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]A Ghost City
26th of October 1941
Heikki was confused. They had reached an important hill, that was the key in the Russian defences around Leningrad and not a single shot had been fired against them yet. It was snowing slowly and the sky was grey. They could hear nothing else than the howling of the wind.
“Sergeant, what’s happening here?” Heikki asked looking at the seemingly unmanned defences.
“I think that they pulled off from Leningrad.” Heikki’s segrageant replied, confused of the lack of enemies too.
“But, why? They had perfectly planned positions and certainly no lack of supplies here.”
“I guess that the Soviet STAVKA has decided to pull off their troops from Estonia to prevent encirclement. They have lost too much during last year and they can’t afford to lose anything anymore.”
“That’s logical, but still, they didn’t leave even rearguards.”
“Probably they thought that we weren’t going to attack for a while after those two unsuccessful attacks.”
Heikki could remember those attacks. They had lost so many men that the Corps his division was a part of now equalled one and a half divisions in strength, but officially it was three divisions large. They continued down the hill and past the eerily quiet trenches and pillboxes. He could see stacks of equipment left behind; blown up artillery pieces, AT guns and even a tank, its tracks blown up and its chassis all black and burned. It reminded him of a graveyard. They found a field hospital and inside it there were medical equipment. It looked like they had left in a hurry, with no time to take anything with them.
The road towards Leningrad was muddy. The landscape around them was turning whiter with every fallen snowflake, but the road insisted on staying wet, brown and muddy. They could see that the road had been used lately, deep wheel marks filled with water proved it. The wind was getting faster and the snow flew into their eyes blinding them. In the horizon they could see buildings of the Leningrad’s suburbs, many of them ruined by German air raids.
It took a hour to reach the city. The streets were quiet and the lack of living creatures inside the city was making the men nervous. Afraid of enemy attacks from the buildings the men tightened their grips on their weapons and they eyed the windows with suspicion. They reached a massive city square and suddenly a shot rang from the other side of the square. Heikki dove to a crater, blown to the stone coated square by an artillery shell. The crater was filled with mud and Heikki was all wet. The men started firing at the building and the men in the building fired back. They were too far away from each other to hit anything. They could hear a car pull by and a colonel stepped out of the car:
“FOR GOD’S SAKE MEN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THOSE ARE FINNISH MEN IN THERE!”
Heikki watched at him and then shouted louder than the gunfire:
“SIR, WE WERE FIRED AT! WE HAVE REASON TO SUSPECT THAT THE MEN IN THAT BUILDING ARE RUSSIAN!”
The colonel muttered something that Heikki didn’t hear and then fetched a megaphone from his cars trunk. He raised it to his lips and shouted. His voice was amplified by the vastness of the square:
“THIS IS COLONEL TIIRIKÄINEN SPEAKING! CEASE FIRE! I REPEAT CEASE FIRE OR YOU WILL FACE COURT MARTIAL!”
The fire from the other side of the square died out and Heikki’s squad stopped firing. The colonel looked at him with a smile and said:
”What did I say.” Then he went back to his car and ordered his driver to drive back to the Regimental HQ. The soldiers stood up, embarrassed of their behaviour and their sergeant was laughing at the incident.
”Thank god anyone didn’t get hurt!” He said trying to hold his laughter. Men started coming out of the building and they walked to Heikki’s squad:
”Sorry, but we thought that you were Russians…” their sergeant said.
”I just have to say that I haven’t ever been insulted so badly in my life!” Heikki’s sergeant answered, bellowing with laughter. The other sergeant thought hardly for a minute and then joined the laughter, he had understood the joke.
Miraculously they found a stupefying amount of Vodka from a local governor’s house and it was enough to get them and the men from the other squad wasted. They drank and drank, Heikki’s last memory was when they had found a gramophone and started playing strange Russian song with it. He had danced (badly) and had singed along (even worse), but after that it was all black. He had woken up next morning from a house with the rest of his squad. His head felt like somebody had spent the night hammering it with a rifle’s butt and his mouth felt like sandpaper. He looked at the bottle I his hand. Its etiquette said something in Russian that he didn’t understand, but by the smell of it, it contained more alcohol than the stuff he had used to drink.
