Вяйнё Линна - Unknown Soldiers

This final point prompted him to tack on another. ‘To hell with all of it.’

Then he drew a deep breath of fresh air into his lungs, as if he wanted to blow out the whole pointless train of thought, and began to sing. He just sort of wove the words together as they came to mind, making up a tune to fit the song that went:

Several of the men wandered further off to write letters, driven by some vague foreboding of what fate held in store. Others tried to sleep, and a few gathered around card games, murmuring now and again. ‘Couple of whores. You tried to pull a fast one, you old cheat. Stop grumbling and get to it! Pot limit. Three shorties and a jack high. You got a pair a kings over there, don’t you? Written all over your face.’

Dusk began to settle over the burnt clearing. The warmth of the day still hovered, so the men could lie outside, gazing up into the depths of the twilit sky that seemed to conceal within it both the past and all that was to come. The rumble of trains drifted over from the railroad tracks as singing, shouts and the occasional order rang out through the camp.

The next pointless alarm came sometime around midnight. The men had already started shivering from the cold, and murmurs of discontent were rumbling here and there. They set in for another wait, until at about one o’clock the duty officer came to put the company on alert. Boisterous with excitement, the men got into formation. They were bursting with that thrilling sensation probably familiar to all troops heading off to war. True, these men weren’t entirely sure it was war they were heading off to, but over the course of the night, a rumor to that effect had taken hold throughout the company. And when Lammio called them to attention, their heels clicked more crisply than usual, and even their pivots betrayed a model precision. And what was the cause of this sudden verve and enthusiasm? May those who wonder why the world goes to war find an answer to that!

They set off toward the other side of the burnt clearing, where there was a path leading to the main road, which would take you just about anywhere. East to Lake Onega and the Svir River, for example – amongst other places. And why not further, if the men had it in them?

The First Company commander, Captain Helminen, had been put in charge of the transport. He issued orders to the officers as he walked. Captain Kaarna arrived after his company and immediately began quarreling with Helminen, as if holding him personally responsible. ‘Should be! The convoy should be on its way! Remarkable, how it continually should be coming. When is it actually coming, then? This is the third time we’ve been called to alert and I’m afraid this one’s a washout, too. Where is the convoy and what is it driving? A convoy can’t just disappear.’

‘I don’t know,’ Helminen replied defensively. ‘The Commander said they drove the Second Battalion to the border during the night, or rather, late in the evening. So maybe they’re still out there. Otherwise, there was just one artillery transport that passed. Supposedly, those guys weren’t regular troops – so mobilization is underway.’

‘Mm… sure, sure. Looks that way. Well, we’ve also been mobilized since yesterday. So who knows? Maybe by tomorrow we’ll actually be mobile.’

Kaarna set off toward his company and said to the men, ‘Well, boys, looks like you’re going to learn how to wait. Don’t get worked up, now. Take advantage of every opportunity you can to get some rest. Coats on, packs for pillows. Get some sleep.’

‘Learn to wait? Oh, we got that down already. Year and a half now we been waiting to go back to being civilians.’

Rahikainen hadn’t meant that for the Captain’s ears. The Captain caught it, however, though he didn’t bother to address it. He just laughed and gazed sidelong at Rahikainen. The men wrapped themselves in their coats and tried to sleep. The cold kept them awake, and they cursed the whole system through their chattering teeth. The ‘gentlemen officers’ could hear snippets here and there – a Finnish private can be pretty cutting when the mood strikes him. The men were hungry, too, though that was by no means exceptional. They’d been hungry since they’d joined the army, and some of them probably well before that. Malnutrition had not yet disappeared from Finland – not in the least. There were still pockets here and there that provided entirely favorable conditions for it to flourish. Certainly the doctors the military had called in to examine the recruits were aware of it. The human stock comprising the infantry bore weaknesses that were the clear product of malnutrition.

Besides being cold and hungry, the men were also sleep-deprived – so, of the four components we might say encapsulate the essence of war, fear was the only thing missing.

Time passed. The summer sky grew lighter, and the edge of the dawn began to glow red in the east. At four o’clock the companies were called together and the march back to the barracks began. The officers let the men grumble in peace. ‘Stroke of genius from our esteemed officers! Just another piss alarm, boys! Practice for the war, right. Sweat saves blood – so every time they mess with us it’s a goddamn “exercise”. Hurry up so you can come and loll around on some clumpy grass!’

The company hadn’t even reached the barracks when an orderly pedaled up behind them on his bicycle. ‘Come back, come back, the convoy’s coming!’

‘About, face! March!’

The murmurs fell silent. Now they were sure departure was imminent. That was how everything happened in the army. They were also sure that a mad rush would set in now, just because the occasion seemed to call for it.

Dusty vehicles began to wobble into view just as the company reached the roadside. A dust-covered master sergeant on a motorbike led the convoy, circling round as the vehicles followed suit, pulling up in a line. The tired drivers took no notice whatsoever of the loading, their bloodshot eyes sinking shut as they dozed off over their steering wheels.

‘Machine-gunners, lighten your water weight,’ Kaarna called out to his company. The men smiled, but the Captain said, almost irritated, ‘Yeah yeah. There’s nothing to laugh about. It’s a long drive.’ He offered himself as an example. Once he had taken care of his business, he jiggled himself dry, buttoned up his trousers and said, looking at the sky, ‘A beautiful day is about to dawn. A great start! A really great start! What a brilliant, red glow… Mmm. Into the vehicles by platoon!’

‘How the hell’s a platoon supposed to fit in that?’ One of the soldiers stared in disbelief, but only until he realized that stalling would mean a bad spot, at which point he dived in with the others. Koskela pressed his thumbs under his belt and looked on silently as the men crammed into the vehicles. He knew the human cargo would organize itself into the best possible configuration, so he left the men to their own devices.

‘Quit shoving, will you? Say, where do we put the packs and guns, huh?’ Having cut the line and seized a prime spot by the wall of the cab, Rahikainen was now demanding more space.

His constant cheating and corner-cutting had earned him a place of special disrepute with Hietanen, who shouted, ‘Pretty sure you can sit on your pack with your gun in your lap just like everybody else.’

‘Sit on my pack? Why, my writing pad’ll get crushed!’ There was no way Rahikainen would have sat on the bare floor of the truck, but he was hoping his ruse might win him more space for later use.