The Winter Warriors, page 28
The Russian explosive bullet sped through the air.
It passed through Simo’s cheek and exploded against his lower jaw, setting off the second charge. This blew up in his open mouth, tearing off his other cheek, part of his upper jaw, and a number of teeth. He turned calmly towards Yrjö, eyes open wide as if he could not believe he had been wounded. His face torn apart, the gaping hole from nose to neck left the pink inside of his throat visible. His jaw hung down, flapping to and fro, smoke pouring out of his mouth, snowsuit stained with his own blood … Simo collapsed, unconscious.
The Russian sniper never knew who he had shot on this day, March 6, 1940, seven days before the end of the Winter War. And nobody bothered to remember him, or glorify the name of the person who, for the first and only time, had hit Simo Häyhä.
*
Ullisma grew calmer as night approached and yet another snowstorm blew in. The Finnish and Russian forces withdrew to spend the night in their bivouacs two kilometres from the commercial forest.
Leena had lived up to the legend of Lotta Svärd. With no thought for her own life, she had spent more than eleven hours going back and forth, hauling her stretcher sled loaded with the wounded from inside the forest to the field post, where they were examined and either attended to or evacuated. Further off, in endless rows, waited the dead.
Now Leena was sitting on a rock, her eyes fixed on the icy forest. She watched anxiously as the remaining units, or what was left of them, straggled back, still hoping to see her friends. Juutilainen came to join her. More at ease with the dead than with the living, he could only blurt out clumsily:
“They’re not coming back.”
“What do you know?” Leena protested. “And if that’s all you have to say to me, go off and snarl at your men, I don’t need you. Are you planning on leaving Simo Häyhä out there? And Karlsson? And Onni? Do you really think that’s what they deserve? Simo never left anybody behind. Ask your soldiers.”
Juutilainen looked down at the ground then stood up and left her there on her rock. He was as contrite as if he had been reprimanded by a general or by Mannerheim in person.
Ten minutes later, a pair of strapping youths armed with a sub-machine gun and a rifle appeared, each of them pulling a sled. They were Eino the infantryman and Rasimus the sniper, both from the 5th Company. Another Simo, another Toivo, another Karlsson, another Hugo, another Pietari, and their story, that of their hundred days of war, could have filled a book.
“Leena?” Rasimus said. “Juutilainen sent us.”
67
Covered with lichen and branches in their shell crater, Onni and Yrjö spooned one another as they struggled to resist the cold and the dreaded temptation to fall asleep. Simo’s shattered body, his face swathed in a bandage so that they did not have to look at it, lay alongside them. They had to get through the night in this tomb where the Russians had cornered them, abandoning them there when night fell and a fresh blizzard arose. They had to survive, force their hearts to continue to beat, stay awake, talk.
“I was going to get married,” Onni said. “Look, here’s my ring.”
His trembling hands were blue with cold. On his ring finger the gold looked as if it were molten, almost magical.
“We’re not dead yet, are we?” Yrjö said. “Besides, I’ve never been invited to a wedding!”
“I’m going to need friends around me, and I’ve lost a lot of them. So you’ll even be on my table.”
A second later, Onni drifted off, then almost immediately woke up with a start, his stomach churning as if he had saved himself from a fall at the very last second. To fall asleep would be fatal. He was frightened not of dying, but of being abandoned. Him and his friends.
“My name is Onni,” he said, shivering. “I live in the village of Rautjärvi. You’ll have to find Simo and Pietari’s families and tell them what good soldiers they have been. You need to find my wife as well. And tell her that—”
“Be quiet!” Yrjö cut him off.
“No … you must listen to me! Rautjärvi, will you remember that?”
“Be quiet,” Yrjö said again. “I can hear someone.”
Through the snowstorm a stifled but clear voice seemed to be calling their names. “Simo?” “Onni?” “Karlsson?” “Yrjö?” Was this the siren’s voice welcoming them to Tuonela, the land of the dead?
