The corners of Vanhala’s eyes crinkled as he grinned, ‘Assuming we get to the throwing part.’
‘And assuming you know how to throw,’ said Honkajoki.
‘You bums have no idea how far I can hurl ’em. Year before last I shot my gum with a slingshot at school. That’s my best distance one yet.’
‘Heeheehee…’
‘Oh, I was in for it after that. Well, actually it wasn’t exactly for that. The gum was smuggled from Sweden – the guys bootlegged it. Well, actually I bootlegged it. But that wasn’t the real reason either. We bought booze with the dough we made and they caught us…’
Vanhala looked at Asumaniemi with indulgent interest. The boy had the makings of just about anything in him. He was troubled by a sort of aimless restlessness. At no moment were all the parts of his body still. His eyes were constantly hunting down something new to look at. He operated on almost no sleep at all, yet he never showed any signs of fatigue. He just craved action and made it clear that he enjoyed danger.
‘You’ll end up in officer training once you’re out of grade school,’ Vanhala said.
‘I’m not ending up in any school. I’m gonna be promoted straight off. There’s no way I’m going to any school any more.’
Vanhala looked at his watch. ‘Eight minutes.’
‘Couldn’t we just go earlier? Why do we hafta wait for the group? The three of us can take care of it ourselves.’
Honkajoki rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s go home, Priha… The boy can take care of the rest.’
‘Well, yeah, if you want! I can go on my own.’
Jalovaara lay behind a tree. Time was passing slowly. The platoon was ready, but they had to wait for the appointed time. The Ensign looked at the low stretch along which the shock troop was supposed to advance. He would have liked to have led it himself, but there was no one he could leave in charge of the platoon. Määttä couldn’t manage big groups, as, despite his bravery, he had no ability to get other men moving. He would head out in front himself, but he wouldn’t open his mouth, and the others wouldn’t follow. How desperately they needed Rokka now. The quality of the men just kept deteriorating. The replacements called out of the reserves were useless, and the new recruits born in ’25 were too young and inexperienced. They were often brave, even eager, but it would be weeks before they were fully fledged soldiers.
The past two weeks had changed Jalovaara a great deal. It wasn’t just that he had grown thinner and sprouted a beard, his entire attitude had fundamentally altered. He wasn’t strict any more, as he had originally intended to be, but he had a quiet strength. He was friendly and unpretentious in his dealings with the men. He treated all members of his platoon as his equals. For the past two weeks they had been fighting tough defensive battles in the positions beside the river, and during that time Jalovaara had matured into an officer that the recently promoted Major Lammio could entrust with the most difficult assignments. The battalion had held steadfast to its position, but the fog and darkness of the previous evening had helped the enemy, enabling them to take control of those two key emplacements. The event, however, did provide some evidence of the men’s improved fighting spirit. The Second Company, who had been defending the positions, had only given them up after a bloody, hand-to-hand struggle in the dark. Eleven men from the Second Company’s already sparse Third Platoon were lying back at one of the positions.
‘We have to take it back. We have to hold on to those positions. Even if it means we die here.’ A desperate, bitter defiance surged up in Jalovaara. He knew now that they had lost the war. There could hardly be any doubt about that. But there would be no laughing just yet. Never before had Jalovaara hated the enemy as he did now, with defeat staring him in the face. They were enjoying their victory, making a mockery of everything that was dear to him. No. If everything goes, then we go down with it, fighting like beasts of prey.
Jalovaara got the enemy in the sight of his light machine gun. The men were camouflaged, of course, but they gave themselves away. His shot would announce the attack.
He pressed the trigger.
The clatter of tens of weapons descended in one moment. Määttä’s machine gun quickly joined in, its even, constant hammering cutting through the sundry shooting of the others.
The Ensign spotted Vanhala crawling forward. He had to keep firing continually, though, so he could only follow the action out of the corner of his eye. He did manage to catch a glimpse of Asumaniemi blowing by Vanhala, running practically upright with his rifle blasting away under his arm.
The boy had started crawling behind Vanhala, but when the whistling bullets started raining down around his ears, he rose to his feet and started sprinting forward. That was where he lost his cap. Its showy angle was too steep, and any sudden movement was liable to send it flying.
When Vanhala saw him, he stood up as well. Almost without thinking, he realized that Asumaniemi’s bold sprint had made hiding impossible, and that nothing but speed was going to help them now. Pi phiew. Phiew phiew phiew phiew phiew.
Holding his breath, Vanhala sprinted the forty yards standing between himself and the end of the communication trench. Angry squeals followed him as he ran, and he was conscious of being in a gun-sight the whole time. He hadn’t had time to see where Honkajoki was.
The communication trench began as a low ditch and continued on that way for some distance. The ditch was unmanned, but it was under fire. Vanhala dived to the bottom of it, nearly butting his head up against the heel of Asumaniemi’s boot. Then he glanced backwards and saw that Honkajoki hadn’t followed at all.
Asumaniemi raised his head and looked forward. The movement provoked an angry shower of bullets into the parapet. The boy was pink with excitement and flushed from his run as he gasped, ‘Woo-hoo! We made it! I’m heading in. Follow me and keep your grenades ready! There’s a Russki round that bend. I’ll kill him first. Now listen, man, now we just gotta get ’em right in the eyes. Let’s crawl closer along the bottom of the trench.’
‘For Christ’s sake, boy! There’s two of us!’
‘Don’t be such a whiner! We hafta act fast… I’m going now.’
Asumaniemi set off and Vanhala followed. Just then a hand grenade thudded down in front of them and exploded.
‘I’ll throw.’ Asumaniemi took a grenade and yanked the pull ring. ‘Take that, man!’
The grenade sailed from his hand like a ball from a schoolboy’s and landed precisely where it needed to. The boy sprinted off, his blond hair blowing in the wind, and Vanhala followed on all fours, huffing and puffing, his rear in the air as he scuttled along in a curious sort of gallop. Phiew phiew phiew phiew phiew…
The clattering only intensified. Their own men were shooting furiously, as they had seen Vanhala and Asumaniemi make it into the trench. Jalovaara knew, though, that the hardest part was still to come. The hollow itself was almost in a blind spot, so the danger there wasn’t the greatest they were going to face. Once they reached the positions, however… and that gangly giraffe… fuck!
Jalovaara realized that Honkajoki hadn’t gone out at all. But what was that? There he goes!
The Ensign witnessed a peculiar sight. The towering Honkajoki was crawling forward on his hands and knees. But he didn’t move his hands and legs normally, he moved them in turns, lifting either both hands or both feet at the same time. This made his advance a bizarre sort of hopping procedure. The most amazing thing about the maneuver, however, was its incredible speed. His hands and feet moved jauntily, and he progressed like some outlandish animal straight down the bottom of the hollow. He wrapped up his sprint with a few leaps and disappeared into the communication trench.