Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

‘All right, boys! Now we’re in and we are not letting go. Get to it! Guys in the back, make sure that not one nose peeps out over the edge of this trench. Men in the back, keep the hand grenades coming to the fellows up front. Asumaniemi… OK, here we go.’ Jalovaara was whipped up into a real battle rage. He stepped out in front, hoping to do his part in the whole mission. Watching Vanhala, Asumaniemi and Honkajoki carry out their hand-grenade operation, he had begun to wish he had gone himself and left the platoon to Määttä. He felt a bit ashamed of having sent the others out first – hence his desire to take part in the fighting personally.

They started clearing out the trench. The Ensign walked in front with his submachine gun tucked under his arm, and Asumaniemi threw hand grenades over his head. Some came flying at them from the opposite direction as well, but Asumaniemi easily overwhelmed them. The length and precision of his throws guaranteed that the men could move forward practically unobstructed.

Then the trench joined up with the main artery running along the riverbank. An intense exchange of hand grenades halted them there for a moment, until Jalovaara put a swift end to the skirmish by running boldly up to the turn in the trench and mowing down everything behind it. He brought down a Russian captain along with his three men. That cued the flight.

Then things began to clear up elsewhere too. They were able to retake the other stronghold position the enemy had seized by putting it under heavy fire from the position they’d attained. Jalovaara ordered Määttä and his machine gun to be brought to him as soon as they arrived with the second section, and as soon as they came, they started sending machine-gun and submachine-gun fire over to the neighboring position, over which some intense close-range combat was underway. A large percentage of that stronghold’s posts were practically laid out on a platter before them, and once Määttä got going they could watch the enemy soldiers abandoning the trench. The position had been lost for the very same reason. Once the invaders had taken over the hill that controlled it, they could just shoot their opponents out of their posts and force them to abandon the stronghold, just as the enemy soldiers were now compelled to do themselves, as Määttä shot belt after belt into the trench and the gun-nests.

The others immediately resumed pushing out the enemy. Then came the moment Jalovaara had been waiting for. Their opponents had to climb out of the trench and abandon the position. Hand grenades were still crashing down constantly over by the second bunker, but in front of them the first fugitive was already climbing up onto the parapet. He was trying to make it to the riverbank, but went down after a couple of strides.

Vanhala was behind Asumaniemi and yelled, ‘They’re leaving… Hey… at least ten…’ Several soldiers were climbing from the trench about thirty yards out in front of them. Their plight was hopeless, however.

Jalovaara’s men rushed to the nests and opened fire. Even the more timid men were in a wild frenzy, as the danger was not great and the targets were all the better for it. Enemy soldiers died all along the riverbank. A few made it to the river, but no sooner did they reach the water than it splashed up around them.

‘Aim sharp, boys… time to settle the score, boys… they asked for it…’ Jalovaara’s voice was hoarse as he yelled out brokenly, panting with fury and the rage of battle. Asumaniemi rose up carelessly and said, ‘Hey… I put a stop to that butterfly stroke… did all you bums see that?’

‘Me, too… we came that way too… there… for my bootleg…’ Priha was settling old accounts.

The one who killed fugitives with the greatest panache, however, was Honkajoki, who had joined in late in the game. Actually, it would be false to say that he killed fugitives. That is, he didn’t actually hit anyone, because he didn’t aim – he just shot in the same general direction as the others, looking very splendid and calling to Vanhala, ‘Shock trooper Vanhala, brilliant execution. The homeland will not forget you.’

Honkajoki figured he had pulled his weight in the whole ordeal, if only by the seat of his pants. Although, indeed, he had been a little tardy setting out. But one does have to assess a situation first. Understandably.

Not one enemy soldier made it across the river. Those on the opposite bank were firing intensely, however. A thud came from the direction of the second bunker, and the men could instantly guess what had happened. Blown up with a satchel charge.

‘Guys, I’m out of ammo. Any of you bums got extra?’ Asumaniemi turned slightly to the side in the nest and simultaneously rose so that his head and shoulders popped into view through the opening in the nest. Just then, he tumbled over, grabbing his chest.

The others saw him take a few steps as if he were drunk. Then they heard him say quickly a couple of times, ‘It’s on the left… the heart is on the left…’

Then he fell to the floor of the trench, and when Jalovaara and Vanhala turned him onto his back, they saw that the boy was dead. The bullet had actually struck quite close to his heart.

Jalovaara suddenly turned away. He took a few violent steps, but then got himself under control and said, ‘Always the best…’

The shooting ceased. Everyone was stunned. The easy slaughter of a moment ago and the success of the counter-attack, with no casualties, had lifted their spirits almost to the point of exultation. Asumaniemi’s death thudded down like a sledgehammer in the middle of the elated atmosphere. The final expression on the boy’s face was one of astonishment. No doubt his bravery had been connected to a perfect certainty that danger did not actually exist. He had had one, brief moment in which to realize that playing with one’s life can lead to losing it.

He was, incidentally, one of the most beautiful corpses they had seen. That slightly childish expression of amazement still beamed from his face. Otherwise it was perfectly calm, untroubled by any of the warped contortions that usually made the features of the dead so horrible to look at.

Jalovaara left a few men to secure the riverbank, then set off toward the second bunker’s communication trench with Vanhala, Honkajoki, Sihvonen and one of the new recruits. Six enemy soldiers surrendered there, seeing that they had no hope of escape. They had been retreating down the road the second section had come along when they saw that their escape route was blocked. The last man raised his hands like the others, but then suddenly grabbed the submachine gun he had dropped, stuck the barrel under his jaw, and shot himself. He had the shoulder tabs of a second lieutenant.

The position had been retaken. Two men from the second section had been wounded – one by shrapnel from a hand grenade and the other by a piece of wood that had sailed from the doorpost of the bunker after he threw the satchel charge through its opening. They had taken three prisoners from the bunker, making eight in all. Jalovaara sent them away immediately and hurried to man the positions. As soon as the enemy was sure their own men were all out of the stronghold, they would launch a terrible barrage in revenge. There was no doubt about that.

Things were already quiet in the neighboring stronghold as well. The enemy soldiers over there who had tried to make it to the river ended up dying helplessly, as Määttä’s machine gun was situated at a particularly opportune angle. When Jalovaara reached the machine-gun position, the new recruit who had been assisting Määttä was bursting with excitement. This many and that many men we shot! They dropped like frogs!

Määttä himself was smoking a cigarette and looking indifferent. When Jalovaara congratulated him, he paid the Ensign no attention, then said, as if he hadn’t heard him at all, ‘Might want to pull the team back into the foxholes for cover. Iron’s gonna start comin’ down pretty soon.’