Onni lifted the covering of branches and in the distance spotted a lamp with a green filter. Searching in his rucksack, he pulled out his own lamp and answered.
*
Struggling against the gusts of wind and snow, Rasimus and Eino recovered Karlsson’s body from a crater further off and loaded it onto one of the stretcher sleds. With gentle gestures and heavy hearts, Onni and Leena did the same for Simo. Then, next to the two bodies, the four soldiers and Leena huddled together beneath the branches, wrapped themselves in the blankets Rasimus had brought, and waited for the storm to pass.
“How did you …?” Onni began.
“The 4th Company,” Eino the infantryman said, his voice quavering. “They told us they fought beside you in the late afternoon. They thought you were dead. We thought you were all dead.”
In less than an hour the storm eased, but it would only take a few minutes for it to start up again, so the team wasted no time. Rasimus the sniper stared down at the legend Simo, stretched out motionless on the sled. The invincible White Death whose demise would sap the morale of the entire Finnish Army. Respectfully crossing himself, he gave the order to head for the bivouac near Ullisma, four kilometres away.
*
When they arrived at the camp, even though it was late at night the survivors from the battle had formed a guard of honour that was so ragged, so wounded, so exhausted, it was magnificent. Juutilainen was at its head.
Rasimus was pulling Karlsson’s sled. Leena the one carrying Simo.
Behind the half-buried tents stood the rows of dead bodies that had to be taken back to the Kollaa frontline, and from there to the thresholds of their homes. Each was in a wooden coffin with half of the dog tag nailed to the top, a coffin made from the forests of Finland where they had lost their lives. Karlsson and Simo were laid to rest with the others, and because of the biting cold, only a rapid prayer was said for them. The sun was already on the horizon, ready to shine on a fresh day of battle. After the last “Amen” they had to return to war. Leena and Onni were left together, then Juutilainen called Onni, and Leena was all alone.
And yet, in this heap of dead bodies, one heart was still beating … so feebly each beat might be the last.
The fur brushed against his skin in a silky caress. Soon it enfolded him as if it was coiling round his chest. The sharp musky animal smell called to him from far away, from the shores of Tuonela. The huge fox’s rasping tongue began to clean him, cleansing his soul and his wounds. Then the fox opened its mouth right above the bandage-swathed face and blew gently on the life that had not yet altogether abandoned him, on the remaining embers of a dying fire. They began to glow in Simo’s body.
Nobody in the camp would have seen these invisible movements, but Leena had gone on praying, and when she saw a boot stir amidst the bodies, her heart gave a leap.
She flung herself towards him, tugged at his legs, and then hastily unwound the bandage. As the last few inches came off, the soldier’s terrified eyes appeared, crying out in pain … only to close once more as he lost consciousness.
“He’s alive! Simo is alive!”
Rasimus came running, followed by a sceptical Juutilainen. They were soon joined by Onni, Yrjö and many more. Seeing his chest rise, however weakly, they all had the same thought.
“Immortal. Simo Häyhä is immortal.”
Leena returned carrying blankets and wrapped them round Simo to warm him. She insisted he had to be evacuated and that they needed a sled and some morphine.
“Do as she tells you, perkele!” Juutilainen barked.
*
Of course, the battle of Ullisma did not stop with Simo’s terrible mutilation. The legionnaire had to give priority to the fighting rather than his sniper’s evacuation, and so Leena and Onni left the camp at daybreak, each of them hauling a rope on the sled.
Twenty long kilometres lay in front of them from the forests of Ullisma to the Kollaa front, where they hoped an ambulance would be available to take them to the base hospital.
