole first machine-gun team might be lying there dead.
A gentle gust of wind blew into a corner of the barn and rustled the hay. Riitaoja could endure it no longer. He walked quietly toward the path. If he could retrieve the cases of ammunition, he could go back and rejoin the others. He was only five minutes late, as Vanhala, Rahikainen and Sihvonen had just left the meadow’s edge when he arrived.
The path stretched before him, dark and menacing. Sniffling and stopping frequently, Riitaoja advanced. In between, he called out the others’ names. His legs did not want to obey. He had no idea how far it was from the meadow to the road, which was why he kept pausing every other second, expecting something terrible to happen.
Then he heard Lehto’s voice out in front of him: ‘Vanhala.’
When the light machine gun opened fire, Riitaoja threw himself to the ground and lay there trembling, unable to answer Lehto’s cries. The shouts of Vanhala and Rahikainen’s names misled him into thinking that they were over there too. Wild with panic, he didn’t understand what was happening until he heard Lehto’s terrifying cursing and moaning. Then, for a long time, silence reigned – the same silence in which Lehto was crawling toward his gun – and it gave Riitaoja the courage to crawl a short distance forward.
The shower Lehto’s suicidal shot provoked crackled all around him. He rose in terror at the hand grenade’s explosion and started sprinting toward the rear. Hysterically, he stammered, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I didn’t do anything!’
The bullet struck the back of his head, so he was spared the realization of the end.
Chapter Seven
The platoon Lehto’s squad had been looking for hadn’t flanked the path to advance toward the road at all. As it turned out, it couldn’t spread out that far to the left without losing contact with the First Platoon, which, for its part, was bound to other squads of the Battalion, so Ensign Sarkola had had to alter the command on his own initiative and advance at a distance of one hundred yards to the right of the path. He had sent word of the change and received the go-ahead – which was perfectly understandable, since losing contact in the dark would have been too risky.
As soon as Koskela had received word, he’d sent a runner to inform Lehto. But the runner, fearful of the dark forest, had dawdled, and met up with the remaining members of the squad only upon their return.
Koskela was kneeling in a ditch by the roadside, aiming into the darkness in the direction of the rumbling of an enemy tank. Rahikainen crawled up behind him and said, ‘Lehto’s done for… And we couldn’t find anybody over there…’
Koskela glanced over his shoulder. Then he turned his head and resumed staring out into the darkness. After a long silence he said, as if only now realizing what had happened, ‘Yeah… I mean, no. There wasn’t anybody over there.’
‘There were some foreign chaps all right! Didn’t seem too fond of us, though.’ Rahikainen was feeling slightly uneasy, and so spoke with a rude defensiveness, as if in anticipation of the accusations to come. He thought Koskela’s silence seemed to imply some sort of judgement, and so, acting insulted, he tried to make it clear in his tone of voice that they were the ones who had been wronged. ‘Well, what did you expect? Of all the shitty places to send us… We were creeping along the path when those light machine guns just started cleaning up… took Lehto out straight away…’
‘Yeah… body still over there?’
‘Oh, it’s over there all right. Right under their noses. We barely managed to get the machine gun out.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘They’re over there in the back. But we don’t know where Riitaoja is. Didn’t he come back here?’
‘Haven’t seen him.’
‘He just disappeared back there. We searched for him and called out and all. But when we didn’t hear anything, we figured he must’ve come back here.’
‘He didn’t come here, and we haven’t sent any guys out searching for him, either. Rokka!’
‘What’ssa trouble?’ Rokka crawled down the ditch toward Koskela.
‘Lehto’s dead. You take charge of the first squad from here on out. Send Sihvonen back to his own squad and take Susi with you into the first.’