The flight resumed.
Karjula revived instantly. He tried to stand up, but fell down again, as his leg had been nearly torn off. He lay on his stomach, pressing himself up on his arms and screaming, ‘Get in pothition! Damn it! Halt! You goddamn cowardth, help me get into pothition and give me a thubmachine gun…’
His cry betrayed not the slightest hint of weakness or pleading. It had just the same commanding fury as before. He was still trying to get up, screaming curses and howling with anger and pain. There was something in that struggle like the fight of a wild, wounded animal in the final throes of self-defense – filled with rage against everything and everybody, and beyond that the untold despair of knowing that it has already lost the power to fight. Later, the machine-gunners came to think that Lehto and Karjula had had something in common. ‘Exactly like Lehto would’ve been if he’d been a lieutenant colonel,’ they said.
Maybe somebody would even have seen something admirable in this madman’s wild, hopeless rage. But those who watched Karjula’s vigorous efforts to rise didn’t admire him. They hated him – with an intense and relentless hatred. One of the men running by even yelled, ‘We hear you, we just can’t help you!’
‘Blast a row through that motherfucker!’ somebody else called out.
‘We aren’t nurses…’
Rokka arrived in the last group. He hadn’t witnessed the event himself, but quickly gathered what had taken place. Just then Karjula fell unconscious a second time. The tank was shooting a machine gun and everyone vanished. Rokka grabbed the heavy man by the waist and ran beside the road to cover. He carried Karjula a little way, but once he was out of immediate danger, he lowered him to the ground. ‘Don’t feel like goin’ much further ’nnat. That fella there’s stepped outta the bounds a human ways and far as I’m concerned he can stay there.’
Two officers from the Second Company took him from there and carried him a little way, until they could get him into the hands of a couple of medics. The medics carried him because it was their job, but that didn’t prevent them from cursing, officers or no officers.
The battalion retreated without pause. After a small skirmish, the men on Lammio’s roadblock joined the others. The entire combat unit was ceding its positions. Their spirits had reached such a point that the battalion might have dissolved completely had the old border not opened up to greet them. Once they were behind it, their spirits seemed to rise all by themselves. They were even put on break. No questioning of any kind was carried out. Actually, the only real infractions connected to the event were the men’s shouts and the fact that they had not helped Karjula. And the issue was subject to interpretation, since wounded men had been left behind in panic situations before. It was probably determined that the matter would be best forgotten on both sides.
And when, after their rest, the battalion was pulled into a counter-attack, the men pushed back powerfully against the enemy. Their previous slackness had given way to vigor and a will to fight. The men spoke of nothing except that now it was time to start fighting for real. They hardly even noticed the whole thing themselves. ‘National defense’ just seemed like a self-evident duty as soon as the surface of their own land appeared, authorizing the use of such a term in relation to the war.
The battles over the Uomaa-line began, and even the enemy noticed that it seemed to be banging its head against a brick wall again.
Chapter Sixteen
Rokka was worried.
He paced back and forth along the length of his platoon, moving from one position to the next. Actually, the platoon was no longer his, as the ensign assigned to lead the Third Platoon had just arrived from the home front that day. Nevertheless, Rokka still felt responsible, as they had a tough situation in front of them. There was a river at their backs. A new line of defense was being set up along the opposite bank, and their assignment was to hold onto the bridgehead, protecting it as long as possible so that the others would have more time to fortify their positions. The bridge over the river was on their left.
Having sunk their machine guns back in the pond, the machine-gunners were now operating as a regular infantry platoon. Only Määttä’s machine gun remained. A couple of days earlier, the platoon had received three more new recruits as replacements. Two men were transferred from the utilities staff as well, bringing the total number of new men to eight in all. In Rokka’s opinion, that meant the percentage of inexperienced men was too high. The new recruits were not particularly worse than the other men, seeing as a man gets his nature from birth and not from the army, but inexperience would make them more susceptible to panic, and that was exactly the worst thing that could happen in this situation.
Susling was lying in his foxhole, blowing the smoke from his cigarette all around him to disperse the swarming mosquitoes. Rokka walked by and said, ‘Suslin’, you remember how we use’da go swimmin’ in’na Vuoksi down in Kannas as kids?’
‘Why wouldn’t I? We ain’t never gonna see it again, Antti. Nothin’ but corpses swimmin’ there now. Rumor is water down there is runnin’ red.’
‘We’re gonna be swimmin’ ’cross this crick here pretty soon. You believe me?’
‘Mm… if anybody gits that far.’
They had received several days’ dry rations, and the new recruits wrapped up their sugar and put it in their bread bags. Rokka winked at them and said, ‘Don’t you fellas save that sugar now! It’ll git all wet and then it’ll be ruined. We’re goin’ swimmin’ soon!’
‘Don’t be stupid. We’ll hop that stream if it comes to it.’ One of the new recruits drew manfully on his cigarette, his cap tilted off to the side. The creases pressed into the cap gave a pretty good idea of its owner. The boy had an arrogant, devil-may-care machismo about him. His cap was ostensibly askew out of carelessness, but it was actually set at a carefully considered angle, deliberately selected to convey its carelessness. This new recruit was the same fellow who had turned up at the brook line asking for enemies to kill. His name was Asumaniemi. Back then Rokka had answered his question with mocking contempt, but although he had continued to address the boy in a jocular, offhand sort of way, his contempt had vanished. That very evening, when they had been fending off the counter-attack at Sarastie’s command post, the boy had taken down three of the attackers. Bare-headed, as his cap had fallen off in his excitement, the boy had risen to his knees and fired, shouting every time he hit his target, ‘Missing one, the devil said, counting up his ants!’
When the fighting was over, the others were obliged to endure rather too much carrying-on about these three fallen soldiers, but they granted Asumaniemi his right to boast, as he really had been right at home under fire. And the event was not the last of its kind. Asumaniemi became one of the sturdiest pillars of the platoon. Rokka’s voice was good-natured as he shot him a word of warning, ‘Damn it, boy! You hush up now, you hear? You’re gonna swim just like all’a rest of us. So swallow that sugar and don’t leave it to git wet!’
Ensign Jalovaara arrived from the command post.
Rokka went over to greet him, and when they met up, the Ensign said angrily, ‘What were you saying about swimming?’
‘I ordered the fellas to gulp down that sugar so it don’t git wet when we swim across’sa crick.’
‘You’ll make them all panic talking like that.’