His buddies were still sleeping so he wandered alone the streets of Leningrad and stumbled upon the third company resting in a café, making food. He walked to them:
”Hey fellas! Could you spare me something salty and good tasting?” Heikki asked. A man frying bacon looked at him:
”I guess we can. But before you can get anything I wanna know what you drank last night and is there any way of getting more of it.”
Heikki thought hard for a second and then replied pointing at the house where they had found the Vodka from:
”Well, there’s a whole room full of it in that big house over there and I don’t think that we drank it all last night.
The man’s impression looked happier immediately and he took his men with him and drove the truck to the house. Heikki took the bacon from the frying pan and some boiled eggs and ate it. His headache got better and the awful taste in his mouth disappeared. The guys from the third company were really nice, especially when he had told them where to get alcohol from. He spent the whole morning chatting with them until the truck came back, full of Vodka. The man jumped from the truck, smiling widely:
”I got the beverages boys!” There was a loud cheer from the company and the man offered a bottle of the nasty alcohol to Heikki:
”You want some?”
Heikki looked at the bottle for a second and he felt like he was going to vomit anytime soon:
”No thanks.”
“Well, if you don’t want it I can drink it!” the man said and took a long sip from the bottle, coughing from the fiery drink:
”WHOOO! This is good shit!”
Heikki walked back down the street to wake up his buddies. This was going to be a hellish morning for them.
The Finnish troops took Leningrad with not a single shot being fired. The reason for the Russian soldiers’ retreat was unknown, but the main thing here is that the only thing the Finns suffered from was hangover and serious cases of headache. A few days later the officers had to confiscate all the booze in the city and send it to Finland, just to stop the drinking spree of the Finnish soldiers. After that they manned the defences and started their boring duties.
That wasn't what I expected to read. After the pounding the Finnish have taken so far thoguh they must be grateful.
I didn't say that they weren't grateful. You can be grateful of something that is boring. Or then we are talking of a completely different thing.
I'm sure they were happy to be bored. I didn't think you had said they weren't grateful. Sorry if it read that wayJacko the Panda said:
Back to the school
January 1942
Heikki was sitting in a classroom in Helsinki. This was his first time in Helsinki actually, but he wasn’t going to do much sightseeing anyways as he had been ordered into officer training. He had heard that the heavy fighting that had occurred in Lapland had drained the Northern Finland Army of men and officers, which forced the Finnish army to train more officers from the talented under officers.
The lecture about boosting the morale of the soldiers was pretty boring as he had seen all of the described methods in use and seen them as ineffective. The other boys in his class listened like they expected to get an A from someone. No-one of them had seen combat ever, and few of them couldn’t grow a proper beard yet. He felt pity for them in advance. They were going to have to take a lot of bullshit from their soldiers when they get in the front lines. Especially if they were going to lead experienced men, who had seen the horrifying battles in the North. Their instructor noticed that Heikki had a distant look in his face and asked:
”Heikki, would you like to comment on what we just discussed?”
Heikki nearly paniced, What had they just discussed about, Hmmmm… Yes. About the benefits of officership! Heikki looked the captain that was instructing them and said:
”Sir, I disagree that officers should eat different food than their men. It creates a barrier between them. If I eat the same shit as my men do, they will respect me. If I sleep in the same tent with my men, they will respect me. They surely won’t respect me if I isolate myself from them.”
”An interesting point you have there. But don’t you consider that the benefits are a reward from the additional war effort you make?”
Heikki had to think about his answer for a second, and then he answered with a smile:
”I do, but if the benefits I receive threat the authority I have amongst my men I see the benefits as a pest.”
