His body literally rippled as a hail of light-machine-gun fire punched straight through it. Kariluoto took over command. Autio’s death brought Kaarna’s demise flooding back to him, and for a moment he was thrown back into his old, rather theatrical state of mind. The scene felt like a repetition of the first, and the likeness compelled Kariluoto to prove to himself that some difference in him set the two scenes apart. The alder branches rustled in his ears, but he rose and yelled, ‘The Third Company is now under my command and is to remain in position!’ Who would dare abandon his post after that?
One of the soldiers nearby did. He was just starting to crawl backwards when Kariluoto’s shouting prompted the enemy to increase fire in their direction.
‘Where are you going?’
The man didn’t answer, but cast his eyes furtively to the ground, and Kariluoto’s high-minded spirit evaporated. He started cursing at the man and humiliated him into returning to his post, but the incident left Kariluoto with a bitter taste in his mouth. No, there was absolutely no room out here for a man’s solemn, spiritual side. This was a place of base, bare-faced brutality. Even Kariluoto had sometimes wondered what endowed him with the moral right to drive other men to their deaths. To deride and humiliate them, to strip them of all honor and manhood if they failed to obey his command.
But these were thoughts of a moment, thoughts he himself dismissed as the product of over-exhaustion. The nearness of Petroskoi filled him with excitement in anticipation of its conquest.
On the last evening of September, they reached the outskirts of the city.
They lay out in the dusky twilight before the fortifications at Suollusmäki, contemplating the enemy dens and positions reinforced with barbed-wire fencing.
‘Snuffin’ out a hell of a lot of lives over there.’
‘Well, not ours, far as I know,’ Koskela said. ‘We won’t be attacking over there. Some other units are coming in to attack and we’re turning off to the north.’
‘Fuck. Of course. Of course they’re not letting us into the city.’
The conversation went no further. It was too bitter a discussion to continue. They watched solemnly as the sky lit up behind them and listened to the howling shells soaring overhead.
‘How in the world are the people going to pay for all that damage?’ Lahtinen asked.
‘I don’t know. But that looks like a pre-tty shitty place to be,’ Hietanen said.
‘Damn assholes, shooting everything to bits. There won’t be anything left!’ Rahikainen grumbled.
‘Maybe we ain’t headin’ in there at all,’ Rokka said.
‘Awful lot of force in those shells,’ said Määttä.
‘Offensive Operation Underway! Heeheehee. The deafening voice of Finland’s artillery makes itself heard! Heehee,’ Vanhala giggled. He sat down on a tree stump and nibbled on a piece of bread he’d scrounged from a dead enemy soldier. He’d scraped off the bloody part.
The first morning of October was clear and beautiful. The sky was a cloudless, transparent blue. If you looked upwards, so you couldn’t see the autumn landscape, you might have thought it was the middle of summer.
The men advanced through the thicket, following the power lines. They weren’t directed northward after all, but received orders to cut off the roads leading north from the city. A rocky, forested ridge in front of them still blocked the city from view, but everything around them signaled its nearness. Small footpaths crisscrossed through the thicket, and the whole landscape had an ‘inhabited’ feel to it, between the wood boards, paper scraps and other bits of garbage people tend to leave behind.
The first to glimpse over the ridge was a fellow named Viirilä, a beast of a man, with a large head and quite a mouth on him. This boorish creature was the eternal thorn in the officers’ sides and he had regularly spent time in confinement during peacetime. But since they’d been at war, Viirilä had demonstrated a bravery verging on lunacy – often, as now, voluntarily walking out in front as a scout. Were it not for this intrepid fearlessness, the man would hardly have been forgiven for the obscene parody he made of the whole blessed war.
He stopped as he reached the top of the ridge. ‘Hey, Finnskis! Petrozavodski gleams in the dawning light of the homeland.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, and there’s smoke coming from it. Looting little Finnskis are already having a field day down there.’
They climbed hurriedly up the ridge. An airstrip opened up in front of them, and behind it rose the clustered buildings of Petroskoi. The wide, open surface of Lake Onega stretched off into the blue-gray horizon. Columns of smoke rose from the city and the odd shot still rang out here and there.
‘There she is.’
‘So that’s the shantytown we’ve been killing ourselves over.’
The city’s gray, ramshackle appearance came as something of a shock. There were a few white, stone buildings mixed in with the collection of shacks, but that was it. That was the whole city – what a disappointment! The landscape itself was beautiful, though. The smoke-tinged air shimmered blue above the glinting lake, and further off in the steel-blue haze you could just make out some landmasses jutting out into Lake Onega.
‘Haa… alt!’
The company came to a halt and sat on the ground to admire the view. Undeniably, they were overcome with a sense of fulfillment. There she was: the city for which they had persevered through all those obstacles and misery. Now they had reached their destination, and here their war would end. For some reason, they believed such a thing was possible.
Rahikainen was impatient. ‘What are we standin’ round here for? The other units are gonna snatch up all the good stuff before we get there!’
Rokka leaned on his gun and said, ‘I don’t give a damn ’bout all’at. Oh, but if that town were Käksalmi!’
‘Hear hear,’ Susling replied wistfully, though it was more hometown pride than genuine yearning that drove him to say it.
Koskela didn’t say anything. He sat on a rock with his face to the sun. Had he said something, it would have been, ‘Sun feels awfully good.’
Hietanen was on his knees. He was silent for a long time at first, but then he launched into an extravagant address. ‘Hello, Petroskoi! You object of our most fervent hopes! If only all the boys were here to see you. All the guys who kicked the bucket trying to make it out here. Here we are, even though they tried to hold us back at every turn. Boys, this is a historic moment. One day they’re gonna write war songs about this. One day the kids’ll be singing about the day we came crawling on our hands and knees to Petroskoi. Mm-hmm. It’s a kind of thing that doesn’t happen every day. There lies Finland’s newest city… I bet they’ve got saunas over there too. Say, I itch like hell. I get a good four or five lice every time I take a swat under my arm.’
‘Are you complaining about your lice?’ Rahikainen scoffed. ‘I’ve had one on a leash round my belly button for a couple of weeks now. Name’s Oscar. No lie, he’s about a quarter-inch long, with a Liberty Cross on his back. But what are they having us hang around here for? I sure hope they aren’t plannin’ on sendin’ us out to Suoju. I heard the reserve units refused to go any further. Which makes us the ones they’re gonna shove out into the next mess.’
‘I’m not going up to Suoju.’ Määttä was sitting on a boulder with his arms wrapped around his knees, staring thoughtfully out over the city.
‘Yeah, and if they send you?’ Sihvonen asked.