Sarastie thought for a moment. He was having some difficulty reaching a decision on the issue, as it aroused too many conflicting impulses within him. He couldn’t help marveling at this man and being amused by his sly, calculating glances. The Major had already gleaned what Rokka was up to. He could actually see the situation with greater clarity than Rokka himself. The Major knew that Rokka had backed him into a corner. In Sarastie’s mind, the case had broader implications than it did in Rokka’s reckoning. Rokka experienced it as an isolated event, but the Major saw the conflict of opposing principles within it. And Sarastie was hardly without his own personal motivations, either. He felt personally insulted, even if he would have insisted that this feeling was exclusively derived from his conviction that discipline had to be maintained no matter what.
‘Tell me seriously, what makes military discipline so onerous to you that you feel obliged to oppose it at every turn?’
‘I don’t know a damn thing about military discipline. Never had any need for sumpin’ like that. And I ain’t opposin’ anythin’ but this here order sayin’ I’m supposed’da go put rocks along somebody’s walkway. I already told Lammio here all I gotta say about it. This fella here’s the cause of all this!’ (Rokka pointed his finger at Lammio.) ‘He’s been pickin’ on me ever since I turned up! It’s always sumpin’. But he ain’t never said anythin’ to me that wasn’t downright trivial. It ain’t never anythin’ important. It’s always just some stupid whim a his. I’ll tell you all one more time. I was happy to come fight this war. I wanted’da go back to Kannas. And it just so happens that I’m the kinda fella ain’t none of you ever gonna equal. And I’m tellin’ you, you put any other fella out there last night and he’d a been a goner. What more do you want from me, gaddamn it? It’s not that I’m tired a curtsyin’ to you all, it’s just that it ain’t no use out here, so I don’t do it. Lissen, I ain’t out here because a you. I got a wife and kids and you want me to jump like a dog whenever you say hup? What for? It ain’t gonna change nothin’! Look, I done figgered out we’re gonna lose this war. And the closer it gits, the stupider the shit you clowns come up with. You send me to the court martial, but believe me, you sure ain’t gonna see me kowtowin’ to them bosses. We’re half a million fellas out here. And you think that’s why we’re here? So that there’s always somebody standin’ in front a you with his heels together blabberin’ “Yessir, Yessir…”?’
Rokka fell silent and began staring out of the window, as if to underline the fact that anything said from here on out made no difference whatsoever. Sarastie sought to invest his voice with severity as he said gravely, ‘No, that is not why. But this act you refer to as “kowtowing” is an external sign of discipline, and its absence signals an absence of discipline. And an absence of discipline means that those half a million men out here are powerless to carry out the task they have been brought here to perform, namely, the defense of Finland. And you might keep in mind that they are not all like you. There are countless other pig-headed Joe Blows out there who possess only your faults. And that claim of yours, that the war has been lost, is not true. No war is won without setbacks. Because of their lack of expertise, men in the ranks have a tendency to come to conclusions on matters whose significance they do not understand. Nothing decisive has happened yet.’
Rokka heaved his shoulders and laughed with cutting bitterness. ‘Don’t understand! When you throw hundreds of thousands of men into a encirclement to die, there ain’t much to understand, that kinda sign speaks for itself. You think we’d a done that if there was anythin’ else we could’da done? It’s done. I known that a long time now. But about arrangin’ those pebbles.’
Lammio had been silent the whole time, but now he asked the Major for permission to speak. The request was entirely unnecessary, but Lammio wanted to emphasize his own willingness to comply with convention. ‘Tell me, Rokka, where do you propose to find a company commander who would tolerate as much as I have tolerated from you? Be reasonable.’
‘He he. Reasonable. As if your game had some kind a reason! Lissen, you ain’t planned things out too carefully when you started this here brouhaha. You just gone and followed your whims without any real basis at all. Don’t you start throwin’ that stuff at me! You, flatterin’ yourself about how brave you are and all those ideals you think you’re defendin’… Git that ensign a yours! Let ’im take this all down for the record. Gaddamn it, I have had enough! My patience’s got its breakin’ point too.’
Lammio looked to Sarastie, awaiting his decision. The Major rose and said deliberately, straightening himself up, ‘The battalion can operate very well without you. No man is indispensable in a war, no matter who he is. I am granting you a pardon. More precisely, I am granting you a pardon indefinitely. Not because I think we have any obligation to pardon you, but for other reasons. And my proposal is this. You will not breathe one word of this to anyone, nor will you swagger around puffed up over how we’ve decided to settle it. And from now on, you will follow the rules just like everyone else. Now, if you go singing this in the streets, then it becomes a question of authority, and if that happens, I will set the mill to grind. I hope you understand the opportunity before you – not only for your sake, but also for my own and that of the army. I do not personally have any need to break you, but should the occasion arise in which it becomes necessary, that, too, can be arranged.’
Sarastie drew a deep breath and threw back his shoulders. Mobilizing the towering stature of his body, he felt assured of his own might, affirmed by the very fact that he could afford to grant such a pardon. He flexed his muscles beneath his jacket and expelled any feeling of defeat from his heaving chest, and so was free to grant forgiveness from on high.
Lammio did not need to engage in any body–soul affirming exercises. The issue was no longer his responsibility, and besides, it seemed to him that Rokka had been humiliated, even if he would have supported a movement by the Major to set the mill in motion immediately.
Rokka, for his part, was pleased with the whole arrangement, though he wasn’t about to sign off without conditions. ‘I already said I do what needs done in’na war. But lissen, you tell Lammio here to leave me alone. If he don’t quit those games a his, there won’t be no end to our squabblin’, that’s for damn sure.’
‘You are granted no special exemptions from the disciplinary code. As I said, your behavior will determine how your case is handled henceforth. Dismissed!’
Rokka left. No sooner had he made it out of the door than he was back to bargain. ‘Hey! I just remembered. We’re promised a leave in exchange for a prisoner. So I’m due fourteen extra days. ’Specially seein’ as I got me a cap’n.’
The Major shook his head in wonder at the man’s audacity. Rokka acted as if everything that had just happened hadn’t occurred at all. ‘Well, you’ll get it. No denying it belongs to you. Stick the request first in the pile. To be honest, I only regret that you’ve made it impossible for us to grant you a Mannerheim Cross.’
‘Well, that’s sumpin’ too, but it ain’t no humdinger after all, fifty thousand marks. I nearly made that much offa rings and lamp-stands.’
Rokka finally left for good. He hummed and whistled as he set out, happily swinging his head from side to side. After he’d gone a little way he noticed a rabbit by the side of the road, just bounding out of sight. In the blink of an eye, Rokka was after it, crashing through the thicket as he chased the creature out into the middle of it. The rabbit couldn’t run at full speed yet, being only about half-grown, so Rokka was able to keep right on its heels. ‘Don’t run away! I wanna take you to live with us in’na bunker! I ain’t gonna hurt you…’