‘Works for me. How’d he go?’
‘Ran into the enemy.’ Koskela was still staring out into the darkness as he mumbled, ‘They shouldn’t have been sent out straight. It would have been better to curve around through the First Platoon…’
‘Well, there’s two sorts a luck, see. You can have the good or the bad. Now that Lehto boy, he had the bad. But goddamn it, would that tank just drive a lil’ closer! It’s mined over there, see.’
‘Get into position on the left. If it knows to avoid the mines, then just let it come and hold back the infantry.’
The main road had been cut off, and the enemy had instantly sent troops to the cut-off point. Under cover of darkness, both sides were preparing for action at daybreak, and any skirmishes in the meantime were just products of the men’s nervousness. Rokka had taken over Lehto’s squad, which was positioned on the side of the road. They were careful not to shoot, however, as the tank was rumbling out in front of them, firing occasional, random shots into the darkness.
‘Now, don’t waste your shots, fellas!’ Rokka whispered. ‘C’mere you lil’ devil! Not too much, now… just about three yards. Gaddamn it! Won’t budge. Now either I’m goin’ over there and tossin’ a satchel charge on his roof, or – hey, he’s movin’, he’s movin’! Hey fellas… that’s it… now!’
The ground shook and flames lit up the night as the mine exploded beneath the tank treads. The men’s tension erupted in a flurry of frantic shooting on both sides, and the fire blazed up wildly for a moment, before gradually receding into a low, steady burn. The low fire began to lick the sides of the tank, and soon it was engulfed in flames, glaring brightly through the early-morning darkness.
Rokka whispered in delight, ‘You just drove yourself right on’na that mine! I didn’t mean to order you around for real! I was just messin’ with you, and you, you fool, you thought I was serious! A fella hears all kindsa things in this world, but that don’t mean he’s gotta believe everything he hears!’
‘Shut up, pal. We don’t know what else is coming.’ Rahikainen still hadn’t entirely recovered from his shock. Vanhala, on the other hand, was in a great mood. He preferred his new squad leader, as Lehto had been wont to spoil his fun all too often, with a terse ‘Quit sniggering’. But Rokka kept up a pleasant chatter, and Vanhala thought the future under his leadership looked downright grand.
The tank chassis boomed and crackled as it burned, as the heat was beginning to make the ammunition explode. Rokka kept close watch to make sure no men tried to escape the flames, but they must have all lost consciousness when the mine went off, as nobody even tried to get out.
‘Ol’ fellas’ butt-fuzz is burnin’,’ Rokka announced, concluding that by now it was too late for anybody to escape.
Vanhala lay beside the machine gun, fiddling with his belt and repeating Rokka’s phrase, which had clearly struck his fancy. ‘Butt-fuzz… heehee!… Butt-fuzz.’
‘Lissen, Vanhala, don’t you giggle too much now. We’re gonna be in for it ourselves in’na mornin’.’
They watched the fire. Reflections of the flames lit up their faces, making them gleam against the darkness. Rokka’s eyes darted about furtively, like a cat’s. He was in good spirits, as the tank’s destruction meant a significant decrease in the danger awaiting them.
Susling watched the burning chassis in silence for a long time, and then he whispered, ‘Hell of a way to go.’
‘Now lissen here, Suslin’! Don’t you start pityin’ them! This ain’t no Sunday school, you hear? Out here you’re supposed’da kill, damn it. Like I always said, we ain’t out here to die, we’re out here to kill. Otherwise you ain’t comin’ out alive.’
Susling raised his gun to his cheek, sent a shot out into the darkness and said as he pulled out the cartridge, ‘I wasn’t talkin’ ’bout that… Those fellas ain’t out here all by their lonesome, neither. Seems a me I spotted sumpin’ in’nat bush. But I guess it’s empty.’
The darkness gradually gave way to a gray, dismal morning. The rain had ceased, but its over-abundant moisture still reigned over the landscape. The branches of the spruce trees dripped with rain and their trunks surged up black against the pale dawn. The grass drenched the men’s clothing. Each twig and leaf they brushed up against dropped a cold gush of rainwater onto them. Countless cobwebs hung between the shrubs and the tall grasses clung to their hands and faces.
The men shivered in their damp garments, trying to block out their misery, which gradually came to be drowned out by the knowledge that they would soon find themselves – yet again – experiencing that greatest of human anxieties: fear for their lives.
The enemy retreated backwards a little, as daybreak would have put them in a rather exposed position otherwise. This brought the men some relief, and the most gullible of them even wondered if perhaps the enemy might decide to surrender the main road voluntarily. Lucky for them, they were ignorant of the general situation. They did not know that the forest behind them was teeming with enemy soldiers, nor that their phone line had been cut, which meant that they were relying solely on a radio connection. They were also unaware of the fact that the division heading toward the main road had not been able to advance nearly far enough, so there was no way the artillery would be able to offer them any support.
They had to try to spread out quickly over a wider sector, as the ground they were covering was still too narrow. The battalion set out, advancing down both sides of the road. When they reached the spot where the path leading to the meadow turned off the main road, they found Lehto and Riitaoja’s bodies. Bit by bit they pieced together the details of the drama. Lehto’s mouth was smashed up and the back of his head had been blasted off almost completely.
‘Shot himself in the mouth. Looks like he was wounded pretty bad. Three bullets right under the heart. Look, guys, look how he dragged himself… his fingernails are totally torn up.’
‘So Lehto is dead, huh?’ Hietanen said, looking at Vanhala and Rahikainen. Vanhala shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, looking embarrassed, but Rahikainen said curtly, ‘I don’t know! We called and he didn’t answer. Whatta you starin’ at?’
‘Seems pre-tty damn strange, if you ask me. Looks like we got a real mystery on our hands, boys. Just like a real mystery play. Now, how can a dead man shoot himself? Well, I’ll be damned. I’ll be so goddamn damned that I don’t even know how damned I am.’
‘Well, damn you.’ Rahikainen threw his gun savagely over his shoulder.
Koskela looked at the bodies in silence. Then, to put the pointless quarrel to rest, he said, ‘Look, obviously he regained consciousness later. Anyway, it’s all the same now, whatever happened. What’s for sure in any case is that there’s no way you could have gotten him out of here. Whoever came to get him would have ended up lying here too.’ Then Koskela continued, as if to himself, ‘Lucky it was Lehto. Best man of any of us to endure a death like that.’
Riitaoja’s body aroused further curiosity. The men who had set out with him insisted that he could not have been there when they left. Vanhala even showed them the spot where he’d retrieved the gun-stand, pointing out the traces its two front legs had left on the ground, which were still carved into the surface of the path where he’d dragged it away. Koskela seemed quite convinced that Riitaoja must have returned to the scene later. The others found the story pretty implausible, though, because in order for it to hold, Riitaoja’s return would have had to have been voluntary.
They lifted the corpses onto the path and placed them side by side. Koskela removed the men’s coats and spread them over the bodies. The gesture was unnecessary, of course, but somehow or other it was undeniably beautiful. It was like a blessing. The men did not want to talk about death. Their gaunt, worn-out faces just wore a strange gravity. Carefully, with a gentle deference, they slipped the ammunition from their comrades’ pockets, as it wouldn’t have done to let even one cartridge go to waste. Then they hurried after the advancing company.