The military judge read out the same sentence they’d heard the night before at the drumhead court martial. It felt strange to hear it announced so officially that they had abandoned their guard post and refused to return to it. Sure, they remembered it all right. And then they’d been brought before the court and sentenced to death. And that was it. The past eleven hours in the dark sauna had sufficed to make it clear to them what it all meant. They were finished. In truth, they were dead already, both of them. All that remained was the official confirmation. They had played out the whole execution in their minds so many times that the actual event no longer terrified them.
The older man was trying to distract himself so as to avoid thinking about the whole thing. The younger one, however, was seething with hatred for his executioners. The Military Police were the enemy, depriving him of his life. And he maintained his anger instinctively, as if he understood that it would keep his head upright and make death easier to face.
When the military judge had finished, the younger man hissed, ‘Gimme a cigarette, you motherfucking piece of shit.’
The military judge and the Lieutenant scrambled to pull out their cigarettes, racing to offer him one. The man’s swearing only seemed to increase their eagerness to serve him. The harried Lieutenant fumbled around for a light and some MP officers in the line rattled their matchboxes at him. Every one of them was eager to cater to even the smallest whim of the condemned.
The Lieutenant hesitated. Should he let the men finish their cigarettes, or get things moving right away? Dragging out the ordeal felt torturous. Better to get the thing over with as quickly as possible. He had ordered several people to be shot, of course, but they had all been either communists or enemy spies, so there was no question about shooting them. This was the first time he was executing their own soldiers.
The younger of the condemned men made his decision for him. ‘All right, butchers. Get to it. I’m getting chilly.’
The MP officers were startled by the shrill little laugh that slipped from the man’s mouth as he spoke. The other man just trembled like an aspen leaf, not saying anything, and obviously not seeing or hearing anything either.
‘Blindfolds,’ the Lieutenant said to his men. They hesitated.
‘You, go get them.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t start squabbling. I’m not dying with a rag over my eyes. I think I’ve stared down more gun barrels from the front than you have from behind, even if you are executioners.’
‘And you? Would you like one?’ the Lieutenant asked the other man.
He just shook his head. Then the younger man stepped quickly over to the sauna wall and assumed his position. His companion followed suit. The MP officers fell into line, their guns grounded.
The order rang out. Rifles rose. The older man turned his head to the side and a quiet whimper escaped his lips. But the younger man stared straight down the gun barrel with such conviction that somehow he seemed more the condemner than the condemned. Just yesterday he had been an ordinary young man, who, in a moment of thoughtless defiance, had disobeyed a lieutenant whose arrogance he hated, just like everybody else in his company. This morning, having spent eleven hours in the dark sauna with death for company, he was a grown man of great experience.
The rifles sounded in one, unified bang. The men beside the sauna wall sank into the snow. The MP officers hurried toward the bodies and gathered them up with gentle deference.
And one more incident receded into the past.
‘Attention!’
The battalion, assembled in the snowy forest clearing, stiffened to attention. Major Sarastie took out a sheet of paper and began to read. The men listened, a bit perplexed. They already knew what had happened. What was the point of reading it out? Two men had been executed because they had abandoned their guard post and refused to return to it. As soon as they’d heard that the sentence had been carried out, the men had gone after the MP officers who’d done the executing. They didn’t catch them, though – luckily, seeing as they were probably the least guilty of the parties responsible for the crime.
When the Major had finished reading his memo, he added, ‘So! This sentence was carried out as a reminder to the insubordinates out there that you do not joke with the army. I hope, and I trust, that in this battalion, such a reminder is not necessary. However, should the need arise, the Code of Military Justice will be brought to bear to the fullest extent of the law.’
Only now did the men understand why the notice was being read to them. They were being threatened. An attack on the Svir River had provoked a surprisingly strong resurgence of enemy activity, and the opponent they presumed to have been struck down now appeared quite capable of counter-attack. Sarastie’s battalion had been tasked with carrying out the counter-strike. It was merely as a precautionary measure, in other words – to foster the necessary spirit and morale amongst his men – that the Commander had decided to read his memo just before departure.
Beneath the clear winter sky, the crackling, crashing and booming was constant. The battalion pushed on toward the enemy’s service road to force it out of a village they’d retaken over a month ago. The two armies had been tied up in a bloody scuffle over the village for a long time, but the enemy wasn’t giving up its prey. And now, they meant to take it. Sarastie’s battalion had received strict orders to cut off the service road and keep it closed.
The barrage was concentrated further back to their left, on the bald peak of Kalju Hill. After three bloody, failed offensives, the remnants of a Jaeger Border Patrol battalion had finally managed to gain a firm foothold on the hill. Its slopes were littered with bodies, as the enemy had had no means of withdrawing and the fighting had grown exceptionally fierce. The Jaegers had managed to keep their spirits up through all three failed attempts, and when the fourth brought them to the hill, the Siberians fell in their foxholes without a single man surrendering. Now the enemy artillery was firing back with a vengeance, and the Jaegers were crouched out there amidst the bodies, apathetic and terrified, in the middle of the mayhem.
This hill, which had been sleeping peacefully since time immemorial, had suddenly become an item of utmost importance. A thin, blue-veined hand had pointed it out on a map: ‘Taking that hill is an absolute prerequisite to retaking the village. It controls the surrounding swampland for a one-mile radius, and in any case we won’t be able to cut in very far without it because it would be too hard to get supplies out to the men in front, and they could easily end up isolated.’
This ‘prerequisite’ having been fulfilled, Sarastie’s battalion had started its advance.
Lahtinen, Määttä and Salo were pulling a supply sled through the deep snowdrifts. Sihvonen was following behind with the brake cable, trying to help them along by pushing with a ski pole. They had been attached to a covering rifle platoon, but were lagging behind on account of the sled. It was so heavily loaded down that it sank through the snowdrifts and dragged against the ground. At first the men had tried to advance on skis, but the weight of the load kept making them slide backwards, so they’d loaded their skis onto the sled and proceeded on foot. Streams of sweat poured down their bodies, despite the freezing temperatures. Panting and cursing, they followed the ski tracks of the platoon out in front of them. Heads buzzing with exhaustion, they could make out the clatter of combat, but the crashing was so faint and confused that they had no way of knowing where their own soldiers were versus those of the enemy.