The instructor looked like he was thinking hard, but couldn’t think anything proper to answer, so he just changed the subject.
Heikki drifted back to his slumber, thinking about anything that slipped into his mind. He woke up when the instructor ended the lecture and it was time for their lunch. They shuffled back to the barracks, their feet numb of the excessive sitting. Heikki was first to arrive in the canteen. The Lotta who rationed the food welcomed him with a warm smile. She was a young girl, at the age of seventeen or eighteen. Heikki was engaged so he didn’t show any interest towards her, but the other men were trying to brag their way into her heart. Heikki had got enough when one of the boys started bragging about the amount of Russians he had killed. When his story had reached to one hundred Russians and the girl was giggling meekly Heikki decided to say something. With the dried piece of rye bread still in his hand, he lowered his spoon and asked:
”Hey, Arto! I thought that you came here straight from your basic training?”
The boy looked at Heikki angrily and said:
”Well, that’s none of your business!
”Oh, because I have been at the front for five months and no-one form my unit made even twenty kills.”
”Umm.. The boy really hadn’t been at the front yet, so all he knew about combat was all he had been taught. Heikki looked at the group of boys with a smile:
”You boys are truly going to make Finland proud! You see, when normal people count sheep to get asleep you guys kill Russians. I can imagine Arto lying in his bed, counting: BOOM, one Russian, BOOM two Russians, BOOM three Russians…. Zzzzzz!"
The other boys got the joke and laughed at the now blushing boy. Arto looked mad and tried to order his friends to stop laughing. Heikki concentrated on eating his pea soup again. At lest it had more peas in it than the one he ate at the front. He looked at the daily schedule and saw that they had infantry tactics lesson next. At last something interesting. He finished his meal and washed his plate and spoon. He walked past the Lotta and thanked her of the food. Then he opened the canteen's door and walked back to the barracks. While he was walking back to the classroom he saw the commander of the school, an elderly colonel, reading the newspaper. The headline on the front page was: GERMANS AT THE GATES OF MOSCOW!
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Unnessesary nictpick: It should be 1942, right.
At the gates of Moscow ey. How's the odds for it being capured soon?
At the gates of Moscow ey. How's the odds for it being capured soon?
Of course, he has been at the front. That means that he has "more" expirience in this stuff than the young boys in the school. And he wants to show it. It's natural.
The Fifth Company
15th of February 1942, Somewhere Northwest of Ääninen(the lake west of Ladoga)
Heikki jumped off the warm train and into the freezing cold air. The windows of the trains were frozen due to humidity and Heikki’s breath was steaming in the coldness. People were starting to unload the supplies from the train and Heikki shouldered his smg and put on his fur hat. Now it was adorned with Lieutenant second class stripes. As he started to walk the snow made a crunchy sound under his boots. His mantle was warm enough and he made his way towards two officers having a conversation. He walked up to them and asked:
”Excuse me, but do you know where the 2nd battalion’s headquarters are?”
The other officer, a major, turned around. He had a haunted look on his face and he probably was thirty years old, but his eyes looked like he hadn’t slept for a while and made him look ten years older:
”Ahh, so you are one of our replacement officers. I’m Major Heinrich Höglund and that’s my battalion you’re talking about.” After hearing that Heikki saluted quickly and the officer saluted back. The man continued:
”So, I will assign you to the fifth company, as they have lost the most men in the North.”
The major looked like he had said everything and Heikki was a bit confused:
”Um, sir. Where are the third company’s positions?
The major laughed at his own mistake and then continued:
”Continue down that trail until you reach the big tall rock and then go South a few hundred meters.”
“Thank you, sir.
Heikki turned and started walking towards the forest and the nearly invisible trail. The major ran after him and handed him a folded peace of paper:
”Oh, and give this to Captain Pekola when you get there.”
