Maki shook his head, “No, it should have taken maybe ten minutes at most to debark this amount of men from the trucks, ensure all was at the ready, and then form them up into a line. The amount of time this is taking is beyond pathetic. It really shows just how poorly trained these communist swine are.”
“With such a large well equipped army, why send the untrained against us?” Hale wondered.
“It doesn’t make any sense does it?” Maki replied.
“No. Why waste the resources when you don’t have to?” Hale said.
The pair of men fell silent as they watched the Soviet brigade sized formation cautiously advanced toward the village. To Hale’s trained eye, they looked fearful and uncertain about the forest. They stepped in all the wrong places, made too much noise, and failed to use the trees as cover, as they slowly crept toward their goal.
Whoever was in charge of the battalion of Finns in the village was a smart tactician. The Finns held their fire until the Soviets had advanced well beyond the position they had been engaged at earlier. The closer they drew to the village, the sloppier and more incautious they became thinking the Finnish defenders had fled. Finally, when Hales heart seemed as if it would burst from the anticipation of the coming attack, the weapons in the village burst to life.
Simultaneously a series of explosions ripped through the advancing line of Soviet soldiers. The kinetic energy from the detonations flung the hapless Russians and pieces of Russians in all directions. Those that still stood, were quickly cut down by the wall of steel that slammed into the brigade. Hale watch as nearly a thousand men perished in the course of a minute.
Those that survived broke and fled back the direction they had come. Sergeants and Commissars roared with displeasure at the fleeing men, but their calls to turn around went unheeded. Ignoring their leaders, the broken men fled away from the Finnish battalion as fast as their legs would carry them.
Maki laughed openly at the scene. Curious Hale turned to his Lieutenant and asked, “What is so amusing about this?”
“There are maybe three hundred Finns in Kivennapa. The Russians have the entire 24th Motorized Rifle Division bearing down on them. Thus far three hundred men have held up ten thousand for the better part of an hour while slaying around a thousand of them.”
“When you put it that way it is pretty amusing. Maybe they can hold and we won’t even have to engage?” Hale said.
Maki made eye contact with Hale, “No, sadly our time will come. They’ll be more careful this time. They’ll probably take the time to bring up some tanks and have another brigade advance behind those metal monsters.”
“Will our men be able to stop more than one tank?” Hale asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe, if in addition to the explosives they set, the men had time to lay some mines. Then with some luck, perhaps they can hold a third time.” Maki replied.
The Lieutenant took a breath to keep speaking, but Hale raised an index finger to his lips to shush his superior officer. Maki nodded and gave Hale a little shrug as if to ask what is going on? Hale picked up on the non-verbal cue and pointed south east.
Maki stared in the direction for nearly a minute before his eyes were able to pick out what Hale had been pointing at. A lone Soviet soldier, was very slowly climbing up a tree. Like the Finns, the man wore a white colored overcoat that helped him to blend into the terrain around him. On his back, was a rifle with a long scope mounted to the top.
Maki whispered, “A Russian sniper.”
Hale nodded in response before saying, “Let’s keep an eye on him.”
“Good plan. We can’t kill him now. There may be others that we can’t see and we would only draw attention to ourselves.” Maki said.
“When the Russians attack the village again, I’ll use the noise to take him out. For now, we should duck down into our cover. We don’t want to become targets ourselves.” Hale replied.
The two men lowered themselves to the frozen earth. For the next hour they sat safely behind the firing position they had built, invisible to curious eyes. Finally, as the Sun neared its zenith, the ground began to vibrate beneath them. The two men shared a look as if to say this is it.
A few minutes later the vibration manifested itself into the loud rumble of a dozen tank engines. In between the noise of the engines, the sounds of the squeaking tank tracks permeated the air as the metal monsters slowly advanced toward Kivennapa.
The two men, one at a time, careful not to make too many sudden moves that would attract the eyes of a sniper, peered out from their protected enclosure. Their eyes took in the scene. As Maki had feared, at least a dozen Soviet tanks advanced toward the village. The metal monsters were a mixture of T-28 medium and T-26 light tanks. All were olive drab green in coloration and sported Red Stars on their turrets.
Behind the tanks, careful to use them and the trees as cover, advanced a line of Russian Infantry. They stayed low and advanced cautiously as the metal beasts slowly lumbered forward through the trees. Hale noticed that there were no exposed men jutting from the tanks this time. All the hatches were buttoned up neatly to afford the crew inside maximum protection.
Maki stole a quick glance, and then sat back down on the frozen earth. He leaned toward Hale and whispered into his ear, “Get ready to take out the sniper. I don’t know how many anti-tank rifles they have in the village, but I suspect its only one or two. If that is the case, they will have to engage momentarily. Otherwise they won’t have a chance of stopping the tanks before they reach the village.”
Hale nodded in response, and peeked out over their barricade. He quickly spotted the Russian sniper. The man hadn’t moved since he took up his position in a large oak tree some four hundred feet south east of their position.
“Go ahead and take aim at him.” Maki said,
Hale scooped up some snow with his hand and placed it in his mouth. He then slowly raised his head. He spotted the sniper in the distant oak, still sitting still. The man hasn’t moved for at least an hour. He must be freezing. Hale thought. He slowly brought his rifle up and rested it on the log the two men had been using for cover.
Looking down the long barrel of his Mosin-Nagant, he took careful aim at the distant figure of the Soviet through his iron sites. Hale slowed his breathing as he waited for the sound of the anti-tank rifle. A few seconds past, then a few dozen, and finally a few minutes. Hale began to wonder if the battalion of his countrymen had abandoned the village when sudden very loud, low-pitched rifle report, rumbled through the forest.
The lead tank in the Soviet advance, a T-26, suddenly erupted into flames as the anti-tank rifle round struck its front armor and penetrated. The thin armor of the light tank did little to stop the anti-tank rifle round. As the round passed through the crew cabin, it cut the loader in half, and tore the legs off the gunner below the knees. Now covered in blood, it kept moving through the tank until it slammed into the ammunition bin in the back of the crew compartment.
The ammunition was ignited and detonated with a spectacular explosion shooting the turret into the air and lifting the body of the tank off the ground. Simultaneously, Hale held his breath and gently squeezed the trigger. His rifle kicked against his shoulder, sending forth 7.62mm of brass jacketed death and a shot of pain to his injured shoulder.
The young Finnish sniper’s aim was perfect, as it struck the Soviet in the left side of the torso. The bullet, shattered two of the man’s ribs as it passed into his chest and cleaved a path through the man’s lungs. The Soviet sniper toppled forward and struck the ground with a thud that was drowned out by the sound of weapons fire.