After his visit to the command post, Rokka was quiet and irritable all afternoon. He offered no explanation of the incident other than saying, ‘What’s to know? Fella asked the only stuff those clowns can think to ask…’
It happened that he had the graveyard shift that night, from midnight to two a.m. He relieved Vanhala and made sure the hand grenades and submachine gun were all in place. He could hear the infantry guard coughing off to the left. The machine-gun nest was on the far right, thirty yards from the lake, and the messenger patrol guys kept in contact from there.
The August night was almost dark because of the heavy cloud cover. A gentle wind rustled the grass in the foreground, and Rokka kept sharp watch, listening attentively. After he’d been on duty half an hour, he took the flare gun from the niche cut into the trench wall and shot off a flare. He hadn’t heard anything special, but it amused him to shoot the flares. The bluish light would flicker for a moment in the air, giving Rokka a chance to inspect each rise in the terrain. Nothing but grenade craters, a few bodies and the gun-nests looming further off. Rokka ducked his head, knowing that his flares would bring about two outcomes. First, the enemy would shoot off a few rounds, and after that the guy on guard duty in the neighboring position would get restless and shoot off his own flare. The perfect regularity of the sequence made Rokka smile. He was of a mind to answer the submachine-gun fire, but he restrained himself, as it would prompt more fire in return, as he also knew from experience. It would make the enemy hit the positions with some direct cannon fire, in other words.
A rustling sounded from the communication trench and Rokka took the submachine gun under his arm and turned toward the noise. He suspected the messenger patrol from the neighboring position must be approaching. The men suddenly popped up right in front of him, before he had even been able to distinguish them from the darkness. Rokka kept his submachine gun at the ready the whole time.
‘Who’ssere?’
‘Just us. Home team… Oh! Sankia Priha’s off duty already.’
The men had come to know Vanhala by his nickname. They knew Rokka as well, and lingered for a moment to chat. Rokka was rather taciturn at the moment, however, so the men returned quickly to their position.
After the men left, Rokka thought for a moment about his old plan to blow up the enemy gun-nests. He had looked out many times, even laying out the route of how he would crawl over. He wouldn’t have started considering the gamble if it hadn’t been for the idea he’d hatched that the stunt might earn him a leave. But this time the whole scheme seemed like a waste.
‘They’ll slap me in’na can for sure. That’ll be it for my leave. Bastards do that and I’m finished. I ain’t doin’na damn thing after that. And when I ain’t even done nothin’! Gaddamn it they ask stupid questions, and in that awful tone of voice, like I was some kinda criminal…’
Rokka was fretting over the affair, as he knew perfectly well how much trouble it might cause him. But he was also resolutely decided that he was not going to back down. ‘Even if they up and shoot me, damn it. Anyway, I ain’t wastin’ any more time thinkin’ about this nonsense. There we are!’
Rokka reinforced his mind’s movements by dropping his shoulders, as if to slough off the burdensome, bothersome weight of the whole issue. He slipped naturally into just the right means of eluding these useless worries and wonderings.
He hunkered back down to his previous vigilance on guard duty. Actually, Rokka always lived in the ‘here and now’. All that existed for him was the night, the rustling grass, the voices carrying over from the enemy side, and the odd shot that would ring out now and again. Lammio and military discipline were distant, unrelated trifles that had nothing to do with his guard duties.
A blast exploded with a flash of light. For one second, a red flame illuminated the curve of the trench. Not until after the explosion did he hear the boom of the launch.
Rokka quickly ducked down into the shelter in the trench wall. Another shell exploded about a dozen yards off. Shrapnel sailed through the air and dropped onto the parapet. The barrage continued intermittently for about five minutes. Rokka scrambled out of his shelter and shot a flare, but then hurried immediately to the neighboring gun-nest. The terrain in the foreground was empty, but the cannon fire was picking up speed. Then a short pause ensued, followed by a few shells.
When the firing had stopped, Rokka held his breath and listened for a long time, but no unusual noises followed. Soon he was restored to his previous calm and stood quietly at his post. Then he heard the tiniest of rustles coming from behind the communication trench. A clod of dirt fell onto the floor of the trench.
Rokka held his submachine gun under his arm ready to shoot and took a few steps from the gunner’s nest toward the communication trench. He suspected the patrol squad was back again, but the uncertainty of the clamoring gave him pause. Normally the men didn’t bother much about trying to be quiet.
Rokka was no more than a yard from the bend in the trench when the rustling sounded again directly behind it.
‘Who’ssere? Password!’
A towering figure appeared before Rokka, and a great deal happened in the space of the next few seconds. Rokka was about to shoot right away, but the thought of the patrol squad that had just been there cost him a precious tenth of a second. The impression still fresh in his mind, he hesitated for an instant rather than following his initial instinct, and in that same instant the barrel of his gun was pushed to the side. In a flash Rokka grasped what was happening and, in the blink of an eye, began moving without hesitation. They were going to take him prisoner. Rokka quickly loosened his grip on his submachine gun, giving up the struggle over it and instead pulling the same trick that had just been pulled on him. He shoved the hand holding the pistol aside. The pistol went off as Rokka howled, ‘Help! Sound the alarm! Enemy in’na trench!’
The man was already upon him as he yelled. Rokka’s plight was desperate in the extreme. The man wrestling him was at least as tall and powerful as he was, and his first move had revealed him to be both quick and determined. And Rokka glimpsed another one behind him. Luckily, the trench was so narrow that the men behind couldn’t get around right away and so had to stay behind the man fighting with him. Rokka knew that as long as he remained in this position, he couldn’t be struck or shot, as the man acted as a shield protecting him. The pistol went off again, but again missed, as the man’s wrist was stuck fast between Rokka’s arm and his side. The pistol was within Rokka’s reach, but if he let go of the man’s hand, he was done for. The enemy squad must also have realized by now that the operation had misfired, so they would no longer have any interest in keeping Rokka alive and would just try to get themselves out as quickly as possible.
‘Guard! Help!’
A submachine gun started shooting into the air about twenty yards off, and Rokka could see over the shoulder of his opponent that it had attracted the attention of the man behind him. But there were even more men beyond him. Both wrestlers grunted, teeth clenched, and the Russian hoarsely tried to say something to his friends, but Rokka’s forehead happened to be pushed up against his mouth at just that moment. Rokka was trying to whack his head into the man’s face, but he couldn’t manage to get any force into the blow.