Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

‘Did you guys break through the main road?’

‘Yup.’

‘How’d you get up to the road?’

‘Uh, from the roadside.’

‘We broke through the bunker line.’

‘That so.’

‘Nearly one in three guys knocked off.’

‘Well, thank lady luck you made it through. No use crowing about dead guys round here. We got ours over there, lined up by the root of that spruce. The wounded’ve been lying there since morning. Can’t do anything for ’em but stick needles in their arms.’

‘Got any bread?’

‘Nope.’

‘Neither do we.’

‘What’s Sarge got in his sack there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? You scrounged something. I can see it.’

‘Wouldja listen to this guy? First he asks and then he says that he knows. If a guy says he knows something, then why’s he gotta ask? Pre-tty strange if you ask me.’

‘Oh spare yourself, Sarge.’

‘I’m pretty pleased I was spared, now that you mention it! And if you keep askin’ for it, it might be more than I can say for you!’ Hietanen was wound up and the argument might well have continued if Kariluoto hadn’t turned up.

‘Whoa, whoa, there. What’s to get all worked up about? Look, it’s all over now. Food’s on its way.’

‘Well, Jesus! What’s he pickin’ a fight for, then? What’d I ever do to him?’

The two men parted ways, joining the others as they began bunching into groups. Now that the danger was past, their spirits revived quickly, and soon they were even chatting about the more comical aspects of the day’s events. Hardly anybody was thinking about the guys who had fallen. They were just happy they were still alive themselves.

When the platoons assembled on the road, Kariluoto said to Koskela, ‘I still haven’t had a chance to thank you. You diffused that whole situation back there. We’d have been dead in the water if it hadn’t been for that maneuver of yours.’

‘Time was it’d be called mischief.’ A flattered smile flashed across Koskela’s face, but he banished it quickly and resumed a serious air as he said, ‘Well, anyway, it was your platoon that did the work today. Good guys. Wouldn’t have taken ’em for first-timers.’

Now it was Kariluoto who smiled with pleasure – and he was in no hurry to wipe it off his face. Koskela’s thank you meant more to him than the others could possibly have understood. In the past two days, Kariluoto had developed a sort of inferiority complex toward this quiet ensign, whom he, like many of the other officers, had previously written off as rather clumsy and lackluster. Now Kariluoto could afford to recognize the man’s merits – for although Koskela’s satchel-charge stunt had been most decisive in saving the day, Kariluoto’s own charge on the bunkers was not far behind. Kariluoto had led his platoon into hand-to-hand combat, which for him sufficed as definitive proof that he was up to the tasks he’d been called to.

Full to bursting, he set off toward his men, congratulating them as soon as he arrived. ‘Men, remember this: we are the ones who made the breakthrough for the battalion today. Good old Platoon Four here ran the show. And Ukkola, that was some first-rate work you did with the second squad’s submachine gun. You keep it up just like that from here on out.’

The men were pleased. They stopped whispering snidely amongst themselves about the Ensign’s posturing. Kariluoto had gained a foothold in the minds of his men. That fellow’s not half bad when it comes down to it. Yeah, but he’s still got some of that cock-a-doodle-doo about him. Look! Look how he swaggers when he walks!

The field kitchen was distributing pea soup. The soup was no worse than usual, but somehow or other the men had understood that this meal was to be a victory celebration of sorts, so the sight of pea skins floating along on that dishwater-gray surface made them rather bitter. Famished as they were, they had rejoiced in their victory and the knowledge that soon they would get to eat in peace – so the half-raw pea soup hit like a ton of bricks. The cook received curses in exchange for each bowl he ladled out.

‘You’d think that with a whole day they could have cooked it till it’s done,’ Rahikainen moaned, staring into his mess bowl. ‘I’ve got one little pea looking for a friend, but alas, his efforts are in vain.’

Mäkilä, standing next to the field kitchen, coughed and said, ‘All the peas that are supposed to be in there are in there. And it’s a kind of pea that doesn’t get soft.’

‘Oh please, pea soup gets soft if you shove some firewood under it.’ Hietanen angrily snatched his bowl out from under the ladle.

‘It’s not worth mouthing off about it. Look, we’re all in the same boat here. The artillery and the mortars haven’t stopped pounding all day. And the First Company lost their cook.’ The fellow dishing out the soup defended himself staunchly, but his efforts only earned him more abuse.

‘Well, why the hell did they choose the First Company? They should have come to us!’

Vanhala alone kept his mouth shut. Meekly, he requested just a little more: ‘Maybe just a little of the broth?’

The cook appreciated Vanhala’s conciliatory attitude in the midst of the general fury and uproar, and so topped up his bowl, scraping the ladle against the bottom of the pot. Vanhala struggled to suppress his smile as he scuttled off to enjoy his bounty in solitude.

Even Lammio’s arrival didn’t put a stop to the heckling until he announced, ‘Anyone who finds the provisions unsatisfactory is welcome to do without. Eating is not mandatory.’

The chaos died down, but a low murmur rumbled on, asserting the general discontent. ‘If that guy turns up on the line, he’s dead. If they don’t get him from out front, I’m gettin’ him from behind.’

‘Now if you could just stretch your neck out for me…’

‘Little bastard crowing like he was somebody. Fuckin’ beanpole. That man’s like bait squirming on a hook and yet he goes mouthing off like a big shot.’

A mysterious rustling was emanating from the Third Platoon. They had retreated into a dense clump of alder trees to divide up the sugar. Hietanen was counting out the lumps into piles.

‘Guys, let’s make a rule that if somebody gets knocked off before he has a chance to eat his sugar, then the group divides up equally whatever he’s got left. Then we won’t have to fight over it,’ Lahtinen suggested.

Grunts of consent sounded above the quiet crunching and grinding of teeth.

‘They’re not gonna send us into any more scuffles for a long time. We’ve done that bit already,’ somebody said.

‘Don’t be so sure,’ Lahtinen said. ‘Nobody got off easy today. The whole world was shaking as far as my ear could hear. And I don’t know if you saw what kind of shape the guys from the Second Battalion were in.’

Lahtinen was always ready to chip in with his sobering two cents lest the general happiness get out of hand. It wasn’t that he wanted to trivialize the men’s accomplishments exactly, it was just habit that made him feel obliged to take things down a notch.

‘If they don’t come out even, I get whatever’s left,’ Rahikainen said. ‘Since I’m the one who found the bag, see.’

‘Wasn’t there anything else there, where you found it?’

‘Couple of carcasses and a bag full of cabbages. But what’cha gonna do with cabbages? Take too long to cook.’

‘Man, if only there’d been some flour and butter, we could have made pancakes.’

‘Yeah. With jam.’

‘Lay off, lay off, wouldja? You guys are killin’ me.’

Then they started rolling cigarettes with the mahorka they’d scrounged from the dead enemy soldiers’ pockets. They lay out on the grass and shot the breeze. It seemed as if the whole world was at peace, as if the war didn’t exist at all. The landscape around the village had been left to run wild, and it was beautiful. Several shades of wildflowers had sprung up in the uncultivated fields, and the smell of the coarse grass was pungent. The men drew in deep breaths of the crisp, evening air. Wide stretches of clouds spread across the sky as it faded into dusk. Rain was in the air.