Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

Jalovaara got the enemy in the sight of his light machine gun. The men were camouflaged, of course, but they gave themselves away. His shot would announce the attack.

He pressed the trigger.

The clatter of tens of weapons descended in one moment. Määttä’s machine gun quickly joined in, its even, constant hammering cutting through the sundry shooting of the others.

The Ensign spotted Vanhala crawling forward. He had to keep firing continually, though, so he could only follow the action out of the corner of his eye. He did manage to catch a glimpse of Asumaniemi blowing by Vanhala, running practically upright with his rifle blasting away under his arm.

The boy had started crawling behind Vanhala, but when the whistling bullets started raining down around his ears, he rose to his feet and started sprinting forward. That was where he lost his cap. Its showy angle was too steep, and any sudden movement was liable to send it flying.

When Vanhala saw him, he stood up as well. Almost without thinking, he realized that Asumaniemi’s bold sprint had made hiding impossible, and that nothing but speed was going to help them now. Pi phiew. Phiew phiew phiew phiew phiew .

Holding his breath, Vanhala sprinted the forty yards standing between himself and the end of the communication trench. Angry squeals followed him as he ran, and he was conscious of being in a gun-sight the whole time. He hadn’t had time to see where Honkajoki was.

The communication trench began as a low ditch and continued on that way for some distance. The ditch was unmanned, but it was under fire. Vanhala dived to the bottom of it, nearly butting his head up against the heel of Asumaniemi’s boot. Then he glanced backwards and saw that Honkajoki hadn’t followed at all.

Asumaniemi raised his head and looked forward. The movement provoked an angry shower of bullets into the parapet. The boy was pink with excitement and flushed from his run as he gasped, ‘Woo-hoo! We made it! I’m heading in. Follow me and keep your grenades ready! There’s a Russki round that bend. I’ll kill him first. Now listen, man, now we just gotta get ’em right in the eyes. Let’s crawl closer along the bottom of the trench.’

‘For Christ’s sake, boy! There’s two of us!’

‘Don’t be such a whiner! We hafta act fast… I’m going now.’

Asumaniemi set off and Vanhala followed. Just then a hand grenade thudded down in front of them and exploded.

‘I’ll throw.’ Asumaniemi took a grenade and yanked the pull ring. ‘Take that, man!’

The grenade sailed from his hand like a ball from a schoolboy’s and landed precisely where it needed to. The boy sprinted off, his blond hair blowing in the wind, and Vanhala followed on all fours, huffing and puffing, his rear in the air as he scuttled along in a curious sort of gallop. Phiew phiew phiew phiew phiew…

The clattering only intensified. Their own men were shooting furiously, as they had seen Vanhala and Asumaniemi make it into the trench. Jalovaara knew, though, that the hardest part was still to come. The hollow itself was almost in a blind spot, so the danger there wasn’t the greatest they were going to face. Once they reached the positions, however… and that gangly giraffe… fuck!

Jalovaara realized that Honkajoki hadn’t gone out at all. But what was that? There he goes!

The Ensign witnessed a peculiar sight. The towering Honkajoki was crawling forward on his hands and knees. But he didn’t move his hands and legs normally, he moved them in turns, lifting either both hands or both feet at the same time. This made his advance a bizarre sort of hopping procedure. The most amazing thing about the maneuver, however, was its incredible speed. His hands and feet moved jauntily, and he progressed like some outlandish animal straight down the bottom of the hollow. He wrapped up his sprint with a few leaps and disappeared into the communication trench.

Behind the curve in the trench lay a Russian corpse the hand grenade had torn to pieces. Another man was crawling away wounded. Two more were coming down the trench to help him. In the blink of an eye, it was as if they had been frozen in place. They knew that enemy soldiers had made it into this end of the communication trench, but they were still stunned at the sight of this bare-headed boy standing before them with his submachine gun raised.

Trrrrrrrrrrt trrrt trrrrrrt…

Both died without a sound. Asumaniemi yelled backwards, ‘Fork in the trench! Somebody go check the other direction…’

‘He didn’t come,’ Vanhala gasped, but then saw Honkajoki flop down into the trench behind them.

‘Hurry. Hurry… come here!’

Honkajoki came, his eyes round, too out of breath to say a word.

‘There’s a fork in the trench over there… Remember… Whoever goes to the second bunker… Make sure that we can make it into range to take out the machine guns…’

‘Bam.’

‘Hand grenade.’

‘I’ll answer.’ Asumaniemi tossed another grenade. Right after the blast, he took off and made it to the fork in the trench. Three hand grenades in a row sailed toward them, and they leapt a few steps backwards. As they were lying there, Asumaniemi said, ‘I’m gonna go kill that wounded guy. So he doesn’t get us from behind.’

‘He wouldn’t be able to,’ Vanhala panted.

The grenades having gone off, they tried again. Asumaniemi took Vanhala’s grenade too, as Vanhala couldn’t throw very far at all. The boy sped up and threw hard. The grenade flew to just about the spot from which the three grenades had emerged.

‘What will be will be… ding ding ding!’ Asumaniemi ran to the next turn in the trench and shot from behind the corner.

Over the uninterrupted pounding of his submachine gun came Asumaniemi’s shouts of, ‘Guys!… Come here!… Four!… No, more!’

Vanhala and Honkajoki ran crouching after Asumaniemi, making it around the curve in the trench just in time to see the boy empty a drum into a heap of a body that was still moving slightly. They were at the fork in the trench. Vanhala threw two grenades, one after the other, in the direction of the second bunker, and commanded Honkajoki to stand at the head of the trench.

‘Just don’t let ’em through… keep your grenades ready… And if they throw, dodge – but don’t leave…’ Priha was panting with anxiety from the speed of their exertion. Honkajoki was just as frantic, but he nonetheless feigned an air of propriety and straightened up into shooting stance as he said breathlessly, ‘Shock trooper Honkajoki at your service…’

Then Priha threw his last grenade over Asumaniemi’s head, and as soon as it exploded, they headed around the next turn, stepping on the bodies obstructing the trench floor. Soft, limp flesh squished gruesomely underfoot. Asumaniemi was glowing with ecstasy and excitement, and Vanhala was starting to feel some of the same enthusiasm as well. He realized that the operation had succeeded, and this success, combined with his awareness of his own role in it, tickled Priha. He was already smiling.

Just as they both opened fire along the edge of the trench to hold back the enemies manning it, they heard Jalovaara shout from further back on their left. Vanhala glanced over and saw the Ensign running, with Sihvonen and a few of the new men behind him. The other section arrived from behind, coming by way of the same low stretch they had taken.

The two machine guns they had set out to silence sat mute on the bank of the trench. The soldiers manning them had already run by the time Vanhala threw his last grenade. The advancing platoon did encounter some fire from further off, but not enough to halt their attack.

Jalovaara was the first to leap down into the trench. He ordered Vanhala to head back and lead the second section down the trench to the second bunker. The men had received these instructions earlier, of course, but the Ensign still wanted to make sure. He also ordered Vanhala to remind Honkajoki that he was to wait at the fork until Määttä brought the machine gun. It had to be positioned so as to prevent the enemy soldiers from climbing out of the trench and escaping as they evacuated the positions.