Not understanding Rokka’s promises, the rabbit just sped up, and after running about a quarter of a mile, Rokka decided it was no use. Huffing and puffing, he returned to the path, shaking his head at the rabbit’s escape. ‘Well, I guess we woulda hadda scrounge up grass for the little fella. And seein’ as I’m headed off on leave…’
His breath had evened out by the time he reached the bunker. ‘Damn near caught us a rabbit on my way back! We could a had a pet.’
‘What did they say?’
‘’Bout what?’
‘The prisoner and everything.’
‘Oh, they didn’t say nothin’. I’m takin’ off on leave. I got me a leave!’
Only to Koskela did Rokka report what had happened at the command post. Lammio was quite restrained from then on, and said nothing further about the incident – nor about a Mannerheim Cross, for that matter.
IV
Italy fell definitively over the course of the autumn. The most recalcitrant men in the battalion were rounded up and ordered to carry out drills designed to re-establish discipline. Honkajoki was amongst them, as Lammio had started following the man’s intrigues ever more closely and decided that he posed a menace to morale. Some captain was assigned to oversee the close-formation drills, but he could see from day one that he’d been given a hopeless task. What, for example, was he supposed to do with this tall hulk of a man who stood in the ranks with a bow over his shoulder and responded affirmatively, in the most courteous of terms, to everything he said, then systematically performed every single movement incorrectly? And what could he do with that thug named Viirilä, whom he had difficulty even looking at? And crowning it all was the knowledge that Viirilä, like a surprising number of these delinquents, represented the cream of the crop within the battalion.
The general rule was that men were released from the exercise when they knew how to execute the drills properly. Or rather, when they decided to execute them properly, as there was no question they all knew how. But the Captain ended up having to relax this rule rather generously, as otherwise the drills would have drilled right on into eternity. The last men remaining were Honkajoki and Viirilä. They sat beside one another with equal measures of indifference. Honkajoki had traded his bow for a gun at the Captain’s demand, but that was indeed the only concession the Captain managed to get out of him.
Some sergeant was giving orders and the Captain was supervising.
‘About face, fall out!’
The men turned and ran backwards in accordance with the command. Honkajoki headed headlong into a sizeable spruce, and then, chest pressed up against it, continued running in place until finally he pretended to notice the tree, backed up slightly, and steered himself around it. Viirilä bolted out at a fierce clip, trampling a juniper grove on the way.
‘Halt! Fall in!’ the Sergeant called out. Honkajoki stopped and ran back to attention in front of the Sergeant. But Viirilä pretended not to hear, and just kept barreling on.
‘Stop! The command was to fall in!’ the Sergeant yelled.
Viirilä stopped, swung his head like a horse chewing on a bit, and let loose a long whinny. Then he shot off, running, stopped again, and started pawing at the ground, snorting through his lips like a skittish horse. Then he kicked and neighed, ‘I-I-I-eeew.’ He then resumed his startling speed once more, ran up to the Sergeant, and stopped beside Honkajoki.
‘What is this? Cut the horseplay!’ the Captain said in affectedly stern tones, which nonetheless betrayed his hopeless exhaustion.
Viirilä didn’t respond, he just pawed at the ground, glancing at Honkajoki.
‘Stop it!’
‘I-I-I-eeeew!’ the horse kicked and whinnied.
‘Continue with the drill,’ the Captain said to the Sergeant, seeking some exit from the hopeless situation.
Viirilä gave up his horse impersonation and executed the drills so astonishingly well for a while that the Captain had already resolved to excuse him from the drill when Viirilä, turning the wrong way, started inventing his own gun routines, which were so ludicrous that the Sergeant lost it entirely and the Captain had to turn away to conceal his laughter.
After devoting a week to the two of them, the Captain admitted defeat and quietly put an end to the discipline refresher courses.
The drills did not improve Honkajoki’s ways. Whenever he wasn’t working on his perpetual-motion-machine, which is to say fitting together some whittled pieces of wood, he roamed about as a self-appointed ‘enlightenment officer’. For two years now he had managed to keep his perpetual-motion-machine project going, and whenever he thought it had receded to the point of being forgotten, and thus that it might attract attention again, he trotted it out.
Vanhala tagged along for many of Honkajoki’s charades, but he was promoted to corporal even so, on account of his soldierly accomplishments. These had been honed even further one day when Vanhala, standing guard, had singlehandedly fended off an invading enemy patrol before the others had even managed to get into position. The stripe provided Vanhala with quiet delight for a long time, as it was such an easy target for poking fun.
At the beginning of that winter, Hietanen was wounded in the thigh by a shard from some shell, but the wound was so slight that he was only away at the hospital a month or so. He was the same spirited Urho-boy as before, but a gravity and manly maturity had begun to appear in him, little by little. In part, this was due to the deteriorating situation, but it was also on account of the very natural fact that they had all advanced in age somewhat over the course of the years. Hietanen served as platoon leader whenever Koskela was away on leave, or off filling in for some company commander who was away on leave. He and Määttä were just as devoted to their card games as ever, and the same ruckus would fill the bunker until Hietanen had lost all his pay.
Of all of them, Susling was probably most affected by the unfortunate end the war was clearly approaching. For him, as for Rokka, it meant a concrete loss, but while these developments made Rokka ever tenser, in Susling they seemed to bring on a paralysing depression. Even Rokka wasn’t able to keep his friend’s spirits up, though he never stopped trying. In this matter alone, Susling was unable to place his unbounded faith in Rokka’s thoughts and moods as he usually did.
Around Christmas time, the German battleship Scharnhorst sank in the Arctic Sea.
‘Buttons are poppin’ off one by one, boys.’
‘Must have been stitched on with matches from the start, heehee…’
Honkajoki popped into one of the neighboring bunkers with his bow.
‘May peace be with you.’
‘How’s it goin’, archer-man?’
‘Thank you for inquiring. A frost warning has been announced.’
‘No Eastern frost nor Northern freeze shall stay us in our course!’
‘Let us hope, indeed, let us hope. But one is obliged to recognize that at the present moment, felt boots and quilted coats would be of capital assistance.’
A private was sitting on one of the bunks, his eyes burning with the ‘holy’ gaze of the believer. And, despite the risk posed by the Lieutenant lying on another bunk, he said, ‘Sure, make fun if you want, but we need warm clothes around here.’
The Private was actually something of a lone wolf, much as Lahtinen had been, and it was significant, somehow or other, that he now dared to make such comments.
Honkajoki seized upon the issue. ‘My brother-in-arms’ comment was clearly intended in an exclusively literal sense. In that regard, I am quite agreed. But in so far as you may have been extrapolating from these items of clothing to consider their significance within the broader framework of world events, then in the name of freedom of information I must forbid myself from pursuing the inquiry any further.’