When they arrived, they saw that the enemy had left its machine gun behind. Four bodies lay behind it. They found five full belts and half of a sixth in the feeder. Lahtinen collected the belts, chatting away happily, ‘I’d say that belt was definitely worth it – one I shot over here, I mean. Paid us back nearly six times over! But wait, what am I talking about? These cloth belts have two hundred and fifty rounds in them and ours only have two hundred. We better give the other guys some. We can’t even carry all of these.’
‘That’s plenty. But look how old that guy is, the one sprawled out over there. Could they really be running low on men already?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Lahtinen grunted, though only out of habit, the bountifulness of their loot having stripped him of any real desire to get into a quarrel. His lips pursed in a contented smirk. He tossed the ammunition boxes over his shoulder and said as he headed off, ‘We better switch to steel belts. These cloth ones are just damn rags. Anyway, listen, they’re not gonna run out of men over there. When it comes to manpower and materials, that country’s pretty well stocked. Now, the only thing is that over there, I mean, they’ve been looking out a little bit about what the people have to eat, rather than investing everything they have into sending packs of scoundrels out shooting in the forest. Meanwhile we’ve just been throwing the people’s money to the winds! Guys spend their Sundays running around in the forest with rifles on their backs, and then come evening, they go around and give each other promotions. Over there, they’ve put some pressure on the fat cats so that all the people’s bacon doesn’t just disappear beneath the butcher’s apron! But what’s the use. Look, if they run out of men, they’ll send over a fleet of fifteen million women soldiers. They train everybody over there, and that includes the little old ladies.’
‘No way. Damn! Where’s this at?’ Rokka had caught the end of Lahtinen’s tirade and tossed in his question with a sly smile.
‘’Cross the way. Hey, if you need any ammo cartridges, take some of these.’
‘Would you look at that? I scrounged some, but I could take a few more. Those damn fellas’s all huntin’ for bread and badges, never mind ’bout gittin’ any ammunition. But what were you sayin’ just now? Some lil’ ol’ Russian ladies’s gonna come fight us?’
‘You don’t know. It could happen.’ Lahtinen was already grumpy and irritable, suspecting what was coming. Nor were his instincts incorrect.
‘Well, if it comes to that, then you might say we’re…’
‘Well, at least we’d know where to aim! Got lots of practice,’ Rahikainen chimed in.
‘Might lead to some pretty intense hand-to-hand combat, heeheehee. Then even Rahikainen might win his Mannerheim Cross, heeheehee.’
Lahtinen turned away with lips pursed, looking up into the treetops as if to proclaim that he would not deign to continue conversing with such people.
Then Koskela and Hietanen arrived and informed them that they were advancing immediately. Koskela had ordered Hietanen to report to the field hospital to rest, at least until his hearing returned to normal. But such a passive role was beyond Hietanen’s powers in the wake of his great feat. Elation had made him too restless to lie still in one place. His joy was so earnest that no one really minded it. Even if Hietanen was still marveling at his own distinguished performance, there was a sufficient degree of comedy mixed up in the whole thing to make the men put up with just about anything. And Hietanen’s jubilation wasn’t just the product of his heroic feat. In reality it was the joy of having made it out alive. Now he was laughing again, talking about the shock he’d experienced behind the rock. ‘Then, when I threw all the camouflage on the mine!’
‘Move out!’
The joking and chattering ceased. Their carefree spirit vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The men trudged on in silence, their faces tense and restless.
They ran up against the enemy again about half a mile later. The artillery had already caught up and so could prepare their attack, pushing the opposition back another hundred yards or so, but then the enemy stopped beside the clearing of a small village. They gave it one more push before darkness fell, but to no avail. Reluctance, darkness and exhaustion put an end to the offensive, and Sarastie decided it would be best to wait for the new day, even if it meant the wounded would have to hang on another night for proper care.
The battalion assumed its positions beside the village fields. There were some potato patches lying out in no-man’s-land, and under cover of darkness, Rokka and Rahikainen snuck out to do some harvesting. Their digging was audible from the enemy positions, however, so Rahikainen abandoned the mission halfway through, as soon as the bullets started raining down around them. Rokka, however, took cover in a ditch and got straight back to it as soon as the enemy had calmed down. He brought back enough potatoes to feed his whole platoon and Kariluoto’s besides.
They dug a hole in the ground behind their positions, started a fire and pretty soon potato soup was underway. They blanketed the fire in twigs and perched along its edge in the drizzly darkness. Only now did their nervous anxiety give way to hunger and exhaustion. The soup of the poorly washed potatoes oozed from the corners of their mouths as they ate greedily. Their three days’ dry rations had run out that morning, so they ate the potato soup plain – but even so it tasted wonderful. Once they had eaten, the men not on guard duty stumbled toward the roots of the spruces to sleep and, despite the cold rain, slept like the dead. They were not demanding. Vanhala even fell asleep in a puddle of water – having fallen into it, he gave up the search for a better spot.
But somewhere deep in their nervous systems, fear was still keeping watch. If shots struck at a rapid tempo, the startled sleepers would jerk up to a sitting position, listening for an anxious moment, and then, when the bangs fell silent, slip back to the ground, sound asleep by the time their bodies were horizontal.
The aid station tent was full. The dying men who had lost consciousness had been taken outside, as had the more lightly wounded. A low, plaintive moaning hummed through the spruce grove. The medics squatted – dazed – trying to make themselves immune to the surrounding misery. The worn-out doctor’s nerves were frayed. It was painful watching men die when he knew many of them could have been saved by a quick operation. But out here there was no way he could operate. All he could do was bind wounds and give morphine injections.
One of the wounded men was dying. He’d been injured the night before, when the battalion had advanced up onto the main road. He’d taken a bullet in the lower part of his stomach, and he’d been in severe pain until early this evening, when his state of intermittent consciousness had begun to grant him some relief. The doctor stooped down beside him and the man opened his eyes. They gleamed feverishly and gazed up at the roof of the tent, on which the doctor’s formless shadow spread, projected from the bright Petromax lantern behind him.
‘So, how are you doing?’ the doctor whispered, seeing that the man’s consciousness had returned. The man didn’t answer, but just kept staring at the shadow looming on the ceiling. Then his gaze turned toward the doctor. His lips moved, but no sound came. The doctor diverted his own gaze. He couldn’t look into those fearful, feverish eyes that seemed to burn straight through him. Then the man’s gaze turned back to the shadow. He started to mumble something and tried unsuccessfully to raise his head. He seemed to be in a state of overwhelming anxiety. The doctor pressed his ear to the man’s face and made out the words, ‘De-eath… Up on the ceiling… Lord… Jesus…’