Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

Rokka stared angrily at the toes of his boots, then shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, what the hell do those fellas matter to me now anyway? Karelia’s gone. War’s lost. There ain’t nothin’ left for me to lose. I’m just here’da make ’em pay for takin’ Kannas now. Nabbed a major day before yesterday. Served ’im right, comin’ over here with a patrol! Fellas from the First Company took the shoulder tabs. Missed a chance, Rahikainen.’

‘Oh, I’m not collectin’ those anymore. To hell with ’em. To hell with the badges, Karelia, the war – and good riddance!’

‘Shut up! The guys are puttin’ up a tough fight down in Kannas. They’ve stopped the advance,’ Sihvonen said.

‘Ain’t gonna help nothin’, you can be sure ’bout that. They’ll git through anyway, sometime or other. War’s lost. All that gaddamn work for nothin’.’

Phi phiew…

‘Bullet, boys,’ Asumaniemi said.

They all pressed lower into their foxholes. Only Rokka didn’t move. He sat right where he was and said, as if to himself, ‘There they go, flyin’ bullets. Got all the men in’na world takin’ their weapons and hot-footin’ it through the fields an’na forests. Every one of ’em shootin’ his off somewhere. Yeah, I bet there’s bullets flyin’.’

‘Git in’na pit!’ Susling said, his voice slightly worried.

‘Even a fella like Koskela,’ Rokka continued in the same tone, indifferent to Susling’s urging. ‘If anybody knew there was no point in dyin’ out here for nothin’ it was him. And then there he goes, just like he was committin’ suicide. There’s no way he was gittin’ outta there after he’d thrown that satchel charge. I think he knew it, too. Lissen, Priha, what did you say to the chaplain yesterday when he started talkin’na you?’

‘Heehee… He asked about the watch that guy from the First Company had, the guy shot by the patrol… and I said somebody without a watch prob’ly took it… This religion thing’s started gettin’ pretty weird, too. There’s men being killed all over like pigs in a slaughterhouse, but that doesn’t interest the minister much. Seems like stealin’s a sin worse than murder! Heehee. Doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me, pinching a watch off a guy like that who doesn’t know the time anymore anyway, heehee.’

‘Damn it, boy! Now you’re startin’na talk sense. How did you git to be so wise?’

‘I am an independent-minded forest fighter, not some herd animal who just repeats propaganda, heeheehee…’ Vanhala erupted into hearty laughter, then sprawled out on his back on the bottom of his hole. Rokka was about to join in as well, but just then heavy shooting started up on the left, from the direction of the main road, accompanied by a call to charge. In the same moment, the men grabbed their weapons and once more the chatter ceased, faces grew serious and, in a state of intense anxiety, they prepared to repel the attack.

Half an hour later the situation was such that a retreat over the bridge would have had to have begun immediately. The enemy wasn’t putting any pressure on them, however, and the command was slow in coming. But the Third Company, which was defending the main road, was already retreating at full steam toward the bridge, and there was no doubt that the enemy would follow close on its heels. When the Company Commander then sent word to disengage and retreat, Rokka thought it would be best to swim across the river. He said as much to Jalovaara, but the Ensign thought only of the instructions he had been given. He might also have been resistant to taking up Rokka’s suggestion because of their earlier quarrel over the issue. Not that Jalovaara would have done such a thing consciously, but he wasn’t able to separate out the various forces influencing him, so the sharpness of his refusal may well have reflected his reluctance to recognize that Rokka had been right.

So, they set off to retreat across the bridge, but were unable to make it that far. They did see the bridge, gruesome sight that it was – with wounded men from the Third Company crawling the length of it while the enemy kept them under constant fire. The new Third Company commander collapsed there as well. Then they heard the sappers scream hoarsely, ‘The bridge is gonna blow!’

The scream was like a call of distress. The sappers were obviously aware that there might be somebody out on the bridge who was still alive. But they couldn’t save him – all they could do was wait for the wounded to become the deceased. A powerful explosion shook the entire surrounding area, and bodies flew into the air amidst chunks of the bridge.

And so the Third Platoon ended up swimming after all. Wood debris and human body parts were still raining down in front of them when Rokka yelled, ‘You young fellas head out first! Määttä, take the machine gun! Rahikainen, Sihvonen and Honkajoki’ll help! Rest of us’ll hold ’em back from the bank in’na meantime.’

The men waded into the water and started floundering their way across. Only in the very center of the river did the water reach above their heads, but two bounds was enough to get across that bit.

Jalovaara, Rokka, Vanhala, Susling and Asumaniemi remained. They fired as fast as they could to keep the enemy from reaching the bank. Jalovaara ordered Asumaniemi to start swimming immediately, but the boy was too busy blowing through cartridges to listen.

‘I got him! Hey, I got him! Look! Over there, by the root of that bush…’

‘Git in’na crick! Damn it, boy, didn’t you hear me?’ Rokka yelled angrily.

Even in his panic Jalovaara remembered what Rokka had said about swimming, and said, ‘You men go! I’ll be right behind you.’

Rokka, however, never let that kind of thing influence him while he was fighting. He understood that the Ensign wanted to make up for what he’d said earlier, but he still didn’t think the suggestion made any sense, so he said, ‘You come with us, damn it. One man ain’t gonna make any difference. Here we go!’

They went. The Ensign figured he had done his duty and followed suit. Just as Susling was stepping into the water, he lurched and fell onto a rock. He said in a low, resigned voice, ‘I stay here, Antti. I stay here.’

‘What happen’na you?’

‘Go! Run! I’ll stay here. I can’t make it… Run… I’m hit. Run, you all! They’re shootin’ from the bridge!’

The bullet had come from somewhere far off, near the bridge, as their position was still protected from the land by a bluff running alongside the river. Just then a whole hail of bullets splashed into the water. They’d been noticed.

The water around Susling turned red. He tried to get up, but slipped on a rock and fell again.

He gave just one gulp of pain as Rokka swung him over his shoulder. Susling was a decent-sized man, but up onto the shoulder he went, and Rokka plunged into the current like a strapping stallion. There was no point in crouching. All that mattered was speed. Vanhala, Jalovaara and Asumaniemi tried to shoot at the enemy as they floundered across. It was no use, however, as they couldn’t even see the men shooting. When they were halfway across, Rokka bellowed, ‘Keep your head up… Keep your head up… Here we go, Suslin’!’

And so they all went. Rokka popped up to the water’s surface only once, taking a gulp of air and gasping, ‘Head up…’

The guys manning the opposite bank were also trying to send in some fire to cover the unlucky five. The worst part would be climbing up to the positions, as at that point they would be vulnerable to enemy fire coming from above as well. The high banks protected them as they swam across the river. The bullets were coming from a spot far over by the bridge, from which the river itself was actually visible.