In spite of the morphine, the pain kept Simo in a drugged, drowsy state, with on the one hand a pleasant desire to let himself slip away, and on the other a visceral wish to fight on. Stretched out on his stomach so that his jaws would be supported by the bottom of the sled, with his one good eye Simo watched the snow glide past, just as the landscape does on a train journey. As they progressed, he had moments of awareness followed by lapses of consciousness. When she heard Simo’s groans intensify, Leena insisted to Onni they stop and give him another morphine injection.
She removed her skis and knelt by the wounded soldier. She was horrified when she raised her hands to his mouth and saw his face was blue, convulsing, desperate for oxygen that could not find a way through. They had dragged him over rough terrain, crossing frozen marshes and ravaged forests, and the gaping hole in Simo’s throat had become blocked by leaves, pine needles, earth and snow, as if he had vomited them.
Leena removed her gloves and without a second thought plunged her fingers into Simo’s gaping mouth, as far down as the trachea. She pulled out handfuls that were choking him. A noisy, unexpected intake of breath told her Simo was breathing again.
“That’s the second time you’ve saved him,” Onni told her.
*
Before long they came to the forward defensive positions, still some way before Kollaa. Suddenly in front of them they saw a unit of 30 or so silent men. Russians? Finns? Onni swivelled his machine gun in front of him, ready to fight one last time if need be. Leena pulled the pistol from her belt, keeping the barrel lowered, hesitant about shooting.
“Oh Emma!” she began to sing instead. “Do you remember that night when the moon was full and we left the ball?”
A moment’s silence. The Russians did not know the song: “Emma” meant nothing to them. Not their style. Not their language. And the words of this waltz that all the radios in Finland played over and over on the eve of the conflict was tantamount to waving the blue-and-white Finnish flag.
“You gave me your heart, vowed to love me and promised to be mine …” came the response.
They fell into each other’s arms, and when the unit they had come across learned the identity of the wounded man on the sled, they made it a point of honour to escort them until the Kollaa camp came in sight. Then they went back to their war, galvanised by the tenacity of this simple farmer who had become such a redoubtable soldier.
Arriving an hour later, only a few metres from the defensive line and the first trenches, Onni collapsed exhausted, incapable of taking another step. Leena also fell to her knees in the snow. She summoned what strength she had left to raise her lantern in the ivory fog.
War memoirs of Doctor Aarne Ellonen,
main base hospital at Kollaa
That evening there were even more casualties than usual, which we blamed on the non-stop artillery bombardments. We examined the wounded with an X-ray machine, which was also used for fractures. Before the operations we gave blood or plasma transfusions and administered any necessary medication. The operating table was lit and warmed by Petromax lamps. This was the daily routine in the field hospital, or rather the nightly routine, which lasted until morning.
I can recall one patient in particular who pulled through thanks to a stroke of luck. I had just completed a difficult operation and realised my tobacco tin was empty. I stepped over the patients laid out on the ground to go and look for some more in our store. To my mind, tobacco was the best way to relax after hard work; in between operations we all smoked and drank coffee. Returning from my expedition, I noticed a patient on a stretcher who an hour earlier had been classified as being in a stable condition. His face had suddenly turned blue, and I told myself his respiratory tracts must be blocked. The temporary bandages that had been applied were a shapeless bloody mass covering the bottom half of his face. He was conscious, but the bandages prevented him from talking or expressing himself. The situation could rapidly deteriorate, so I had him transferred to the operating table at once. I quickly realised that time was of the essence. His jaw was shattered and a mixture of bone fragments, bits of flesh and clotted blood were blocking his throat and preventing him breathing.
Had the transfer from the cold into the warmth provoked this by softening the flesh of his face, or was it a result of being transported? I didn’t have the time to reflect on this. I didn’t even have time to apply an anaesthetic, but by now the patient was unconscious and so it was not necessary. I solved the problem by performing a tracheotomy and giving him artificial respiration. The patient started to breathe again thanks to a metal tube protruding from his throat, and he stabilised sufficiently for me to consider operating on his jaw. I extracted the splinters of bone and flesh stuck in his throat and sewed up the still intact areas of flesh. With the help of a dentist we had at the hospital we managed to reconstitute his lower jaw by readjusting the two halves. Finally his entire jaw was held in place thanks to metal wires and plaster, so that little by little he could breathe naturally again. At that moment I realised that the patient was the senior corporal Simo Häyhä, who had become famous as a marksman.
