Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

‘Halt! What are you doing? Halt! For the latht time, halt.’

It was Viirilä. He pretended not to hear and just continued on his way. He wasn’t fleeing, he was just walking calmly onward – which was also why he hadn’t obeyed. He wasn’t actually being defiant, he was just scoffing at fear. The command didn’t concern him, because he hadn’t been running to begin with. He had abandoned his post just like all the others, but now, with his calm stride, he was demonstrating that he was not afraid, neither of the enemy nor of Karjula. His disobedience was a parody, enacted for the benefit of anyone who might mistake him for one bowing to fear, an emotion he felt not in the least.

‘Halt. Where are you going?’

‘To bang the wolves in Lapland,’ Viirilä blurted out in his signature, all-blaspheming voice. The only thing missing was the snorting guffaw that usually followed it. Karjula flew into a wild, bloodthirsty rage. This feeling that was constantly fermenting in his soul, making him a terrorizing presence to all around him – and he certainly was that – was now purified and distilled into exactly what it really was: a desire to kill and destroy. And this rage that dwelt within him, constantly seeking an outlet, now rose to the surface and all means of controlling it were powerless to hold it back. There he was. That huge-headed ape. Standing right there was the repulsive personification of everything that had turned the army into a flock of deserters. And the man was laughing.

Viirilä lowered his submachine gun into the crook of his elbow, a certainty descending upon him at the last moment that Karjula was going to shoot. The movement gave Karjula the last impetus he needed to turn desire into action. He shot into the middle of the chest. Viirilä fell to his knees, then doubled over and rolled to the ground. His body jerked for a little while, as the bullet didn’t kill him right away.

Karjula breathed heavily and pointlessly paced back and forth. Then he got his voice back and screamed hoarsely, ‘Men! Calling upon the Code of Military Juthtithe I have condemned thith traitor to death. Men, thith ith a quethtion of Finland. Right here… Right now. Thith event… ith not itholated, but related to every other ithue. The joking endth here. The thame fate awaitth anyone elthe who wantth to rebel.’

The men looked at one another in a state of shock. The silence was broken by Karjula’s hoarse screaming alone. He raved like a madman, destroying what little effect his act had had, which was already pathetically small compared to what it might have been, had he carried it out in a different mental state. The men didn’t know what to think, but they immediately sensed that Karjula hadn’t performed this act out of unavoidable necessity, but rather out of his own deranged fury. And to top it off, it was Viirilä, their Number One man.

Little by little the men’s bewilderment gave way to rage. Jaws clenched and fists squeezed tight around their gunstocks. One of the men further off even took aim at Karjula, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot. Instead, someone else began to scream brokenly in a voice of shock, ‘Russians! Come here! Come on over! Come on, finish us off. We’re killing people over here! Come on!’

The man was screaming like he’d lost his mind. His screeching was like that of a frantic child, full of shock, hate and fear.

The screeching brought Karjula back to his senses. A beastly roar emerged from his throat. The situation being what it was, there was nothing he could do but continue. Just as a person terrified by the realization that he has done something irreparable inevitably proceeds to compound his error, Karjula flew into a renewed rage at the man’s cries. Viirilä was the second man he had shot. The screaming man would certainly have been the third, had the enemy’s tanks not come to his rescue. From behind a bend in the road came the whistle of a shell that came crashing down at Karjula’s feet, laying him flat on his back in the center of the road.

The flight resumed.

Karjula revived instantly. He tried to stand up, but fell down again, as his leg had been nearly torn off. He lay on his stomach, pressing himself up on his arms and screaming, ‘Get in pothition! Damn it! Halt! You goddamn cowardth, help me get into pothition and give me a thubmachine gun…’

His cry betrayed not the slightest hint of weakness or pleading. It had just the same commanding fury as before. He was still trying to get up, screaming curses and howling with anger and pain. There was something in that struggle like the fight of a wild, wounded animal in the final throes of self-defense – filled with rage against everything and everybody, and beyond that the untold despair of knowing that it has already lost the power to fight. Later, the machine-gunners came to think that Lehto and Karjula had had something in common. ‘Exactly like Lehto would’ve been if he’d been a lieutenant colonel,’ they said.

Maybe somebody would even have seen something admirable in this madman’s wild, hopeless rage. But those who watched Karjula’s vigorous efforts to rise didn’t admire him. They hated him – with an intense and relentless hatred. One of the men running by even yelled, ‘We hear you, we just can’t help you!’

‘Blast a row through that motherfucker!’ somebody else called out.

‘We aren’t nurses…’

Rokka arrived in the last group. He hadn’t witnessed the event himself, but quickly gathered what had taken place. Just then Karjula fell unconscious a second time. The tank was shooting a machine gun and everyone vanished. Rokka grabbed the heavy man by the waist and ran beside the road to cover. He carried Karjula a little way, but once he was out of immediate danger, he lowered him to the ground. ‘Don’t feel like goin’ much further ’nnat. That fella there’s stepped outta the bounds a human ways and far as I’m concerned he can stay there.’

Two officers from the Second Company took him from there and carried him a little way, until they could get him into the hands of a couple of medics. The medics carried him because it was their job, but that didn’t prevent them from cursing, officers or no officers.

The battalion retreated without pause. After a small skirmish, the men on Lammio’s roadblock joined the others. The entire combat unit was ceding its positions. Their spirits had reached such a point that the battalion might have dissolved completely had the old border not opened up to greet them. Once they were behind it, their spirits seemed to rise all by themselves. They were even put on break. No questioning of any kind was carried out. Actually, the only real infractions connected to the event were the men’s shouts and the fact that they had not helped Karjula. And the issue was subject to interpretation, since wounded men had been left behind in panic situations before. It was probably determined that the matter would be best forgotten on both sides.

And when, after their rest, the battalion was pulled into a counter-attack, the men pushed back powerfully against the enemy. Their previous slackness had given way to vigor and a will to fight. The men spoke of nothing except that now it was time to start fighting for real. They hardly even noticed the whole thing themselves. ‘National defense’ just seemed like a self-evident duty as soon as the surface of their own land appeared, authorizing the use of such a term in relation to the war.

The battles over the Uomaa-line began, and even the enemy noticed that it seemed to be banging its head against a brick wall again.

Rokka was worried.

He paced back and forth along the length of his platoon, moving from one position to the next. Actually, the platoon was no longer his, as the ensign assigned to lead the Third Platoon had just arrived from the home front that day. Nevertheless, Rokka still felt responsible, as they had a tough situation in front of them. There was a river at their backs. A new line of defense was being set up along the opposite bank, and their assignment was to hold onto the bridgehead, protecting it as long as possible so that the others would have more time to fortify their positions. The bridge over the river was on their left.