By the end of May, the battalion had set up a smashing canteen for themselves, whose grand opening they celebrated with a round of entertainment and saccharine-juice. They were planning a movie theater for the regiment’s sector, which was to be a state-of-the-art example of its kind. Another round of wood-chopping tasks were doled out as well, and Hietanen was forced to wage a real psychological war with his men before he was able to get anyone chopping.
They hadn’t even all started when the command came that they were to cease.
Chapter Thirteen
‘You mean you’re gonna leave Sabine there for Private Russianov to rape?’
‘Let ’er stay. She’s pretty well treated.’
They were packing up, somber-faced and silent. Honkajoki took his pieces of wood, considered them for a moment, and stuck them into his pack. ‘This could set them on the proper path. It could be that they are already as near to a solution as I myself.’
‘Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Back we go. Now that we’ve practically rotted into the ground here.’ Sihvonen was angrily yanking at his pack in an effort to get it shut, as if it were the miserable angles of his belongings that were to blame.
Hietanen stood silently in the middle of the bunker, looking around at the others’ preparations. His own belongings were already packed and ready to go. Three years earlier, he had stayed up waiting for their departure from the burnt clearing barracks, bouncing around boisterously. Now he stood quietly, without saying a word. Koskela was still filling in as Third Company Commander, so Hietanen was in charge of the whole platoon.
Rokka packed up Susling’s gear, as the last guard shift had fallen to his friend. Hietanen ordered Rokka to oversee the first section’s departure, as he himself headed off to the neighboring position to see about the other section. Hietanen had already ordered the machine-gun transport to the side of the road close to the front line.
The phone had been taken away, so they awaited the messenger’s arrival with the command to pull out. When it came, they fetched the machine guns from the nests and left. From the bend in the road, they saw the silhouette of the Devil’s Mound carved against the sky for the last time. A small screen of guys from the infantry company stayed behind to cover as they disengaged.
The transport vehicles waited by the roadside, and when Hietanen had arrived with the second section, they loaded up the machine guns and marched to the company’s designated gathering point. Once the other platoons had arrived and the usual fuss over proceedings had run its course, they began to withdraw.
The road of defeat began quietly. They ceded the Svir bridgehead without any fighting. They passed the abandoned bunkers, products of two-and-a-half years of nibbling away at the earth. The artillery positions were empty. The bitter, silent march led them behind the river that had become so famous. Once over the bridge, Vanhala ran down to the river’s edge, filled a bottle half-full of water and swung it in the air, chuckling, ‘Some of “Onega’s Waves!”’ He hadn’t forgotten the propaganda from Devil’s Mound.
‘Maybe you could stop screeching.’
‘Guess this stream won’t be Finland’s border.’
‘Who the hell cares? At least this goddamn shitshow is done with.’
‘Oh, it ain’t over yet.’
‘Down in Kannas, the guys are running with their tails between their legs.’
‘Wonder what they’re going to make us swallow now.’
‘We’re gonna pay for every last tree we chopped down over here, boys.’
‘Mm-hm. And so are our children’s children.’
‘Well, I know one thing for sure,’ Rokka said. ‘We’re gonna be hungry now that we’re on’na move again. Rations are enough in a positional war since you don’t gotta move, but from now on, fellas, we all better start scroungin’ crumbs again.’
‘We’re a little low on wheat, but chaff we have in spades.’
‘Stop bragging.’
Twilight fell. The path rustled with their footsteps. And off marched the Finnish private – his tilted cap crumpled with the tell-tale folds of its owner, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, his trouser-legs rolled, and his face set in a tense, bitter grimace. One man from the ranks drew in a deep breath, slowed his step into a slack, workaday rhythm, and started to sing. Along with the profane words ringing out into the summer night, there came the cry of his soul, voicing the bitterness of three years’ useless fighting, as if, in this cry, he might scream defiance at all his enemies.
And here my song begins, a story for the ages…
A low rumble filled the hazy, smoke-filled air. Incessant air raids and artillery fire kept the surface of the earth in a state of perpetual shaking. The constant drone of fighter squadrons whirred overhead from every direction. It was as if the whole world were burgeoning with some menacing force that kept bursting forth in howls and explosions.
For the retreat, Sarastie’s battalion was put in a combined combat division commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Karjula. At first they retreated quickly along the poor forest roads, but then the front line caught up with them and the fighting began to intensify.
Bit by bit they ceded back the Eastern Karelian roads they had conquered in such bitter fighting three years before. They were tired and resentful once again – and hungry, just as they had been. The physical exertion took its toll on their food supply, but the poor organization of provisions meant that even the former portions now came irregularly and were often small. Of course, sometimes there was an over-abundance of food, as large quantities of the army’s supplies would occasionally have to be destroyed. Then, even a hungry soldier might manage to sneak into a storage depot and steal all the food he could carry. Rahikainen put his skills to work on behalf of Hietanen’s platoon once more, often keeping them from going hungry and sometimes even improving the state of their clothing. Once he even wormed his way into some barracks that was under heavy artillery fire, boldly risking his life for the ten pairs of new boots he triumphantly emerged with. Had so dangerous a task confronted him in a combat situation, Rahikainen would never have carried it out voluntarily. The only downside to the whole affair was that no one had been able to carry anything with him that was worthy of exchange for such goods, so Rahikainen was obliged to give everything away for free. Every last one of them was short on cash, so even purchasing was out of the question.
The platoon made it through the beginning of its journey without any casualties. The one exception was Honkajoki’s bow, which he had been faithfully dragging along with him. It was left behind at some position when they had been obliged to make a rather swift exit. Honkajoki had been about to grab his weapon as he left, but just then one of the assailants, who had already managed to duck into the bushes beside him, shot a hole through Honkajoki’s shirt. So the bow stayed, and Honkajoki bemoaned its loss, gasping out between breaths as their sprint finally ended, ‘It would give me great gratification to employ an expletive at this moment, despite the gravity of our current situation. At the very least, I must say: damn that Bushki for depriving me of my personal weapon!’
Honkajoki wasn’t bitter. For him, the defeat seemed to be as insignificant and irrelevant as every other worldly circumstance. At one point he went missing for three days. Four men from the First Company disappeared around the same time, and it was decided that they must have left for the ‘pine cone platoon’ – in other words, deserted. But then Honkajoki turned up again. He had simply been carrying out some reconnaissance work a little way behind the camp, he explained. In truth, he had been with the group of deserters, but at some point he had become separated from his companions and decided it might be best to return to the fold.