68
In the former school now transformed into a hospital, exhausted from unrelenting days of surgical operations, Aarne gave himself permission to smoke his cigarette without leaving the building. Finally on his own in the calm of what had once been a primary classroom, he contemplated the bloodstained upturned door that served as an operating table. On its underside it still bore a map of Finland and its frontiers – frontiers that almost 400,000 men had defended from the first day, and that 300,000 were still defending. The floor was covered with blood-soaked compresses, reminders of the operation that had saved Simo’s life, and the image of a battered nation.
Elsewhere in the hospital morphine spread through veins and calmed cries of pain.
The door to the building opened and a male nurse appeared. A medical bus was arriving, full of “our lads” hovering between life and death. Then the nurse referred to Simo, who everyone was talking about.
“It seems they hit him with an explosive bullet …”
Aarne finally comprehended how such unusual injuries had been caused. Until now he had attributed them to a point-blank machine-gun burst to the face, or the blast from a mine or grenade.
“But if it was explosive ammunition,” the nurse asked, “why didn’t his head simply explode?”
Aarne thought this over for a moment. A few notions of anatomy could explain this miracle.
“The bullet passes through the cheek,” the surgeon began. “It explodes when it comes in contact with the jaw, but as his mouth is open, the blast has an exit and escapes. If his mouth had been shut, his head would have been blown off.”
So that day Simo Häyhä ought to have died five times, and five times he was saved.
By his open mouth, which left a way out for the blast.
By Leena, who saw him stirring among the dead bodies.
By Leena a second time, who prevented him from suffocating as he was being evacuated.
By the surgeon who discovered him among the stable patients, strangled by his torn-off flesh, his teeth and his shattered bones.
By the surgeon once again, thanks to an interminable operation of wartime improvisation. An operation that had to be carried out again in better conditions with better equipment, free from the fear that at any moment the hospital could be destroyed by a Russian attack.
*
As Aarne walked through the building to the school yard where a full medical bus was already drawing up to deliver a new crop of wounded, he spotted Onni and Leena. They both had a mug of hot chocolate in their hands and blankets round their shoulders. The soldier was asleep on Leena’s shoulder.
A nurse came up to him to ask how the operation had gone. Smiling, she went over to Leena, whom she already knew.
“Simo is alive,” she told her.
Leena took Greta by the hand and hugged her. Then she closed her eyes with relief.
“You are Lotta Svärd,” Greta whispered in her ear.
Leena had honoured the legend, and now she had become part of it.
69
March 8, 1940, five days before the end of the war
Scandinavia had remained neutral. Europe had stayed out of the war, worried about taking on too much as Hitler drew ever closer. And neither the French Daladier nor the British Chamberlain had kept their promises – promises that had plunged Finland into two more weeks of conflict that were as pointless as they were bloody.
On March 8, two days after Simo had been so badly wounded, Mannerheim received alarming news from all the fronts. The Russian victory was a matter of days, if not hours, away, and rather than the territories Stalin was demanding, the whole of Finland was at risk of becoming Soviet.
The commander-in-chief of the Finnish forces confessed to Airo how hopeless the situation was. They had quickly to reach a peace agreement before Stalin realised it would only need one more push to enable his army to invade the entire country.
“We’re wounded, but they have to think we’re invulnerable. We’re on our knees, but they have to think we’re invincible. No-one must know how close we are to surrender.”
And so on March 9 the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost roared its way from military headquarters in Mikkeli to the seat of government in Helsinki, where Mannerheim urged President Kallio to restart the negotiations and establish an armistice at all costs.