Heikki had just reached the tall rock. It was getting dark and he didn’t know where South was, because his compass had frozen. God dammit! He thought of trying to see where South was by looking at the stars, but it was cloudy and he couldn’t see the stars. Suddenly he heard movement from behind him. He turned around and saw two soldiers:
”Uhh, my compass is frozen, so I can’t find the fifth company’s position. Could you help me out?” The two men looked at each other and then the leftmost said:
”Are you a replacement?”
”A replacement officer.
“Oh! Just go down that trail.” said the private and pointed at a clear path in the snow. It was used a lot by the look of it as it was clearly visible in the snow, How could I have been so blind thought Heikki and said:
”Thanks.
Heikki walked down the path, embarrassed of his blindness. After a few minutes of walking, Heikki found himself from the forests edge. The path turned into a shallow trench and Heikki could see two tents, camouflaged by the snow. He walked to a tent and opened the “door”:
”Hello, I’m looking for Captain Pekonen.
Before anyone answered a man with a deck of cards shouted:
” For goodness’ sake! Close the damn door! It’s freezing in ‘ere!” Heikki moved inside the tent closing the “door” behind him. After a brief conversation he found out that the Captain was in a log bunker just a few hundred meters “that way”. So he got out of the tent and scanned his surroundings. He found the bunker pretty easily, as it had a wooden sign in front of it saying:
Fifth company HQ
Open daily 10am to 10 pm
Happy hour: 10pm to 10am
Some funny soldier had made man from snow next to the sign. The figure had a Russian helmet and a carrot was placed a bit too low to be a nose. Heikki knocked on the door and somebody shouted from the inside:
”FOR GOD’S SAKE! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU BLOODY BASTARDS NOT TO KNOCK ON THE DOOR AT NIGHT IF YOU HAVEN’T GOT ANYTHING TO TELL ME! THAT’S BLOODY IRRITATING!
Heikki just opened the door and went in. The Captain was sitting behind a desk, his face red of shouting so much:
”Oh, I’m sorry of that. I thought that you were one of my boys trying to be funny.”
“No problem. Major Höglund sent me here. He asked me to bring you this.” said Heikki handing the paper over to the Captain. The man read the paper muttering to himself at the same time, Oh… I see… Is that so… Ah well… Heikki took off his hat as it was quite warm in the bunker. The captain had finished reading the paper and said:
”So, you’re Heikki, my new platoon leader.”
“A platoon leader already? I thought that men at my rank get to command squads only.”
“Well, I have a platoon commanded by a sergeant at the moment so I can’t see why you shouldn’t.”
“Ehh, I…”
“Do you think that you are inadequate for the job, lieutenant?
Heikki saw that he was driving himself into a trap and said:
”No, sir. Commanding a platoon won’t be a problem.”
“Good. Now those boys are an irritating bunch of bastards, but I think you’ll manage with them. They’re just fine if you won’t try to act like an aristocrat around them.”
“Okay, where’s their tent? I think I’d like to settle in.”
“Just a hundred meters “that way”” the Captain pointed at the direction Heikki had came from: ”Ask Sergeant Miettinen to show you around our position and to give you some advice.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re dismissed.”
Heikki got out of the bunker and walked back to the tent. He opened the door and walked in:
”You back here again. eh?”
“Yes, I’m your new Lieutenant, you see. Where’s Sergeant Miettinen?”
The men looked a bit surprised of receiving a new lieutenant and a man rose from his blanket:
”I’m Tapio Miettinen.”
“Good evening sergeant. You’re supposed to show me the position.”
“Allrighty then.” said the sergeant buttoning his mantle. The two men went outside. The sergeant started showing him the positions, a line of foxholes and a quite deep trench for the sand bag enforced machine-gun position. The tents were farther back in the forest, covering them from shots. They discussed about the platoon’s ventures in the North and the sergeant was quite happy to find out that Heikki had combat experience. After an hour they returned to the tent and went to sleep.
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I loved the happy hour . Great update. How much longer til all the action starts again?
. Great update. How much longer til all the action starts again?