Pitkäranta, 13th Division Logistics and Intake Center.
This place was even noisier than the hospital, swarming with clerks registering identities and staff officers verifying losses. Simo and Old Juhani stood before an office desk piled high with documents, the melted snow from their boots pooling on the floor.
"Name, unit number," a haggard-looking second lieutenant asked without looking up.
"Simo Häyhä, Corporal. 34th Infantry Regiment, 6th Company," Simo's voice was steady and dry.
"Old Juhani, Civil Guard, 4th Provisional Partisan Company," Juhani added.
The lieutenant's hand paused over the files. He looked up to scrutinize the two men. One was short and sturdy as an old tree root, the other old enough for his beard to be entirely white, but both possessed an indescribable coldness in their eyes.
"34th Regiment?" The lieutenant adjusted his glasses, his tone softening slightly. "Tell me your situation, and the whereabouts of the rest."
For the next ten minutes, Simo took the lead. In his raspy voice, he gave a fragmented account of how they were hunted while out of ammunition and supplies, how they seized the field kitchen, and the ambush at Bone-Crusher Ridge. When he reached the part about Lieutenant Raivo staying behind to cover them with both legs severed, the ambient noise in the office seemed to dim.
Finally, Simo pulled a blood-stained pouch from his breast pocket and placed it gently on the desk.
"We took out their commander, a man named Wolf. This belonged to him."
The lieutenant opened the pouch, pouring out an officer's identity tag and a finely crafted Tokarev pistol. He studied the name, frowning. "Wolf... Captain."
"I've heard of him. NKVD, sent to handle the forest purges. He wasn't a 'great man' in their grand scheme, but he certainly killed a lot of our people in this sector."
The lieutenant pushed the tag aside and made a few marks on his ledger. In this war of hundreds of thousands, the death of a single captain brought no strategic turning point; it wouldn't even make the morning briefing. But for the soldiers who had escaped by the skin of their teeth, it was the final period at the end of their journey through hell.
"Alright, you're registered." The lieutenant handed the files to a nearby clerk. "Go rest. Await further orders once your wounds have healed. In any case, you're lucky to be back alive."
…
The final month of 1939 stumbled toward its end amidst the frozen scent of gunpowder and the thick reek of blood.
In the Pitkäranta field hospital, Walter leaned back against his bed, clutching a crumpled newspaper someone had left behind. Juha and Aalto occupied the neighboring beds. The military doctor had efficiently lanced Juha's inflamed arm to drain the pus; though he had cursed up a storm from the pain, the doctor guaranteed he wouldn't lose the hand. Aalto was awake as well, regaining a modicum of strength from the thin bean soup Old Juhani had brought him after reporting back.
Walter knew that the struggle regarding "Wolf" was over. But for him, the hollow void that followed the killing was being slowly filled by an all-encompassing exhaustion. Outside the ward, the piercing wind howled through the wooden walls like a dying beast.
The international situation, if described by the words in the newspaper, was practically overflowing with "mercy" and "justice." The Soviet Union was using a voice trembling with "pity" to accuse the Finns of "greed" before the world. After all, the Great Soviet Union, solely out of concern for Leningrad's safety, had "kindly" suggested a territorial exchange, even offering several times the amount of wasteland in return for Finland's few barren defensive zones.
Yet, this "insatiable" lot of Finns, deluded by Western capitalism, had the audacity to be ungrateful and refuse. Thus, to punish such greed and "rescue" the Finnish workers and peasants suffering from hunger and cold under an oppressive reactionary government, the Red Army launched a "liberation operation" filled with righteous conviction.
This "liberation" first manifested in the skies over the Finnish capital, Helsinki. Faced with the scrutiny of the international community, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov declared with righteous indignation: "The Soviet Air Force is not dropping bombs on Helsinki."
"On the contrary, our aircraft are dropping humanitarian aid to the starving Finnish people, baskets of millet and bread."
These would become known to the world as "Molotov Bread Baskets."
The only catch was that these "loaves" were a bit oversized, a single basket weighed several hundred kilograms, and they were accompanied by a thunderous roar upon contact with the ground. They didn't produce a feeling of fullness, but they did produce massive shockwaves and jagged steel splinters, instantly helping the "starving" populace move past the need for food entirely.
"Those bastards ought to taste that 'bread' for themselves," Juha spat a mouthful of bloody phlegm after hearing the news read by Old Juhani. His left arm was wrapped like a white stone pillar, and he grinned through gritted teeth.
"Since Mr. Molotov is being so hospitable, we Finns can't be rude," Old Juhani chuckled, pulling an empty liquor bottle from his coat.
In every trench and every workshop, the Finnish people were busily preparing their return gifts. The recipe was simple: two-thirds gasoline, one-third kerosene and tar, and a small tube of sulfuric acid for ignition.
"Since there's plenty of 'bread,' we naturally have to provide a side dish," Old Juhani shook the bottle. "This is our special 'aperitif' mixed for Mr. Molotov. When their tanks enter the woods, we'll invite those Soviet soldiers to drink their fill."
This was Finnish dark humor, the "Molotov Cocktail." A bread basket paired with a cocktail, a sumptuous dinner sufficient to send one's soul straight to heaven.
Satire aside, Walter could sense from the radio and the chatter of the wounded that the war was far more brutal than the wordplay in the papers. Before December ended, the Soviet "steamroller" had indeed achieved a degree of superiority along the vast border, penetrating at least dozens of kilometers into Finnish territory.
But at the Karelian Isthmus and along the Mannerheim Line, this clunky machine had slammed into an unprecedented wall of iron. The Red Army, which had expected to take Helsinki in a few weeks, was now shivering in knee-deep snow. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers in their khaki greatcoats discovered in those bottomless forests that their prized tanks and heavy artillery were becoming massive, smoking steel coffins.
Meanwhile, the Finns, the "ghosts of the forest" clad in camouflage made from white bedsheets and mounted on skis, were everywhere, harvesting lives.
Walter closed his eyes, savoring the rare tranquility of the ward. He knew the peace was temporary. 1939 was ending, but in this hell known as the "Winter War," the coldest days had yet to arrive. The commander named Wolf was dead, but the Soviet army had hundreds, thousands more "Wolfs."
Outside the window, another blizzard began. The white flakes blanketed the bloodstains on the earth and covered the bones shattered by "bread," making the world look pure and cruel once again.
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