Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

The air trembled as booms echoed through the summer morning. Thousands of gun barrels glowed with heat, thousands of hands loaded and fired, and thousands of men crawled and dashed their way forward, body and soul gripped with anxiety. And in that same anxious grip, thousands of others fended them off, staunchly defending their posts to the bitter end. Tens, hundreds died; hundreds were wounded; there were displays of fear, and there were displays of spectacular bravery. For more than a year, a great proportion of the Finnish people had been quietly awaiting their moment of revenge, fists clenched in their pockets. There was real force behind the attack.

But there was real force behind the defense, too. It was clear to Kariluoto that leading a charge in the face of this fire would mean the end of his platoon, even if he could convince the men to attempt it. They were crawling slowly.

‘Fucking artillery! It’s no help at all,’ somebody gasped.

Kariluoto was desperate. He could sense that the attack was losing its edge. But the thought unleashed a powerful wave of his former drive. Fear lurked in the depths of his soul. Strained, tottering on the brink of despair, he suppressed it, and little by little his will won the upper hand, and he was able to get his anxiety under control. ‘Crawl forward! Take turns firing. Take advantage of the terrain. Squad leaders. Get your guys together and advance in squads, half the guys cover while the other half advance. Give an example for the others to follow!’

Kariluoto was already nearly ten yards out in front of the others. The nearest squad leader ordered his men to fire and rose to make a run for it. He had just come into line with Kariluoto when his sprint was cut short. The man rolled onto his back. A blue hole lay between his eyes, right in the center of his forehead. His hand fumbled for the button of his collar and went stiff, his mouth gasping for air a few times, like a fish out of water.

‘Tyynelä!’

No answer. Kariluoto crawled over and confirmed that the man was dead. Just then a bullet tore a hole through his own cap.

‘Rekomaa, take the second squad.’

A man from the second squad, Tyynelä’s coffee buddy and closest friend, was endeavoring to aim his gun. The sight was blurry. His eyes smarted with tears and sweat. In a choked-up voice, wavering with anger – an anger directed at Kariluoto – he muttered, ‘Example, example. There’s Tyynelä’s example.’

They advanced a few more yards, but Tyynelä’s death had taken a toll on the men.

‘I’m hit!’ Somebody started crawling back on all fours.

‘Medics!’

A minute later, nineteen bullets raked the body of some guy who was crawling. They counted the bullets later, at the aid station.

Kariluoto had a hole in his holster now, too, as well as his cap. He was taut with nervous exhaustion, but he refused to let up. No sooner would the platoon catch up with him than he would start advancing again. Private Ukkola, the guy who had run beside him the previous day, was following close behind him now. Each of them threw a hand grenade, but both fell hopelessly short. Four or five enemy grenades came thudding down in response, though they, too, fell too far off to be effective.

Kariluoto heard someone calling out his name and, spotting Autio lying behind him, crawled over.

‘Can’t you get any further?’ Autio asked.

‘I’ve tried everything.’ Kariluoto’s voice was angry, but not in a defensive way – more despairing. He tried to spit, but the pitiful drop dried up on his lips. His mouth was horribly dry. He wiped his sleeve across his lips and caught a bitter, crushed worm in his mouth. ‘Lost three men and my best squad leader. The barricade’s mined and the lead’s coming down like rain. It’ll be the death of the whole platoon… personally I think we’re done for…’

‘No… no. None of that… The whole battalion’s stuck. The Second Company’s got heavy losses… Two platoon leaders. And from my men, Lilius is out of the game. Took it in the shoulder. I notified the Commander of the situation, but he ordered us to keep at it.’

‘Can we soften them up again?’

‘We’ll never get another attack launched if we pull back now… If you make it, you know… look, I won’t mince words. You make it through, today’s your day.’

Autio knew Kariluoto and his plans to pursue a career as an officer – which was why he was applying every possible psychological pressure. He knew that, of all the platoon leaders, Kariluoto was the one who, despite his weaknesses, would have the hardest time saying, ‘I can’t make it any further.’

‘I’ll do what I can… if I can just get the guys to move.’

‘Give it a shot. It’s not obligatory. It’s just that it would be pretty rough having to turn back now, after all these casualties.’

Autio returned to his men and Kariluoto crawled back to the head of his platoon, which was still exchanging fire. The shooting had died down a little. Every last one of the men would have fiercely denied that it had taken them a full hour and a half to advance these sixty-odd yards. The men were already getting tired. Their lips were parched with thirst. Several were already lying down apathetically behind boulders.

The peat-covered enemy bunker was already clearly visible. Continuous fire streamed out from its black openings. There was another one a little ways off to the left. After that, the line turned a corner and the Second Company’s sector began. There, men had been ordered out of the ranks to assist the medics. Spearheading the attack had cost them many men. The platoon leaders had taken the brunt of it, and two of them were already dead. To make matters worse, the Second Platoon had lost its deputy platoon leader just after its leader.

When the platoon leader fell, the ambitious corporal had envisioned taking over his duties, which would send him straight to the top. ‘All right, boys, this is it!’ He managed to sprint four steps as a platoon leader before a spray of light-machine-gun fire cut short his dreams of promotion for evermore.

In the protected area, there were eleven bodies and eighteen wounded. And more kept arriving. The stretchers were sticky with blood. The head medic rushed about amidst a sea of wails and moans. ‘How am I ever going to get all of these back? Pretty soon half the company’s going to be carrying the other half.’

The men had reached the end of their tether. They were cursing and yelling at one another, ‘Shut up… pick up the fucking stretcher or I’ll just drag him!’

Koskela and the first section had had almost nothing to do since the fighting began. The machine guns couldn’t be brought in for support until they were closer to the bunkers. Koskela could see that it wouldn’t pay to carry such easy prey into the fighting unless they could run the guns straight into reasonable range of the bunkers. This made some of the men happy, but some of them felt uneasy standing around idly while the others were engaged in such heavy fighting. They hadn’t been hardened against that sort of thing yet, as this was their first real battle. When Koskela saw that the men had stopped before the bunkers, he decided the moment had come.

And so they had their first taste of the miserable task of all machine-gunners. ‘It’s easy shit, running in behind?’ the infantry guys would sometimes ask. The easy life didn’t come cheap, however, and they paid for it in the tens of pounds of equipment they had to lug. It was hard to take cover with the equipment, so they tried to slither up the slope on their sides, dragging the gun-stands, but the going was excruciating. Koskela sent Hietanen off with Lahtinen’s machine gun to attack one bunker, and he himself took Lehto’s to the other.